Truth Unites - Mike Bickle and Church Dissillusionment

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

Gavin Ortlund gives 5 pieces of pastoral counsel to those who are disillusioned about sin and scandal in the church, like the recent revelations about Mike Bickle. For more about the situation, see this video from Remnant Radio: https://www.youtube.com/live/EpcaPgqCaGo?si=PRCFIcXBOfcn56lG Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville. SUPPORT: Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://truthunites.org/

We have another situation where a high-profile leader in the church has fallen into terrible sin, or really, in this case, sin that has been there for decades has been exposed. In this case, it's Mike Bickle, the founder of IHop, International House of Prayer. You've probably heard about this. If you haven't, you can learn more about it in a video I'm going to link to from the brothers at Remnant Radio. That's in the video description. They do a great job, breaking things down. My purpose is not to get into all the details, but to reflect pastorally and theologial.

about how to respond in a situation like this. I don't know much about Mike Bickle. I've not really followed his ministry very much, but just a little bit looking into this. I feel this sense of devastation. Honestly, these things, I think it affects me really deeply for several reasons. I'll just mention three of them.

Number one, the nature of the sin in this case is not just the kind of thing that's, you know, somebody might fall into or something. It's like predatory, you know? It's so evil. So there's that. So you get that. it's there's a disillusionment that comes. I don't know what the video title for this is going to be.

I can't even think of what the title is video. So maybe I'll use the word disillusionment in it. I don't know. Another thing, though, that's so devastating, and this adds onto it is people respond badly to it. People minimize it. They deflect it. They disbelieve it. And we'll talk about this, but people oftentimes show more concern for the perpetrator than for the victims. and we make the situation worse in many ways. We'll come back to that. But the third and biggest reason I think I'm so devastated by hearing stories like this is because, and the reason this one hit me, this, in some ways more than others, is because we've just seen so many of them.

It's just that feeling of, oh, no, not again, who's next, who can I trust? You know, these kinds of terrible questions come up because there's just been so many scandals, so many issues of abuse coming up in the church. my wife and I had a friend that we know who left ministry because of issues, totally non-famous person, but just same. And it was one of those things where you didn't see it coming, you know? Like sometimes there's a fallen leader in the church and you saw it coming. Other times, though, you just, you really don't see it coming.

And I don't think we need to feel like necessarily that's always our fault. I mean, sometimes we might have been naive, but I do think about, you know, Judas Ascariot and the other disciples and the fact that they didn't, you know, they didn't know. They didn't know about Judas. So that can happen. When that happens, that is absolutely devastating. I didn't want to make this video about this. I really didn't. Because I'm so afraid to say the wrong thing, because I know how delicate these situations are. But what I thought about is this. I was talking with my wife about this. This issue of scandals in the church, abuse in the church, sin that comes up in leaders in the church, it is a major apologetics

issue in our time. It causes unbelievable pain. And I think one of the reasons we're seeing lots of young people leaving the church is because of things like this, not just that they happen, but then how we respond to. My wife and I have been through our own times of disillusionment. We experienced mistreatment at a church at one point in our lives, and I remember how painful that was. And I think for those who have not been through that, it's hard, maybe hard to understand. And I'm not even saying what we went through is anything to the scale of what a lot of people go through, but still it gave me enough of an empathy, but people don't understand how painful it is when it's someone in a position of spiritual authority that hurts you. It is so confusing,

and we'll talk about that. So I'm just going to do my best year. I'm going to ask for grace if I don't say everything just right here, but I want to speak for my heart, kind of five pieces of pastoral counsel about how we might respond when a situation like this comes up, even though my comments are not targeted exclusively at this situation with Mike Bickle. I'm reflecting more on occasioned by that on situations like this that might be other situations as well that we can, because we honestly, I think we all have to actually deal with this. And it is confusing and it is disillusioning and it's hard.

And it affects the credibility of the gospel. It's so, now my comments here are not for people involved deeply in the situation. You know, I can't do that. but just for those of us looking on from a distance. Number one, don't assume it's false just because it's shocking. This is where we respond unhelpfully in the church a lot of times. There's a huge temptation to be defensive. Too often, accusations get immediately dismissed or at least minimized or deflected or triangulated in some way.

