As we watch the Western world burn down around itself with leader after leader who demands obedience, refuses to heed wise counsel that refutes their shibboleths, and who punishes those who call out the problems early, we need a church leadership that lives differently. A church leadership whose vision of Jesus is so big and so all encompassing, that the baubles of approval from bad leadership are not enticing enough to take it off track. 

Untrustworthy Leaders
We’ve been around long enough now to know that bad leadership is everywhere. Untrustworthy leadership.  The church, it seems, is often – sadly – just as culpable as the world.  In fact more culpable. Equipped with the very tools to deal with toxicity, bullying, private ungodliness masked with public piety, we pull our punches.
We are proving to be just as untrustworthy as the world when it comes to calling out bad leadership.
And with the very person of Jesus – who time and time again had to call out his disciples for having a worldly view of leadership – we seem stuck in the rut of bad, untrustworthy leadership. Or at least we seem unable to call it out early .
And the church is getting sick of it. And more to the point, getting sick of having to open an email or read a Christian journal that calls it out for the church. My own experience is that it isn’t until the sheep are bleating loud enough to the point of embarrassment that anything is ever done.
And even then. Even then. I’ve spent a lot of hours recently on Zoom with a group that is looking at taking on a leader who has been publicly shown to be unqualified to lead God’s people time and time again. Three hours to be exact on Zoom. Three hours across the world at a time of the morning I’d rather be chilling in the early quiet with a hot brew.
And no matter what evidence I presented, I’ve been implored for more. Several times. I’ve been asked to show evidence from other people’s private emails (which I won’t do). At the end I simply said “Even if someone were to rise from the dead, you wouldn’t believe.” Cheeky I know, but come on people!
How Bad Leadership Thrives
Journalist Bari Weiss, – once of The New York Times, but who left due to its had leadership that failed to call out the personal abuse and anti-Semitism she was experiencing from other staff -, nails it in an article republished in The Times.
Speaking about how she was hounded at a dinner party earlier this year when she mentioned that Joe Biden might be losing it and not fit for the role of president, she states that she was publicly called out for it. But privately? That was a different matter.
Privately everyone was acknowledging what they could not – would not – acknowledge publicly. Why? She states:
A Democratic insider put it more bluntly when I asked him what had taken so long: “Proximity to power, privilege, prestige. That’s the currency. And people fiercely protect their access. They put self-preservation over principle.”
That’s it right there. And sadly I’ve seen it in church leadership way too often. Which seems incredible, yes? Here we are as the people of God with the absolutely mind-blowing privilege of proximity everyday to the most powerful person – the Lord Jesus – access to the throne of grace as Hebrews reminds us
Clear that tells us that we don’t believe our own theology as much as we say we do. When God is big in our eyes other people are not too big, nor are they too small. They are human-sized. And that means for their sake and the sake of others you should tell the truth.
In two significant occasions in which I have called out poor leadership – and it cost me my job on one of those occasions – the leadership found every way they could to excuse the sinful behaviour of the person at the top, and in both cases the story was “But he gets things done”, and “We need to show that person more grace”.
So there’s a pattern to these conversations and an armoury of theological reasons that the world is not equipped with. Which means – ironically – the church can keep hold of poor leaders longer than the world can! And – sadly – so often does.
What does this leave us like? It leaves us craven and submitting to poor leadership for the sake of a few glittering baubles of approval. Approval from someone who we actually fear would step all over us if we were to demur.
We can say from the stage all we like about grace-renewal leadership, but if behind the scenes we are formed by fear and insecurities, then no amount of public declarations will atone for it.
And why do followers of such leaders allow this to happen? Knowingly? Because after you have watched him (and it’s most often a him), do over the people you once worked with who called it out, why would he not do it to you?
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The Bible presents Jesus Christ as the last Adam and promised savior of his people to come and regain, in our place, perfectly, what the first Adam lost. This being so, we shouldn’t be surprised that a garden scene is described in the Bible before the penalty of death is executed by the last Adam.

For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous (Romans 5:19).

One of the more important contrasts in the Bible is between the first Adam in the original garden of Eden, and the last Adam, Jesus Christ, who came as God’s gift to to the world to save people from their sins. This great contrast helps us to understand that what Adam lost, Christ has regained—and more. The most vivid of these contrasts in shown to us in the arrest of Jesus in John’s gospel as Jesus purposefully steps into our place of judgment.
Two Gardens
The Bible presents Jesus Christ as the last Adam and promised savior of his people to come and regain, in our place, perfectly, what the first Adam lost. This being so, we shouldn’t be surprised that a garden scene is described in the Bible before the penalty of death is executed by the last Adam.
In John 18:1-11, a great contrast is drawn between the two garden scenes of the first and last Adam. John begins by telling us that Jesus went out over the Brook Kidron where there was a garden which he and his disciples entered. That John doesn’t mention Gethsemane is a purposeful omission to let the single word “garden” captivate the reader. What kind of garden was this?
The first man Adam lost everything in the original garden.
When we think of a garden, we think of a beautiful place of plants, shady trees, and that which is pleasant. John’s mention of Kidron, however, should not go unnoticed. Throughout the Old Testament Kidron was known, particularly by the designation of Jeremiah, as a place of dead bodies and ashes. Jeremiah 31:40 states,

The whole valley of the dead bodies and the ashes, and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be sacred to the Lord.

The valley of dead bones, death and ashes was a place consecrated by the Lord for precisely what John 18 describes.
The first man Adam lost everything in the original garden. The garden was a place of beauty and peace. In was in this garden, however, that the crown of God’s creation, made in his image ,was seduced away into rebellion and ruin. God said to Adam,

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (Gen. 2:17).

