The Intimidation Factor. Charles Redfern

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СКАЧАТЬ the alliance stemming from the Toronto church would eventually turn inward and mire itself in the teachings of the 1950’s Latter Rain Movement, a quirky Pentecostal offshoot granting inordinate authority to supposed prophets and apostles. But that was not inevitable at the time, and many faultfinders still fail to acknowledge Wimber’s separation from Toronto.

      Okay, so some evangelicals weren’t so nice. But surely intimidation was confined to MacArthur’s narrow band . . .

      How precious.

      We left the Boston church on good terms in 1996 (I’m still in touch with many members; some still refer to me as “my pastor”) and moved to southern New Hampshire. An alliance of church plants within a Pentecostal denomination was implementing a Vineyard-like vision and allowing Toronto-like manifestations. One of the plants caved-in on its own unique array of dysfunctions (turmoil and feuds left it with only twelve shocked adults and a few kids), and the denomination asked Andrea and me to resurrect it. Any pastor with a shepherd’s heart would have pronounced the patient dead and guided those families to a more nurturing body, but I had lost that heart somewhere between Boston and New Hampshire. I was Mr. Visionary, the go-get-‘em church planter. I threw away five years of my family’s life in an attempt to resurrect a church that God was closing.

      It finally did, which was an act of mercy.

      I didn’t realize I was sitting in that ring-side seat to evangelical intimidation yet again—this time in its Pentecostal wing. I was witnessing the dawn of what the late C. Peter Wagner would hail as the greatest thing since Protestantism’s advent. He’d call it the New Apostolic Reformation. So-called prophets and apostles breezed through beleaguered New England and promised revival—as long as we saluted them as God’s end-times representatives. The potential for abuse, authoritarianism, and intimidation was obvious.

      My next church—an intentional interim pastorate nearer to New Hampshire’s coast—was a veritable delight. An intentional interim actively brings healing and resolution to conflicted congregations, but these people healed me. They were hilarious—and they fawned over our son, loved my wife’s cello, and tolerated my long sermons.

      I seemed fated to serve Hatfield-McCoy churches, so I learned all about toxic organizations and conflict management. I signed up for workshops and seminars everywhere. My favorite organization was Peacemaker Ministries, founded in 1982 by Ken Sande, a Montana lawyer saddened by all the internecine church in-fighting. Sande imported the insights of Alternative Dispute Resolution, which offers more consensual mediation and arbitration methods, while bonding himself to God’s Word. He wrote it all up in a book called The Peacemaker, which I recommended with enthusiasm and used as a basis for preaching.

      I still recommend Peacemaker Ministries—with a huge caution: Conflict resolution must be seen as one stage in conflict transformation, where conflict is seen as an active agent in surfacing simmering diseases. Otherwise, bullies manipulate the ADR methods. Resolution becomes a euphemism for avoidance and feeds the beast. More on that in a later chapter.

      Many were begging us to stay, but I felt it was best to stick to my word: Intentional interims promise not to apply for the settled pastor’s job, so it was on to Connecticut and a seemingly thriving church. True, it had a history of brawls and two splits—sure-fire danger signs—but one leader was implementing Sande’s approach while another advocated Vineyard-like ministry. Could this be the church of my dreams?

      No. It wasn’t. We were tossed from the ring-side seat into the ring itself.

      A slug fest

      I’m not thrilled with criticizing a church I tried to serve. I really do love its individuals and I know I made many mistakes. They’d (correctly) say I was forever off-beat. I didn’t connect and didn’t fit. I can imagine their slackened jaws as they read my unflattering descriptions—especially since they welcomed me with open arms when I subsequently visited and many now pray for me. But there’s no way around it: I met evangelical intimidation here, in all its inglorious splendor.

      The church was actually ailing. Many reeled at the loss of my mild-mannered and beloved predecessor, who rescued them from one of those splits and loved them back to life. Most were actually wary of the spiritual gifts and few knew about Ken Sande. Conflict resolution was the ministry of one influential and (deservedly) respected leader, who was wounded after attempting to resolve past controversies. He’s a good man, but he swung into full peacemaker mode at the first sign of disagreement, throttling friendly debates and the creative solutions they spawn—because, after all, debates spark conflict and conflict is always wrong.

      And I seemed to stir controversy with every move. My wry humor fell flat.

      So I was on precarious footing as current events piqued my dormant political interests. A PBS special on climate change forced me to look at my son and say aloud, “Oh . . . my . . . God.” He faced a possible future of droughts and rising seas and widening deserts. My a-politicism wasn’t helping him. Then there was Barak Obama’s 2008 presidential run. I was impressed. He spoke to American voters as adults. And I didn’t help myself in my quick, ad-hoc comment before a sermon: “The Earth is heating up.” One influential member blasted me after the service for my “liberal” environmentalism and another berated the scientific consensus during a devotional at a general board meeting. I soon realized I was serving a congregation of climate-change deniers, with the consensus deemed left wing and, therefore, anti-Christian.

      Then there was a member’s eye-opening e-mail: Obama, apparently, was a Muslim terrorist. All the replies from church leaders were grist from the right-wing propaganda mill. No one commented on the unsubstantiated, implicitly racist charge.

      One of my favorite members wondered if any liberal could land in heaven; others coupled Obama with the anti-Christ; one member, a leader in the local Republican Party, often stood in the foyer on Sunday mornings and loudly proclaimed his liberals-are-evil, science-denial views.

      So much for inviting progressive friends to services in a blue state.

      More startling, pastoral colleagues at a once-a-month breakfast meeting seemed to agree. Some froze when I challenged their assumptions. It was as if I breathed ice on their scrambled eggs—although a few pulled me aside later and muttered, “Thanks for speaking up. I’m a Democrat too.”

      Keep it hush-hush. Monty Python might smash in and holler something about the Spanish Inquisition.

      No one seemed to be aware of the late David Kuo’s 2006 book, Tempting Faith. The former Director of the Office of Faith Based Missions wrote of officials in the George W. Bush administration and their actual contempt for evangelicals. Kuo also opened a window into the power-hungry world of court evangelicals (the ones flocking to Washington) and confessed his own hypocrisy: He assailed President Clinton’s moral failings while his own marriage crashed.

      I’d never endorse a given candidate from the pulpit, but I felt duty-bound to remind all that our advocacy must glorify Christ. Beware Proverbs 12:18 (“the words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing”); and James 1:19 (“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry”). And we needn’t fear liberals.

      Complaints rolled in as rumors spread that I wasn’t a Republican: I wasn’t preaching from the Bible; my sermons were too intellectual and too shallow. My popularity plummeted even as long-dormant dreams came alive. We moved out of the building and into a school to finish a construction project; we rallied church-wide home group studies on conflict resolution, accompanied by a sermon series; we returned to a new, expanded building. Nothing worked. Families left. Giving dropped—and I didn’t СКАЧАТЬ