Phill Sacre

Tag: jonathan fletcher

  • A few thoughts about safeguarding

    A few thoughts about safeguarding

    A couple of days ago, the organisation ThirtyOne:Eight released their review into what happened at Emmanuel Church Wimbledon and Jonathan Fletcher (see the report from the Independent Advisory Group for a shorter summary). This follows hard on the heels of the full report about Ravi Zacharias which was only released just over a month ago.

    Naturally, people have been talking a lot about these things. How could this happen? How can we ensure it never happens again?

    One of the things which came up with Jonathan Fletcher was “Fletcher Culture”. The problem with both Jonathan Fletcher and Ravi Zacharias was not with them alone but with the culture they created. Unfortunately in the case of Jonathan Fletcher, because his influence was extensive, that culture has managed to extend pretty widely into the conservative evangelical world.

    Over the past few months I’ve been thinking a lot about safeguarding, and I’d like to share a few brief thoughts.

    Safeguarding exists because of sin

    The first thing is, the reason safeguarding is necessary is because sin exists: if sin didn’t exist, there would be no need for safeguarding.

    Sin is a falling away from God’s standards. It is both actively doing what is wrong, as well as failing to do what is right. (This means that most sin falls within the second category – none of us love as we should.) Sin includes abusing power and authority as well as sexual immorality. Sin also includes failing to act when it’s in our power to do something about abuse. In other words, sin includes the specific wrongs done by an abuser as well as the culture which enables it.

    Now, of course, the church is made up of sinners. People don’t stop being sinners when they come to Christ! In fact, it’s almost the opposite: when people come to Christ, they realise how deep their sinfulness is. I’ve had several new Christians say to me that they thought they were doing OK before becoming Christians, but now they had only just begun to realise how bad they were.

    But – thanks be to God – there is good news!

    The solution to sin

    There is a remedy for sin! In Jesus Christ, God offers us not only forgiveness of sins – a complete cleansing – but the power of the Holy Spirit. We can bear the fruit of the Spirit in our lives (Galatians 5:22-24), not by our own strength but as the Holy Spirit works in us.

    Of course, that doesn’t mean that sin instantly disappears when we come to Christ. But it does mean that it has lost its power – we have a new master. Over time, as we walk in step with the Spirit, we are transformed day by day into the likeness of Christ.

    And because we are a church, we confess our sins to each other, pray for each other, and walk with each other. God doesn’t simply call us to run an individual race, but work together as a team. We encourage and help each other across the finish line, so to speak. In other words, as the Spirit works in our lives, he also creates a Christian community or culture. We grow in holiness not simply as individuals but as a church.

    The fundamental point I’m trying to make here is this: if the church is working properly, safeguarding should not be necessary. Safeguarding is something that should not be needed in the church full of people walking in step with the Spirit.

    Before anyone says anything – the fact that something shouldn’t be needed doesn’t mean it’s not needed. I’m not arguing here we should abolish all safeguarding officers and safeguarding best practices. That’s not the point I’m making here. Please bear with me…

    What about Ravi Zacharias and Jonathan Fletcher?

    I think you have to seriously question whether someone who is living in a pattern of unrepentant sin is actually a Christian. Sin is a powerful thing, and we can’t escape it on our own. But with Holy Spirit to convict us of our sin and help us to change, progress is possible. So, a Christian may have a battle over a sin like pornography, for example – but if the Holy Spirit was at work I would hope (even expect) to see that battle being won as time went by.

    I’ve seen a few people making the point over the last few weeks that we’re all sinners: any of us could have done what JF or RZ did. In a sense this is true. All of us are only what we are by the grace of God. At the same time, I think this is also doing a massive disservice to the Holy Spirit. Someone does not become a serial abuser without intent – no genuine repentance, no growth in holiness.

    Christians can and do sin in serious ways. There are many examples of Biblical characters who sin in pretty big ways. King David, for example, committed adultery with Bathsheba, but more than that – covered it up by having her husband killed! Having an affair is sadly not unknown for Christians, even Christian leaders. When it happens, repentance and reconciliation is possible but it takes time to heal. But if someone had many affairs, continually, over almost their entire adult life, it’s a different matter. That’s not sinning and repenting – that’s brazen disobedience. That’s the kind of behaviour that Hebrews 10 is talking about:

    If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God … How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

    Hebrews 10:26-27, 29

    And that’s the issue with RZ and JF. They weren’t leaders who had a moral failure. They seemed to actively pursue what was wrong, again and again. They preached the gospel, but I’m not sure whether they really understood and believed the gospel.

