Several weeks ago, NY Times released an article about Rev. Bill Hybels, the founder and leader of Willow Creek Church in Chicago, IL—perhaps one of the most recognized and influential evangelical churches in the world.
The article, however, did not seek to add further acclaim to the church’s long and running list of accomplishments. Instead, it spotlighted some of its hidden, darker areas where sin had been left unchecked and unaddressed for years; namely, reports of sexual harassment allegations made from women at the church about Rev. Hybels.
Aside from the content, however, the article’s structure is rather fascinating. It recounts not only the experiences of the troubled women, but simultaneously recounts the church’s success as well—almost like parallel tracks—perhaps for a daunting train of thought about the church in particular or Christianity in general.
For example, the article references that one victim “remembers traveling to 27 countries representing Willow Creek and hearing pastors say hundreds of times that they owed their churches’ success to Rev. Hybels.” And then, the same, troubled woman states something profoundly difficult: “How could Rev. Hybels have done all this good when there were such dark things happening behind the scenes?”
Then, with quite the literary whiplash, the article’s train of thought comes to screeching halt and ends, as if to deliberately cast its headlights upon that glaringly theological conundrum.
Is NY Times—through subtle literary technique—suggesting something dark about the God of Christianity? Or has this Christian woman—who’s faced unspeakable pain—simply hit a spiritual ‘dead-end’ by this seemingly unfair possibility?
How could God accomplish such kingdom-work through people who perpetuated manipulation and oppression? Was Rev. a fake, or was his God?
This is a difficult theological issue, and it’s one that we too have probably wrestled with at some time ourselves. However, where NY Times may be seeking to pin a rather sinister darkness onto Christianity, and where this woman may be grasping for answers in the darkness of her faith, I believe it is exactly here—in the middle of confusion, pain, and injustice—where the Bible unleashes an unbelievably powerful, freeing, and glorious light on this issue.
The Source of Power
The question, “How could this man have done all this good when there were such dark things happening behind the scenes?” is an understandable one. And while it might sound reasonable, it’s actually ridden by logical fallacy and false presupposition.
There are two main, common assumptions that are operating underneath the woman’s difficult statement.
- ‘Church success’ should only come when the church leader is a godly man.
- If he’s not a godly man, then ‘church success’ must therefore be chalked up to solely his personality, not his spirituality.
It’s easy for Christians to fall into these assumptions and be conditionally simplistic, i.e., “If God is blessing his ministry, it must mean he’s a good person,” or, “God should only bless his ministry if he’s a good person.” But that’s not necessarily true. This thought process oversimplifies God and the way he works.
And conversely, it’s easy for the media to be equally simplistic as well, i.e., “These ministries saw ‘success,’ not because he’s a good person, but because he’s a winsome personality. Look, the main leader is the opposite of what is being preached.” But that’s not necessarily true, either. This thought process oversimplifies the leader and the message.
Each view suffers from oversimplification mainly because it overlooks the main truth about Christianity and its source of power.
Faulty Premise From Christians
Christians—such as the troubled women from Willow Creek Church—must realize that conditional, 2-D notions ‘If X then Y’ hardly apply in a 3-D world that accompanies more variables than simply 2 factors at hand. The Bible does give us principles to live by, but not hard-and-fast formulas for what we can always expect in our immediate situations. The premise, ‘If the leader is bad, then good things shouldn’t be happening through him’ is not a fair assessment given the complexity of the leader, the situation, the church, and nature of God and his kingdom.
There are, however, 2 principles in the Bible that can help clarify this issue:
- God chooses sinners to accomplish his purposes. Moses, David, and Paul, for example, were all murderers; yet God chose to use them to write nearly half the Bible. No matter how great or small, righteous or unrighteous, God has accomplished much in spite of his people’s sin and failures. And he does the same thing today, even if the pastor can attract more than 25,000 people on a given Sunday.
- Spiritual giftedness does not mean spiritual maturity. And perhaps more importantly, spiritual giftedness doesn’t mean a ‘graduation’ from temptation, weakness, and accountability. Most people wrongly view pastors as ‘Spiritual Supermen’ of sorts, who simply are ‘on another level’ spiritually speaking from temptation, weakness, and accountability. But this couldn’t be more from the truth. If anything, one could make the argument that the greater platform offers even greater temptations, invites greater feelings of weakness, and requires greater need for accountability. While the Bible does require leaders to have a proven growth in grace, this does not mean they are exempt from struggle.
This troubled woman is right to say that God used Rev. Hybels in powerful ways. But she’s wrong to suggest that it is because of Rev. Hybels’ inherent giftedness or maturity. The truth is, anyone can be incredibly gifted; yet God can choose to give less gifted pastors a bigger platform if he so chooses. I know this happens. An individual’s degree of giftedness, influence, and platform ultimately has nothing to do with the individual; giftedness and platform are primarily given by the God who grants it (1 Co. 12).
Perhaps the church did achieve great things under Rev. Hybels’ leadership, but ‘ministry success’ does not validate his character and give him sole rights for taking that credit, either. It just means that God can work in spite of Rev. Hybels.
This troubled woman is asking hard questions because she’s still seeing Rev. Hybels as the reason for God’s kingdom work, not the vessel for God’s kingdom work. When we conflate kingdom work with a dynamic personality—as if they’re synonymously related—we’ll invariably end up glorifying man over God and feeling betrayed when that individual fails. That feeling of being betrayed is an indication that your deepest hope was in a pastor who will fail you, not the Shepherd who can’t.
