Today’s reading: Ezekiel 20; Galatians 2
A pastor or teacher can get something wrong, even very wrong, without it entirely discrediting them and their ministry.
There is a mildly famous pastor, whose teachings I have personally appreciated and benefited from for years, who recently took a lot of flack from other Christians for a stance he took on an LGBT issue. Many think he is wrong in what he said, and some say that he is setting aside the clear teaching of Scripture and bowing to cultural pressure, and are writing him and his ministry off entirely. What fascinates me about this response to him is that, when I say he is mildly famous, it’s not because he travels around preaching to sold out stadiums or pastors some gigantic mega church; he’s not even a particularly passionate preacher. His notoriety comes from his careful, faithful exposition of Scripture, and his ability to bring the Word to life with potent examples and illustrations, along with consistently solid and challenging application from the text. So my question, from the moment the controversy kicked up around him, has been, in what world do we need to write off the incredible body of work that this man has offered to the Body of Christ just because we think he has misstepped in something?
Now, to be clear, in this particular situation, the pastor in question holds to conservative biblical teaching on LGBT issues. The stance he took so much flack for was, if I remember right, offering advice to a person about how to practically love a family member in the LGBT community. It was not in biblical exposition, or him teaching theology, or even making blanket statements of Scriptural application, but in giving advice to someone on how to show the love of Christ, in a practical way, in a situation where you specifically don’t agree with the choices the person is making.
Galatians 2 made me think of this this morning because, in the same breath, Paul goes from calling Peter a pillar of the church to calling him out publicly for leading people astray. Paul doesn’t call Peter out in order to discredit him or to have people abandon following him or his teaching, he calls him out specifically because he has the influence that he does. Because of his position and influence, Peter’s actions in stopping eating with the Gentiles carry more weight and can do much more harm than if he was any other random Christian, and so it is important for Paul to address it publicly in front of those who are being influenced in the wrong direction.
All that said, I certainly do think, especially in the internet age where teachings and comments are so easily and so widely distributed, that there is a place to calling for clarification on a seemingly off-base comment, or for publicly disagreeing with the stance someone takes. Those can be good and healthy for the broader church community. But especially in a situation like the one that happened recently, where we are dealing with specific pastoral application to a specific situation, to take that as discrediting someone’s entire ministry or to write off all that they have contributed to the church over the years is pure foolishness and nothing but inviting toxic cancel culture into Body of Christ, where is certainly does not belong.
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