In the Shadow of Bullies and Hypocrites

Grief Will Make You Take Stock and Clean House

Over the past few weeks, I have been doing a lot of reflection on my personal history in the Church and my relationship to my fellow human beings. A lot of it is in light of how the church treated Carlton Pearson. Ever since I went into ministry, I was mindful not to put myself in a situation to have what happened to him happen to me. Especially since I had already had a taste of it on a much smaller–but not any less painful–scale when I was in Pentecostal churches.

Seeing how he was being treated as he approached death and even after his death by some of his naysayers, has brought up a lot of stuff for me. I used to often tell him to take care of himself after I watched one of his messages online. I could see that he was still carrying a lot of the hurt with him from how he was treated. And when he looked at how the folks he used to roll with grabbed onto and held tight to Donald Trump so quickly, but threw him away so easily, it was devastating to him. My advice to him was to let it go and don’t even try to explain himself to folks who clearly didn’t care.

It was probably selfish and a little naive of me, but, I thought that he should just be content living a simple life serving at All Souls Unitarian who welcomed him after he went into exile and just write books and do private spiritual counseling with his wife and get out of the spotlight as much as possible. I suggested that he take it as a gift of God that he got away from all of the bullies and hypocrites in the church and just take it as easy as possible and spend more time with his wife and kids for the rest of his life rather than take on all of the sins of the Church and most especially the Black Church in America into his body. My fear was that it would make him sick. And it did.

One of the things with grief is that it makes you look back at the past and wonder how things could have played out differently. Even when your logical mind tells you that there is nothing you could have done, it messes with you. And then in its effort to make meaning out of pain, it tries to tell you what you can do to avoid a recurrence of that pain in the future. That is what’s going on with me right now.

Seeing both how the church hurt Carlton and how he put himself in the position to be hurt again is really challenging me. I made the decision to look back at some of our old texts. In there was one where, when I told him I was resigning from the church I was serving, he suggested that I move to Tulsa and become his associate pastor in a new church. I imagine that he may have said that to other young ministers as well. He did have a way of making everyone feel special and like his best friend. Whether anything would have come of it or not is beside the point, in the exchange I suggested that rather than me move to Oklahoma, he should move to Colorado and we could start something here because in Tulsa, he would always be known as the person who shifted his theology and lost everything. Here he could actually start over.

And again, selfishly I thought it would be cool if he and his wife and me and my wife took advantage of the fact that both of our wives worked for airlines and had flight benefits and we could just travel freely and gently encourage people into looking more deeply into the Mysteries of Christ, rather than rile up the people that almost killed him the first time. I knew it was a fantasy. But, it was what I wanted for him since he had already given and lost so much. Plus, it was also what I wanted for myself. But, in retrospect, I see that that was never going to happen. He was called for something else. Additionally, he carried the burden of being a world teacher who shifted publicly. So he probably felt a sense of repentant responsibility that I did not.

Coming Out of Hiding

Even though Carlton aka Carly Moses felt called to go back to Egypt and set his people free, I didn’t. After I resigned from my church, I basically went underground as far as ministry was concerned. I turned down offers to serve churches in head pastor and associate capacities. I didn’t apply to any other church jobs. And for a year, I wouldn’t even speak in a church. And even when I did started saying yes to a few selective invitations, I wouldn’t call them sermons. I called them “Jesus and Justice Talks”. And I spent a lot more time with my family thanks to working remotely with a non-profit that works to minimize polarization between people and foster individual and community thriving.

In addition to these things, I also started doing comedy a bit and started something called The Liberation Comedy Project. It was my way of working out some of the limitations to bringing people together across differences by getting folks to laugh at human ridiculousness together. I was becoming something new. And just like I let my Top Secret Clearance lapse so I wouldn’t be tempted to go back to the intelligence community, just in case, I was waiting for my standing as a minister to lapse so I wouldn’t be tempted to go back and be a pastor. And then Carlton got sick.

Ever since he got sick, I have been nervous that if he died I might get sucked back into the church world. Not because I feel like I could fill the void he left behind. But, because I knew that a lot of people were going to start saying a lot of things that would anger me and that eventually I wouldn’t be able to keep my mouth shut and I would jump in the ring, which believe me is not something I want to do.

You see, the thing about me is that if someone messes with me, I can just walk away. But, if I see someone in my presence messing with someone I feel is innocent or vulnerable, I can’t just sit there and say nothing. And despite what anyone’s opinions of him were, Carlton D. Pearson was one of the most innocent people I have ever known.

