Grace and the Church (Monday with Mounce 59)

I was going to write a Greek-oriented blog post on ποιημα, but I saw an interview on TV a couple days ago and I can’t stop thinking about it, and I need your input to help me understand.

It was an interview on the Mike Huckabee Report (http://mikehuckabee.com/). He interviewed Gayle Haggard, the wife of pastor Ted Haggard and author of Why I Stayed: The Choices I Made in My Darkest Hour. Her husband was the founder of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs and was president of the National Association of Evangelicals. If you don’t already know, he admitted to an incident with a male prostitute.

Huckabee was talking to her mostly about forgiveness. He asked what was the most painful thing that happened. Her answer was fascinating.

Certainly learning of the event was painful. Her children’s loss of dignity was hurtful. She said that she had received many kind and encouraging emails from homosexual men and Christians, and many cruel and hateful emails from homosexual men and Christians. Her conclusion: people are people.

But the event that hurt the most was their forced separation from the church and the people that they had loved for 22 years.

I don’t want to get into a debate of the incident or any of the particulars. But I do have one question for you. Isn’t the church, of all places, supposed to be the single greatest place of grace and healing and forgiveness? Yes, there are consequences to sin. Yes, there is loss of trust. Yes, betrayal is hard.

But where were they to turn? Where were they to go? Where were they to look for help in personal and corporate reconciliation?

Again, let me emphasize that I don’t know the details of what or how the church handled the situation, but I find myself scratching my head wondering why they were not allowed contact with the very body of Christ that should have been the greatest source of joy and comfort and grace and confrontation and love and discipline. Should not those of us who have truly received God’s grace in Christ Jesus be the first and the best at extending grace to others? Did not Jesus come to call sinners to repentance?

I am sure there are many good churches out there. But in the last two years I have heard hundreds of stories that make me nauseous, stories that show how hundreds of churches know nothing of grace.

My personal conclusion is that if a person is incapable of extending grace to others, that he or she has never truly experienced God’s personal grace in their life.

Why oh why are so many of our churches devoid of the one thing that should distinguish us from the rest of world: grace. I would like to hear from you why.

The question is not rhetorical.

William D. [Bill] Mounce posts every Monday about the Greek language, exegesis, and related topics at Koinonia. He is the author of numerous books, including the bestselling Basics of Biblical Greek (third edition coming in 2009!), and general editor for Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament Words. He served as the New Testament chair of the English Standard Version Bible translation. Learn more and visit Bill's blog (co-authored with scholar and his father Bob Mounce) at www.billmounce.com.

 

 

Comments

[Scott Andersen]

Ok, good questions and well worth considering. I will pose another based on a common practice I have observed as a believer. Consider the pastor who has faithfully served in the same congregation for 10 years maybe longer. He has come to the point in his life where either 1) he wishes to step down from the ministry simply because he is older now and maybe a little burned out -- or 2) It truly is time for him to retire. Either way it seems all too common that in order to make it easier to adjust to a new pastor the retiring pastor is expected to find another church. I really can't comprehend this approach to ministry or mindset. It seems very common to me - maybe it's not so common as I think. So like the truly repentant pastor who must step down from his position and you ask shouldn't he yet remain part of the same body to watch over him, to lovingly correct, rebuke, exhort as necessary - shouldn't the one who labored well in the Lord also remain with the brothers and sisters he has served so well over many years. If it seems wrong to have a forced separation for the truly repentant pastor wouldn't it seem even more wrong to pursue a forced separation in the case of the retiring or stepping down pastor who labored in love for the believers for whom he cared and shepherded?

I myself am not a pastor, nor retiring elder, just hoping for what seems to be a higher view of the church.

[Jakobguy]

The easy explanation is that we are sinful, the difficulty is the why of pride vs. humility. Critical to our lives as believers is being saved by that grace of God in Christ, but I think many people lose touch with grace because they fail to realize how much they have been forgiven of.
I don't know what it was that drove the man in Matt. 18 to neglect the forgiveness of the master, but somehow his pride got in the way and he became rather Pharisaical. It saddens me as well that we don't forget but neglect the grace of God in our Churches. It must be reversed- and only His Spirit graciously working in us can do that.

[BKelly]

Far too often these days, we feel it our our place to make judgments about situations of which we know little and about which should be of little concern to us. I can think of 20 or 30 questions that I would want to know the answer to before I would even begin to make some judgment about the appropriateness of the actions of this church. Even then, I would have to wonder if it was any of my business.

[J. Gary Ellison]

Could you reconcile this concept of grace with the need for discipline in the church, and specifically 1 Corinthians 5 which calls for the expulsion of the incestuous man? That would make for an interesting and informative read. Thanks.

