The Reality of Wolves: the story of Westminster Bible Church

 

The Reality of Wolves

John B. Carpenter

 

I sat down at the computer to send an e-mail. I intended to withdraw my candidacy for the pastorate at Westminster Bible Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky. On paper it had looked ideal for me. A nondenominational, evangelical church committed to the essentials of the faith, with Biblical authority as its first and last point of confession, but with some apparent understanding of the essentials vs the nonessentials. They would even consider a Baptist like me. And yet my second teleconference the day before had gone badly - at least from my perspective. It seemed a few people - and one voice in particular - didn’t want a pastor who had convictions, who would actually teach what he believed.

 

So I sat down to withdraw my candidacy. I was in our eleventh floor apartment in Singapore. A usually warm day in November; the window open. As I began to write, my resolve softened and rather than flatly withdrawing, I registered my concerns. I wrote how the church looked great on paper; it was the only church I’ve seen (still today) that described its ideal pastor as an "independent minded scholar". However, the impression I got from some of the committee members was very different. I told them point blank, “I'm not willing to move my family to Bowling Green only to discover that I can only say what I'm told to say and do what I'm told to do. I could not do that and honor the calling of God.” That was my way out. Rather than withdrawing of my own initiative, I put things in such a way that they would either drop me, and spare me the decision, or they would change. I was relieved when the response came that they were willing to continue the search process with me. I was trying to be careful by taking this red flag seriously. After all, my wife is Singaporean and we were comfortable in Singapore. If I was going to transplant my family half-way around the world, I better be going into a healthy environment. So I tested the problem. They seemed to respond well. Some of the prickliness was blamed on what they said was a bad experience with the former pastor who, they claimed, was very “divisive.” So I thought the best of them. (We shouldn’t judge, right?) Now we could go forward.

 

And go forward we did. The search committee arranged for me to fly to America and spend a weekend with them. Now things were getting serious. The weekend in Bowling Green went well. Sure, there were quirks. When the subject got to the Civil War, I explained to the history professor, Richard Troutman, about the findings of the Nobel laureate at the University of Chicago for whom I had been an assistant. Curious that he was more dismissive than interested. The retired physician, Herb Harkleroad, publicly made belittling comments about his attractive wife, 20 years younger than he; and no one seemed to care, including her. Another professor there told me that he liked to take his children to participate in sports on Sunday mornings and gently asked me to be soft on that. Being immersed in the world of Puritans during the previous four years, I found the request incomprehensible. How are we supposed to excuse the implicit promotion of recreation above the worship of God? But I knew that we must be patient. If I came here as pastor, I would eventually get around to the importance of worship, the Sabbath, etc. I would have plenty of time, probably a life-time. Patience, patience.

 

Obviously, the local college was a dominant force in this church. In the search committee, two were professors. Many a pastor, with just an M.Div., would be intimidated by that. But having lived in the world of professors and academia over the past few years, I was comfortable there. I thought perhaps only someone like myself, a Ph.D. also, could be respected as pastor here. I didn’t know, yet, that other doctors (of church history and mathematics) had been ground in the mill that was Westminster Bible Church.

 

During my candidacy, I wanted to be sure that I wasn’t selling them something I was not. So I tried to be honest about my short-comings. I told the elders I had a weakness for impatience. I told the whole congregation that I was not a naturally social person, that I preferred e-mails to phone calls, that I didn’t believe in “mission trips” (though one of their elders went on one every year). Earlier I gave them a full, 17 page statement of faith (laying bare my Calvinism), and referred them to Mark Dever’s The Nine Marks of a Healthy Church as my philosophy of ministry; I even told them that though their church constitution was fine, the amendment allowing membership to be retained for up to three years of absence was wrong and needed changing. I was giving them reasons to sift me out early. I wasn’t going to fit a square peg into a round hole.

 

Naïve I might have been but I did realize that the so-called tour of Bowling Green, provided by New Testament professor Joseph Trafton, was more than it was billed. I had a camera in my lap but he didn’t stop and let me take a photo. We had an amiable conversation as he showed me the few notable sites. He kept his eyes on the road but somehow I sensed, beneath his mask of a face, that he was scanning me with a lizard eye. One doesn’t send religion professors to give tours. I knew that whoever arranged my itinerary wanted Joe Trafton to have a good look at me.

 

The sermon went well. I had discovered, over the past year, an on-again, off-again, ability to preach powerfully. It was that discovery and the new vision of the pastorate I received from studying the Puritans that changed my course. Coming from the South, I knew I could never be the type of pastor I had seen so often: a cross between a psychological therapist and a politician, a man who speaks soothing words and a leader who tries, above all else, to offend as few people as possible. In my studies of the Puritans, these amazing people who crossed an ocean to serve God, I had seen a vision of the ministry that I both liked and I thought I could be like. Even their style of sermon preparation opened doors for me. Puritan pastors would typically spend much time preparing their messages; they would write their sermons out in full and try to commit as much of it as they could to heart. I had a spoken style of writing already. I could hear myself speaking in my writing. But until I followed the Puritans, most of my attempts at preaching were flops. Then I learned to take the time, fully develop every thought, every turn of phrase, write it down from beginning to end, go over and over it, and use it as a prompt from the pulpit. Others might find it constraining. But it set me free.

 

This was the first church I had gotten this serious with. And when they called me, I intended on it being the last. Like the Puritans who set me on the pastoral track, I believed the pastorate should be, as far as possible, a long-term, usually life-long, calling. Churches are not clients that one climbs up in an impersonal career ladder. The people in them were sheep that I, in my idealism, believed I was called to shepherd for as long as I could.

 

So, yes, they called me. I garnered 80% of the vote, the high minimum required for a call. I was back in Singapore when I told my wife we were moving to Bowling Green, Kentucky. She, like me, believed this was for life. Bravely, she was willing to leave her “clean and green” island to take up the work with me. Americans like to think everyone is craving to immigrate to our shores. But my wife, Mary, had a very unpleasant time during my four years of graduate studies in the Chicago area. There was much about America that revolted her. This was a mission for her, a sacrifice. She had, yet, no idea how much of a sacrifice.

 

My first sermon was on Palm Sunday. (I was bemused by the symbolism.) I preached on Acts 20:17-34, Paul’s address to the Ephesian elders, and I explained that elders are pastors, that they are to do the work of the ministry, especially watching out for the “wolves” who devour the flock. I explained to the whole congregation what I had emphasized to the search committee. I was committed to expository preaching, to preaching, given enough time, through the whole Bible. Eventually, over about two decades, I should make it through all of scripture. Though I wasn’t bound to going in order, I thought I might as well begin in Genesis. And in my third sermon, after Easter, I started with Genesis 1.

 

Meanwhile, I looked for ways to give the church a higher profile. The church was small. Only about 70 people in regular attendance, fewer as formal members. One way was to take public stands on issues. A letter I wrote to the local paper, on homosexuality, was printed. I was showered with approval from my new flock. So I made a mental note to be on the lookout for other issues to write about.

