In short, abusive pastors leave a “trail of dead bodies” behind them.5 That’s what monsters do. So why don’t churches see the trail of dead bodies? Why don’t they connect the dots? As we shall see, the problem isn’t just a single, abusive pastor. Sometimes the problem is a church culture that enables (knowingly or unknowingly) the abuse.6 Or, as Oakley and Kinmond observed, “We [tend to] focus on the bad apple and what is wrong with it, rather than looking at the barrel in which it is kept.”7 In this chapter, we will look at the barrel.
