When last we met up, we talked about a YouTube video concerning an abuse scandal that Bethel Church helped cause. Mike Winger, who created the video, painted the scandal as a purely Charismatic evangelical problem. But as we soon found out, his own denomination (Calvary Chapel) has the same scandals unfolding, as do many other evangelical groups and churches. So no, this isn’t just a Charismatic thing. It’s an evangelicalism-wide thing. Today, I’ll show you why evangelicalism as a belief structure provides ample opportunities for abusers to get into power—and then use it to fulfill their dreadful desires.
(This post first went live on Patreon on 3/27/2026. There’s no audiocast today because I’m still recovering. I’m sorry, gang, because I’ve been weak as a newborn kitten for about two weeks now. I’m thrilled to be semi-back at work now and hope you like today’s post!)
The Zeroth Error: Correct beliefs -> Correct behavior -> No misfortune or abuse
Evangelicals can be divided into two loose groups: Those who actually believe prosperity gospel is a real thing, and those who loudly insist it’s a scam but deep down also actually believe it’s a real thing.
Most evangelicals believe on some level that Jesus rewards his favored followers, while punishing those who are Jesusing incorrectly. Churches that Jesus correctly grow. Those that don’t, shrink. Likewise, those who believe only correct doctrines and practice the correct type and level of devotions stay Christian forever, but those who Jesus sub-optimally will inevitably reject the faith.
So, for example, when correctly-Jesusing Christians experience dreadful losses. When it happens, they loudly quote Bible verses about the rain falling on the just and unjust alike. Yes, of course they do. But you can rest assured that they always wonder if these losses are an expression of divine displeasure.
I bring this up because it’s the primary error evangelicals make. They constantly assume that correct beliefs leads inevitably and inexorably to correct outcomes. This thinking infects everything about evangelical culture and how evangelicals interact with other people and the world around themselves.
Evangelicals assume that any church or minister who Jesuses correctly will never, ever do them wrong or hurt them.
It’s been this way for a very long time. About a decade ago, an ex-Christian friend of mine had kids who wanted to attend an evangelical church. She had been sexually abused as a child in an evangelical church by an evangelical pastor, but she still wanted her kids to go to church if they really wanted that. So she began calling around to the area churches to ask about their child safety policies. Imagine her surprise when a secretary at one church reacted with outrage to her question, stoutly informing this concerned mother that Jesus protected their kids, so they did not see any need for child safety policies.
Every time I hear about an abuse story in evangelicalism, I think about that church secretary.
Borrowing the ultimate authority to commit the ultimate overreach and abuse
The Zeroth Error finds its lowest point in one particular belief structure in evangelicalism: literalism and inerrancy.
Literalism and inerrancy are a biblical hermeneutic. That fancy term just means the interpretative lens through which someone interprets the Bible. In this case, literalists/inerrantists believe the Bible is literally true in every single way and completely without errors of any kind whatsoever.
With this hermeneutic, pastors gain nearly unlimited power over their flocks. Evangelical pastors have always enjoyed more power over congregants than other Protestant ministers. But now, they not only have so-called divine anointing to grant them power, but also the Bible itself. All they must do is tell a pew-warmer that the Bible said such-and-such. The pew-warmer must obey—or suffer.
The best part (for power-hungry evangelical ministers) is that the Bible is so complex and maddeningly self-contradictory that its myriad verses can be shoehorned into any interpretation whatsoever. And fundamentalist evangelicals have never doubted their interpretation must be the best, most Jesus-approved one of all time. As Rick Warren has said:
You’ll never hear a fundamentalist say, ‘I could be wrong.’ A conservative Baptist believes in the inerrancy of Scripture; a fundamentalist Baptist believes in inerrancy of their interpretation. That’s a big difference. [Rick Warren, quoted on TerranWilliams.com]
By the way, he’s right. I was fundamentalist for eight years. I don’t think I ever once heard one say their interpretation of the Bible might not be correct.
At this point, I consider literalism and inerrancy to be absolute black flags. Not red flags. Black. They are a dealbreaker, an instant no-go sign, an immediate signal to abandon ship right now before it explodes on the high seas. I can’t stress enough what an alarm bell this one factor rings. If I could tell evangelicals any one thing and have them actually listen, it’d be to avoid any church claiming this hermeneutic.
