Last week when I read Scot McKnight’s blog proposing Willow Creek’s elders should resign because they obfuscated Sr Pastor Bill Hybel’s misogyny, a few comments said something like “Yeah never trust leaders. Jesus is our only leader.” And then again this week I read the same sort of “don’t trust clergy or leaders or pastors” in response to the Pennsylvania Catholic Dioceses covering up priest abuses.

The responses sum up the lesson learned as “don’t trust leaders, Jesus is our only leader.” Okay. Sounds perfect. Too perfect. Ideal in fact. Mythically ideal.

Evangelicals constantly leave. They are leavers. (I don’t believe Catholics do this as much.) When the church-they-are-currently-going-to sounds ambivalent on too pro-life or too LGBTQ+ or too accepting of immigrants – basically whatever issue they disagree on, Evangelicals leave. They leave thinking that they will be better off disassociating. They think “I need no leader but Jesus.”

Now they are their own leader. I suppose they like the devil they know rather than the devil they don’t know. If my decades of working with the human soul taught me anything, it is that most folk just don’t know themselves. THEY are the devil they don’t really know. Scripture speaks often of the “deceived heart.” The deception is most often a self-deception. Bishops, Hybels, and you and me – are ill-equipped to understand the darkness of the human soul. Distance is a quick therapy. So we leave because it alleviates the immediate danger and pain. But leaving doesn’t teach us anything.

Peter runs away from Jesus on the night of his arrest. Peter goes back to fishing. I speculate Peter says to himself, “Another failed Messiah. Don’t trust these would-be Messiahs. Just go back to fishing and make God your only leader” (John 21).

Of course Jesus tracks down Peter and confronts him. Peter confesses his sin of betrayal. Jesus forgives, restores and then commissions Peter – to a life no longer his own.

They should all stay. Elders, Hybels, and the members. They should all handcuff themselves together. Hybels and the Elders should not be the leaders. But everyone should stay – and learn. Crisis transforms. Leaving is cheap. Staying is holy work. Staying is like jumping from the frying pan to the fire. But… fire purges and refines – and leaves terrible scars.

What do members learn when they leave? Nothing soul-profitable, just ego-profitable. They tell themselves, “Well, I know one thing: don’t trust people, especially church leaders.” The Bible is full of bad leaders – more failed kings than successful kings. The Prophets are a mixed bag. But when the people in the Bible run away, like Peter, nothing is good. Adam and Eve hide. Moses runs. David hides. Jonah runs. Isaiah hides. Jeremiah ditches out. And what? God goes and them gets them and consistently tells them to “go back.” Go back, it will be painful and you might even fail or die!

We would do well to look at the example of those who have gone before us. Benedictine monks take three vows: obedience, stability, and ongoing conversion (Esther de Waal, Seeking God… 13). Notice not one of these vows has any hint of escapism or leaving. Benedict says there are four kinds of monks: cenobites (monks), anchorites (hermits), sarabaites (untrained, undisciplined, and worldly = bad), and gyrovagues (wanderers, spiritual voyeurs = really bad). My opinion: evangelicals are gyrovagues.

Philosopher Charles Taylor, an expert on the modern identity, says human life is fundamentally “dialogical,” not monological. Taylor states,

We become full human agents, capable of understanding ourselves, and hence defining an identity, through our acquisition of rich human languages of expression.

Taylor defines “language” in it’s broadest sense of not just words but “art, love, gesture,” the exchange with others. We learn how to be human with other humans – not alone. Nothing good gets learned by leaving.

If you believe I am suggesting you stay in your abusive situation, I am not saying stay in your dangerous abuse. Distance for safety. But with mature supervision, stay and go through the “art of forgiveness” (forgive, reconciliation, and new/different restoration – thanks Lew Smedes).

What if we all stayed? You call me idealistic? Okay. But I call you idealistic because you believe YOU can make a better church than others, and YOU can create the perfect fellowship. No wonder the house church model is attractive in our age. It is based on a reading of scripture that the first church was the ideal church. This is called “remnant ecclesiology.” But the first church was big. And more importantly it was economically and ethnically diverse. This caused friction. And really more importantly, they stuck it out through at least a couple of big problems: widows’ support, and the Gentile mission (Acts 6, 15).

Up at Conception Abbey, outside the Basilica there are two statues of angels, Gabriel and Michael. Michael is missing a wing. Is his wing supposed to be missing or did it just break off? I’ve never heard of a tradition of Michael with just one wing. I don’t know. My point – we are all one-winged angels. We are flawed. You know what happens when you only have one wing? You fly in tight, labored, small circles. You cannot get far. Actually I think you cannot fly anywhere. Stay. Struggle. Learn. Grow. Embrace each others’ flaws. Leave an enjoy short-term peace. Stay and experience all sorts of hell – and mature in Christ.