Latest / 4-Freedom Podcast / 79. Bully Pulpit - Interview with Michael Kruger

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79. Bully Pulpit - Interview with Michael Kruger · 4-Freedom Podcast

0:00
Welcome back everyone to the for Freedom podcast and we are
0:03
excited about what we've got coming up.
0:06
We with me and John just got back from the for sake of the
0:09
Gospel Conference and what a great time it was there.
0:13
We had man, just so many great talks.
0:16
Then we got to be Poncho and I don't know if you're John, you
0:19
got to talk to Poncho. Did you get to talk to him?
0:22
No, I'm just a man, Poncho, he's and I was at, he's in the Ash
0:25
County, great Pastor up in that area and feels great to meet
0:29
him. Umm it's all some good faces.
0:31
Anthony over them. Yeah.
0:32
Give a shout out to Anthony Oda Mae.
0:34
Is he's good. It was good to see him there and
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you know there were some people that weren't there.
0:41
That should have been there. I'm talking to you Jake and adri
0:44
Carlisle and I'm talking to you Daniel and Ashley win where in
0:48
the world were you not see them? But we see in the ragsdale's
0:53
again and and, and our man been Prescott.
0:56
Yes, we got to hang out with beers and Bible.
1:00
Got the see them FaceTime work on them.
1:02
Anything like are such great guy and grow in Grace, man.
1:05
Shana and Kristen. They did such a great job while
1:09
we were there with them. It's a very we enjoyed it.
1:13
We did a great little, what is w?
1:16
Counseling was sort of take took what we have been talking about
1:19
last couple of episodes and we just sort of practically applied
1:23
that in a breakout session and John what?
1:25
We had probably five or six questions asked for our Q&A.
1:30
Just a lot of, a lot of people struggling hurting that we were
1:34
able to try to give a little bit help too, and so, we were just
1:38
overly blessed to be there for that.
1:39
I'm actually at our North Carolina State Convention right
1:42
now, at the time of this recording on Tuesday and just
1:46
here. And I'm actually with Anthony
1:48
again, John. I don't know if I told you that,
1:50
I'll, he went to the State Convention to he's here and
1:53
we're hanging out. We do the dinner together, or we
1:55
got, maybe we got food together. I don't remember, Nathan came
1:59
down, Brian and Nathan got the hang out for a little bit, you
2:03
know, it was. It's been, it's been a lot a
2:05
good couple of days. Absolutely James.
2:08
No. Rest for the weary, I mean, we
2:10
leave Saturday morning, he goes home, spends a David family,
2:12
goes to church and then heads to the convention, right?
2:15
Yeah. But we did have a wonderful
2:17
time. We had some great worship, hope
2:20
worship. Team was fantastic and Brian's.
2:23
Daughters leading that Kelsey and Marley and they did such a
2:27
wonderful job and Then also just the preaching.
2:32
I mean, of course the RFP guys, Nathan JC and Brian did a
2:37
fantastic job on their messages. Jared Wilson did a good job
2:42
which I know everybody was. Was was loving Jared, Wilson's
2:46
message, and thinking it was, it was the best.
2:49
I have to say my personal favorite message of the
2:52
conference was Mark Miller Leone's.
2:54
I thought mark milley on, he crushed it and if you if they
2:58
make those available, You need to listen to those messages,
3:01
they're all owned, Hope Church danville's YouTube page, John.
3:06
Okay, nine are also eight sermons.
3:10
Okay. So you guys go check out that I
3:12
personally recommend, Mark me Leone's message and all the
3:15
messages were on the gospel. Yeah.
3:18
And so they were great, Craig Edwards, rushed it.
3:22
You know what, I told you this at the conference, James I'd saw
3:25
I'd seen Craig average preach 10 years ago.
3:30
He had more energy and more Zeal and more excitement, and that
3:34
message that he preached at the conference, then I had seen him
3:38
10 years ago. I mean it's just me about that.
3:42
I think the reason why is because you were just there
3:44
watched him, but I was there with him that time this time.
3:47
So, with my energy level there with him, I think that's what
3:50
point do. I have a little dog will come on
3:51
now. Hey, John, you know, it's
3:54
awesome. I'm sitting here walking around
3:56
at the convention with Nathan and we turn the corner and
3:59
there's Because Merit, this leading us on our Israel tour,
4:03
and he sent here in the convention in the hallway.
4:06
He said, he went straight from Danville straightens Carolina,
4:09
just like I did. And he set up a booth for Luther
4:12
Rice. Gave me the coolest mug ever.
4:15
It's a black coffee cup mug with a, like a cork top on the
4:20
bottom. Looks so cool.
4:21
I'm excited plan to use them. So, Luther a seminary.
4:23
Is that Martin Luther? And John are rice.
4:25
It is, yeah, yeah, there they came together for one great
4:28
cause accidents. Veronica, Bill Rice, Ranch.