There's this weird, unhelpful dynamic that kicks in that we need to be aware of. I don't know why this is, but I thought of four quick reasons. Number one, sometimes it might just be too painful to take in. It might be too shocking. Number two, some of us have our guard up against the church's credibility being attacked already at the outset and against leaders being attacked. And sometimes even bad theology can prop that up. And so we're maybe even from a good motive. We're a little defensive in favor of the church and in favor of the leaders of the church. And there can be some aspects of that that can be good, but it can lead us to be unwelcome. willing to hear a hard but true accusation. Number three, I think when we've been personally blessed by

someone, it can be hard. Like if a pastor, even if you just watched his sermon online or something like this, or you read his book or something, or whoever it might be, you might really struggle to disassociate the good thing God did through them and what you're now hearing. And so you say, oh, I know so and so. They can't have done that. This can't be true. You know. know at the institutional level, this is the fourth reason, maybe the most devastating. There are, I don't understand all this. I'm not a psychologist or a sociologist. Others can understand it better. But there's some kind of self-protection dynamics that come in, where we want to save face, we don't want to admit what's going on, we want to half repent,

we want to control the accountability process, we want to kind of put up these walls because it's really vulnerable and really hard. to just be open to the truth, basically, whatever it is. And I think we are naive if we think that that's going to be easy. Like if we're ever put in that situation, it's hard. If you're on the elder board of a church or something like that, you have to work through something, it's hard to be vulnerable. It's hard to really look at it. But it is so important not to deflect accusations and assume they can't be true just because they're scandalous and shocking. God's leaders are capable of terrible sin and it happens and it's happened so much lately. I mean, in the Bible,

we have this with like David. What David did to Bathsheba. I had to preach on that passage once. I was visiting somewhere and they asked me to preach on it. And the abuse of power in that story is just, ugh, it's just brutal. Because you're saying, how can this person who wrote half of the book of Psalms do this? You know, it really is confusing. And it really is disillusioning. And it really is hard to take in. And that's why I feel devastated by these situations. It's happened so much. You know, we could just go back. I bet I'm not even going to name names here, but you could go back in your own mind and just think of all the people. It feels, sometimes it feels like American evangelicalism is like a slow demolition job right now. Just this building crumbles down and then this building crumbles down and then this building crumbles down. This alliance splits apart. I mean, there's so much destruction right now. We see this and this is a huge dynamic in it. Now here's the deal. I don't think it's just when there's sin. I think, um, okay. why is it so important that we not dismiss something when we do that when we basically minimize something dismiss it say oh it can't be true we re-traumatize the victims all over again

and that hurts them even worse and then it damages the reputation of the church far worse you see if if our motive is we want to protect the reputation of the church um we're actually going to we're going to shoot ourselves in the foot if we have any evasiveness. Because it's one thing, like if there's a sin, like, I don't know, let's say there's a local church and a pastor falls into sin and the church deals with it and maybe there's like excommunication of the pastor. I don't know, let's just say it's like a situation where the pastor is just fired and then there's just total honesty.

The elders of the church stand up and just boom, just say exactly what happened. Totally transparent and so forth. Now that hurts and it can hurt the reputation of the church. but not nearly as much as if there's a cover-up of what happened, as if it hurts the reputation of the church far worse when we don't acknowledge what has happened. That is what really repels people. So, first point, I'm really passionate about this one, is don't deflect it, don't minimize it. Here's a scripture. Every word of this is powerful. Ephesians 5, walk as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true. and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. That's that last clause that tells us. It's biblical to expose evil.

When there's evil, we're called to not put a veil over it, but to take the veil off. All right. Second thing, and this is shorter, and that's a counterbalancing concern. Please hear me. Don't mishear me. This is very delicate. This is a balancing act. don't assume that it's true apart from evidence.

So number one is don't assume it's false because it's shocking. Number two, don't assume it's true apart from evidence. I'm not talking about the Mike Bickle situation right now where there is clear, credible evidence. But when we pivot to look at the church generally, we have to not make assumptions in either direction. The truth has to be the focus. We always have to remember what is true. and this is such a tricky balancing act because I don't want to counter, I don't want to count, this is not a counteract to the last point. It's just also true. And what makes me say this,

there is a huge increase in our culture, in Western culture generally, of distrust toward institutions and toward leaders. And that is true of pastors and spiritual leaders as well. I talk a lot about how hard it is to be a pastor these days. Now that I'm not like a full-time senior pastor anymore, I really want to encourage pastors. And I know it's a hard time for pastors. And there is this other danger here that we just need to be aware of on the other side where there can be this very negative, deconstructive energy where people simply want to tear things down.

