When Is A Pastor Disqualified?

ALTAVOCES
KRIS VALLOTTON, RICK JOYNER, Julie Roys, STEPHEN STRANG, RON CANTOR

julie reyes  00:04

What does it take to disqualify someone from ministry? An affair, spiritual abuse, sexual abuse, abuse of power, or as some have claimed, can just about anyone be restored to ministry because God is gracious, and his call is irrevocable? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and today we’re going to take a deep dive into the scriptures used to justify restoring pastors to ministry who have fallen in some of the most egregious ways. We’re also going to take a look at how to confront a sinning elder. Does Matthew 18, which tells believers to first go to someone one-on-one with an offense apply to these situations? Or is this a misapplication of the passage? We’ll also look at the qualifications of an elder and we’ll explore, for example, what does it mean to be above reproach? Joining me for this discussion is Ron Cantor, an author and teacher and president of Shelanu TV. This is such a relevant discussion now given what’s happening with Mike Bickle, the founder of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. Despite Bickle’s alleged sexual abuse of multiple women, including some as young as 14 and 15 years old. Some are suggesting that Bickle can still be restored to ministry. What do you think? But it’s not just Mike Bickle. I’ve often said it’s like whack-a-wolf in the evangelical community. A pastor will be exposed as a fraud or abuser in one location, and then he’ll just go underground for a couple of years and then relaunch somewhere else. Is that really God’s will? And is that really what the Bible instructs? I can’t wait to dive into these topics with Ron. But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington if you’re looking for a top ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience, Judson University is for you. Judson is located on 90 acres, just 40 miles west of Chicago in Elgin, Illinois. The school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities, and strong financial aid. Plus, you can take classes online as well as in person. Judson University is shaping lives that shape the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there, Dan and Kurt Marquardt, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM. Well again, joining me is Ron Cantor, a Jewish believer in Jesus and the host of two TV programs, Out of Zion and Get Real. He’s also the author of 10 books. And he’s the president of Shelanu TV,  the only 24/7 Hebrew language TV channel, sharing the message of Jesus. So Ron, welcome. It’s just such a pleasure to have you.

RON CANTOR  03:08

Thank you, Julie. It’s great to be here.

julie reyes  03:11

And I am so excited to be recording this podcast because I’m getting really frustrated, to be honest, with hearing a lot of people twist scriptures to say something that I don’t think they say at all. And I’m excited to get into that. And I’m really grateful for you because you’ve been very outspoken on social media. This is my introduction to you is on Twitter. Oh, I’m sorry, X now. But I’ve really appreciated that. So thank you for speaking so boldly.

RON CANTOR  03:38

Well, and thank you because you know, something I’ve said for a long time is that, when we as elders in the body don’t do our job, the Lord will use the media to expose things. And I believe that God has used you to push some things to the forefront. So bless you.

julie reyes  03:55

Oh, well, thanks for saying that. And we usually are the last resort. We are the ones they come to after they’ve exhausted the elders in their church and all of the leaders that a victim or a whistleblower can go to. And sadly, you’re right, they often must come to us. And so that’s why we’re here. I would love I’ve said this before, I would love to be completely unnecessary in the body of Christ and for things to be handled in the church. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon. But my prayer is that that will change as we begin doing more things like we’re doing today. So we will see. You’ve served in context like all around the world, like in Rockville, Maryland, which I know where that is. My sister lives in Maryland. I used to live in Pennsylvania. So you lead a messianic congregation there. You’ve been in the Ukraine. You’ve been a pastor of a congregation there in Jerusalem, and now you’re serving with God TV and Shelanu and doing you know, just amazing ministry. But when it comes to this topic of pastors who are in persistent sin or you know, significant fall, it’s been my experience that we don’t deal with this very well within the church. But I’m curious, in your experience, you know, over several decades of ministry, how have you seen the church respond? And has it been as awful as a lot of my reporting shows it is doing? Or have you seen some really, really positive examples of dealing with it?