 

We had gotten to know Leo and Betty Yambrek through the search process. Leo was the chairman of the search committee. He immediately struck me as an able and efficient man, pious though not theological. He was unpretentious and direct. I liked that. The other leaders I found harder to get to know. The elders, corporately called the “session,” made little attempt to get to know me. Other than one elder’s invitation to Easter lunch (with another guest), they stood aloof. Perhaps I should have taken the initiative. But I was still, so I reasoned, the “new kid” on the block and, besides, we were all equally elders with an equal responsibility to pastoral care. At least that was the vision of the eldership that I touched on during my first sermon.

 

The session met during my first week. They gave me various suggestions on things I (not “we”) should do; I was happy for the guidance. They threw out names for possible new elders to be selected during congregational meeting coming in two months. The one man I knew, the unpretentious, pious Leo, seemed to meet the Biblical requirements for the eldership. Oddly, he was probably the only man over 30 whose name they didn’t mention.

 

I knew I had to get close to the young couple, Brice and Julie Boyer, who were the youth workers. Soon we invited them out for dinner. We listened, bounced ideas off of them, and listened some more. Earlier on I learned that members wanted a change, with more attention given to their kids. I passed on these concerns to Brice and Julie and let them make the decision. I didn’t see how we could ask them to do a job and then try to micromanage their ministry for them. They made a change. After one Sunday morning service Brice came up to me, concerned that he’d gotten some criticism for his change. I told him that he was the person “on the ground,” that he knew best what to do. I was going to defend those to whom we had delegated a ministry. I had no reason not too.

 

The next session meeting was at the home of Herb Harkleroard. He had just had back surgery; he couldn’t make it to church but it was important to him not to miss a session meeting. When I suggested that my wife - an able and winsome communicator - speak for Mother’s Day, he tried to wax wise about the need not to offend anyone who may have scruples against such a thing. Herb was a small man, short and thin. He grinned often but never seemed happy. Guests to our church sometimes never returned if they were greeted by him.

 

Two matters were most pressing for this second meeting: the propriety of having my wife speak for Mother’s Day and the Boyer’s new youth ministry. My wife had spoken the year before, to great approval. It seemed wise to have her speak again, thus introducing her to the entire congregation. No one but Herb had any reservations and he never said his objections were his, only his concern not to offend others. (I never found out who, besides him, had any convictions against a woman guest speaking.) Chris Chiles, a balding postal employee who served as the church’s treasurer, suggested that Mary “share” for about 20 minutes and that I have a 20 minute sermon. I commented that we just couldn’t compress any message into any length of time. He responded, with great self-assurance, that we can and went on to lecture me further on preaching, especially criticizing the length of my sermons. I wondered why he thought he knew so much about public speaking. I thought of telling him my sermons were written out, in full, and that I’d be happy to e-mail them to him before preaching so he can edit out all the superfluous parts. I, wisely, didn’t think he’d appreciate the sarcasm. My wife had, after earlier encounters, warned me about him; she noted that he apparently had no sense of humor. I would make some quip and he would, rather than shrugging it off as a flat joke, take it seriously. A man who takes everything so seriously is going to be trouble, Mary warned me.

 

Already at the second session meeting, an undercurrent had developed. This was especially strong with Troutman. Like Harkleroad, Troutman was a small man. He had been in this church longer than any of the other session members, almost longer than any other member. He had seen at least five full-time pastors come and go before me. Indeed, as I was to find out much later, he had caused several of them to go. He was the history professor who rejected Calvinism, and hence the Westminster Confession, but joined a church named after that confession when it was part of a denomination he steadfastly opposed. He was involved with a ministry to Chinese but, oddly enough, never invited my Chinese wife to be a part of it. Another member rhetorically asked me, “Ever wonder why Troutman doesn’t want anyone to be involved in his Chinese ministry?” But he certainly wasn’t shy about reporting supposed successes and reading a letter from a Chinese student who would call him “father.” My wife knew how easy it was to make Chinese students into trophies, half a world from home and already deferential to professors.

 

Troutman found something to disturb him that second session meeting. Our youth leaders, the Boyers, had changed their ministry schedule without consulting the “session.” I said that since we had given the youth ministry to them, we should trust them to carry it out; when we delegated the youth ministry, we delegated the power to change the schedule. Troutman scoffed at that. Does that mean if they take the kids to see pornography it’s ok because we delegated it to them? Then don’t delegate to people you suspect might do something like that!, I thought.

 

No fireworks, no conflict, no real argument that night. But I was disturbed. I had already been increasingly alarmed at the condition I found this church. No superficial search process can really lay bare the true health of a church. They will all whisper the same sweet words about being a “loving church” that just wants to “hear the Word of God.” In the first few weeks, I found a nest of problems. None of the things I had thought were strengths were really there. Troutman’s Chinese ministry, that I assumed my wife would soon be introduced to, was detached from the church. Despite its claims to be a “loving church,” a “family,” the Sunday School superintendent wouldn’t get along with the children’s church director. When the Sunday School superintendent called a meeting to plan Vacation Bible School, it was clear that everyone except her and a friend wanted VBS held during the day so more kids could come; she wanted it at night so she could come and she got her way. Brice, my youth man, told me of rampant back-biting, something my wife also discovered from her developing friendships among the ladies. (Brice emphatically promised he’d never complain to anyone about me but bring any matters directly to me; I was assured of his maturity.) Further, he let me know that the elders were completely out of touch. He mocked the way that Herb strutted around in church as if it belonged to him. (I stayed quiet, not willing to encourage nor able to refute.) He expressed wonder that an elder had left, shortly before I arrived, to join the Seventh Day Adventists. That elder didn’t even bother to resign his eldership before leaving, so he could return anytime and still be considered an elder. Another elder, Chris Chiles, never attended any meeting except the main Sunday morning worship, and would miss that if he had something more important - like a sick dog to watch.

 

Most disturbing was the church’s sense of near perfection. I would have thought that a small, barely viable church in a growing Bible belt town, with large churches all around, would be humble, would realize that they’ve been doing something desperately wrong, that they need help. The opposite was the case. I began to wonder why this church wanted a pastor at all, they already thought they knew it all; they had arrived. My wife told me of another lady who made the same observation: they were self-satisfied people who didn’t get a pastor because they thought they needed a spiritual leader but got one because that’s what respectable churches do. They chose me because I had a Ph.D. - not because they thought they needed the added expertise; they wanted the emblem for how much they knew. (One usually quiet elder once boasted that he had “a Ph.D. in life.” Self-awarded, I guess.) I noted that rarely did anyone ask me anything; frequently, they instructed me. Though several of the children of elders were unbelievers (or simply alienated from their parents), they thought they were a fruitful church. The few zealous campus crusaders who attended but got their real spiritual sustenance from CCC and then went off into some ministry after graduating - these the church took for its own fruit, boasting of all the missionaries they had sent out. Rather than wanting change, they couldn’t understand why any was necessary. I made only one minor change to the programs - bending the mid-week prayer meeting to help prepare for the up-coming Sunday morning worship. And yet I got flack for that. So I soon realized that this was a very sick church. Of course, there was one great asset, so I was told: Dr. Joe Trafton, the great New Testament professor. I just couldn’t figure out why a group of adults met uncomfortably in the sanctuary rather than join Trafton’s “awesome” class.