And there's not just a distrust and a hostility toward bad institutions or bad leaders, but all institutions and all leaders. And there's no healing. There's no love of the gospel in this. There's suspicion and cynicism. And what it does is it creates a guilty until proven innocent climate. And that's not something we can flourish in. And I have had friends, usually it's not famous pastors.

Usually it's just very non-famous pastors or elder boards at churches, where their reputation is just dragged through the mud because of a false accusation. And so that's just also something we need to be aware of here is don't adopt just blanket cynicism. That's also not the goal. We want the truth to always win. Number three, these are all just pastoral points from my heart. They're pretty basic, but I think we need them when we're dealing with stuff like this. Have compassion for victims.

This is what I was saying at the beginning. I can speak to this. I can try to pastor some people out there. When somebody who is in a position of spiritual authority hurts you or betrays you or abuses you, it is extremely confusing. If you've never been through that, it's like when you're, I used to like, swimming in the ocean. It's when you're body surfing in the ocean and a big wave comes that you don't see and it turns you upside down. And sometimes there's a moment where you can't tell which way is up and which way is down. You're trying to, you need to breathe after the wave has settled

down, but you're not sure where to go. That's a good metaphor for what this can feel like psychologically. And you start to wonder, you know, where else have I been duped? Who else? Who can I trust? Here's the worst possible question. Is even God like this? that's probably the deepest pain that you could get into. And look, it's just a fact that people are leaving the church in part because of these issues. And what I want to try to do with my life and my ministry is try to just be a help. I want to be a reconstructive force amidst the deconstruction. I want to be a friend.

I want to be a resource. I feel like the way I can do that. That's why I'm doing YouTube. I feel like this is actually the best way I can spend my life is to try to be a resource, especially about like theology and stuff. But so how do we have compatibility? for people. Let's say, you know, your friend has been at a church and the church, the pastor that they really looked up to, stuff came out about them and it's like, oh, and they're really confused, you know,

how do you help people? And I think one of the things that is so helpful to remember is your friend who is in that place of disillusionment or confusion probably doesn't need our words and our interpretations. They probably need just our love and our presence and our steadiness. There was a story, I can't remember the name of this book. I think, was like a view from a hearse, something like that. A man lost multiple children, and he was in deep grief. People would come by and visit him to try to encourage him. I always remember this little scene. And he said, some people came to me with Bible verses and words of encouragement, and I couldn't wait until they left. Other people came to me and just sat in silence with me.

And he said, I couldn't bear to watch them go. There's this thing called the Ministry of Presence. that often is where we need to start with people if they're in that place of deep disillusionment. Don't be too quick to interpret their feelings for them. Don't give them Romans 828 grenades. Do you know what a Romans 828 grenade is? Okay, Romans 828, you know, says God is going to, God works all things to good. A Romans 828 grenade is when you see someone is suffering, so you say, God is going to use this for good, and then it's a grenade because you just say that and walk away.

I don't know why, but people in the church do this a lot. When I was a pastor, I realized a lot of times people stop coming to church when they're deeply suffering. Why? Church can be hard when you're deeply suffering. Why? Lots of reasons. One reason is sometimes Christians don't make it easy on sufferers. Sometimes we say things that have good intentions, but we appeal too quickly to God's sovereignty. You know, if you're going to quote Romans 828, don't even quote it when someone's, it's not helpful in the moment for most people.

