Pensees: “A Passion for Me” – Pastoral Analysis and Counsel Concerning the “Tale of Two Amishmen.”

“A Passion for Me” – Pastoral Analysis and Counsel Concerning the “Tale of Two Amishmen.”

Disclaimer and Foreword: Many of my readers know nothing of Joe Zichterman and the following response will make no sense whatsoever. I would not bother to read further. If you’re curious, feel free to write me and I’ll tell you more, point you to some links. Otherwise, my goal here is to help only those people that were the recipients of Zichterman’s mailings and who are trying to think through a proper response. I have no illusion of having all the answers (or even great answers). I am not so delirious as to think that my opinion will please everybody. But it is prayerfully offered. It’s an attempt to think about coming up with good answers.

To respond or not to respond: this has been the question concerning Zichterman’s “Tale.” There is a quagmire of questions that clutter the mind of any sensitive and aware onlooker that is much more complex than simply reducing the problem to the proverbial conundrum of whether to answer a fool according to his folly or not to answer a fool according to his folly. The reason being is that one must first settle his mind on whether the person being answered is in fact a fool. It is possible that a person who says and does the disagreeable is not a fool nor is acting foolishly, and therefore the answer that one gives must take that into consideration. It is also likely that the person in question is only acting foolishly but, in the main, is not a fool. This consideration has also got to play into the preparations of one’s answer. Thus, a hasty answer is probably not in order. A non-answer, however, is an answer; and the answer of the non-answer is only negative. It says either “we think you are a fool unworthy of a response” or simply “we don’t care.”

Since I am unwilling to answer by non-answer, I am prayerfully offering a reaction based solely upon the articles and allegories that have come from the Zichtermans. I know nothing of their personal conflicts with former employers, and I do not know the Zichtermans personally. The reasons I have chosen to answer are few and simple:

1/I have already responded quite passionately to Zichterman’s articles; in one of my responses I was as sympathetic as I could be and in the others I was quite critical.

2/The Zichtermans have aggressively targeted thousands of the very same people that I care about and we are competing for influence with some of the very same people.

3/There are very many people who are asking themselves how they ought to respond and/or are nursing nagging doubts about the way the whole affair has been handled by the major players in question. I hope that my musings here will help bring clarity instead of adding fuel to an already tabloid-ish story.

Finally (4), I am not convinced that Zichtermans are fools. They are servants of God as far as I can tell. Pick up a Wilds Song book and you will find a good percentage of the songs were written by Joe. One of his more popular songs beautifully portrays the prayer of any true believer: “a passion for Thee.” The song is and should remain a valuable expression in the hearts of individual Christians (*for other reasons, I doubt the usefulness of this song congregationally, but that is another topic!). Therefore, they deserve the dignity of an answer even though they have acted, in my opinion, foolishly.

I will attempt to explain why I believe they are mistaken in the following pages, but I want to be very clear that I am convinced that the best approach to thinking about the Zichterman affair is to settle one’s mind on the conclusion that sometimes very good and very sincere people do very foolish things. This does not make them fools nor does it un-brother and un-sister them. Therefore, we still have brotherly duties to remember. Thus, even though I initially responded in a tone that belied my earnest attempt to be fair-minded yet revealed my biased conclusion that Zichtermans were “fools” (though I never said it, I did endorse another who said it), I have since reflected and prayed about my reaction to the “Tale” and have decided on a different angle.

Finally, one more disclaimer; I do not pretend to offer an authoritative academic response to the matters of the Church Growth Movement, accreditation in institutions of higher education, Fundamentalism, Evangelicalism, or the Amish. Rather, my goal here is to put in type the things that you might hear me say if you were in the kitchen with me sipping on lemonade. Nor do I intend to do an analytical exegesis of the Zichterman’s allegory. I read it one time and I do not intend to read it again. Thus, what follows is my reaction in the form of independent observations.

Whose side am I on?

I am not a defender of Northland Baptist Bible College. I have seen the NBBC leadership poorly handle enough situations in the past nearly 20 years that I simply have no interest whatsoever in coming out in the defense of an institution against a family with names and faces. I have personally witnessed enough unethical behavior to lead me to believe that the Zichterman’s allegory is a plausible description of real experiences, and I have wrestled for years with a deeply rooted suspicion of all things fundamentalist because of what I witnessed at Northland Baptist Bible College. Therefore, my criticism of Zichtermans is in no way based on a partisan loyalty to the fundamentalist institution that they so vehemently attack.

