Why Do We Keep Doing This?

[OBW]

In some of today's reading, I encountered the brief write-up introducing a short podcast series designed to investigate the complete collapse of a major independent church in the PNW that began imploding when its lead pastor was requested to step down of allegations of abuse (position, not sexual) back in 2014. The result was rather swift as the huge church with over 12,000 in attendance each Sunday in at least 13 different locations disbanded and to the extent that it still exists in any form is no longer recognizable as such.

My goal is not to talk about them, but to draw a comparison in the write-up about its underlying problems to the LC. It begins with the asking of a question:

. . . [W]hy [do] we keep doing this—elevating leaders whose charisma outpaces their character?

And for the LC faithful, the added question: "Why do we keep following the dead when the living cannot make anything truly palatable spiritually from the dregs of past messes?"

While I am not asking for a serious analysis with "charges," I would like to understand how those of us who were around at various times — Daystar, the minor "rebellion" surrounding the ouster of Max R, the ouster of John Ingals and others (and the event surrounding Phillip Lee for those within Anaheim), on up to the turmoil in the Mid-West — could rationalize away the problems. For example, why were there not more concerns about the church indirectly becoming involved in manufacturing and sales of items generally not within the reach of or useful to the membership of the LCs?

Why did it not bother us that the chairs sold to us by our own Taiwan mfg entity were identical to commercially available chairs made by others? Did we have a license to the particular design? (Maybe none was needed?) But if applicable it might never be caught as long as they did not sell them to the general public. I know as a young student/career accountant something always seemed a little off to me, but I never asked any questions.

Why were the red flags missed or suppressed?

I know we will say that we have talked about this before in different ways. And while this could lead to underlying spiritual issues of the leadership, it also should lead us to consider how we were unable to spot the kinds of problems that were festering right under our noses?

Like my admissions, I guess what I am looking for are personal mea culpas of any sort. Not necessarily huge revelations, but some introspection of how we missed the ones we were around for.