The other day, I stumbled across an online sermon by the worst person I’ve ever known.
It’s from December.
In it, he tells a terribly sad story and then speaks of the self-destructive life, detailing how it develops. I’ll share his points now and give the context in which they were said later.
I’m quoting from him directly. I was furiously writing and pausing the sound file to get this all down, I was so gobsmacked.
Here’s the evolution of “the self-destructive life”:
All you have to do is …..
— avoid worship, avoid singing and rejoicing in the Lord and when you do sing and rejoice, make it only for a moment, not a lifestyle
— avoid studying truth
— avoid praying with abandon
— stop thanking God for the things you have; it will secure a self-destructive life
— complain about what you don’t have; make sure that you focus on the inequities of life; it will guarantee senselessness and rebellion
— compare yours to others, focus on that every day
— don’t invest in people’s lives
— remove yourself from society as far as you can
— never give where you don’t have to give
— isolate yourself from the kingdom of God
— don’t enjoy the fellowship of brothers and sisters in Christ; avoid them out of fear or anger or whatever drives you; you will definitely become self-destructive
— embrace self-pity as an acceptable emotion
— see the difficulties of your life as the basis for your self-pity and let your world wrap around that emotion
— justify your rebellion because of your pain and live with it every day
— focus totally on the temporal benefits of life
— never see the power of eternity and the purpose of living for God
— as a lifestyle, choose temporal things — beauty, acceptance, material possessions; you will inevitably become spiritually in rebellion against God
— finally, let the world dictate your worldview; don’t accept God’s truth as final; accept whatever the world says
This is the development of a self-destructive lifestyle.
I won’t argue the points; that’s not my purpose here. It’s difficult for me to write about this man because he is, to my mind, literally, the worst person I’ve ever known. For a while now, I’ve meant to write about my destructive dealings with him; I’ve even started and abandoned a few half-written posts because I find it almost impossible to write coherently about such an abusive person.
And just a few years ago, he was my pastor.
I don’t know how those points above struck you as you read them. Perhaps you found yourself agreeing with them. Fine. They aren’t necessarily wrong. Actually, divorced from the larger context of his message, I pretty much agree with them.
But here is the context I promised:
He is speaking of his ex-wife, to whom he was married nearly 30 years.
His own ex-wife.
Who had killed herself exactly a week before.
Here she is, not cold in the grave, and she is made to be his public model for the “self-destructive lifestyle.” The mother of his children. A woman known by many people at the church. The pastor’s longtime wife, for God’s sake! The woman he’d spent the larger part of his life with. The woman who had stood by him all those years until — for whatever reasons — she’d left him about 5 years before.
She is dead and gone, but still useful fodder for some sermon points, I guess. Points that read like some callous litany of a dead woman’s supposed flaws, rebellions, and sins against man and God, even.
He is USING her flaws as a sermon outline. It is so cold-blooded, it made me gasp.
Whether they are accurate or not is MOOT. It’s moot. There can be no reasonable or compassionate context for such a violation.
She is dead.
These are for private consideration, not public broadcast.
He goes on to describe her death:
On Sunday morning, at about 12 o’clock, she took another stash of pills and this time added substance to it that would guarantee this time would work (ed.: she had tried to kill herself just the week before) …. and at 2:30 she went into the presence of the Lord.
The inevitable result of a life of drinking the poison of lies every day.
Wow. “Inevitable result”? Inevitable? Such compassion. So, uhm …. “that’s what you get,” I guess? You will inevitably kill yourself, then? If it was inevitable that’s what would happen, why was she left alone so it could happen?
“Inevitable”?
I won’t write about my interactions with this man right now. At some point, perhaps I will. It all takes a backseat, though, to what happened with his ex-wife, TO his ex-wife. I never knew her, but certainly knew of her. Somehow, though, I always felt a small sort of kinship with her. It’s arrogant even to say that, I suppose, but I felt through my comparatively short, but nonetheless damaging relationship with this pastor, I had a glimpse of what her life might have been like living with such a man. A man who lives too much for his public. A man who cares too much about image. A man of God, publicly committed to biblical truth who will not be privately swayed by it, even when put right in front of him. A man who expects bending to his will, not God’s. A man who will humiliate and verbally abuse. A man who sends people limping and broken from his church, at his hands, and cares not a bit to tend to their wounds. A man who will not apologize or seek forgiveness. A man who fits the clinical definition of a narcissist.
