“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes a duty” by Elmer Domingo Rañola Someone sent me this quotation which sums up my struggle for a more responsible leadership in many Christian churches and organizations today. Many abuses are being committed by so-called Christian leaders because, unknowingly, their followers have made idols out of them. They have the charisma, the skills, and the gifts, that many think they are indispensable. Christ is, therefore, replaced as the head of the church and the ultimate leader in any Christian organization. The pastor’s or the leader’s words become final authority. There is no check and balance for, like in the days of Moses, it is assumed God speaks only to one man, making him the only reliable conduit of God’s special revelations. Verses about submission to authority are quoted often out of context so that bishops, pastors, directors of organizations, boards of elders, and many other personas of authority can have their way. “Touch not the anointed one” has been hurled from the pulpit to make a congregation kowtow to the whims of a psychopath. The church, the beloved flock of the Lord, is victimized by wolves disguised as sheep. This is the reason why the Bible gives us ample warning because Satan wants nothing but to destroy the work of Christ. However, we often think a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” is someone who teaches a wrong doctrine and so deceives, if possible, the believers. But this is not always the case. A leader of a church or a Christian organization may have the same set of beliefs as us but, because he has no genuine love for those he is leading, he becomes Satan’s instrument of destruction. His words and deeds become a fountain of discouragement, a source of division and doubt; and because of Him many who have been called by God to work in the ministry suffer undue pain. Such a leader uses the ministry to benefit himself and be glorified in his achievements. He doesn’t see people as human beings but tools in his hands to serve his purpose. He is a threat to the sanity of the saints. For this reason, Saint Paul, after discussing the value of spiritual gifts to the church (1 Corinthians 12) seemed to backtrack or change gear to talk about the one most essential to the life of the called-out-ones: Love (1 Corinthians 13). Paul is saying love is supreme and the church can’t survive without it. A man may possess all the spiritual gifts listed in the Bible but without love he is a danger to the body of Christ. In effect, Paul is reminding us that there is only one qualification we need to look for in a leader and it is genuine love which can only come from God. But what is happening now is quite contradictory to this biblical teaching. We elect a man on the basis of popularity, his achievements, and what we think he can do to reach the goals of our church or organization; and then we put our hopes in him, depend on him, neglecting at the same time our duty to hear from God ourselves where He wants to lead us. This is because we trust that our elected leader has direct line to God and, on the day of his election, all other lines have been canceled. This leader, overtaken by the natural man in him, becomes prideful, arrogant, lover of power, worshiper of money, manipulative, and insensitive to the heartbeat of God and His people. Because we made him a vicar of Christ, he becomes untouchable. He can no longer be corrected for he is no longer accountable to anyone. This gradual transformation is evident in his own home. His wife no longer recognizes him and his children are hurt because of his total disregard of her feelings. But he can talk through all these mess. This kind of leader has mastered the art of lying and some of his subordinates cooperate to cover him up. And so the problem is never solved but is like a monster in the dark waiting for the next victim. What are we to do vis-a-vis the injustices he commits? We cannot support him anymore for to do so, to continually patronize the wolf’s evil deeds, is tantamount to slaughtering the sheep ourselves. I agree with the quotation above: “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes a duty”. Or to put it in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who plotted the murder of Adolf Hitler, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” Brothers and sisters, let us remember that the church has only one Lord and Master, the Servant-King Jesus!
Posted on: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 11:22:14 +0000
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