All humans are broken without Jesus, and, therefore, no one is any better than another. While the Christmas season can feel overwhelming due to complex and sometimes sad emotions, the message we all need to hear and steadfastly cling to is the gospel of salvation in Christ alone. There is true and enduring joy in the world for all believers, despite whatever we may be feeling right now. Regardless of the particular season in life you may be going through at present, because of Jesus you are no longer estranged from God.

External and internal pressures to be happy can be unrelenting during the Christmas season. From carefully curated holiday photos and vacation posts on social media to jolly Christmas songs and merry coffee cups, there is a prevailing narrative that people should feel a certain way during the holiday season. But what about those who are currently going through the loss of a loved one, loneliness, depression, illness, financial stress, a faith crisis, family issues, grief, job loss, and more? How does one interpret the joyfulness of the season through these all-too-common lenses, despite the genuine efforts of Christmas movies to bring the “feels”?
While not every person may experience the amazing transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, here are a few ways we can have small and honest renewals of heart and faith during this holiday season.
First, remember that Christmas is about Christ.
Keeping our focus on Christ’s first coming and what that meant for us is the first step to taking our minds off our own troubles and onto the person who conquered them all, including even our final enemy, death. While we will face a variety of emotions and difficult circumstances in this life, which God uses to grow us in humility, we should not be ashamed because Jesus experienced the ultimate humility and suffering on the cross.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, through he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself taking the form of a slave, and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. (Phil. 2:6-8)

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Those who wish to live rightly in God’s world must not overcorrect by seeking to give up all power, control, authority, and gain. Instead, we recognize that though those qualities may be abused, they were given by God for our good and for the good of others in his world. We must pursue those goods humbly and in faith, and in that way we will both prevent much abuse and respond rightly to abuse when it occurs. We will take seriously our duties to protect those entrusted to our care—thus preventing abuse, and we will exercise and submit to authority in faith. Christians need not and must not give up our leadership in this age.
The Heart of Abuse is Not What it Seems
With awareness about abuse and its destructive effects on the rise, American Christians are being offered yet another manifestation of egalitarianism as the best possible response. This is unsurprising because modern notions of abuse have been forged within the fires of a feminist framework. The Southern Baptist Convention may be ground zero, but the battle is either already underway or coming soon to every major denomination. Cultural currents that have been sweeping over America for decades are seeking to determine the church’s response: will we be able to recognize what is happening and turn the tide?
The Duluth Model
It began in the 1980s when a coalition in Duluth, Minnesota was the first in the nation to offer a coordinated community response to wife batterers. The Domestic Abuse Intervention Program was born out of an admirable desire to help women to be safe from violent partners. By coordinating at every level: victims, police, probation officers, social workers, and the judiciary, Duluth pioneered an approach that has since been utilized in all 50 states and in 17 nations. The Duluth Model (DM), as it has come to be known, was a rousing success.
Behind the DM was Ellen Pence, a lesbian sociologist and activist who was deeply involved in the battered women’s movement under second-wave feminism. Pence self-consciously formed the DM with a feminist framework: “Whether the particular planners are aware of it or not, programs for batterers are situated in a political and historical context of the feminist anti-violence movement.”1 Feminist values and assumptions were baked into the cake from the outset.
Central to the DM is the idea that abusers are driven by a desire for power and control. Behind that desire lies a culture that has been formed by men for men in order to restrict women (and children) and to privilege men in the world. Therefore, when a man feels that he is losing power or control, he feels justified to use violence in an attempt to regain it. According to the DM, this kind of thinking has permeated our entire society, affecting us all: “We’ve all been socialized in a culture that values power, a culture in which the thinking that we challenge in the [batterer] groups is present in every aspect of our daily lives. Our schools, churches, and places of work are all structured hierarchically. All of us have engaged in at least some of the tactics batterers use to control their partners.”2
This philosophy is best represented in their widely-utilized DM Power and Control Wheel:

The Wheel graphically displays the core value of POWER AND CONTROL and the requisite ring of VIOLENCE that encompasses it. Odds are that if you have received training in abuse, you have seen the Wheel or been instructed in its framework.
Under the DM, the solution to abuse is found in undoing the oppressive hierarchies that fill our culture: “When we as a society decide that women have certain subservient roles and men have certain privileged roles, then we also give men the message that they can enforce those roles with whatever tools are at their disposal…The historic oppression and continued subjugation of women in most cultures occurs because men have defined almost every facet of their societies, thereby perpetuating a sexist belief system and institutionalizing male privilege.”3 Therefore, the solution to abuse is found in dismantling hierarchy and fostering equality.
That understanding is represented in the DM Equality Wheel:

Again, the framework is direct and clear: EQUALITY is the core of a healthy relationship, and under such an understanding, persons can relate within an atmosphere of NONVIOLENCE. Thus under the DM, we find a clear and succinct description of the problem of abuse and its solution. Over the past four decades, the DM has gained increasing influence as its clear logic and comprehensive system have offered an attractive package for those seeking to understand and respond to the horrors of abuse. It is remarkable how ubiquitous the language of ‘power and control’ is within the world of abuse counselors, across the ideological spectrum.
Power for Good?
Before turning to analysis and response to the prevailing paradigm, it is necessary to recognize one more variable in the mix. In The Myth of a Christian Nation, Gregory Boyd popularized a power-over/power-under framework in calling Christians to eschew the “kingdom of the world” in order to live for the “kingdom of God.” According to Boyd: “While all the versions of the kingdom of the world acquire and exercise power over others, the kingdom of God, incarnated and modeled in the person of Jesus Christ, advances only by exercising power under others. It expands by manifesting the power of self-sacrificial, Calvary-like love.”4
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Ellen Pence and Michael Paymar, Education Groups for Men Who Batter (New York: Springer Publishing, 1993), 172.
Education Groups for Men Who Batter, 1.
Education Groups for Men Who Batter, 147.
Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 14.