 

I had thought that Trafton’s Sunday school class would be the cornerstone of an outreach to the college students. He led his class in what I was told was energetic and enlightening discussions. During the main worship service, he sat on the second row, to my right as I looked out from the pulpit. His wife was rarely there; when I inquired about her, I was told she had been sick (though not sick enough to miss work). There were a lot of secrets about Trafton I didn’t yet know. And at first I did not want to know them. A man who had much experience with him started to warn me but I cut him off, saying “All my experience with Joe has been positive.” I was ignorant. Even my wife later told me that she thought something was wrong, a bit demented, with this man with a mask like face and cold eyes. Later, long-time members would tell me, in their own way, how much they disliked the Traftons. “Arrogant,” “no love,” “absolutely not teachable.” One amiable old lady simply said “I don’t care for Joe.” Another mournfully complained that he had blocked every movement toward spirituality in the church. Still another denounced him and his wife as “devils.” Those who liked him were generally students. (I remembered when I was in seminary that entertaining, smug professors sometimes attracted me though later I saw that what they had was, generally, useless to the life of the church.) Trafton’s peers and seniors generally disliked him and many of them left when he finally had his way.

 

I ran afoul of the Traftons by an act of sheer folly on my part. Still eager to raise the profile of our sleepy little church and encouraged by the approval heaped on me for my earlier letter to the newspaper, I jumped into the mess swirling around Catholicism. I sent another letter, a Reformation-like letter. My head must have been too much in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I forgot the unwritten rule that we evangelicals are not supposed to make the old criticisms anymore (even if the theological disagreements are still outstanding.) It was a clumsy letter - although true. On Saturday, I was informed that the session wanted to discuss it at Monday’s meeting.

 

That Sunday we were to Genesis 4, Cain and Able. I thought it was a poor sermon as I prayed before the service. After the service, I thought it could be a break through moment for the church. Something happened in the message that I can’t fully ascribe to anything natural, certainly not to any talent that I might have. An elderly lady and her grown son had come to the church because of my letter; the man was convicted, the lady was effusive. I noted that they told Troutman the same praise they lavished on me. Driving home from church that afternoon, my wife declared that I had finally found my true calling. I was a pastor.

 

I went into the session meeting that Monday night confident and happy. I left seething. One item was the discussion of a change in the church’s constitution. I knew of the old advice that a new pastor shouldn’t try to change anything major in his first year. But I thought I had earned myself an exception by bringing up the matter early in the search process. I argued that people shouldn’t be allowed to be absent from the church for three years and still be official members. It’s a matter of integrity; if someone is on the books as a member, he or she should really be a member. Chris Chiles said it was too harsh to punish people by revoking their membership just because they weren’t attending. I responded by saying its not primarily a matter of punishment but of integrity . . . .  As I spoke he looked as though he was only hearing me as a buzz, merely waiting for my mouth to stop moving so he could repeat his same words. Troutman would have none of it. And I would later find out why. About 20 years earlier he had rounded up long absent members to come to a church meeting to help make sure he could get rid of the pastor then. This night, he calmly dismissed the importance of church membership. After all, the Bible doesn’t mention it. Does it?

 

I was flummoxed. So I said I might try the other avenue to amend the church’s constitution: take the matter directly to the congregation through a petition. That was constitutional but had never been done before. Now Troutman got agitated. For the session to publicly show lack of unity was wrong, he argued. And he pushed my button: he exclaimed, “You are the teaching elder and we are the ruling elders. You will do what we say.” That was exactly what I feared this church was about, exactly why I had been on the verge of withdrawing my candidacy back on that warm November day in Singapore. But it was his argument, on what I took to be principle, that we must show unity. That swayed me. So I withdrew the idea of taking the amendment directly to the congregation.

 

Things got worse. The elders had obviously coordinated their plan of attack about my letter on Catholicism. Chris Chiles took the lead. For about five minutes he lectured me about it. When I told him that my letter expressed the views of evangelical stalwarts like Luther, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards, he said he didn’t care what they taught. He then went on to convict me of not being teachable. When his lecture was done, he didn’t ask for any response and I wanted to avoid saying what I was feeling. “Next topic.” But they wouldn’t drop it. I wasn’t writing a regular column in the paper so what profit they thought would come of continuing to hammer on the subject, I don’t know. Next it was Herb Harkleroad’s turn. He had already begun the meeting on the wrong foot by point-blank telling me to take down the pictures of Luther, Calvin, and Edwards I had put up in the meeting room right outside my office. He kept at it. Troutman joined in too; he said that if I hadn’t written the letter maybe a dozen visitors would have come. So I began to respond, foolishly, rashly. Over the next couple of days I continued to respond, even more foolishly and rashly. They thought it was their duty to sit in judgment over me, a pastor’s critics committee. So I would give as good as I got. I went home and nested on it overnight. I wrote out all the criticisms of them, recalling points from Brice and others. E-mail meant instant delivery.

 

At once, a ton weight seemed to land on my heart. My wife felt it too. An oppressive burden seemed to be nearly smothering us. As that week crawled along we began more and more to see that resignation might be necessary. Better sooner than later. There was a Friday evening meeting with the session. Their response to my points about them was completely lacking in honesty and humility. They could dish it out but they couldn’t take it. They admitted and apologized for nothing. Rather, they tried to refute as many of my points as they thought they could (all without success) and went back on the attack. I was, by now, chastened and slowly becoming aware of the foolishness of my actions. But it’s hard to apologize for words that are just rash, not untrue. How do you say, “I’m sorry I accurately described you in the wrong tone of voice?” They thought the meeting was a success (because I wasn’t combative); I thought it was a failure and my grave doubts about these men deepened. That night I decided to resign. The next day, Saturday, I emptied out my office and made out an undated letter, “I resign effective immediately.” I closed the door to my office, not thinking anyone would see or know I had resigned until after the service. Faced with it, I came to believe that the worship service should not, in anyway, be distracted by any of this. It was for God, not our purposes. To even announce it afterward would be to distract from the preceding message. So I would announce by letter and e-mail. And simply leave.

 

But the cleaning lady found my office empty, with only the resignation letter on the desk. The elders met in emergency; I had startled them. Sunday I suggested to two deacons that this might be the end. One looked utterly shocked. The other, Robert Settle, came to me and said, with his hand on my shoulder, “Doris and I are behind you 100%.” I assume they let their feelings be known to the session.

 

It was Mother’s Day and I had my wife give the message. She says she felt emotionally void because of the week’s events. But the message was wildly popular. For the first time, in probably a very long time in that church, people were asking for tapes. I even had her meet with the session. Harkleroad was hot for my removal; Mary says he appeared to be on the verge of exploding. But Troutman had, oddly enough, softened. Chiles, of course, blew in the wind. Later that afternoon we met for what I took to be a wonderful meeting of mutual repentance and forgiveness. We each knelt before each other and asked for forgiveness for rash words. Chiles said we should “forgive and forget”; Troutman admitted we probably wouldn’t be able to forget but we can have forgiveness. They committed themselves to work toward making my pastorate a success. And now we could live happily ever after.