That’s exactly what happened: the garden became a place of exile and death.
The first Adam hid from God’s judgment.
To keep with the contrast in John, the reader should be reminded that the original garden scene came with a day of reckoning. Genesis 3:8 describes God coming into the garden in the “cool of the day.” This has been one of the most misunderstood verses in all of the Bible. God was not taking a casual stroll to enjoy the breeze, only to discover the half-eaten piece of fruit in the hand of Adam. Genesis 3:8 describes the final Day of Judgment in the original garden. Adam heard the sound of God’s glory coming forth in the “spirit” (ruach) of [judgment] day. What did Adam do? He ran as fast as he could the other way and hid.
Fast forward to John 18, and we have the same scene. John presents the last Adam as crossing over the valley in the shadow of death for us, into the place of dead bodies and ashes. Jesus is standing in our place to pick up the pieces where the first Adam once fell. The whole thing is meant to recall the first garden scene, provoking the question: What would have happened had God unleashed the fury of his wrath in full in the original garden and not planned a covenant of grace?
The sad story of the human race would end in eternal judgment apart from God’s grace.
The original garden scene in Genesis ended with mercy; God shed blood to cover Adam’s sin in anticipation of the last Adam to come. But we do have some idea of what would have been like had God decided to judge Adam and his posterity without mercy in the original garden. The Lord would have sent out his angels with weapons of war to arrest speechless Adam, and then execute his righteous judgment. The sad story of the human race would end in eternal judgment.
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Christians in nearly any context will have to biblically object to these culturally expected policies and practices.  No matter the situation, we must start with the authority of Scripture, explain why we cannot acquiesce from what is clearly taught in Scripture, lay out how we will disobey the policy only enough to avoid sinning while maintaining respect for all, and then accepting the consequences and trusting God to sustain us through them and bring ultimate justice in the end. 

As our culture becomes less and less “Christian”, we will increasingly face situations in which we are pressured to participate in or approve of activities that are sinful.  As I write, the Supreme Court is considering just such a case, in which a Christian web designer is suing Colorado over a policy that would essentially force her to design websites for same-sex weddings.  Christians in wedding-related professions have faced this situation for several years, but it is spreading far beyond that industry.  Christians in all walks of life are threatened with similar scenarios.  A Christian family may be invited to the same-sex wedding of a friend or family member.  A Christian supervisor may be directed by superiors or company policy to participate in Pride Month events .  Christian parents may face situations in which their children are forced by school policy to participate in Pride Month events or be exposed to overly descriptive or graphic curriculum on sexuality.  And these are just scenarios dealing with homosexuality.  There may be mandatory work social events in which excessive drinking is essentially required, work or school policies that require active support of causes that directly contradict Scripture and lead to the degradation of society, or the expectation of working in a dishonest way to increase profits.  Possibly the most likely scenario for any Christian involves transgenderism and the use of pronouns clearly inconsistent with biology, which I cannot cover briefly here, so I will cover it in the next post.  And there is a myriad of other such situations that any Christian may encounter.
Approaching the Situation
Clearly, all Christians need to be prepared to respond biblically to any of these scenarios.  While such a prospect is new for American Christians, it has been the norm throughout the history of the Church, as Peter makes clear:

“Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.”
-1 Peter 3:13-17, ESV

In this passage, Peter basically outlines how Christians should approach these situations.  This begins with approaching the situation with the right perspective.  Peter points out that no matter what happens, blessing will come to those who obey Christ.  Whether no harm comes to you because you are doing good (which Peter says is generally the case) or you suffer for the sake of righteousness, you will be blessed, whether in this life or the next.  Therefore, we should approach the situation without fear, trusting in the sovereignty and goodness of God over and above what any human can do.  We must fear God rather than man, which is the point of Isaiah 8:12-13, which Peter is directly referencing in verses 14 and 15.  Next, we must start with the objective of honoring Christ as of first importance.  We must honor and obey Christ in whatever we do, so however we decide to act in the situation, it must honor and obey Christ.  Then, we must always be prepared to give an answer as to why we decided to act in that way.  This means we need to have a well-thought-out reason from Scripture and be able to explain it.  But we must do this with gentleness and respect, honoring our opponents as people made in the image of God.  So any conscientious objection must be both logically robust from Scripture and lovingly applied with the ultimate objective of glorifying Christ.
Knowing Your Opponent
With that in mind, we must prepare for battle. Arguably the most famous line from Sun Tzu’s Art of War is: “Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril”.  He wrote this around the fifth century B.C. about military battles but it applies equally to spiritual battles.  Make no mistake, when we face these situations we are at war and must therefore take on a wartime mentality, following his advice to know both ourselves and our opponents.  First, we must recognize that the people who make and support these policies are not the enemy, neither are the people who want to coerce us to support their sinful lifestyle.  Instead, the true enemy is the devil who has blinded and enslaved them.  Therefore, we must always approach our opponents not as the true enemy but as those held captive by the true enemy, whom God can free from that captivity.  He may even choose to use the humble and winsome demeanor with which we approach them as part of their salvation.  Paul says as much when telling Timothy how elders are to approach such conflicts:

“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”
-2 Timothy 2:24-26, ESV

Just as it would be foolish to treat an enemy harshly who is about to defect to your side, it would be foolish to alienate someone whom God may save (and therefore make your brother or sister).  The Gospel that says that all people are dead in sin and cannot do anything to be right with God is inherently offensive, so we have no need (or Scriptural warrant) to offend people any further.  In everything, we must avoid offending God altogether and endeavor to offend people as little as possible.
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