When Christian Heroes Fall

Recently it came out that a Christian leader that I have greatly admired for many years had abused his pastoral authority and entered into a sinful sexual relationship with a vulnerable woman under his pastoral care.

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A woman has been victimized. A family has been shattered. A church is left reeling.

This is fresh, and it is shocking, and many if not all of us are struggling to know exactly how to feel or respond.

This man had a profound influence on me. I followed along with his teachings for many years. I greatly appreciated his passionate devotion to Scripture, the Gospel, and following in the way of Christ.

Although my struggle at the news can’t come close to those who knew him more personally, I greatly respected the man. In all truth, I would not be who I am today as a teacher or pastor without this man’s ministry. He was formational in my life.

And yet there is significant sin, which must be taken most seriously. There is a victim taken advantage of by a leader, which is horrifying. There is a broken family trying to rebuild. There is a church disoriented and in pain, wondering what happens next. There is a broader Body of Christ, trying to make sense of it all.

As I wrestle through all of these things, I find I have far more questions than answers.

But whether it is this scenario, or others that we have seen before, what is the Christian to do when someone we admire falls?

My thoughts are admittedly scattered and fresh, but there are some things I’ve got so far:

• Christians rally to the victim(s). Wherever there are victims, on any matter, the Christian is there. Christians are to weep with those who weep and bind up the broken-hearted, as Jesus did (Rom 12.15; Isa 61.1; Jn 11.35). Wherever damage has been done, we rush in with the healing balm of prayers and presence for the wounded. The hurting need to be heard, respected, honoured, and cared for. Events like this have direct victims, and also inevitably many other hurting people in the blast radius, and in love and compassion we move into the damage and do what we can to bear the burden with them (Gal 6.2).

• Christians can allow themselves to feel angry. Sometimes in the name of Christian values like love, grace, compassion, the fact that we are all sinners, etc., we lay aside anger as a true and godly emotion in the right context. When a woman has been taken advantage of, when a family has been cheated on, anger is a perfectly reasonable and valid response. Anger can lead to all sorts of sin, which we are warned against, but the emotion itself is not sin (Eph 4.26). We don’t need to talk ourselves out of it; sometimes anger is absolutely the right and godly reaction, especially when that anger comes in the defense of others.

• Christians tremble at their own sin. This in no way calls us to minimize the seriousness of sin like this, as some are prone to doing. We don’t say, “Hey, I’m a sinner too, so this person gets a pass.” We call sin what it is. But we do remind ourselves that our heroes have always been sinners, and that we are too, and we are warned in Scripture that when we see sin in others, we should humbly remember that we too might fall (Gal 6.1). Most of us will never have our worst sins broadcast before the world. And most of us would be very grateful for that. Given the right circumstances, we are all capable of doing awful things ourselves. Anger at sin is not the same as self-righteousness over another sinner. The plank-in-the-eye teaching of Jesus calls us to take a good hard look at our own issues too (Mt 7.1-5).

• Christians are allowed to feel conflicting and complicated things. There has been much talk online about how we “should” be feeling in this scenario, with some very strong opinions being shared (“Support the victim, you’re selfish to think about the church!” “Think about his family, quit thinking about yourself!” “What do you mean you feel compassion for him? How is that possible?!”)  But this is messy, and that’s OK. We can let ourselves feel our many varied feelings, without judgment, as complicated and contradictory as they may be. My heart can break for the victim, and feel anger for the abuse, and feel disappointment in the leader, and feel grief for the church, and feel disoriented at my own worldview shift, and feel concern for his wife and kids, and feel sad for the loss of a key voice in my life, and feel compassion stirring for him who has sinned, knowing that any of us might fall into sin if we are not careful (1Co 10.12). We do not “have” to feel only one thing; we can embrace the messy contradictions and tensions and feel them all. This is truthful and authentic.

• Christians reflect and soul-search and seek better. This incident has launched good and painful and important conversations about victims, abuse, boundaries, power dynamics, church structure, leadership, accountability, and many other topics that can and should come up in the aftermath of something like this. What do we need to learn from this? How can churches help keep people safe? How can we support and restore victims of sexual sin and abuse? How can church leaders avoid this path? How can we all find healing for the pain in our lives? How can we stop turning to sin to make us feel better? How can we be holy? How can we be Christ-like? There is opportunity to learn and mature dramatically as we prayerfully wrestle through this important questions.

• Christians remember that Jesus was really the one blessing them through the person. “Do I need to throw away my Ravi Zacharias books?” I was asked during that previous scandal. “Only if you feel you need to, or if is too painful to keep them,” I responded. “We’re not ripping King David’s Psalms out of Scripture because of his sin.” That’s because the Holy Spirit breathed those words through David, just as He breathes through any minister of Christ. The impact of this recently outed leader been profound in my life, but it was always Jesus doing it through the man by His Spirit, not the man doing it himself (1Cor 12). This is a good time for all of us to be reminded of this; for any leader that we admire, the Lord is doing the work through them, and that work is real. Because of this, a person’s sin does not undo the good work that the Lord did. It may feel too painful or too tainted to think such things right now, and that is perfectly understandable. But it is possible to still be grateful for and hold onto what Jesus has done through the ministry.

• Christians are called to restore. This may be hard to imagine right now, when we are angry or in pain because of someone’s sin, but this is a Gospel of redemption for everyone. Sinners are to be restored by the Body (perhaps not to leadership positions, depending on the context, but certainly to health and wholeness and grace) (Gal 6.1-2). Jesus comes to redeem us all, in every way. We seek healing and restoration for the victim first, for the family affected, for the church, and then even for the sinner themselves. If this sinner were our best friend, how would we want them to be treated? If they were our child, how would we want them to be treated? If they were us, how would we want to be treated? (Mt 7.12).  Surely with gravity, appropriate to the situation, but surely also with some compassion, grace and a heart to restore. If we are to love even our enemies (Mt 5.43-48), then surely that love must still extend to a fellow believer who has fallen and is showing signs of repentance, who needs to be healed of the things that led to these events. Redemption is for everyone.

There may be more thoughts to come, but this is fresh, and there are a few so far.

May the Lord have mercy on all of us, may He meet us in our anger and our pain and our disappointment and in our own sin, and may He breath healing and peace and holiness into our souls by His precious Holy Spirit as we navigate these waters in these days.

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