The Intimidation Factor. Charles Redfern
were hilarious—and they fawned over our son, loved my wife’s cello, and tolerated my long sermons.
I seemed fated to serve Hatfield-McCoy churches, so I learned all about toxic organizations and conflict management. I signed up for workshops and seminars everywhere. My favorite organization was Peacemaker Ministries, founded in 1982 by Ken Sande, a Montana lawyer saddened by all the internecine church in-fighting. Sande imported the insights of Alternative Dispute Resolution, which offers more consensual mediation and arbitration methods, while bonding himself to God’s Word. He wrote it all up in a book called The Peacemaker, which I recommended with enthusiasm and used as a basis for preaching.
I still recommend Peacemaker Ministries—with a huge caution: Conflict resolution must be seen as one stage in conflict transformation, where conflict is seen as an active agent in surfacing simmering diseases. Otherwise, bullies manipulate the ADR methods. Resolution becomes a euphemism for avoidance and feeds the beast. More on that in a later chapter.
Many were begging us to stay, but I felt it was best to stick to my word: Intentional interims promise not to apply for the settled pastor’s job, so it was on to Connecticut and a seemingly thriving church. True, it had a history of brawls and two splits—sure-fire danger signs—but one leader was implementing Sande’s approach while another advocated Vineyard-like ministry. Could this be the church of my dreams?
No. It wasn’t. We were tossed from the ring-side seat into the ring itself.
A slug fest
I’m not thrilled with criticizing a church I tried to serve. I really do love its individuals and I know I made many mistakes. They’d (correctly) say I was forever off-beat. I didn’t connect and didn’t fit. I can imagine their slackened jaws as they read my unflattering descriptions—especially since they welcomed me with open arms when I subsequently visited and many now pray for me. But there’s no way around it: I met evangelical intimidation here, in all its inglorious splendor.
The church was actually ailing. Many reeled at the loss of my mild-mannered and beloved predecessor, who rescued them from one of those splits and loved them back to life. Most were actually wary of the spiritual gifts and few knew about Ken Sande. Conflict resolution was the ministry of one influential and (deservedly) respected leader, who was wounded after attempting to resolve past controversies. He’s a good man, but he swung into full peacemaker mode at the first sign of disagreement, throttling friendly debates and the creative solutions they spawn—because, after all, debates spark conflict and conflict is always wrong.
And I seemed to stir controversy with every move. My wry humor fell flat.
So I was on precarious footing as current events piqued my dormant political interests. A PBS special on climate change forced me to look at my son and say aloud, “Oh . . . my . . . God.” He faced a possible future of droughts and rising seas and widening deserts. My a-politicism wasn’t helping him. Then there was Barak Obama’s 2008 presidential run. I was impressed. He spoke to American voters as adults. And I didn’t help myself in my quick, ad-hoc comment before a sermon: “The Earth is heating up.” One influential member blasted me after the service for my “liberal” environmentalism and another berated the scientific consensus during a devotional at a general board meeting. I soon realized I was serving a congregation of climate-change deniers, with the consensus deemed left wing and, therefore, anti-Christian.
Then there was a member’s eye-opening e-mail: Obama, apparently, was a Muslim terrorist. All the replies from church leaders were grist from the right-wing propaganda mill. No one commented on the unsubstantiated, implicitly racist charge.
One of my favorite members wondered if any liberal could land in heaven; others coupled Obama with the anti-Christ; one member, a leader in the local Republican Party, often stood in the foyer on Sunday mornings and loudly proclaimed his liberals-are-evil, science-denial views.
So much for inviting progressive friends to services in a blue state.
More startling, pastoral colleagues at a once-a-month breakfast meeting seemed to agree. Some froze when I challenged their assumptions. It was as if I breathed ice on their scrambled eggs—although a few pulled me aside later and muttered, “Thanks for speaking up. I’m a Democrat too.”
Keep it hush-hush. Monty Python might smash in and holler something about the Spanish Inquisition.
No one seemed to be aware of the late David Kuo’s 2006 book, Tempting Faith. The former Director of the Office of Faith Based Missions wrote of officials in the George W. Bush administration and their actual contempt for evangelicals. Kuo also opened a window into the power-hungry world of court evangelicals (the ones flocking to Washington) and confessed his own hypocrisy: He assailed President Clinton’s moral failings while his own marriage crashed.
I’d never endorse a given candidate from the pulpit, but I felt duty-bound to remind all that our advocacy must glorify Christ. Beware Proverbs 12:18 (“the words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing”); and James 1:19 (“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry”). And we needn’t fear liberals.
Complaints rolled in as rumors spread that I wasn’t a Republican: I wasn’t preaching from the Bible; my sermons were too intellectual and too shallow. My popularity plummeted even as long-dormant dreams came alive. We moved out of the building and into a school to finish a construction project; we rallied church-wide home group studies on conflict resolution, accompanied by a sermon series; we returned to a new, expanded building. Nothing worked. Families left. Giving dropped—and I didn’t help my cause when I unknowingly quoted an off-color comment from the pulpit (Honest. The phraseology sounded innocent.). Two influencers told me I was not a godly man and the rumor mill spun tales of Obama endorsements from the pulpit.
God’s Word gave me no help in my quest for popularity. I now suspected Ken Sande was missing something, so I began reading the Gospel According to Mark with an eye for Jesus’ conflict-resolution methods. It became clear: Christ intentionally sparked grumbling when he healed on the Sabbath and challenged the religious leaders. I closed Mark after the third chapter and chose a different path: I took the criticism seriously—especially the one stipulating I didn’t preach from the Bible. I preached veritably verse-by-verse in a series on Psalms 120–134, the so-called “Songs of Ascents.” It didn’t work. One of the most prominent leaders pulled me into a side room and said he saw no sermon improvement.
I sat down after he left. It was obvious. Soon, the he-doesn’t-fits would ripen into we-gotta-fire-hims, with a shredded congregation as a result even if I survived. I had no choice but to gamble and submit my resignation—in mid-September of 2009, when the unemployment rate hovered at 9.8 percent and foreclosures thundered across the land. I’d give the church a three-month notice in which I’d confess my wrongs (“I should have taken more time to get to know the congregation during my first year; I should have been more patient and devoted more time to listening; I should have paid more attention to body language that was being conveyed to me”). The idea: I’d model grace under fire during my lame-duck months. Perhaps such modeling would pull the church out of its irascibility and—just maybe—I could rescind the resignation.
I conferred with Andrea and she agreed (Her comment: “Our life is surreal”) and, after notifying the general board, I read my confessional resignation aloud the following Sunday.
The board met that week and said I should step down at the end of the month—with a guarantee that I’d be paid through November. That made things awkward. I was already slated to take the last Sunday off because of a family obligation, so next Sunday would be my ignoble last. There’d be no grace under fire, no exit with dignity, no time for closure. I was out.
I was asked to attend a meeting the following week—after I was no longer the pastor—and slammed with a job review filled with personal invective.
Welcome to bully Christianity, where not even a resignation in the Great Recession is enough.
I admit it. I was angry, and I found no solace in the broader evangelical scene.