RON CANTOR  05:26

Well, I’ll start with the negative and I’ll go to the positive, I think in the larger charismatic world, before I was even born, the charismatic movement started in the 60s. And, you know, we were, or they were, I should say, I wasn’t alive, they were kicked out or not received in the mainline denominational world where there were structures of accountability. Where, you know, you had superintendents, and you didn’t have one pastor with all of the power. So that kind of push the charismatic world out. You know, I don’t know if it’s the majority, but certainly a large number of charismatic churches are completely independent. And often they have one leader, what I’ll call the royal pastor model. He’s a charismatic figure, probably a very good communicator, good Bible teacher. And, you know, often the elders who surround him are Yes-men or Yes-women. And they don’t really have that level of accountability. And not just that, they build up such an aura around their personality and their calling, that when they do fall into moral failure, well, God forbid that I stop preaching, because think of the people that we won’t reach. Of course, my response is, yes, that’s what you should have thought of before you fell into it to adultery. You know, Samson should have thought about that before he got his eyes poked out. There is, we’ll get into later. But there is something called being disqualified. Now, I am very fortunate that when I graduated Bible school, I moved to Rockville, Maryland, I joined a congregation there called Beth Messiah. And they were in the beginnings of forming a network of Messianic Jewish leaders that believe in what we call covenant relationships. So I’m part of a network of if I include America, 40 congregations, and some of the men in that network are my closest friends. And they hold me accountable. And we’ve had a very low number of moral failures. And we have ways of dealing with it if it does happen. I don’t know where I would be, if I was brought up in a different model, where it was accepted, where divorce was accepted, where you just kind of moved on, you know, you got a little bit of counseling, and continued as pastoring. Where you could decide to divorce your wife, marry somebody else, typically, somebody in your church, often on staff, and you just keep going in ministry. I don’t even understand that in the culture, and it’s in the charismatic world, that I came up in. Well, I’ve seen a lot of different structures and a lot of different models. Some are much better than others, some there is a lot of accountability. Even I’ve seen local elder boards that say they’re supposed to be accountable, but they, again, are often Yes-men. And so it seems like if a pastor really wants to be held accountable, and really seeks out that kind of accountability, it’s there and it can work. But you know, I heard somebody say, you know, the best structures in the world, and if you have low character, it’s not going to work. And you can have high character and have some of the worst structures. Not that structure isn’t important. It is really important. But you can develop high character by being around the right people. And I think that’s where I was very fortunate is that I just ended up in this congregation that had this incredible system of leadership training and accountability. Because the truth is, when I graduated Bible school, I was young, arrogant, fool of myself, and ready to change the world for me. I was not ready for ministry, and I joined a congregation that did not put me on staff. I worked seven years in the secular world, longing to be in ministry, longing to preach, but I decided I was gonna wait for God’s timing. And I was fortunate to be with people who poured into me and helped me develop what I hope is good character.

julie reyes  09:23

Boy I love that. I love that your church, and you were willing to sort of wait and work and build that character. And I’ve often, this is another discussion. But I think often the fact that pastors haven’t worked in the marketplace, haven’t done what everyday people do, really hurts their credibility with a lot of folks because you’re like, you don’t understand my world, and they often don’t. But let’s get to the situation that we’re in right now. And this is the context for this discussion, is we have the International House of Prayer founder, Mike Bickle, who now has received numerous credible allegations that he sexually abused women over a span of decades, really. Some of them beginning as early as when they were 14 or 15 years old. So miners, just a really shocking situation. And some charismatic leaders have responded by publicly disqualifying him. Now, it took a long time. I think just earlier this month, Dr. Michael Brown, Jack Deer, and some others. They published a statement permanently disqualifying Mike Bickle from ministry, saying you can be restored to fellowship, but you’re done in ministry. This is a major major screw up and you’re disqualified. On the other hand,  we’ve had some people who have kind of gone the whole other direction. In fact, on March 3, so this is not before the allegations came out. This is March 3, just you know, few weeks ago, Rick Joyner, who’s the founder of Morningstar Ministries, he had something to say about Mike Bickle, and I’m gonna play that clip so we can hear it, and what he actually said.

RICK JOYNER  11:04

So I went up there to see Art mostly. And this young guy named Mike Bickle was there. And Mike’s had a bunch of troubles lately, but if you haven’t heard, but we believe in restoring people. We believe in Galatians 6:1, if a man’s caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore them. We’re committed to that I think you’re gonna be seeing and hearing from Mike again.

julie reyes  11:30

All right, kind of stunning. You’re going to be seeing from Mike again and some troubles. Some troubles.

RON CANTOR  11:36

Yeah. You know, the concern I have about that. And again, I’m not here to attack Rick Joyner or anyone else. I want to talk about the principles that we see in Scripture when it comes to these things. But the concern I have about his comment is and I’ve listened to that clip many times as he emphasizes the word any, as if to say even if you did really bad stuff. And in the situation with Mike, and listen, Mike Bickle was a friend of mine, not best friends ministry friendship, I’ll call it not deep accountability. But we did ministry together. And I loved him. And honestly, I thought he was the last person that would fall into the type of sins that have been alleged. I’m still shocked. But the any when you emphasize any and then you’re talking about Mike Bickle, he allegedly was with teenage girls. Now that is criminal behavior in I think every state in the US. So he’s not just talking about restoring him to fellowship, he’s talking about having him preach again. And I just don’t see that in Scripture. So let’s just take that passage Galatians s6:1. If you see  someone in any sin,,

