Lust - An Introduction

"You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” – Exodus 20:17

“Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry...” – Colossians 3:5

Let's begin with a simple definition: lust is evil desire. That is, lust is wanting something that you shouldn't have. Moreover, it is wanting something you shouldn't want. There are reasons why some things shouldn't be had and why some things should not even be wanted. If we start from God's point of view, we see that He created mankind to be an expression of His will, His pattern, His ways. Therefore, everything we do has a symbolic significance. Our lives are first to be an expression of absolute devotion to God. This is why the Bible contains such strong warnings against idolatry. Our lives are also to be an expression of God's character in His dealings with humanity. This is why the Bible places such great emphasis on sexual purity and morality, and fair and merciful treatment of one's neighbors.

The problem with lust is that in wanting things we shouldn't want, or in wanting things we shouldn't have, we are actually guilty of wanting things that belong to others – whether God or our fellow human beings. Much has been written by others about what it means to give God first place in our lives, and how idolatry is a violation of the Lord's rights. But I want to focus on lust as a violation of our fellows, because all the posts of this blog up to this point have described how many prominent figures in the evangelical church have been guilty of violating their fellow human beings.

There is an interesting Bible passage which reads thus: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known of God is revealed in them, for God revealed it to them. For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse. Because, knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and traded the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions...” – Romans 1:18-26.

Here is what I believe this passage is saying, especially when taken in its context. The verses immediately preceding this passage state that the righteous shall live by faith. Moreover, the only way to be righteous is by faith. Faith is believing something. And the faith we are to exercise consists of believing in God's revelation of Himself through Jesus Christ. But when people turn their backs on that revelation, they have nothing else to live for except their own dark, fallen lusts. Those who indulge in lusts are showing that they do not know God very well.

And this is the problem that has been displayed in many of the figures we have considered so far. From those who are involved in “Christian culture” - publishing of books, movies and music – solely as a means to get rich, to those who are interested in religion solely as a means to get political power, to those who are involved in the ministry solely to build up a religious empire for themselves – all of these people are examples of people who boast that they know God and that we should listen to them, who boast of what great teachers they are, yet who by their actions show that they don't know God very well at all. Too many leaders and so-called “teachers” in American evangelicalism are like this – they fool people into listening to them by pretending to be whole and mature, yet they are inwardly twisted and broken.

Part of the problem may be that some of these people started out well, genuinely wanting to serve the Lord in a significant way. But along the way, they came to believe that serving the Lord meant building up a big religious empire as a monument to Him, and they became hyperactively busy in their efforts. The problem lay in making themselves so busy for the Lord that they had no time to spend with Him. Moreover, they ran out of time for paying attention to themselves, for making sure that they were growing into the sort of people they ought to be. Believe it or not, the Bible places a great premium on this. Pick up a King James Bible sometimes and read how often it says in the New Testament that we are to “take heed to ourselves.” Or in other words, “Pay attention to yourself,” or as one Army drill cadence I learned says, “Why don't you check out your mind? Been that way all the time?” The lack of time spent in personal devotion and personal reflection has allowed these people to be defeated by lusts un-looked-for and unguarded.

But there have also been those who deliberately started out on an evil path as wolves in sheep's clothing, knowing good and well what they were intending to do. They have passed themselves off as great Christian teachers in order to fleece their flocks. One characteristic of their teaching has been to twist the Scriptures in order to legitimize their evil treatment of fellow Christians. Among the many forms this twisting has taken, I will examine two: false teaching regarding personal boundaries and false teaching regarding Biblical discernment. False teaching regarding personal boundaries has conned many Christians into accepting almost criminal mistreatment from church leaders. False teaching regarding discernment has given people convenient excuses to rationalize and justify their un-Biblical mistreatment of fellow Christians. These two errors will be the topic of my next post.

Note: All Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, a public domain translation whose translators allow quotes free of charge, without sticking out their hands to collect royalties while shouting “Gimme!”

The American Church and Hubbert's Peak

The last several posts have discussed the tendency displayed by certain individuals to seek power over others in the evangelical church. In some cases, this thirst for power is driven by the desire some men have to build a following of people in order to achieve secular political ends. In other cases, the seeking of power is driven by a desire some have to set up a “money farm” made of a large number of contributors to finance a pastor's desired lifestyle. Then there are those who seek power simply as a means of building up their own personal empire, to satisfy their ego. Many power-seekers are driven by a combination of these motives.

The Christian church has always had to deal with those who seek power because of eritheia, or “selfish ambition,” as one Bible translation puts it. But most of those driven by eritheia have historically been limited in what they could accomplish in the pursuit of their goals. Throughout history, it has been very hard for individuals to start their own religious empires, since this required making disciples, writing or printing literature, and securing funds to spread one's message, and this all had to be done largely by hand and on foot. Few succeeded among the many who tried, and those who succeeded did so because they were well-connected or because they were willing to suffer a lot.

