Chapter 21: When Sheep…Aren’t

I feel sick.

There is a coleader who has been on the worship team for a few years, let’s call him Perfect Christian. PC came into the church with his wife and much of his family, with a solid music and ministry background, already having been in leadership at other churches, the exemplary person who makes you wonder how they got so much of this right. His mother comes in tow, and she is a strict pain in the ass, the proverbial Church Lady who complains about damn near flipping everything. Why do people who hate it so much still go? A puzzle for the history of mankind. We work with PC for several years, and he is very nice and kind and volunteers and helps all the time…he’s poster child for the clean cut Christian. So, Mr. Ducks In A Row quickly rises on the worship team to be part of the core, working with us closely. He is always appropriate, spectacularly mild mannered, and the worst jokes he ever tells are bad puns. Maybe the bad puns should have been the first clue…

He travels with the leadership team to various events, politely offering to drive or pick up the check. He is an exemplary person, certainly much more put together than I ever was, heck my laundry has been sitting on a chair for days now, staring at me, waiting for the Folding Fairy. Where is that bitch anyway? God I hate laundry. PC’s clothing is always neatly pressed and perfectly modest. His life checks off all of the tidy little Christian boxes, the poster child of good, clean living. After years of faithful service, he is going to become an Elder, the high position just under the Pastor, that is only open to men in the EV-Free church. We are all in full support of this.

Pastor Real hires a young adult pastor, let’s call him Pastor Jock, having been a serious sporthead in college. I immediately like his high energy, he’s a very fun person and connects well with the teens and young adults. He looks hip and trendy, and his blonde, beautiful wife was an All-American ( I know nothing about sports and have no idea what All-American means, but it must be a big deal, it was reiterated constantly.) He’s a go-getter, and joins the melee, all of us brainstorming up new ways to help the community and make the services more relevant. He spearheads some truly innovative things for young adults, and again we are off and running, spreading through the community like a positive wildfire.

Back to PC.

Neighbors of PC’s family who grew up in his neighborhood enter Pastor Jock’s office with a story… and it’s not The Legend of How Awesome PC Is.

This man, whom I have known for years, who has been leading worship, who has been teaching our studies, who is friends of our family…

…molested young girls for years.

A couple finally come forward when they learn he is becoming an elder.

Not exactly a chapter of shits and giggles, but it is what happened. Things like this tend to be swept under the carpet, as was my own experience with this, a neighborhood 17 year old ruining my innocence when I was 10, pillow over my face ensuring I would be forever afraid of the dark.

When a person is accused of predatory behavior, some say they must be lying…why wouldn’t she have said something right away? Unless it happens to you, I don’t know that you can understand the humiliation, the disbelief of others who know the perpetrator as a good person, or a leader, or a pillar of the community, or in my case the son of a neighbor who was close to my parents… will they believe you? Are you brave enough when it’s your word against the friends and family of the perpetrator, who invariably think he’s a great guy and are likely convinced they would never do something like this? Probably not, so of course there was no consequence to my neighborhood pervert, as was there no consequence to PC for years. I know from my own experience that most of us never tell, as those who came forward in this case kept the dark secret until he was up for a position of spiritual leadership second only to the Pastor.

There is a trial, a conviction, and Pastor Jock, to his credit takes this to the authorities, and Mr. PC is hauled off to prison.

We are stunned.

We sit back to examine, and reexamine…were there clues? Could we have figured this out? What did we miss? Is there any way we could have known?? The bizarre part is the only clue I would have had that there was anything strange about Mr. PC was how perfect, how squeaky -clean, how pristine his life appeared.

If the girls hadn’t come forward, he would likely still be an elder there to this day.

Predators just looove to go to church. A perfect place for them to portray a good front, instant friendship with members who will assume the best, and is there any place more powerful for the deviant than to become the voice of the very Lord of the Universe himself? This is why spiritual leaders aren’t questioned. Are you going to argue with the person ordained to represent God?? You heathen. How dare you question the Man of God.

I remember a book about sociopaths*. it is generally estimated that about 4% of the population is sociopathic to varying degrees. I did more research, and the number in spiritual leadership is supposed to be more like 20%. This doesn’t surprise me, and matches my personal observation….crazy people just looove church, just ask our pals Jim Jones, David Koresh, Charles Manson, or a million other sociopathic spiritual leaders. It gives you authority nothing else will. One thing I’m really grateful for outside the church today is… I am no longer under anyone’s authority, I run my own life, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Today, I am no longer required to be friends with everyone, which is a great relief. Not everyone is worthy of your friendship, and not everyone who wants to be your friend is doing so because they are looking out for your best interests. Some of them want your world to burn. Good friends should have your back, not the knife in your back.

See, this is how sociopath spiritual leaders get you, though. They look perfectly innocent. They don’t appear evil until after the evil is revealed, if their true intent is ever uncovered, it often is not. If you are a Jim Jones, you know how to do incredible good deeds to compensate for the dark rot lying underneath the surface. At Jim Jones’ command, near a thousand men, women, and children drank the cyanide-laced Kool-Aid, a terrifying picture in serene repose, arm in arm believers lying themselves to rest in a field, his sinister vision achieved. (it was actually Flavor-Aid, a detail lost in a flurry of brand name recognition.) This was a staggering number of believers to have that kind of dedication, but not the first time a large number reach their demise because of strict adherence to a belief system. What people don’t realize is there was a reason all of these folks were so devoted. He bought their food, paid their mortgages, kept their hot water and gas running, gave them clothing and jobs. His California ministry was well-respected in the community, he did a lot of good, especially for the downtrodden and homeless. He poured on the charity, and they were his. He had taken care of them and paid their bills, it’s the least they could do in return. There is great psychological power in making someone beholden to you. And they had become accustomed to following the rules, doing what they were told, trusting the leader who had taken such good care of them, of course he knew what was best for them. Consequently, when he declared a group of people were coming to threaten their society, time to move on to the next world, the group followed the rules, and gulped down the end of all their dreams.

Speaking of the end of dreams, my very best, beloved friend at this church has a problem.

And I am tasked with addressing it.

I have to hurt my best friend.

*Footnote: From The Sociopath Next Door. I highly recommend this book, it gave me tools to identify sociopaths BEFORE they fuck up your life. I wish I had read it before dating and getting involved with ministry. Hell, I wish I had this information before I left the house for the first time.