julie reyes  12:48

Alright, timeout on that. I know you want to go to Galatians. Before we do that, Galatians 6:1, because he’s not the only one that cited that. And I want you to look at Galatians 6:1, and what does it actually say? But there’s another one who use Galatians 6:1, which honestly, I was kind of surprised. I haven’t heard this used to restore pastors that much. But Stephen Strang, the CEO of Charisma Media, he came out and said something very similar to what Rick Joyner said,. So let me play this clip. This was earlier, okay. In his defense, this was January 30. This was before Tammy Woods had come forward. This is before like you said, what would be, I think, T.H. was one of the victims as well; not identified by her full name. But T.H. you know, when she was 15, so those hadn’t come out yet. But we did hear about a woman, the main, you know, Bickle victim, as she was called at the time. We exclusively reported that story of a Jane Doe, who said at 19, so she would have been 19. Mike Bickle was in his mid-40s. And he had a sexual relationship with her for several years. And that is something that would classify as adult clergy sexual abuse. And we’re going to talk a little bit about that. Because I know there’s a lot of people are like, hey, She’s 19, she’s of age that’s consensual, this isn’t abuse. Let me just play the clip, and then we’ll dig into that a little bit.

STEPHEN STRANG  14:14

There are some bigger issues that I think we have to deal with. And one of them is should Mike Bickle be restored or not? And let me just give you my perspective. First of all, we want our perspective to be the word of God. And in Galatians 6:1 it says brothers if a man is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual, should restore such a one in a spirit of meekness. Watching yourselves, lest also you be tempted. And so I believe that the apostle Paul writing to the Galatians said very clearly that people can be restored. I come from a denominational background that has a path restoration for ministers who are repentant. I grew up in Assemblies of God. And they, the Assemblies of God, to their credit have always stood for righteousness. And they’re very quick if somebody messes up to deal with it. Unlike some groups where it seems they just become more and more liberal, and it’s almost anything goes. But they also have a way that people can be restored. And I’ve known a number of people who’ve been restored. Some of them publicly. Jim Baker went through a period of restoration after he lost everything and even went to prison. He was later exonerated. There’s other examples, as well. Ted Haggard, who went through a very public humiliation. He’ll never again have the same position of leadership, but he has been restored to ministry. He pastors a church now in Colorado Springs.

RON CANTOR  15:55

Yeah, that’s very inaccurate.

julie reyes  15:58

Yeah, okay, I was gonna bring that up. But you go ahead, point out these inaccuracies. Because there’s several.

RON CANTOR  16:05

And I reached out to Steve after I watched that. I wrote him a letter explaining I’m not sure you really, I hope that you don’t understand everything that’s really happening. Because if you did, you might not have said that. But first of all, was Jim Baker exonerated? No. I think he got out of jail a little bit early. And maybe they felt that the sentence was too strong, but I don’t think he was exonerated. And Ted Haggard left his accountability system, and said, God called him back to Colorado Springs, and only God can un-call him, which is just horribly unbiblical. Because it is men who lay hands on you to put you in ministry, and it’s men who can sit you down. At least that’s what I see in the Bible. And that’s what I submit to with the group of ministers that I’m a part of.

julie reyes  16:57

Jim Baker. You’re right. He was originally sentenced to 45 years in prison. And then a judge later reduced his sentence to eight years in prison. And then he got out after less than five years,  on parole. I don’t think that’s exoneration. It’s simply a judge change his sentencing; he still was guilty. And honestly, when you look at the millions of dollars that he misused; donor funds, that he and his wife misused on their extravagant living. I mean, when I look at the qualifications of an elder, and one of them is not being a lover of money, that’s just shocking to me. That’s even, you know, in addition to the allegations of immorality that he was involved in. Ted Haggard too. I mean, stunning to me, Stephen Strang is in media, I’m in media, I find it very difficult to believe that he doesn’t know better. I mean, if he doesn’t know better than, shame on him, he’s completely incompetent in that role. And I know I’m using strong language, but this is ridiculous. What he just said is unconscionable. And either you have your head buried in the sand, which you do not Stephen Strang. You’re in this position, you knew you were there for the decades while you know, Jim Baker this was going through. I know people want to give him the benefit of the doubt. I’m so offended by that statement. And to me to bring up Haggard and Baker as an example of why we should restore pastors? To me, it’s the exact opposite. They are examples of why we should not restore pastors,  and Jim Baker, you know, was peddling some supposed cure of COVID that he got censured for by the government just recently. I mean, it’, again, to me just sad and pathetic what we’re doing on this. But let me throw this back to you because I did interrupt you when you want to go into Galatians 6:1. And I know we’re dying to do this. Now used by two men in positions of leadership within the charismatic community, saying Galatians 6:1 says to restore a pastor, that that’s what you know, and you said in everything, right? So speak to that.