4:31
And but yeah, they took a picture of Marcus and we got to
4:37
hang out for a little bit significant, we just in our next
4:41
segment way. We've got a couple of spots open
4:44
up. They he told me, he said guys, a
4:46
Israel trip, the Israel trip he told me.
4:48
He said they're not capping it where we're going to cap it at
4:51
certain number. He said, they decided to leave
4:53
it open and they're going to allow as many people that want
4:55
to go to go pastors Ministry staff.
4:59
So if you, To go where 12 11 and a half weeks away from leaving
5:03
to go to Israel man. I'd love to have you join us?
5:06
I'm going Jake's going. All the RFP guys are going plays
5:09
going claim a nerd. Got a lot of great things that
5:13
are going on and so if you want to come and join us in Israel,
5:17
Craig will be there. He's going to be doing some
5:18
teaching and some preaching there.
5:21
It's just gonna be a great time. Hopefully, you guys can can join
5:23
us if you haven't signed up and you want to go, it sounds
5:27
awesome. Well, Today we have an episode
5:31
to give you. Yeah, and we are excited.
5:34
So if you're part of the RFP fam, you're going to love this.
5:36
If you're part of the biblical Counseling World, I think you're
5:38
going to really enjoy this as well.
5:39
This could be helpful for you, but this is an interview.
5:43
I've been wanting to get for a long, long time, and this is dr.
5:48
Michael Krueger from Reformed Theological Seminary in
5:51
Charlotte and he has written a book called bully pulpit, the
5:55
problem of spiritual abuse in the church.
5:58
And so, We reached out to him to see if you do an interview.
6:02
And so this is coming out, we're recording this on Tuesday.
6:07
This comes out Thursday today the book went live so the book
6:13
is on sale now, so we're going to put a link in the show notes.
6:16
So you go pick up the book and listen to this interview.
6:19
I do not mean to be mean, I do mean to be mad.
6:24
Those that criticize this kind of preaching, they don't like
6:27
Authority if you ain't got the keys.
6:29
James, you ain't got hey, you don't have a King James, you
6:33
don't have a Bible. I'd be surprised then don't go
6:38
to sleep while I'm talking. Hey, hey, don't, don't don't you
6:42
lay your head but I'm I'm important.
6:44
I'm somebody. I love you.
6:46
You know, I love you. And I convince you, I love you.
6:49
You better said, you better not your hideous or come up with her
6:52
to stay away? Can you listen to me?
6:58
I still believe if you have cold day in Hell, before I get my
7:00
family through, I'm a breach wreck.
7:13
When you got dressed today, you dressed deity.
7:20
This is the for Freedom podcast, a podcast.
7:23
That is part of the RFP Network that seeks to bring freedom in
7:27
Christ from the spiritual abuse of legalism.
7:30
Now, here are your hosts, John hollifield and James safe
7:34
retreat? And so fundamentalism is
7:39
designed to unpack, the idea of authority from scripture.
7:43
The problem with that is that that's not the defining
7:45
principle in Scripture. It is a part of scripture but
7:48
the defining principle in scripture is love.
8:12
And I'm not saying that all men who sit under the foot, that
8:14
teaching will become abusive. But what I'm saying is the ones
8:17
who are abusive will be drawn to that sort of teacher.
8:31
I don't want to give people just a list of things they can start
8:35
doing differently until they have a heart out of which
8:38
they're going to be doing those things differently.
8:47
I think bitterness is different from her.
8:50
I would say that hurt or even abuse does not have to result in
8:55
bitterness, welcome everybody to the for Freedom podcast, James,
9:00
and John, we're your hosts were back and we're very excited for
9:05
this this guest and this topic. And, and quite honestly, we just
9:10
coming off of the The RFP conference for the sake of the
9:13
Gospel Conference and spending a lot of time with the RFP family.
9:17
And if there's ever been an episode or an interview that is
9:22
going to be helpful for the RFP family, it's this episode, and
9:26
this guess we're thrilled to have dr.
9:28
Michael Krueger with us today and he let me just give you a
9:33
just a short description of what he does.
9:35
And then, dr. Krueger, I'm gonna let you
9:37
explain, you know, give you an intro because there's a lot in
9:40
your bio Whoa, yeah, please don't, please don't read it at
9:43
all. Yeah, dr.
9:44
Krueger serves as the president and Samuel, see, Patterson
9:47
professor of New Testament and early Christianity, at the
9:50
Charlotte campus of Reformed Theological, Seminary is wrote.
9:53
Many works and serves as an elder at his local church, and
9:57
I've been greatly benefited by his work and teaching and
10:01
writing on the canonicity of scripture.
10:03
But the book that we're here to discuss his brand new book,
10:07
which actually, as we're recording today, was released
10:09
officially released today. It was, yeah, it is bully
10:14
pulpit, confronting spiritual abuse, the problem of spiritual
10:19
abuse in the church. And and so we're excited about
10:23
talking about that, but before we jump into the discussion of
10:25
book, dr. Krueger tell us a little about
10:28
yourself. Yeah, well as you indicated, I
10:30
mean I serve as president here and New Testament, professor at
10:33
RTS, Charlotte been here, 21 years, most of your listeners.