Well, as you know if you’re reading this, people messed with Carlton in sickness and in death and it has me feeling like in spite of my desire not to, I have to open my mouth. Even so, I was doing a decent job of private grief until someone posted this comment on a little tribute video that I made for Carlton.

If only if he can come back and tell people that Hell is real because he turned his back on the Lord so very sad because he died believing that there was no hell .not trying to be funny .

@debbiehawkins9774

Whether it should or shouldn’t have, that set me off. I have been praying and asking God to help me release my frustrations. But, instead what has been coming to mind is all of the years that I sat in church diligently studying scripture to receive God’s favor like a good church boy, only to be bullied left and right–in the streets and even in the church. I think about all of the hypocrites who would be preaching righteousness while doing dirt behind closed doors. I thought about how even though the Bible says in Romans 10 to not say who is going to heaven or hell, pastors in far too many churches make hell the cornerstone of their discourse and leverage their positional authority to act as if they are some type of hell insurance and heavenly real estate agent. And I think about how so many folks throw out these 50 cent seminary terms to justify themselves either without having gone to seminary or having not done any significant research research before posting refutations of what they have no knowledge of. It reminds me of what Paul said about the people he was talking to when he said:

“For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.”

Paul of Tarsus

Now for decades, I have made it my business to walk away from the zealous bullies and hypocrites because I wanted to believe that they were functioning out of an underlying sincerity to serve God as they had been taught. But, I’m starting to think those days are over for me now. I increasingly feel like one of those people in movies who move to the woods and try to live a life of peace and then next thing you know they are found in a position where they have to defend some innocent person. Or maybe I’m more like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting who knows a bunch of stuff but tries to keep it on the down low until he is exposed mixed with The Swamp Thing. Heck if I know. I can’t come up with a good analogy. All I can say is that I am tired of bullies and hypocrites picking on my friend and even though I though it was the right thing for me to walk away and not defend myself at the time, it is getting to me that Carlton didn’t walk away and didn’t defend himself when people bashed him. And now frustration has me feeling like I have to say more. Maybe it isn’t even for him. Only God knows. Maybe it is just how I’m processing my own past hurt. But whatever it is and for however long it lasts, I am going to be challenging the arguments of bullies and hypocrites. I am not talking about challenging the people. I won’t even say who they are. And I am no talking about people who have well thought out arguments, but simply disagree with more expanded theology. I am just talking about the arguments of people who give canned answers and who go out of their way to hold people to standards they don’t live up to and those who cherry pick scripture to oppress people while doing very little to help set people free. these are the folks about whom Jesus said:

“And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.  But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”

Matthew 23:12-15

If I am out of pocket for how I feel right now, I am just going to have to trust God to straighten me out later. Because as it stands, all my prayers are yield more frustration. And I haven’t even said anything about all of the scandals that are coming out about the people who came out against Carlton. I will leave that in God’s hands.

Finally, before I go on, let me say that I am not trying to hurt anybody with my challenges. More than anything, I am writing to give myself grace to heal and to put a speed bump between people are using the Bible to hurt other people and to ultimately hurt themselves. At the end of the day, I want liberation for all people. But in the meantime…

Bullies Beware

If you’ve ever seen a revenge movie or one of those high school movies where the bully gets his comeuppance, you know that there is almost always a scene where the antagonist finally ends up in a vulnerable position and there is a glimmer of recognition in their eyes that they effed up. They just spent the whole arc of the film trying to dominate everything and everyone in their path with seeming confidence surrounded by cronies who go along with their tomfoolery for all kinds of reasons that they have mistaken for adoration. And now, as they watch the timer for the bomb they set to blow up others descend to 00:00 in their presence or they contemplate the sword that just went through their heart, or they see the nerd walk off with their former partner, they realize that they never really wanted to be a violent psychopath, despotic leader, or the most popular kid in school. They just wanted a hug or a puppy that they saw in a window and things just got out of hand. But, now it is too late. And the finality of it all is sobering. They see now what they never could before. They were always full of 💩.

As their defeat becomes obvious, whatever hypnotic suggestions that captured the minds of their followers start to lose their grip. One by one, the survivors of their psychological tyranny start to either wake up or they admit to themselves that they were misguided. All they ever wanted was to belong–to feel like they were a part of something. And even though they knew that they would have hated to be on the receiving end of the 🐂💩 they helped perpetuate, they just couldn’t help themselves.

