What Are You Going To Do About Bob?

A few days ago, a community of people was shocked and left uncertain about their leader’s fate.  It was a difficult Sunday and it will take months for thousands of people to understand the full ramifications.

That’s right.  For a brief moment, the watching world paused their Netflix, turned off their Xboxes and silenced their smart phones to watch the public shame of a man whose transgressions had come to light.  Christians cried.  Bloggers blogged.  Heathens… well, they kept doing what heathens do.  Keep in mind, the revelation of this scandal was happening mere hours before the season premiere of Game of Thrones so scandal mongers had very little time to brush up on their biblical understanding of church discipline.  But, nonetheless, many were able to properly decipher Paul’s 2,000 year-old letters to Timothy and Titus in the most accurate way that applies to the megachurch culture of the 21^st century before weighing in.  The world has debated for decades over whether Batman can beat Superman (Answer: No!) or which Enterprise Captain was best (Answer: Picard!).  But understanding God’s perfect view on the sins of man?  Piece of cake.   Welcome to America, 2014!

America loves scandal.  We love to watch with fistfuls of popcorn the implosion of notable personalities.  We love to see paparazzi photos and mug shots depicting those who have graced the limelight in their true nature.  We did it with Tiger.  We did it with Mel.  And now we get to do it with Bob.  A man who spent 30 years putting his life on display, declaring true & false and black & white, now is shown to have lived in the grey.  While the hi-def spiritual train wreck goes on in front of us, we all just sit there and observe.  Some shake their heads in disgust, some point their fingers in disdain, some open their arms in love, and others just clinch their hands and pray.  But EVERYONE has an opinion.  You can count on it.  And the reason that we have opinions is because Pastor Bob had opinions – very strong opinions.  Pastor Bob (I’ll still call him Pastor Bob – deal with it!) has spent the majority of his adult life standing before the crowds and making declarations.  They were unwavering, they were bold and they were inspired.  He spoke an unchanging message to a changing world and never blinked.  He never moved with the tide.  He never budged.  The reason that many people now have a problem with Bob Coy’s standards is not because he defied them, but because he dared to have them in the first place.

Ultimately, that’s the problem – standards.  Standards get us in trouble because when we declare them, we’re accountable to them.  Bob’s “moral failing” is only a “moral failing” because he pastored a church that taught what a “moral failing” was.  Had he simply been a nobody without a pulpit, we’d never care.  In fact, we wouldn’t bat an eye.  He’d just be one more guy who’s cheated on his wife.  The more salacious, the more likely he’d have a reality TV show on MTV (Oh wait, wrong demographic) TLC.  As long as he never said it was wrong, the world wouldn’t be calling him wrong.  But since he did, 30 years of impeccable service gets wrapped up into one word: Hypocrite.

There you have it.  That one word is the issue for so many.  Pastor Bob did what he said was wrong to do.  Thus, by doing it, he must have been lying about it being wrong.  So he should have never said it was wrong to do because his actions would soon speak louder than his words?  That’s the issue with being a Christian.  We proclaim the ways of Jesus, which happen to be righteous and godly and holy.  We point to a better way.  But we are all flawed humans who regularly screw up and often fail to live the better way we proclaim.  Thus the world labels us hypocrites.  So many of us conclude that we should just stop declaring right and wrong in order to avoid being thrown into the den of hypocrites.  Isn’t that just what Satan wants us to do?  Just shut up.  Stop talking about sin because we can’t measure up to our own standards.

And when something like this happens, we all take our own doctrinal backgrounds, traditions, and opinions and make conclusive statements about everything from false sheep to restoration to proper biblical punishment – all from the comfort of our living room (or parent’s basement as the case may be).  We question his salvation, his repentance, and the authenticity of everything he ever said.  You know who else is likely questioning his salvation, his repentance, and his authenticity?  Pastor Bob!  What? You thought he was merely mad that he got caught?  You think he’s drinking espresso and getting a tan in Southern California while the rubble of his sin is sifted through in South Florida?  You need to have your head examined.  If he belongs to Christ and has the Holy Spirit dwelling in him, right now, his spirit is wrestling with everything from his children’s opinion of him, the sincerity of his faith, his relationship with God, to even if he is really saved (Answer: He is – deal with it!).  I’m not even going to mention how he feels about what he did to his wife – that’s a whole other issue.  And you know how I know that?  Because so did I.  I’ve fallen, been disgraced, and shamed my family.  I’ve pressed the red button on my life and let the bomb go off. It sucks.  It’s agonizing.  I don’t wish it on anyone, and I certainly don’t wish it on him.  So while the rest of you continue to contemplate, ridicule, chastise, or even celebrate, I will leave you with some parting thoughts, categorized for your convenience:

