Former member sues John MacArthur’s megachurch for public shaming

As an elder, I need to know when aspects of life problems fall outside my competence and the church's competence and need to be referred to civil authorities. Accusations of physical abuse are one of them.

Years ago we had a man, a member, married to a non-member in not-gospel-teaching church. They had a son together. As I recall, he already had a protection-from-abuse filed against his wife. Accusations included that she had threatened to pour gasoline on him and set him on fire (while he slept, I think). It is beyond my competence to say whether these were overblown words from an immature woman or credible threats, and there is no way I could counsel him not to take the threats seriously and act accordingly.

That said, this man was eventually disciplined from the church, because as the counseling sessions went on and we tried to help him navigate the situation, we learned (1) that his language to her was atrocious at times (based on SMS conversations he showed us, we realized just how bad he was at understanding his own behavior); (2) he committed adultery with an old friend; (3) he increasingly bucked counsel and eventually walked away from the church to avoid accountability.

I shouldn't be surprised at how many wild things come out about people's relationships if you stick with it long enough...but I'm still flummoxed sometimes. I don't recall that I personally had the chance to sit with both the husband and the wife in the same room, so sorting wild truths from wild lies was virtually impossible.

If things had progressed differently, we may eventually have approved a divorce. This was not to demand perfectly Spirit-filled behavior to a weak believer in difficult circumstances. But his own behavior, over time, revealed some significant spiritual problems that he was unwilling to address.

But in all this we provisionally accepted his reports about his wife, and his legal situation with the protection-from-abuse, as true, and encouraged him to engage legally in whatever way necessary for himself and his son.

Michael, well said. It can be dangerous to take every allegation at face value in this case, but if indeed Grace's counselors were telling a woman to just let her husband's physical abuse slide, someone needs to counsel them on the clear implications of Ephesians 5, Colossians 3:19, and 1 Peter 3:7. This is especially the case when we consider that those who are physically abused often "test" the person they're opening up to to see if it's safe. I'm actually pretty sure that I failed that test one time when a friend's marriage was blowing up by not cluing in quickly enough to what she'd just said to me. Hopefully someone else gave her good counsel.

(the "test" I'm speaking of will be a partial revealing of what's going on in the hope that the other person realizes that something is very wrong and acknowledges that)

Practicing church discipline is usually messy, especially when it is applied to relational conflict. God calls his church to engage in these hard and messy situations, not just put up our hands and give up. This includes when allegations of abuse are made, whether sexual, physical, spiritual, or emotional abuse.

Church discipline in these cases should be slow and deliberate. When someone seeks to short-cut the process by either legal threats and/or resignation, the elders must continue to pursue the biblical process.

GCC has been through this before. Anyone can sue a church claiming a violation of privacy and the inflicting of emotional harm. However, if the church's membership and discipline policies are clearly articulated and followed, and the member has given implied consent through signing a membership covenant, the church has a pretty strong defense against these kinds of lawsuits.

However, if the church's membership and discipline policies are clearly articulated and followed, and the member has given implied consent through signing a membership covenant, the church has a pretty strong defense against these kinds of lawsuits.

FWIW, I did not intend my post to imply any judgment on GCC's situation. I'm too distant from it and do not have enough facts, nor do I take the plaintiff's allegations at face value. We have members who attempt to resign their membership to avoid discipline, and we have to advise them of something should already have known: you can't resign your membership unilaterally. Even if you move away and join a gospel-teaching church, the congregation still votes to dismiss you.

One of the most challenging areas in church discipline is abuse in the home (both emotional and physical). Emotional is the hardest. One of the reasons is, that emotional is a lot of "he said, she said". Add on top the fact that the abuser wants perceived reconciliation in order to feed their abusive practices, while the abused wants separation for protection. Most churches focus on reconciliation, as the key goal, which ultimately feeds into the abusers cycle. Abusers are adept at moving through this, while abused are seriously suffering. In my years of experience, churches struggle at best to handle this and more times than not, create a big disaster which ultimately requires the abused to leave and be ostracized, while the abuser stays in good standing at the church.

Statistically speaking the ability for abusers to change is very low. There are significant challenges that churches face in trying to get abusers to change, including systemic brain issues. Churches seek the idea, the "God can heal all", and if we just get our thought process biblically aligned, we will resolve the condition. Not that simple in regards to an abusive situation. I have found most church councilling to be very poor in relation to this space. An abuser is very adept and skilled at identifying victims and at navigating through social pressure. Not to say that some don't correct their issue, but statistics paint a very dim picture.