 

Not really. Troutman wasn’t just being a realist when he said he probably wouldn’t be able to forget; he had no intention of forgetting or forgiving. He went home and put his materials in a file, a future dossier which he could, like a prosecutor garnering evidence, use to convict me. He had done this before - run off pastors. He knew that first the ground must be prepared. The deacons who seemed to back me had to be won over. Twenty years earlier he had used the pastor’s absence due to his mother’s death to plant seeds of doubt against him, slowly working behind the scenes to turn the church against the pastor. He has not had a constructive relationship with a pastor in the 25 years he had been at Westminster Bible Church. I should have known that a man who can seriously suggest we would have had 12 new visitors if it weren’t for my letter had a loose commitment to integrity and could forget his vow of forgiveness and support when it was convenient. I should have also realized that the root of the problem hadn’t been dealt with. Someone, a “member of long standing”, had instigated this. But we didn’t know who.

 

But we assumed the storm was over. With a commitment to “support” my ministry, perhaps we were stronger than ever. So we bought a house. We were going to live and serve here most of the rest of our lives.

 

Then, about a month later, the day before our annual congregational business meeting, I got an e-mail from Chris Chiles. I was flabbergasted. The session was proposing another meeting, this time with Joe Trafton, about my letter to the editor. I couldn’t imagine anything more foolish. I tried to respectfully decline. It really wasn’t a proposal. They had already had a meeting without me and decided on it. It turned out we would have a meeting Tuesday night, with all of the officers of the church. The meeting was billed, to the rest, as being about “the vision and purpose of the church.” In the handout that Chiles distributed to all those invited, he didn’t mention that it was really about my letter.

 

Meanwhile, we had the annual meeting. Harkleroad reported that the relations of the session with the pastor were “harmonious.” I tried to suppress a sarcastic grin. Chiles forgot that the pastor is supposed to be the moderator of the meeting and tried to take it over. The great success, from my point of view, was that Leo Yambrek was voted onto the session. If I can only survive this contrived meeting on Tuesday without breaking out in polemics, Leo would help keep the session straight. So I thought. The meeting ended with a motion by a chemistry professor, the same deacon who was dumbfounded, about a month earlier when I suggested I’d probably be resigning. With perhaps that controversy in mind, he moved that this church finally leave the past behind and go forward to reach its potential. Against the technicalities of Roberts Rules, I seconded and it passed with hearty unanimity. Only the Traftons angrily skulked out.

 

Two nights later the “seminar on the vision and mission of the church” came. Chiles opened the meeting, saying “the session thanks you for coming” (never mind that the session, over which I was the moderator, never met to call this meeting); Chiles assumed the position of moderator. I wasn’t going to quibble over such things. Trafton was prepared for a fight. And so was Troutman. They both came ready to prove that evangelicals really are not calling Catholics to change. (A startling proposal!) None of the other officers could have come with documentation to defend me because they were not honestly told what the meeting was about. Then Trafton claimed that my letter - now six weeks and one crisis old - had hurt the church. I responded, purposefully, gently, that I didn’t think it had but I did think the letter that appeared just that day in the paper was hurtful. Trafton looked as if he were going to go into a convulsion. Rendered speechless, he stormed out of the meeting.

 

Just that afternoon I had opened the letters page in the paper and had confirmed what I had begun to suspect. The Traftons were behind all this. There was a letter, apologizing to Catholics and distancing the church from me. The letter was by Paula Trafton, Joe’s usually absent wife. Certainly it was a joint effort. So here was a New Testament scholar who could read Matthew 18:15-18 in Greek if he wanted. But he couldn’t bring himself to follow the first step.

 

As soon as Joe stormed out of the meeting rather than discuss his wife’s letter, a well-respected older man slowly declared. “That’s what this has all been about: Joe trying to get his way.” And here I saw a fork in the road. I could now easily pounce on the Traftons, show that these problems had been about them, emphasize how they had violated, in the most public and egregious way, what Jesus clearly taught on resolving conflicts. Others could then bring up the problems Joe had caused on the search committee before I came, trying to force on this church an inarticulate man with no apparent qualifications other than a high admiration for Joe Trafton. And when Joe didn’t get his way, he left that committee in a huff too. I could have then used the momentum to get at the elders who had conspired behind my back, who had called this meeting on false pretenses, who had appointed themselves the moderators of it and come prepared for the purpose they really had in mind, who had, without any provocation from me, resurrected an issue that should have been dead a month ago. I could have gone for the jugular. Or I could have gone down, what for me is the road less traveled, the road of conciliation and peace making, of mutual submission. Was this a moment to be as shrewd as a serpent or as gentle as a dove?

 

I went down the road less traveled. Despite having this issue, raised again, I tried to show submission. I said Joe was an asset to this church. (I still didn’t yet know of all the complaints the old-timers about him.) I agreed to seek out the Traftons. Going to them - even if it was their fault - was only Biblical. I went beyond the Biblical command and I agreed to compromises that were against my better judgment, suggestions made by only a minority of those there. I agreed to write a letter to the newspaper apologizing for any “pain” caused. (I couldn’t apologize for the actual doctrine.) I agreed to make a public statement of apology and to distribute a written statement to the congregation. I was going the extra mile. And I expected everyone to see the self-evident and to at least do their duty. The elders, I assumed, would understand the folly of their resurrecting this issue, of tacitly encouraging the Traftons by conspiring with them and being conduits for their complaints. I assumed that everyone would clearly see that writing a letter to the editor attacking one’s own pastor and storming out of a meeting that you arranged (and on false pretenses) lays bare where the problems are.

 

I was elated coming home that night. It was as if I had aced my final exams. Nearly everyone - except Troutman - praised my demeanor. I didn’t want to do the things that a couple of people asked me to but I would model mutual submission for them. And surely, they would reciprocate.

 

The Traftons were leaving for a month vacation in three days. I used e-mail to let him know of my interest to meet them both before they left, at their convenience. I called too. After numerous attempts I finally got through and he told me a flat, “I don’t think so.” In the six weeks since my letter to the editor he had greeted me at the door to the church and even held my hand as we all sang “We are one in the bond of love” after communion. In that six weeks, he made no attempt to contact me, leaving that to a letter in the newspaper and a supposed seminar on the “mission and vision of the church.” The timing of their letter was to cause the most trouble just before they left, leaving others to pick up the pieces.

 

The next Sunday was Father’s Day and I gave my apology. To make it harder, my mother was there. I would rather have shown my mother that I was a successful pastor. But I had to apologize for identifying the church with a position it wasn’t ready to publicly adopt. One elderly lady said I appeared “very humble” but I sensed a deep unease in part of the congregation.