But if you're going to think about first practice Romans 1215, which says weep with those who weep, your words will only be helpful to someone if they sense love and care for them. And that's the main thing we can offer to people to start with, is when you're with someone who's deeply disillusioned, we probably can't fix it. So the ministry of presence is at least where we need to put our focus to start with. I'm not trying to say this is formulaic. Every case is different, but hopefully that is helpful. Fourth, this is a big area where we need to change as evangelical. As much as I defend Protestantism,

there's some real weaknesses in modern evangelical Protestantism. One of them is celebrity culture. Okay, so this fourth one is value, integrity over gifting. It's so simple, and we all agree in principle, but it's so easy to kind of shy away from that, you know, when the pressure's on, when it's an elder that really has some skills and expertise, we can overlook character issues or a staff member, what do we value as a church? I remember a friend of mine when he started out in ministry, he said, when I started in the ministry, I dreamed of having all this big impact. I wanted to plant churches and write books. I say, now I just want to cross the finish line without having had an affair or a scandal or something like that. I totally get what he means. This is a kind of

shift of priorities that I think is helpful for us all to consider when we're responding to a situation of scandal or abuse. We have to come back to the value of integrity. Integrity is like a precious jewel. We should treat it like that. We should value that above all else in our leaders. Godly character. There's nothing so beautiful in all the world is that.

Proverbs 168, better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice. Do we believe that proverb when we're hiring staff, when we're forming an elder board, when we're considering the people we listen to and the people we surround ourselves with? I often try to think about this running a YouTube channel, you know. There are real temptations to try to think about the size of it and the reach of it and all that kind of stuff.

And I never got into it to think about all that kind of stuff. But, you know, that's there. And then you find yourself focusing on it too much. And I just have to have times. I have to come back to a prayer basically to say, God, make me willing. And there's actually joy in this prayer. Make me willing to give up on all that if only I can have more of you. And that is just something I have to pray to put my.

my own heart in the right place at times. But this is a continual battle for all of us, but I'm just talking about it as a value for churches, you know, we have to stop cutting corners on integrity. Absolutely zero cut corners. And when we see fallen leaders, one thing we can do that might be a little bit of a helpful redirect at points is just to be grateful for godly leaders and to show honor for them. People we've seen finish well. Since I'm moving back to Nashville two months ago, I've spent a lot of time with my parents. And I cannot even begin to express how grateful I am for them. The only way I can describe them is to say they're the real deal.

They are true servants of Christ. I can't even begin to express how grateful I am to have had parents who've modeled integrity and having a godly ministry and life. They're in the final season of their ministry and they're just pouring themselves out as always. And to have seen that as such a gift. but I know a lot of people have never seen that. They've never seen what I just called the real deal. They've gone to some church, they've been wounded,

and they've never seen godliness in Christian leadership. It's a lot of people. No wonder they leave, you know? So we need, as the entire church, we need to value integrity. Last, refocus on Jesus. Simple, I know, it's simple, but man, we need it. When we see the unveiling of ugliness and sin, it reminds two things this means number one it reminds us that any ministry that is not based upon

christ will ultimately fail us if we are part of a ministry and it's built on a personality it's built on a gifting it's built on extra biblical legalistic requirements it's built on hype it's built on anything that is not with christ as the foundation christ as the draw you know somebody once said what you win them with is what you win them to So that's what it's going to be about. If it's not Christ that's organizing the energy, there's all kinds of negative energies that you can have that will drive your ministry. All kinds of, you know, discernment ministries that just attack people relentlessly. You'll rally people to your side, but it's not really healthy.

It's not really built on Christ. In the same vein, you can go on the other side, you know, extremely progressive groups that are just tearing down in the other direction. You see all this. I mean, that's, again, part of my... concern about the demolition job of the church these days, you just see deconstruction everywhere. It's a brutal time. 1 Corinthians 3. Paul says he speaks of the fire of judgment day, but this is a refining fire that reveals what

something really is. I won't read the whole passage, but it talks about the foundation. It's a sobering reminder that ultimately there are no secrets. Everything will be known in the end. The truth always comes out. The truth always outlasts its competitors. and in our ministries, you know, we have to build our ministry on Christ. I want, this is my aspirational goal.

And I really, I know I'm not perfect. But I want every single Truth Unites video that you ever watch to make you leave feeling like you got something of Christ. You know, even those of you, thank you and God bless you, who disagree with me theologically and you still watch. I hope that's something of Christ you'll see. Our ministry, he has to be the draw to our ministries. but the other side of this is refocusing on Jesus when we're disillusioned is not just sobering for what we're basing our life on

it's also it gives us hope because it's simple but it's true however much people in the church let us down Jesus will never betray us he will never harm us he will never deceive us he will never forsake us he's relentlessly faithful I know people a lot of young people leaving the church right now what I want to say it is Look, yeah, there's issues. You're not wrong in a lot of your concerns, I'm sure, but don't leave Jesus himself. Let me finish with this. I believe that Christ is especially drawn. You know what?

