touch not the anointed...

[outcast]

I know many of us have been subjected to the teaching that we are to never criticize the pastors of our churches whether current or former b/c that is equivalent to touching God's anointed. Well, in light of my recent experiences with the new old church I am concerned about the application of this doctrine.

I don't plan on running my mouth to people about why we left in order to make the former pastor look bad or anything. But, if asked why we are leaving I don't plan on covering for him either. What he did was pretty public and he cannot really hide it.

When people have asked me I haven't tried to make him look like the scoundrel that he is, but I have been honest about the fact that I disagree with how he handled stuff.

My reason for posting this is to pose the following questions:

1. What do you all now think about the doctrine I mentioned about not criticizing pastors in light of your SA situations?

2. Do you think people should be informed when pastors do bad things to people?

3. How do you handle expressing your views about your SA pastors and do you struggle with feeling like God is going to curse you for it?

These are all things I have been thinking about/dealing with for the past couple of weeks. I look forward to hearing everyone's insight. :)

[Katie]

1. I think that doctrine, as it is often presented, is a bunch of BS. We are all God's anointed, and it should equally apply to the #%&* who did harm to us.

2. Our reason for not exposing or accusing the leaders had nothing to do with protecting them. It was basically because, no matter how we did it, we would end up suffering and looking worse in the end. It is hard to explain, but I think that many people here understand, how everything you say, even the truth can be twisted and used against you. Because of that, we simply say that we left because we do not agree with the leadership, and leave it at that without explanation.

Ideally, I think people should be informed of what pastors do, but sometimes getting that to happen in the realm of church politics doesn't work. There are pretty strong forces at work to protect those in positions of leadership, especially if they have surrounded themselves with yes-men.

3. Obviously, I express myself pretty openly here. However, in our community, I say nothing to anyone who knows this pastor, sometimes faking it until my cheeks are bleeding. Like I said in #2, if I thought I could, maybe I would. I still always hope that someday the evil things he has done will be exposed.

I don't think God will curse me for anything I've said. I do however believe he has restrained me from stepping into things that would hurt me further. In my situation, I'm trying to trust that justice is in His hands and He will do a much better job of it than I ever could in the end.

[Hope 98]

The "touch not the anointed" is a load of crap. I can't even figure out where to begin to refute it.
Yes - compare a wolf in sheeps clothing to e. coli in spinach.
I've struggled with this too. My whole life has been steeped in such phrases as "judge not", and "if you don't have anything nice to say..."What I've tried to determine is HOW to express the abuses within the climate of "touch not the anointed". I can't say that I've come up with a good answer, except to try to consider the pros & cons of speaking out. The answer might lie in who to talk to.

[Jerry]

When I hear a Pastor or Elder employ that scripture,,,,,I think of what Ronald Regan once said,,,,"There you go again !!!" ;) .....That scripture was a warning against the enemies of the 12 Tribes of Israel.....It was never intended as a pronouncement of protection for a particular person or member of the clergy.......When Christ cleared the money changers from the temple with a whip,,,,He didn't seem to have a problem touching the anointed :D When Christ was arrested in the Garden the guards had no problem touching the anointed :( My point ????,,,,,,,,,,,,,the verse isn't about personal protection of individuals it is about nations and principalities ;) Psalm 105 vs 13-15
Love Jerry

[yeshua'smags]

I used a Bible verse to back up my point, so nobody freak out, ok?;)

Pastors are no more "annointed" than we are! The only thing that separates us from them is a seminary degree, and some don't even have that!

We wrote a letter and sent it to the pastor's home, the leaders of each committee, the district superintendant, and the bishop. People were making up their own reasons for why we left and we wanted to make sure that everyone got the real scoop.

God wouldn't curse us for standing up for ourselves when we are abused! The ones that need to be concerned about that are the ones who hurt his children! Anytime anyone makes someones faith falter...well I think that really pisses God off! Matthew 18:1-7 Especially vs. 6 & 7.

[ex-shep]

I have to get out the door for work. I can tell that scripture is a blantant twisting. It is one parenthetical verse with no surrounding context. Most bible scholars do not how this fits in.

I Thessalonians 5.12 says to test all things, hold fast to what is good and have nothing to do what is evil. Further the scripture indicates to have nothing to do with the works of evil, but rather expose them.

I Cor 4 shoots down hidden agenda.

There is nothing in scripture which allows a leader to hide behind his sin. I believe Jesus called them "Pharisees". He certainly had a short fuse against false piety.

As I mentioned in a previous post, from I Cor 13, "If I have not love then I am a clashing gong and clanging cymbel". With all the dissonace we have been exposed to in our groups. It is surprising we have not needed hearing aids.

[SpinningHead]

1. What do you all now think about the doctrine I mentioned about not criticizing pastors in light of your SA situations?

I echo what Jerry and Ex-Shep wrote!


