Latest / 4-Freedom Podcast / 113. Re-release Bully Pulpit - Interview with Michael Kruger

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113. Re-release Bully Pulpit - Interview with Michael Kruger · 4-Freedom Podcast

0:01
Well, today we have an episode to give you and we are excited.
0:06
So if you're part of the RFP fam, you're going to love this.
0:08
If you're part of the biblical counseling world, I think you're
0:10
going to really enjoy this as well.
0:11
That's going to be helpful for you.
0:13
But this is an interview I've been wanting to get for a long,
0:17
long time. And this is Doctor Michael
0:20
Krueger from Reformed Theological Seminary in
0:23
Charlotte. And he has written a book called
0:26
Bully Pulpit, The Problem of Spiritual Abuse in the Church.
0:30
And so we reached out to him to see if he'd do an interview.
0:34
And so this is coming out. We're recording this on Tuesday.
0:39
This comes out Thursday. Today, the book went live.
0:44
So the book is on sale now. So we're going to put a link in
0:47
the show notes. So you go pick up the book and
0:50
listen to this interview. I do not mean to be mean.
0:53
I do mean to be mad. Those that criticize this kind
0:58
of preaching, they don't like a thorn.
1:01
If you ain't got the King James, you ain't got.
1:02
Hey, you don't have a King James.
1:05
You don't have a Bible. And it'd be surprised.
1:10
Son, don't go to sleep while I'm talking.
1:12
Hey, hey, hey, Don't, don't. Don't you lay your head back.
1:15
I'm. I'm important.
1:16
I'm somebody. I love you.
1:18
You know I love you. And I convinced you I love you.
1:21
Yeah. You better.
1:22
You better nod your head. Yes.
1:23
Sorry. Come on.
1:23
Put it up there. All right.
1:25
Still, where can you listen to me?
1:30
I still believe if you're cold in hell can brag in my family
1:33
for a woman. I'm a preacher.
1:45
When you got dressed today, you dressed Deity.
1:52
This is the For Freedom podcast, a podcast that is part of the
1:56
RFP network that seeks to bring freedom in Christ from the
2:00
spiritual abuse of legalism. Now here your host, John
2:04
Hollyfield and James Seyfret. And so fundamentalism is
2:11
designed to unpack the idea of authority from Scripture.
2:15
The problem with that is that that's not the defining
2:18
principle in Scripture. It is a part of the Scripture.
2:20
But the defining principle in Scripture is love.
2:44
And now I'm not saying that all men who sit under the boat that
2:47
teaching will become abusive. But what I'm saying is the ones
2:49
who are abusive will be drawn to that sort of teacher.
3:03
I I don't. Want to give people just a list
3:06
of things they can start doing differently until they have a
3:09
heart out of which they're going to be doing those things
3:11
differently. But I think bitterness is
3:21
different from hurt. I would say that hurt or even
3:24
abuse does not have to result in bitterness.
3:30
Welcome everybody to the For Freedom podcast.
3:32
James and John, we're your host, we're back and we're very
3:36
excited for this, this guest and this topic.
3:39
And and quite honestly we just coming off of the the RFP
3:44
conference for the sake of the gospel Conference and spending a
3:47
lot of time with the RFP family. And if there's ever been an
3:51
episode or an interview that is going to be helpful for the RFP
3:56
family, it's it's this episode and this guest.
3:59
We're thrilled to have Doctor Michael Krueger with us today
4:03
and he let me just give you just a short description of what he
4:07
does. And then Dr. Krueger, I'm going
4:09
to let you explain, you know, give you an intro because
4:12
there's a lot in your bio. Yeah, please.
4:14
Don't, please don't read it at all.
4:16
Doctor Krueger serves as the President and Samuel C Patterson
4:19
Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the
4:22
Charlotte campus of Reformed Theological Seminary.
4:24
He's wrote many works and serves as an elder at his local church
4:29
and I've been greatly benefited by his work and and teaching and
4:33
writing on the canonicity of Scripture.
4:35
But the book that we're here to discuss is this brand new book,
4:39
which actually as we're recording today was released
4:41
officially released today it. Was, Yeah.
4:45
It is a bully pulpit confronting spiritual abuse, the problem of
4:51
spiritual abuse in the church, and and so we're excited about
4:55
talking about that. But before we jump into the the
4:57
discussion of the book, Doctor Kruger, tell us a little bit
5:00
about yourself. Yeah, Well, as you indicated, I
5:03
mean, I serve as president here and and New Testament professor
5:05
at RTS Charlotte, been here 21 years.