 

There was a session meeting that Tuesday. It would be Leo’s first. Harkleroad tried to take over the agenda of the meeting. He wanted to dwell on a letter to the editor my wife had written a few days earlier. She had defended her husband and who can blame her. I didn’t see how it was relevant to the church as she did not attack another member of the church, as had Paula Trafton. He became angry when he couldn’t get his way. Leo rebuked him for not sticking to the agenda, for not showing the level of humility and control he expects in secular business. Harkleroad angrily asked him, “Whose side are you on, his or ours?” Leo responded, “Neither. I’m on Christ’s.”

 

Harkleroad was clumsy; he didn’t have the experience at pastor lynching that Troutman had. Troutman, after having ducked for cover the previous week when Trafton stormed out, went on the charge again. He claimed that Trafton was justified because his wife had been “attacked”. Everyone there who praised my behavior would have been surprised to learn, just a week later, that Paula Trafton had been “attacked.” But Troutman said it with a straight face and no one called him on it.

 

This too, he had done before. Two decades earlier, he had accused a pastor of being “lazy” and made other baseless claims. They say if you look like you know what you’re doing, you can walk right into a bank vault and leave with a bag of money and no one will stop you. Troutman, I was beginning to see, could slander without the slightest hint of conscience, so the weak, like Chiles and Harkleroard, would let him get away with it.

 

My model of “mutual submission” had not bought me respect and reflection of their behavior. They saw it as weakness; I had turned the other cheek and now they were punching it hard. They were now convinced that they could accuse me of anything and get away with it. One of their prominent accusations was that I never apologized for anything, that I always defended myself. Even people who sat there and listened to my verbal apology and read my statement, entitled “Apology” with “sorry” in the text, believed that charge. People often believe what they are told is in front of them rather than opening their eyes and seeing for themselves.

 

I wasn’t going to be baited this time; I let them condemn. Some of it was actually encouraging. They were desperate to hang me and yet they could find so little to say; much of it was my own admission of shortcomings from back when I came as a candidate. But I realized, with crystal clarity, that they wouldn’t stop until they had driven me out.

 

Leo was a calming presence. If it had not been for him, it would have been much worse. At the end, he finally got them to agree to drop the controversy, to never again bring my letter or anything else of this back again. They verbally agreed. He had us shake on it. It was a deal. The matter was behind us, so they resolved. Like myself a week before, he was elated. Now, he thought, we could go forward. I told him, privately in the parking lot, that he was wrong. They wouldn’t keep their word. They would find a reason to attack again. He thought I was too pessimistic. After all, they had given their word, they had shaken hands and made a solemn commitment.

 

That commitment lasted less than 24 hours. Harkleroad, still boiling because he didn’t get to rearrange the agenda, wrote an ultimatum. Either I was to be fired or he would leave. He accused me of being “deceitful and controlling.” The man who got angry because he couldn’t impose his agenda, who broke a hand-shake agreement within 24 hours, accused me of being “deceitful and controlling.”

 

So another meeting was called for the next Tuesday. Chiles wanted to come in and talk to me directly; so be it. First, I had an appointment with a lady in the church who had been thinking of leaving because of family. But when a friend told her the session was giving me problems, she said she wanted to stay a while to help support me. That was encouraging, and I was glad to talk to someone about their problems instead of being absorbed in my own. Mary was with me. Chiles was waiting outside and came in when we were finished praying with the lady. After some strained small talk about the postal service, I began to tell him point blank what he was doing was wrong. I was rash again. He would say, “Every time I try to reason with you all I get is denials and anger.” I called that what it was; it was a lie. He was among those who praised my handling of Trafton’s storming out two weeks earlier. Now he charged me with only being angry. He also attacked me for being a self-promoter who did what he pleased with no accountability. I asked for evidence. He pondered a bit and finally said that my changing of the phone service (to save money) proved it. It was absurd to the point of surrealism and I was tired of dealing with it. They were the Energizer bunnies of accusations. They kept going and going and going, hoping to get a rise out of me. And with Chiles, I foolishly gave in.

 

During the emergency meeting that followed, Leo began by challenging the legitimacy of it. After all, we had made a commitment, shook hands on it; this controversy was to be laid to rest, never brought up again. “This is not right,” Leo stated. The others sat there, as if they were simply waiting for him to be done. When he finished, they went on the attack, ignoring Leo and their own commitment of a week before. Troutman pulled out his dossier he had been saving since his forgiveness act on Mothers Day. He read a letter I had written during our stormy week before Mother’s Day; in it I offered to resign. He asked me what had changed. The question was so absurd, I didn’t respond. What had changed, obviously, was their Mother’s Day apology and their commitment to support my ministry. It wasn’t as though he just forgot about that; he never took it seriously in the first place; that was all a ruse - words said to make me comfortable while he worked, as he had done several times before, to “vote me off the island.” For Troutman there apparently was no such thing as “truth” to which he was accountable; words were merely a tool for him to achieve his goals; a solemn commitment could be brushed aside when convenient.

 

Next he claimed, again without a tinge of conscience, that I “always remind everyone that [I] have a Ph.D. and worked with some Nobel Prize winner.” This charge was stunningly false and ironic; it was Troutman who early on said he wanted to promote the fact that they had pastor with an earned Ph.D. Besides, I had not even once mentioned my academic credentials in any of my sermons. But that didn’t matter. Troutman then said “and there’s more,” putting some paper back in his file, as if it were proof of something. Laughing at him would have probably been the best response. But I couldn’t muster that.

 

Here Leo made his worst mistake - a mistake rooted in his rosy vision of human nature, the politician’s instinct that any differences can be compromised, the businessman’s belief that we could make any situation “win-win”, the modern man’s tendency to forget that some people are frankly evil. He joined in some of the criticism. Apparently he thought that if he could show he wasn’t in my pocket, that he wasn’t a blind loyalists - like the Trafton devotees were to that chief instigator - then he’d be in a better position to broker peace. It was Nevill Chamberlain’s failure to see that one can’t negotiate with Satan. Just so, pandering emboldened Troutman all the more. He told the others that they could get rid of me and no one would leave the church, not even Leo. I thought of the lady I had counseled just two hours earlier who told me she was only staying to help support me.

 

Herb motioned that I be fired. The session would have to approve it and then the congregation would vote on it. Chiles, with whom I had just spent over an hour in bruising conversation, interjected. He looked at me as if I were some diseased animal that might still have a chance of recovery. He criticized me for spending all my time “behind the computer” instead of with people; he seemed to forget that the only time he’d come during my office hours was this afternoon, seeing me with a member. He said the church wanted someone to “cry with them.” He had earlier made out a list of inactive members in which he listed one of the longest standing members, Mrs. Grace, as “deceased.” He never attended the mid-week prayer meeting or the Sunday evening meeting where personal concerns were shared. But Chiles, my former lecturer on preaching, “teachableness,” ecumenicism, and now pastoral care, never doubted his expertise. He was going to lay down an ultimatum. Either I admit to my problems and he might be willing to bear with me some more or refuse to confess and he would vote to dismiss. It reminded me of the Salem witch trials: “confess” or else! At least the accused witches knew what they were supposed to confess to; I didn’t. He was going to give me three weeks to think it over. Chiles the merciful!