2. Do you think people should be informed when pastors do bad things to people?

In principle...yes! In reality...you have to make at attempt to look at the full consequences/backlash and decide if it's worth it. The pastor is in a position of authority and everyone wants to believe the best of him and give him the benefit of the doubt right off the bat. You?? Not so much. And people who don't want to hear about their pastor being a pasturd will turn on anyone who attempts to tell the truth about him.

One of the questions you have to look at is whether or not people want to be informed! (((pausing to let that question sit with you a second....ok)))) And this question can bite you on the ankles as well. In my case the majority of the people did not and don't want to know. The few who did "want to know the truth" turned on me (I'm misguided, I'm sour because we didn't get our way...never mind the documented facts!!!) :mad: Was it worth it? I feel just as much hurt was done by those who were supposed to be my "christian family and community". I really love God! but I can't say I'm too thrilled with his people!

You have to ask yourself, are the consequences of telling what happened to you worth what negative could come of it?


3. How do you handle expressing your views about your SA pastors and do you struggle with feeling like God is going to curse you for it?

Well, I don't express them to too many people...but there are one or two people who've been there for me and when the conversation might come around to that...I focuse on the facts and what I've learned. They seem more receptive to that than the emotional "I'm hurt" part of it.

I don't feel like God is going to curse me when I stick to the hard documented facts...they are indisputable facts, they're not my facts or my take on it...they are documented numbered facts. But in general, I can't believe God would allow me to have this experience if He didn't plan to use it to teach me something huge, strengthen me or prepare me for something much larger. Although "something much larger" makes me nervous I gotta tell ya! :rolleyes:

[mary]

Re: people being informed when pastors do bad things...

This one has specifically bothered me and it has very personal application: there were three of us women who were friends in my old church. The other two were single. I've stated some details on this forum about what "pastor" did to me. I told no one anything while I was still a member. After I was thrown out, I did tell one of these women; I gave her some details and she'd observed certain interactions between "pastor" and me (and when she talked to him about it later, she didn't like his "explanations") and she believed me. She promptly left the church last December and hasn't looked back.

The third woman got engaged last winter and is getting married there this month, with "pastor" officiating at her wedding. She asked my friend to stand up in her wedding, but my friend refused: she can't bring herself to bow her head and pray with "pastor," etc., etc. The bride-to-be asked her why she wouldn't even come to her wedding and even asked, "Is there something wrong with ******* Church?" My friend said, "I can't talk about it." I realized that she was in an awful position, and so I said, "Tell her to call me." (This woman has avoided me since last fall.) I intended to tell her very little, just what I told another member when she pointedly inquired why I was no longer there. I just said, "He forced me into a relationship that was not a normal pastor-congregant one and when I declined to take it further, he threw me out." That's all. It's the truth, too. This particular member screamed at me, "I don't want to hear any more!" I never heard from her again. She remains at that "church."

However, the bride-to-be never called me and it makes me sick that this monster will be officiating at her wedding. It also makes me sick that no one else except the elders and one member of presbytery know what the creep did to me. (And they don't know all the details; I haven't even posted them here. Only my therapist knows everything.)

This will all be exposed in the Lord's timing, "(f)or there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad." (Mark 4:22.)

What really irritates me is that this guy is going to officiate at a wedding when, just months ago, he "instructed" me to break my marriage vows. And he was more than prepared to break his own. This is a joke and I'm outraged beyond words by it. Yes, everyone in this congregation and everyone who's affected by his ministry should know this about him. But it's not my job to spread it far and wide - the Lord will do it. He's promised us this. There is nothing done in secret that will remain there! What comfort we can take from this, although for me, right now, it's pretty tough... Real tough.

Thanks, Outcast, for starting this thread. It's a wonderful topic! :o

mary

[Anna Marta]

1. What do you all now think about the doctrine I mentioned about not criticizing pastors in light of your SA situations?

2. Do you think people should be informed when pastors do bad things to people?

3. How do you handle expressing your views about your SA pastors and do you struggle with feeling like God is going to curse you for it?

Hi Outcast,

I would first like to recommend you check out www.ptmin.org It helped a lot today when I tripped over it. Now to answer your questions.

1. Read this article - http://www.spiritualabuse.org/mywritings/authority.html
Frankly, I am done talking to abusive pastors period! :D I've lost my respect for any pastor who needs to use manipulation or power tactics. IMHO it has nothing to do with his being annointed (or just greased and oiled) There is NO biblical substantiation for his thinking he can lord it over anyone. :D

2. Do you think people should be informed if doctors, dentists, car repairmen or any other public service person cheat, harm, use, abuse or destroy a person? And the difference is...? I rest my case. :eek:

3. God is NOT in the cursing business. God is in the perfect LOVE business! Perfect love is incapable of cursing so we need never fear our Father who loves us perfectly.

