I’ve been writing this blog about pastor-congregational conflict issues over the past five months. Every day, I’m given the terms that people type into their search engines to find the blog, and the top two phrases have been “how to terminate a pastor” and “facing your accusers.” Evidently there is a lot of confusion among Christians as to how to handle the correction and termination of a pastor. (And pastors don’t help because they rarely teach on this issue.) Take a moment to imagine how differently pastors would be treated if every church took Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 19:15-21 seriously:
“One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime, the two men involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, then do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from among you. The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you. Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”
Please notice several things about this passage:
First, an accuser must be a witness. An individual had to see someone committing a crime before they could report it to the authorities. You were not allowed to say, “Well, I heard that Joshua stole a cow” or “some of my friends told me that Seth assaulted the high priest.” If you reported what you heard from someone else, that might make you a prosecutor but not a witness. There’s a big difference. You had to witness the events firsthand for someone to be tried. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t even be heard. J. A. Thompson notes in his commentary on Deuteronomy that this section deals with “the false witness who has been a menace to society in every age and among many peoples.”
How differently matters are handled in our churches.
Can you imagine going to a meeting of the governing board or standing up in a public meeting and accusing your pastor of a litany of charges without ever having witnessed any of his offenses yourself? And yet this is exactly what happens in many churches. Rather than instantly believing (or disbelieving) the charges, someone should ask the accuser point blank, “Have you personally seen or heard the pastor commit any offenses? If so, when and where?” If not, the person has been disqualified as a witness and should be silent. Then those who have seen the pastor say or do something wrong should come forward. If nobody does, the charges – according to Scripture – should be dismissed.
One of the best features of American jurisprudence is that a plaintiff is able to face his or her accusers. In other words, a witness cannot make charges against someone – resulting in their arrest – and then be able to hide out as the accused is tried and sentenced. The accused must be able to face their accuser in court and have his or her attorney cross-examine them. Many Christians believe that this legal principle comes straight from passages like this one. It would be a shame if unbelievers obeyed biblical principles in a greater way than believers.
Second, one witness is not enough to establish guilt. What does Scripture say? There must be “two or three witnesses” to a crime, not just one, because one person could easily misrepresent an event.
When I was in high school, I was walking home from school one day with a friend when we both witnessed an accident between a motorcycle and a car. The motorcyclist ran a stop sign, hit the car broadside, and then flew over the car, landing on the pavement. (He was okay.) While I told the police what I saw, my friend saw things a bit differently – and probably more accurately – because he planned to become a policeman (which he eventually did). We both saw the same accident and yet came to several different conclusions. Several witnesses are able to give a more complete version of events than a single witness could ever do – and this protects the accused from a personal vendetta by one person.
Both Jesus and Paul later quoted from this passage when they mentioned the necessity of having “two or three witnesses” establish the facts in a confrontation (Matthew 18:16; 1 Timothy 5:19) – and Paul’s words to Timothy deal specifically with Christian leaders.
Third, every charge against an individual must be investigated by an impartial body. While I’m stating the obvious here, a witness cannot say, “I saw So-and-So commit such-and-such an offense” and be instantly believed. Their charges must be tested.
The other night, I was watching a dramatic depiction of the trial of Sir Thomas More, who served as Chancellor under King Henry VIII of England. Henry had More (a Roman Catholic) arrested for high treason and confined to The Tower of London. More’s Protestant opponents (sad to say) continually accused him of denying the right of the king to be the head of the church in England. While More successfully beat back the initial wave of charges, he was finally accused by Richard Rich (the king’s Solicitor General) for denying the king’s right to lead the church during a personal conversation. Based on the testimony of one man, a jury required a mere fifteen minutes to pronounce More’s guilt and arrange for his execution.
Regardless of how you might feel about Henry VIII and Thomas More, isn’t there something inside of us that recoils when we hear that a private conversation with a single person could result in the death of a Christian leader? By the same token, how can the wild accusations of one person result in the besmirching of a pastor’s reputation in our day? And rather than just take one person’s word for it, shouldn’t an impartial body be appointed to check into the charges? Isn’t this what Paul had in mind when he told the church in Corinth (in 1 Corinthians 6:1-8) that they should be able to handle their own affairs without involving the secular court system?
Finally, if the charges proved to be false, then the witnesses were to receive the exact punishment the accused would have received. What Brown writes about societies applies even more stringently to Christian churches: “Any society is sick if people within it will lie deliberately in order to inflict harm on others. The Lord is a God of truth; he does not deceive us by anything he says. Therefore, the word of those who belong to the covenant community must also be reliable and trustworthy.”
