The Steve Lawson Scandal
It’s been a wild couple of weeks. Here in my home state of Florida, we have been subject to the equivalent of a donkey kick to the teeth. Hurricane Helene has been far more devastating than we could have imagined. As the hurricane was wreaking its devastation across the state, I went with my family to a rental home. While the winds were tearing apart the landscape, I was watching aghast at the Steve Lawson controversy. If you aren’t familiar with what has gone down, essentially a very conservative, Reformed pastor has been caught in an adulterous affair.
I have to admit, this particular scandal hit me pretty hard. I remember in my formative years hearing a number of Lawsons sermons. I wouldn’t say that he had a big influence in my life, my theology definitely doesn’t line up with his. But I would have bet my very life against this sort of thing happening. Over the pasts several years we have been subject to a number of scandals in the church. It’s gotten to the point I don’t even notice anymore. But this one was different.
Even though I rejected Calvinism a long time ago, this is a controversy that has hit me in unexpected ways. I think there is a right and wrong way to respond to this sort of controversy, and unfortunately, my concern is that we will respond in the wrong way. We will respond by freaking out, we will delve into name calling, and this will be worse than before. Lawson spent a lot of his time speaking on integrity and moral uprightness in a crooked world. This is what in part makes this such a nasty scandal.
I’ll be honest. I left the whole Southern Baptist/Evangelical understanding of Christianity some time ago. When you start reading outside of John MacArthur and Oswald Chambers, (I have no problem with either of them to be clear) you will realize that the message of Jesus had very little to do with pristine, multi-million dollar churches, and has more to do with serving those in need. In the case of Lawson, this is becoming far too commonplace. It seems that those preaching the hardest are those who are falling the fastest. It seems like there’s a lesson we’re missing here. Personally, I look at this from the perspective of what happens when we spend far too much time debating useless theological points instead of what faith actually means in the real world.
The Fault Is Not In Our Stars….
What I am saying is what seems to be just another case of a fallen pastor is in fact indicative of a much larger problem. I am less interested in Mr. Lawson’s personal moral failings as I am with the larger failings of corruption and hypocrisy in general. As Protestants we have been far too tolerant of such things.
We have been more interested in our pristine sanctuaries than we are with seeing to it that the hungry are fed, and the poor are clothed.
We have been more interested in getting our ‘theology’ correct, without actually caring whether our teaching resembles Jesus or not. There is an obsession with getting back to the beliefs of ‘the Puritans and Reformers’. What about getting back to the beliefs of Jesus and the disciples?
Our obsession with orthodoxy and parsing every single syllable of our King James Version Bibles (or if you’re more hip, then an ESV) has blinded us to the societal decay around us. We have grown far too comfortable.
The worst part of this controversy is not the moral failure of Steve Lawson. That’s a given, he is just a man. The worst part of all this is those who are questioning whether his teaching materials can still be used. I’ve even seen a few isolated incidents where there are those who have even attempted to defend Mr. Lawson and downplayed the incident.
Time To Wake Up
Something is seriously wrong. We have placed ordinary men on pedestals (quite literally in some churches). We have no problem condemning Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses’s for having beliefs different from ours, but we are slow to call out hypocrisy in our ranks. We have no problem calling out someone’s wayward child, and yet there are those urging compassion for Mr. Lawson. Can you see the disparity? Do you see how blinded we are?
Listen, I am not meaning any of this to be judgmental. I have enough of my own issues to sort out. If anything I’m as guilty of this hypocrisy as anyone. I can be as biased and prejudiced as the next Pharisee. Far too often I only show compassion and mercy to people I deem worthy, while withholding it from those whose only crime was irritating me. Make no mistake, this is a sin on my part. If I am not willing to forgive and show compassion, then neither will I be shown any.
What seems like a devastating incident can be something constructive. My point has not been to condemn Mr. Lawson, far from it. My point has been that we need to look within at our own failings, lest we fall as well. Unless we wake up as a collective church, I say this with great sorrow, we will see this more often. My hope is that we can awaken, and head this off before more scandals flood.
For us as the American Church, we need a massive wake up call. I’m saying this to Baptists, Independents, Charismatic, Reformed, the whole gamut. We have to stop bickering over the words of John Calvin (or whoever it may be), and unite under the words of Christ. We must get back to an authentic faith. If we have been forgiven, shown grace and mercy, then we should be showing the same. Hurricanes are devastating our continent, displacing millions. Help is needed. There are hundreds of thousands who don’t have a place to sleep, who have no idea where their next meal is coming from. This is the time for the Church to rise. This is the time to show up and start working.