You may say I’m being judgmental. Go ahead. Say it. But we are called to judge, to have discernment. We are called to judge what is right and wrong, what is good and evil. A lack of conscience is a breeding ground for all kinds of harm. I speak from what I know of this man and I’ll wager I know more of him than many of the wiry-haired old ladies who’ve sat in those pews for years and see him only as they choose to see him — as the apple of their faithful, fading eyes.
Near the end of this sermon, he says:
Suicide is a horrible, horrible tragedy of human despair. It comes from a life that has been unable to assimilate truth and truth to become that which changes a life. (emphasis mine)
So she failed. She was “unable to assimilate truth”; therefore, she committed suicide. To suggest that the only reason a person commits suicide is because she is “unable to assimilate truth” is not only faulty logic; it’s cruel. There are plenty of non-Christians, unassimilated to the truth, who don’t commit suicide. Suicide comes from a place too dark and too deep for this man’s understanding.
I felt sick to my stomach listening to this and so deeply, horribly sad for her. The fate of this woman I never knew kept me up last night. I know she’s with God, free of earthly chains. But her life ……. I’m only left to imagine.
After I listened to this message, I poked around the archives and found the sermon from the previous week. Here’s the mental picture I could not escape as I listened to it and put the timeline together:
The pastor, up in his pulpit, speaking on this week of the failed suicide attempt of “a woman he knows and cares about” just the Sunday before, while at the very same time — because it happened on this very Sunday morning — she is at home, alone, recovering from her failed attempt, by making sure it succeeds this time.
As he speaks of her attempt and exploits her despair, she is all alone and dying. This man, who’s all about biblical “context, context, context,” seems utterly devoid of proper emotional context in real life, in interpersonal issues. This was a violation of his ex-wife, his dead ex-wife, someone despairing enough that death seemed the only escape. Trotting her out in front her former church as a negative example of how to live, well, it’s the work of an utter narcissist.
She died at Thanksgiving. Three months ago. Meanwhile, he seems to have a new girlfriend. My Beloved had recently seen him with a woman at a local coffeehouse. And yesterday, since we live in the neighborhood, we happened to be driving by the church as the late service was letting out and spotted him. There he was, this 50-something-year-old man, strutting along the sidewalk, laughing loudly, sporting a Ryan Seacrest-type shirt, having retired, I guess, the suit he stubbornly used to wear. I imagine because this look is more “cool.” He was towing a woman along behind him, hand in hand, the same woman MB had seen; I assume a girlfriend. If she’d witnessed this coldhearted sermon, how did she not bolt for the door? I don’t see how a person of any discernment could miss the cold and hostile context here.
Prancing down that sidewalk, the pastor seemed quite over the “intense agony” he’d said he had.
To the one who is gone, I am so sorry. I don’t know what else to say. I am so sorry that you died so despairing, so alone.
But I know — I know! — you’ve finally found the abundant love that perhaps you never felt here.
Tracey,
He sounds like what Scott Peck called “people of the lie”.
I’m sorry you had to encounter that.
A question, though: why don’t you name him, and the church?
The church I go to has recently (2 years ago) gone through a split, and when it happened (senior pastor booted by the elders), all of a sudden, all these stories about the damage he had done to people started coming out. It turns out his public personna, and his private personna were two very different things, and people had been covering for him for years.
The current church leadership is still persuing reconcilliation with as many of the damaged souls left in his wake as they can. Good for them. They are doing good, not just saying it.
But here’s the point: I feel uneasy about naming him also. I know he’s a jerk, who did real damage to real people, but to name him seems unseemly, if that’s a correct phrase.
Is there a good reason for this, or is this just the residue of a lifetime of being a “good Christian”?
-Steve
Terrifying. I don’t understand that kind of coldness of heart. I just don’t.
