Even before Rigneys selection and the Naselli investigation at BCS, church leaders had begun to rethink what it means for the college and seminary to be a church-based school when the church now has three campuses instead of one. The trip cost is $500, $250 is due with initial registration. Piper cant step in, from what I understand. Even with the warning, there were moments where the tone and classroom demeanor intensified in contrast to others at BCS. Meyers exit last month followed two others at Bethlehems downtown campus. This fall, the school will inaugurate its second president, 10 years after its first graduating class. "With regret, a deep sense of loss, and praise to God for his mercy and grace even in trial, we announce the resignation of Pastor Jason Meyer from the position of Pastor for Preaching & Vision, Downtown Campus. Ming-Jinn Tong, pastor for neighborhood outreach, announced his resignation in May; and Bryan Pickering, pastor for care and counseling, in June. I have never been a member in a church which allows a member to put forward a motion to the entire congregation designed to rebuke an elder. laid out by The Gospel Coalitions Kevin DeYoung, With Gossip of the Gospel, the Church Grows in Nepal, Southern Baptist Convention Disfellowships Saddleback Church, I Was the Proverbial, Drug-Fueled Rock and Roller, Grace Community Church Rejected Elders Calls to Do Justice in Abuse Case, The Kings College Faces Threat of Closure, Complete access to articles on ChristianityToday.com, Over 120 years of magazine archives plus full access to all of CTs online archives. They felt pressure for not going along with the rest of the elder council, to the point where some elders said they considered it untenable for Tong and Pickering to stay given their disagreement. This moment is hard. 720 13th Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55415 Ive worked with victims for 26 years in the Christian Reformed Church. By After Christ Christian Center. Pastor Ralph Donohue. Elders and ministers at Bethlehem Baptist Church in ]. In a letter that Pickering presented to Naselli in February, and the churchs Elder Council in March, Pickering accused Naselli of displaying a pattern of controlling and egregious sin against God and people., I do not think you are presently qualified for the office of elder, Pickering wrote, and urged Naselli to resign to spare the church, and the elder council, grief upon grief.. On March 16, the elders dismissed the grievances against Naselli. In the following weeks, as the church attempted to make peace between them and Naselli, the couple felt maligned in the process, as the professor went on to characterize their motion as divisive and disrespectful. Brian Tabb, a BBC elder and dean at BCS, told Takata in an email that he could understand her concerns. Piper quite dysfunctionaly spoke in regard to Wilsons repentance over his hurtful and honestly unsupportable writing, I believe in regards to Southern Slavery As It Was. All three had conflicted at times with Bethlehems 40-plus-member elder council, and they eventually saw their own ministries and the focus of the church going in different directions. He also expressed misgivings around the treatment of women, which he claimed was the result of attitudes that went beyond complementarian convictions, as well as around Rigneys ties to Wilson. When Pastors leave a church due to a fear culture there is a massive problem with that church. Brilliant people dont do that because they dont need to. From our humble beginnings in 1975, Faith Assembly of God began as a church serving 95 people from a small steel building. Rev Ernie Dorrell. We also have troubles that have played out at Bethlehem over the past year. Frankly, its because I graduated from our undergrad program that I have concerns. Pastor Brian Dow. A better way to describe this is rigid and controlling. One motion concerned the Racial Harmony Task Force, a group formed in early 2019 to address the lack of minority representation on BBCs Elder Council. Ive always been mystified by Pipers attraction to him. As it should, he wrote. Rigneys sin of empathy interview in Wilsons series, called Man Rampant, released in October 2019 as the debut episode. examples (from Wilsons church). (An investigation by Wilsons denomination found several serious errors in Wilsons handling of sex abuse cases in his church, including shifting blame for sexual abuse from the perpetrator to the father of the victim. Jason Delgado served as lead pastor of Vibrant Church in Columbus, Mississippi, until he resigned in April 2021. He also opposed the selection of Rigney as president for how it complicates BCSs relationship with the church and for his Wilson affiliations. Dave Zuleger, the church's South campus pastor for preaching and vision also confirmed and addressed Meyer's resignation in a blog post on the church's website, writing "this is another painful and confusing moment for us. The departures most directly affect the downtown campus, where Stokes, Bethlehems pastor of church planting, has assumed some of Meyers duties in the short term. Meyers exit last month followed two others at Bethlehems downtown campus. Prior to ordination, Pastor Jason attended the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and the University of Chicago. Get the best from CT editors, delivered straight to your inbox! There is no one factor that has driven me away from this school. I was living a life apart from God. To unlock this article for your friends, use any of the social share buttons on our site, or simply copy the link below. The