Enough is Enough

Once upon a time, a more hopeful version of me wrote: “…I hope Hillsong Global doesn’t think it’s too big to fix. I hope it doesn’t try to pin all the problems of Hillsong East Coast on Carl Lentz. He, like so many of us, was a victim and a villain of the framework he was handed.” 

And then time marched on and Hillsong Global did try to pin all the problems of Hillsong East Coast on Carl Lentz. And even worse, it pinned all the responsibility on the people he left behind. For a job horrifically done, Carl Lentz (allegedly) got a severance package and a Madea Witness Protection experience. And the people? We got handed the responsibilities to forgive and forget what no one would admit to and to heal ourselves from traumas we don’t have the qualifications to properly treat. 

From the memes floating across my timeline, I know Easter is coming. All across the world, Hillsong pastors are gearing up to compel people to ask forgiveness for and repent of things they never knew were wrong. Meanwhile, disgraced leaders are getting huffy about people not silently forgiving the wrongdoing they refuse to repent of. Taking up space on Beyonce’s internet with none of the self-awareness, but all of the nerve. Enough is enough? Okay. Bet. 

In Luke 10, when an expert of the law asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life and Jesus turns the question back on him, the expert’s response reveals he knows the answer well enough to recite it, but from his followup question, it seems he wants a way to refine it. Love my neighbor? Okay but, (because at some point, enough is enough) “Who is my neighbor?” So Jesus asks himself WWJD and then Jesus tells the parable of The Good Samaritan. (If you know it, sing along!) 

A man is on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho when he gets attacked by robbers who take everything from him, beat him and leave him half-dead. Sometime later, a priest walks by, sees the victim and goes out of his way to do nothing and continue on his way. Later on another man, not a priest, but an assumedly good dude does the same thing. And then along comes a Samaritan, who for cultural reasons at the time, would be assumed to be the least likely to help, but he sees the man, sees his need, takes pity on him and takes care of him. He bandages him up, takes him to an inn, cares for him through the night and then the next day, he gives the innkeeper a downpayment to keep caring for the victim and says he will reimburse him for any additional expenses when he comes back. The end. When Jesus asks who was a neighbor to the victim, the expert says, “The one who had mercy on him.” And Jesus says “Go and do likewise.” 

If you have sat through more than 20 (but less than 100) services in an evangelical church, you have heard a message on The Good Samaritan. And you, like the expert have been encouraged to “Go and do likewise.” To be neighborly: change your plans and give of your resource to restore a victim to health. Except… I don’t think I’ve ever heard the conclusion preached that way. The point of the story (like the man on his way) has been stripped, robbed and left half-dead, at be nice to people you wouldn’t typically be nice to. 

So let’s go back to the road and let’s rewind to just before the Samaritan arrives on the scene. Who is that dying man? And I don’t mean in our modern situation where he is the victims of hillsong (spoiler alert!), I mean in the parable – who is he? We don’t know. Jesus never says. There is a pretty standard assumption that he is someone the Samaritan wouldn’t typically help, but again, Jesus never says. What if the dying man was a Samaritan? What if that’s why the first two “good guys” didn’t stop. Oof. Or what if the dying man was a priest? What if whole point is not how atypical “good” behavior was for a Samaritan, but how typical bad behavior is for compromised religious leaders and their followers? Whoa – wait a minute! Why are you just assuming the priest was compromised?! Because the whole system was. We know how the big story ends. Christianity exists now because Jesus took issue with the abuses of the system in place then. Or do you think Jesus hadn’t noticed yet? Anyway, the dying man is not the only undefined character in the story, we also don’t know who the robbers were. It’s possible that they were regular-degular folks in desperate circumstances, but the level of overkill – the stripping and the leaving half dead – that’s dehumanizing behavior. Whatever the robbers started out as, they became people who collectively were fine with leaving people destroyed over things. Hmm… 

Right now a lot of evangelicals are throwing around words like “mercy” and “forgiveness.” Offering a lot of reminders that no one is perfect. A lot of villains and their apologists are pressuring victims to be nice to people we don’t want to be nice to. Abusive evangelicals have been so scarily successful at twisting the concept of forgiveness that the requirement of repentance has basically been wrung out. And I’m not going to argue about whether or not forgiveness is a requirement for victims, I don’t personally believe it is, but if you do, great – go with God. (Your weird, mean version that is all-powerful, but only strong enough to forgive as much as you.) I’m actually glad forgiveness is so important to you, because if forgiveness is a matter of life or death, I know that you know, the neighborly thing to do would be whatever it takes to make it easier for someone else to forgive. 

