Bully Pulpit: Confronting the Problem of Spiritual Abuse in the Church

by Michael J. Kruger

Instead of protecting George Floyd, these officers protected their fellow officer. Sadly, the same patterns of abuse in the George Floyd case are sometimes found in the church. While most pastors are gentle, kind, and patient, others have a proverbial knee on the neck of their sheep. They’ve been doing it for years with little or no consequences. And despite the pleas of the people, other pastors and elders sometimes stand by and let it happen. They may even defend the bully pastor. In sum, the problem is not just the abuse. It’s also the larger context that allows it to continue unchallenged.

sheeeeeeeesh

In 2020 Christianity Today broke the story of how Timmis was removed from Acts 29 because of reports of abusive leadership, bullying, intimidation, heavy shepherding, and even threats of church discipline for those who resisted him.20 Those who worked with Timmis stated that when confronted with these behaviors, he not only refused to receive critical feedback but would often reverse the accusations, making the challengers out to be the real problem. They were just troublemakers, stirring up dissension in the church. Andy Stowell, a former elder at the Crowded House, summed it up this way: “People were and are afraid of Steve Timmis.”

familiar

In other words, Jesus knows that the default position for those in authority is to domineer and squash those they lead. Then comes the punch line: “But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all” (vv. 43–44, emphasis mine). Jesus’s ministry model is paradoxical. You don’t lead by demanding your rights but by giving them up. For the bully pastor, the first will be first. But for the godly pastor, the first shall be last. As Paul Tripp put it, “Jesus reminds the disciples that they haven’t been called to lordship but to servanthood.”40

DEFENSIVE. When it comes to pastoral ministry, one thing is clear: criticism is part of the job. Rightly or wrongly, every pastor will be criticized for something. But what happens when you criticize a spiritually abusive pastor bent on preserving his own authority? In short, it’s war. Abusive pastors are notoriously thin-skinned, seeing even the slightest bit of criticism as a threat to their power. Case after case of spiritual abuse has shown that criticism is often the trigger that leads a pastor to turn on a staff member or parishioner, leading to retaliation, threats, and vindictive behavior. To snuff out criticism, an abusive pastor will often silence, shame, or isolate a person, making them feel like they are insubmissive, insubordinate, and undermining the church’s God-given leadership.

Here’s the reality: pastors accused of spiritual abuse are often accomplishing something helpful for the kingdom—expanding the reach of the gospel, planting churches, helping the poor. Their ministries look blessed. This appearance of blessing not only makes the abusive pastor sure that he’s done nothing wrong, but it also convinces others of his innocence. They refuse to believe any accusations. To allow such a possibility would wreck the tidy world they have built around that spiritual leader.

And in a tragically ironic turn, the defenders of the abusive pastor often raise questions about the integrity and the character of the victims, suggesting they are out to slander or malign the leader’s “good name.” So the doctrine of total depravity is forgotten when it comes to the pastor but remembered when it comes to the victims.

For one, to say all sins are the same is to confuse the effect of sin with the heinousness of sin. While all sins are equal in their effect (they separate us from God), they are not all equally heinous. The Bible clearly differentiates between sins. Certain sins are more severe in impact (1 Cor. 6:18), in culpability (Rom. 1:21–32), in judgment warranted (2 Peter 2:17; Mark 9:42; James 3:1), and in whether one is qualified for ministry (1 Tim. 3:1–

Aside from the profound lack of charity and compassion in such a response, not to mention the demeaning way it portrays women, it also has logical flaws. For one, why is it that victims of abuse are the only ones whose personal experience affects their judgment? Does the personal experience of church elders not affect their judgment? Couldn’t a positive personal church experience make it harder to spot abuse? Or lead one to believe it is exceptionally unlikely? And couldn’t their friendship with the senior pastor also affect their judgment?

Even though the victims of spiritual abuse have suffered greatly (more on this topic in the next chapter), one tactic of abusive leaders is to talk about how much they’ve suffered. They will go to great lengths to describe how much pain they are in because of the unresolved “conflict” with those accusing them. They will tell how they have lost sleep, been wracked with anxiety, and are “deeply saddened” by the whole affair.28 Even Saruman wanted to talk about the “injuries that have been done to me.”29 This move is designed to engender sympathy not for the victims but for the abuser. Again, it is designed to flip the script. To produce even more sympathy, some abusive leaders then appeal to how the whole situation has affected their spouse or their family. They might point out how much their wife has suffered or how their kids are heartbroken and disillusioned.30 This tactic is effective precisely because we ought to feel sympathy for the family members harmed by the scandal. Often the spouses and children are unaware of how the pastor has mistreated others (though some spouses enable and defend their husband’s abusive behavior and sometimes even participate in his deceptions). Indeed, some church courts feel less inclined to prosecute such a pastor because they feel sorry for his family, which “has suffered enough.”