The printing press, the Industrial Revolution and the technological advances that took place afterward have made it increasingly easy for would-be empire builders to achieve their goals. Instead of wandering on foot or horseback through miles of countryside distributing handwritten tracts to local villages, men could print literature on a press, saving a great deal of time, and as society advanced, they could go from place to place with much greater speed than was possible on foot. Later, they could transmit their statements via wire, and then by radio. This trend of progress has continued to the present, with the Internet, expressways, jetliners, HDTV, and satellite radio, to name a few. It is now very easy for one individual to broadcast his statements to a very large audience – a few keystrokes and mouse-clicks will do it.

The technological advances that brought us the 20th Century to us tended at first to concentrate power in the hands of the few who had the capital to afford the means of mass communication. Yet those advances greatly amplified the power of the owners of those means. For instance, owners of newspaper chains or radio/TV networks were relatively few, and they were broadcasting to a very large audience of people who could not afford to buy a radio station or newspaper chain. Our society came to be dominated by a few voices, heard by all, but not widely contradicted. America was one of two dominant superpowers for a long time, and later America became the sole superpower. During the days in which America was a mighty economic powerhouse, it was also a mighty export powerhouse – and one of the things exported was American culture. Though the American economy no longer produces many physical things of value for export, American culture is still an export commodity. Go to Mexico and you will see people wearing T-shirts with American slogans. Go to China and you can buy bootlegged CD's of music by now-dead swing band artists and living rappers, metalheads, folk-rockers, hip-hoppers and country/western artists, to name a few. Newspapers in England now regularly feature Internet links to articles dealing exclusively with what's going on in the USA. Almost everyone knows where California is, even if they live ten thousand miles away.

American pop culture, with its music and its norms, is increasingly the dominant culture of the industrialized world, and is slowly eroding other, very different cultures that have existed for thousands of years. American pop culture has also taken over the Church in America. Many Christians have their own opinions about whether this is a bad or good thing. Some have very strong feelings about this, and they back themselves up with lots of Scripture and interpretation. I have only a few things to say about the rightness or wrongness of the present American church culture, as I am much more interested in describing where I think the American church is headed.

The power of the technology of the 20th century was used in innovative ways by some of the early “church growth” pioneers. Robert Schuller began his Crystal Cathedral congregation by holding church services at a drive-in theater. Oral Roberts was one of the first televangelists. Billy Graham and Greg Laurie have held huge rallies and crusades in outdoor stadiums, assisted by large and powerful sound systems and multimedia technology. The successes of these men have affected the culture of the American church in general. While some of these men and their methods have been controversial, their results have been attractive.

Many pastors have seen the phenomenal success of some of these pioneers, and have tried to imitate them in order to achieve the same numerical results. The Christian publishing industry has also helped to reinforce this imitation by holding up a select few influential megachurch pastors as models to be imitated by those who want their churches to grow. The message that has been communicated is “Get big or get out! If your church is not HUGE and full of young adults, it's not healthy!” The effect has been to create a large swath of very similar churches whose similarity cuts across denominational lines. Their emphasis is on reaching the “relevant” generation, which is usually somewhere between 13 and 29 years old. The methods used to reach this generation have tended to standardize around praise bands, multimedia presentations, cool celebrities, skate parks, coffee bars, and the like, in order to make church as cool and “relevant” as possible. All of this is necessary to hold the interest of young adults who have been conditioned to have abnormally short attention spans by a steady diet of mainstream, car-crash-per-minute, scene-change-every-few-seconds, fast-beat American media. But all of this takes a great deal of electrical energy, manpower and expensive equipment.

For this reason, “church growth” as practiced in America is in danger, as well as the modern American megachurch. These are being endangered by the same processes that are endangering other large, far-flung enterprises of modern industrial civilization. Our society as a whole is now facing absolute limits on the amount of crude oil available for use, and since crude oil is the basis of our modern economy, our society is facing limits to economic growth. Financial arrangements which depend on assumptions of economic growth are beginning to unravel, since that growth is no longer guaranteed. Globalism is being endangered. Because of Peak Oil and other resource peaks, it is becoming costlier for China and other low-wage countries to import raw materials and energy resources such as oil, and costlier for these countries to ship their finished products to the rest of the world. This is undermining the business model of large big-box store chains such as Wal-Mart. Rising oil prices and foolish biofuel mandates are also making food scarcer and more expensive. The real estate crisis has caused the value of many homes to drop steeply, and banks are far less willing to issue mortgages, leaving many Americans without borrowing power. Americans are being forced to conserve, cut back, be frugal and re-localize their lives.