 

Part of me wished that they’d just get it over with. But a strange thing had been happening over the past few months. My sermons had been getting generally better and better. The comments made about my preaching were so complimentary I’d be embarrassed to print them here. Despite the strain of the constant conflict, knowing that the “session” was hard at work to alienate as many people from me as they possibly could, I felt my preaching was increasing in power. And both my wife and myself believed that this was the real reason behind the campaign to drive me out. These were people who had managed to combine the self-righteousness of the Pharisees without adopting any of their rigor. Both Troutman and Harkleroad referred to scripture as “verbiage” - Troutman in so many words. I can wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t written that silly letter to the editor. But I don’t think the end would have been any different; perhaps a bit later or over another issue. The bottom line is that these men were not going to tolerate their church being made healthy. That would mean that either they would have to change or be exposed.

 

The three week waiting period during which I was supposed to decide whether to “confess” became a full month. In that time, I apologized to Chiles for being too aggressive with him. The scripture was burned in my brain, “The Lord’s servant must not quarrel but be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful” (2Tim. 2:24.) I wasn’t gentle with him that day and I apologized the very next day. We met for a private conversation in a park and I apologized again. The stress they put me under was no excuse. He said how hard the past couple of months had been for him and then, as an after thought, asked how it was for me. When I told him it was, in one sense, one of the most unpleasant times in my life, he looked surprised. It was as if he hadn’t considered that it might be even more difficult to be on the receiving end of their incessant false accusations, threatened with loss of a means to support my family. This meeting, in a quiet, country park beside an old cemetery, wasn’t for the purpose of “hearing each other out.” Chiles had no doubt he was my judge and had absolute jurisdiction over me. What had startled him from the week before was not just my tone but the implicit suggestion that he might actually be questionable - and that by me. Martin Luther said that pastors suffer from either being too hard or too soft. If I was too hard the week before, I was probably too soft now - passively allowing him to be my inquisitor. As his pastor – whether he recognized it or not – I should have reminded him of his complicity in the secret meetings against me, his false accusations, his now twice broken vows to forgive and support me. The Bible is chilling in its description of the nature and destiny of people who do such things. I owed him a reminder of what scripture said, even if he couldn’t comprehend that a pastor could legitimately rebuke him.

 

Earlier I met with another elder, a silent partner of Troutman through all of this, Steve Estes. Mary was with me, as she was with me during my tumble with Chiles. This time I was on my guard to tread softly. I asked him whether the accusation was true that Paula Trafton had been “attacked” - Troutman’s absurd charge. He admitted it wasn’t. Then I asked him whether it was true that I constantly remind everyone that I have a Ph.D. and assisted a Nobel Prize winner. I could see the light go on in his head. He realized I was trying to get him to face facts, that I was appealing to a sense of integrity. So he prevaricated. Mary saw that he was cornered, though, and challenged him: Sitting by silently while false accusations are made effectively lends support to the lie. He wasn’t moved. And I could see that it wasn’t worthwhile to try to arouse his conscience. He would never have considered launching this campaign against me but he also couldn’t comprehend the thought of making a moral stand. He was the type that if he had been around in early 1940s Germany would have been a loyal SS Auschwitz bureaucrat and if he’d been captured by the Russians would have turned out to be a grim communist apparatchnik or if he’d been captured by the Americans would have turned out to be a middle manager with Volkswagen. He was a wheel that would grind wherever he was turned. Mary was, as she told me later, appalled at such a hallow man, thinking him, in one way, the worst of them all.

 

It was the worst of times but it was also the best of times. Besides the increasing confirmation that I could preach effectively week after week, I was enjoying one of the closest times with my wife we had ever had. Mary had never really been particularly interested in my academic career. Writing papers and theses and dissertations that hardly anyone really reads, was not something she could get passionately behind. Consequently we developed some distance in our professional lives. That all changed in coming to pastor Westminster Bible Church. She believed in the church and in the importance of the pastoral ministry, especially effective preaching. And our relationship flourished as a result. We held hands again. Once in church, during the last few nasty weeks, I was sitting on the platform during some special music, waiting to begin my sermon; I was watching Mary return from escorting our two boys to children’s church and the passage from the Psalms occurred to me, “The lines for me have fallen in pleasant places.”

 

The meeting came to give my answer to the ultimatum Chiles had handed down. I had sought as much advice and prayers from people I respected, especially former pastors, as I could get. The constant theme, “be humble.” But I couldn’t confess to some unnamed charge. So I said that I know I’m young, I was 37, and that I’ve made mistakes but that I need to know what the accusation is. At that, Chiles took over. He said that our meeting, nearly a month earlier, had traumatized him. He trembled and nearly cried. He began to moan about what a horrible year it had been for him, the stress caused by the Anthrax scare at the post office, and so on. Two weeks earlier, when we meet in a park, alone without his audience, he was mild and receptive; now, always taking the innuendo of my accusers ever so seriously, he was nearly hysterical. Chiles tearfully resigned as an elder and walked out as if in a scene from a soap opera. There was then a motion that I be asked to resign. They voted in favor, three to one. I refused. I had determined that I was going to make them fire me. So they voted to call the meeting for the dismissal of the pastor.

 

I was not going to let any of this effect the worship service. The worship service was for God and should not be touched by such things. I stuck purposefully to my plan of preaching through scripture. By now I had switched to the book of Joshua. Even my pastoral prayers were guided by scripture. I was praying through a psalm every Sunday. For my last Sunday, the prayer said, “to the crooked, You show Yourself shrewd” (Psalm 18:26). The meeting to vote on my dismissal was that night. I preached a positive sermon from Joshua 3, because the passage was positive. I stuck to my convictions to preach expositionally to the very end; it was one of the most difficult things I had ever done, stand in front of a congregation, about a third of whom hated me, and give an up-lifting message about how God can make a way.

 

Many in the congregation were shocked to hear that there was a move to fire me. So the elders distributed a package of materials, supposedly to indict me. It consisted almost entirely of materials from before Mother’s Day, before our supposed “forgiveness.” It only seemed to impress those who were already biased against me - or who had fallen for my accusers bad Pharisee imitation. One older couple told us that they didn’t seem to have scored any points with their materials. A member with legal experience said they’d get a nasty shock if they tried to use that in court. The omissions, especially the Trafton letter and Joe’s storming out of his own meeting, appeared to me to be more embarrassing than my rash critique of them. How could they pretend the Trafton letter didn’t happen? Surely everyone in Bowling Green knew that the accusations were half-truths!

 

But the Trafton devotees didn’t need any proof. Trafton could not be challenged and I had, at least implicitly, challenged him. By pointing to what Jesus said about going to a person - not writing a letter to the editor - I implied that Trafton had done something wrong. And this, the Trafton devotees could not comprehend or stomach. What I had once considered self-evident problems - instigating others, denouncing one’s pastor in the paper, storming out of a meeting called on false pretenses - were completely ignored by the Trafton devotees. I invited the shirt manufacturer, the deacon who had hosted me during the search process, to my house to discuss the problem. He was present when Trafton stormed out of the meeting. And it was mainly his suggestions about apologizing that I followed in what I had hoped was the path of reconciliation. To my amazement, he said he didn’t see any problem with the Traftons’ letter denouncing me, that Joe “always put the best interest of the church first.” It wasn’t possible to reason with that. So I didn’t try.