[Tiffany]

Why churches are devoid of grace could be that the people aren't really forgiven and expect the pastor to be absolutely perfect, or they are forgiven and expect the pastor to be absolutely perfect. Pastors should have higher expectations because of their responsibility. But no pastor was ever a perfect pastor.

From what I gather, confessing our sins to one another does not take place as it should so we all think that people are a lot better than what they really are. Confessing our sins to one another humbles us. We won't go around criticizing other people's specks in their eyes with huge logs in our own.

[Ryan Schatz]

"But the event that hurt the most was their forced separation from the church and the people that they had loved for 22 years."

Ted Haggard confessed to his sin and asked for forgiveness. So, in this case we are not dealing with a 1 Cor 5 issue where a professing believer is continuing to practice sin. So I don't believe that a forced separation from his church was a biblical move, if indeed this is what happened. While it may not be comfortable for him and his family to face the people he hurt each week, he should not be forced to leave to make it easier for all involved. Christians need to learn how to live out forgiveness when someone repents. The following point Bill makes is very important:

"My personal conclusion is that if a person is incapable of extending grace to others, that he or she has never truly experienced God’s personal grace in their life."

On the other hand, Ted no longer fulfills the requirement for an elder (leader) to be above reproach. And so he must step down as a leader. He should not be going to another church and leading them. He has broken trust. Similar to how God refused to allow Moses to enter into Canaan with Israel because he broke faith, so too Ted needs to step down from leadership. Biblically, he should find another line of work to provide for his family's needs, and fulfill the obligations of any member of the church.

[Alfredo I. Cortez, Jr.]

I agree that the church should have come alongside both pastor Haggard and his wife during this time. This is one of the objectives of the church. I certainly would have worked with them with their issues (if they were open to it) and maintained close fellowship with them. I just hope that they are doing okay overall. What we hear in public is not always what transpires in the home.

[Ryan Schatz]

Tiffany wrote: "We won't go around criticizing other people's specks in their eyes with huge logs in our own."

In this case, Ted's sin was not a "spec in the eye;" this was gross moral failure. Not only was he practicing adultery, but when questioned even after being found out, he lied numerous times.

Tiffany wrote: "Pastors should have higher expectations because of their responsibility. But no pastor was ever a perfect pastor."

It is true that no one is perfect, and that includes pastors. But a pastor who is practicing sin, and deceiving both himself and others is not being merely "imperfect." We should not expect pastors to be going through these sorts of moral failures. Can you imagine Paul or Peter doing this sort of thing and lying to cover it up even after being exposed? How could you trust anything Paul wrote after you found this sort of thing out? Imperfections are expected as we are all human; but this incident far exceeds imperfection and causes great damage to the name of Christ.

[Emily Gathergood]

The righteous care about justice, the sinner cares about grace. I think the problem is that Christians conceive of themselves as more righteous than they really are, or at least that they forget about their past sin.

[Dottie Schulz]

Last year I mentored a young youth minister who was dismissed, given severance pay and asked not to attend his church because his wife had told him two days before that she was having an affair and wanted a divorce. In two days time he lost his wife, his daughter, his ministry and his church. He moved to my city. I was asked to find him and minister to him and my church told him divorce is a non-issue. He was offered counseling and fellowship and today he is living his life as best he can, but in fellowship with other believers. When one of our own ministers had an affair, their was confession, prayer from the elders and then after a short word from our lead minister, the elders and ministers stood around the auditorium while the praise team and congregation sang. The members were asked to consider their own lives and the entire evening, elders and ministers received confessions from their flock. It was one of the most uplifting times I have ever experienced. One of the elders employed this minister where he still works. And this man is still ministering - he is now baptizing fellow workers from his place of employment. We love this man. Not all churches fail. Some are exemplary. I feel blessed to be a part of this body of believers.

[Joe]

This church seemed to be based on a cult of personality as oppsoed to a strong doctrinal ministry. So when the pastor fell it was only natural for the family to be treated as horribly as they were. Noone understood how to act or what was the right thing to do. I am not say it was right. It was not. But if I never saw loving and biblical church discipline done before and the model of the church we went by was the american corporate structure (which it seems like it was), I would fire him toute de suite. As for ''reconsilliation'' I think it is very clear in the NT that for pastors this is not an option. This man ought to be made right with the body of Christ but clearly he is not a gifted as a pastor- he is gifted as a salesman and charismatic speaker.

[CaptainFaris]

A clearer picture of what happened can be obtained by reading the Charisma Magazine interview with the Haggerts.

