If you read my thoughts regularly, you know that I am pretty hard on clergy who misbehave. This has been a concern of mine ever since I served in my first church; in fact, in the early 90’s I wanted to focus my Doctor of Ministry project around clergy ethics. Due to the nature of that degree, this couldn’t happen. Still, I have watched as too many in my profession have willfully misbehaved with little or no ramifications in their vocational trajectory. And I am not pointing fingers at those who, in a time of weakness, have faltered. We are all weak, at times, and need grace when we repent. My concern has always been about clergy who are allowed by their systems to continue to prey on the innocent, destroying lives in their wake. Their purposeful destructive behavior has ruined too many lives, and we in the church have not done enough to address it.
Still, all this being said, I have received a lot of nastiness from clergy (and some laypeople) who accuse me of being judgmental. And yes, I guess I am. They point to Jesus and tell me that I am not allowed to make judgments like this; only God can judge us. Not true. In fact, Jesus never said that we aren’t allowed to judge. What He said was that the judgments we make of others would be used against us as well. “Do not judge, lest you be judged.” The same with forgiveness; if we hope to be forgiven, we need to do the same for others. I think that the church has caused a lot of damage to itself and the world by not being honest about clergy misbehavior. We have permitted a relatively small portion of our colleagues to wreak havoc on the world, and the church has suffered for it. And again, our suffering as institutions is nothing compared to the suffering of the victims of these predators. It makes me both sad and furious that our lack of integrity has caused so many people to lose their connection with communities of faith. Most of them still believe in God but have lost faith in the church. And I don’t blame them.
I doubt that Jesus ever expected His teachings about judgment and forgiveness to be used in evil ways. He was very clear about the fate of anyone who would hurt a child, for example, and He was very hard on the religious leaders of His time who looked good on the outside but were rotten on the inside. We look at the bad behavior of some teachers or military or police and cluck our tongues, asking self-righteously why these rotten apples are allowed to stay employed, yet we don’t clean our own house. And while I think that we are doing a better job of it in recent decades, we still are seeing regular examples of systemic protection of those who should find another line of work.
We need to be better at purging ourselves of the enemy within. Acceptance of serial misbehavior is complicity. When we accept this call to ministry, we accept a higher calling that comes with greater responsibility and expectations. God help us if we don’t keep our vows. Literally.
Prayer – Guide us, God, as we walk this path. It isn’t always straight, and it isn’t always easy, which is why we need to focus on You. Amen.
Today’s art is “Wonderful World of Goodness” by P. Carter Carpin.