Now abusive pastors do not fall into the love category and they ARE capable of causing us a great deal of pain, not curses, but lots of aggravation. :(

Personally, what we do is wait until we are asked by someone the "why did you leave?" question. We then calmly just give the facts about what happened to us and only to us and only those things which we personally heard or experienced. This is known as telling the truth. There is nothing more we can do. It's up to God to take care of the results.

The problem with all of this is that many of us have been hoodwinked for so long by abusive institutional systems that it is our own false guilt that drives us NOT God's character and his Word. Here I stand - guilty myself.

However, the road to truth, peace and freedom is the road less traveled, (ever read the Robert Frost poem about the paths in the woods?) We have decided to take that road and do not wish to turn back. I'd rather the suffering of breaking free than the suffering of remaining victimized. Besides we're all in such good company here, right???? :) :D

Much love fra
Anna Marta

[SpinningHead]

In thinking about Question #2...

I realized my experience has been that Christians don't want to hear it! But non-Christians don't mind! Go figure!

Anyone else?

[hornblower]

I dont think Ive ever been afraid of thinking anything about a pastor and I certainly will not keep quiet about something I feel is as wrong as what was done to me and others at these abusive churches.
The problem is what I am met with when I do tell. Cold hard slaps in the face and I hear dont touch mine anointed all of the time down here.

As my husband says consider the source and I do and then I end up knowing no one at all. I do feel bad about telling unbelievers. I have but I feel very bad afterwards. It means nothing to them at all. Its like you were the stupid idiot that went to a church in the first place?

In a way that feels worse than the believers and what they say to me. If I went to a church now........I would never say anything about anything in my life ever, not SA not anything at all. I think maybe it would be a good idea to just hang there and wait untill God brought somebody to me that was having problems then maybe I could be of some help with my story maybe not but I would try to be their friend............then I would get in trouble Im sure, I usually do even when I do nothing at all.

Let me tell you guys something that happened to me one time. I was in a prayer group, they were doing silly idiot stuff, like casting demonic forces out of houses, junk like that, bless their hearts. I loved them anyway. So this one time this lady that I actually do kind of trust because honestly she prooved herself to me even though she was in on all of this super spiritual idiot stuff.
We were taking turns being prayed for one time.........this was before my SA at that last church.........about 3 or 4 years before. She was praying for me when it came my time and she said there are wounds all over your body and you are bleeding! I knew. It was no surprise to me.

So my question is here we are maybe all of us bleeding like that in the spiritual ways.................do you think that maybe people sense that about us? Maybe they hate us for it. Maybe they dont want to be around us or its frightening to them?
One time I was being attacked by this guy hes so unbelievably silly, the epitome of everything we talk about here.........yukkedoosky.........and he was like harranging me in a church service saying stand up and be a soldier, fight the war all of this crapeola...........this young pastor said to him yes we are supposed to fight the good fight of faith but some of us have fought and been wounded and need a rest.

It felt so good to have a pastor say something like that to an attacker. Now me, I was going to pick up a two by four as soon as we left the church and whap him a couple of times just to wake him up. Just kidding, but......I felt like it. You'd have to know this guy.

I guess what Im saying here is that these things, these scriptures, they are what its all about. Carmen is so right about we are all anointed, pastors are just people, people with jobs. We have been in a huge fight against evil and we may be wounded. God is healing us by bringing us here, giving us this place to heal and find the love and compassion weve needed for so long. I love you guys.

[outcast]

Wow ya'll... what a great response to the OP. :D I loove good feedback like this. I figured I'd respond to my own questions now that I've received your responses.

1. I agree that this doctrine is a bunch of crap. It is designed to excuse leaders from taking responsibility for their immature, selfish actions. Interestingly, I never hear good pastors use that line, only abusive ones. :rolleyes:

2. I also agree that it is difficult, but sometimes necessary to tell people about SA pastors and what they did. I usually operate on a "need to know" basis and I first determine if the person is trustworthy and can handle what I will share.

3. I no longer think God will curse me either, but I did when I left the first church almost a year ago. It was really hard b/c I love God so much and I want to please him. To think that he would be angry at me for simply telling the truth is now an idiotic idea, but at the time I did believe them when they said that would happen to me.

Today I had a discussion with a good friend about our new old church. He goes there too and he had brought up the fact that nothing was said on this past sunday about the ministry no longer being sponsored by his church. I told him that it was likely nothing will ever be said. He was incensed when I further informed him that none of our donated money actually made it to said ministry. I knew telling him was a risk, but I also know him to be one who thinks for himself and is not controlled by others. Every person that I deal with concerning this subject is different though. I realized a long time ago that not everyone can handle the truth.

I look forward to the response of other forumers to this. I am glad that it is a topic that is helping others. I know it helps me to discuss it too. Love ya'll. :)