Where are the Shepherds?

Hello? Bueller?

According to Wikipedia, a pastor is a “leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation.” They are likened to shepherds as they oversee the flock of God (1 Peter 5:2).  

But what if a shepherd doesn’t care well for the flock?

Although we tend to think of a pastor as being from a particular church (building?), the fact is that God’s church is not a building, or even any particular congregation, but instead is the flock of God around the world. As such, a pastor should care about believers and the same principles as they apply to everyone, not just the people in his own pews.

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[Read background: My Statement Regarding Ramsey Solutions // Gossip, Slander, and Privacy]

[Read update: Update on My Statement Re: Ramsey Solutions]

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I thought about this recently as I waited, after recent articles about the actions of Dave Ramsey to me and others, to see whether pastors would rise up. Whether they would speak plainly about how manipulation, abuse, hypocrisy, lies, gossip, and slander were not of Jesus. Whether they would minister to the hurting sheep or keep silently gathering food for the wolf. Or whether they’d just stand by the gate and continue teaching about the theoretical wolves and the theoretical shepherd and then tell the sheep, “Hey, I’m friends with both you and the wolf too, so I’ve gotta stay neutral.”

Our children are watching. They’re watching to see whether Christians, but especially whether pastors, will call evil evil. Shoot, our kids are watching to see if we even know what evil is! They’re watching to see if pastors will only call out evil privately, where the cost is little, versus publicly, where the cost can be great.

They’re watching when pastors grovel at the feet of the elite, the well-connected, the wealthy, the charismatic abusers, on their Twitter feed or in their sermons. They’re watching when pastors look away while their sheep are being slaughtered in public, screaming for the shepherds to even take notice.

They’re watching to see: what is discernment? Is it closing your eyes to the wolf because he screams, “Lord, Lord!” before he sneaks in the back gate to steal a few lambs for his own pleasure and gold for his glory?

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Matthew 7:21-23

Or is discernment seeing through words and instead, looking at the fruit? I noted in Gossip, Slander and Privacy, when I wrote about the words and rules of Dave Ramsey on gossip versus the very public gossip he himself engages in without a shred of sorrow or repentance, that “God reminds us to watch the fruit, not the fruit of organizations – which don’t receive salvation, but the fruit of repentance or otherwise of individuals, each of whom are accountable to Him.”

Youth today are leaving the Christian faith in droves. Can we blame them when they watch pastors pandering to wealth and fame? Recently, numerous articles describe the prosperity, fame, and abusive culture at Hillsong, a global mega-church, including the adultery and abuse of power of Carl Lentz, the former pastor of Hillsong NYC. And then just yesterday, we get another round of confirmation about the serial sexual abuse of the late Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias.

If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

James 2:3-4

One whistleblower at Hillsong asked a profound question in a 2018 letter to church leadership reporting abuses within the church, “When there are problems in the flock, you bring it to the shepherds. What do you do when you discover the shepherds are part of the problem and even the problem itself?”

I’ve detailed only a small part of my story at the hands of Dave Ramsey, the board of Ramsey Solutions, and my ex-husband Chris Hogan. I shouldn’t have to share the rest or provide all of the evidence. There is more than enough that is now public to call this behavior what it is – evil and nothing like Jesus. There are so many more painful stories, but people have been intimidated or non-disclosure’d into silence for a long time. The level of influence and intimidation of Dave Ramsey in our local community, with new employers, within churches, Bible studies, friend groups, cannot be understated. (We know that things get reported back, even by former employees, spouses, and others. Why do you think someone who speaks out against Dave Ramsey hides their name and identity on the news? – that’s some mob style stuff).

Will any of the pastors connected to Dave Ramsey rise up and stand with victims instead of turning a blind eye to the bloody sheep or a deaf ear to the bleating? Or will they just stand at the gate and share bourbon and cigars with the wolves?

They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

Titus 1:16

Pastors unconnected with Dave Ramsey don’t necessarily have an obligation, but what about those who have publicly lauded him? What about those who regularly speak on his stage at company-wide Wednesday “devotionals”?

What about those who serve up Financial Peace University “sermons” on Sunday morning and to church small groups each week, giving credibility to someone who calls hotel employees “$8 an hour twerps,” who demands unquestioning loyalty, engages in next level hypocrisy when it comes to how he runs his publicly “Christian” business, actively defends sexual predators and abusive pastors and suggests that such toxic loyalty is a higher value than protecting victims, states that victims coming forward about abuse is un-Christian, and who violates my privacy and lies about me to 800 employees?

The “response”

Here is the typical response to the call to stand up for victims of abusive leaders:

Oh, but they do so much good. If I speak out, am I hurting all of the people they help?

First of all, for proclaimed believers, doing good is the expectation, not the excuse for abusive and evil behavior. Do we say about the rapist – oh don’t send him to jail, don’t even call what he did bad, I mean, he volunteers at my community center twice a week? Do we not call sin evil when it is wearing a suit jacket and gives us a platform?

“All the good they do” is the exact excuse that covered up for the sexual predation of Bill Hybels, Ravi Zacharias, and many others for years. The devastation of future victims sits squarely with the abuser and with those making that excuse.

The same pastors who don’t/won’t recognize the “Got Your Six” speech as manipulative and what happened to me and others as spiritually abusive will be the same pastors who won’t stand by their sheep when they come to them with other stories of lies and abuse at the hands of powerful people. They’re the same pastors who may cover up sexual abuse for themselves or someone on their staff. They’re the same pastors who won’t consider it a big problem to inflate credentials or plagiarize sermons.

They’re the pastors who send battered women back into the home because they should suffer abuse for God. They’re the same ones who send the serial adulterer/abuser and their spouse to marriage counseling so they can work out their “marriage problems” (FYI: abuse and chronic adultery are not marriage problems, they’re abuser problems).

These are not shepherds.

Where are the shepherds?