What does this mean for an established megachurch or a “wanna-be” megachurch? First, membership of such churches is likely to shrink in the days ahead. This will be due to the rising cost of commuting. Most megachurches were conceived under the assumption that energy and oil would remain cheap forever, and this assumption is being proven false. And as the cost of electricity rises, it will also become more expensive to heat, cool, and light the church buildings, or put on a “rockin'” multimedia service. As the cost of transporting goods rises, the gourmet coffee served at the end of the service will become unaffordable. In short, all the technological enhancements that make for an attractive, “seeker-sensitive” church will go away, along with those people who only came to church to experience those enhancements. Also, tithes and offerings will decrease, because members of the congregation already being squeezed by a faltering economy will view church as a “discretionary expense.” Churches that want to transition to megachurch status will not be able to afford the music gear, multimedia system, paid staff, CCLI licenses, and other things required to imitate the big guys. Churches that are already in debt may lose property along with the rest of foreclosed society.

The coming difficulties will have a few good effects. First, they will change the status of the Church from that of an aggregator of consumers with lots of money. This will drive away those who are interested in church leadership solely as a means of getting rich. It will also make things harder for those who want to build an ecclesiastical empire for themselves, since as churches become smaller, would-be empire builders will have to visit more churches in order to have the same effect that they do now by visiting a few megachurches or publishing a book. The range of these would-be empire builders will also be limited, since travel will become more difficult and expensive. Indeed, one of the solutions I see for the present state of American evangelicalism is that the Church must become “de-scoped” so that it no longer presents such a temptation to those who lust for money and power. Peak Oil and the financial crisis will accomplish this nicely.

As the megachurch culture is tested by the demise of a cheap energy economy, many elements of that culture will be tested. Those elements that possess timeless, enduring value will remain, and those elements that are mere fluff will be swept away. It will be interesting to see what songs are sung in church when there's no praise band to back up the singing, or what stories will be told when there are no multimedia special effects to enhance the storytelling. Rather than being mere clones of moderm American McCulture, churches will once again evolve their own denominational distinctives, their own culture. They may well become contributors to vibrant local cultures – a very good thing, indeed!


In the near future, it is quite likely that a larger percentage of those who go to church will go, not because of some techno-program, but because they truly believe. But one of the dangers of the coming difficult times is that in times of difficulty, rigid legalistic churches and groups might become attractive to suffering, disoriented people looking for certainty in life. This is a problem which the Church has faced since New Testament times, and its cure is education – sound teaching in the doctrines of the Faith, which equip people to resist being enslaved by religious empire-builders. This is the approach used by St. Paul when he wrote the epistle to the Galatians, for instance.

I shall have more to say about education in a later post. I will finish by summing up a few key points: The spread of the Gospel is a good thing. Growth in the Church is therefore good, as long as it is defined as growth in the number of people who follow Christ. “Church growth” is a bad thing to want, if it is desired solely as a means of creating an ecclesiastical empire for some pastor. However, the lust for this kind of “church growth” seems to be rampant in American evangelicalism, both among rigid, fringe cultic groups and among mainstream, youth-oriented, “seeker-sensitive” churches. The cure for enslavement to a fringe cultic group is to educate Christians to understand their freedom in Christ. But the cure for the big-box “seeker-sensitive” McChurch empire is coming from Heaven itself, as we all move to the downside of Hubbert's Peak.

And now, we are through with the discussion of Power. Our next subject will be Lust. Stay tuned...

The Warrens of the Purpose-Driven

* “Warren”: “A crowded tenement or district.” - Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition.

Warning: this will be a long post. I apologize for it; I'll try to be shorter next time.

The first decade of the 21^st century has been an interesting time for American evangelicalism. This is the time in which several new and exciting initiatives were launched by leaders on the evangelical “cutting edge.” Among these leaders were Bruce Wilkinson, author of The Prayer of Jabez, Mel Gibson, director of The Passion of the Christ, and those involved in teaching “Alpha courses”, introductory ten-week discussions of the basics of Christianity, which began in England in the 1990's but became popular in the United States in this decade. One of the most famous initiatives has been the Purpose-Driven movement started by Rick Warren.

The seeds of that movement were planted in 1995 with the release of The Purpose-Driven Church (Zondervan, copyrighted in 1995 by Rick Warren). The movement began to take off in 2002 with the publication of Warren's book, The Purpose-Driven Life (Zondervan, copyrighted in 2002 by Rick Warren). Because I was still involved in an abusive, ingrown church at the time of the 2002 release, I hardly noticed. But by 2003 The Purpose-Driven Life was making quite a splash, with many Southern California churches hosting 40 Days of Purpose workshops and sermon series, as I discovered when I left my old church and went looking for a “healthy church.” The Purpose-Driven Life is one of the most successfully marketed religious books in American history, having sold at least 20 million copies. It has also had a huge part in altering the structure and worship of thousands of main line evangelical churches in the English-speaking world. Of the many churches I visited between 2003 and 2005, I was hard-pressed to find a place which had not ditched its hymnals and organist for a PowerPoint screen projection of some up-tempo “praise songs” played by a “kickin' praise band,” or whose pastor had not ditched vestments or conservative Sunday suits for blue jeans and a casual shirt. (I even visited a Lutheran church which had ditched its organist and major portions of its liturgy and which, on the Sunday I attended, featured three elderly ladies singing “Give Me Water From The Well.” That was interesting, believe me!)