10:37
Probably know me from my writings on Canon and text and
10:40
the look Reliability. But as I'm sure we'll discuss
10:43
this, this topics been on my heart for a while now and just
10:46
as a Christian leader, I felt like it needed to be addressed
10:48
and so, yeah, it's outside my normal wheelhouse.
10:51
But certainly within the realm of what I think all Christian
10:54
leaders need to think about and Ponder and I'm looking forward
10:57
to talking about it. Absolutely.
10:59
Well I think I think the first question you probably would do
11:04
this with any interview about any of your your book or writing
11:09
that you do is what is, or what was the motivation for writing
11:14
this book. Yeah, this book was a bit of a
11:17
surprise for me and it sort of my own academic trajectory as I
11:21
indicated, most of my writings more on the academic side, I
11:24
don't do a lot of writing on the Practical side and more than
11:27
that, I probably would have never guessed that.
11:29
Write a book on leadership. A seems I'm convinced we have
11:32
plenty of books on leadership in the church and probably more
11:36
than needed on one level. But as I began to sort of, look
11:40
around the seen over the last decade in particular, I've even
11:42
been concerned about the type of leaders that were not only
11:44
producing in the Eva. Local church in America.
11:47
But also the kind where platforming promoting and sort
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of following and, you know, as I lead a seminary here, we think a
11:55
lot about Christian leaders and I think there's there's
11:58
something there that's that's troubling and I think the type
12:01
of leader were attentive to attend to platform these days
12:04
may be exactly the kind of leader that we don't need and
12:06
also as a leader that perhaps is out of sync with what the
12:09
biblical character 644 biblical leadership should be in the
12:12
first place. So I've gotten I've sort of feel
12:16
like I'm I've been forced into this if you could say it that
12:18
way and what I mean is I didn't start off my career thinking I
12:21
would talk about leadership and I certainly expect to talk about
12:23
bad leadership, but I think it's one of those things where you're
12:26
like, you know, what you the sometimes needs to be done about
12:28
this problem and some of these to speak up and I felt like
12:31
maybe if someone in my kind of roll spoke up, it would get a
12:35
hearing that it may not get if other folks were talking about
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it. So that's my prayer.
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No, I like that because from what I understand, this is not
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borne out of something of your own sort of spiritually, abusive
12:49
experience. And I think it's real easy for
12:52
some of those like if I was to write something on that, it
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probably it would be sort of testimonial at times and James
12:58
the same way, but it's good to have voices on both sides.
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It's not just like, oh, that's just a bunch of hurt people.
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Just, you know, crying about about them being hurt.
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No, this is actually somebody that's the standing up and say,
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you know? Oh, what if I could say it this
13:12
way, the Jesus in me is seeing that there is a problem here and
13:16
we need to address it. Yeah, yeah.
13:19
I mean I we have, there's definitely autobiographical
13:21
books out there on on spiritual abuse and and they need when you
13:25
listen to those, but we also need books from from people who
13:28
are leaders and biblical Scholars themselves who are
13:33
noticing it and sometimes if it's not fellow leaders that are
13:35
noticing it, no one listens and that itself actually is the
13:39
problem. And so You can see how the
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reason I wrote the book is is exactly exemplifying.
13:45
The reason I wrote the book which is that we have a
13:48
leadership structure that doesn't listen to people sort of
13:51
quote under them because it's overly hierarchical.
13:54
And so, I'm hoping to gain a listening just by being a
13:58
leader, among other leaders. And so it's really a book
14:01
written from a leader to leader saying, hey, we've got a, we got
14:04
to rethink that we were doing this.
14:06
Yeah, that's great. It's great.
14:08
So again we're talking about spiritual abuse here.
14:13
What would you how will be a good definition of practical
14:16
definition for us of what is spiritual abuse?
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How can people recognize spiritual abuse as they're going
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through their journey and spiritual journey, you know,
14:25
going to church. How can they begin to see?
14:27
What is spiritual abuse? What is just biblical because
14:30
there's sometimes where hard truth.
14:32
We can sometimes / take that is spiritual abuse.
14:35
So how? So what's our balance?
14:37
Your how do we see that? Yeah, well, you might my know, I
14:40
spent a lot of time in the book on exactly this question, right?
14:42
Because I know people need some, some definitions some clarity,
14:45
the term gets tossed around without a lot of definition
14:49
sometimes. So I labor to put together a
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fresh definition, obviously, leaning on others that have gone
14:55
before me, but the essence of spiritual abuse is when a person
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is Spiritual Authority and that's one of the key aspects of
15:00
the definition, when a person of Spiritual Authority, wields
15:03
their Authority in such a way that they domineer.
15:06
Run over Crush manipulate and, and Rule and a harsh and
15:12
domineering matter or over those under their care.
15:15
And then they do all that, or they think is for the purposes
15:19
of God, even though they're really doing, it just to protect
15:21
their own power and their own position.
