{"id":37258,"date":"2024-04-08T11:00:41","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T18:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=37258"},"modified":"2024-04-06T14:40:12","modified_gmt":"2024-04-06T21:40:12","slug":"scandalous-the-musical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/scandalous-the-musical\/","title":{"rendered":"Scandalous, the musical."},"content":{"rendered":"

In November 2012 a new Broadway Musical debuted in the Neil Simon Theater in New York. The production, called \u201cScandalous: The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson\u201d,<\/em> lasted for 29 regular performances before it closed that December.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not at all surprising that there was a musical written about the vivacious founder of The Foursquare Church. The visibly effective and personally dominating \u201cSister Aimee\u201d has shown up (explicitly or implicitly) regularly as a main character in popular media, starting with the 1927 Sinclair Lewis Book Elmer Gantry <\/em>(and the 1960 movie adaptation), and extending all the way to 2020 with the first season of the HBO revival of Perry Mason.<\/p>\n

What WAS surprising to this<\/strong> Foursquare pastor was that one of the primary producer\/funders of the musical was The Foursquare Church itself. During that season there were many questions throughout the denomination about how funding could have been approved, who made the decision to back the play, and whether we could have used a million dollars on something more missional than Broadway.<\/p>\n

Ultimate responsibility was traced back the President of Foursquare. And as I remember it, he nearly lost his job over it. While there seemed to be some justification for the action, and the decision included the requisite accountability, at the end of the day there were just too many questions about both the process of funding and the principle behind it. A scandal was brewing over a play called scandalous, and someone\u2019s<\/em> head was going to roll.<\/p>\n

Until it didn\u2019t!<\/p>\n

From my cheap seat the one thing that kept the president from losing his job was humility. He owned his part of it. He explained his rationale without excusing or defending. He repented where he needed to. He submitted to the wisdom of the elders and the denomination regarding his role. And we all extended grace to the leader and gratitude for such a response.<\/p>\n

Because that hasn\u2019t always been the outcome of leadership scandals in Foursquare. From the beginning, when Aimee famously vanished for a season, or with her untimely accidental death by overdose, to the many, many, many leadership scandals that have rocked our denomination over the years, the pattern of response has been defense, excuse, justification, and \u201cends justifying the means\u201d rationale until it\u2019s untenable and the leader gets removed… and quickly forgotten.<\/p>\n

It happens so frequently that it\u2019s almost as if there is something other than<\/em> flawed people at the root of the problem. The people (usually good people) come and go, but the same problems remain.<\/p>\n

To be fair, it\u2019s not just The Foursquare Church that has this problem. Every day<\/em> I get online and see yet another high (or low) profile Christian leader who has been exposed for domineering or abusive leadership.<\/p>\n

Every week the church world seems to be rocked by yet another scandal.<\/p>\n

And I don\u2019t think many (if any) of these Christian leaders set out to live a scandalous life. I\u2019m almost certain that none of these churches or denominations are secretly plotting to fleece the flocks. I\u2019ve been in Church and denominational leadership for 35 years and every leader I know<\/strong> got into this to serve Jesus and share the good news of the Kingdom of God.<\/p>\n

So, how does all this happen?<\/p>\n

JR Woodward seeks to help us understand what is going on. He builds on the work of Walter Wink and others when he suggests that there are spiritual Powers at work in individuals and institutions that are strategizing to take us out and shut us down. And that we would do well to recognize the strategies of the enemy so we can stand against them.<\/p>\n

Woodward\u2019s book The Scandal of Leadership: Unmasking the Powers of Domination in the Church<\/em> is a robust, academic work exploring foundational issues that cause leadership scandals. His primary focus is on the spiritual realities that exist in a leader\u2019s life\u2014who the leader is imitating\u2014and the strongholds, or powers, evident throughout an organization\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n

Woodward tells the reader why he wrote this book: \u201cIn this book, I not only seek to link the fall of church leaders to patterns of domination, but I also hope to demonstrate a link between imitation and the Powers. I want to explain how leaders who uncritically imitate patterns of power seen in the fallen world are liable to fall into the patterns of domination.\u201d[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Large, effective ministries are not bad in themselves. Aimee Semple McPherson impacted hundreds of thousands of people for eternity. Bill Hybels taught many of us leadership principles that we are still using to this day. Mark Driscoll opened doors for young leaders to courageously approach church differently and reach a generation far from God.<\/p>\n

But the ends can never justify the means. We can\u2019t imitate systems that \u201cwork\u201d in the world that are based on faulty, broken spiritual premises without getting trapped by the Powers behind those premises. I truly believe some of the challenges Foursquare has to this day are outcomes of a founder, who, though anointed, gifted, and well-intentioned, had gotten sucked into imitating the patterns and powers of the world.<\/p>\n

And It\u2019s possible that the denomination\u2019s well-intentioned funding of the \u201cScandalous\u201d musical had the same problem.<\/p>\n

I want to finish this post with a question Woodward asks at the beginning of the book: \u201cAre you creating systems in your ministry that mirror the systems of the world, or are you creating systems and structures that mirror the kingdom of God?\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

[1]<\/a> JR Woodward, The Scandal of Leadership: Unmasking the Powers of Domination in the Church<\/em>, Movements Publishing, 2023 (xxviii).<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Woodward, The Scandal of Leadership, xxiv.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In November 2012 a new Broadway Musical debuted in the Neil Simon Theater in New York. The production, called \u201cScandalous: The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson\u201d, lasted for 29 regular performances before it closed that December. It\u2019s not at all surprising that there was a musical written about the vivacious founder of The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2489,2846],"class_list":["post-37258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp02","tag-woodward","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37260,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37258\/revisions\/37260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}