RON CANTOR  19:09

Yeah. Well, if you read Galatians 6:1, it says, You are spiritual. If any believer finds himself in sin, in any sin, then you who are spiritual should restore him. There is no leadership context there. If you read the verses before, after Paul is talking about the fruit of the Spirit before and then he, in 6:1, he comes to this verse. He’s speaking to any believer about any sin and that is true. We should restore any believer regarding any sin that they commit, no matter how grievous whether it is adultery or clergy sexual abuse. We are in the business of restoring people. We’re in salvation but the very word salvation means taking something that nobody else wants and making it desirable again. Making it usable again. And my prayer for Mike Bickle, or for anyone else who finds themselves in such a sin, is that they would be restored. But there is nothing in that passage about leadership. There is nothing in that passage about somebody who is in a position of authority, spiritual authority, preaching, teaching, discipling, an elder or a pastor in a congregation, falling into sexual sin, or clergy sexual abuse, and then being restored to that. But it has nothing to do with the context. It’s about any believer falling in any sin, and then the rest of the body going and helping that person, which we believe in it.

julie reyes  20:42

So Galatians 6:1 is not talking about this. Let’s look at some other passages. So what  passage would you look to as a recipe for how to treat a sinning elder?

RON CANTOR  20:55

We have to first ask ourselves is does the New Testament have an expectation that if a leader falls into sexual sin, that they have the right to be restored to the exact same position? And the answer is no, there’s no scripture in the New Testament that deals with this specifically. That says, when somebody falls into ,has a moral failure, you know, they’re going to be restored right back into that same position, or into a position of leadership. We have to understand that leadership, that preaching, that teaching, it’s a privilege, it’s not a right. And it is true that if a leader falls into sin, and they’re disqualified, and they can’t go back into ministry, then that does mean that people that they would have reached may not be reached. But that is why when we take that solemn oath to enter into ministry, we have to surround ourselves with the tools that we need, so we don’t have a moral failure. Paul says in I Corinthians 9:27, I beat my body and I make it submit, so that after I preach, I will not be disqualified. So if anything, Paul is saying that there are things that can permanently disqualify you from preaching. I do believe that when you commit, and we’ll get into it later the difference between adultery and clergy,sexual abuse. I do believe that disqualifies you. But if you know that somebody is, if somebody has a complaint against an elder, against a pastor, against a teacher, then the Bible is very clear. Paul tells Timothy, I Timothy 5:19, that if there are two or three or more accusations against an elder, it has to be taken seriously, it has to be investigated, it has to be dealt with. And then verse 20 says, if the elder is, if it’s proven that he has been in sin, then it is dealt with publicly in front of the church. Sadly, what often happens, and again, there’s no joy in exposing somebody’s private life. It’s the, Why’d you do that? Because you have to warn the church, this is not acceptable. And then if people know that that pastor that there were suspicion, they need to know the outcome, they need to see the integrity of the eldership, how they dealt with that.

julie reyes  23:17

Yeah. And since you brought up First Timothy, 5:19-20, you know, it says, one that there needs to be, you know, two or more witnesses of this. And then it says, again, to publicly expose him so that others may stand in fear. Like there should be a level of fear among pastors of falling into sin. And that’s something bad would happen. I feel like we have been restoring pastors so much, you know, I joke, but it’s not funny, you know, that it’s like whack-a -wolf. You know, I mean, they sin here then they go underground for a couple of years, and then just pop up somewhere else. And we just have them being recycled over and over again and its playing out in different locations. And I am grateful that we’re talking about adult clergy sexual abuse. I mean, there’s one thing does just immorality, does adultery disqualify you? But then on top of that, we have this thing called adult clergy sexual abuse. It’s something that’s becoming more understood in the church, but you have this power differential between a pastor and a congregant, or a staff member. You know, this is their boss, or this is their spiritual leader that they trust, and they wouldn’t believe that he would do something as evil as groom them, you know, into sexual sin with him. That, you know, is a level of predatory behavior that I don’t think we’ve understood very much in the church. So, I mean, speak to that. You see, I mean, I can tell a difference between an affair that might happen between a pastor and say someone outside his church, and actually, sometimes in a counseling context, sometimes in a pastoral context. Either way, you know, a position of authority over someone and using that spiritual position as a context to exploit that person sexually. Talk to that.