I strongly oppose institutional loyalty, by the way. It has plagued fundamentalism.

Strong language, so I must hasten to add that I do not have hard feelings toward NBBC even though I have no sense of obligation to the school. I simply don’t trust them (as an institution) to act wisely in complex situations that involve constituents. (In this case, constituents are involved in that the Zichtermans are well-known by the NBBC base.) NBBC is a fundamentalist institution that plays by the old rules. Institution protectionism will trump brother-to-brother ethos every time. I’ve seen it. So I stand with the Zichtermans that it is at least plausible. I am not saying it is true. I am merely saying it is plausible. In fact, in this case I find it difficult to believe the Zichtermans. But do I have to pick sides?

Who Made Me a Judge or a Divider Over You?” ~ Jesus

Advice #1: Resist the Urge to Come to a Conclusion.

We do not have to pick sides in the sense that we commit ourselves to a verdict.

We may scripturally recuse ourselves from forming a judgment on a dispute between brothers when we simply do not know all the facts. It is the wisest person who governs his emotions and thoughts, forcing himself to withhold judgment until the final Day. In fact, I would argue that there are some cases where we must admit to no other option but the fact that only heaven will clarify some things for us. I think our Lord gives an example. In Luke 12, the Lord’s discussion on the Spirit is interrupted by a disciple that wants Him to settle an inheritance dispute. I think that the Lord’s response is an official statement of His determination to avoid all matters of legal and earthly judgment thereby pointing His disciples to the Day of Judgment. But nonetheless it is a clear model of how we should react when individuals foist upon us a dispute and demand a verdict. And demanding a verdict is exactly what the Zichtermans are doing with their mass mailings. Jesus’ model of avoiding the declaration of a verdict could be supported by Paul in 1 Corinthians 4.

Many of us were busy about our ministries when an email arrived that was so packed with emotional intensity and innuendo that we instinctively craved to make a judgment. It is hard for the natural man to abstain from conclusions. We want to know more. We want to know details. And we want to draw sides. We instinctively want to have a clear verdict; even if the only place we entertain it is in the secrecy of our mind. Unfortunately, most people will let bias determine or influence their verdict. If they have never had a bad experience with the institution, the Zichtermans are wrong. If they have had sour experiences within Fundamentalism, the Zichtermans are right. Bias generally governs the immediate emotional response. Few actually resist the urge to make a judgment.

In Fundamentalism the leaders of the institutions and flagship churches nearly always get the upper-hand in this scenario. They watch out for each other while simultaneously saying they know little of what goes on in each other’s places of ministry thereby protecting themselves from the obligation of confrontation. I am privy to potentially soon-to-be public statements of support for NBBC with fawning words of praise for the ethics and godliness of these leaders from other leaders within the movement. Thankfully, I hope I have tempered the zeal of one leader by my rather blunt analysis of his uncritical praise for a school that he does not know intimately, but only visits while on the circuit.

I have said in other places that one of the huge problems of Fundamentalism is institutionalism. Institutionalism spawns “friendships” among leaders who really do not know each other as fully as they should and only in the context of fruit baskets and honorariums. Typically, the leaders in Fundamentalism know nothing of true peer accountability. Some pretend to believe in a plurality leadership, but the fact remains that few, very few, have anybody in their lives that actually get in their faces and treat them like a peer in the context of where they minister. The peers that they know are other big cheeses over organizations a comfortable couple hundred miles away. They are quick to dismiss the disgruntled employee of a sister institution because they “know” the ministry of the man of God in the other place. The fact is, they don’t know him any better than the person who works day in and day out with the big kahuna. Many of the college presidents are not truly under a church authority. They are usually so often on the road that they are hardly really present in the local church anyway, and when they are present their pastor is so gaga over having Dr. So-and-So that he can’t even refer to the Doc by his first name.

All that to say that bias will sway emotional judgment for many in favor of the establishment.

