Something Rotten In The Church
The failures of prominent Christian leaders might make us think genuine spiritual formation in Christlikeness to be impossible for real human beings. How is it, exactly, that a man or woman can serve Christ for years and then morally disintegrate? And the failures that become known are few compared to the ones that remain relatively unknown and are even accepted among Christians. What are we to say about the spiritual formation of these leaders? Has something been omitted? Or is this really the best we can do? The same questions arise with reference to lay figures in areas of life such as politics, business, entertainment or education, who show the same failures of character while openly identifying themselves as Christians. It is unpleasant to dwell on such cases, but they must be faced squarely.
The sad thing when leaders fail is not just what they do, but the heart and life and whole person that is revealed when they do it. What is sad is who they have been all along, what their innerlife has been like, and no doubt also how they have suffered, during all the years before they did it or were found out. What kind of person have they been, and what, really, has been their relationship to God?
If we can’t get things right in church, where can we? These failures in leaders show how sin, in a form everyone plainly recognises as such, undermines the efforts of Christ’s own people to be his people. That is its power.
The presences of vanity, egotism, hostility, fear, indifference and downright meanness can be counted on among professing Christians. The rare individuals who exemplify genuine purity and humility, unselfishness, freedom from rage and depression, and so on, will stand out like a sore thumb.
When Christian leaders fail, it is often in the area or sexual purity. Of course, sexual transgression is by no means limited to church leadership, and is also a common failure within the whole body of believers. But sexual sin is far from being the only problem. The presences of vanity, egotism, hostility, fear, indifference and downright meanness can be counted on among professing Christians. Their opposites cannot be counted on, or simply assumed, in the ‘standard’ Christian group. The rare individuals who exemplify genuine purity and humility, unselfishness, freedom from rage and depression, and so on, will stand out like a sore thumb. They will be a constant hindrance in group processes, for they will not be living on the same terms as the others.
Many people in our culture have, on the basis of their experiences, simply given up on the church, many of them in the name of God and righteousness.
Many Christians have never been in an intimate fellowship where the corrupted condition of the human soul did not in fact prevail. They have never been in a fellowship in which they could assume that everyone would do what everyone knew to be right. And many people in our culture have, on the basis of their experiences, simply given up on the church, many of them in the name of God and righteousness.
Adapted from Renovation of the Heart (Dallas Willard, IVP, 2002)