RON CANTOR  25:07

Sure. Let me just give a footnote to the last point we brought up. Why would a pastor who has had a moral failure, want to continue to  preach? Would he not be embarrassed? Would he not be ashamed? And that is often because in our celebrity pastor culture, there is a level of narcissism that is tolerated. And when you are a severe narcissist, and I’ve seen it in ministry many times, there is no shame. We see it in politics, we see it in ministry, where there’s nothing, there’s no thing that is too horrible for you to do, that doesn’t make you want to stay in the public eye. And that’s where other elders come in have to say no, absolutely not. So what is the difference between just regular adultery, if you will, and clergy sexual abuse? There was, I’m an NBA fan. So the Boston Celtics a few years ago, their coach, it came out that he was having an affair with somebody on their staff in his chain of authority. She wasn’t underage, they were both consenting adults, and yet he was fired immediately. And what is sad is that the secular world seems to understand this, and we in the church don’t. So I won’t mention his name, but there is a pastor in America who decided he was going to divorce his wife, and shortly thereafter married her friend who was on staff and continued in ministry. That would never be tolerated in the world. You cannot engage in a sexual relationship with somebody that you have spiritual authority, or in the secular world, any type of authority. The reason the coach was fired, is because he was somebody that this woman looked up to. You can’t call it consensual when you are adored by that person, when you’re looked up to by that person. So when we’re inside of the church, and you’re a pastor, forget a basketball coach and his chain of command. There’s something about somebody who stands up in the pulpit with spiritual authority that is attractive. And you trust your pastor in a way that you’re not going to trust everybody else. So when your pastor tells you that he loves you, that he can’t control his feelings for you, that it’s okay because God showed him. It’s not just like meeting somebody at a restaurant and falling into a sinful relationship. That person has now been manipulated, and they have been controlled. Or when that pastor begins to send texts, if he’s famous with somebody that that adores him, comes to his meetings, follows his ministry. And now she’s like, Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe that he knows who I am, or that he saw my text, or that he wants to interact with me. And then that moves into a sexual conversation. It’s not equal levels, it’s not equal playing ground. So you know, my personal opinion is, if a leader falls into clergy sexual abuse, then you’re done. That is my conviction. That is the conviction or the standard I hold myself to, I would that others would hold themselves to that standard as well. And particularly, in the situation that we’re talking about today. There were teenage girls, I know it was 40 years ago, but it wasn’t dealt with. And I don’t even know how you deal with something like that. Now you’re talking about something criminal. But yes, clergy, sexual abuse is very different than just meeting somebody on a business trip or wherever and falling into adultery.

julie reyes  28:51

And the question is, too, with adultery, whether you can be disqualified for that as well. And I’m going to read the passages on the qualifications for elders in just a second. But there is something since we brought up I Timothy 5, I want to discuss, and that is where it says two or more witnesses. And I have actually heard people make the argument based on that saying, Yeah, you’ve been sexually assaulted by a pastor. But now you need some witnesses who actually saw it. So if nobody saw you get sexually assaulted by this pastor. Sorry, you’re out of luck. Speak to that.

RON CANTOR  29:28

Yeah, I think that we have to look at and I don’t want to get hammered here because I’m not trying to change the Bible. But the culture that Paul was speaking into was a very different culture. Women were incredibly devalued in that culture. So everything you know, like I think, N.T. Wright, I heard him say how he changed over the years in his understanding of women in ministry. He says, you know, where the Bible says women should learn at home. Paul was speaking into a culture where women didn’t learn at all. So by saying they should learn at home, he’s upgrading. So it’s not apples and apples. Let me just say this, if I want to make the standard stricter for my pastors, I think that’s okay. So it’s one thing, if I’m making it looser than Scripture, we don’t have the authority to do that. But if I want to say if you are going to be a part of our congregation, here’s our standard. And this is the standards that were developed, as we’re watching what’s happening, we are developing different standards, we are strengthening our standards and our network. We are now arranging that if anybody in any one of our congregations here in Israel has a complaint against a leader regarding sexual sin, that there is an address. If it’s a female person complaining, there’s an address of a female. That’s the first person that they go to. They don’t go to that we’ll get into this in a minute, but they don’t go to the pastor that abused them, they go to this female person, which we’ll call an advocate. And then that person, there is a series of things that happen where that thing is investigated. So I don’t have any problem if somebody ever made an accusation against me, if it was one person, I would immediately call my other, I called that female once we get that that system in place, but I would call my other leaders. And I would say, Listen, this person saying this about me, it didn’t happen. But I want you to hear her, and I want you to investigate it. So I would never say to an alleged victim of rape because there’s no witnesses, we’re going to just ignore that. At the same time, we’re not going to say we 100% believe you. We don’t know. There’s definitely cases inside the church where somebody gets angry at a pastor, gets bitter and makes up accusation. The issue is we have to investigate all accusations.

julie reyes  32:00

I think we have to look too, that studies show that there’s hardly ever a case where a woman will bring an accusation.