 

Immediately after the Traftons’ letter and Joe’s storming out, some thought the Traftons would be too embarrassed to ever return, that they had “lost face.” A man who had worked with them for years told me that they don’t even have the ability to understand shame, that they couldn’t comprehend the possibility that they did something wrong. They were the tail that wagged the dog; the elders were doing to me what Trafton wanted done. I realized that when they returned, their devotees wouldn’t hold them accountable; indeed, they’d see it as a mark of maturity that they graced us with their presence again. I was right. They only returned after the session voted to call a meeting to dismiss me and they were greeted as conquering heroes. They knew they had to blunt the criticism that they had flouted Jesus’ instructions on conflict resolution. (They told others that they were coming to meet me before they contacted me.) So they came to my office for a meeting. I had my wife there and they told her to leave, three times. They thought they were the lords of this church, they could even say who could be in my office. Joe twisted words, asserted that he really was too busy to see me before leaving for his vacation (though he and his wife had time to write a letter to the editor), accused me of failing to really apologize for my letter to the editor, and even denied that he had stormed out of his own meeting rather than discuss his wife’s letter; he was, he said, only showing righteous indignation. Such was the man who was unquestionably followed by a clique in the church.

 

How does a pastor deal with such people? I knew I had failed to treat Chiles with the kindness and patience scripture tells us even troublemakers are to be handled. But Chiles was a tool of forces he didn’t understand, probably the only man at Trafton’s contrived meeting who actually believed it was a “seminar on the mission and vision of the church.” I knew he was somewhat troubled in conscience; he still had that. The Traftons were different. They were the prime movers behind all this and yet they claimed perfect innocence; when a former friend admonished them about Paula Trafton’s letter, they accused him of “psychological rape.” With Chiles, I had thought that strong words could possibly wake him from his stupor. I was foolish. But with the Traftons - bragging, in my office, about the virtues of their letter to the editor, about their great compassion, about their refined self-control - I was at the end of my rope. The Apostle Paul emphasizes the need of pastors to be patient with even the troublemakers. But one of the harshest chapters in the Bible is Jesus’ attack on the Pharisees, in Matthew 23. Are pastors ever allowed to unleash that kind of language or is that purely a vengeance that belongs only to God?

 

Earlier in the week, under pressure from friends to spare myself the ordeal and simply resign, I offered to quit if given a severance package. The elders who had been so relentless, not only turned it down flat but insulted Leo, to whom I had turned to broker the deal, in the process. A very self-controlled man, I was surprised that he had gotten angry at them too. He told me on the phone that night, “Now I know why you lost your temper with them. I did too.” The church constitution says that a new pastor has two years before his first vote of affirmation. (In a secular contract, I might could hold them to two years but I didn’t try that.) I offered three months only. No deal.

 

In the meantime, Troutman, the erstwhile skeptic about membership, tried to add a lady to the membership rolls whom I knew to be against me. I thought of the motto of one of Napoleon’s generals: “audacity, audacity, audacity!”

 

The wealthy shirt manufacturer, though a Trafton devotee, had enough decency learned from the business world to be startled by the callousness of the church. He heard of the severance proposal and arranged a meeting of all church officers on the afternoon before the dismissal meeting. The elderly man who had earlier seen that the whole controversy was about “Joe Trafton trying to get his way,” came to the meeting, unwanted by the hard-core session members; he said what they should do is “Support our pastor.” He was, of course, ignored. By a vote of 5 to 3, the officers voted to give us three months severance. The three hard-core session members were not to be budged. But they were outnumbered. Leo called me, as the seconds dragged while I waited at home. I agreed to the deal, believing that with the session members and their wives and the people they had worked to recruit to their side over the last couple of months that we could not win - especially so when, if it came to a meeting, they would feel none of the constraints of truth that bind honest people. I had made them show what they were made of by going to a dismissal meeting. But they weren’t done showing what kind of men they were.

 

I thought the severance proposal would make the meeting open and shut. I began by having us recite the Lord’s Prayer. Then I handed the meeting over to Robert Settle (who was now so far behind me I couldn’t see him). My accusers didn’t want to let me go so easily. They wanted more than just to get rid of me. They wanted vengeance. Troutman was particularly eager to deprive my family of the severance. When Settle announced the deal, Troutman made a point to ask that the vote of the officers be announced; everyone was to know that three officers of the church voted against it. I immediately remembered, while sitting on the other side of the sanctuary, Troutman’s words to me about the membership amendment: it was then a matter of principle to never show disunity in the leadership! Rather than support the majority’s decision, they sprung a trap. They took a private e-mail sent from me to Leo and cut off the top so that it initially appeared to be the severance proposal. (Leo had given them this e-mail earlier during his unsuccessfully attempt to broker a severance and avoid the meeting.) When the severance proposal was announced that doctored, private e-mail was distributed, without explanation, as if it were the proposal under question. They had no permission from the moderator, congregational vote, or the session, over which I was still technically the moderator. It was a brazen move. Brice Boyer, the confident youth worker who had pledged to never complain about me behind my back, was one of those handing out the doctored e-mail; by now I wasn’t surprised.

 

They were hoping one sentence of mine (about avoiding a temptation) would be misinterpreted and make me look unworthy of the severance. When Leo finally realized what the sheet was that had been distributed, he pointed out that it was a private e-mail sent to him and it was not the severance proposal that was supposed to be under consideration. At this point, Dick Troutman stood up and warmly told Leo “I love you Leo” but that he simply had to disagree with him because now the private e-mail was “property of the session.” I was amazed, almost in admiration, that he could publicly intertwine malice and deceit with no apparent qualm.

 

Two decades earlier Troutman had been eager to get rid of a pastor who was also “dynamic” in the pulpit. He worked behind the scenes to turn the congregation against him (especially when the pastor was away to bury his mother). When the meeting came to discuss the situation, Troutman harassed the pastor so ruthlessly over technicalities in Robert Rules of Order that the pastor simply walked out, shaking the dust from his feet, leaving the church to Troutman, the wolf. Now, Troutman was flouting Robert’s Rules of Order. The only constant: his appetite to destroy the ministry.

 

When it appeared that the doctored e-mail wasn’t having the desired effect, they switched gears. They were desperate to drag me through the mud and deprive my family of a livelihood. The severance deal included a confidentiality agreement; neither side was supposed to publicly discuss this controversy again and if I did, my severance pay would be in jeopardy. I didn’t realize what a poor position this would put me in; I was eager to get this over with and avoid a contentious meeting so I had hastily agreed to it. But the hard-core of accusers saw an opportunity to attack. They argued that they couldn’t let another church suffer what they had suffered. The confidentiality agreement didn’t actually constrain them from writing private letters of reference. But that wasn’t the point. Paula Trafton especially was eager to get her licks in. She stood up and charged me with being “abusive.” So did another couple of women who had no personal knowledge of the situation.