But the converse is also true. There are many people who have become disillusioned by the good-ole-boys, the Gestapo-like control of institutions, and the ungodly managements of inter-personal problems that they fester in cynicism and anger, their hearts ready to boil over in ebullient support for anyone – anyone – who will stand up and say something – anything – negative against the establishment. It hardly matters if what is being said is true, unethical in its delivery, or whether the person making the accusations is making broad, sweeping generalizations with cheap-shot innuendo and spineless allegory. These people have been so frustrated for so long at what they believe to be an oppressive regime of speech suppression that the slightest squeak of frustration, the most petulant whine of self-absorbed pity, is hailed by them to be as bold and pure as Martin Luther’s “Here I Stand” speech. These people will certainly never give the establishment or anything fundamentalist the dignity of delayed judgment, much less the benefit of the doubt even when the evidence practically screams in favor of the hated establishment or movement.

Clearly, bias will sway the emotional judgment of many in favor of the disgruntled. Delayed judgment will not even be considered.

But delay of judgment is part of life. Paul said it best: Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God (1 Corinthians 4:5). Mature people control their feelings and their biases and will not let their minds gravitate to the place of least resistance, a biased conclusion. They can live a long, long time without answers. They can wait, if need be, “till the Lord comes.”

Jesus delayed judgment. He who knew all things and could easily resolve the problem with a mere word did nothing. Instead, He focused the eyes of all on the eternal. We too must consciously suppress the urge to determine a verdict. We should, instead, view the seemingly irreconcilable differences between brothers with an eye of sorrow for the distraction it may cause in Gospel ministry, but also with an eye of hope that the Judge will decide the case. There is no injustice that He will not rectify.

Therefore, my first piece of advice is this: resist the urge to come to a conclusion.

Observation (advice) #2: Good men do bad things

Good men do bad things. Zichtermans may not realize that more of us are aware of this phenomenon than they suspected. I have no doubt in my mind that Les Ollila’s devotion to God and usefulness for the Kingdom dwarfs mine. In fact, I aspire to be like him in many ways. One of the best things that I ever got while at Northland Baptist Bible College was exposure to Les Ollila. He is a highly valued servant of the Lord. But Les Ollila has sinful features, and I saw them on more then one occasion. Once, for example, in the middle of BJU’s bookstore he crudely and rudely spoke to my parents who were expressing to him their dismay at NBBC’s slow and inept response to a serious immorality within the student body. That was years ago and very minor compared to things that I have experienced in my life and ministry since, but it was a gift from God to me. I realized that men don’t wear halos, even the ones I highly admired.

But I have spoken rudely and crudely to my parents as well. I say this to my shame. Therefore, it would be disingenuous of me to make expressions of humanity in a man godlier than myself a make-or-break litmus test for my respect. I still respect Les Ollila and would have him speak in my church in a heartbeat. The fact that he is a sinner has not rocked my world. King David knew God in ways that I cannot even imagine. He had a holiness of life that makes the phrase “a man after God’s own heart” a fitting description of his person. He was a good man. But he slept with a married woman then killed her husband in order to cover up his tracks. That was a bad thing. By God’s grace I have neither murdered nor committed adultery and, by God’s grace, never will. Still, I doubt that I shall ever attain to the beauty of holiness that, in the main, characterized the life of King David. I still respect him.

I still respect Les Ollila and a number of others in the leadership. He too, in the main, has been consistently used by God, effective in the lives of thousands, humble, and generous. The effect for good he has had on my life personally far outweighs the irritations and the offenses that I have experienced from him. He and others at NBBC may not have handled Joseph Zichterman with straightforward ethics. They may have manifested angry self-preservation. This is feasible. It’s even plausible in my mind. But whether they did or did not is completely irrelevant to the doctrines of separatism, fundamentalism, the Church Growth Movement, worship styles, and the “Amish” culture of conservative circles. Zichtermans’ leap into another orbit of fellowship and subsequent broad-brushing insulting of all those who did not make the same leap can hardly be justified because somebody was naughty. It is just a fact of life. Good men sometimes do bad things.

Now my point here is not to say that Zichtermans’ allegory was accurate. I have no idea. I simply mean to say that even though it is accurate it shouldn’t discombobulate us too much. Good men sometimes do bad things and the best of the good men may only need the time to resolve their errors in a humble and biblical way. Though God had the full scoop on David, He waited an entire year before He sent Nathan. David, the “Amish elders,” Les Ollila, and Bob are all sinners saved by amazing grace. None of us has sinned as much as we could have were it not for the restraining power of God’s grace.

Observation #3 (an expansion of #2): Sometimes good men do bad things to us personally.