RON CANTOR  32:08

Less than 10%.

julie reyes  32:09

Yeah, it’s incredibly low. And people have to understand when they do this, they’re coming forward with one of the most shameful things. Even though it shouldn’t be shameful to them because they didn’t do anything wrong. But they feel shame, and it’s humiliating, and they don’t want to admit this publicly, and they really don’t want to talk about it. And to do that there’s an incredible cost and trauma, a re-traumatizing that happens to the victim. And so I think we’ve grown in our understanding to, you know, generally unless there’s a reason not to believe the women, I think we should, that should be our inclination.

RON CANTOR  32:42

When these accusations were brought to me, somebody who was on the advocate group had contacted me just before it became public. What I said to myself, I’m sure these are true. That was without investigation. That was based on my experience in ministry. I am again, I’ve been in ministry, almost 40 years, I have not yet seen a false accusation that has come across my desk. Studies show it’s 2 to 8%. And just again, based on my experience, I said, there’s more than one, they’re probably true. And they turned out at least two of them have been confessed to and two of them have been ignored.

julie reyes  33:28

And I think too, when we look at situations where it says, you know, witnesses, I know as a reporter, we’ve learned, we’ve grown as a journalistic community on how to investigate and corroborate some of these stories. If somebody comes forward to me, I’m going to say, Well, did you talk about this with anybody, like at the time it happened? And often, oh, yeah, I talked with this person and that person, and you’re able to go and interview those people. And they can say, oh, yeah. And often what they tell you know, I mean, I’ve had, mothers tell me how their daughter was, you know, throwing up. You don’t throw up after consensual sex. You know, I mean, the responses and the trauma that they saw, and they witnessed to me, that’s those sorts of corroboration. And you know, the character the person I think, when the main Jane Doe came forward in this Mike Bickle situation, there were so many people who knew her character, that she was not somebody who would ever make something like this up. And so I think those are ways that we can corroborate with additional witnesses without them actually being there and actually witnessing it. There are ways to corroborate it. And so I’m grateful that we’re learning as we continue to grow in our understanding of this issue. I want to take a look at the qualifications of a pastor or an elder because they’re pretty stinkin high. I Timothy 3:1-7. The saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach ,not a drunkard, not a violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace into a snare of the devil. That’s a tough, tough level of qualifications. But when I look at pastors that have fallen into this kind of sexual sin, I have to ask myself, and I’m gonna sound like a hard liner here,  but, you know, I think of like, the statistics we have about recidivism with, you know, prisoners coming out, do they reoffend? And they’re really, really high. I would say, from my experience, the cases of recidivism of pastors falling into sexual sin again, or especially into predatory behavior really, really high. I would rather lean to, you know, being conservative about restoring these pastors. And I really do ask myself, can you be above reproach, after betraying your congregation, betraying your wife, and really bringing shame upon the church, the reputation of the church, in a community? Because everybody finds out. This becomes public, and it should become public. That’s what I Timothy says to do. Publicly rebuke this sinning elder.

RON CANTOR  36:49

I think you also have to ask, what does it mean to be restored? Does it mean actually getting back in the pulpit? Or is it a deep process? Your recent guest, I don’t remember his name. He was a PhD, David Pooler. Yes, yes. He talked about that when you are, first of all, he said, It’s the exception, not the rule, restoration of ministry. But then he said that the restoration process, it’s so often, you know, just take a break, even if it’s a year. You’re not just taking a break! You need to see a trained counselor or a group of counselors. It should not be an easy thing. It should not be well, I’m gonna take a sabbatical, I was overworked. And you are right because the cases of repeat offenses is just way too high. And so again, I don’t see anywhere in the New Testament where there’s an expectation that a leader who has a moral failure would be restored. But if that happens, there needs to be a deep restoration in his soul before there’s ever a restoration to position of ministry.

julie reyes  38:00

And I think something that we don’t look at often is that somebody who has been, especially when this is sort of a sexual sin that’s been hidden for a while, there is a level of deception, and a pattern of deception that accompanies that, that is really, really wicked, and ingrained, and it takes, you know, I’ve talked to people about, you know, changing character flaws. Like spiritually we can be reconciled to God, like immediately. We confess we’re reconciled to God. Changing a character quality or character flaw, that takes years and years and years. I’ve heard people say, you know, 10 years should be the minimum that we even consider for something like this. And, you know, I would be at least along those lines, I think we should do that – 10 years. Again, there’s other passages that deal with qualifications of an elder; they’re really similar to this one. And I think I love that you say this is a privilege. It’s a privilege to serve the church. It’s a privilege to be in leadership. This is not a birthright. Let’s talk about there’s another pastor who got himself in a lot of trouble regarding the Mike Bickle situation. And that’s Kris Vallotton, who is at the Bethel Church in Redding, California. He said something in mid-February, which caused a lot of people to be concerned. I’m gonna play that clip. And he has since apologized, and we will hear the apology as well. But I want to play the clip first, because I think it’s important to hear what he said, because it’s not just him. This is such a typical kind of message and response to this kind of sin by another sort of celebrity pastor.

