Scandals. How is the Church to Respond?

How should the church respond to the negative situations that occur, surrounding pastors and other well known persons?

In the last Gospel Globe staff meeting, we discussed the fact that there are a lot of negative situations going on in the church (and rumours spreading) that needed airing or thrashing out. These rumours often surround prominent names in the kingdom including pastors, gospel artistes, business men and often include the regular Christian person.

As some of the stories swirled in members’ minds, the question was asked: “How is Gospel Globe to respond?”.

It’s not often than a conversation among these persons has a moment of silence. Gospel Globe is staffed by an exuberant team of often opinionated Christians, some of whom are learned in the Word. Members hold certification in theology, engineering, literature event management, graphic design, journalism and the list goes on.

I hope you get the point. It’s a diverse team.

The discussion on the topic was interesting, but it brought no final answer. I tried holding a similar discussion with some of my other friends who brought suggestions, as did some members of staff, but the same final answer was arrived at. None.

For those who think that this is a non-issue, then think again. I’ll give you a few ideas of the inspiration for this topic:

• A well-known tabloid out of Trinidad and Tobago recently published a front-page story about a prominent pastor. The article had and extremely provocative headline that bordered on the vulgar.
• Another well known Pastor has a slew of stories that have appeared to spread across his home territory, and has made its way to other islands.
• There are innumerable other stories about Pastors, Gospel artistes and Christian leaders that are bandied about as the fodder of those who look for real reasons to discredit Christianity as a faith and a way of life.
• Many of these stories have made their way into music, movies, the theatre etc. As an example, take reggae artiste Shaggy’s song entitled “Church heathen”. If you don’t know it, the chorus comprises male voices singing

“Dem feel seh true dem guh a church their sins don't need forgiving...forgiving Dem really gone from bad to worse wid dem yah careless living...living”

(Translation from Jamaican Patois to English)

They think that because they go to church their sins don’t need forgiving. They’ve really gone from bad to worse with their careless living.

• When I was starting Gospel Globe, a person told me I was going to be rich. “Just get the Pastor to pass an offering bag in church for you. Tell them God day to give you. You’ll be driving a Benz after two Sundays” he said.

Should I continue? I’d rather not.

So what’s the answer? How should the church respond to these scandals that hit us.

How should we? We don’t know the answer. We have ideas though. So while I will share a few thoughts, this article is to also ask you to share your own thoughts on this.

How should we respond. How do YOU respond?

Most importantly, we need to respond with love.
We as Christians should understand more than anyone else that man is imperfect. We are all fallible. Including our church leaders. The bible says that not a single one of us is perfect.

Let’s talk about perfection. It’s what we strive for, not what we have become. If you think your pastor should be perfect, then just remember, that person started off being exactly like you - and some of you reading this will end up being pastors, whether you know it already or not.

Romans Chapter 3 speaks about that. In verse 10 we are told “There is none righteous, no not one.”

To read that verse alone doesn’t say much about the message that Paul was sending to the Romans. That entire chapter sends quite an extensive message. While I generally prefer using the KJV, read it all over in the NIV to get the message clearly.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+3&version=NIV

I like the part that says: “What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.” (verse 9).

To paraphrase the words of Jesus after the scribes and Pharisees brought the adulterous woman to him, if you’re perfect, then feel free to be first to condemn them! (read that story in John chapter 8)

Don’t follow rumours. Don’t spread them either
Have you ever been the victim of a rumour? Whether true or not, it’s the worst thing when people stop talking to you, after they spoke about you. The funny thing is that people will quicker speak about you than to speak to you.

The thing about rumours is that they hurt. They hurt the victim, and they often hurt the people who spread them.

Just remember that the people with whom you are comfortable gossiping and rumour-mongering with often don’t trust you, because they know that you wouldn’t spare a thought to talk about them in the same way you’re doing it with another person. If you don’t know it, they do.

If it’s important enough to talk about, then it’s important enough to do the next thing:

If you must know the truth, then ask the people who are involved.
If you can’t ask them, then don’t bother talking about it. ‘Nuff said.

Pray for those involved.
The bad thing about a bad situation is that it usually hurts more people than those directly involved. Often, it hurts people in places that no one would guess.

When someone loses a job, they also lose income that may be important to support their family.

But then what if that person also contributed to a missionary, to financially support them in Ministry? Perhaps that next salary was to be fully donated toward a fund to offset the cost of surgery for an ailing child?

Prayer is the most important tool in a Christian’s life. Without faith and prayer we are nothing. We often ask those around us to join us in prayer to deal with a personal situation. It’s equally important for us to pray for those around us.

Don’t judge them.
It’s not easy, but we shouldn’t judge others because of what they did (sins of commission) or what they didn’t do (sins of omission). As much as you may be disappointed in someone for what you may think they’ve done (or worse yet, what they actually did) you may have thought about it, and according to the Jesus, that makes it just as bad.

Speaking about adultery, Jesus said that even thinking adulterous thoughts about a married woman renders you guilty of having committed adultery with that woman. (Matthew 5: 27,28)

Remember, as Jesus also said in Matthew 7 (NIV):
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Stay on the safe side. Don’t judge them. Leave that for God.

I’m not saying they may not be wrong. I’m saying it’s not your job to punish or persecute them.

I’m not advocating for ignoring the wrong that someone did, and sweeping it under the carpet. When Moses disobeyed God and struck the rock instead of speaking to it, God still honoured His word and water poured from it

He was still punished. It was a stiff punishment - God didn’t allow him to see the “promised land”, but it’s important to note that God still honoured His word to Moses to give the Israelites water.

After that blunder, he was still allowed to lead the people to the “land of milk and honey”, even though he wasn’t allowed to lead them into the land.

God knows what He’s doing. He’ll know how to deal with the person. We don’t need to worry about finding a suitable punishment. Remember as I said before, don’t judge them.

These are mainly personal suggestions. How should the church respond as a body?
This is the part that’s hard to answer. Perhaps, as diverse and intelligent as I think the Gospel Globe team and my group of friends are, we’re not knowledgeable enough to know the answer to that part.

Fear not though, we know some of you reading this are. So please leave a comment at the bottom of this article. How should the church respond to these scandals, especially when they’re based in fact?

Written by :

Maurice Burke

 

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