Get close enough to anyone and you’ll find out they have b.o. Sometimes remarkably good men will do something hurtful to you personally. It may seem that the damage is irremediable. This is one of my main concerns about the disillusioned and angry generation of people who are victims of an admittedly abusive sub-culture: they are mismanaging the pain, becoming cynical and unbending, scornful and condescending. Pain, however, should make us more like Christ; particularly if that pain is the result of a sinner being a sinner. Since I believe in a Sovereign God that overrules even the king’s heart, I have to accept the experience as coming directly from His Fatherly hand. It is very important that we manage this pain. Pain is God’s agent for sanctification (Hebrews 12:9-10).

But pain has a way of making us irrational and we’ll stupidly talk when we should keep quiet. When we are personally hurting we can easily blow things out of proportion. We become obsessed with our story. We want everyone to know. We end up undermining our credibility even as we try to clarify things. I think we can identify with Job who said “Though I were righteous, my own mouth would condemn me; Though I were blameless, it would prove me perverse (Job 9:20). In other words, the more I talk in my defense the more guilty I appear.

When we have been personally hurt it is very wise to strongly suspect our motives. We simply cannot be balanced in our analysis. We will probably be a little too vindictive in our assessment of the persons that have hurt us unless we have been liberated by a profound sense of forgiveness that not only purges us of our self-pity, but flows out of us like a healing balm. Forgiveness though is not an act that we check off the list. It is a head decision, a heart attitude, and deep feeling that oozes out of one’s soul and starts to affect every aspect of one’s life with God-ward praise even in the very midst of remembering pain.

Let me caution here. I do not wish to imply that the proper management of pain and forgiveness necessarily preclude a departure from the context where the pain has occurred or is occurring. Part of God’s sanctifying process could be to move you to another fold where He can continue His good shepherding of your bruised and bleeding hearts. Many people will testify that God used interpersonal conflict to open new doors of relationships and ministry that they would have never known had they not gone through the devastating pain of disillusionment. They even look on those days now with gratitude! So, perhaps if you are reading this and sorrowing under ungodly dealings, you ought to leave. There is life outside.

My main concern, however, is that we realize that not only is pain necessary for growth, sometimes that pain comes directly to us from the very people we admire and love the most, and we ought to consider ourselves blessed by God that He has counted us worthy of that particular suffering. If we waste it on self-pity and unrelenting campaigns for self-vindication we have wasted a very precious gift. If we use our own pain as the internal witness to substantiate any improperly delivered accusation against God’s people without prayerful consideration of balancing information, then we are proving ourselves to have learned very little from the pain. Good men sometimes do bad things. And sometimes those things are done to us personally.

Observation #4: Vindication Comes Slowly

The Zichtermans want to be vindicated. That much is clear. The Amish Marcus kept talking about his ministry that would possibly be permanently ill-affected by the misrepresentation of the elders in the community. He was prepared to go to the courts in order to vindicate himself and preserve his ministry.

In this context there is a humorous contradiction. The Zichtermans are, out of one side of their mouths, saying that the “Amish” control group that they have left is a small, irrelevant part of the Body of Christ. Out of the other side of their mouth they are saying that if they don’t set the record straight with their former employers their effectiveness in ministry will be totally and permanently ill affected. I’m thinking to myself, “Is the real world and the rest of the reasonable Body of Christ that makes the overwhelming majority of people in the world really going to care what some elders in an Amish control group think?”

Back to the question of vindication. Zichtermans are trying to vindicate themselves. What are we to make of it?

It is not sinful to want vindication. The Psalms are filled with pleas to God for vindication. And vindication is a guaranteed reward for all of God’s servants. To desire vindication is a normal part of the faith walk. It is, however, how we pursue vindication that makes all the difference.

I eventually began to realize that vindication will always come to the believer. We may have to wait until the Day of the Lord, but it will come. Yet amazingly sometimes it comes much faster and sooner than we ever could expect.

A number of years ago a board member of the mission agency through which I served told a young missionary that was thinking about coming to work with me to stay away from my ministry because, he said, “Bixby leans too much on the arm of the flesh.” I was a bit miffed by that counsel (certainly because I was indeed fleshly to a degree) and genuinely flabbergasted and hurt that he could make such a dogmatic assertion about my ministry when we had only met once (and that outside of my ministry context). He was instrumental in closing a number of potential supporting churches to me. No one from his area supported me though I had a significantly higher success rate at getting support than the average missionary in other areas. I was told by several sources that he had exerted influence against my interests. In the meantime, at one of the meetings of the mission this same pastor publicly lavished praise on the host pastor for being “one of the most spiritual men I have ever known.”