KRIS VALLOTTON  39:48

We have to break the power of, we need justice. And we have to be people who say, No, we need reconciliation. And by the way in reconciliation, there is a line of justice. I don’t want You just say, you know, I mean, we’ve just been, you know, watching what’s happening with IHOP. And by the way, I want to say publicly, I love Mike Bickle. I don’t know what the outcome will be, but it won’t change the fact that I love him. He’s my brother won’t change the fact that he’s my brother. Somebody posted on my social page a couple days ago, and they’re like, they said, oh, you haven’t said anything about you know, IHOP situation. So you obviously are part of the problem. I’m like, I just I text I mean, I wrote back replied, you’re an idiot. But then I realized that I was the idiot for calling him an idiot. And I just answered a fool according to his foolishness and became a fool right with him. So I immediately took it down. I’m just pointing out that if I have a problem with somebody I know, I don’t need to post something on social media, so you all know where I stand. This is not entertainment; this is a tragedy. I’m not going to play out on social media. Let you all know, well, you know, I believe that Mike BIckle should dah, dah, dah. And that’s the way it should happen. I just want everybody know I’m against it too. Listen, if you can’t look at my life and know where I stand, I guess I don’t have much of a life. My goal for Mike Bickle, IHOP and everyone else who’s struggling, including the Bethel struggles we have, is that we would reconcile, and that we would see righteousness grow out of it. Not another documentary.

julie reyes  41:45

Man, that one just is hard to listen to. It’s hard to watch. I mean, it’s one thing to hear the things that he’s saying. And to call people idiots who are saying, hey, we need to hear from you. We need to hear from you. And then the cheering and the laughing. And there’s other areas in his sermon. And I know you don’t necessarily want to get into that. But you know where he talks about you don’t need to hear the details when there’s a foll. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. Not every gory detail. But I’m so sick of hearing about inappropriate relationships. We don’t know if the relationship happened with a woman who was a congregant. We don’t know the extent of it. We don’t know. But you know, it’s an inappropriate relationship. I mean, come on. Or they had inappropriate texts, but we can’t we don’t know what they are. But the elders have looked at them. Trust us. No. We don’t trust you. We don’t trust you anymore. Because we have seen this over and over and over again of this being mishandled. So yeah, it’s hard for me, it makes me angry. And if this doesn’t make you angry on some level, then I think you’re missing God’s heart for justice and for victims. But I’m gonna get off my soapbox and I’ll let you go on. Well, what did you think?

RON CANTOR  43:01

When wen I saw that originally, I was stunned. I was stunned at the laughter. It was like Comedy Hour. And again, I’m not here to beat up on Kris. I’ve heard many wonderful things about him by people that go to Bethel. It’s more the principle of, this was just a week, I think, after we discovered that there were allegations from young girls who were teenagers, when they were allegedly assaulted by Mike Bickle. And it’s not the time that you say, You know what? I’m going to be bold, and I’m gonna, you want to know what I think? I love him. There you go. In calling people who wonder where Bethel stands on this, calling them idiots. I don’t understand it. I wrote about this. As soon as I saw it, I was stunned. There was not one mention about these teens, about concern for them. Obviously, they’re not teens anymore. There was not concerns for the other victims. And we know that there are other victims, that their stories have not come out. I have been told that by those who know in the advocacy group, that sadly, this story isn’t over. So I do think that leaders of very large movements and congregations do need to take a stand. They need to say hey, it’s fine to say that you love Mike Bickle. I love Mike Bickle. I care for him. I hope that he fully comes clean, and that he gets the healing that he needs that there is repentance and restitution. Jesus loves Mike Bickle. That’s not the issue right now. My deeper concern is not to make sure that the perpetrator knows that I love them, but the victims know that I love them. The perpetrator typically, when you’re talking about serial abuse, is a narcissist and he doesn’t really care whether I love them or not. He knows he’s loved; he feels he’s loved by everybody. But the victim, what they have gone through, the shame, the embarrassment, the years of holding in a secret, how it’s affected other relationships. What goes on in a 14-year-old soul, when somebody in their 20s has a sexual relationship, somebody who’s married, somebody who is a pastor? That is much more of my concern. So I would hope that in the future, that pastors who have followings like Kris, they would have something to say about the actual sin. I was impressed who others who did come forth. And again, like you said, it took some time, but said, Yes, this is really wrong. This isn’t right. And there needs to be a full confession.