People and books which make such widespread impressions also make critics, and the Purpose-Driven books are no exception. Over the last few years, I have perused both books, and now have them in my library. I have also studied the ecclesiastical structure promoted by the Purpose-Driven books, having seen many churches, both in Southern California and in the city where I now live, who have adopted Rick Warren's teachings on church structure and government. Here then is my analysis.

The dust jacket for The Purpose-Driven Church contains the slogan, “Growth Without Compromising Your Message And Mission.” In the book, Mr. Warren states that if a church is healthy, it will naturally grow. He then lists principles which he says lead to a healthy church, thus fostering a growing church. He presents what he believes are the five biblical purposes for the church: worship, ministry (service in the church), evangelism, fellowship and discipleship. Mr. Warren then presents the story of the church he founded, Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, and of the many good things that happened there as a result of his ministry. Certainly, no one can argue against the need for the Church to devote itself to worship, ministry and the rest. And Saddleback Church boasts over ten thousand attendees each Sunday (including a co-worker at my former office in Southern California).

The Purpose-Driven Life takes the principles outlined in The Purpose-Driven Church and applies them to individuals on a personal level, speaking of how each individual is made for God's pleasure (worship), formed for God's family (fellowship), and so forth. The Purpose-Driven books have certainly caused many Americans to ponder the fact that they are on earth for a purpose, and that this purpose is larger than they are. In that respect, both The Purpose-Driven Life, the 40 Days of Purpose campaigns, and the whole Purpose-Driven movement have done a great deal of good. But the Purpose-Driven books and movement have also displayed problems and weaknesses which critics have quite rightly pointed out. Some of the arguments of the critics have to do with the theology of the books and their message, which admittedly does not go into much detail about sin, guilt and the judgment of God on sinners. Moreover, the books do not clearly teach what it means to repent of one's sins and believe in Jesus Christ. But my purpose here is not to present a critique of the Purpose-Driven theology, but to deal with the Purpose-Driven movement as it relates to the abuse of ecclesiastical power.

Rick Warren offers American evangelical pastors the hope that they can grow their churches phenomenally, just as Warren grew his church from humble origins to a membership in the thousands. He holds his church up as a model to which other pastors should aspire. So what is Warren's church like? First, Mr. Warren's church has what he would call a “streamlined organizational structure,” and he has successfully taught his congregation “the difference between maintenance and ministry.” He defines the maintenance work of a church as overseeing the church budget, buildings and organizational structure, while ministry is defined as “the work of the church.” Warren believes that involving church members in the “maintenance” work wastes their time and promotes conflict. Warren believes that most church attenders are simply looking for a place where they can do something they feel is significant, and do not want to be involved in the decision-making process of running a church. Therefore, at Saddleback Church, the paid staff does the work of “maintenance” and the lay members are to do the work of the ministry.

He also believes that a Biblical church structure has no committees, elections, majority rule, boards, board members, parliamentary procedures or voting. His church does not hold votes for ministry positions like elders or deacons. Rather, the paid staff oversees the filling of lay ministry positions. Mr. Warren even goes so far as to say that for a church to grow, the pastor must give up control of the ministry and the people must give up control of the leadership of the church. This means that the pastor gives up day-to-day management of the activities of each ministry – but the congregation is to surrender all control over the general direction and goals of the church to the pastor.

Warren himself has final authority over his paid staff and final say regarding the direction and goals of his church, and his paid staff have final authority over the budget and organizational structure of the church. This is yet another example of the concentration of a huge amount of ecclesiastical authority in the hands of one man, without sufficient safeguards or accountability to prevent the abuse of power. Warren started his church from scratch, and one can only assume that those who are long time members of Saddleback knew what they were signing up for when they joined. But I would not join that sort of church, having already suffered in a church in which one man had excessive authority without proper checks and balances.

In addition to The Purpose-Driven Church, Warren has a website, “Pastors.com,” to assist pastors who want to grow a church according to Warren's principles. He has also been affiliated with an organization, “Church Transitions, Inc.”, which assists in spreading “Warrenist” church growth principles to other churches. But problems have arisen when pastors of established churches have adopted Warrenist principles, and then have tried single-handedly to implement these principles in their own congregations without the informed consent of those congregations. These problems have been especially pronounced in Southern Baptist churches whose pastors tried to force their congregations down the Warrenist path.