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And so basically, you know, even though the term isn't in the
15:27
Bible, the category, I just described as all over the Bible.
15:29
Yeah. And I have a whole chapter just
15:32
on that exegetically where I talk about all the different
15:34
text to talk about this sort of heavy.
15:36
Parse dominating leadership where you sort of, you know, a
15:39
squash those who are under you and and sinful an ungodly ways
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and you know I go everything from Ezekiel 34 and the bad
15:46
Shepherds of Israel. Obviously to Jesus is teaching
15:49
like in a place like Mark 10 where he talks about hey that
15:51
the Gentiles Lord it over those under their care but you need to
15:54
be a servant and a slave to those you're serving.
15:57
And then of course even places like first Peter 5 or says you
16:00
know, Shepherds don't domineer the flock under your care.
16:04
So there's numerous places where this comes up.
16:06
Up. And I would argue that.
16:06
It's part of the Fallen Human Condition.
16:09
We, as Fallen human beings, are going to have a tendency in our,
16:12
in our fallen Hearts to, to, to squash those under our care
16:16
unless we in a very intentional and spirit-directed way, look
16:21
for leaders that are that are have the kind of character that
16:24
won't be prone towards that. So, that's the problem of
16:27
spiritual abuse. Now, there's a whole bunch of
16:29
other things we can talk about. I'm sure we'll get to in terms
16:31
of well, what what is spirit of spiritual abuse not, and you
16:34
mentioned one already, which is Just speaking the truth to
16:37
somebody's not spiritually, abusive, right?
16:38
Just upholding true Doctrine, it's not spiritually abusive.
16:42
You know people in our modern day will say well if you believe
16:44
acts, you're abusive well, not if x is true.
16:47
Now one clarification on that you can you can speak truth
16:50
harshly. You can speak truth not in love.
16:53
So you know, the issue isn't just, whether it's true.
16:55
The issue is also the manner in which you execute that
16:58
leadership office. So it's a complex, nuanced thing
17:01
and I try to cover some of that in the book.
17:04
Yeah, it's definitely a hot button topic.
17:06
Egg and and even in like so James and I are in the biblical
17:10
counseling sort of world as well and so which would be considered
17:14
more of a conservative serious-minded environment.
17:20
And there I found that there is pushback even in that
17:24
environment of oh, yeah, I'm spiritual abuse and it's like,
17:28
you know, push back on that. And you wrote you wrote this in
17:31
one of your articles leading up. You had several articles leading
17:34
up to the release of the book and you Dis you, quote fear over
17:38
Bridal, cynicism has caused some to put on the blinders refusing
17:43
to see and acknowledge the problems that are really there.
17:46
Yeah, we can convince ourselves that loving the church.
17:48
Means we keep our mouths shut about her weaknesses and I was
17:52
able to read the intro to the book and I liked how you like
17:55
and it to almost like that Thin Blue Line that we see a lot of
17:59
times and and law enforcement culture and we are to be people
18:04
of Truth. You know, I know that we have
18:07
this sense of loyalty that we want to see and we love the
18:10
church but at the same time you know it gets it gets muddied and
18:15
it gets messy when it comes to that.
18:17
That's yeah. I found the law enforcement
18:19
illustration in parallel really helpful because everybody agrees
18:24
in principle that that a police officer could and sometimes does
18:30
abuse their Authority. They are they wait use way too
18:33
much force for whatever they need to do.
18:36
And we could all think I'm sure examples that we know about
18:39
where this happens. But what's also interesting
18:41
about the analogy with police is the knee-jerk reaction of sub
18:45
segments of the population, typically, the segment's aren't
18:48
being abused where the idea is. Well, if we call out the bad
18:52
police, we're going to be ruining their jobs and we're
18:56
going to make no one want to be a cop, and we're going to be
19:00
just being pro crime and and and you know, people are like no.
19:06
That's a false Choice. Can you not acknowledge abuse?
19:08
When I happens in law enforcement try to improve it at
19:11
the same time be pro-police and certainly anti-crime.
19:15
And so, what you realize, there's a polarization and
19:18
people have this sort of inherent knee-jerk reaction to
19:20
this idea that you could ever say, hey I'm a cop stepped out
19:24
of line here and the same thing with pastors, right?
19:26
Because they're that's a tough job and everybody recognizes a
19:29
tough job. So you like, well look, our job
19:31
is to defend postures. Not criticize them.
19:33
I'm like, well, no, our job is to speak truth.
19:36
And if the truth is, that's required us to defend people who
19:40
are innocent, we should do that, but the people are violating
19:42
God's law and God's rules in his word that we need to call that
19:45
out too. And so I think the police
19:48
analogy is actually really helpful one.
19:51
Yeah. And from our background that's
19:53
the it's leaving that side of the legalism side of it and we
19:58
swing to initially anything that's hard is going to be
20:02
abuse. And I think that's really where
20:05
we've got to. The more we understand that just
20:07
because it's hard. Yes, it's got to be spoken and
20:09
true. It's going to be spoken in love,
20:11
but we've got to be able to accept that and balance that in
20:14
our life. What are some other areas that
20:16
you would say, would be an area that you someone's looking for a
20:20
church or maybe looking for a pastor?