Bethlehem pastors reveal their own corruption by their alliance with Wilson, and church members are right to flee. What shocks me is that these men have not bothered to look at the clear examples in the New testament, including of sympathy and empathy in Hebrews. According to Pickering, Tong called the elders process and decision to dismiss the allegations against Naselli unethical., In Meyers resignation letter, Meyer writes:(I)t seemed that a committee of non-staff elders from each campus would be the best group to be able to take the allegations and sift them. Whew! . WebNOW!!! The threat effectively shut down discussion. Its the same individuals who are sitting in both places. Thank you for this comment, Pastor Lamb. Jason refers to an article in his letter, which describes neo-fundamentalism as one of six groups into which evangelicals are fracturing. Heres a short definition offered there, but youd have to read the entire article for the more complete definition: Neo-Fundamentalist Evangelical Neo-fundamentalists are those who have deep concerns about both political and theological liberalism. Mekala, who says she was emotionally and spiritually abused for eight years while serving in a campus ministry overseen by Bethlehem, told The Roys Report that listening to the podcast was traumatizing. In this context of untethered empathy, he argues, you lose the ability to actually make an independent judgment about anything that theyre saying or doing. Such sensitivities, he fears, can threaten Christians relationship with the truth. It is indeed worth noting the problematic environment of the school where Naselli chose to incubate himself. Bowers had been a professor who looked forward to the first day of school every year and loved interacting with studentsand it showed. Stokes said that even without charges of heresy or a false gospel, just differences in approach, the discussion can feel very personal. Doug Wilsons carnality is so blatant that a sincerely devoted follower of Christ would be unable to be around him for long, and certainly would not repeatedly seek him out. He says the accusations against him were (1) that I have subordinated the gospel, (2) that I empowered victims (coddler), and (3) that I allowed compassion for others to steer and dictate my leadership direction.. We see this is the third article this month youve found worth reading. ***Please sign up forCBN Newslettersand download theCBN News appto ensure you keep receiving the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective. It feels jarring.". Speaking as a 18 yr attender at BBC (currently planning on leaving) the closest Piper ever got to decrying Wilson was during a interview with Joe Rigney. Both Meyer and Tong spoke out against racism, Pickering said, but added that the charges were not true. Give a gift of $30 or more to The Roys Report this month, and you will receive Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse by Dr. Lisa Oakley and Justin Humphreys. Elders and ministers at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota have resigned over what Pipers successor, Jason Meyer, calls an embrace of neo-fundamentalism and a unity culture that breeds fear and seeks to protect the institution. The motion passed on a voice vote and Takata told The Roys Report that three of the task forces five reports were eventually released to church members with redactions. Five of our professors are elders; four of our trustees are elders, said Rigney. WebPastor Jason serves as Pastor of Holy Nativity. I doubt CCEF itself is changing direction on that. Hes good at multi-syllabic word salads, but hes basically a fast-talking hyper-aggressive con artist who just happens to have chosen the church as the source of his narcissistic supply. . With Rigney slated to lead the college and seminary, some worried that his theological views and his affiliations would become conflated with Bethlehemsspecifically his concerns on empathy discussed in the hour-long Wilson interview (which is now on YouTube). 2023 The Christian Broadcasting Network, Inc., A nonprofit 501 (c)(3) Charitable Organization. Some of the resignations were due to normal factors, like families moving out of the area. Two Bethlehem elders, Ken Currie and Chairman Kurt Elting-Ballard, responded that they are focusing our energy on the needs of our flock and had no other comment or statement to add.. The resignations and fractures in leadership at Bethlehem Baptist Church (BBC) extend to the congregation and have been simmering for years. Just wanted to insert that my wife and I have been taking biblical counseling classes through CCEF and they have a strong emphasis on the need to grow in empathy. I still believe we should have done the investigation, but I was able to get to the point where I regarded the March 16 process as incomplete, not immoral.. Naselli stated that he reacted in the meeting because he worried about discrediting Rigney prior to his presidency, after BCS had undergone a careful, scrutinizing selection process to choose him. A narcissistic family system can be a family, a local church, an organization, or any other group. The other, and far more contentious, motion concerned an October 1, 2019, episode of Man Rampant, a podcast on Christianity, leadership, and masculinity hosted by Doug Wilson. Hes the one that featured Wilson repeatedly on the Desiring God website, and (to my knowledge) hes never once called Wilson out for his revolting rhetoric and his various public misdeeds. We will continue to entrust ourselves to him in every circumstance., Churches and evangelical institutions