The first problem has been with pastoral authority. Many churches belonging to established denominations have bylaws and constitutions which were ratified by the entire congregation. Many churchgoers have grown up in an environment in which the monthly business meeting was a common feature, where church finances were freely discussed, where elders and deacons were chosen by vote, and where the congregation voted its pastors in or out. To have power over one's own affairs is an American right, and we Americans have tended to exercise the right to have a say in those organizations or gatherings to which we consciously choose to belong. This is especially true of older Americans. But pastors who came under the influence of Warrenism immediately sought to overturn congregational oversight of their churches, trying instead to re-write the church bylaws and constitutions to give the pastors final authority in the church. This has not gone over well with some members of these churches, who are used to having a say in the affairs of the groups to which they belong.

The second problem has been with the style of worship and church service. In The Purpose-Driven Church, Warren makes a big point about modernizing the worship services to make them more “culturally relevant.” He stresses the need for the Church to “sing a new song” by putting the message of the Church to the music of the present day, which according to him is contemporary pop/rock. And he criticizes those who prefer the older, more traditional music that has been part of the heritage of the Church. I'll say right now that I agree with Rick Warren that the Bible does not teach that one style of music is holier than another. I have read the Bible from cover to cover at least a few times, and I have listened to the arguments of those who try to find Biblical grounds to criticize contemporary Christian music, and in my opinion, many of their “Biblical” arguments fall flat because they have no Biblical basis.

But let me say something about convictions. The Bible does not explicitly command or forbid many things that are now a feature of modern life. After all, jetliners, lasers and the Internet were not around 2,000 years ago. But the Bible does outline general principles of life, morality and spirituality. As each Christian internalizes those principles, he or she forms convictions, most of which are similar from Christian to Christian, but some of which are highly unique. Warren believes that the best, most Christ-honoring church music style right now is contemporary pop/rock, because he believes that this style is most conducive to reaching today's unchurched people. Very well, that is his conviction. What he and his devotees fail to realize is that those who want more traditional church music and a more traditional church service are also expressing their convictions. These are not just sentimental preferences or feelings, but convictions formed out of much thought, study and prayer, and are just as valid as the convictions of the Warrenists. But in many churches, the convictions of the traditionalists are being violently disregarded while the pastor forces a praise band down their throats. As more and more churches have jumped on the Warrenist bandwagon in recent years, organists and hymnals have been put on the Endangered Species List. Those whose convictions move them to seek the hymns and liturgy that are part of the Church's historical heritage are finding that they have nowhere to turn.

The third problem has been with finances. As pastors have fallen under the influence of Warrenism, they have frequently tried to force the idea of “maintenance” versus “ministry” on their congregations, telling the congregations that they must cede leadership to the pastor in all areas of the maintenance of the church, including its finances. But when members have a say in directing the finances of a church, it gives them quite a sense of ownership in the church. Many long-time members of these churches have grown used to this sense of ownership, only to have it suddenly ripped away by a pastor who has recently fallen under the spell of Warren. In some of these churches, it is no longer possible for members to view or obtain copies of the church financial statements or even of the church bylaws!

Another way to look at these problems is in terms of the strategies in a war. It is a war against old people, first of all – a war of elimination. Why the old? Because these are the ones who for so long have been used to self-determination. The old are also the ones most likely to speak up if they disagree with the direction given by a young pastor. Old people are more likely than the young to feel great liberty to tell a young leader that he's crazy if he is in fact crazy. If a pastor wants to establish absolute authority over a congregation, he does well if he first eliminates the elderly. But these issues can also be seen as a war against the young – a war that is not about elimination, but about domination. For a youthful or even middle-aged (but still cool) pastor can create an environment tailor-made to attract people who are predominantly young, and can use his authority to establish an excessive degree of control over his flock without being challenged.

A typical Warrenist church (or church whose pastor has successfully transitioned it to Warrenism) will therefore be led by the pastor, who is assisted by his chosen staff and presides over a congregation which follows the pastor's lead unquestioningly, without ever knowing or caring to know about the finances of the church or the moral qualifications of the paid staff. The members will never seek to draft or vote on bylaws or a church constitution, choosing instead to give the pastor ultimate authority to decide the structure and direction of the church. In order to reinforce unquestioning loyalty to such a church, Warren goes to great lengths in his Purpose-Driven books to speak against “gossip,” and to emphasize the importance of guarding the church against “whiners” and “murmuring.” For backup, he uses carefully chosen translations of various Bible verses designed by their wording to give the impression that to criticize the church leaders in any way is sinful.

