My father's fall from grace was almost complete.
His EPL had now been tucked into a far corner... and instead, he held in his hand a new statement, one that had been co-authored with the elders of the church. My father had written his own statement, trying his best to speak truthfully and from his heart while also using some key words that the senior pastor told him he wanted to be included in the "confession." But John, the elder charged by the senior pastor to approve this letter, was not happy with the original version my father wrote. They wrestled back and forth for a while... my father unwilling to say some things the elders wanted him to say, and John, unwilling to allow my father to say some things my dad wanted to say. But in the end, my dad agreed to a statement that he felt he could live with (at the time). He was to read it in front of the entire church congregation immediately following the normal service.
It was an odd Sunday waiting for this thing to be read. A packed sanctuary. Unusually packed. It reminded me of an old fashioned guitine execution with folks coming from far off lands to watch. Somehow, on this Sunday, there were people at our church who hadn't come in months. For some of them it had been YEARS. It was almost as if somebody had invited them.
I was not given the chance to read the statement before hand... and so I had a knot in my stomach as I watched my dad walk up on to the stage. The same stage he had preached from and lead worship on, he was now about to use as a platform to read this statement of apology. It felt almost like an out of body experience. I was watching this completely unimaginable and crazy thing unfold right before my eyes and it seemed entirely surreal.
Head low, tears in his eyes... my dad walked up to the front and read the stupid thing.
His presentation was not wholly without emotion, but anybody who knew my father at all knew that it wasn't quite... right. I have to imagine that most people wrote it off as embarassment on account of the entire awkwardness of the whole situation. Later, the manner in which my dad presented the statement would be held against him as evidence that he was playing some sort of game, or that he was lying through his teeth when he read it. But this was no game. And my father was confused, he was not lying. No, he was, as I mentioned in the last chapter... just like a key eyewitness to a crime who was confused enough to believe he was all alone... bullied and threatened into fear, confusion, and self doubt by the perpetrators of the crime. My dad was made to think it was all HIS fault... it was HIM who was arrogant enough to think that he knew better than the rest (people he had trusted in and walked through life with for over thirty years)... and now he must admit it in front of everybody once and for all to settle the matter. If he were to say otherwise? Well, that would only prove their accusations against him were true.
The statement by my father, in a nutshell, went something like this: Me bad; they good. Me threaten to leave; they nothing but good friends and kind. Me proud; they humble and merciful. Me hard to work with; they patient and loving. Me stepping down; they will continue on. And the final line? "Do not worry, we love you... and we are not going anywhere." (Remember this line, for it became a key part of my father's statement that would cause other members of the church tons and tons of heartache and confusion for years to come.)
The senior pastor followed my father's statement with a passionate message to the congregation. He enumerated to the congregation thoughts concerning the long standing efforts to keep the "collegial" nature of the eldership in tact, but that my dad only listened to his own counsel.
** Later, it would be discovered that this effort to paint my father as an arrogant and power-hungry man was very misleading. For the senior pastor had been demanding "more authority" from the other elders for the last six weeks proceeding the firing of my father. The senior pastor "felt from the Lord" that he needed additional authority to break the elders free from disagreements, in essence, an tie-breaking vote where his opinion counted doubly (oops, forgot the past... Chapter 7a - Doomed Repetition)! Most of the disagreements that arose where issues that my father was fighting against which, of course, was also later held against him as evidence of pride and arrogance! And so, in reality, the self-righteous claim of equality between the elders, was one that the senior pastor himself had been seeking to change, and my father was the only elder who would not give it to him (also outlined in the EPL.) **
The senior pastor went on talking about the shock of discovering this dreadful amount of pride and arrogance in my father... how the senior pastor empathized with the congregation in what they must be feeling... how they must feel so betrayed knowing the "underneath all the good" my father had done over the twenty plus years of service that there "lay this secret sin of pride." The pastor admonished the congregation not to focus fully on the bad, but to look upon my father with mercy and grace remembering the good things that had been done dispite this undercurrent of pride. The pastor promised of an effort to address the problems in my dad's charater with a program of restitution... and before long, maybe even restoration.
And it was done.
But somewhere during the senior pastor's message, a stirring began inside my father (and mine I must say) that reminded him of what was really going on. Just as the confused eyewitness gains a sickening clarity as he watches the criminal stroll out of the courtroom, so my father began to have misgivings about what had been done. But what now? What could he do from here?
