3 P’s for Pinpointing Petty Protestant Popery
There are quite a few old jokes about Christians having issues with their church. They range from the man on a deserted island building two churches so he has a current church and “that one over THERE being the he had to leave” to the “if you find the perfect church, don’t join it as your imperfection will mess it up”. The persistence and popularity of these jokes speaks to the truth people find in them. It is not easy to be part of a church and sometimes it hurts. Since Christians are flawed and broken people and church is, by definition, a gathering of Christians, getting these wounded and fallible people to work together under one roof is most often not simple. It requires lots of love covering the multitudes of sins. Since your pastor and elders are just frail humans like you, they also regularly need forgiveness and grace and every Christian should be generous in their love and mercy for those who take on the role of pastor, elder, or leader. Despite love being the oil that keeps things moving as it should at church, this does not mean that you should not closely examine the teaching and actions of your pastor, however. God not only sets out specific qualifications for leaders, but also repeatedly identifies and warns you about the dangers of false teachers in your midst. He tells you to guard against these dangers and reject the teaching and spirits that are not of the Lord. You are never called to support any leader unconditionally.
This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; … Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. 1 Timothy 3
I identified one general category of this type of inappropriate church leader, The Perils of Petty Protestant Popery. These are leaders who overstep the authority of their position to try to take over your life and supplant Jesus. They come in a variety of packages and styles that can be very challenging to pinpoint. For this reason, this post seeks to help you do so by laying out the 3 P’s to Pinpoint Petty Protestant Popish leaders.
Signs of Petty Protestant Popery
Persistently Prescriptive Preaching
Prescriptive: saying exactly what must happen, especially by making a rule.
A Persistently Prescriptive pastor is the ultimate rule maker. He confidently tells you exactly how to live in every part of your life as a Christian, regardless of whether the Bible speaks on the issues involved. Conveniently, his proclamations often have you living in a way that benefits that leader. The Prescriptive Pastor’s entire brand is built on him making black and white pronouncements on the only “right way” to do the many things you are called to as a Christian. He and his organization dictate how you dress, eat, worship, be a husband or wife, give, or serve. He also judges the level of your commitment to God by how well you follow his many rules. The Prescriptive Pastor often claims to be calling you to a “higher” level of righteousness and to give all for a noble cause he identifies. Yet, he reveals the fact that his appeals are really all about him by their focus and their enforcement mechanisms. This sort of leader burdens you with requirements in the name of Jesus, despite Jesus never creating them, that are directed at building up that pastor or that church or ministry, in reality. The Persistently Prescriptive Pastor is also identifiable by his use of directed guilt, shame, praise, and position to make you follow his laws. He manipulates your emotions in the name of Jesus to carve his pronouncements into you from the pulpit. He takes the position of a modern day Moses gifting you the tablets of a law of his own creation. The truth is not only is he not Moses, but his rule building goes directly against the work of Jesus. The Cross freed you from the Law, why would you ever try to rebuild it.
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Perhaps the most wicked aspect of the work of the Persistently Prescriptive Pastor is the affect of these new commandments on your relationship with Jesus. Since the rules and regulations involved rely almost entirely on the law giver, the pastor or particular church culture, though they are offered in the name of the Lord, they actually take you away from Him. They make you beholden to the leader for direction and approval and rest you identity in him, rather than Jesus. You cannot serve Jesus when you are serving any man.
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What does a Persistently Prescriptive Pastor look Like? Greg Locke and the Angry Internet Pastors
Greg Locke soared to internet fame with his rants about churches, culture, vaccines, politics, and similar topics during the Pandemic. He also was the source of such internet broadcast stunts as burning books and accusing people of witchcraft in his congregation. He is well know for 100% certainty as he authoritatively and harshly condemns sinners of all types, which includes not only actual sinners, but anyone who disagrees with him. Locke claims great power and blessing from the Lord, claiming direct revelation from the Lord, but also curiously remains in the pulpit despite divorcing his wife of 21 years and marrying his administrative assistant. Locke is notable for offering the one and only God given answer to every situation offered, particularly in realms like politics, with an intensity that is comforting to those who agree with him. He offers the solution to everything that makes you sad, you just have to listen to how he has everything figured out and follow everything he says…and give him money too.
