Will the church learn ANYTHING from Mike Pilavachi?
The church is in danger of learning all the wrong lessons
Two weeks ago, Matt and Beth Redman released a documentary called “Let There Be Light”. It’s all about what happened with Mike Pilavachi - how Mike was able to continue his pattern of coercive, manipulative and abusive behaviour towards young people over many years.
It’s worth watching because it helps to explain the way that abuse works in churches.
At the end of the video, they share some thoughts about what the church needs to do differently in order to help combat abuse. This essentially boils down to, “listen to people, even if they’re not important. Take allegations seriously, consider the possibility that they might be true.”
All of this is absolutely true, to the point of being ‘motherhood-and-apple-pie’. I suspect that no-one on the Soul Survivor team would have disagreed with it at the time allegations against Mike were first raised. No-one seems to question why we actually need to say these things in the first place - this is not rocket science (or whatever the theological equivalent is)!
And this is exactly the point that I am trying to make: there’s something wrong with the church. In order to fix it, we don’t need to make a bigger deal of safeguarding. We need to make a bigger deal of the gospel. I’ve already explained why I believe that more safeguarding isn’t going to help, and why the gospel itself is sufficient. What I’m going to do here is develop what I said then by focussing in on a couple of specific things that were mentioned in the Let There Be Light documentary.
“That’s just Mike”
One of the things that came across very strongly - and very movingly - in the documentary was loyalty to Mike. Matt Redman spoke about his experience of childhood sexual abuse, and how Mike had helped him to report it to the authorities and counsel him afterwards. Matt said that he had “undying loyalty” to Mike as a result of it.
Beth Redman said that they’d been to see a senior leader of a large church about Mike’s behaviour, and he’d brushed off their concerns and said “that’s just Mike”. The implication being, it’s just the way he is - you have to take the rough with the smooth. If you want all the good stuff that goes along with his ministry, then you have to accept the fact that he does all this bizarre stuff as well.
I think these two responses to Mike are two sides of the same coin - misplaced loyalty. In fact, I’d argue that we shouldn’t talk about “loyalty” as a virtue. Harry Blamires once wrote: “Loyalty is a sham virtue exploited to give a bogus moral flavour to amoral or immoral actions.” I think he had a point. Loyalty is not a Biblical virtue; love is the supreme Christian virtue.
If we love someone, then we should be prepared to point out (with gentleness and respect) where they are going wrong, and call them to repentance. Love does not overlook wrongdoing. This is what the apostle Paul says in his famous passage about love:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Let me draw attention to the second part of that beautiful description of love: it “does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth”. What that says to me is, love does not cover up wrongdoing but exposes it - with the goal of repentance and restoration. Love “always protects” the vulnerable and innocent from those who are abusive, and love does not allow itself to submit to abusive behaviour without a murmur.
I believe a big part of the problem here is that the church simply doesn’t know what love is. We talk a lot about love, but we don’t show it to each other in our interactions. If we truly knew what love was, we would realise how wicked abusive behaviour really is. Abuse is the opposite of the kind of behaviour we should expect from one another. In general, I think we set our expectations far too low in the church. If people knew the standards expected of Christians, especially Christian leaders, then leaders who fall short of that standard would stand out like a sore thumb. We would simply not tolerate bad behaviour.
Is that not exactly what Paul was driving at when he said things like:
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.
Ephesians 4:17
If the gospel makes no difference to our behaviour, then we might as well give up on it. If the church is even worse than the world - well, we have a serious problem. And a serious problem is exactly what we have. I’ve said before, and I will say it again, I have experienced more bullying and abusive behaviour in the church than I have in any secular workplace. The fact that this kind of behaviour is tolerated brings shame on the church, and unless this is dealt with then we’re going to continue to get Mike Pilavachis.
“You don’t want to destroy God’s work, do you?”
One of the things which really struck me was how God’s work was used as a kind of blackmail. ‘You don’t want to go round accusing Mike of things, because - look at all the wonderful things that God is doing! Look at all the young people coming to faith through Soul Survivor! You don’t want to destroy that, do you?…’
Once again, this is based on a misunderstanding of God’s work. God can - and does - work in all sorts of ways. He can even work through non-Christians or false teachers. However, we must say that exposing someone’s abusive behaviour is not going to destroy God’s work! I can’t comprehend a mindset which says that you can’t expose someone’s behaviour because the work happening is too valuable. Do you think God blesses evil? Do you think God cares about the ends rather than the means?
Going back to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we read:
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.