Church Transitions, Inc., has also provided teaching materials and advice to help would-be Warrenist pastors enforce pastoral authority and unquestioning loyalty. In 2005, Church Transitions published a video pastors' conference series titled, “Transitioning: Leading Your Church Through Change.” In Session Six of that series, titled “Dealing With Opposition To The Vision,” Donald (Roddy) Clyde, a longtime Warren associate along with Glen Sartain, characterizes those who resist having their churches transitioned to a Warrenist model as “...wolves. And what should shepherds do with the wolves? You shoot 'em!” Clyde has also taught would-be Warrenist pastors to expel church members who do not support the switch to a Warrenist church model. Moreover, he has taught these pastors to find out where the expelled members next join a church, and call the leaders of that church to recommend that the leaders not allow those members to have any ministry position. He teaches that any member of his church who serves in ministry and who says that they want to visit another church should be immediately relieved of their ministry.

With the drive to concentrate such power in the hands of Warrenist pastors has also, predictably, come evidence of the abuse of that power. Germantown Baptist Church in Germantown, Tennessee recently went through a struggle caused by a pastor who tried to implement a Warrenist church structure, including the removal of oversight of finances from the congregation. Germantown Baptist is a rich church, by the way (2006 budget: $12 million; church property: $85 million). Bellevue Baptist Church, near Memphis, Tennessee, has also had problems involving a Warrenist pastor and church finances, with “excessive” salaries being paid to the pastoral staff, according to one source.

And the king of examples is that of Pastor Roddy Clyde himself, who was arrested in August of 2007 for embezzling at least $500,000 from the Fellowship at Forest Creek Church in Arizona. Clyde used the money to buy land, horses, vacations and other property. It is ironically fitting that a man who was such a vigorous champion of unquestioned, absolute pastoral authority for the sake of church growth should become such a prime example of the dangers of that authority.

One last note: the Warrenist churches are primarily “staff-led”; that is, they are led by a pastor through his staff, without authoritative input from their congregations. A variant of this is the “elder-led” model. In this model, the church is led by a board of elders. But these elders are not directly chosen by the congregation. Rather, when a new elder must be added to the board, the elders choose the candidate themselves, or the elders ask the congregation from time to time if they know of anyone who would be qualified to serve as an elder. Those who are approved by the elders are added to the elder board. In some of these churches, the senior pastor is also president of the elder board. This seems on the surface to be a better arrangement than the “staff-led” model, but in reality the elders usually are not directly accountable to the congregation, since they are not chosen directly by the congregation. It seems to me to be yet another arrangement which could lead to a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few without adequate checks and balances to protect the many.

Sources:

• “Round Rock Pastor Stole at least $500,000, According to Arrest Report,” The Austin American Statesman, 19 August 2007, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1883442/posts

• “Germantown Baptist Church,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germantown_Baptist_Church

• “Transitioning: Leading Your Church Through Change,” Excellerators website, http://www.excellerators.org/artman/publish/article_49.shtml

• “The Fellowship at Forrest Creek: Where Service is Common Place (sic),” Pastors.com website, http://www.pastors.com/rwmt/article.asp?ArtID=8630

• “Change Dividing Southern Baptist Mega-Church,” Ethics Daily, posted 22 September 2006

• “Strategy for Church Growth Splits Congregants,” Wall Street Journal, 5 September 2006, posted on the Post-Gazette website at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06248/719178-84.stm

Blog Update - 8 June 2008

This is just a short note to let you know that I will not be publishing any major posts this week. However, I am working on posts for the next two weeks. The upcoming posts involved a lot of research, which I have largely finished. Now comes the hard part of synthesizing everything into a few coherent paragraphs. I have one more "mainstream" church movement to cover; then I will talk a little about what I believe the immediate future holds for "church empires" within American evangelicalism. After a few more posts on other evangelical problems, I will start proposing solutions to the things I have presented so far on this blog.

Stay tuned!

Moses, Pastors and Calvary Chapel

The 1960's were a tumultuous decade in the United States. What was especially tumultuous for many middle-aged, middle-class couples in those days was the rejection of traditional American values by the sons and daughters of these couples. Among the values that were rejected were the materialism that expressed itself as a constant striving for a higher standard of living and the status that went with it, as well as traditional American patriotism and affiliation with traditional churches.

The outward signs of such a rejection included long hair on male teens and young adult men; burning draft cards and running to Canada to escape the draft; antiwar demonstrations and protest marches; alternative living arrangements such as communes and unmarried men and women “living together”; the invention by young people of a new lingo that their parents did not understand; getting “stoned” on illegal substances rather than getting drunk in the traditional way practiced by many of their parents; and the rejection of the music of their parents – Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, etc. – and an embracing of the new music of artists like the Rolling Stones, the Who, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix. Whereas the parents of this time used to go to church simply because “that's what we do on Sunday,” the youth demanded a faith that was “relevant” to them. They searched freely for such a faith, traveling whatever path seemed best to them, even if that path was not Christian.

