Dirty (Watch)Dogs

While we are on this topic, one of the sadder incidents I have seen unfold was brought back to me a couple of years ago... and every month since. I will not mention this man's name, for I still love him and want him to come to a fuller and truer understanding of God, grace, and simple right and wrong. I would never want to humiliate him or drag him through the mud.

In the 70's and 80's he strode through the Church of Christ like a conservative Colossus. He wrote dozens of books and tracts and it is probably not an exaggeration to say that they made their way into nearly every preacher's office and tract-rack in our brotherhood. The books slammed liberalism in the church and in our culture. Favorite targets were abortion, divorce, remarriage, and sexual sin. When I came back to the States in the mid-80's, our church in Ohio had him in twice to do meetings for us. It must be said that he did a good job hammering his themes again and again. I liked him. While I might not have always agreed with him and I certainly wouldn't have preached in the style he used, I considered him a man who was offering to God what he had, and doing so as honorably as he could.

He even headed up one of our major schools of preaching and made sure that it was formed in his image and likeness. Things were going good for him... until his wife became ill and was taken to the hospital. Tests revealed that she had a serious condition caused by a sexually transmitted disease. Problem? She had only been with one man, her husband, a man widely known as a watchdog for the faith. He -- let's call him "Bob" since that wasn't his name -- was preaching in another town. As usual, his subject was on the sin of fornication, adultery, divorce, remarriage, abortion. etc. and he had two full tables of books for sale in the lobby at the end of each message. When his elders asked the church to locate him and tell him that his wife was in the hospital they were told that that was impossible, for Bob's wife was with him at the hotel. Of course, it wasn't his wife, but it turned out that "Bob" had lots of women in lots of towns, sometimes even taking them to his meetings in the evening and introducing them as his wife!

His church called for him to repent. He gave -- according to his elders -- a generic statement and then disappeared. When I got the news, I was stunned into disbelief. I called his elders and the head of the school of preaching to make sure that what I had heard was a lie. Sadly, tragically, they confirmed that the stories were true. "Bob" divorced his wife, left his family, found another wife, and moved on.

Two years or so ago I got a copy of The Christian Chronicle -- a fine paper, by the way and one I recommend. In it was an ad asking people to go to a website that would name false teachers in the brotherhood. Imagine my shock when I went there and found that "Bob" had resurfaced in a little town in Arizona. I called his old church and school and asked if he had ever repented and been brought back into fellowship. They said, "No." In fact, they went much further and told me more than I ever wanted to know about how "Bob" had treated his family and the church. He was, they assured me, out of fellowship with them.

On his website, there is no mention of this. A history of his work is given, but it is completely sanitized. I could accept this if he just wanted to start again and find a way to serve the Lord, but when that service is (as it seems to me) entirely made up of naming and attacking preachers he doesn't agree with... his own history and the fact that he is out of fellowship with the churches that knew him would seem to be salient points that people should know.

I grieve for him. I pray for him and want only for God to bless him by leading him out of the prision he has placed himself in.

You might be surprised at how often it is this way. Those who spend their time throwing rocks at others (remember John 8?) are usually the ones with the greatest sins, the greatest moral failures. I know. I used to be a rock thrower. I knew the Bible forwards and backwards, but it didn't touch my heart. I was an expert at the law and could get offended and launch into "righteous indignation" at the drop of a jot or tittle... but I was unloving, unclean, and untruthful. I pray that "Bob" will come to Jesus before he does much more harm. I doubt that he will come upon this little narrative, but, "Bob", if you do -- it isn't too late. Those of us who have been given time and grace and redemption want the same for you. May God have mercy on all of us.