~ Unbiblical Pastoral Authority ~

Unbiblical Pastoral Authority ~  

"To learn who rules over you simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."  ~Voltaire

When people know God for themselves they experience His unconditional love,  and taste of every good thing He is.  They then go to church only to experience something empty and fake, utterly devoid of what they know God to be, and they are hurt.  Deeply.  That hurt runs so deep because we expect "God's house" to be a place of safety where one can go for healing.  We also innocently extend trust to the pastor, as we should, and when that trust is betrayed the results are often so traumatizing they are nothing short of catastrophic.  I know people who have been manipulatively abused by pastors years and years ago who to this day still struggle with PTSD.  When we leave hurting instead of healed, as we expect, that trauma causes psychological, emotional, and even physical affects. 

With the hurt, disappointment and betrayal of this magnitude that go hand in hand with this kind of subtle, manipulative, but nevertheless very real abuse, people are often given trite, rote answers of turning the other cheek, being forgiving, more long-suffering, and other forms of verses taken out of context to make the abused feel guilty.  People will say it's a result of our "spiritual condition" or "spiritual maturity”. They also use the verse "Great peace have they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them" and say that we just must not love God's Word enough if we feel hurt.   They make it all about us, when in reality, it truly has very little, if anything at all, to do with us.  

While these concepts are true when taken in context, they are in no way implying that one should stay in an abusive situation.  Jesus was the meekest man who ever lived, but when it came down to seeing humble, broken, genuinely "poor in spirit" people being hounded and abused by the spiritual authorities of the day, namely the scribes and Pharisees, He defended them with heated vengeance, publicly calling the abusers out with names like vipers and hypocrites.  (See Matthew 23)

Jesus' meekness caused Him to know what these people suffered, and He felt their pain acutely.  Therefore, no one could empathize with what they felt like He could.  He was the hero they needed, rushing fearlessly and gloriously to their defense, immediately present to rescue and comfort them.  He is near to the broken hearted!  He is all that and more to each and every one of us.  He knows.  He sees.  

I never realized before really delving into this topic that verses on turning the other cheek were more for the benefit of the Pharisees than the people they oppressed because they believed themselves to be above being struck once, let alone twice.  It was unthinkable that one of their "subjects" should do such a thing to such a superior person as they.  

Is it not much the same today?  How often have you heard phrases like "touch not the Lord's anointed" used to say that you should unquestioningly, unreservedly, even blindly follow the pastor simply because he is the pastor, even if you disagree?  

Due to faulty teaching on pastoral authority people will often put the pastor in an elevated position, much like that of the priest in a Catholic church.  The priesthood of the believers is a gift that some unknowingly forfeit by going to the pastor for every little thing, instead of searching the Scriptures and seeking God's leadership for themselves.  Counsel has its place, but it is not to take the place of going directly to God, by faith trusting Him to lead.  Since God is no respecter of persons, no man is endowed a greater amount of wisdom or grace or any other gift of God due to his position in the church.  As one author so aptly put it, "one cannot wash another's feet from a pedestal."

Healthy leadership seeks to help those they are leading to see Jesus’ sufficiency in their lives for everything they need.  God wants His children to rely so wholeheartedly on Him that they run to Him for everything.  Instead of searching the Scriptures for themselves to see if the things they are being taught are true, many take what the pastor says as absolute truth.  Abusive leaders often “weed out” those who are strong in their beliefs because they have the discernment to call them out on inconsistencies, in their minds “threatening” their authority.  Thus the environment is ripe for the blind to lead the blind.