The great evangelical scandal

The church is taking a battering. In the 24/7 news world of the Internet and the era of monetised sensationalist reporting it seems as though the Good News is being eclipsed by the bad news. The father of lies is having a field day – although to be honest it seems as though all he has to do is stand back and let the church strangle itself.

Hardly a week goes by without news of yet another fallen leader, another Twitter spat between Christians and a depressing sense of déjà vu as the latest evangelical scandal hits the headlines. For those of us who are on the inside and involved in Christian leadership there is a dread of much more. The gossip and backbiting is poisonous.

‘Nice’ evangelicals

The ‘nice’ evangelicals attack and undermine – in a ‘nice’ way. When Marty Sampson of Hillsong became the latest celebrity Christian to announce on the Internet that he was renouncing his faith, the knives were out. Not so much for him (although that too happened, with some Christians who don’t like Hillsong hardly able to contain their schaedenfreude), but for anyone who dared to suggest that giving up your faith on Instagram on the basis that no-one ever talked about issues such as hell, suffering and science, might not be the smartest move; there was nothing but condemnation. I was asked by Premier to write a response to Sampson’s public renunciation. Not knowing Sampson, I wrote a letter that only dealt with the points he had publicly made. I tried to do so in as gentle a manner as I could. But for some it was not enough. I received a tirade of condemnation from those who say it is wrong to condemn.