Today both the missionary that he so strongly warned against me and the pastor upon whom he heaped lavish praise as the most spiritual man that he ever knew are out of the ministry due to immorality, an immorality that was concurrent with the time of his lavish praise. I figured that since he didn’t get too great a read on them he probably wasn’t completely accurate about me either. Men simply cannot always get a perfectly accurate read on other men and situations. That is why one of the joyful expectations of all believers is vindication; vindication that comes in God’s time.

Vindication will come. It just comes slowly. And it may not come in this life. I don’t think we should begrudge the Zichtermans the desire for vindication. God will make sure they are adequately vindicated. I think the problem is in their pursuit of vindication.

And that leads me to consider the first of three spiritual problems with the Zichterman response.

First spiritual problem: It is earthbound.

I blushed really. How sad that those who promote themselves as spiritual teachers are so earthbound that the weight of their argument is mostly about externals.

As she packed, Katherine caught herself dreaming of the day when she could go shopping at a real store to buy her first pink shirt.

. This piece has gotten long enough, but the arguments that are made in the “Tale” are so boringly predictable they fail to have any impact. Worse, they are so pleasure and me-oriented. I couldn’t help but think that if “Katherine” wanted wear a “pink blouse” so badly why she didn’t just change churches. Why not come to our church? Women wear jeans to church all the time here. But change one’s philosophy and doctrine over externals? It’s a bizarre form of externalism vs. externalism. It’s almost laughable. It is certainly pitiable.

The closest thing to a theological argument that Zichterman offers is outrage at “that blasted separatism.” There are embarrassingly zero acknowledgements of nuance and degrees. It would seem that their solution to “blasted separatism” is simply “no blasted separatism.” Simplistic, to say the least. And very wrong. It is only the extremely earthbound that think that life here on earth can be separation-free.

Second spiritual problem: It is dissembling.

It is dissembling. Dissembling is an old word that is hardly recognized anymore. Honest and fair people, however, can spot it a mile off. Dissembling is to give a false appearance in order to cover the real nature of a thing. This is sin. This is sin even if the motive or message is true. Paul was very careful to make sure that the Thessalonians understood that he had not used bait-and-switch disguise to accomplish his apostolic goals. Zichtermans, however, have blatantly opted for a sinful methodology that is so obvious it is frankly embarrassing. Their “Tale” is deliberately presented as a harmless allegory designed to help poor souls that are ensnared in high-control environments. In fact, it is an all too easy to decode allegory of personal experiences with real people that are known by many of the readers of the parable.

This kind of rhetoric is condescending, dishonest, cowardly, and unworthy of Christian servants. It should immediately earn for its message the suspicion that naturally comes to the mind of any thinking human being that feels that he is being played. The sad thing is that if the Zichterman’s “Tale” is true, they have squandered the opportunity to credibly deal with the problems they are heralding.

Third spiritual problem: It is selfish.

The energy and the time given to “share their story” has been all about them. The energy and time that they expect every recipient of their mass mailings to invest is astounding, particularly when it is all about their story. This is very sad, I think. And I am really sorry that they have invested so much in what, at the very least, appears to be all about promoting their own story. If, indeed, this was not their intention, it is undeniably the effect. Sad.

It is tragic really. We’ve all been guilty of it. I have certainly done the very same thing. A part of me earnestly cries out to my God, “a passion for Thee,” and yet another part of me with my actions and words has betrayed my hidden idolatry and cried out, “a passion for me”. Both cries were sincere. Passionately sincere. In the case of our brother and sister, it is sad that both cries had to be so public.

May God help us all. Upon hearing the latest cry, let’s not discredit the first cry. They both are real.

What a chimera then is man! What a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, imbecile worm of the earth; depositary of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error; the pride and refuse of the universe! Who will unravel this tangle? ~ Blaise Pascal

Posted by Bob Bixby at October 19, 2007 01:40 PM | eMail this entry! | 4736 Words
This entry was posted in the following categories: Fundamentalism , Zichterman’s New Direction