Bitter Fruit

Dysfunction and Abuse in the Local Church

Keith Gordon Ford

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781666703511
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Ministère chrétien

No church founder or planter likely intends to start a church with the stated goal of allowing abuse or abusing those within it. Yet sadly and too often, even in the best of churches abuse does occur. The bitter fruit of abuse does not appear from nowhere. Its origins, the soil in which it grows, and the structures that support it need be understood if we are to eradicate this fruit from within our churches and Christian organizations. Bitter Fruit: Dysfunction and Abuse in the Local Church describes those psychologies, social psychologies, and inadequate theologies that are frequently true in churches that enable abuse, regardless of the form the abuse may take. It is vital that you understand these things if you are a pastor, leader, or lay person seeking to maintain a healthy church environment.

1

The Fruit

(What Is It?)

1.1

Dysfunction

Dysfunction–noun

1. Abnormality or impairment in the operation of a specified bodily organ or system.

“Dysfunction” and “dysfunctional,” when applied to a church, are pretty powerful words. To call a church dysfunctional may give the impression that it is completely failing as a church, but this need not be the case at all. If your church is doing many great things for God you may conclude that it is not dysfunctional, and may actually be offended by someone describing it as such. And perhaps rightly so.

Edgar Schein11, in his classic text on organizational culture, describes an organization’s culture as consisting of three things:

1.Artifacts (things you can see, like clothing, behaviors, music etc.);

2.Beliefs and values (often printed and stated); and

3.Underlying basic assumptions (things that you can’t see, but which really drive the culture). In other words, underlying assumptions are the “way we do things around here.” These things aren’t really discussed or written down, they are just assumed to be true and those who remain in the organization for any length of time get enculturated into this way of doing and being.

Schein observes, however, that incongruity between stated beliefs and values and underlying assumptions is a source of chronic and subconscious anxiety.12 Highlighting the incongruity will elevate the anxiety in the system. Another researcher goes further and defines this incongruity as evidence of a dysfunctional system.13

What this means is that churches act in dysfunctional ways when they are in violation of their stated values and beliefs. For example, a church may declare it values women, but in practice they are marginalized to minor roles by an entrenched misogynistic and patriarchal culture. Should this be highlighted, the underlying anxiety that exists will be heightened, and in dysfunctional organizations the criticism will be minimized or outrightly dismissed, and the whistle-blower ostracized and scapegoated if they won’t remain silent. This is dysfunctional activity, even if good things are being done in that church.

This dysfunction need not necessarily prevent the church from being fruitful, but she will not be living up to her full potential. Should not the church seek to be as fruitful as possible for her Savior?

Dysfunction

Let me start by asking “What is church?” What metaphors does the Bible use to describe church?

These four are primarily used: body, marriage, family, and household. It could also be considered a flock, a vine, or an orchard, amongst other options.

Notice that nearly all the metaphors the Bible writers use refer to living things. The church is a living relational entity, and like all living entities requires certain functions to sustain life. Living organisms are capable of responding to stimuli, reproducing, growing, and developing. Failing to thrive in any one of these aspects is a dysfunction in the organism and can cause it to become diseased and eventually die. Failing in these aspects can cause the organism to become susceptible to parasites and predators.

Consider the metaphor of a grapevine, the church as a vine. It is one of the metaphors the biblical writers use (e.g., John 15). What is the purpose of a grapevine? Why plant it? What is its ultimate purpose?

The answer of course is to produce fruit that is suitable for wine or eating, or, as in some cultures, producing leaves which can be a good food source when they are young and tender. And what is the measure of the success of the vine? It produces good fruit year in and out, is resistant to disease, grows strong and consistently, and maintains the quality of the fruit through its long life. However, should you plant the vine and it produces sickly clusters, bitter fruit, inconsistent yields, and is forever struggling with disease, it would be fair to say this vine is not functioning as intended. That is, it is dysfunctional. This is the complaint God had with his nation Israel:

I planted you in the land like a special vine of the very best stock. Why in the world have you turned into something like a wild vine that produces rotten, foul-smelling grapes? (Jer 2:21 Net Bible)

The nation of Israel, which had been planted to produce good wine, ended up producing bitter fruit. This nation had become wholly dysfunctional.

This can happen to churches as well. They are planted and started with the greatest of intentions by people with a great vision and mission for God and what they will do, but sadly dysfunctions can enter. They stop living out their professed core values, and left undealt with, this can lead to abuse.

Imagine a church with a highly controlling, spiritually abusive, narcissistic pastor. (Yep, sadly they exist.) Yet the church still proclaims Christ as Lord; still declares salvation by grace alone, by faith alone; declares that God is love, and that love is one of their values. People come to faith and baptisms occur. As Paul says, whatever the motivations, as long as Christ is preached, that is good (Phil 1:15–18). But a controlling and abusive leader is the exact antithesis of love, the very value which is being espoused. The dysfunctional church is nevertheless still producing some fruit. It is the occasional fruit that is used by those kinds of leaders to keep doing what they are doing. If there were no successes, maybe things would change. But one grape every so often is all that is needed to encourage the dysfunction to continue for generations.

This is what I mean by dysfunctional. Perhaps the church is violating its values and the values of Christ, but the vine still is producing some fruit. It is not entirely dead, it is not entirely worthless, but it fails to live up to the promise of its potential, it fails to thrive. So it is with dysfunctional churches; they are not entirely dead (at least not initially). But abnormalities exist within the culture and organizational structure of the church, which result in a body that is not living up to its full potential, leaving it susceptible to attack.

Or imagine another church that has a cyclical process of crisis and recovery over and over for decades. In the good years it is very good, but then there are the bad years. I have a mandarin tree that produced good fruit for about seven years, then for about two years it produced nothing, then it was good for two more years, and now it has again produced nothing for two years. This is not a thriving tree, despite the good years of fruit. Something dysfunctional about that tree requires further investigation. It is meant to produce fruit every season, and abundantly, so when it produces nothing it is not living up to its potential. Some churches are like this. I would like to suggest that a church that lurches from crisis to crisis is not a healthy church. There is something dysfunctional about it that is worthy of serious investigation. A church that is splitting often or churning through pastors is a pointer to something dysfunctional.

The church is called to be far more glorious than she can often be. She is called ...