NEW! An excerpt from When Shepherd's Prey

Shabbat Shalom!

As I’ve shared over the last month, I’ve been writing a new book regarding the grievous undercurrent of sexual, emotional, and spiritual abuse of believers by the leaders they have looked to for godly guidance. It is sadly not just a new problem, but one that has plagued the Church for centuries.

I am excited today to send you a brief excerpt from the book, When Shepherd's Prey. (Thank you for praying for me as I have been writing—I have needed it!)

(Also, yesterday, in our email, some of you weren’t able to access the free download of When Kingdoms Collide. If that was you (or you missed yesterday’s email), click here for the PDF version.)

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An excerpt from When Shepherds Prey:

You see, without real reform in how we do leadership, it is unlikely that church leadership will govern itself. When the church protects abusive leaders for the sake of reputation, it reverses Jesus’ model. Social media and journalism can amplify the voices of victims, protect the vulnerable, and reflect Messiah’s concern for the hurting, lonely and potential targets for victimization.

As we noted in the prelude, when reform was desperately needed in the church, it did not come through the Pope. Long before Luther, others had already risen to call the church to accountability. One of them was Jan Hus, a Czech priest who denounced corruption, the sale of indulgences (the teaching that one could pay money to reduce time in purgatory for oneself or deceased relatives), and the moral failings of the clergy. In fact, in that era, it was not unusual for bishops to maintain open sexual relationships, sometimes even fathering children despite their vows of celibacy. Hus was condemned at the Council of Constance and was burned at the stake in 1415.

John Wycliffe is often called the “Morning Star of the Reformation,” appearing more than a century before Luther, Calvin, and the 16^th-century Protestant Reformation. An English theologian, Wycliffe criticized the excessive authority of the Pope, the sale of indulgences, and the vast wealth of the church. At a time when ordinary believers were forbidden to read or interpret the Scriptures for themselves, he oversaw the first complete translation of the Bible into English. Though he died peacefully in 1384, the Council of Constance (1415) condemned him as a heretic. The Church also ordered his writings to be burned and his remains exhumed and destroyed.

The lesser-known Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498) was a Dominican friar in Florence who preached fiery sermons against the moral corruption of the clergy, including Pope Alexander VI. He is best remembered for leading the infamous “Bonfire of the Vanities,” urging the people of Florence to burn luxury items, artworks, and cosmetics as acts of repentance. (Modern preachers might have told them to “donate” the valuables to the church—and then pocketed the proceeds.) Unsurprisingly, his unrelenting critique of both moral and ecclesiastical corruption brought him into direct conflict with Rome. He was excommunicated, condemned by the Pope, and in 1498 was hanged and then burned in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence.

We look back on these men as heroes for standing up to a corrupt church, but if they were alive today, I’m convinced—absolutely sure—that many celebrity preachers and Christian television networks would scold them for “partnering with the accuser of the brethren.” In reality, they were the uppity podcasters of their day—the disruptive voices, like modern bloggers, daring to give voice to the concerns of those who had been abused and silenced.

But nothing in history parallels the rise of social media and its challenge to the leadership class quite like Gutenberg’s invention of movable type, which launched the printing press and made the mass production of books—and the rapid spread of ideas—possible. In the same way that people can now—for good or for bad—release information instantly to whoever wants to see it, the printing press allowed for the mass production of not only books, but pamphlets and tracts, breaking the church’s monopoly on biblical texts and theological teaching.