In some instances, they were “just following orders”. In others, they were just afraid that in they didn’t participate, they would be ostracized. Or, and this is the saddest reason of all, their life was meaningless until they were found by this community of trauma bonded people connected by their pain and the hope that they could be a winner by extension if they just clung to this bully. But now that the school bully just got knocked out by George McFly, they are questioning their worldview. What if they had found the courage to stand up to bullies instead of riding on their coat tails? Would they be someone who could look themselves in the mirror rather than someone who wears tinted glasses at night, not because they think they look cool, but because they are subconsciously afraid of getting a glimpse of themselves and seeing what they secretly harbor in their souls? That for all of the toughness they displayed on the outside, on the inside they just feel empty.

A Recipe for Hypocrisy

My two favorite books in the Hebrew Bible are Ecclesiastes and Job. I have read Ecclesiastes more than any other book. It is my go to whenever I start to feel the illusions of this world trying to ensnare me. It reminds me that apart from the consciousness of our relationship to the Creator, finding meaning in this life is not inherent. Rather, it is something that we create. It opens with these optimistic words.

The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:

 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
    says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
    Everything is meaningless.”

Ecclesiastes 1

When I would tell the old folks in church that I loved this book, they would ask me what was wrong with me and say that it was depressing and that they avoided it. Second to Ecclesiastes in the depressing department was Job. Job might as well be the “Patron Saint of ‘Bad Things Can Happen to Good People’”. No one liked that book because it shows that vulnerabilities are a part of the human experience and no amount of success can shield us from it. It also alludes to what Paul would later say in Philippians 3:7-11 about counting everything as loss when compared to the knowledge of Christ. What many miss about Job is that after losing everything, the redemption wasn’t that he got a new family and more stuff than he had before. It was this:

This was the glimmer of recognition that I was referring to above. It is the knowledge of the truth of who we are in relationship to God and all of Creation. And it is this knowledge that is more valuable than all things. It is the Pearl of Great Price. It is the knowledge that makes us repent, which simply means to turn around and go in the other direction when we see the error of our ways. Unfortunately, most of us don’t know the value of this glimmer of recognition and so we ignore it to our misfortune. Because it is the ignorance and denial of that glimmer that makes us hypocrites. For ultimately, that glimmer is our conscience. And without it, we become full fledged hypocrites.

The key ingredient in becoming a hypocrite is denial of vulnerability. Once you lie to yourself about that, you will lie about everything that doesn’t fit into your narrative of invulnerability. Hence why we see so many of these zero sum thinking so called leaders who deflect taking responsibility for their actions like they are playing accountability tennis. Everything is someone else’s fault. They always win unless the other person is cheating. And they are always right except for the few times they were wrong about being wrong which then rendered them right. It is really sad when you have a working conscience. And when you don’t, well who cares, it is someone else’s fault anyway. You’re only a hypocrite because that’s what you had to do to beat the other side who are bigger hypocrites. See the loop?

The Unhypocrite

The very opposite of a bully or hypocrite is a man like Job who spoke his truth to God and people alike because he didn’t have anything left to lose.

These are the words of someone who knows that the unsurpassing knowledge of God’s Reality is the only treasure worth seeking in this life. And consequently, such a person cannot be threatened with loss not tempted with gain as the bully and the hypocrite are. This is the kind of person I aspire to be. And it is why I have grown increasingly impatient with with bullies and hypocrites as well as those of us who allow ourselves to be ensnared by these people. This is because a part of the treasure of the knowledge Job ascended to is the awareness that God did not just impregnate Job with this knowledge. it is implanted in all of us. The reality of who we are in God cannot be threatened. And as such, bullies and hypocrites have no power over us other than what we project onto them.

Become Full of Shift

For about a month now, I have been really wrestling with bullies and hypocrites in the churches. Seeing what’s been going on recently really has me grateful that I listened to God and got out. It has been better for every relationship in my life. But none more than my relationship with God. When you are in the pulpit, there are things that go along with it–most especially a perceived authority that some people believe trumps (pardon the term) their own personal experience with God. I don’t like that. As a pastor, I wanted to point people to the Author. But, I never wanted to be the authority. Unfortunately, a lot of people in the church are about power over rather than power with. And when you get that kind of situation, it can be real easy to slip into bullying and hypocrisy. Look at the Church past and present and you see a lot of it. And sadly, way too many of us are looking for someone to tell us what to do and there a whole lot of folks wanting to do it.

It is because of that tendency that I often wondered if I was doing any good as a pastor or was I perpetuating a broken system. I haven’t come to a conclusion on that yet. Only God knows. But, what I do know is that without finding that glimmer I referred to in your own eye, you will never see the truth of who God is or who you are with God. And that is all I want for people. Mindful of this, I will close out with Paul’s prayer from Ephesians 3.

Appreciation of the Mystery

¹⁴ For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁵ from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, ¹⁶ that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, ¹⁷ that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— ¹⁹ to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

²⁰ Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, ²¹ to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.