Saints and Demons

People find reasons to like what they like and to hate what they hate—or, more frequently, who they like or hate. In the one case, flaws are easily forgotten and dismissed while virtues are magnified. In the other, the virtues are forgotten or dismissed while the flaws are magnified. In the one case, we canonize our heroes. In the other case, we demonize our enemies.

Human nature, however, is complex. We rarely do justice to people by canonizing or demonizing them. In fact, to do either is to dehumanize them and to blind ourselves to the real effects of both depravity and grace in their lives.

Scripture certainly depicts people in all their complexity. It shows us the flaws even of heroes like Abraham, David, and Peter. It also allows us to see grace at work in the life of a Manasseh or a Nebuchadnezzar. A Christian attitude toward people will surely adopt a similar perspective.

These observations have been occupying my thoughts lately. The process began with reflection upon one of my predecessors at Central Seminary, Richard V. Clearwaters. “Doc” (as he is still known here) is one of those figures who has been both canonized and demonized. He has been a hero to some and a villain to others.

My early acquaintance with Doc came mainly through historical study. The more interesting aspects of Doc’s life tend to be those in which people got hurt—and people who have been hurt often demonize whomever they think has hurt them. The historical record contains plenty of confirmation that Doc was a skillful ecclesiastical politician. He not only knew how to get things done, but also how to get people to do what he wanted them to do, whether they liked it or not.

Beyond the historical record, I had some opportunity to observe how Doc treated his opponents. Breaches with Doc featured plenty of pyrotechnics. This is not the place to rehearse those displays. It is sufficient to note that when Doc erred, it was not always on the side of the angels.

Nevertheless, during my thirteen years at Fourth Baptist Church and Central Seminary, I have become acquainted with another side of Richard V. Clearwaters. I have spent those years with people whose lives he touched and changed and helped. Many of them are people who had no claim upon him. If their testimony tells me anything, it tells me that Pastor Clearwaters could be gentle, loving, and forbearing. He could and did sacrifice for people who had no right to demand it of him. He could do these things expecting nothing in return.

The people who were hurt under Doc’s ministry sometimes demonize him. Those who experienced only the more redemptive side of his ministry sometimes canonize him. My guess is that neither does justice to the real, flesh-and-blood man.

I doubt that R. V. Clearwaters ever set out to do evil. Charity compels us to assume that he held the best of intentions. The problem is that good intentions do not by themselves deliver us from evil. As we attempt to implement our intentions, we find ourselves in complicated and confusing circumstances. We are sometimes threatened and even thwarted. As we react and respond to the circumstances, we not infrequently make the situation worse. This is a common circumstance, and it means that we are neither unfair nor uncharitable to Doc if we suggest that at times he responded wrongly.

Were those responses, however, the characteristic and unvarying pattern of his life? I cannot believe that they were. Too many people whom I respect have testified to a different pattern that characterized Doc’s ministry. I can only conclude that R. V. Clearwaters was a complex person who was capable of making sinful choices, but who experienced the sanctifying and transforming grace of God.

By understanding our own frailty, we also come to understand how our forebears and even our heroes could sometimes fail. We also discover how profoundly God’s grace must have been at work in their lives. We dare not canonize sinners, but we dare not demonize those in whom God’s grace is at work.

This is a perspective that applies to every Christian leader of every stripe. However greatly our leaders may be used of God, they are people subject to like passions as we are. However deeply they may fail (and their failure may even remove them from leadership), God is still working in them both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

Over the years, I have observed other fundamentalist leaders whom I did not wish to emulate. When they became involved in controversy, they could do brutal things. They could sometimes act like bullies and speak hateful things. In their public personas, they sometimes hurt fundamentalism. For these reasons, some have been inclined to demonize them.

In speaking to those who knew them best, however, I have learned that their ministries must have had another side. These same leaders were capable of compassion and self-sacrifice, not merely for their friends, but also for strangers. They displayed devotion to family, uncontrived delight in children, appreciation for good art and poetry, and devotion to the gospel. I am touched by the testimonies of those who came to Christ through their ministries. These leaders spent hours in prayer, knelt beside hospital beds, wept over souls, comforted the bereaved, gave to the poor, and exhausted themselves in the work of the Lord. For these reasons, some are inclined to canonize them.

I knew (briefly), studied (extensively), and admire (thoroughly) Robert T. Ketcham. Through most of his life, people called him “Fighting Bob.” His opponents saw him only as an ecclesiastical warrior, and they sometimes demonized him. But the tenderness and sacrifice of his life was exemplary. His capacity to absorb personal abuse without returning it in kind was enormous (see Portrait of Obedience by Murray Murdoch). Ketcham’s public persona—how people thought of him—did not always match his genuine ministry.

The same must be true of other leaders whose ministries were draped in controversy. People like John R. Rice, Lester Roloff, and Bob Jones Jr. had larger-than-life public personas. They faced daunting challenges and lived in perplexing times. It does them no disservice to recognize that they made mistakes and committed sins—which of us does not? We need not agree with their every decision, and we need not necessarily take them as models.

To demonize these leaders, however, would not be just. They were sinners saved by grace, and God’s grace was surely sustaining and transforming them throughout their lives. Although we are aware of their flawed humanity, we should also remind ourselves that they loved God, they loved the gospel, they loved souls, and they loved ministry. There is room to respect them even if we disagree with some of what they did. And if we are willing to criticize their flaws, then we should also remind ourselves of their virtues.

Somebody once said that a boy enters adolescence when he realizes that his father is just another guy, and he emerges into manhood when he realizes that he himself is just another guy. Perhaps some of this attitude should be extended toward the fundamentalist leaders of the last generation. Granted, they were just men. They displayed in their lives both the effects of depravity and the transforming power of God’s grace. That, however, is a perfect description for us, too.

The Blessed Birth
George Wither (1588-1667)

That so thy Blessed Birth, O Christ,
might through the world be spread about,
the star appeared in the East,
whereby the Gentiles found thee out;
and offered thee Myrrh, Incense, Gold,
thy three-fold office to unfold.

Tears that from true repentance drop,
instead of Myrrh present will we:
for Incense we will offer up
our prayers and praises unto thee;
and bring for Gold each pious deed,
which doth from saving faith proceed.

And as those wise men never went
to visit Herod any more,
so, finding thee, we will repent
our courses followed heretofore;
and that we homeward may retire
the way by thee we will enquire.