Pastoral failure and the cultism of The Evangelical church.
The word of God commands us to care the poor , sick and orphaned. A pastor is suppose to be a shepherd and care for their flock. In 2021 it seems some pastors just settle for speaking Sunday and Wednesday and running the programs in their church. In the meantime ignoring church members text or phone calls. In a pandemic age church members have to watch church virtually especially those that are high risk. Those members of the body of Christ often get ignored and not served by the church. Let’s break down what a pastor is suppose to be.
Pastors are suppose to be shepherds of the church and take care and look after church attendees. A shepherd is the person that looks after and cares for the flock of sheep. A pastor is often referred to as a shepherd some pastors carry out this role extremely well. Some not so much. When a pastor ignores that phone call or text when something is urgent that pastor has failed. When ever someone in your church has presented a need and more than a month passes with no response from the pastor that’s a failure of leadership. A shepherd guards and protects the sheep, plus the shepherd feeds and helps them grow from lambs into mature sheep. The failure occurs when all of that fails. In the 2016 election we saw a massive failure of leadership from pastors. People threatened to leave the church if there pastors didn’t Back Trump. The failure continues to this day. Pastors have by in large allowed their churches to commit to the worship of one guy and it’s not Jesus. It’s A politician and not our savior. Instead many look at Trump like he is the savior. As he leans in to culture wars such as immigration , feeding the poor , abortion and other hot Button issues.the hyper partisanship is one of the things that led to my deconstruction.
The hypocrisy that’s Occurred in the church led me to the place I am today. I’m really at a place of loss because I feel like I’ve lost community. It started because of a failure of those that are suppose to be spiritual leaders. Those that are suppose to guard the sheep failed to do so. Instead the caved in to the forces of cultism. A system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object. In this case it’s a individual. Never in my life until recently would I dreamt of calling the church of a cult. Yet here I am doing just that. While I am still a believer in Christ and his teachings I’m having a difficult time referring to myself as a Christian given our current environment. “Pastors” in the evangelical community are often times afraid to speak out on certain things especially if it has anything to do with politics. I’m reminded of a few months back when my uncle was in the icu before he passed on. I was with a part of my family I’m not particularly close too. It was all very difficult as I set with family I listened to what was being said. I listened to someone on staff at a church take some very judgmental tones and then also heard then be anti-vaccine , Anti-mask and just plain rude to people in the medical community as they were asked to put on a mask. Being Rude to people that have battled a pandemic for over a year and also taking care of your sick loved one at the same time the gall of it all was just absurd to me. Especially from folks that claimed to be spiritual leaders. The one thing that really struck a nerve with me was the evening news was on the waiting room Tv one night they had the story of Israel striking Palestine. Someone made the comment “I hope they wipe them off the map” I responded with so you’re okay with children being killed ? That person replied with oh I didn’t Know children had Been killed. Which it doesn’t matter the fact those in the evangelical community are perfectly fine with Genocide as long as the genocide isn’t being done to the side you’re on.
As Gods children how can people be so callous? How can we be so ok with peoples blood being spilled? The evangelical church seems perfectly fine to give a pass to bloodshed. I believe it all starts because of a failure of pastoral leadership.As Gods people we can and must do better. We need to love God and love people passionately.