Ephesians 5:11
It doesn’t matter if young people are coming to Christ in great numbers through the work of someone like Mike. If there is abuse going on, it needs to be exposed. It’s going to come to light sooner or later, and it if is covered up the damage done will be so much greater.
God cares about sin and righteousness far more than we do. We all know that the right and godly thing to do is to expose it where we find it, as the verse from Ephesians demonstrates. All we can do is to do the right thing where we find it, and leave the rest to God.
Paul practised what he preached. He needed to confront Peter, to his face - publicly - when Peter was not acting in line with the truth of the gospel (see Galatians 2:11-14). He didn’t say “it might be a bad witness if I rebuke him publicly”, or “well, God is blessing Peter’s ministry so I won’t say anything”. He knew that, ultimately, not living in line with the truth of the gospel would damage the gospel. So, he spoke up and did what was right. We should follow his example.
Are we Biblical?
Right at the start of the video, Matt Redman made a throwaway comment which I thought was nonetheless revealing. He said “Soul Survivor was a youth movement. Worship music was very much at the heart of it…” He doesn’t say that the Bible was very much at the heart. He doesn’t say that discipleship was very much at the heart.
I went to the Soul Survivor summer events when I was a student - two years running. Mike Pilavachi was at both, as well as Matt Redman. The worship music was fantastic, and it was a great experience. But, as someone commented to me afterwards, “they didn’t make very much of the Bible.” Looking back, I think they were right: Soul Survivor was hot on worship, less so on Biblical study and discipleship. Worship is important, but it cannot replace what the Bible has to say to us.
Part of the problem is that I think a lot of churches have come to see the Bible as a source of helpful suggestions for our lives, rather than the Word of God which we must obey. The Bible is seen as a useful guidebook to be used when we feel we need it, rather than our rule in every area of life and doctrine. Slowly but surely the authority of the Scriptures has been eroded.
Is it any surprise that, according to one survey from 2019, most self-described Christians don’t read their Bibles every day? According to a 2014 survey of British people:
In R2005a, the most systematic investigation of churchgoers’ Bible reading to date, conducted as part of the last English Church Census, 27% of worshippers reported that they read the Bible personally at least once a week outside church services.
Depressingly, this tallies with my pastoral experience. I was constantly battling with people to encourage them to read the Bible. There were encouragements - new Christians who really grasped the importance of the Bible, and who really grew in maturity as Christians. But often this was not the case.
If we want to make any progress with safeguarding, we need to take the Bible seriously in the whole of the church’s life. And I don’t mean simply studying it intellectually - I mean, reading it and putting it into practice. To paraphrase the book of James, we need to be more than hearers of the word - we need to be doers of the word.
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
James 1:22
One of the key errors I think my own ‘tribe’ in the church make - conservative evangelicals - is that we tend to like the Bible as a system of doctrine, but not so much to obey it in everyday life. Preaching becomes more like a commentary on the text, or a Biblical theology, rather than “thus saith the Lord”. It is a serious error to think that the Bible is merely a subject to be understood rather than the Word of a living God to be obeyed and put into practice.
I’m going to hand over to J.C. Ryle for the final word, and I think his words here bear some serious reflection and soul-searching on the part of much of the church:
There never was a man or woman truly converted, from one end of the world to the other, who did not love the revealed will of God. Just as a child born into the world desires naturally the milk provided for its nourishment, so does a soul “born again” desire the sincere milk of the Word. This is a common mark of all the children of God—they “delight in the law of the Lord.” (Psalm. i. 2.) Show me a person who despises Bible reading, or thinks little of Bible preaching, and I hold it to be a certain fact that he is not yet “born again.” He may be zealous about forms and ceremonies. He may be diligent in attending sacraments and daily services. But if these things are more precious to him than the Bible, I cannot think he is a converted man. Tell me what the Bible is to a man, and I will generally tell you what he is. This is the pulse to try,-this is the barometer to look at,—if we would know the state of the heart. I have no notion of the Spirit dwelling in a man and not giving clear evidence of His presence. And I believe it to be a signal evidence of the Spirit’s presence when the Word is really precious to a man’s soul.
J.C. Ryle, God’s Book, the Bible
Do you love the Bible? I mean, not just like it for information, but love to listen to it, love to hear God’s voice, love to submit to it? Because, it seems to me, that is the way - the only way - out of this predicament. The Bible is the “sword of the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:17), and if we wish the Spirit to wield it we need to stop resisting him and allow the Word into our lives and our churches.