5:08
Most of your listeners probably know me from my writings on
5:11
Canon and text and biblical reliability.
5:14
But as I'm sure we'll discuss this, this topic's been on my
5:17
heart for a while now. And just as a Christian leader,
5:19
I felt like it needed to be addressed.
5:20
And so, yeah, it's outside my normal wheelhouse, but certainly
5:25
within the realm of what I think all Christian leaders need to
5:27
think about and ponder. And I'm looking forward to
5:29
talking about it. Absolutely.
5:32
Well, I think, I think the first question you probably would do
5:36
this with any interview about any of your your book or writing
5:41
that you do is what is or what was the motivation for writing
5:47
this book? Yeah, this book was a bit of a
5:49
surprise for me and sort of my own academic trajectory.
5:53
As I indicated, most of my writings more on the academic
5:55
side. I don't do a lot of writing on
5:58
the practical side, and more than that, I probably would have
6:01
never guessed I'd write a book on leadership.
6:02
That seems I'm convinced we have plenty of books on leadership in
6:06
the church and probably more than needed on one level.
6:10
But as I began to sort of look around the scene over the last
6:13
decade in particular, I've been concerned about the type of
6:15
leaders that we're not only producing in the evangelical
6:18
church in America, but also the kind we're platforming,
6:21
promoting and sort of following. And you know as I lead a
6:26
seminary here, we think a lot about Christian leaders and I
6:29
think there's there's something there that's that's troubling.
6:32
And I think the type of leader we tend to tend to to platform
6:35
these days may be exactly the kind of leader that we don't
6:37
need. And also as a as a leader that
6:40
perhaps is out of sync with what the biblical characteristics for
6:42
for biblical leadership should be in the 1st place.
6:45
So I've I've gotten, I've sort of feel like I've been forced
6:49
into this, if you could say it that way.
6:51
And what I mean is I didn't start off my career thinking I
6:53
would talk about leadership and I certainly didn't expect to
6:55
talk about bad leadership. But I think it's one of those
6:58
things where you're like, you know what, there's something
7:00
that needs to be done about this problem and someone needs to
7:02
speak up. And I felt like maybe if someone
7:04
in in my kind of role spoke up, it would get a hearing that it
7:08
may not get if if other folks, folks were talking about it.
7:11
So that's that's my prayer. No, I I like that because from
7:17
what I understand, this is not born out of something of your
7:19
own sort of spiritually abusive experience.
7:22
And I think it's real easy for some of those, Like if I was to
7:25
write something on that, it probably it would be sort of
7:28
testimonial at times and James the same way.
7:31
But it's it's good to have voices on both sides.
7:34
It's not just like, oh, that's just a bunch of hurt people
7:37
just, you know, crying about about them being hurt.
7:40
No, this is actually somebody that's that's standing up and
7:42
say, you know what if I could say it this way, that Jesus in
7:46
me is saying that there is a problem here and we need to
7:49
address it. Yeah, yeah, I mean I there we
7:52
have there's definitely autobiographical books out there
7:54
on on on spiritual abuse and and they need we need to listen to
7:57
those. But we also need books from from
8:00
people who are leaders and biblical scholars themselves who
8:04
are, who are noticing it. And sometimes if it's not fellow
8:07
leaders that are noticing it, no one listens.
8:09
And that itself actually is the problem.
8:12
And and so you can see how the reason I wrote the book is, is
8:16
is exactly exemplifying the reason I wrote the book, which
8:19
is that we have a leadership structure that doesn't listen to
8:22
people sort of quote under them because it's overly
8:25
hierarchical. And so I'm hoping to gain a
8:29
listening just by by by being a leader among other leaders.
8:32
And so it's really a book written from a leader to a
8:34
leader saying, hey, we've got to, we've got to rethink that we
8:37
were doing this. Yeah, that's great.
8:39
That's great. So again, we're talking about
8:43
spiritual abuse here. What would you how, how, what
8:47
would be a good definition, a practical definition for us of
8:50
what is spiritual abuse? How can people recognize
8:53
spiritual abuse as they're going through their journey and and
8:56
spiritual journey? You know, we're going to church.
8:58
How can they begin to see what is spiritual abuse?