All too many churches use literalism and inerrancy to saddle congregants with high-control measures like membership covenants, discipleship, and shepherding. Every one of them only multiplies the alarm bells already ringing. If they can’t get people to stay and obey without invoking the Bible and divine authority, there’s a reason for it. They’re either asking for preposterous levels of control over their flocks or… No, that’s really about it. Avoid avoid avoid.
Cronies and cliques within evangelicalism
By now, evangelicalism functions as a dysfunctional authoritarian system. It cannot achieve its own stated goals. Instead, it funnels power from members to leaders. It slices voices and power away from members, then grants leaders unlimited power over them.
And these leaders need lieutenants.
So evangelical groups, be they Cru or the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) denominational offices or the tiniest little nondenominational SBC-lite church out in Flea Hop, Alabama, devolve into cliques. Leaders choose lieutenants based on loyalty, usefulness, and obedience. These lieutenants handle leadership tasks within their own particular fiefdoms.
The leaders themselves form crony networks, which are large cliques of leaders and upper lieutenants who do favors for each other and help each other out in times of crisis. The children and favorites of these cronies get treated like titled nobility within their groups: their pedigrees and connections become powerful currency that gain them entrance to positions of power later. (We saw this happen with Shawn Bolz, who is preternaturally well-connected even by Charismatic standards.)
This entire system is absolutely rife with corruption. Once a single abuser becomes even a lieutenant, it’s almost impossible for anyone to get him out of there. That person is a favorite of upper leadership. Touch not mine anointed, as the psalm goes.
The cliques and cronies silence anyone talking about any misbehavior or abuse. They have two very strong reasons for doing so:
- Showing their leader their loyalty, usefulness, and obedience
- Protecting their group’s reputation
We’ll come back to that protection motivation soon.
A superficial, shallow culture that facilitates abuse
When you have such opaque handling of power and such egregiously unfair distributions of it, such obviously loyalty-based advancement and favoritism, and so much brutal retaliation for even gentle criticism of it, the results are predictable:
A superficial, shallow, transactional culture evolves, based on outward shows of piety and conformity. Snitches abound—and they can be anyone, even your own spouse or children.
On the minus side, no member can ever really show their true self to anyone else, even their one true love. But on the plus side, it’s crazy easy for abusers to fit in and fool the group into thinking they’re true-blue Christians who think about nothing but Jesus 24/7.
Oh wait. That’s a really big minus. There isn’t an upside.
Once upon a time, I felt shocked when I saw Christians say they had no idea in the world that an abuser had operated in their midst for decades. Now, it’s just another day ending in -y. Yes, of course a liar who tried his best to cover up a sex assault had friends in seminary who just can’t believe he’d be capable of it. Yes, of course. I expect nothing different.
Within evangelicalism, for every victim of an abuser there are a hundred congregants who think that this abuser hung the moon and stars. The system needs those adoring fans to maintain its leaders’ power. Their praise drowns out any criticisms and accusations.
Evangelical systems pressure victims and leaders alike to keep quiet about abuse and abusers
Earlier, I briefly mentioned reputation-protection as a motivation to cover up abuse in evangelical groups. Now, I want to expand on that idea. It’s such an important part of the rot within evangelicalism as a whole.
Remember, these folks think Jesus rewards followers who are Jesusing correctly. That’s why Mike Winger and all those other theo-bros think abuse only happens in Charismatic evangelical churches. Certainly it can’t happen in their own churches, no no no! (Though notably, John Piper doesn’t make this mistake. Broken clocks, etc, I suppose.)
Jesus protects them, right? Abuse can’t possibly happen in their own, properly-Jesusing church. That would mean Jesus isn’t protecting them after all. He might even be punishing them.
Worse, if people hear about big problems, they might leave or refuse to join! Their witness—a Christianese word meaning their reputation and credibility—will be destroyed!
In these days of decline, evangelicals care less than ever about their individual witness. However, they seem to care much more about their group’s witness. If the group’s witness gets trashed, that cuts directly into the leader’s income and celebrity status. It’ll definitely impact the leader’s future prospects.
Nope, the situation must be quieted. Nobody must know. Nobody can find out.