across the country are trying to navigate their own divisions, but the process can be painful. Help is Here a new sermon series; Upcoming Events. BCS is a confessional school where professors teach from its 52-page affirmation of faith, but students from other traditions can attend. And according to audio obtained by The Roys Report, Naselli responded to the motion by stating publicly: I am the pastor that Mrs. Takata just quoted. Are the elders or board members abusive? This is another painful and confusing moment for us," Zuleger wrote. In his resignation letter, Meyer referenced the fracturing of evangelicalism described in a recent Mere Orthodoxy article, which details how certain groups will experience significant philosophy of ministry differences in how to contextualize the gospel in this cultural moment. While accusations swirled of liberal drift under his leadership, Meyer instead saw the congregation moving in the other direction and suggested a pastor in the neo-fundamentalist category would be a better fit. Its a simple case of the seeds of the founder coming to fruition. But it wasnt just the situation around Naselli. In his resignation letter, Meyer added, Ming-Jinn, Bryan, and I were called shame terms like coddlers, and Ming-Jinn was called Absalom.. He later apologized for not being quick to listen in the moment and in later discussions of the incident, though in April the elders considered the grievances against him unfounded. In 1980, after only 5 years of ministry, the congregation took a huge step of faith and built a facility to hold 450 people. . In our next article on events at Bethlehem Baptist Church, well explore the allegations against Naselli, as well as the response by BCS administration and BBC elders. Their dispute stirred underlying issues and philosophical differences, including over the subject of Rigneys remarks themselves. While he was trying to work for resolution, she didnt know where to go with her own frustration and anxiety. 3. 276. Sarah Brima and her husband were former members of Bethlehem and Rigneys Cities Church but left in part over his affiliation with Wilson. But he loses people when he says empathy is a sin. Overall, her professors and pastors modeled a way to engage the world not from fear and suspicion, but with openness and critical thinking., Theres much I love about Bethlehem. From there he went on to study at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky where he earned M. Div. The implications were clear: He would not be sugarcoating in this class. Beneath this constellation of hot topics, though, theres also a deeper philosophical disagreement over how to approach the various conflicts themselves. I dont see how there can be any interpretation other than empathy for the Romans 12:15 instruction to Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. I have found abuse of power issues typical among conservative churches. Jesus Word speaks as loud today as it did then. Now I wonder why he was so harsh.. The situation at Bethlehem highlights not only certain issues being debated but also the conflicting philosophies shaping Christians responses: Are we accommodating feelings so much that we are crying sin where there is no sin? Jason Meyer, John Pipers successor at Bethlehem Baptist Church, has stepped down from his position as pastor for preaching and vision at Bethlehems Yesterday I saw a Video from John Piper asking for prayer during his upcoming 7 week writing sabbatical. . Is there a way to do any rebuke or admonishment when someone is hurting?, he asked. 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I never met Jason Meyer but I know an oblong blur generality, when I read one. "There's unethical behavior. In September 2018, the church moved into its current South Campus facility in Lakeville. No one has leaned in to care for my soul more than him," he wrote. I feel terribly that I hurt you, and I own that and I regret it, and Im so sorry, he said. This idea has come up in the cultural conversation with more loaded and often less theological terms: the overly sensitive snowflake generation, the debate over trigger warnings, and the 2018 bestseller The Coddling of the American Mind. Submitted by escamp on August 31, 2015 - 3:04pm. The Roys Report noted Meyer, the successor to founder John Piper, is the fourth pastor to resign from the megachurch in the past four months. Its been a taxing year for everyone, and its been a taxing year for ministry. On the whole, I think you are correct that the majority (of those with power) at the very least appear to be carrying the same torch. But in contexts where believers already agree on the capital-T Truth, theres even more weight and fallout when they fail to see eye to eye on the lowercase-t truth of a situation. An outside investigation TEAM is objective, trained, experienced, know what they are looking for, knows how to speak to the church about what they see, and love Jesus Christ. Opinion: What is Revivaland is it Happening at Asbury? The first, Your Empathy is a SIn: a Response to Desiring God is here: https://heresthejoy.com/2019/06/your-empathy-is-a-sin-a-response-to-desiring-god/. Naselli, associate professor of theology and New Testament at BCS, spoke up to identify himself as the five-star reviewer and said that if the motion passed, hed quit. She also left her job at Bethlehems Campus Outreach after reporting what she saw as domineering and sexist behavior by a coworker, only to have the leaders blame her personality and ambitions for the conflict, she said. 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