Houstons. Lentzs. Bogards. Kimes. Former Hillsong East Coast, Phoenix and Atlanta Pastors… Who are you? I think you’re robbers. At best, you might be able to convince me you’re just callous (spiritual) bypassers, but I know you’re not Samaritans. You have watched people be financially stripped, and emotionally, mentally and spiritually devastated and you have done nothing except quietly cleanse your timelines and profiles of Hillsong and continue on your way.  You have left the dying to die and preferred that they do it as quietly as possible.  When people have spoken up, you have aht-aht-aht’d them, and/or tried to hide behind the pain you’ve felt from being embarrassed. 

And now we’re coming up on Easter weekend where, if allowed, you’re going to get up on platforms and talk about how much you love Jesus, knowing good and well how little you have cared for his wounded body. You have taken people’s things. Taken their time, their talents, their tithes and offerings, and left them in the dust. 

You’re not neighbors.

But you could be. You could:

CHANGE YOUR PLANS.
Stop going the way you’re going and take the time to acknowledge the wounded. No more of these empty prayers and apologies for “anyone who may have been hurt.”  Do you have eyes or not? You want to be honored and trusted as shepherds, but don’t seem to have the discernment skills of sheepdogs. Even those of you who have publicly acknowledged splitting from Hillsong have been lukewarm about it. Still praising the institution and publicly declaring you believe the best is yet to come for the house with many rooms that are clearly on fire. Really? You know you look foolish, right? And dishonest. Do you see wounded people or not? And do you care?

GIVE OF YOUR RESOURCES TO RESTORE VICTIMS.
People need reparations. Refunds. Resources to regain health and rebuild. The wounded are passing the same few dollars around trying to patch each other up while you thieves and accomplices keep carrying on as if you were entitled to take all that you did then and are right to deny hurt people relief now. There’s not much legal recourse for the victims of Hillsong (the hustle is immaculate), but if any of you were good people or even average neighbors, it wouldn’t matter. You would do the right thing and use your resources (your money/time/connections/information/etc) to help restore victims.

But instead, you’re playing word games to villainize the media for doing their job and reporting how you badly you botched yours. Or did you not? You all have access to the same internet the rest of us do and instead of apologizing, instead of asking after the people left out on the road, you’re whining about your hardships. Enough is enough. 

Laura Lentz said straight up that her priority has been “the healing of our family.” Hers and Carl’s. And that clearly does not include any of the people who gave sacrificially of their time, energy, talent and money to make the lifestyle they grew accustomed to possible. And that’s fine. If they want to slip into the obscurity that should have always been theirs, God bless. But when these reports come out and blanket statements are made referring to “RELENTLESS lies, accusations and hypocritical scapegoating” without having ever acknowledged the truth of how badly the everyday people and volunteers of Hillsong East Coast were failed, it minimizes the experiences of everyone involved. Let’s pretend for a moment that everything about the recent revelations having to do with the white-on-white crimes between the Lentzs and Kimes’ are all untrue. Well, that would make the Kimes’ destructive pathological liars. Destructive pathological liars the Lentzs gave authority over not just multiple areas in church, but an entire campus, so… where’s the apology, the repentance, the reparation for that? 

The drama is delicious, but it’s also a distraction being used by some of the villains to diminish the very real stories of people left for dead mentally, emotionally and spiritually from their awful leadership. Don’t fill in the blanks for them. Ask them who they’re talking about. And if they can’t/won’t provide clarity, ask yourself why they decided to post at all. 

The parable of The Good Samaritan ends pretty ambiguously – we don’t know if the robbers are ever brought to justice, we don’t know if the bypassers ever reap the apathy they sowed, we don’t even know if the half-dead man makes a full recovery. But we know a Samaritan stepped in at great cost to himself to offer help. And as a lot of preachers will be telling a similarly themed story this weekend, I hope you think about how the stories connect. And think about how your past and present church leaders have responded to all that has been happening. If they have been silent, you should be suspicious about the bodycount they have quietly observed. If they have encouraged you to pray for “those who (may) have been hurt by the church” but to keep giving money to the institution that “(may) have hurt them,” switch things up. Give to the wounded and pray for the institution. Especially if that institution is Hillsong. Defund Hillsong. And stop clapping for villains who have shown no remorse and done no repairs, and are now trying to recast themselves as victims of a system they said the rest of us were lying about. Enough is enough. 

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