9:01
What is just biblical? Because there's sometimes where
9:03
hard truth, we can sometimes partake that as spiritual abuse.
9:07
So how, what's what's our balance here?
9:09
How do we see that? Yeah, well, as you might might
9:12
know, I spent a lot of time in the book on exactly this
9:14
question, right? Because I know people need some,
9:16
some definition, some clarity. The term gets tossed around
9:19
without a lot of definitions sometimes.
9:22
So I labour to put together a a a fresh definition, obviously
9:26
leaning on others that have gone before me.
9:28
But the essence of spiritual abuse is when a person in
9:30
spiritual authority, and that's one of the key aspects of the
9:32
definition. When a person of spiritual
9:34
authority wields their authority in such a way that they
9:37
domineer, run over, crush, manipulate, and and rule in a
9:44
harsh and dominary matter over those under their care.
9:47
And then they do all that where they think is for the purposes
9:51
of God, even though they're really doing it just to protect
9:53
their own power and their own position.
9:56
And so basically, you know, even though the term isn't in the
9:59
Bible, the category I just described is all over the Bible.
10:02
And I have a whole chapter just on that exegetically where I
10:05
talk about all the different texts that talk about this sort
10:07
of heavy-handed, harsh, domineering leadership where you
10:10
sort of, you know, a squash, those who are under you and and
10:13
and sinful and ungodly ways. And, you know, I go everything
10:17
from Ezekiel 34 and the bad shepherds of Israel, obviously,
10:20
to Jesus teaching like in a place like Mark 10 where he
10:22
talks about, hey, that the Gentiles lorded over those under
10:25
their care, but you need to be a servant in a slave to those
10:29
you're serving. And then of course, even places
10:30
like First Peter 5 where it says, you know, shepherds don't
10:33
domineer the flock under your care.
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So there's numerous places where this comes up.
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And I would argue that it's part of the fallen human condition.
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We we as fallen human beings are going to have a tendency and our
10:45
and our fallen hearts to to to to squash those under our care
10:48
unless we in a very intentional and spirit directed way look for
10:53
leaders that are that are have the kind of character that won't
10:56
won't be prone towards that. So that's the problem of
10:59
spiritual abuse. Now there's a whole bunch of
11:01
other things we can talk about. I'm sure we'll get to in terms
11:03
of well what what is spiritual abuse not.
11:06
And you mentioned one already which is just speaking the truth
11:09
to somebody's not spiritually abusive, right.
11:11
Just upholding true doctrine. It's not spiritually abusive,
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you know, People in our modern day will say, well, if you
11:16
believe acts, you're abusive, well, not effects is true.
11:19
Now one clarification on that you can you can speak truth
11:22
harshly. You can speak truth not in love.
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So you know the issue isn't just whether it's true.
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The issue is also the manner in which you execute that
11:31
leadership office. So it's a complex nuance thing,
11:34
and I try to cover some of that in the book.
11:36
Yeah, it's definitely a hot button topic and and even in
11:40
like so James and I are in the biblical counseling sort of
11:43
world as well. And so which would be considered
11:46
more of a conservative, serious minded environment And there
11:53
I've found that there's pushback even in that environment of.
11:57
Oh yeah. Terms spiritual abuse.
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And it's like, you know, push back on that.
12:02
And you wrote, you wrote this in one of your articles leading up.
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You had several articles leading up to the release of the book,
12:07
and you wrote this. You quote fear over bridal
12:11
cynicism has caused some to put on the blinders, refusing to see
12:15
and acknowledge the problems that are really there.
12:18
We can convince ourselves that loving the church means we keep
12:21
our mouths shut about her weaknesses.
12:24
And I was able to read the intro to to the book and I liked how
12:27
you likened it to almost like that thin blue line that we see
12:31
a lot of times and and law enforcement culture and we are
12:36
to be people of truth. You know, I know that that we
12:39
have this sense of loyalty that we want to see and we we love
12:43
the church. But at the same time, you know
12:46
it gets, it gets muddied and it gets messy when it comes to that
12:50
that time. Yeah, I I found the law
12:51
enforcement illustration in parallel really helpful because
12:56
everybody agrees in principle that that a police officer could
13:01
and sometimes does abuse their authority.
13:03
They are they they wait use way too much force for whatever they
13:07
need to do. And we can all think I'm sure of
13:10
examples that we know about where this happens.