To the Heathen:

Congratulations! Another notch in your belt.  One more prominent man of faith undone by his own actions.  It wasn’t a set up, he wasn’t framed and there’s no smoking gun.  And you know what that wins you? Absolutely nothing! His undoing doesn’t make you one inch closer to God.  Ironically, Pastor Bob’s sin doesn’t move him one inch further away from God (deal with it!).  You may not think it’s fair, and you’re right.  For all of us, fair is hell.  Literally.  We’re all sinners.  We’re all unworthy.  We’re all damned.  Except that One Guy.  You see, you know what the beauty is in Pastor Bob’s undoing?  Not only does it declare how imperfect every man is, but it all the more declares how perfect Jesus is.  You want to keep bringing the spiritual elite down to your level?  Go ahead.  But the more you drive a wedge between man and Jesus, the more you establish His perfection and our need for a Savior.  The more you make equal the playing field of man, the more you see Jesus in a whole different league.  The more you display man’s unholiness, the more Jesus reveals His perfection.  So keep at it.  You’re only hurting yourself.

Ultimately, you simply show your true nature as being your own god – and man does he have lax standards!  That’s okay.  A god without many standards doesn’t have much to offer.

To the Blogger:

Oh the blogger!  How I long to be one of you.  How I’d love to have nothing but time to sit down and spew random thoughts out in 1’s and 0’s.  But alas, I have a life.  And a wife and 3 kids.  And they don’t eat on retweets and Facebook shares.  Nope, we actually have to go out in this world and do something and make a difference.  What’s that you type?  You ARE making a difference?  Well I stand corrected then.  I didn’t know an online Dungeons & Dragons strategy guide could ease the pain of third-world starvation.

Of course, who I am actually speaking to is the religious blogger.  We in the church culture know them well.  A lot of opinions but not a lot of disciples.  A lot of ways to make the church better but not any churches.  A lot of commentary on the Bible but a lack of any spiritual authority.  Yes, that blogger.  That blogger has figured out everything that is wrong with 21^st century Christianity and knows how to fix it.  They live in a revisionist history mindset and they always know better.  Much like the way any couch potato says 10 years later that they knew Ryan Leaf would be an NFL draft bust, they get to write things after the fact and simply say “I told you so.”  But just like the way no NFL team is calling to ask you to be their GM, no Christians are calling you to ask for counsel.  And much like how they always know better ways to be the hands and feet of Jesus (those hands do a lot of typing), they knew exactly what was wrong with Pastor Bob and what led to his downfall.  The most prominent answer I’ve heard in the blogosphere? Celebrity.

Yes, Pastor Bob’s sin really stems from an ego fueled by his need for mega-stardom.  The modern-day celebrity pastor.  You know who else craves celebrity? BLOGGERS!  What, you think I was fooled into thinking you write your stuff for you?  It’s ironic how we can live in a world where we are judged based on our Twitter followers or Facebook likes and then call a man who began his church during the Reagan administration a celebrity junkie.  We can create viral memes in less time than it took Pastor Bob to decide where he’d have his first church service in Fort Lauderdale.  Blog posts go global in minutes with hashtags.  Pastor Bob had to go door-to-door and invite strangers to church – in a funeral home! Bloggers achieve notoriety with Google Analytics.  Pastor Bob did it with a mullet.  The only reason that Bob Coy is famous is because he was content never to be.  Having celebrity doesn’t mean you crave celebrity.  You know why you’re always quoting old-school Christians like C.S. Lewis, Oswald Chambers and Matthew Henry?  Because they are famous.  Billy Graham? Famous.  If any of you met him you’d take a selfie with him and share it on Twitter #IMetBillyGraham.  These Christians are famous.  But I don’t know that any of them surrendered their lives to serving Christ for the sake of fame.