When our assumptions are more personally held than biblically upheld—and when our hope is in a leader, not the Leader—it becomes no surprise when we start asking questions like hers, “How could God use such a man when such dark things were happening behind doors?”
Faulty Premise From Media
On occasions where a Christian leader is convicted of a moral failure, the media may often suggest two main things: 1) At worst, it shows the message of Christianity cannot be true. 2) At best, it chalks up ‘ministry success’ to simply being the result of a winsome, powerful personality. Because after all, the main leader is the opposite of what is being preached.
These assumptions are faulty as well. 1) Just because the main leader failed does not mean his message is untrue. 2) Just because many people benefited from a leader does not mean their benefit can be boiled down to only the leader’s personality.
In one sense, where the media seeks to accuse, they are correct—but not in the way they want to be. For example, the pastor will always be the opposite of the message of Christianity in some sense, because the pastor of the church is not the message. Only the main leader of the church—the Shepherd, whose name is Jesus—can adequately reflect the message of Christianity. In their terms, ‘the main leader’ (i.e., the pastor) will always fail to be like Jesus—but that’s only because the pastor is not the main leader after all.
Media’s assumptions also have a skewed assumption about ‘what is preached’ or the message of Christianity. If the ‘main message’ that is preached is morality, then yes, the media is correct to suggest that Christianity is a sham! However, the message of Christianity is not morality, but primarily Christ—the only one who perfectly lived the morality we were supposed to live for God, and who took the penalty on the cross for our failure to live up to that morality.
Media’s assumptions about Christianity fail not only for being overly simplistic from a logical standpoint, but also for being fundamentally misinformed from a doctrinal standpoint.
Main Truth
The answer, therefore, to the theological conundrum, “How could Rev. Bill Hybels have done all this good when there were such dark things happening behind the scenes?”, becomes glaringly clear and gloriously obvious.
God does not work in the world because of man, but in spite of man. This message is perhaps the essence of the entire Bible. God primarily works in the world through the message of the gospel. And the message—not the man—will bring genuine ministry success, whether it comes from the mouth of an adulterer or from a godly individual. As Paul said, “I don’t care if they are preaching Christ from bad motive; for Christ is still being preached, so that I rejoice” (Phil. 1:15-18, summarized).
‘Ministry success’ comes from the gospel, and not from some winsome personality, because we are not saved by a winsome personality, but by a winsome Savior. The truth is, God did accomplish incredible things through Rev. Hybels. But it wasn’t because of him; it was in spite of him. It wasn’t because Rev. Hybels was good or perfect or talented, but because God is. Rev. Hybels was given extraordinary talents as a vessel for God; but his sin and failures—just like our very own—do not negate or detract from the gospel message he preached. The gospel message will stand true on its own accord, independent and regardless of what its imperfect messengers say and do.
This is why our hope as Christians is not in a pastor, but in the Shepherd; not in a messenger of hope, but in the message of hope.
Pastors are simply church mailmen. They’re tasked to give you the right truth. Lovers don’t fall in love with the mailman. That’s weird. They fall in love with the one who is sending them love letters through the mailman. And this is equally true for God, God’s people, and the mailman who simply connects the two through God’s Word.
Diagnosis & Prescription
But maybe you’re a pastor reading this, and you’ve kept yourself morally accountable and biblically faithful—and yet, you get a little jealous when you see any relationally immoral or biblically unfaithful pastor get all the ‘ministry success.’ And you naturally ask the question, “But why would God work that way? Why doesn’t God use the godly person instead! That’s just not fair!”
I think God answers this question with a personal diagnosis and a universal prescription.
Firstly, I think God uses your very own question as diagnosis for you: Are you living a moral life and being biblically faithful simply because you want God to bless you with a bigger platform? Are your commitments out of love for God or out of love for self?
Secondly, God gives his prescription to you. Why does God operate on these seemingly ‘unfair’ terms? Because this is the only way for God to get all the glory and also the only way to keep all people humble—both the incredibly gifted and the not as gifted, both the godly and the ungodly. What do I mean by this?
If God worked incrementally according to the gifted, then you would either despair or boast based on where you think you fell on the ‘giftedness’ spectrum. And likewise, if God worked incrementally through the godly, then you would also either despair or boast based on where you think you fell on the ‘godliness’ spectrum. God’s work would fundamentally be based on you.
So, in order to bust both spectrums of pride and despair for everyone, God chooses to usher his kingdom work through both the godly and ungodly, the gifted and not as gifted, in whatever way he wants, so that only He can get the glory. It’s his choice, not yours.
He structures it this way so that the message of the gospel might be independent of the godly and the gifted, and therefore, might be independently enjoyed by its hearers—without any collusion of a messenger’s degree of giftedness or godliness.
To the troubled Christian woman who struggles to reconcile how God could accomplish true, beautiful things in her life through a man wracked with sin—it’s about the message of the gospel, not the messenger of it. And to the ever-skeptical media that seeks to spotlight Christian failures for a reason to doubt Christianity’s veracity—it’s not about messenger of the gospel, it’s about the message of it.
The only air-tight messenger for Christianity is Jesus, who himself is its air-tight Message.
How could God accomplish so much kingdom work through so much sin?
Look no further than the cross of Christ, and then thank him for it—no matter who you are.
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FOOTNOTES:
The NY Times, He’s a Superstar Pastor. She Worked for Him and Says He Groped Her Repeatedly. April 5, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/us/bill-hybels-willow-creek-pat-baranowski.html.
