The Dark Side of Discernment

THE DARK SIDE OF DISCERNMENT

Some pastor in New Orleans seems to have had an affair and subsequently has resigned. OK, I believe we all have seen this type of thing up close, and we all know it takes place regularly in all theological corners. And it usually unravels little by little, and the statements of resignation are usually well written and designed to reveal the situation with carefully worded and somewhat antiseptic language. Rarely does any pastor say, “I went a whoring.” I have even seen it where the language is so nebulous and even somewhat misleading that it leaves people to wonder, or in Biblical terms, gossip.

Now here is where the vultures descend and begin to pick apart the particulars. People who have never heard of this church begin to speculate and surmise and investigate. Enquiring minds want to know the details. To know such things does not benefit anyone, and those who God has placed in authority at that local church are responsible for how they handle the situation. But when the discernment community gets a whiff of this situation some cannot resist in revealing it to others.

Here is one site who sometimes specializes in salaciousness and gossip.

HERE
and
HERE

The sad part is that many of these discernment sites do not discern the difference between exposing doctrinal heresy and gossip. And because I sometimes write posts like this I am not embraced by the discernment village. You see, in order to wear the moniker of discernment and be welcomed into that exclusive club, you must throw away anything that resembles a mirror. You may recall that recently I addressed this same site because it chose to gossip about a preacher whose son was struggling with same sex attractions, that being a favorite delicacy that feeds some discernment vultures.

We as believers must maintain a wall of separation between what is a doctrinal warning to the body of Christ at large and the failings of men whose failings come to us through various channels. This is not only unbecoming, but it mirrors the tabloid mindset we see in the grocery store checkout line. I mean, what spiritual benefit does it serve our spirits to ingest details about a stranger’s moral failures? Will that convince us that adultery is wrong? And if that church happens to espouse doctrines that we believe are unbiblical, does his moral indiscretions fortify our views?

I know some discernment sites that I believe over focus on certain men or certain teachings. But that pales when we read these type of exposés. I mean let us all read about Lindsay Lohan and wet our whistles for hearing about a preacher. If you do not know that these things are rampant in the evangelical church then you must be an ostrich. I can do nothing about what happens in a church where I do not attend, and in fact the Word says, “but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.”

Our minds are bombarded constantly by the secular world which invites our minds into people’s bedrooms and to follow the details and timelines of adulterous affairs. So we surely do not need the church to add to that cache of ungodly facts that do not edify. Spreading accusations about others when we are not in a position to correct, discipline, and restore is nothing more than gossip.

But if these kinds of stories must be investigated, processed, and served to the community of faith, then perhaps someone should create a monthly newsletter that researches affairs of believers, writes about them, and provides an archive of former affairs so when the current revelations are not as salacious as some of the former we can revisit them. And at the end of the year we could create a top ten list of the most licentious affairs. And we could present a Pulitzer prize to the reporter who exposed the most outrageous affair, and who wrote about it with the most clever and titillating verbiage.

But if this kind of “discernment” is counter productive to a pure mind and a healthy spiritual walk, then avoid it. There is so much good food out there, even on some discernment sites, why gobble up a decaying carcass.