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

by Michael J. Kruger

ACCOUNTABILITY OVER SECRECY. Finally, the pastoral profile should indicate that there will be a substantive accountability plan for the pastor. I will talk more about particular structural and procedural suggestions, but the church should make it clear that they will have a transparent system where people can share their concern...

Churches need to be careful that an accountability system is not misused in a way that encourages criticism of the pastor. The goal is not to stir up complaints and grievances. After all, there’s never a shortage of those. Rather, the goal is to create a safe space for concerns to be raised so there isn’t undue retaliation and targeting of those bringing the concerns.

Since most senior pastors are also the chair or moderator of the elder board, they have the ability to set agendas, control the flow of information, and dictate the overall direction of the elder board.3 But there is no biblical requirement to have this structure. Indeed, it might be wise to have another elder in this slot so the senior pastor can’t control the agenda and so there is a tangible expression of the senior pastor submitting himself to other leaders.

Much of a pastor’s standing and influence is because they do almost all the teaching and preaching in a church. Rotating the preaching schedule more regularly and allowing others to have visible time up front can keep the church from becoming overly focused on a single individual (though I recognize that in smaller churches this may be difficult).

Giving a senior pastor the sole authority to hire and fire staff is a dangerous level of power and, as we have seen, creates a fear among staff members that he might use that power for retaliation. As an alternative, all hiring and firing recommendations could go first through an independent committee, composed of both elders and non-elders, including both men and women. For the purposes of our discussion, we’ll call this the accountability committee (which could also have other functions we’ll discuss). The committee would evaluate each staffing situation and then make recommendations to the elder board, which would make the final decision.

REAL FEEDBACK. If elder boards are to have an accurate portrayal of their own pastor’s performance and character, then they need to have a careful annual review process by which feedback is communicated and relayed to the overall leadership body without the potential of reprisal upon those bringing the feedback.

The annual review process needs to include not only the pastor’s fellow elders (who are often his closest friends) but also those who work under the senior pastor, as well as several church members, including both men and women. Even though the church leadership would know who wrote these reviews, careful consideration should be given to whether the identity of the reviewers is revealed to the senior pastor. The senior pastor should certainly see the reviews, but it may be wise to keep at least some reviews anonymous so people can be frank and open without fear of retaliation.

These annual reviews should be shared openly with the entire elder board every year.

senior pastors should be required to do a careful and thorough annual review of each staff member under them. This practice is designed primarily to protect the staff from future retaliatory accusations from an abusive senior pastor.

members of the board feel less willing to speak their minds and less willing to be the lone “no” vote because they know it will derail the entire decision. Consequently, outlying voices on the elder board—voices that would normally offer healthy dissent—are pressured into going along with the rest of the board to maintain a unanimous vote. This creates an illusion of unity that isn’t really there.

have a posture toward the accuser that is marked by sympathy and openness rather than suspicion and doubt.

After five people came forward in 2019 with complaints about the pastor’s inappropriate sexual behavior, the initial investigation of the presbytery concluded that there was “no presumption of guilt.”

Prevention: Churches must do their best to weed out abusive candidates from the start by creating a vision for ministry that is radically biblical and therefore unattractive to leaders with abusive tendencies.

Accountability: Too many churches have a culture of secrecy, self-protection, and image management—factors that create an ideal environment for spiritual abuse. In contrast, churches must create a culture that is open, transparent, and provides genuine accountability for its senior leadership.

Protection: Churches must have a clear, well-organized plan for how to handle abuse claims and care for and protec...

Most pastors don’t start their ministries planning to be domineering and heavy-handed tyrants. Sometimes they find themselves, over time, morphing and changing into such a person, and they may not even realize it is happening. These changes are usually driven by the wear and tear of ministry, along with faulty philosophical commitments they may not even know they have.

But some pastors tend to catastrophize the slightest bit of disagreement or complaint in the church, thinking that even the smallest amount of dissension in the ranks will lead to a revolt. Some pastors are so worried about what is being said about them that it can lead to narcissistic paranoia.1

Is your default assumption that this person has clearly misunderstood you and misconstrued what happened? Or is there ever a moment when you humbly ask whether you just might be the problem, even if you don’t currently see it that way? Is there ever a time when you ask with Jesus’s disciples, “Is it I, Lord?”

I am reminded of the story of Eustace in C. S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. After falling asleep on a dragon’s hoard, Eustace wakes up as a dragon. He’s a frightening monster and doesn’t even know it. When he sees two thin columns of smoke going up before his eyes, he doesn’t realize it’s coming from his own dragon nostrils. Once he learns that he is a dragon, it causes him to do a little self-reflection. Even though he had been blaming everyone else on the ship for all his problems, he begins to realize “the others had not really been fiends at all.”4 Moreover—and here’s where Lewis delivers the punch line—Eustace “began to wonder if he himself had been such a nice person as he always supposed.”5 In other words, Eustace realized he hadn’t just become a dragon, he had always been a dragon. He was not the good guy he thought he was.

Many abusive leaders are like Eustace. They think they are pretty nice people and that everyone else is the problem. They frighten and scare people but don’t understand why. They are a dragon but don’t even know it.

If you are in leadership, ask the Lord to give you the humility to admit you may not see yourself as you really are. Be willing to take a long, hard look at yourself to see if you, like Eustace, have columns of smoke coming up from your nostrils. If you do, turn...

Jesus knew this would be a problem. He knew that the biggest obstacle to a healthy ministry would be fear of loss, fear of suffering. So he tackled this problem head-on. His solution is the point of this whole book: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:34–35). The answer to the abusive pastor was there all the time. It is the cross of Christ. There, on display for all the world to see, was a shepherd who did not save his own life but gave it up freely for the sake of others. And anyone called to the ministry must do the same.