Most church pastors of the time were seen by these youth as “squares” who didn't understand the youth, and who were too quick to condemn or to preach at them. However, there were some pastors and evangelists in the late 60's who sought to preach the Gospel to these youth by relating to them on their own level. Some of these pastors were very successful in their efforts to minister to the youth, many of whom were simply rebelling against materialist parents who had not taken the time or effort to truly listen to their children. Those pastors who provided a sympathetic listening adult ear found a wide-open door for ministry. Among these pastors were men who re-structured church services with the aim of making the church environment as comfortable and non-threatening as possible for young men and women. Thus the “Jesus Movement” was born.

One of the pastors who ministered thus to young people was Chuck Smith, founder of the Calvary Chapel chain of churches. According to a Christianity Today article, Chuck Smith was hired in 1965 by the original Calvary Chapel, to teach a Bible study in a trailer park in Costa Mesa, California. As a result of his teaching, the Bible study grew phenomenally, as did the church. Shortly afterward, Smith began ministering to hippies, inventing cutting-edge (at the time) methods such as “contemporary worship,” “seeker-sensitive” church services, and “contemporary” folk-rock praise songs. He also invited young hippies to live in his home, where he discipled them. The original Calvary Chapel grew explosively as a result of Smith's efforts, and has since expanded into over 1,300 affiliated churches and a radio network of 400 stations. Influential figures who have arisen from the Calvary Chapel churches include Greg Laurie (who hosts yearly “Harvest Crusades” in Anaheim), Raul Ries, Mike Macintosh and Chuck Missler. The Calvary Chapel chain even has its own Bible college in Costa Mesa, with 90 extension campuses throughout the world. (Source: “Day of Reckoning: Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel Face An Uncertain Future,” Christianity Today, 16 February 2007, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/march/7.53.html?start=5)

The Calvary Chapels have done much good in the world, to be sure. Through the ministry of these churches many people have been brought to Christ, and many of these converts have been solidly taught the Scriptures. Many members of these churches are dear, committed Christians, healthy and happy, nourished by a strong social network of fellow believers. But there have been reports of problems within the Calvary Chapel movement over the last several years – problems related to the abuse of power.

Of course, there was always a risk of this sort of abuse, given the dynamics of the groups to which Chuck Smith originally ministered. The fact is that Smith, now 80 years old, was around 37 or 38 when he began ministering to young people, many of whom were young enough to be his children. In that setting, a sympathetic adult can have a lot of power, even assuming the role of a surrogate parent in the minds of the youth to whom he ministers. Strong and good is the man who does not yield to the temptation to misuse the trust placed in him in such a situation. But Smith set up a method of church government that is inherently unsafe, rather like the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, which was unstable by design.

As a start, the Calvary Chapels teach that there are four forms of church government found in Scripture: congregationalist, presbyterian, episcopal, and Theocratic. Congregational government is simply democratic rule of a church by the congregation of the church. But Calvary Chapels reject this form of government as unbiblical, because they believe that the Old Testament shows that congregations always made poor choices. Instead, the Calvary Chapels teach that the preferred form of government is “Theocratic”, that is, that God directly rules each congregation, using a chosen man to express His will in the congregation. That man, that pastor is to have the same authority over the congregation that Moses had over the Israelites during the Exodus to the Promised Land.

That pastor is also to have a support team of elders who help him in his ministry in the same way that the 70 elders of Israel helped Moses (Numbers 11:16). Yet these elders are to be accountable to the pastor, and are not allowed to contradict him. Ultimate authority for the governing of the church is to reside in the pastor alone. Chuck Smith even teaches that if an elder board fails to support its pastor, the pastor has the authority to dismiss the entire board and appoint new elders. According to the Calvary Chapels, the pastor is accountable to God alone, and that this is to keep the pastor from becoming a mere “hireling”, restricted or prevented by his church from doing what God has called him to do. Anyone who questions the pastor is “speaking against the Lord's anointed”, according to these churches. (Source: “The Philosophy of Ministry of Calvary Chapel,” http://www3.calvarychapel.com/library/smith-chuck/books/tpomocc.htm)

Saying that the church should be governed by God sounds nice on paper – “Amen!”; who could disagree with that? But the problem arises when a pastor teaches that the way God governs is by a specially chosen man who answers to God alone, who alone has the authority to direct a church, and that the congregation is not allowed to question the actions of this man. This is not taught in the New Testament; yet it is exactly what cults like the Geftakys assemblies taught, with the predictable result that men placed in such positions of absolute authority abused that authority. In the case of the Calvary Chapels, there have been recent articles about such abuse in the Los Angeles Times as well as Christianity Today. The Calvary Chapels have also been the subject of a number of websites and blogs documenting power abuse at the hands of Calvary pastors, and have even attained a place in the rogue's gallery of abusive churches listed on the Rick Ross website.