13:12
But what's also interesting about the the analogy with
13:14
police is the knee jerk reaction of sub segments of the
13:18
population typically the segments that aren't being
13:20
abused where where the idea is well if we call out the bad
13:24
police we're going to be ruining their jobs and we're going to
13:29
make no one want to be a cop and we're going to be just being pro
13:33
crime and and and you know people are like no that's a
13:38
false choice. Can you not acknowledge abuse
13:40
when it happens in law enforcement, try to improve it?
13:43
At the same time, be pro police and certainly anti crime.
13:47
And So what? You realize there's a
13:48
polarization and people have this sort of inherent knee jerk
13:52
reaction to this idea that you could ever say, hey, a cop
13:56
stepped out of line here and the same thing with pastors, right.
13:58
Because they're there. It's a tough job and everybody
14:01
recognizes this is a tough job. So you're like, well, look, our
14:03
job is to defend pastors, not criticize them.
14:05
I'm like, well, no, our job is to speak truth.
14:09
And if the truth is that's required us to defend people who
14:12
are innocent, we should do that. But if the people are violating
14:14
God's law and God's rules in his word, then we need to call that
14:17
out too. And so I think the police
14:20
analogy is actually really a helpful one.
14:23
Yeah. And from our background, that's
14:25
the the it's it's leaving that side of the legalism side of it
14:30
and we swing to initially anything that's hard is going to
14:35
be abuse. And I think that's really where
14:37
we've got to get to the point where we understand that just
14:40
because it's hard. Yes, it's got to be spoken in
14:41
true. It's got to be spoken in love,
14:43
but we've got to be able to accept that and balance that in
14:46
our life. What are some other areas that
14:48
you would say would be an area that you someone's looking for a
14:52
church or maybe looking for a pastor?
14:55
What are some ways that they would be able to identify
14:58
spiritual abuse? What are some other ways there?
15:00
Well, I I've been, I've been doing a lot of podcasts, as you
15:03
might imagine, over the last month.
15:04
And I I've been asked that question a lot.
15:06
And and one of the one of the challenges, of course, about
15:09
spiritual abuse of pastors is that their their track record of
15:12
abuse is typically kept quiet and not known.
15:18
And so for the average church member who steps into a church
15:21
on Sunday morning and starts visiting and maybe comes back a
15:23
few times, the chances of them being able to spot in any sort
15:27
of relatively quick way, the pattern is pretty difficult.
15:31
Part of the reason is that abusive leaders, by definition
15:34
are selective about who they abuse.
15:36
They don't abuse everybody. If you were to meet that pastor
15:38
on a Sunday morning, you might think he's the greatest guy on
15:40
the planet. He may even come visit you in
15:42
the hospital. You may be your, you know, what
15:44
you think is just wonderful. But then you talk to the people
15:46
who work for him and you realize, oh, wait a second, I
15:50
got one side of him, but there's a whole other side of him.
15:53
And so part of the problem is there's just no way to get in
15:56
there and assess it. So one of the things I talk
15:58
about in my book is churches need a more robust
16:01
accountability structure, more transparency, more openness
16:03
about the situation with their leaders.
16:05
And. And we can get into that if you
16:07
want to. But I will mention this One of
16:09
the main ways that you can spot an abusive leader, not not the
16:12
only way, and certainly it's not an absolute rule, but I think a
16:15
really good one is abusive leaders have a long track record
16:18
of destroyed lives behind their their ministry.
16:21
In other words, there's a debris field of broken relationships
16:24
and broken lives that go back years and years and years.
16:26
A lot of it's covered up. A lot of it you don't you can't
16:29
see. But if you're able to see it, if
16:31
you're able to know it, you can see it.
16:33
Years, years, years of destroyed lives.
16:34
We're not just talking about a a conflict here and there.
16:37
Everybody in ministry has a conflict, right?
16:39
Everybody in ministry has relational challenges.
16:40
That's a common thing. We're talking about lives where
16:43
they're they're they're they're utterly destroyed lives and the
16:47
the pastor is is at is estranged from them.
16:50
There's no reconciliation. It's just a bruised life.
16:54
Destroyed life after destroyed life is a trail of dead bodies
16:56
and there's never any fixing of it.
16:57
That is almost certainly a sign of an abusive leader.
17:03
Yeah it is it's it's it's a difficult situation to like you
17:09
said it's it's it's it's hard I think that there's because I
17:14
think one of the words that's used is what you were talking
17:15
about is there's there's a love bombing right.