    And this leads me on to the worst thing of all.

    What does it say about the culture?

    I would hope that a Christian organisation or network would be the kind of place where safeguarding happened naturally. If people were genuinely walking with the Spirit, in fellowship and prayer, then if someone was a bit ‘off’ I think it would show. It’s possible to preach an orthodox, Biblical sermon without being a believer – but it’s a lot harder to deceive people who know you well.

    If the whole church was truly growing in Christ and growing in holiness, than someone who wasn’t would stand out like a sore thumb. Except that… Ravi Zacharias and Jonathan Fletcher apparently didn’t stand out like a sore thumb. And that’s worrying: if Jonathan and Ravi were not walking in step with the Spirit, what does that say about the culture they were part of? (And the culture I am part of, to an extent?)

    What does it say about the conservative evangelical world that Jonathan Fletcher helped to create?

    What happened with Jonathan Fletcher and Ravi Zacharias is just the tip of the iceberg. It seems to me that we don’t need more safeguarding (as important as safeguarding is!). We need a much deeper spiritual reformation of the church. This is an issue which is not something which those people over there need to deal with (e.g. Emmanuel Church Wimbledon, or RZIM, or conservative evangelical churches). This is something that we, the church, need to deal with – in our own hearts and in our own churches.

    A new reformation

    Mike Ovey, late principal of the college where I trained for ordination, used to say that he was hoping and prayer for a new reformation. I’m more convinced by the day that he was right. We need nothing less in the church. I’ve talked about this a few times on the blog before (e.g. my previous post on Ravi Zacharias).

    We need to get on our knees and earnestly seek the Lord in prayer to renew and reform us.

  • Another scandal. We desperately need spiritual reformation

    Another scandal. We desperately need spiritual reformation

    What can we learn after yet another prominent Christian leader falls to sexual temptation? Is there a problem in the way we preach the gospel? Here I argue that the church desperately needs another spiritual reformation.

    The preacher and evangelist Ravi Zacharias died recently. It didn’t take long after his death for reports of sexual misconduct to come up. One example is that he sexually harassed some women working at one of the spas he co-owned. According to the article:

    “He would expose himself every time, and he would touch himself every time,” one of the women told CT. “It was where he went to get what he wanted sexually.”

    Zacharias masturbated in front of one of the women more than 50 times, according to her recollection. He told her he was burdened by the demands of the ministry, and he needed this “therapy.” He also asked her to have sex with him twice, she said, and requested explicit photos of her.

    These deeply sad and troubling accusations are happening hard on the heels of revelations about Jonathan Fletcher last year. It seems that we’ve had a string lately of high-profile Christian leaders who have been embroiled in sexual scandals. I think this should trouble us as the church, particularly evangelicals: why is it that so many leaders have fallen this way?

    Christian Leaders do not belong on a pedestal

    One lesson that it’s very important to learn is that leaders are people, just like everyone else. Everyone has the same temptations – leaders are not immune from them. Christians should not put anyone on a pedestal, except for Jesus. Only he is sinless!

    One of the problems with our society today is that we are very ‘celebrity’ obsessed. I think the modern media, especially social media, exacerbates this problem. We tend to flock around people who we like to listen to. The Christian world is far from immune. I can recognise it in myself: when I go on Christian conferences or teaching days, I like to recognise the names of the people who’ll be speaking. In itself I don’t think this is necessarily a problem – but the problem comes when we expect people gifted to teach and lead to be perfect. The Messiah complex!

    So, let’s remember that Christian leaders are Christians. They can fall, and they need our prayers. As a Christian leader myself, albeit in a much smaller capacity than Ravi Zacharias – I hugely value people praying for me.

    So, all Christians are liable to fall to temptation, and it’s good to remember that. But I think there is a deeper issue here. Does the fact that so many Christian leaders have fallen in this way suggest that there is a problem with the gospel being preached?

    Is there a gospel issue?

    I wonder if part of the problem is that many evangelical churches have come to reduce the definition of the gospel. I wrote about this before, and again recently when I wrote about grace. This is what I wrote back in July of last year:

    One of the ways I think evangelical churches (including, and perhaps especially, conservative evangelical churches) subtly distort the gospel is by portraying the Christian life like this: it’s all about avoiding sin.