I described that emotion a moment ago. You're being tumbled in a wave. You're not sure which way is up. To anybody out there listening to this, if that's where you're at, I believe Christ has a special compassion for people like that, people who are really disillusioned, people who have been wounded. Jesus looks at the discarded people of our world, that the world is just tossed to the side, the uncool, the overlooked, the desperate, the disadvantaged. And those are the people, he says, they're especially precious to my heart, though he loves all of us. And so when we're brokenhearted,

when we're disillusioned, we can come to a God through Christ who is understanding and is able to heal those wounds. The Bible says, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted. He's able to bind up the brokenhearted. He's able to heal the brokenhearted. There's a great scene in the magician's nephew where a little boy named Diggery meets Aslan, the Christ figure, and Diggery's mother is sick. And so he's like, he's deeply suffering, deeply in pain. But he wants to ask for Aslan's help, but he's afraid.

He doesn't know that Aslan is good, really. He's just afraid of Aslan thus far in his relationship. And Lewis says, up till then, he'd been looking at the lion's great front feet and the huge claws on them. Now in his despair he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and wonder of wonders. Great shining tears stood in the lion's eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Diggery's own that for a moment he felt as if the lion must really be sorrier about his mother than he was himself. My son, my son, said Aslan, I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet

let us be good to one another. Those words, simple words, I know. That's the God we have in Christ. You know, as much as Jesus is generally just dreadful and fearful, like if you're just generally bump into Christ at any point, you're probably just going to be terrified. I mean, that's sort of the general effects like Aslan. He's also tender to the brokenhearted. And he's able to look at them in the eye and say, I know. I get it. You know, if you've ever been, if you've ever been suffering and you go to someone and you can tell they've suffered too and they just they just understand and they're easier to be around that is christ to the extreme he suffered more than anyone of course on the cross where he descended down into the deepest darkness even we might say a sense of confusion at

times in some some some sense at least the experience of psalm 22 whatever that means parse that theologically but just you know he's asking he's quoting that psalm of all psalms he could have quoted no one has suffered ever more than christ and that tells us not only the measure of his love for us, the measure of his commitment to us, if we've trusted in him, but also tells us his capacities to heal and to comfort, to be a balm to those who are disillusioned, suffering, and despair, etc. So whatever else you do when you're disillusioned in these terrible situations, don't run away from Jesus, run to Jesus.

All right, that is really all I got. This is not exhaustive, and I'm sure there's a lot more to be said, but I'm just trying to give some pastoral counsel to people who are struggling with this, because I don't think these situations are going away. I mean, here's the worst thing, and I'm off script now. As much as we're seeing the demolition job, I was talking with my dad about this about a few, three weeks ago, I don't think it's over yet. I think we're still seeing more destruction.

I wish, I hope I'm wrong. In other words, I think there's going to be more rumblings throughout the church and throughout our culture. We're in a tough time. It's hard to see it, just getting better immediately. What I long to give my life to, the reason I'm making YouTube videos, honestly, this is what I'm doing here, is I want to be a part of something new. I want to be a part of reconstruction. I want to be a part of helping people in the midst of the chaos find the enchantment of Christ because the gospel is still true.

He's still risen from the dead. And that is, in that, in these very circumstances in which we live is a time in which many people. I pray for a revival among Gen Z just about daily because many people are now open to the Lord. And so that's a happy thought, you know, run to Jesus. Whatever else is going on. It's kind of like when the Roman Empire is in its waning season. And that very fact causes you to reflect more in the kingdom of God, like the book, the city of God. So those are the times in which we live, but that's the hope I want to give my life to.

Will you join me at Truth Unites? And it's not a pitch door or anything else. It's just, that's just my heart. And, you know, that's what I want to give. That's what's behind every other video. Let's build something new and beautiful. So anyway, hope these thoughts will be helpful for you. If you're in particular pain, particular suffering, reach out to somebody.

You know, find somebody who's a godly friend and say, hey, I need some, you know, even just telling someone where you're at can be a helpful thing. All right. God bless you. Thanks for watching everybody. We'll see you next time.