Jesus & Abusive Leaders
I had trouble sleeping last night -- maybe it was something I ate. (More likely it had something to do with the long nap I took after we got home from church.) It's a rare thing that I'm in a good mood or headspace when awake for a lot of the night, and last night was no exception -- my mind and heart were both whirling around the topic of abusive church leaders, and the devastation and shame that they bring. (Photo by Dave Herring on Unsplash ) There's no shortage of examples in the news, although Ravi Zacharias is probably the most recent big one. Hitting closer to home is the ongoing conflict in the church that I was in before I moved to China. Although I've caught only the edges of it, it's been sickening and heartbreaking and infuriating. So this morning, the reading for Pray As You Go was from Luke 4 -- the passage where Jesus stands up in the synagogue in His hometown, reads the passage from Isaiah, and proclaims that its fulfillment has come. And