Please note that the law of lex talionis (known as “an eye for an eye”) specified the limit of punishment (if Joseph harmed your eye, you could harm his eye but not his ear) rather than demanded punishment (if he harmed your eye, you had to harm his eye).
Several weeks ago, I had lunch with a veteran Christian leader who told me about his church’s policy when it comes to accusing staff members of wrongdoing. Two women in the church claimed they had seen a staff member engaging in inappropriate behavior. Their claims came to the attention of my friend and he did a thorough investigation of the matter. While he concluded that the staff member did not use his best judgment, he exonerated him from any serious wrongdoing. One of the women was dissatisfied with the decision and began to repeat her charges to others. My friend then contacted her and told her that if she did not stop her accusations, then discipline would be exercised against her. Her accusations ceased.
This step is missing in Christian churches today. We have created a climate where people can make accusations with impunity – whether they’re true or not – because they know that nothing will happen to them. These accusations are often passed around the church in the form of gossip and are believed before the accused leader even hears about them or can respond to them. Because the leader is then perceived to be in the wrong, he or she is asked for their resignation. What a travesty!
I recommend that Christians find ways to include the principles embedded in this Deuteronomy passage (not necessarily the penalties!) into church life so we can protect our Christian leaders from false and malicious charges. As Moses said, “You must purge the evil from among you.”
But the truth is that this passage is a safeguard for everybody – including leaders. Isn’t this the way you would want to be treated if you were accused of an offense?
What do you think about this passage and these principles?
Good thoughts. I especially like the illustration of the woman who continued to discuss her dissatisfaction and was told discipline would be exercised if she continued because the matter was settled. I believe a church ceases to be a church when discipline is not exercised.
I have been thinking a lot about when a church ceases to be a church.
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It’s good to hear from you, Steve. Thanks for your comments. It seems that discipline is possible when a church is small or medium-sized, but it gets increasingly more difficult as a church gets larger. However, the man who told me the story is a staff pastor in a church of more than 15,000 people! While the church has lots of pastors and staff, they treat the leaders who require correction with grace and dignity. It’s no wonder God has blessed the church so much.
By the way, I saw your Mariners play the Padres in spring training at Peoria. I sat on the grass behind the outfield fence because it was cheap – and only lasted three innings. It’s hard to watch a game when kids are doing cartwheels in front of you! Have a great week. Jim
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Jim, I cannot even begin to tell you how important this subject is for churches today. Thank you for writing and posting this. Nearly every church I have ever belonged to has failed miserably in this department. So, often I have felt like the lone voice in the wilderness, crying out over this very issue. In fact, this is a primary issue why I refuse to serve in professional, paid pastoral ministry today. Most churches are completely lost when it comes to matters of church discipline. I recently taught on the 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 passage. As a result, I am convinced more than ever that churches need to become like courts of law in order to properly administer justice to all of the people in the church, including the staff. I am so sick an tired of malicious gossips running the church through their own twisted ways that if I had more than one emotion left I would scream. I will post this to my FaceBook page and pray that the people who need to read this will find it and learn from it.
What complicates matters even worse is the fact that our evangelical seminaries are impotent on matters of church discipline. If you take a course on conflict management at a theological seminary, all you get are business principles and methods, coupled with pop psychology about how we all need to understand each other better. Although there is nothing inherently wrong with these techniques, it misses the seriousness of the issue and fails to give solid, direct biblical counsel. Most churches needs to move from a position of naivete and discomfort about church discipline to a position of biblical literacy and zealous jurisprudence without becoming Pharisaical witch hunters.
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Joel, thanks for making my day! I agree with you totally that we need to have structures in place – even in congregationally-run churches – to handle accusations against the pastor, staff, and even other leaders. We’re letting dysfunctional people – using trumped-up charges – get their way while healthy believers stand back and do nothing. It’s like throwing Alex Rodgriguez off the Yankees because a few people in the stands yell insults at him that contain a grain of truth. I took a conflict class in seminary. It was taught by a retired army colonel, and it was pretty good. (It was also an elective.) But the problem with this topic is that we can’t seem to get it on the frontal lobes of evangelical leaders. The whole topic is ignored, hushed up, and swept under the rug – in the name of unity and peace. I like your posts on Facebook because of your courage. Where are you and Kara living these days?
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Joel, I’ve written more than 50 articles on pastor-church conflict since December. When you have time, peruse the blog. I deal with all kinds of issues – and I’ve lived them all firsthand!
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