The problems with this angry man are many. His ministry is defined by his venting his spleen on all sorts of issues upon which the Bible does not agree and about which Jesus’ ministry took not notice. He speaks and rules where God did not, applies rules that he either makes up or don’t apply to Christians, and makes value judgments based not on Jesus but on his own opinions. He does so in a way that is comforting, in a seeking King Saul to fight your battles way, but is also directly against the commands of Jesus. His personal brand has nothing to do with love, but is marked by confidence and condemnation. It sounds good to have simple solutions to incredibly hard worldly problems and feels good to have someone else angry about a problem like you are, but it does nothing to build Jesus’ Kingdom or actually fix the problem. Anger, rule following, and self righteous condemnation make you feel like you are fighting for holiness, but are actually just dragging you away from the ways of the Kingdom of God. This type of leader adopts the tactics of modern shady politicians and ranting news show commentators and try to pass them off as Jesus speaking. Have nothing to do with them.
10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. Galatians 1:10
Petulant Preaching Pastor
Petulant: easily angered or annoyed, esp. in a rude way
The Petulant Preaching Pastor will go to great lengths to depict himself as a tough and brave warrior for Christ. Though they may not always portray themselves in a martial light, their brand is built around painting themselves as the powerful head of a disruptive movement fighting against an identified big bad wolf. They often focus their claims around being the “only one”, that is, the claim to be the only one willing to speak up, the only one really preaching the Bible, the only church where you can get such faithful teaching, and the only one risking it all to speak truth to power. Yet, the truth with these sort of pastors is the core of their appeal is an elaborate and carefully constructed logical fallacy – a sort of Strawman fallacy – which they preach mainly to people who support them. They may talk about real challenges in the world, but they first distort them in the set up of their argument before using these painful subjects as a prop to puff themselves up. They are like the small dog intensely barking at passers by from the safety of a front window to show its owners how tough it is. In doings so, they are not truly battling anyone, certainly not in the way Jesus calls you to do so, and like the dog, they run away when faced with real challenges.
Jesus goes to His enemies face to face and appeals to them with truth, love, gentleness, and humility. His role is built on unselfish love towards His enemies and that shows in the kindness with which He treats them and his patience. The Petulant Preaching Pastor goes to his church or to that segment of social media who agree with him. He preaches to his choir. You can tell that his goal is really not to reach the lost or those who disagree by the way he speaks and acts towards his enemies. He is coldly dismissive, demeaning, and self righteous. He warps their position to suit his own argument and poisons the hearts of the audience of his supporters against non-believers and lesser Christians with condemning insults. He is just as certain as the Prescriptive Pastor as he declares God’s anger and condemnation toward anyone who does not agree with every single thing he says and the share end goal of forcing everyone to follow him. It is a very human desire, but it is nothing like the Bible’s directions for a Christian warrior:
Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. John 13
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What does a Petulant Preaching Pastor look like? Mark Driscoll
Mark Driscoll was the popular pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle in the early 2000’s. His black and white, “tell it like it is” preaching style took advantage of the uncertainty of that time and the early days of the internet to rocket him to stardom. He wrote numerous books, traveled the world speaking at conferences, and claimed to be leading a movement that would reclaim Christianity and manhood. He was abrasive and unfiltered in his preaching and generous in his insults toward everyone. His praise was always directed toward himself and his church, though, in the name of Jesus of course. People loved the fact that he would not hold back, bluntly and often crassly telling men, women, children, theologians, and others churches why they had everything wrong and why he was the only one who knew how to fix it. Driscoll was an expert in using the Strawman fallacy to market himself, his brand, and his church. He was the only one smart, brave, holy, humble, strong enough to protect you and the church from the danger. Much like the Prescriptive Pastor, his intensity, anger, and harshness, while looking nothing like Jesus, appealed to his audience with a false sense of certainty and righteousness. It tricked them into thinking what he was saying was true and he really was fighting for God. Yet, the eternal truth set out in the Bible shows you that you cannot build Jesus Kingdom or battle for Him using the Satan’s methods. Spewing insults and condemnation from a stage works great for stirring up controversy and attracts viewers to talk shows, but it does nothing for Jesus’ cause. It sure was effective in carrying out the Driscoll’s goal and getting him attention, though. For this reason, stay far away from these combative personalities.