Matthew 7:15-23 —
15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
I found it truly frightening that he spoke on all of this, put it all out in the open, under the guise of “being authentic” he said. I just shudder.
This makes my blood run cold to think of. How can people be taken in? I hope his wife is at peace now.
How was he being authentic with someone else’s life?
I can overlook a lot of stuff. I can understand a grieving man saying some bizarre stuff while trying to cope with his wife’s suicide. But all this goes beyond the pale.
I am reminded of the passage where we are told that an elder should have things together at home before he thinks about leading a group of God’s people.
I also imagine you can’t be the only person who heard this sermon and thought that, Tracey. He needs to apologize to the whole church.
I was thinking, “hmmm, those things aren’t so bad”. BUT. The context. Oh my word. Oh.My.Word.
All people had of her now were memories and he has tarnished even those. ugh.
Very disturbing. He’s just plain DESTRUCTIVE,himself. You’re right about judgment, too.
God is love.
Tinabell — Destructive, exactly! I agree. You don’t know just how MUCH I agree!!
Steve and Rev — Sorry your comments went into moderation! What good points you both raise!
First, Rev — Yes. I’ve asked that myself. Making someone else’s private pain public is not the definition of “authenticity.” I can think of a few other words that fit that definition, none of them “authenticity.”
Also, it’s worth mentioning that the sound file of that particular sermon is no longer on the website. Poof! Gone.
Steve — MAN! GOOD question!! Part of my story with this man involves an abusive email he sent me. At the time, I was somewhat afraid of him, actually. The elders are, I believe, completely in his thrall, so I thought it was useless to go to them.
(Oh, it’s a lonnnng story!)
Sometimes, God help me, I wish I would have taken my brother’s suggestion, which was this:
Take his abusive email, make copies, put them on people’s windshields during church. That would have caused …. a stir, to say the least.
But I did not respond to the letter. I actually didn’t read the whole thing because my husband wouldn’t let me. It was that bad.
But …. my husband did respond to him. He said to me, “YOU are not responding to him because he is trying to bait you. I am your husband. I am standing in this gap for you.” And his email was the most brilliant and scathingly truthful email I’ve ever, ever read. It was perfect. Perfect. He was my hero.
But, you see, the pastor is, I believe, actually a narcissist. A true narcissist just cannot be reached. I have a close relative who is a psychologist and she’s told me that this is one of the least treatable psychological disorders. She said — and I think this is SO interesting, “A narcissist is someone who is ACTING like a human being.” Wow. Just so creepy.
These two characteristics of NPD are key as they relate to this man (taken from a page on Narcissistic Personality Disorder):
A narcissistic individual lacks empathy and does not identify with the feelings or needs of others.
A narcissistic individual shows arrogant or haughty behaviors or attitudes and does not care who he offends.
At the time of my “dealings” with him, I thought many times about naming him. BUT I truly believed that I would come out more scathed than he. I’m sure that is true anyway. There is such a system of defense built up around him. He is far too insulated, protected, trusted even, because he’s fooled the masses with chumminess and jokeyness and bearhugs. Going after him would have been like a nobody trying to take down a somebody and then the somebody would have had the nobody killed. Make sense?
But I know I can say I did all that the Lord called me to do with this man.
I don’t think he can say the same.
Steve – you know, I thought of People of the Lie when I read this post as well. Chilling.
red — I knew you would think of that! It’s so exactly true!
red — was modifying my long comment up above right as you commented. Don’t know if you saw that quote from my relative who’s a psychologist. It’s really frightening.
“acting like a human being”
*shivers*
Tracey…I am so sorry for the pain this person has caused you. I pray that he can find forgiveness and that you can find peace. I was blessed to hear of your husband’s protection of you! Stories like that just make me wanna cry…it is just so sweet!
“There is such a system of defense built up around him. He is far too insulated, protected, trusted even, because he’s fooled the masses with chumminess and jokeyness and bearhugs. Going after him would have been like a nobody trying to take down a somebody and then the somebody would have had the nobody killed. Make sense?”
Exactly why I have not gone after my former Pastor. *That* situation was/is less readily proved. He’s done all his deals in the shadows. At least *you* have an email to point to.