17:17
I mean, you people come, they see this person who's either
17:21
dynamic or just shows a lot of care.
17:25
And you know, a lot of times, Michael, I don't know if you, if
17:29
you've found this in some of your research.
17:31
What we've seen a lot of times, the spiritual abuse is not
17:35
evident to a congregation. Oh no.
17:38
But to the staff, or maybe the other leaders?
17:43
Oh yes, it's intense. That's exactly right.
17:46
The the most common recipients of the abusive leadership of of
17:49
of a pastor or other leaders under that pastor.
17:52
So assistant pastors, youth pastors, office managers,
17:56
women's ministry directors, children's ministry directors,
17:58
anybody who works with and under the person or almost always the
18:01
the front lines of the abusive relationship because it spins
18:05
off into members too. But it's going to begin and
18:08
primarily be manifested in the staff and a lot of times even
18:11
the elders don't know about it because when staff are too
18:14
afraid to complain because they plan they're going to get fired
18:17
anyone they do complain. The the the research I've seen
18:19
is that that's kept in some sub subcommittee and the broader
18:22
elder board never knows about the history of conflict.
18:24
And then when it finally comes out, the elder board's like
18:26
what? Well, you didn't know about this
18:28
and they can't believe it. And the reason they can't
18:30
believe is because they didn't have any history.
18:31
They think this guy's the greatest thing in the world and
18:33
you hear these accusations, you think they must be false.
18:36
And the reason you think they must be false is because you
18:38
haven't heard anything for 10 years about the conflict that's
18:41
been going on. And so this goes back to the
18:43
transparency and openness theme again.
18:46
So this is a little bit off topic, but we were always
18:50
taught. James, I don't know if you were
18:51
taught this, but I can't tell you how many times I heard this.
18:55
If you ever leave a place, leave quiet.
18:58
Don't bring reproach on that ministry.
19:00
Don't, don't, don't split that church.
19:03
But Michael, is there any theological backing or in any
19:06
type of biblical wisdom? If you were that person who is
19:12
like, OK, you've tried to go like you said, they've that
19:14
they're not listened to. But you know there's people
19:17
there that just they need to know.
19:19
I mean, what what's the what's wisdom there?
19:22
What do I mean? Should they?
19:23
Should they you know, be what's the what's the word for the the
19:26
the fire alarm or the the the the whistleblower.
19:29
Whistleblower. Yeah, you know.
19:32
Yeah, Yeah. So the sentiment you just laid
19:34
out in a broad, very general proverbial way is is I think,
19:39
OK, which is that, you know, our job in the Christian life is to
19:42
not to sort of blow things up. And we don't want to necessarily
19:46
create division. We want to be peacemakers, OK.
19:49
So if someone lays all that, all that out there, we can say,
19:52
yeah, that sounds good. The problem is that that whole,
19:56
that whole sentiment is used to suppress complaint about abuse.
20:00
Because if you bring up the abuse, the problem isn't the
20:03
abuse, the problem is that you brought it up.
20:05
And I can't tell you how many times that the the, the person
20:08
who gets destroyed in abuse situations is not the abusive
20:11
leader. They're protected.
20:13
The person who gets lambasted in and and raked over the coals is
20:17
the person who brought it up. Because now they're like, well,
20:19
you're divisive, you're you're, you're you're a slanderer,
20:22
you're a gossip, you're trying to destroy the church, you hate
20:24
the church. You're this, you're that.
20:26
And that's a really tragic, sad thing.
20:29
So what you realize is the church is situated now in such a
20:33
way that in most cases there's not a, there's not a mechanism
20:36
for someone to come forward with a complaint and not get
20:40
destroyed. And most churches, if they come
20:43
forward, they're going to get crushed.
20:44
And so either they get crushed or people don't come forward.
20:48
But the one thing that's not happening is people coming
20:50
forward and getting listened to and the problem getting
20:52
addressed. And so that you have a train
20:55
wreck of of of destroyed lives as a result.
20:57
And if you guys are in the world of counseling people with church
20:59
hurt, you probably don't need to need me to tell you this.
21:02
You probably already know this. You know, this is what happens
21:05
in churches. And it's not just abuse that
21:06
causes church hurt. I realize that.
21:07
But, but look, abuse is a big part of that and it's and here's
21:11
the thing, it's not just the abuse and it's the it's the
21:13
cover up of the abuse and the refusal to address the abuse
21:17
that the real church hurt is, is, is, is being felt.