20:23
What are some ways that they would be able to identify
20:26
spiritual abuse? What are some other way is
20:27
there? Well, I've been I've been doing
20:29
a lot of podcasts as you might imagine over the last month, and
20:32
I've been asked that question a lot and one of the one of the
20:36
Challenges. Of course, about spiritual abuse
20:37
of pastors is that their track record of abuse is typically
20:41
kept quiet and not known. And so for the average church
20:47
member who steps into a church on Sunday morning, it starts
20:50
visiting and maybe comes back a few times, the chances of them
20:53
being able to spot in any sort of relatively quick way, the
20:57
pattern is pretty difficult. Part of the reason is that abuse
21:00
of leaders by definition are selective about who the abuse.
21:04
They don't have use everybody. If you To meet that passed on a
21:06
Sunday morning. You might think he's the
21:07
greatest guy on the planet. He may even come visit, you in
21:10
the hospital, you may be your you know what you think is just
21:12
wonderful. But then you talk to the people
21:14
who work for you realize oh wait a second, I got one side of him
21:19
but there's a whole another side of him.
21:21
And so part of the problem is just no way to get in there and
21:24
assess it. So one of the things I talk
21:26
about in my book is churches need a more robust
21:28
accountability structure and more transparency.
21:30
More openness about the situation with their leaders and
21:33
we can get into that if you want to, but I will Mention this one
21:37
of the main ways that you can spot an abusive leader.
21:39
Not not the only way and certainly it's not an absolute
21:42
rule but I think a really good one is abusive leaders have a
21:45
long track record of destroyed lives behind their Ministry.
21:49
Other words, there's a debris field of broken relationships
21:52
and broken lives that go back years and years and years, a lot
21:55
of its covered up. A lot of it.
21:56
You don't, you can't see. But if you're able to see it, if
21:58
you're able to know it, you can see it years years years of
22:02
destroy live. We're not just talking about a
22:03
conflict here and there everybody He has a conflict,
22:06
right? Everybody Ministry has
22:07
relational challenges. That's a common thing.
22:10
We're talking about lives where they're utterly destroy lives,
22:13
and the pastor is, is at is estranged from them.
22:18
There's no reconciliation. It's just a bruise live, destroy
22:22
life. After destroy lives.
22:23
A trail of dead bodies and there's never any fixing of it.
22:25
That is almost certainly a sign of an abusive leader.
22:30
Good word. Yeah, it is it's it's a
22:34
difficult situation to like you said, it's hard.
22:39
I think that there's because I think one of the words is used
22:43
is what you were talking about. Is there's there's a
22:44
love-bombing, right? I mean, you people come, they
22:47
see this person who's either dynamic or just shows a lot of
22:51
care. And, you know, a lot of times
22:56
Michael, I don't know if you if you found this in some of your
22:58
research. But we've seen a lot of times.
23:01
The spiritual abuse is not evident to a congregation.
23:06
Oh, no, but to the staff or maybe the other leaders.
23:11
Oh, yes, it's intense. That's exactly right.
23:13
That the most common, recipients of the abusive leadership of a
23:17
pastor, or other leaders under that fast.
23:19
So, assistant pastors youth pastors office, managers women's
23:24
ministry. Directors, children's ministry
23:25
directors, anybody who works with and under the person are
23:28
almost always them. The front lines of the abusive
23:31
relationship because it spins off into members to, but it's
23:35
going to begin and primarily be manifested in the staff in a lot
23:38
of times, even the elders don't know about it because when staff
23:41
are too afraid to complain because of the plane to get
23:43
fired anyone, they do complain. That the research I've seen is
23:47
that that's kept in some Sub sub committee and the broader
23:50
overboard never knows about the history of conflict and then
23:52
when it finally comes out Delta boards like, what?
23:54
Well, you know, about this and they can't believe it and the
23:57
reason they can't believe is that they didn't have any
23:58
history of what they think, As the greatest thing in the world,
24:01
can you hear these accusation? You think they must be false and
24:04
the reason you think there must be false is because you haven't
24:06
heard anything for 10 years about the conflict that's been
24:09
going on. And so this goes back to the
24:11
transparency and openness theme again.
24:14
See, this is a little bit off topic but we were always taught
24:18
James. I don't know if you were taught
24:19
this, but I can't tell you how many times I heard this.
24:22
If you ever leave a place, leave quiet.
24:25
Oh yeah. Don't bring reproach on that
24:27
Ministry. Don't don't don't.
24:29
Split that church. But Michael is there any
24:32
theological backing or in any type of biblical wisdom?
24:37
If you are that person who is like okay you've tried to go
24:41
like you said they've that they're not listen to.
24:44
But you know, there's people there that just they need to
24:47
know. I mean, what what so what's
24:49
wisdom there? What do I mean?