Just because you live in a church culture that Pastor Bob was a part of building doesn’t mean he’s responsible for everything right or wrong with it.  Much in the same way that Steve Jobs developed one of the most revolutionary products ever, and you use it to download music and play Candy Crush.  You don’t get the right to retroactively label a man simply because he is more known than someone else.  He had the same call as every other pastor who went into ministry.  And he excelled at it.  His mantra was “Until The Whole World Hears” and he’s done everything he can to fulfill that mission.  Your mantra is what exactly?  At the end of the day, I will align myself with his 30-year ministry history long before I align myself with you and one week of your internet history.

To the Church:

Where do I begin?  Over the past days, I have seen so much of what is right and beautiful and also what is so wrong and disheartening.  But the fact of the matter is that everything wrapped up in Bob’s sin should lead you to ask yourself one question: ‘What am I going to do about it?’

You see, in case you forgot, that instruction book you carry with you on Sundays is meant to accomplish something within you.  And yet, for a book whose central character is a holy God who wrapped himself in flesh and came to us to die for our sins, it sure does have a supporting cast of very screwed up characters.  And that’s the point.  The people who God used to challenge and shape us are both wise and weird, holy and heathens, barbaric and believers, courageous and cowardly (anyone notice my Pastor Bob alliteration?).  God wasn’t just interested in telling us what to do, He was also interested in showing us what NOT to do.  We read it all the time and yet I’m convinced it hasn’t sunken in.  Follow David in his courage against Goliath, but don’t follow him when he does the whole Bathsheba thing.  Take a vow of purity like Samson, but don’t wake up with your hair in a loom.  Make a bold declaration that Jesus is Lord like Peter, but don’t make a cowardly denial of Him later on.  Do's and don’ts.  So I ask you again, what are you going to do about it?

Probably the biblical poster child for disobedience has to be Jonah.  God gives him explicit instructions of what to do and then he goes and does the opposite.  Pretty straightforward, right?  And yet, throughout all of Jonah’s disobedience, God’s will is still accomplished.  Fishermen get saved.  Nineveh gets saved.  Heck, even the cattle get saved!  There’s so much awesomeness accomplished out of Jonah’s disobedience you might begin to think that God knew that all along.  So what’s the moral to Jonah’s story?  Simple.  Obey.  Obey when God tells you to do something.  If you disobey, it doesn’t mean the instructions change.  Repent and obey.  God’s heart for us is to obey Him and only Him.  Ultimately, the line between disobedience and obedience is usually about punishment and consequences – two words we the Church often get mixed up.  So I want to take a moment to examine the difference between punishment and consequence.

Let me ask you, when Jesus said that if your right hand causes you to sin to cut it off, did He mean it?  Seriously, was it some sort of spiritual hyperbole or was he serious as a heart attack?  Of course he was serious.  But he was also serious about His love for us.  Serious enough to die for us.  And that love for us meant that we would avoid the punishment for our sin (meaning we get to go to heaven - with 2 hands intact).  But it was never meant to imply that we would avoid the consequences of our sin.  The Bible says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ, but it doesn’t say there is no consequence.  And if there is one thing Christians hate, it’s consequences.  Consequences mean that we have to endure some sort of negative response attached to the sins we’ve committed.  It could be a label (divorce’, ex-con, abuser, etc.) or it could be a blemish (physical scars, poverty, disease, etc.).  When David tried to have Uriah sleep with Bathsheba and ultimately had him killed, you think he was avoiding punishment?  Who is going to punish the king? You? Me?  No, David didn’t want to have to deal with the consequences of his behavior.  And yet, we all do it.  How many of us freely confess our indiscretions immediately upon doing them?  Exactly.  Because if we did that all the time we’d look like an idiot, pervert, or an idiot-pervert.  Instead we cast our sins upon Jesus and pray no one ever knows about our private potential for depravity.  Is this meant to excuse Pastor Bob for his action? Absolutely not.  The fact is that once he committed the first action that disqualified him from pastoral leadership he was stuck.  Unlike you and me, he can’t simply confess to Jesus and move forward.  Biblically, he will endure a consequence that Mr. John P. Churchgoer will not because of the position he holds.  If he doesn’t step down immediately, he’s destined to try to cover it up and move on.  This (and the covering up of all sin) wears away at a man.  It eats him alive.  Somehow he tries to find balance between the God that he loves and the lie that he lives.  It’s tortuous.  It’s impossible.  But enough about me.  Eventually, we end up right where we are now.  And yet this is not just Bob’s problem – it’s every Christian’s problem.  Because now, we are all presented with a choice.  We can choose to honestly look upon the consequences of our sin and use it as a lesson to steer clear of it, or we can continue in our foolishness and just deal with the consequence when it comes.  And believe me, it will come.  Is it possible that Pastor Bob’s current situation could actually teach you more than one of his sermons did?  Could it cause you to confess, come clean, and find freedom before you end up in the same predicament? I hope so.  Because I know first-hand the kind of freedom that comes from dealing with your bondage head-on.  And I also know that sometimes the consequences are the biggest blessings.