The questionable time period for them was during the process, when true repentance was being handled and evaluated in private. Gayle's hindsight suggests that many church members and the Haggets themselves could have benefitted from a more intentional healing process that dealt with the broken relationships. She doesn't suggest that wandering in every week and shaking hands all around is what she expected as a demonstration of grace and forgiveness.

The bottom line is that their church itself and the churches in general have, in fact, come out of the process having demonstrated remarkable grace in this case.

[Benjamin Foreman]

Why are we judging whether or not a church did the right thing when we don't know the details to begin with? Bill himself says:

"Again, let me emphasize that I don’t know the details of what or how the church handled the situation..."

If we don't know all of the issues involved, then can we even make an accurate assessment of the situation? It is possible that if we had more information we would see that the church DID extend a lot of grace in this situation...but again, we have no details, so we don't know.

I think Bill raises an interesting point, but I would have liked him to give a better example, one in which he DID have the details and DID know how the church handled the situation.

[dwightk]

Why did Israel make a golden calf at the foot of Mt Sinai? Why didn't the Pharasees recognize the Messiah?

[Bill Mounce]

Thanks for all the helpful comments. It is helping me think about these issues. Church discipline, as an act of grace, is one of the most diffcult things to do, and certainly the issue of future eligibility as an elder is a separate issue. I hesitated to say anything about this church in particular because, as several said including myself, I do not know the particulars. It is just that I see this happen over and over so I know it is a pattern and a problem. I keep coming back to 1 Cor 6:9 in my thinking as it combines the sexually immoral with the greedy and slanderers as the type of people who will not inherit the kingdom of God. It isn't that I want to lower the sin of sexual immorality but want to understand how all sin is abhorrent in Gods eyes, and to learn to treat my brothers and sisters in a way that is compatible with the servant who was forgiven the great debt -- my own sin.

[Pandora Letitia]

Here is my answer to the church not understanding grace:

Grace in Hebrew is chesed, many times translated as 'lovingkindness.' Or 'chen' which can be translated as 'favor." Grace in Greek is charis. All of these concepts do not translate well into the way we use 'grace today in English. We tend to use 'grace' as "For by grace are you saved through faith..." as if that is the only place grace is needed. And we have designed the church in America to mimic the corporations of the 1950's. We have had major books on "Re-engineering" the Corporation, re-engineering Education, and government, but nobody wrote on Re-engineering the church to look like Jesus' church.

Please help me find the structure of 'senior pastor' in the Bible.

Ted fell because he had way too much stress stuck on a leaky vessel as are we all. Other than that he is a very nice guy.

If any one of us were in that exact same position we would have fallen, too. Maybe not in the same way, but in some manner our relationship with Jesus and His Holiness would have been severed by the level of activity and responsibility that was on Ted's shoulders.

The structure underneath him was man-made so it was one made of clay, just as Daniel's vision had feet partly of clay and partly of iron.

I tried to speak into the situation in 2000, but by that time it had sealed off into a closed system where there was no room for Nathan to tell David about the one little lamb.

Why do modern churches need grace? Because we don't have the Romans as an enemy. We have made our culture and our love of "success" as powerful an enemy as the Romans ever were to the early Christians. What do we need to fix it? We seriously need love, one for the other. We need grace that is greater than just loving kindness or favor. We need grace that constantly is aware that all the horror Jesus went through, applies to us.

[Jonathan Shumate]

I can't help but think of 1 Cor 3:10-15. While I know Paul's focus there is eschatological, I can't help but think there's a measure of truth for the testing that comes before the Day of Judgment.
It is easy to look grace-oriented when everyone seems to be fine, but when testing happens, as in the case of Haggard, what "materials" have been used to build your church are revealed.
The thing to take heart in, I suppose, is that it's not unique to America or to our times. Many godly men who were not engaged in sinful lifestyles have been rejected by their churches throughout the generations. It's a sad, lamentable truth. Paul himself had to defend his ministry from those whose very churches he founded. Jonathan Edwards was ejected by his own congregation.
I know this response isn't going to the heart of the issue in terms of sin but I hope this encourages you. I myself am in seminary and question whether or not I really want to be serving in a church given the harsh environment so many pastors face.
The last thing i will say is that Haggard's case and many others are symptoms of a harsher truth that we in America due to our libertarian background and Enlightenment influences have a very woeful and in large part unbiblical ecclesiology that comes out all of the time. We don't have a clue what church is or means as defined by God. We think it's a place for like-minded, enjoyable individuals who to some degree or another like Jesus to come together and enjoy life with one another. As long as that convenience and comfort isn't disturbed we're happy. If it is, we're likely to go to another church or stop going to church all together. This of course in no way describes genuine followers of Christ, only an attitude I feel like I have seen generally speaking within the Church here in the U.S.