24:50
Should they should that, you know, beat what's the, what's
24:53
the word for the the fire alarm or the the blower whistleblower?
24:58
Yeah, you know, Yeah. Yeah.
25:00
So the sentiment you just laid out in a broad very general /
25:05
verbal way as as I think, okay. Which is you know, our job in
25:09
the Christian Life is a not to sort of blow things up and we
25:12
don't want to necessarily create division, we want to be
25:15
peacemakers. Okay.
25:17
So someone lays all of that out there we can say?
25:19
Yeah, that sounds good. The problem is that, that whole
25:23
that whole sentiment is used to suppress complaint about abuse
25:28
because if you bring up the abuse, Zeus.
25:30
The problem is that the abuse. The problem is that you brought
25:32
it up and I can't tell you how many times that the the person
25:36
who gets destroyed in abuse situations is not the abusive
25:39
leader, they're protected. The person who gets lambasted in
25:44
raked over the coals as the person who brought it up because
25:46
now they're like what your divisive.
25:48
You're, you're a slanderer, your gossip.
25:51
You're trying to destroy the church.
25:52
You hate the church. You're this.
25:53
You're that. And that's a really tragic, sad
25:56
thing. So what you realize is that
25:59
Which is situated. Now, in such a way, that in most
26:02
cases, there's not, there's not a mechanism for someone to come
26:05
forward with a complaint and not get destroyed, and most
26:10
churches, and they come forward, they're going to get crushed.
26:12
And so either, they get crushed or people don't come forward.
26:15
But the one thing that's not happening is people coming
26:18
forward and getting listen to and the problem getting
26:20
addressed. And so that, you have a train
26:22
wreck of destroy lives. As a result.
26:25
If you guys are on the world of counts and people with church
26:27
hurt, you probably don't need it.
26:29
Need me to tell you this, you probably know this, you know,
26:31
this is what happens in churches, and it's not just
26:33
abuse that causes Church hurt. I realize that.
26:35
But, but look, abuse is a big part of that.
26:38
And it's the, and here's the thing, it's not just the abuse,
26:40
it's the, it's the cover-up of the abuse, and the refusal to
26:44
address. The abuse, that the real Church
26:46
hurt, is being felt. In other words is one thing to
26:50
be mistreated is nothing to be not.
26:52
Listen to in destroyed, when you try to bring it up and that's
26:54
just really, really trans a double tragedy, you've been
26:56
abused and then you got destroyed by the church or
26:58
trying to bring Up to. Yeah well I have five this came
27:03
to my mind just as I was thinking through it, we've
27:06
talked a little bit about the pastor and about how, you know,
27:09
you may see some things through a trail of people that he's hurt
27:13
or not being able to keep staff, whatever may be.
27:16
But what are some things that someone could be aware of or
27:22
conscience of of even going to a church?
27:25
Specifically, that would be sort of the DNA of the church.
27:28
That would be a red flag. Flag to say in this church,
27:31
probably doesn't have everything balanced, you know, we do some
27:34
of those red flags that are for just a Joe, Schmo church member
27:38
trying to find a good church, you may not be able to get into
27:41
that pasture because they are busy.
27:43
And, you know, they can, they can hide a lot of things.
27:46
But there should be some things in the churches should be red
27:48
flags to us. Oh, yeah.
27:50
Well, what y'all, I mentioned a number of things, you know.
27:54
You do want a very, you want to be very cautious of a church
27:56
that has a celebrity culture around Senior leader in such a
28:00
way that everything is deferential to that person and
28:04
they have absolute control and power over the church.
28:07
If you're in a church like that. Even if you think he seems like
28:09
a great guy, you are in a situation where abuse can happen
28:14
because there's clearly no accountability.
28:15
So if you, if you come into a church and it's clear that this
28:19
is The Big Show in this guy's, the big, the big cheese and the
28:23
show, and there doesn't really seem to be anybody around this
28:25
guy speaking truth into his life.
28:27
I would say that's a very unhealthy situation.
28:29
That you'd want to be really cautious of a second thing.
28:32
I would look for in a church to be warning, flag is a very
28:35
hierarchical and, and if not patriarchal culture.
28:40
So, this is closely related to what I said before.
28:43
But it can be a church where you never question the authority of
28:46
the church. You never, you never raped.
28:48
Bring up a criticism the church. Your job is to submit and
28:51
listen, and if you ever bring something up the problems, you
28:54
you have a culture that can't take feedback, you have a
28:56
culture that cannot listen to its people.
28:59
So that's a church has ripe for abuse.
29:01
The patriarchy thing is also a real danger because patriarchy
29:05
and I distinguish that between biblical complementarianism, Oki
29:07
biblical healthy. Complementarianism is one thing.
29:10
Patriarchy is one that devalues women women are inferior and
29:14
that men really dominate in a way that's unbiblical type of
29:18
domination. That is a sign of a church that
29:21
I would have very big concerns about.
29:22
So those are several things to be looking for the last thing
29:25
I'll mention is that some Churches have a Vibe.
