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It’s not helpful to respond to grief over moral failures in spiritual leaders with “Put your faith in God, not people.” We should be able to put our faith in people. We should be able to trust our parents, teachers, pastors, leaders. Something is deeply broken when we can't.
It tacitly affirms the idea that abuse, moral failure, and manipulation is just something that "happens" to "broken people," instead of investigating what institutional and cultural problems made it possible.
It also devalues the very real role that community and faith leaders play in our spiritual formation. Faith is not individual. Someone taught us to pray. Someone baptised us. Someone told us about Jesus. We should be able to trust these people. They should mediate God to us.
God is not neutral about abusive and self-serving leaders. Leaders should be shepherds not wolves.
"Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!" declares the LORD... I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done" (Jeremiah 23:2)
"Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!" declares the LORD... I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done" (Jeremiah 23:2)
When a child suffers trauma because their parent abused or neglected them, we do not chide them for putting too much trust in their parent. The same should be true with pastors. We should not chide people for trusting, we should ensure our leaders are worth trusting.
Speaking from experience, it is possible to keep and deepen and rejoice in your faith even after deep disappointment with leaders. But that will be rendered almost impossible if we continue to put our wounded faith in the hands of institutions that continually produce abusers.
