The CBE Scroll

Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, has stepped down as pastor of New Life Church over allegations—which he says are partly true—of sexual misconduct and drug abuse. Eventually we will know the truth about what happened. Until then, Christian charity compels me to pray for this brother as he seeks “spiritual advice and guidance.”

No doubt both the man and his church will be doing a fair bit of soul-searching in the weeks to come. It may be that Ben Witherington is right in wondering whether the patriarchal culture, and particularly the model of church leadership that so often goes with it, might be partially responsible. Witherington writes,

The culture of patriarchal Evangelical leadership involves a lot of power and isolation at the top. Too often it involves a “cult of personality” kind of scenario, with the “pastor-superstar” model, and the pastor put way up on a pedestal - from which he is almost bound to fall. The isolation from normal accountability structures and peer correction may lead to all sorts of temptations to abuse power. It is quite probably too much power in too few hands. The minister may feel he is bullet-proof and can do no wrong. And if there is something not right in his personal relationships with his wife or family, then moral slippage may happen in various forms. One of the reasons, though not the only one, for this is that the patriarchal culture of male leadership isolates men from the critique of the opposite sex, and often it is those with a differing perspective which will first see the early warning signs of sexual trouble. Any sort of local church accountability or pastor-parish relations committee should involve both men and women, and not those hand picked by the pastor.

If this was a factor in Pastor Haggard’s situation, let us all pray that he and his church confront it.