Behind the scenes, “Matthew 18″ confrontations silence victims if appeals to protect the church itself fail. And if both fail, abusive and abuse-shielding pastors (like Matt Chandler of The Village Church in Dallas) resort to ham-fisted, cartoonish extremes to punish victims who keep talking.
This sickening system works. It works extremely well. It just doesn’t accomplish its stated goals. Instead, it keeps leaders in power and followers powerless and obedient.
Error 404: Accountability not found
By design, evangelical groups have no idea how accountability works. This isn’t just a Charismatic thing. It’s an everywhere, all the time thing within evangelicalism.
When—not if—an evangelical leader gets caught doing something terrible, he may count on it not impacting his current or future fortunes unless it is incredibly egregious. His cronies will help him ride out the worst of the scandal and criticism, and then ease him back into service once people get distracted by something new. His congregation applauded when he trickle-truthed a semi-confession at them earlier, and they will do it again once he steps back onto the stage.
If the flocks demand accountability, the most they will get is a new internal committee to handle accusations. The committee will, of course, be composed only of loyal lieutenants. None of them are bound by any privacy laws, and some won’t report crimes to authorities even if the law mandates they do so. These two facts will come together in the worst ways possible for anyone foolish enough to try to get justice for pastoral abuse.
There just isn’t a “three strikes, you’re out” rule for evangelical ministers. Darrell Gilyard raped dozens of women and children. His rape spree lasted decades, thanks to the protection of powerful SBC figures like Paige Patterson. When he got out of prison, some nitwit church in Florida hired him as a preacher right away. Of course, they had to ban children from services because he’s on the sex offenders registry. That was fine by them. These days, he’s the lead pastor of a large church in Jacksonville.
Ted Haggard shares a similar comeback story. After his dramatic scandal in 2006, he’s started a couple different churches—though he can’t shake abuse accusations that keep cropping up. Matt Queen now works as an associate pastor at an SBC church. I hope nobody at that church will need to cover up a sex crime! Similarly, the bully and megalomaniac Mark Driscoll made a lateral move to another church in Arizona after flouncing out of his megachurch’s throne. Since then, he’s been dogged nonstop by accusations of abusive leadership—but his congregation seems unfazed by any of it.
What I describe here is not accountability. Making mouth-noises about being supah dupah weally sowwy and then hopping right back into a position of power over others is not accountability. There being no way whatsoever to stop abusers from regaining power is not accountability.
Until evangelicals stop worshiping celebrity pastors and stop forgiving and forgetting while victims suffer forever, there’ll be no accountability within their system. But how can that happen while common decency wilts under crony networks and obsessions with a grand witness?
How these flaws work to install abusers into power and enable abuse
Unless a church starts up with zero congregants and a completely well-meaning good-faith pastor, there’s no way to ensure there aren’t already predators lurking within its cliques. Assume there are at least a few. They might not be looking to sexually abuse children, but they will be bad news for anyone who gets on their bad side. They will have made themselves useful enough to the church’s leaders that it’s social suicide to criticize them too loudly.
When the church needs a new pastor, they usually create a hiring committee. This committee is made up of church elders and its other current leaders. They don’t know how to evaluate candidates except on the basis of their shallow, superficial, transactional cultural markers. They’re very easily impressed by connections and family ties.
As a result, it is laughably easy for even the most predatory candidate to trick them. The more over-the-top pious the candidate seems, the more impressed these committees are. Regardless, once they hire a new pastor, the cliques within the church will immediately begin jockeying to draw him to their side.
And on the very off chance that nobody will hire the candidate, he’ll just start up a new church!
Once the committee hires someone, it’s over. Their new pastor sets about finding allies, forming a court of favor, elevating favorites, and freezing out any possible critics. Once he has that network set up, he can begin abusing people. His lieutenants keep his secrets and hide his hopefully-metaphorical bodies. The system won’t ever require real accountability from him, so even if he’s caught, he can just go ask Rick Joyner to do some pastoral restoration on him!
The only people who lose in this system are abuse victims, but they lack power. Thus, no minister ever has to care what they think. And Jesus won’t ever say a word to anyone about any of it, nor lift a finger to protect his followers. If that’s what a loving god looks like, we are all well rid of him.
NEXT UP: Heath Lambert is back, and he’s being an authoritarian putz again. See you soon! <3
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