21:21
In other words, there's one thing to be mistreated.
21:23
It's nothing to be not listened to and destroyed when you try to
21:25
bring it up. And that's just really, really
21:27
it's a double tragedy. You've been abused and then you
21:29
got destroyed by the church you're trying to bring it up to.
21:33
Yeah, well. I have, I have.
21:35
This came to my mind just as I was thinking through it.
21:37
We've talked a little bit about the pasture and about how, you
21:41
know, you may see some things through a trail of of people
21:45
that he's hurt or not being able to keep staff or whatever it may
21:48
be. But what What are some things
21:50
that someone could be aware of or conscious of, of even going
21:56
to a church specifically? That would be sort of the DNA of
22:00
the church. That would be a red flag to say
22:02
this church probably doesn't have everything balanced.
22:06
Yeah, some of those red flags that are for just a Joe Schmo
22:09
church member trying to find a good church.
22:12
You you may not be able to get to know that pastor because they
22:15
are busy and you know they can, they can hide a lot of things,
22:18
but there should be some things in the church.
22:20
There should be red flags. To us.
22:21
Oh yeah, yeah. Well, I'll mention a number of
22:25
things. You know, you'd be want a very,
22:27
you want to be very cautious of a church that has a a celebrity
22:31
culture around the senior leader in such a way that everything is
22:34
deferential to that person and they have absolute control and
22:38
power over the church. If you're in a church like that,
22:41
even if you think he seems like a great guy, you are in a
22:43
situation where abuse can happen because there's just clearly no
22:47
accountability. So if you if you come into a
22:50
church and it's clear that this is the big show and this guy's
22:53
the big, the big cheese in the show and there doesn't really
22:57
seem to be anybody around this guy speaking truth into his
22:59
life, I would say that's a very unhealthy situation that you'd
23:02
want to be really cautious of. A second thing I would look for
23:05
in a church to be a warning flag is a very hierarchical and and
23:09
if not patriarchal culture. So this is closely related to
23:14
what I said before but it can be a church where you never
23:17
question the authority of the church.
23:19
You never, you never write, bring up a criticism.
23:21
The church, your job is to submit and listen.
23:24
And if you ever bring something up, the problem is you, you have
23:27
a culture that can't take feedback.
23:28
You have a culture that cannot listen to its people.
23:31
I would say that's a church that's right for abuse.
23:33
The patriarchy thing is also a real danger because patriarchy
23:37
and I distinguish that between biblical complementarianism.
23:39
OK, a biblical healthy complementarianism is one thing.
23:42
Patriarchy is one that devalues women.
23:44
Women are inferior and that men really dominate in a way that's
23:49
unbiblical type of domination. That is a sign of a church that
23:53
I would have very big concerns about.
23:55
So those are several things to be looking for.
23:57
The last thing I'll mention is that some churches have a vibe.
24:00
I know that's very vague and subjective, but I think you
24:03
guys, if you're coming out of the circles that you were
24:05
telling me about, you probably know what I'm talking about
24:07
here. Sometimes you're in church,
24:07
you're just like, why? Why is this not feel right to me
24:11
there? There's a there's a vibe there
24:12
that can be very negative and to some extent even very scary.
24:16
And I'm not saying that vibes are absolute truth.
24:19
But if you're searching for a church, right, and you're trying
24:21
to suss it out, there's there's room to listen to what your
24:25
conscience might be saying to you as you think about that
24:28
church. Yeah.
24:30
Right now, I appreciate that. I think those those three things
24:33
can be very influential helping people as they do go through
24:37
that process. So thanks for sharing.
24:39
That, yeah. And I think, I think listeners
24:41
that that have experienced what we're talking about gets what
24:44
you're talking about with the vibe.
24:46
This Sunday we left the the ministry we were in where we
24:49
were hurt. The very next Sunday we visit a
24:52
church in the town. We moved back, we moved to, we
24:56
go to the church, went to Sunday school, Sunday morning service,
24:58
get in the car, my wife says what do you think?
25:02
And I just looked at her and I mean this is not after I had
25:06
spent years growing in theology and relearning a lot of things.
25:10
I have not done any of that yet. I just looked at her and said
25:13
this. They reminded me of exactly
25:15
where we left and I don't want anything to do with it.
25:17
And she said me too. Yes, you could tell.