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Within the confessional pale, elders don’t typically deny their ordination vows overtly. It’s rare that an elder takes the initiative of disclosing conscious theological shifts in faith and practice since the assumption of his ordination vows. A contributing factor to the rarity of such truthful disclosure is the pervasive practice of ordaining unqualified men to the office of elder.

If you’re not grieved by the infidelity of the church, then with this post you’ll find little relevance.
Churches don’t become apostate overnight. Apostasy begins with elders having a faith and practice that is contrary to their confessional standards.
Within the confessional pale, elders don’t typically deny their ordination vows overtly. It’s rare that an elder takes the initiative of disclosing conscious theological shifts in faith and practice since the assumption of his ordination vows. A contributing factor to the rarity of such truthful disclosure is the pervasive practice of ordaining unqualified men to the office of elder.
Apropos, if an elder doesn’t internalize what he vows to uphold, how can he state any differences – if not now, then later? Can a man announce a change in conviction without first having conviction? Can a man contend for that which he is so unfamiliar? If a man cannot teach his Confession, how can it be discerned by himself or others whether he truly grasps it? How many elders are apt to teach their Confession? Which is not to ask whether one is capable of uncritically parroting A.A. Hodge or G.I. Williamson on the Confession, which too can be rare.
The deception of self and others entailed by not considering the weightiness of entering into ordination vows soberly and fearfully cannot but end in sin, including full blown apostasy unless God grants repentance. Consider, did the apostate overseers in the PCUSA fall away from truth embraced, or is it more likely they never cherished the truth they vowed to have received and adopted? Congregant beware. Mere casual acquaintance with a church’s Confession has no place among ordained servants. Yet can one truthfully maintain that’s not where much of the Reformed church finds herself today? How do churches become apostate? What’s their attitude along the way? How are our NAPARC churches doing in 2022? What’s the responsibility of congregants?
There are innumerable understandings, teachings and practices within “confessional” NAPARC churches that constitute not just stated differences but outright exceptions to the Westminster standards and the Three Forms of Unity. Yet too often the elders who approve, teach, and practice such things say they don’t take exceptions to the Standards. Such ordained men, at best, are guilty of denying their vows in ignorance rather than knowingly – until such time they’re confronted for the first time with their confessional ignorance and infidelity. Then, the lesser violation gives way to greater, unless God grants a change of heart. Again, consider for instance the PCUSA. Consider from whence we came, including the need for the Protestant Reformation. When doctrinal exceptions are intentional, there’s usually a self-ascribing of nobility from elders who seek to liberate themselves and the oppressed from the bondage of passé dogma that has in their estimation fulfilled its purpose. Neither Confession nor conscience walls in such crusaders. That’s why congregants need eyes to see and ears to hear.
A charge to congregants:
Most congregants don’t care about many teachings of the historical Reformed church. As sad as that might be, one might still hope that all congregants would be concerned if their overseers were untrue to their ordination vows. In other words, if the average congregant’s lament isn’t with a particular teaching or practice from within that opposes the church’s stated doctrinal standards, shouldn’t their grievance at least be with the integrity of the shepherds who deny what they vowed before God to uphold? If not, then how would the sheep not deserve the shepherds they’ve elected?
This is not to shift blame from pulpit to pew, but it is the foolish congregant who does not care whether her overseers uphold confessional doctrine that she is indifferent to or even opposes. We’re no longer talking merely about an elder’s doctrinal convictions but instead the caliber of his Christian character. It’s one thing not to affirm confessional doctrine, or even teach contrary to the Reformed confessions to sheep who aren’t well versed in the truth. But to posture oneself as confessional in the process is to intentionally mislead the sheep, now hypocritically, while sowing the seeds of apostasy. It’s a fair question to ask whether the average layperson has become more concerned with constitutional representation from our civil leaders than confessional fidelity from our spiritual ones. Again, what’s the congregant’s role in any of this anyway?
Creaturely concerns and the 3 C’s vs confessional standards:
For most congregants, what seems to matter most is what I’ve recently coined the 3 C’s: Community. Comfort. Convenience. When such creaturely concerns of congregants take precedent over another 3 C’s (a confessional cause for Christ), it’s just a matter of time until the proverbial frog-congregant cooks in the kettle.
A settled willingness to float downstream affords great latitude for pastors and preachers to push agendas rather than faithfully explicate God’s word in accordance to confessional standards. Under such conditions, the congregant whose utmost allegiance is to Christ rather than the 3 C’s will protest, leave or both. It’s not a Christian option to idly stand by as apostasy sets in.
History repeats itself:
In this one respect, the Reformed church resembles Romanism. Not to know what your overseers are to believe and teach is to follow glibly after both nothing and anything. As the old adage goes, if you don’t stand for something eventually you’ll fall for everything.
Did the PCUSA become the harlot she now is without first flirting with doctrinal infidelity? Again, how do churches become apostate? What’s their attitude along the way? How are our NAPARC churches doing in 2022? What’s the responsibility of congregants?
Be in prayer for the forthcoming NAPARC General Assemblies. Pray for your elders, and perhaps pray most earnestly for yourselves to discern according to your gifts of understanding and respective places of calling.
Ron DiGiacomo is a PCA Ruling Elder in Philadelphia Presbytery. This article is used with permission.

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