   

So I’ll ask again, what are you going to do about it?

Unfortunately, many ‘trendy’ Christians will simply use this experience as a means to belittle the corporate church.  So many of them are concerned about being relevant that they neglect to be reverent.  Being hip is more important than being holy.  “We gotta be cultural” – because that’s what Jesus would do.  And therein lies the problem.  We’ve programmed ourselves to constantly bring Jesus down to our level.  In an effort to extend love to the world, the world gets what they want.  Rarely do I hear people consider what they should do and say, “Let’s see what God’s Word says about it.”  We bring emotion into times that require strength and steadiness.  I’ve heard a lot of Christians tell CCFL to bring back Bob.  After all, he’s confessed.  He’s repentant.  You know what CCFL should do?  Exactly what they did.  Not because it was easy, but because it was right.  Not because man cried out for it, but because God calls for it.  That’s the beauty of biblical leadership – you can always justify your actions according to God’s word.  Of course I hear a lot of cultural Christians try to use the Bible to justify their entry into the local beer pong tournament, but I’ll leave them alone in their stupidity.

The fact is that the beauty of Christianity is also its curse – Jesus takes everybody! Rich or poor, man or woman, spotless or blemished – everyone is open to accept Christ.  Jesus’ initial invitation to the disciples to follow him was not exclusionary, yet only a handful accepted the opportunity to be exclusive.  But the call to follow was also a call to arms.  In order to truly follow Jesus one would have to deny himself, battle his flesh and choose the riches of eternity over the riches of the present.  No small task, and Jesus was well aware of it.  And still, for every dropout and doubter who came along his path, the message of Jesus stayed the same – ‘Follow Me.’  So even though every disciple faltered along their 3-year endeavor, Jesus stayed close to them and spurred them on towards greatness.  The more the followers of Jesus failed, the more the public was reminded who was the One to be followed.  The more promises that the disciples couldn’t keep, the more Jesus showed that He wouldn’t break His promises to us.

Our failures don’t define us.  They refine us.  They should push us to fight harder, pray more fervently, hate sin deeper and love Jesus greater.  But only if we choose to learn from them.  Will you look like a hypocrite when you declare something is sin, even when you’ve committed it?  Absolutely.  Does that mean you shouldn’t declare it?  Absolutely not.  Remember Peter, the guy who walked on water?  He’s also the guy who defied the governing authority when he cut off that dude’s ear who was arresting Jesus.  Not his finest moment.  And yet, he’s also the guy who later tells us to obey the government.  Yep, another godly hypocrite.  Somehow I don’t think Peter gives a rip.  You know why?  Because when he blew it he went back into the fishing business.  No more ministry for him.  One and done.  Jesus would be an idiot to ask the guy who denied him hours before his death to go back into ministry.  And yet, that’s exactly what he did.  You think Peter ever wants to feel that way again?  Neither do I.  All he cares about is following his Lord – all the way to an upside-down cross.

So, what are you going to do about Bob?  What are you, the reader, going to do about what Bob did?  Let me ask it another way.  What do you do about what David did?  What do you do about what Samson did?  What do you do about Paul, Adam, Moses, etc.?  Does reading about David’s sin with Bathsheba cause you to simply feel bad for him or does it cause you be faithful to your wife? Install an internet filter? Does reading about Samson’s compromise cause you worry about losing your hair, or does it cause you to keep a vow?  Do you want to enter the Promised Land, or will you strike the rock?  What do you want to do?  Because if you keep reading the Bible as if it’s only inspiration and not also words of caution, then we’re destined to repeat Bob’s fall.  But if we’re serious about our faith, we’ll stop just praying for Bob and get our own act together.  Because it’s possible that the greatest, most life-changing sermon Pastor Bob ever preaches contains no words, covers no scripture and isn’t followed by an altar call.

So, what are you going to do about Bob?