25:21
I mean, it really is. There's AI called the word I
25:23
have for this is what I call tone legalism.
25:25
So there's different kinds of legalism.
25:28
One type of legalism, it says you're saved by your good works.
25:30
And there's very few people who are going to and at least an
25:33
evangelical are going to are going to say that there's
25:36
another type of legalism that's basically like I'm going to add
25:38
man made rules to you. Right.
25:39
So you're not saved by good works.
25:40
I'm going to dump all these man made rules on you.
25:42
They're not God's rules or men's rules.
25:43
That's a problem in a lot of churches.
25:45
But then there's a third kind of legalism, what I would call tone
25:47
legalism, where you it's not neither the 1st 2:00, but
25:50
there's this. There's a sense of heaviness,
25:53
harshness, coldness and and a sort of a focus on law that's
25:59
out of proportion to the way it should be viewed through the
26:02
lens of the gospel. And I think when you sense that
26:04
that's those are some things you should see as red flags.
26:06
That's really good. That's really good.
26:09
Well we are we are coming to this week.
26:11
I know we've we've probably Michael's already said some
26:13
things that have been helpful but as we close the interview
26:19
Doctor Kroger, could you could you give some help?
26:22
We like to say it this way. Hope and help, right.
26:25
We're dealing with sinners and sufferers and we like to bring
26:28
hope and help to them and could you maybe give some help to
26:32
those listening who maybe have experienced a bully pulpit?
26:37
Yeah, that's if someone's listening to this podcast and
26:41
they've been through what my book describes, then I know
26:44
they're hurting. And I know they're they're under
26:47
the weight of it all. And I know they probably are
26:48
doubting the goodness of of of Christianity and they're
26:52
doubting the goodness of the church.
26:54
I mean, what I would say to them is first of all, you're not
26:56
alone there. There's many people who've been
26:58
where you are and are where they are or you are where you are
27:01
right now. And so there's there's there's
27:03
there's fellowship out there of people that you can relate to
27:07
and they can understand what you're going to.
27:08
You probably feel like no one gets what you're going through,
27:10
but people really do and can't get what you're going through.
27:14
The second thing is, I would remind you that not every church
27:16
is like that, that, you know, you know, 11 bad response I hear
27:21
to people when when when abusive churches come up is like their
27:24
their, their response is, yeah, well, you know, we're all
27:26
sinners. And I I hear that.
27:29
And I'm like, wow, you have missed this entirely.
27:33
Of course, we're all sinners. Or they'll say something like,
27:36
well, you know, there's no perfect church.
27:38
Yeah. OK.
27:40
But at the same time, I'm like, well, yeah, but no one's asking
27:43
for a perfect church. We're just asking for that's not
27:45
abusive. Right.
27:45
I mean, imagine going to, you know, Ravi Zacharias's ministry
27:49
and go, well, you know, no, no perfect ministry.
27:52
Well, no, but there's no perfect ministry.
27:54
But there's also ministries that aren't, you know, sexually
27:57
abusing people. There's there's actually
27:59
ministries that aren't harsh and cruel to people.
28:01
So part of what I would tell the listener is there there are good
28:04
churches out there. Don't equate the bad church
28:06
experience with the with the Church of Christ Universal.
28:08
There's people out there that love Jesus And you give, you
28:11
give the story of going to a church and realizing that's just
28:13
like our last church, You want nothing to do with it.
28:15
I can tell you stories of people I know that have gone to another
28:18
church, then come out of it and they've said, whoa, I never knew
28:21
church could be like that. I never church.
28:24
I never knew church could be happy.
28:26
I never, I never knew church could be freeing.
28:27
I never knew church felt that way.
28:29
I always thought church was this way.
28:31
And so part of what the listener might need to realize is there's
28:34
good churches out there. You can heal in those.
28:36
You need to find them and may take some work, but you can find
28:40
them. And I think you realize that
28:41
that the problem isn't, of course, Jesus, and the problem
28:44
is even really the Church. The problem is the sin that we
28:46
need to fight against. And that's what my book is
28:48
designed to help us do. Absolutely And and and one of
28:52
the things that I like to point people to as well is is
28:55
realizing the number one group that Jesus called out and
29:01
rebuked in his ministry were the spiritual leaders.
29:05
Yeah. And most of the time it was for
29:09
spiritual abusing the people. Yes, yeah, I point people all
29:13
the time. I was like, look, there's two
29:14
different problems with authority.
