In news that should surprise clearly no person, Matt Chandler, pastor of the Village Church in Texas, announced on Sunday that he’d be stepping far from the pulpit indefinitely after admitting to an inappropriate on-line courting with a girl on Instagram.
It’s no longer sudden due to the fact Chandler has spent years responding within the worst feasible approaches to sexual abuse and beside the point conduct. It become handiest a count number of time earlier than all of it stuck up to him.
For people outside the evangelical international, a refresher may be useful.
In 2012, an eleven-year-antique girl became allegedly abused at the Village Church’s summer camp. Even though her mother and father informed church leaders about the incident numerous years later (after they learned about it), Chandler lied to his congregation about the information. He sincerely stated there has been an allegation of abuse with the aid of a church member however that the unnamed offender did now not have “access to youngsters on the Village Church.” (That become simplest technically real because the perpetrator, who become an companion kids’s minister, not labored there.)
Chandler one at a time emailed the congregation to mention that considered one of their pastors (THE equal man) became leaving the church because of an “alcohol abuse hassle”… without acknowledging the connection among the 2 memories.
In 2015, Chandler and his colleagues punished a female who annulled her marriage after finding out her husband changed into a pedophile… because she didn’t run it via church elders first so they may attempt a reconciliation.
I repeat: They punished her for looking to get the hell out of that marriage. They did now not punish him due to the fact he repented. (The husband and wife had been missionaries.)
Chandler is also president of Acts 29, a primary evangelical “church planting” network that offers massive wheelbarrows full of cash to men who display promise in starting and leading churches that adhere to a strict conservative interpretation of Christianity.
Acts 29 became founded through Mark Driscoll, the spiritually abusive, misogynistic, plagiarizing internet troll who was booted from the ministry in 2014, simplest to get replaced via any other preacher, Steve Timmis, who became eventually booted from the ministry for… non secular abuse.
In advance this yr, Christianity today‘s Daniel Silliman interviewed Chandler about the country of the ministry and particularly asked if the contemporary enterprise might have weeded out guys like Driscoll and Timmis. In different words, had Acts 29 changed its education to make sure abusive men like that weren’t given a platform?
As I wrote on the time, pronouncing you hate all abuse is an easy way to disregard the very particular sorts of abuse that frequently crop up in evangelical churches. Chandler was so desperate now not to say some thing awful approximately objectively terrible guys that he acted like a swing-nation Republican who has to shield Donald Trump in an interview. Instead of telling the reality, he spoke in useless generalities. (additionally, narcissism isn’t the trouble. It’s a lack of responsibility.)
Multiple times, Chandler has had the possibility to sentence abuse. As a substitute, he defended the abusers or at least shielded them from nicely-deserved complaint.
Now Chandler himself is being accused of wrongdoing… but the exact nature of his moves are absolutely vague and far from transparent.
On Sunday morning, Matt Chandler instructed his congregation that a girl lately approached him because she had “worries” about Instagram DMs he become sending her friend. The ones DMs, he told the congregation, have been no longer “romantic or sexual,” however they were “unguarded and unwise” to the factor that they were “revealing a few unhealth in me.”
You is probably asking: WHAT THE DOES ANY OF THAT suggest?
Your wager is as appropriate as mine. But the messages were apparently scandalous enough that Chandler won’t be returned within the pulpit whenever soon.
The Infantilization of a grown-ass man right here is what’s embarrassing.
If this was harmless banter that crossed a line, then it’s a be counted that could’ve been handled privately. It sure as hell shouldn’t lead to this form of public shaming or temporary banishment.
If it’s something greater extreme—and it in reality seems to be—then the church need to tell the congregation what the hell he did. Why are these human beings so rattling secretive approximately the whole thing? When has that method ever labored for them?!
They’ve learned actually not anything from the past several years.
Keep in mind we haven’t heard the alternative girl’s aspect of the tale. Or some thing from the lady who first approached him approximately this. Or Chandler’s spouse. The fact that such a lot of information are being saved from the general public shows it’s not some innocent mistake. I’m gonna bet the church member yelling out “we love you” and Chandler’s very own admission that he plans on “being the lead pastor of this church for the following 20 years” received’t age properly.
However it’s hard to evaluate whether or not the church went too a long way or didn’t pass far enough with out understanding the proper nature of the Instagram conversations among Matt Chandler and the lady. Given his song document, though, the public would be clever to expect the worst. He hasn’t earned the advantage of the doubt
