A Skill Lost on the Leadership of the Never Wrong Churches of God

For all the times the self-appointed leaders of the Churches of God have been wrong about everything from their ideas about how everyone in their spheres of influence ought to think, pray, stay and obey to their prophetic mutterings that come up short and mistaken every time, you'd think just once one might hear  "Please forgive me, I was wrong."

Being mistaken is not something, evidently, a Church of God splinter can admit to. Or at least to date, with much now behind them that was mistaken, they can't.  Herbert Armstrong was never wrong. Joe Tkach was never wrong.  They can ignore it. They can revise it to be wrong again later because God now has mercifully given them even more time to be wrong. But they can never admit they actually were mistaken.  Dave Pack is good at this.  They can blame the people, as Ron Weinland did, for not understanding that it was "spiritual!".  But they can never admit that they simply were wrong.

For better or worse, the Bible itself gives some plenty of reasons to never admit they were wrong. For all the Apostle Paul's sureness that time was short and that he who was still alive and remains would be changed , while admittedly some would die and John's sureness that he wrote of things that must shortly come to pass and that Jesus was coming "quickly" low these two millennia ago, ending up badly mistaken and admitting it never seems to have crossed their minds either. Paul did have time to write that he fought a good fight and he gets his crown, gotta go, but never seems to understand the heartache he may have left behind in his mistaken ideas. As far as I can see, that is simply the norm in the Churches of God to this day..

Later, Second Century apologists came along and simply covered the mistaken idea with blaming those who noticed Jesus was long in coming soon and labeling them scoffers with all the associated threats and put-downs. God does not see time as we mere humans do they noted as if all should have known that from the start and not scoffed at the longness of "shortly". Blame the notice is always more easy and face-saving than the one who was simply mistaken with the inability to say "I was wrong"

Cudos to Ex Pastor Joshua Harris for the guts to admit his sincere mistakes, in his sphere of influence,  and leaving a lesson for the Church of God leadership to ponder which they probably won't.

Joshua Harris: When a Leader Has the Courage to Say ‘I Was Wrong’

“A lot of [my classmates] shared stories of the effect my book had, and a lot of them were negative,” Harris remembers. “I couldn’t just write them off as angry trolls, because these were my friends, and so I listened. And then one day, on Twitter of all places, this woman wrote me and said ‘your book was used against me like a weapon.’ I answered and said ‘I’m so sorry.’

“It was such a simple, human interaction, but that interaction led to a conversation which led to a friendship, and that friendship changed me. She said something I”ll never forget – that her conversation with me on twitter was the first time a religious leader had ever acknowledged getting something wrong and apologized to her.”

From these experiences Harris opened up his website for people to share their unedited experiences—positive or negative—with his book, which led both Harris and a fellow grad student who had also been hurt by Harris’s book to begin work on a documentary that explores the impact Harris’s book had on dozens of people. As Harris has leaned into the fear of saying “I’m wrong,” he says there are three main lessons he’s learned."

"“We talk about wanting to evolve – become a smarter or loving or compassionate version of ourselves. But think about what that requires – there’s a lot of death that takes place,” Harris says. “Evolution is never a painless process. It’s a dying to old ways of thinking and old habits. Maybe old relationships. Evolving personally involves admitting you got things wrong and letting those things die."

“You can’t rush through the pain of being wrong. Often we want to get through it as quick as possible and go back to being right. Or we give these lame apologies: ‘to anyone who was offended …’ as though being offended was their fault. We want to get past it, deal with the tension and messiness of it, and get back to being right. But if you rush past that you won’t grow. It sucks, it really does. But in that tension and facing up to it, that’s the sign that I’m growing.” 

“I wish I could say people will come by and pat you on the back for being humble, but expect resistance. There are people who want you to stay the same … because if you admit you’re wrong and they agreed with you before, then that by implication makes them wrong too.”

Harris doesn’t address it in the TEDx talk, but his decision to step down as pastor of Covenant Life Church was heavily influenced by an in-church sexual abuse scandal the pastoral leadership team decided to deal with internally, rather than contacting the police. According to the Washington Post’s reporting, a former Covenant Life youth group leader was convicted of molesting three boys in the 1980s. Trial testimony showed that the victims or their families had gone to church leaders for help and that the church officials did not call police. Harris said the thinking of the church was that such allegations should be handled as an internal, spiritual issue.

Reflecting on this incident, Harris said he wanted “to get a broader perspective. I want to learn other ways of how pastors and other leaders deal with all these things. We need to learn from the historic church about ways that there is better accountability and responsibility.”

What Harris learned is that when church leaders become too convinced of what they think they know, it inevitably damages their communities, sometimes in life-altering ways. And while this can just produce more sleepless nights for some pastors, Harris believes that when leaders are able to willingly admit their mistakes and choose humility, it actually makes them the safest sort of leader to be around.

https://churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/314664-joshua-harris-leader-courage-say-wrong.html/2