29:15
You can abuse it, which is what my book's about, or you could
29:18
abdicate it, right? There's abdication of authority
29:21
is a problem, too, right? But notice that when when Jesus
29:24
deals with the leaders during his day, it's almost always on
29:26
the abuse of the authority, not the abdication of it.
29:28
He doesn't go to the fair season because, well, you guys are
29:29
slacking off the job and not not leading, You know, that's never
29:33
his complaint. His complaint is you're putting
29:35
heavy burdens on people's backs. You're crushing them, You're
29:37
destroying them. You know, you're, you're, you're
29:39
you're abusing them, which is basically Ezekiel 34 all over
29:42
again. And I think that's very telling.
29:45
Yeah. And I think if you're listening
29:47
to this and you're maybe not someone who has experienced,
29:51
abused and maybe you're on that sort of trend we talked about
29:54
earlier, it's like, you know, I'm just sort of skeptical about
29:57
this thing. I I want to remind you, This is
30:00
why this subject is so sinister. Because what happens is, is that
30:05
people, they come away from this with things that should be good,
30:11
encouraging and uplifting to their spiritual walk.
30:14
And now it triggers them to a place, You know, it's it's sort
30:18
of like I I remember hearing a story of a lady who was sexually
30:23
abused by her by her youth pastor.
30:26
And she remained. She kept her faith.
30:29
She remained a Christian. She remained in church.
30:32
But she said when she moved to a different church and she ended
30:35
up having a ministry, two women who were sexually abused in
30:38
church. But she, she said this 30 years
30:41
after the fact. Anytime the song, I think it was
30:45
it as well as ever sung, she has to leave the auditorium.
30:49
She can't stand it because the youth pastor that did that to
30:53
her would sing that a song in their church and it brings all
30:58
that back. And you imagine this is what
30:59
happens that that stuff happens to people to where that Bible
31:03
verses are used that way. It should be good scriptures
31:07
that encourage us in life. Now they have the connection of
31:11
that and that's why this is such an important subject and that's
31:14
why Doctor Krueger is writing this book and why this book is
31:17
so important for us to listen to what he's saying.
31:20
Yeah. And let me add one more thing to
31:21
that because I think you raise a good point here.
31:23
Which is it? A lot of people will hear a
31:24
conversation like this and go, yeah, I'm not sure that really
31:27
happens or I'm not. I I don't see it.
31:29
Right. They're they're kind of
31:29
skeptical. I want to point out something
31:32
that's often not pointed out when someone says I'm kind of
31:34
skeptical what what they what they aren't realizing is that
31:37
they're basing their skepticism just on their own personal
31:39
experience. In other words, they've never
31:41
been abused, they've never met, said maybe someone who's been
31:44
abused. And so everything's just based
31:46
on their own personal experience, because they've had
31:47
a good church experience. It's usually those same people
31:50
that complain about people being too focused on experience and
31:53
too focused on subjectivism. But yet here they are,
31:56
dismissing the whole thing under the heading of their own
31:58
experience. And I want to show that to them
32:01
and say, look, until you've sat down across the table with
32:04
victims of spiritual abuse, until you've heard their stories
32:07
and see them weep in front of you.
32:09
Yeah. You don't, don't don't dismiss
32:11
this. Right.
32:12
This is why I wrote the book. It's because I want you to
32:14
realize this is real. And so the idea that you could
32:16
dismiss it because I haven't seen it, it would be incredibly
32:19
callous and also incredibly subjective and driven by your
32:22
own personal experience, which is exactly the thing we
32:24
shouldn't be doing. And so I just want to point that
32:27
out for those who may be listening to this and think, oh,
32:29
yeah, there's nothing to it. Well, go meet a few spiritual
32:32
abuse victims, sit down with them and then come back and
32:34
we'll see if you think maybe there's something to it. 100%
32:37
James, you got any closing comments?
32:38
No, that's great. Michael.
32:39
I appreciate you coming and hanging out with us and taking
32:42
from your busy schedule. I know you're busy at RTS and
32:45
you got a lot going on and I appreciate you giving some
32:48
insight for our listeners. Well, thanks guys.
32:50
Keep up the good work and good to be with you.
32:53
Absolutely. Thank you again.
32:54
And to everybody else listening, Remember to God.
32:58
Not the pastor. Be the glory.
33:03
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