29:28
I know, that's very vague. And subjective, but I think you
29:31
guys, if you're coming out of the circles that you were
29:33
telling me about, you probably know what I'm talking about
29:34
here. Sometimes you're in church.
29:35
You're just like, why is this not feel right to me?
29:38
Yeah, there's there's a vibe there that can be very negative
29:42
and to some extent, even very scary.
29:45
And I'm not saying that Vibes are absolute truth.
29:47
But if you're searching for a church, right, and you're trying
29:49
to suss it out, there's room to listen to what your conscience
29:54
might be saying to you. As you think about that church?
29:56
Yeah, right now I appreciate that.
30:00
Those three things can be very influential helping people as
30:04
they do go through that process. Thanks for sharing that I think
30:08
I think listeners that have experienced.
30:10
What we're talking about gets what you're talking about with
30:13
the vibe, the Sunday, we left the ministry, we were in where
30:17
we were hurt the very next Sunday, we visit a church and
30:21
the town we move back. We moved to we go to the church,
30:24
went to Sunday school, Sunday, morning service, get in the car.
30:27
My wife says, what do you think? And I just looked at her and I
30:32
mean, this is not after I had spent years growing in Theology
30:36
and relearning, a lot of things I have not done any of that yet.
30:39
I just looked at her and said this, it reminded me of exactly
30:43
where we left and I don't want anything to do with it.
30:45
She said me too. Yes, yeah you could tell I mean
30:49
it really is there's a I called the word I have for this is what
30:52
I call Tone legalism so there's different kinds of legalism.
30:56
One type of legalism is says you're saved by your good works
30:58
and there's very few People who are going to in, at least, an
31:01
evidential to are going to are going to say that there's
31:04
another type of legalism. That's basically like I'm going
31:06
to add man-made rules to you, right?
31:07
So you're not saved by good works when we dump all these
31:09
man-made rules on you, they're not God's rules or men's rules.
31:11
That's a problem, and a lot of churches, but then there's a
31:14
third kind of legalism. What I would call Tone legalism,
31:16
where you, it's not either of the first two.
31:17
But there's this there's a sense of heaviness harshness coldness
31:24
and a sort of a focus on law that's out of proportion to the
31:29
way. Should be viewed through the
31:30
lens of the gospel. And I think when you sense that
31:32
that's those are some things you should see his red flags.
31:34
That's really good. That's really good.
31:37
Well, we are we're coming to this way.
31:39
I know, we've probably Michaels already said some things that
31:42
have been helpful but as we close the interview dr.
31:47
Kroger could you could you give some help?
31:50
And we like to say it this way. I hope and help, right?
31:52
We're dealing with Sinners and suffers and we like to bring
31:55
hope and help to them and could you maybe Give some help to
32:00
those listening who maybe have experienced a bully pulpit.
32:05
Yeah, that's it. If someone's listening to this
32:08
podcast and they've been through what my book describes, the 90
32:12
they're hurting, and I know they're under the weight of it
32:15
all. And I know they probably are
32:16
doubting the goodness of Christianity and their doubting
32:20
the goodness of the church. I mean, what I would say to them
32:23
is first of all, you're not alone.
32:24
Yeah, there's many people who have been where you are in our
32:27
were they are you are where you are right now.
32:29
Now. And so there's there's there's
32:31
there's Fellowship out. There are people that you can
32:34
relate to in the conversation where you're going to be,
32:36
probably felt like, no one gets what you're going through.
32:38
But people really do and can't get what you're going through.
32:42
The second thing is, I would remind you that not every church
32:44
is like that that you know, you know, one bad response.
32:48
I hear two people when abusive church has come up as like their
32:52
responses. Yeah, well, you know, we're all
32:54
sinners. And I hear that I'm like, wow
32:57
you have missed this entirely of course for all Sinners or
33:02
they'll say something like well, you know, there's no perfect
33:04
Church. Yeah.
33:07
Okay. But at the same time I'm like,
33:09
well yeah, but no one's asking for a perfect church was asking
33:12
for it does not abusive, right? I mean, imagine going to, you
33:15
know, Ravi Zacharias is ministering go.
33:17
Well use no, no, perfect ministry.
33:20
No, but there's no buffering Ministry, but there's also
33:22
Ministries that aren't, you know, sexually abusing people.
33:26
There's there's actually Ministries that are harsh and
33:28
cruel to people. So part of what I would tell the
33:30
listener is there are good churches out there.
33:33
Don't equate the bad trip to experience with it with the
33:35
Church of Christ. Result there's people out there
33:37
that love Jesus and you give you give those the story of going to
33:40
a church and realizing that's just like our launcher.
33:41
If you want nothing to do with it, I can tell you stories of
33:44
people. I know that have gone to a
33:45
another church and come out of it and they said, whoa, I never
33:49
knew Church could be like that. I never church.
33:51
I never knew Church could be happy.