Still confused and feeling lost, my father once again relied on what had served him well over the years... faith and trust. And when I say faith and trust, I mean faith and trust in God. My father trusted God to work a miracle. To make something good out of what had become so bad in so many ways. But a huge part of the problem was that our church had a culture that so often equated trusting God with trusting the leadership of the church that the lines often became indistinguishable. And so my father walked, by faith, in error. He was willing to do what the senior pastor and elders required thinking that he was doing the right and noble thing.
But soon enough, things would get a whole lot clearer for my dad and step-mom. For at this point, not only had the crime occured and the criminal walked... but the focus had shifted to this eyewitness who had crumbled under the pressure of the trial, my father. Yes, the entire focus of the eldership now turned to "fixing" this man who had publicly admitted the sin of all sins, PRIDE.
Oddly enough, one of the first things that the leaders did was to send my dad and step-mom on a cruise. Go ahead and re-read the last sentance. Ponder it. But don't try to figure it out 'cause it simply doesn't make a ton of sense. I'll give a brief explanation, but it still won't make too much sense. Remember my father's old friend and co-elder Tommy? The one who pushed him to write the EPL in the first place? Well, for some reason... he now was convinced that part of the solution to my dad's arrogance problem included a little R&R on an all expenses paid cruise trip. NOBODY else wanted to go along with this idea... but Tommy pushed and pushed and pushed, and it was finally given the thumbs-up by the elders and off my dad and step-mom went.
When they returned from the trip, it was announced to them that a "restoration program" had been designed by the elders and would be lead by the senior pastor himself. It was said that this program was designed to "let others speak into" my father's life. The program mandidated that my father and step-mom go to a weekly small group that would be led by the senior pastor and his wife. Additionally, both my father and my step-mom would be immediately put in to a mentoring program, matched with some of the people that they now knew had been gossiping behind their backs for many years. (Isn't that just plain cruel?) My father was also to meet with Tommy and some other old friends who had failed to stand with my father during the heat of all of this, people who were now publicly calling my father proud and arrogant, and people who had failed to speak up in support of my father's convictions even though they shared them.
And what of the issues brought up in EPL? When would they begin to be addressed? When would a team of leaders from within the church be assembled to walk through the serious accusations and implications? When would an outside resource come in to help manage the betrayal and gossip that had taken place? They wouldn't be. For the EPL was now identified as ramblings of an arrogant man and were held only as evidence of the pride in my father's heart. He was the problem. To address his accusations would only give credence to them. And that would not be tolerated. But there was another reason that his accusations weren't taken seriously... but I'll keep that for the next chapter.
Even with all the craziness, my father wanted to press on. Well, more accurately, he was willing to press on. Even as broken and weird and horribly twisted as it was, he was willing to keep at it.
But for my step-mom, it was all too weird. None if it made sense. She heard the whisperings of other people and saw the way they looked at her and her husband now. Things were different and she was not going to go any further with what she was becoming more and more aware was a rouse. She announced to my dad after the church's Annual Harvest Fair that she was done with New Hope.
But come on now step-mom! Wouldn't you expect things to be different after a public rebuke and being removed from office? Of course they would be! It is hard to bear the weight of moral failures. Just ask anybody who has been caught and removed from office and their failures made public!
But let me interject one thing here. What is it that makes such weighty and difficult times bearable? I would suggest that the only reason that any person who has undergone such radical disciplinary actions as my father did, would be willing or able to continue on in the discipline is if they are convinced and convicted that the accusations against them are true and just. A pastor who is found in bed with another woman, for instance, would go through similar public humiliation that my father did. But what would make the pain of all that bearable for him would be the fact that he knew what he did was wrong and he was repentant for it.
But in this story, the story of my father and my step-mom, they were not convinced. At moments confused... but never fully convinced. And the more that time passed, the more the accusations against my father came in to focus, and the more that my dad and step-mom were reminded of how sideways the leadership had become.
Three weeks after my step-mom's decisioni to stop going to New Hope, my father and the senior pastor met over a cup of coffee. My dad explained to the pastor that he had gone to his closest friend and fellow elder Tommy along with another of friend in the church of fifteen years and met with them on three seperate occasions, asking them for examples of the"pride" that they had now were proclaiming was a major sin in his life. He left each meeting without a single example given by either of them. Neither could they give an answer as to why the issue had never been addressed in the years of their friendship up to this point.
And so, my father challanged the senior pastor further with a question, "If this sin of pride and arrogance was such a powerful force in my life, how has my wife escaped the effect it would have on her after fifteen years of marriage?"
The pastor answered, "Because you are so good at what you do that you have fooled her!"
My dad answered, "From this moment on, my family and I are no longer under the authority of you or NewHope."
** Continue the story with Chapter7e **
