{"id":389,"date":"2006-11-24T17:23:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-24T17:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2006\/11\/24\/on-abusive-pastoral-leadership\/"},"modified":"2006-11-24T17:23:00","modified_gmt":"2006-11-24T17:23:00","slug":"on-abusive-pastoral-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2006\/11\/24\/on-abusive-pastoral-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"on ‘abusive’ pastoral leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"
A good deal of recent discussion<\/a> swirled around the idea of abusive pastors and the ‘suffering’ saints who sat under their leadership [also here<\/a>]. I wouldn’t say that there have NEVER been manipulative liars in pulpits, it stands to reason that there have been many. But just as with secularistic social workers, I tend to look askance at most claims of abuse. First is the matter of perspective, as some have pointed out. Rebels always think they are being abused. Second is the matter of choice – church membership and involvement is based on voluntary association. Those enduring the alleged abuse do have minds, wills, and feet. They are not ‘trapped’ and can leave. And, again, this is certainly not to say that manipulative leadership does not exist. It is part of the human condition.<\/p>\n Besides these issues, there is something of a matter of social psychology and prevalent moods. The days in which we live are without a doubt much more anti-authoritarian than the days in which I grew up. My childhood years were the 60s, a turbulent anti-authority decade … among the teenagers at the time. Those of us who were children in those days still lived in the culture of the 40s and 50s for the most part. The rebellion and change began to filter down to us as the decade progressed and emerged full blown (but much less radical) in our teenage years, the 1970s. When we were in grade school and even into junior high, a high percentage of us still went to school in buzz cuts … I remember the scorn we felt for those sissy guys who came to school with ‘Beatle haircuts’. Of course, by the 70s, the restraint was long gone and hair was everywhere. (Not on me, though, I stuck to my tapered cut… but I did have long sideburns!)<\/p>\n