The only thing I have to point to are various unrelated buildings named after him (which were built with church money), $1000.00 silk suits (while he rails on his congregation for materialism), no open books (which I’m pretty sure is a violation of non-profit tax law), packing the bench with all his relatives and long-time cohorts, no open communication and an unwritten policy of bullying dissenting members into leaving (sometimes directly from the pulpit). And this is a church thousands *and thousands* of members strong.
Samaritan’s Purse sends out their financial statements every year — via email! I can’t even get a polite, “Yes, I’ll pass that request on,” from the office staff at my old church. Their attitude is very much, “How dare you!”.
It breaks my heart that everything I learned as a brand-new Christian now has to be UNlearned. It breaks my heart that someone I thought I could trust — someone I *did* trust with my whole heart — for whom I prayed fervently, for whom I sacrificed Sunday mornings, Sunday nights and Wednesday evenings… *shrug* … turned out to be a villain.
Guess I should have done all that for God instead, right? *tired smirk*
I mean that’s really what they are building, isn’t it? They’re building a religion by, for, about and to themselves. They want to be worshiped. And they’re clever enough to make it all happen in the guise of poor, little, humble, big teary-eyed sheep’s clothing. And starving people eat it up.
That is all just so sad!
Where did I hear that you can tell when a wolf is among the sheep by all the wounded sheep present?
Just so so so so sad!
I am so sorry this happens to baby Christians, they are easy prey, vulnerable, wanting to please God, afraid to offend, etc.
There is a day of reckoning, (verse comes to mind of millstones around necks) I pray for the souls of these in positions of authority and leadership.
This is exactly why I never go to church. There aren’t any which are free from this taint any more. Since moving to Santa Monica I’ve been to several churches. Every. Single. One. has had someone like this at the helm.
Are there any genuine churches anymore? I’m saddened to even have to ask.
While I think the perfect church and one free of abuse are two different things, I can say there are definitely healthy churches with healthy people in them, even healthy leadership. I’ve gone to several.
Bruce – Yes there still are genuine churches. Each and every one will have a problem or ten, but you need to keep looking for one that you can fit into and can work toward changing.
Churches like the ones Tracey and WG are speaking of are worth avoiding. But don’t let it sour you on church.
Bruce — I don’t know. I’ve been burned by leadership twice. So I’ve become less … involved … because I don’t trust much.
The very people I should trust — long to trust, actually, I’m wary around.
I think that’s actually PART of why I have a blog.
BTW, Bruce — HAVE YOU FINISHED JANE EYRE?!
I FINISHED IT LAST WEEK! OH, I LOVED IT SO MUCH!!!
I’m dying to know what you thought. A man’s perspective.
Tracey,
I don’t even have words. The fact that things like this take place is just sick. I’ve experienced bad things at the hands of controlling pastoral leadership but nothing like you speak of here. What a shame, what a shame!
tracey – HOW ‘BOUT THAT LAST CHAPTER OF JANE EYRE?????????????
WHEN HE CALLS TO HER ACROSS THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM?????????
forgive the caps. It just … I need to speak about that last chapter of that book in all caps. AMAZING.
YOU CAN’T WRITE ABOUT IT WITHOUT USING CAPS!!!
I WENT BACK AND READ IT AGAIN AND AGAIN JUST TO HAVE THAT FEELING!!!
WE ARE INSANE!!
I’M NOT DONE WITH IT YET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂
I’m just up to the part where she finds out about Mrs Rochester, and Edward is trying to explain how he was tricked into marrying her.
I love how strong she is. Able to forgive instantly a cruel deception and yet knowing that she can’t stay, resolute in her desire to quit Thornfield. Quite a woman, our Miss Eyre.
“I love how strong she is. Able to forgive instantly a cruel deception and yet knowing that she can’t stay, resolute in her desire to quit Thornfield. Quite a woman, our Miss Eyre.”
Anyone else see the irony in this considering what the original post was about?
Things that make ya go “hmmmmmmm”
Yeah, Lyn, no KIDDING. Good point.
Yeah, I felt it too, just after I clicked the “submit” button. Hm… 🙂