In which Piers is tempted to hate.

We left FBC in this town several months ago, determined that the pastor was the sort that could not be trusted to do the right thing, and concerned about their focus on a new $9M building project that was proposed and approved so quickly that there was never an opportunity for the church to really discuss what was going on.

The going phrase was, "it's not a money thing, it's a faith thing."  The financial secretary of the church said, "can we do this?  No.  Can God do it?  Yes."

Well, cut to this week when The Runner has a conversation with the daughter of FBC's music minister--he has been increasingly marginalized due to personnel and philosophical changes.  Apparently, this week, he was abruptly asked to resign because they had some information on some indiscretions on his part.  The next day, his computer was gone.  On Wednesday, the church held a business meeting in which his resignation was announced and in which his accuser stood up and told her story to the entire church.  Apparently, four years ago, he hugged her in a way that made her uncomfortable, and said a couple of things that made her uncomfortable, and in the intervening four years she continued to sing in the choir yet never found the "right time" to make the crucial allegation.  During this sham of a business meeting, they also had the gall to talk about how this was all an attack by Satan on a church that is clearly "moving in the direction God wants" or some other bullshit like that. 

He, of course, was not allowed to defend himself.

Here's my take, and the reason I used the word "hate" above:  since the new pastor arrived, he has struck me as an authoritarian type.  It quickly became clear that he was not interested in fitting into the church he found, but wanted to reshape the church in his own image.  The music minister did not fit into that plan.  Because of the music minister's relatively foolish actions (whatever their motivation, which none of us can know), he was left open to an attack orchestrated by those who wanted him gone.  And so, he's out--and his career and reputation is finished.  And as for this woman and her husband, who are congratulating themselves (literally, as happened in a conversation with The Runner) for being so brave in their public destruction of a man's reputation:  I hope they take great comfort that they won.

This is a textbook case of how an outside pastor comes into a church and basically becomes the sole decision maker, building his own little kingdom.  If the music minister's life needs to be ruined in this cause, so be it.  I hate him, and I despise all the so-called "leaders" at the church who have bowed and scraped and essentially allowed this clearly dishonest, power-hungry man to become a petty tyrant.

These lines from "Lycidas" seem appropriate:

Last came, and last did go,
The Pilot of the Galilean lake,
Two massy Keyes he bore of metals twain,
(The Golden opes, the Iron shuts amain)
He shook his Miter'd locks, and stern bespake,
How well could I have spar'd for thee young swain,
Anow of such as for their bellies sake,
Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold?
Of other care they little reck'ning make,
Then how to scramble at the shearers feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
Blind mouthes! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A Sheep-hook, or have learn'd ought els the least
That to the faithfull Herdmans art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel Pipes of wretched straw,
The hungry Sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim Woolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing sed,
But that two-handed engine at the door,
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.