We’ve had stunning illustrations in recent months about how an enabling culture is created and perpetuated around toxic but charismatic leaders. High-profile examples have ranged from churches like Willow Creek and Harvest Bible Chapel to Christian organizations headed by Dave Ramsey and the late Ravi Zacharias.
In the case of every single one of these churches and ministries, we see that though these seemingly “too big to fail” organizations were honored through the years for their strong evangelical bona fides, their day-to-day organizational cultures discipled staff through the most destructive kinds of peer pressure.
A culture of peer pressure can be leveraged by manipulative leaders to keep toxic secrets in the dark: “Christians are right to heed scriptural warnings about gossip, secrets, and lies. Yet the American church has also seen a pattern of leaders referencing such teachings to silence and discredit victims and whistleblowers,” CT wrote on the falling-out at Ramsey’s company and others.
The reckoning of these fallen leaders offers those of us in ministry trenches an opportunity to interrogate our own local church culture. That examination can and should include the ways in which we have substituted peer pressure for authentic discipleship. The same social and spiritual tendencies that created unhealthy culture in these fallen ministries often exist in smaller doses in our own local churches. Read More
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