 

This “abusive” accusation was new. So new Troutman and Harkleroad hadn’t thought to include it in their packet of materials. (It was also absurd, as anyone who’s spent 30 seconds with my wife could easily conclude; she is obviously not the type to marry an “abusive” man and certainly not an enabler of one.) But it’s a powerful charge in our psycho-babble culture. Paula Trafton was still smarting that someone - especially “a man of God” - had dared question her pristine righteousness, much less mention that she was an infrequent church attendee. Just as the man who had worked with the Traftons so much in the past had predicted, in writing, a month earlier, they were incapable of seeing that they had done something wrong; they would only see themselves as martyrs. They had instigated the elders in the first place; they had refused to let go of their resentment and refused to come to me personally; instead they wrote a letter to the editor and contrived a “seminar on the mission and vision” of the church out of which Joe stormed when it wasn’t going his way. They had unleashed all this and yet to the very end they were, in their own eyes, nothing but innocent victims suffering from an “abusive” pastor.

 

Paula Trafton’s spite backfired on her. The confidentiality agreement was cut. And that was to my distinct advantage. That left the bare severance proposal easier to pass. Still, the hard-core haters wanted their pound of flesh. So Joe Trafton stood up and said that we really need to have an extended discussion about this, i.e. vote against the severance so we can have that nasty, prolonged meeting we want. But they were trounced in the vote: 36 to 12.

 

Still, they could not let it go. Incomprehensibly, the moderator let the meeting continue. A wife of one of the accusers, a lady I had had no conflict with, stood up and with pathos implored us of our need to attack the pastor some more; the lust to hate had overwhelmed her. She declared that I had “abused” at least two (“maybe three” - who was the third?) members, that we couldn’t just let such a villain go without an extended session of verbally torturing him.

 

“Will this never end,” I thought. It ended when probably the longest standing member, the lady named Grace whom Chiles had listed as “deceased”, was provoked to stand up. She had seen Troutman drive out at least three full-time pastors before. I had only met her once briefly and spoken with her on the phone a couple of times. I knew that she was scandalized by the Traftons’ letter to the editor against me. What I didn’t know was whether she would cower before these men, like most did. She declared, “Of all the pastors you men have driven out, this one deserves it the least.” She singled out the Traftons for being especially diabolical. This wasn’t the kind of criticism the accusers were hoping for. Finally the moderator saw the wisdom of ending the meeting.

 

God had shown Himself shrewd. My accusers, so filled with fury against me, revealed who they really were, what they were capable of, while the severance was passed and I could provide for my family for at least three months. I resigned. We came half-way around the world, transplanted ourselves, and lasted four months.

 

We were intrigued over the next month by the varying responses of people in the church. One man in his eighties, a tall, wide man who hulked over his cane, had nearly lost his life to Nazi artillery in the days after the Normandy invasion. He wasn’t about to lose his integrity to Trafton and Troutman now. He had said that if they get rid of me, he was never coming back. I laughed in appreciation and told him he was still a soldier. He nodded in grim agreement. Like an old soldier, may he never die and may his memory never completely fade away.

 

Another man, Marvin Jarboe, was an artist, not a fighter. But he had been one of our most enthusiastic supporters. He did some behind the scenes rallying of support that we rarely did. He first told us some of Troutman’s long track record of devouring pastors and emphatically declared, “These men have a lock on this church. This is not my church.” He said that he believed Trafton simply was using the church to be a respectable place for a scholar to attend. Before the dismissal meeting he encouraged me simply to resign, that it was a lost cause and that it wasn’t worth winning anyway. He said that we could plant a new church; we would first start in his house. He said our ministry was too valuable to be lost and he wanted to help start a new work around it. I was troubled that he and his wife didn’t delay their vacation by two days to stay and help defend me at the dismissal meeting. He never tried to contact me again. His wife had decided it was easier to believe my accusers than go elsewhere and he decided it was easier to give into his wife than stay true to his convictions. Such a church consists of two types of people: a few wolves and their many weak enablers.

 

No one left that church out of loyalty to me. I had only been there for four months, not enough time to develop a true following. Those who left, about a dozen people, left because of their own integrity, their own attachment to principles of decency, honesty and righteousness - to their faithfulness to the Lord Himself. Those who left are a study in how many (or few) Christians value these things over the mere social function of the church, whether it is just a club that happens to talk about God or whether it’s actual obedience to its God-talk is important.

 

One old couple who had been there 20 years left but pretended they weren’t “mad at anybody.” How did a lack of indignation, which C. S. Lewis once said was a symptom of spiritual sickness, became a virtue in modern Christian spirituality? Some of those who left, especially singles, haven’t yet found a good church home, so deep is the disillusionment. Leo Yambrek, after only two session meetings, left with his wife. He said he’d never set foot back there again now that he had seen what these people were made of.

 

Others tried to slip away quietly. I knew the elders were going all out to shower everyone drifting away with praise, kindness, and pseudo-heartbrokenness for what they “had to do.” They were going to be on their best behavior, appear as loving as possible. One lady who left complained of feeling harassed by their constant attempts to woo her back. But I knew it couldn’t last. In a few months a young woman, suffering with real heartbrokenness over an unfaithful and immoral boyfriend, would tell the prayer meeting of her suffering and get only blank stares in exchange. But, of course. A people who can sit idly by while their pastor, transplanted from around the world, is driven out with slander and innuendo, aren’t going to have any compassion for even a desperate girl. Virtues are strengthened through use or lost through atrophy.

 

Those who sat there and saw what happened, who saw the Traftons’ letter to the editor or Troutman’s doctored e-mail, and didn’t strengthen their faith by pushing against it, atrophied their moral senses. How does a man who teaches public ethics at the college sit there, see a doctored e-mail distributed without permission as if it were a severance proposal, and think this is a body he wants to be associated with? Intriguing, was the lack of interest in what happened. The elders called a congregational meeting a few weeks after my dismissal. But not even one person consulted me, asking our side of the story. It was as if they had made up their minds that they were going to continue to be in the Trafton-Troutman club and they didn’t want any facts getting in their way.

 

Most of the people at Westminster Bible Church were sheep needing a shepherd. Most, like the ladies who accused me of being abusive, purely on the basis of what they had been told, knew not what they were doing. But this was not just the story of well-intentioned people who couldn’t, for whatever personality quirks, get along. At least two movers and shakers were wolves. One former pastor of that church described Troutman as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing if ever there was one.” Now make that two former pastors.

 

The reality of real evil in churches is something pastors must deal with. Our culture demands that pastors be sweet and affirming; but Paul warned, in Acts 20, that pastors need to guard against the wolves; they must have “an edge.” In our age of relativism it is hard to imagine that evil really exists in people; perhaps in terrorists from abroad but certainly not in respectable college professors in middle America. Funny that we preach a Lord who was crucified by conservative religious leaders yet we assume that all conservative religious people today mean well.

 

 

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