3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: 2 Peter 2Y
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Pompous Personality Preaching
Pompous: acting as if you are more important than other people, arrogant
The ground is level at the foot of the Cross according to another old saying. This means no Christian stands above you in the church in value or standing with the Lord. There is not special class of Christian who receives super holiness or an anointing that makes them better than others. No matter their lineage, talent, position, or resume, every Christian is only a servant of Christ, totally dependent on Him. While there are different callings within the church, some of which involving teaching and authority, all praise and glory should go to God for every accomplishment. It is not based on any one person being “special” and this truth is spelled out by Paul in 1 Corinthians:
For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal?
5Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
Two of the greatest preachers of the early church and Paul writes they are simple servants, with nothing special about them by themselves. Billy Graham’s last testament here on earth certainly agrees. After preaching to millions of people over his lifetime, he asked that his tombstone simply read, Billy Graham, Preacher of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was just a servant too.
The Pompous Preaching Pastor may not say so directly, but his ministry is notable for its strong disagreement with this idea. He is not just a servant, he is God’s special person. You want to be “of him” and it is only those who are super Christians who are so blessed. His message, system, actions, and appeal are all designed to place him above all other leaders and certainly above the little people – non-pastors. He is one of God’s anointed and, if truth be told, the best of them, according to him. This might seem to be overboard, but leaders of this type send this message in many different ways. He may use the appeal of a sort of Gnostic secret knowledge to do so – only he knows the secret to solve this crisis. He may claim to be the best Bible teacher, the only one to whom God speaks, the only one to experience spiritual gifts, or to be the one who is so holy that it is him that you have to judge your life against. The point is, he claims to be above you and that you need to go through him and his ministry to get to God. The whole list of prosperity leaders who gather attention by promising blessing that they proclaim by giving to THEIR ministry are claiming a special type of authority lies with them. The leaders who often combatively declared the exact steps every church must take during the Covid 19 Pandemic based on their Bible study and their relationship with the Lord subtly fall here too. The Bible may not speak on an issue or may, in fact disagree, but their opinion is so important that it necessarily controls your life.
What does Pompous Preaching Pastor look like? Steven Anderson
Steven Anderson is also well known for his anger towards those who disagrees with him. Anderson takes it to another level, though, with his preaching consisting of declaring that God hates all sorts of people, using slurs against various people, and pronouncing various types of Christians and non-Christians damned to hell. His rules for life are stricter than Locke’s or Driscoll’s in many ways. What most defines him as a Pompous Preaching Pastor is his appointment of himself as the sole mediator of the re-application of the Mosaic Law. This may seem like a big concept, but what Anderson does is simple. He takes the Mosaic Law that was fulfilled in Jesus, revives it, and then applies sections of it wherever he pleases. He declares with fiery certainty and through bile filled outbursts that certain styles of dress make you a bad person in God’s eyes based on poorly applied Old Testament verses, for example. He places himself in the position of Old Testament Prophet and Judge, but makes up reasons why certain people he does not like should be stoned. These types of fire and brimstones pronouncements are incredibly presumptuous. Preachers like Anderson may feel justified in their fury, but in venting it, they not only put themselves in the place of God, but also set themselves up as opponents of the Gospel of Jesus. No amount of shouting and pulpit pounding could ever justify such insanity on the part of any man. Pompous Pastors go to great lengths to show their super privileged relationship to God, but like with Steven Anderson, only show that they don’t know Jesus.
You call Me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord’; and you are correct, for so I am. So if I, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example, so that you also would do just as I did for you. John 13:13-15
This list is obviously not exhaustive and is meant only as a starting point for you. The calling of a pastor is a tough one and I once again encourage to you use love and grace when evaluating other Christians. The issues involved are immensely important, though, for you individually and the church at large. Demanding leaders who shepherd their flocks as directed by Jesus and modeled by Him is one sure way you can contribute to actually fixing all those big problems the deceptive pastors use to hook you. It is also our responsibility from the Lord.