33:53
I never I never knew Church could be free and I never knew
33:56
Church felt that way. I always thought church was this
33:59
way and so part of what the listener might need to realize
34:02
is there's good churches out there, you can heal in those,
34:04
you need to find them and they take some more.
34:06
Work, but you can find them. And I think you realize that the
34:10
problem is to, of course, Jesus. And the problem is even really
34:12
the church. The problem is the sin that we
34:14
need to fight against and that's what my book is designed to help
34:16
us do absolutely. And and in one of the things
34:20
that I like to point people to, as well as is realizing the
34:25
number one group that Jesus called out and rebuked in his
34:30
ministry where the spiritual leaders.
34:33
Yeah. And most of the It was for
34:37
Spiritual abusing the people? Yes.
34:39
Yeah. I've got Point people all the
34:41
time. I was like, look, there's two
34:41
different problems with authority.
34:43
You can abuse it, which is what my books about, or you could
34:46
abdicate it, right? There's abdication of
34:48
authorities, a problem to write, but notice that when Jesus deals
34:52
with leisure in his day, it's almost always on the abuse of
34:54
the authority. Not the application of he
34:56
doesn't go to the Pharisees and goes, well, you guys are
34:57
slacking off the job and not not leading, you know, that's never
35:01
his complaint. His complaint is, you're putting
35:02
heavy burdens on people's backs, you're crushing them, you
35:04
destroying them? You know you're abusing them
35:08
which is basically Ezekiel 34 all over again and I think
35:11
that's very telling yeah and I think if you're listening to
35:15
this and you're maybe not someone who has experienced
35:19
abuse to, maybe you're on that sort of trend we talked about
35:22
earlier. It's like, you know, I'm just
35:23
sort of skeptical about this thing.
35:26
I want to remind you. This is why this subject is so
35:29
Sinister because what happens is that people They come away from
35:36
this with things that should be good encouraging and uplifting
35:41
to their spiritual walk and now it triggers them to a place.
35:45
You know, it's sort of like I remember hearing a story of a
35:47
lady who was sexually abused by her, by her youth pastor and she
35:55
remained, she's kept her faith, she remained a Christian, she
35:59
remained in church, but she said when she moved to a different
36:02
church and she ended up having a Ministry to Men who were
36:05
sexually abused in church. But she said this 30 years after
36:09
the fact, anytime the song I think it was it as well is ever
36:15
sung. She has to leave the auditorium.
36:17
She can't stand it because the youth pastor that did that to
36:21
her would sing that song and their church and it brings all
36:25
that back and you imagine this is what happens that that stuff
36:29
happens to people to wear that Bible verses are used that way.
36:33
Oh yeah. Be good scriptures to encourage
36:35
Us in life. Now they have the connection of
36:39
that, and that's why this is such an important subject, and
36:41
that's why dr. Krueger is writing this book and
36:44
why this book is so important for us to listen to what he's
36:47
saying. Yeah, and let me have one more
36:49
thing to that because I think you raise a good point here
36:50
which is it a lot of people will hear a conversation like this
36:53
and go. Yeah, I'm not sure that really
36:54
happens or I'm not I don't see it right there.
36:57
Kind of skeptical. I want to point out something
37:00
that's often not pointed out. When someone says I'm kind of
37:01
skeptical. What they what?
37:04
Aren't realizing is that they're basing description says I'm just
37:06
on their own personal experience.
37:08
In other words they've never been abused.
37:10
They've never met sent. Maybe somebody's been abused and
37:13
so everything's just based on their own personal experience
37:15
because they've had a good church experience.
37:17
It's usually those same people that complain about people being
37:19
to focus on experience and to focus on subjectivism.
37:23
But yet here they are dismissing the whole thing under the
37:26
heading of their own experience. And I want to show that to them
37:29
and say look and tell you sat down across the table with
37:32
victims of spiritual abuse. Until you've heard their stories
37:35
and see them weep in front of you.
37:37
Yeah, you don't, don't don't dismiss this, right?
37:40
This is why I wrote the book is because I want you to realize
37:41
this is real. And so the idea that you could
37:44
dismiss it because I haven't seen it, it would be incredibly
37:47
callous and also incredibly subjective and driven by your
37:50
own personal experience, which is exactly the thing we
37:52
shouldn't be doing. And so I want to point that out
37:55
for those who may be listening to this and thank God.
37:57
Yeah, there's nothing to it. Well, go meet a few spiritual
37:59
abuse, victim, sit down with them and then come back and
38:01
we'll see if you think maybe there's something to it.
38:04
Percent James, you got any closing comments?
38:06
Well, that's great. Michael, appreciate you coming
38:08
and hanging out with us and taken from your busy schedule.
38:11
I know you're busy at RTS and you got a lot going on, and I
38:15
appreciate you giving some insight for our listeners.
38:17
Well, thanks guys, keep up the good work and good to be with
38:20
you. Absolutely, thank you again and
38:22
to everybody else. Listening?
38:24
Remember to God, not the pastor, be the glory, thanks for
38:31
listening to the for Freedom podcast to find More content
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