"Open Letter to Rubber-Stamping Church Overseers", by Teasi Cannon
A Follow Up on Yesterday's Post
As a fitting follow-up on yesterday’s post (“When the Cover Up Gets Exposed”), check out this article by Teasi Cannon. It is a direct challenge to the very people who should be protecting the church. How relevant! Here are a few nuggets from the article, but please take a couple of minutes to read the whole thing. It is short. And if you didn’t read my post from yesterday, read that first, so it all makes sense.
“There is a common thread in these tragic stories. It’s the elders and church leaders who for years did nothing about the abuses they saw and heard and even experienced firsthand.”
“Maybe you are golfing buddies with senior leadership and you are never at the end of the abuse—only the end of a banquet table. So, you dismiss every story that is different than your own. You aren’t disposable to senior leadership, so you get far better treatment than the little people. You most likely won’t ever see the ugly side.”
Or if you want to give the benefit of the doubt: “Or maybe you are blind and genuinely believe everything is functioning as it should because you see only the best in all people and all situations. It would never cross your mind that senior leadership could be doing something different behind closed doors than what you’re being told straight to your face and from the pulpit week after week.”
"there could be so many reasons, but there is one massive consequence: no one is protecting the sheep when an elder board and church leaders are rubber stamping. No one. The entire program becomes about protecting a pastor or organization. The evidence is in the countless bloodied sheep that file out your doors. Sheep that are now abandoned. Left for dead. Sheep you never go after to exit-interview as you should, or if you do, it’s in secret, and you walk away and do nothing. "
"Church Overseers, I am begging you on behalf of all the sheep in every congregation: PLEASE DO YOUR JOB. Protect us from abuses of power and protect us from false doctrine. And if you don’t feel you can…for any reason…please step down. The cost of your rubber stamp is too high."