    It’s a bit like one of those car-racing video games – every time you see a pothole or an obstacle coming, you have to move so you don’t hit it. I think we often unconsciously visualise the Christian life in this way: we live our lives day-to-day, trying our hardest to avoid sinning, and asking God for forgiveness when we fail and the help not to sin again. I call this view ‘almost the gospel’ – it’s so close, and yet not quite there.

    This applies to sex and sexuality. Our culture says that our happiness will be found when we are most sexually fulfilled. But God says we will be most happy when we submit our sexuality to him. Only he can fill our deepest longings. This is something which I think a lot of churches don’t really focus on. Or at least, they may talk about it intellectually but it hasn’t really hit home emotionally.

    I wonder if this is the problem when it comes to Christian leaders falling sexually. I mean, the things they’re accused of doing are not little slips. It’s not like accidentally switching on an adult channel in a hotel late at night. It’s directly abusive of others. It reminds me of 1 Corinthians 5v1: “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate”. The kinds of things RZ and JF have done, or been accused of doing, would not be tolerated in our secular society.

    We need spiritual reformation

    Christian leaders are sinners, but they should be mature Christians. They should have a knowledge that God’s ways are best, that God alone can satisfy. I just can’t conceive of someone doing the kinds of things that Ravi Zacharias or Jonathan Fletcher are accused of doing without understanding that it’s deeply wrong and sinful. Someone who slips up and sins out of weakness is one thing. Someone who has an established pattern of sin over the course of several months or years – that’s another level.

    I honestly think the real need of the church at the moment is for spiritual reformation. We need to learn deeply the truth of these words:

    Taste and see that the Lord is good;
    blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
    Fear the Lord, you his holy people,
    for those who fear him lack nothing.
    The lions may grow weak and hungry,
    but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

    Psalm 34:8-10

    Over the last few months and years, I’ve begun to realise the truth of this Psalm in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever been taught before. God is not some kind of arbitrary rule giver, who gives us rules to stop us being happy. One of the reasons we are so tempted by sexual temptation is because it promises us happiness beyond what we think God would give. But the truth is the exact opposite: only God’s ways can give us true happiness, in every area.

    Is the reason that we keep on falling this way is because much of the church simply does not recognise the goodness of God?

    This is vital for the health of the church

    A few days ago I read a helpful article by Jay Stringer about Ravi Zacharias. In that post he said:

    When a man will not engage his sexual brokenness, the inevitable outcome is a system that heavily polices cross gender relationships.  We don’t honor women by refusing to extend relationship or leadership to them. We honor women by doing everything possible to locate the sexual brokenness and manipulation that exists within. Being like Jesus means that we learn how to have close relationships with female friends in a way that is marked with humility, honor, and delight. The image of God is both male and female (Genesis 1:27). If you want to know who God is, but you want to “protect” yourself from women, you’re excluding a whole lot of God.

    I think this is spot on. We live in a society which is going made about sex and sexuality. I just think so many people, especially young people, don’t know which was is up any more. What the world doesn’t need right now is the church failing in exactly the same area! In fact, we as the church should be like a city on a hill – showing the world the light and life that comes from knowing Christ.

    We should be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1). We should start treating each other like family, as that is in fact what we are. And we should be walking in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:16), rather than trying to use our own personal version of the Billy Graham rule to stay pure. This means men and women treating each other like brothers and sisters, like true friends. God has the power to overcome the idols of our society and remake us in his image.

    Can men and women be friends after all?

    A couple of years ago, Aimee Byrd wrote a book called “Why can’t we be friends?” Subtitled – “avoidance is not purity”. This sums it up for me: I think many churches teach a kind of ‘avoidance’ strategy when it comes to purity. This isn’t going to work, and I think this is why too many Christian leaders have fallen.

    If you think of the Christian life primarily as being about avoiding sin, then your greatest enemy is temptation. It’s only a matter of time before you fall – even more so for Christian leaders. This is a particular problem when our society seems to be so sex-obsessed. One effect means that we will only see members of the opposite sex in terms of temptation.

    If, on the other hand, we see the Christian life as being about seeking after the Lord, his goodness and his ways, then it will be a different story. We can start to see others as people made in God’s image, given his beauty. We can start relating to them with the love given by the Spirit, beyond merely human love.

    I believe we in the Western church right now need to seek after the Lord like we haven’t done in a long time. It’s time to stop talking about doctrine and instead to start believing it.

    Lord, please send a spiritual reformation upon your people.