Ostensibly, the Calvary Chapels are simply a loose association of churches, each independently governed. Chuck Smith would deny that the Calvary Chapels are a denomination, and has refused, at least in public, to organize them into a denomination. But a look behind the scenes reveals the fact that in order for a church to be affiliated with the Calvary Chapel name, it must be certified by the Calvary Chapel Outreach Fellowship (CCOF), which imposes the following requirements: 1. The pastor must embrace the “Calvary Chapel Distinctives” (which teach, among other things, the Moses model for church government). 2. The church must be an officially incorporated church as opposed to a mere home fellowship. 3. The church leader must be willing to spend time in fellowship with other Calvary Chapels via regularly-scheduled pastors' conferences. In addition to certification, churches in a region are accountable to regional lead pastors selected by CCOF. CCOF is, in turn, headed by Paul Smith, Chuck Smith's brother.

In the early days of the Calvary Chapels, associate and assistant pastors were hand-picked by Chuck Smith himself, and were directly accountable to Chuck Smith. Today, those who want to become pastors must enroll in the Calvary Chapel Bible College, and must complete a two-year or four-year program to earn a Certificate of Completion, Associate in Theology degree or Bachelor of Biblical Studies degree. Chuck Smith is the President of this Bible college, which has chosen to remain unaccredited in order “...not to compromise the integrity of the vision or direction the Lord has given to CCBC. We believe that the credibility of CCBC is not in accreditation, but in the fruitfulness and surrendered lives of the students who have attended.” (Source: Calvary Chapel Bible College, http://www.calvarychapelbiblecollege.com/wb/pages/main-campus/general-information/accreditation.php and http://www.calvarychapelbiblecollege.com/wb/pages/main-campus/faculty-and-staff.php) Chuck Smith says that the Calvary Chapels are not a denomination, but rather an affiliation of independent churches. Yet it can be argued that through his Bible college and through the CCOF, Mr. Smith actually exerts a fairly high degree of control over the Calvary Chapel franchise.

This is seen in the pastors who have been accused by church members of sexual sin or financial impropriety, yet who were not removed from their positions because of their affiliation with Chuck Smith. In some cases, such pastors were retained on staff even after being arrested by the police. Many sources have stated that if a member has a disagreement with a pastor, his only options are to appeal to Chuck Smith or be run out of the church. This reality of the Calvary Chapels as a religious empire is now coming into sharp focus with news of recent lawsuits for control of various Calvary Chapel churches, as well as the courtroom fight between Chuck Smith and a former Calvary Chapel pastor over control of the Calvary radio station network. Chuck Smith's statements about how Calvary Chapel is not a denomination seem to me to be as disingenuous as the statements George Geftakys used to make about how his own “empire” of Assemblies was just a collection of independent fellowships. Yet the same issues of control and abuse of power that existed in the Geftakys Assemblies seem to exist also in the Calvary Chapels. The Calvary Chapel franchise is yet another example of what happens when one man or a select group of men assume absolute, unchecked power over a church.

I will close by providing additional links, some of which contain personal stories of people who suffered the abuse of pastoral power in the Calvary Chapel franchise. I also want to mention that I ran into a friend a year or so ago who was going to a Calvary Chapel in Orange County, and who told me about a friend of his who came to believe that God was calling him to join the U.S. Navy as a chaplain in order to minister to sailors. Yet when he went to the pastor of his Calvary Chapel to talk about his plans, the pastor turned out to be something of a control freak, and told him that if he joined the Navy, the pastor would remove his blessing from him.

As for me, I have just one thing to say to anyone who comes up to me blathering about how he has been called by God to be my pastor, and that I am to obey him unquestioningly just as Israel was commanded to obey Moses. That person had better be able to part oceans, or even rivers. He had better be able to do the miracles of Moses. Otherwise, I'll tell him to hit the bricks. In fact, I'll probably tell him to get lost no matter what he is able to do. "Moses ain't around anymore."

Additional links:

• http://calvarychapel.pbwiki.com/

• “What I did for...love?”, Intellectuelle, http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/intellectuelle/archives/003482.html

• “Unaccountable at Calvary Chapel,” Christianity Today, 8 May 2006, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/mayweb-only/119-12.0.html

• http://www.rickross.com/groups/calvary.html

• http://www.factnet.org/discus/messages/3/17729.html?1180762736

• http://www.rickross.com/reference/calvary/calvaryvisitor.html

• http://www.christianrecovery.com/vb/showthread.php?t=3666&page=3