julie reyes  45:44

And I think when we look at Scripture, I’m not sure that there’s ever in fact, I’m pretty sure there’s not a place where we’re encouraged by God to stand with the powerful. It seems like his heart is for the vulnerable, for the victim. And so many of these, you know, I’ve reported on so many of these cases now. So it’s like, you know, very fresh in my memory. But it’s just shocking to me how often it’s, let’s pray  for Mike Bickle. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t pray for Mike Bickle. But our first inclination should be, let’s pray for the victims. Man, these women for decades have been silenced. Often they’ve tried to come forward and people don’t believe them. And they gaslight them and they make them the problem instead of the real problem. I mean, this is the real situation. And so I just, you know, church, please, please, please do better and do not encourage pastors when they’re doing this, because it’s wrong. It’s not the heart of God at all.

RON CANTOR  46:44

Yeah, the cry of the Hebrew prophets was often against injustice towards the weak, it was never to praise the strong.

julie reyes  46:53

Yep, exactly. Well, we’ve mentioned this apology. So I do want to play Kris’s apology that he came out with, and I do appreciate it. But here it is.

KRIS VALLOTTON  47:03

Hi, I’m Kris Vallotton. And I just wanted to take a couple of minutes to apologize. And say, I’m very sorry for a message that hurt a lot of people in that I did not talk about the protection of victims. In the streaming service, I actually did talk about it, I preached four times, and talked about it and the other three services, but somehow missed it completely, which is a big mistake. And also talked about the situation with IHOP, which there’s so much pain in that situation. And I just add it to that pain. And I’m so very sorry. I think that victims absolutely need to be protected as a first priority. And I would never blame a victim for what happens in a situation like that. Secondly, my message was about the idea and the concept that we have so many leaders falling into immorality, and I was calling for leaders to be held accountable. Don’t matter if they’re my friends, don’t matter how long I’ve known them. The message was about the fact that in order to get out of sin, you need transparency, you need confession, you need the blood of Jesus, and you need fellowship, you have to walk in the light, according to First John. That was the heart of my message. That was the message I was preaching. And unfortunately, the whole thing got misconstrued to some folks, and I understand how they would get that. If you’ve only heard the two-minute clip, I would really ask you to go back and watch the entire message. I don’t know if that will solve your concerns. But that was the message; leaders need to be held accountable and they have to stop living aloof in isolation, and without accountability. Thank you very much. I hope you forgive me.

julie reyes  48:45

So. Appreciate the I mean, it’s a different you’re hearing a very different tone there; much more contrite than you heard in the sermon. What did you make of that apology?

RON CANTOR  48:58

I appreciated it. I was moved by it. I deleted my post after I saw it. I think it could have been a little bit stronger if he had mentioned the names even though the names are not in public. Jane Doe one Jane Doe two, Tammy Woods and T.H. Just to say we’re praying for you, we love you. We’re sorry that you went through this. But I thought he was contrite and broken and I don’t want to sit here as a judge over his apology. That’s really not my role. But I do appreciate that he quickly took responsibility.

julie reyes  49:34

Yeah, I think I mean, I do think we need to get a little better at apologies and not try to make excuses at them. I know Wade Mullen talks about the faux apology and I think we do need to think about how we make them. I went back and I listened to his message. I didn’t listen to the whole entire thing. So I’ll say that, but the parts I heard didn’t make it better for me. Maybe some folks will listen to it and find that it makes it better. The thing that really concerns me is that on March 12, Kris put out the following post on Twitter, or X now, Redemption isn’t just for victims, it’s for victimizers. The Lord doesn’t just restore the innocent he restores the guilty. The woman caught in adultery wasn’t a person having sex outside of marriage, but a woman cheating on her husband and having sex with a husband that belongs to another wife. She is not a victim. She is a victimizer. The message of the gospel is not just for those sinned against but for the sinner. If justice in Christ means the sinner gets what he deserves, then the gospel is only for victims; the innocent, the already righteous, innocent victims, children, the weak, the broken, the aged and so on, must first and foremost be protected from victimizers. And the restoration must be prioritized when they are sinned against You don’t have to be a Christian to call for justice for victims, but to call for and long for redemption of the guilty. That’s a Christ-like attribute. It’s important to remember that everyone in the world who is a victim of a crime is also a victimizer in life that needs redemption from sin and forgiveness from Christ.

RON CANTOR  51:12

Yeah, the timing of that was very strange. Why now? Agree with the message, but timing is really bad when we’re dealing with predatory behavior of one of the most famous charismatic names in the entire world. You’re saying that victims are victimizers or that we need to be concerned about the victimizers? It just timing, not a good time for that message. And by the way, the woman caught in adultery? Many manuscripts don’t even have that in it. I don’t know how he knows the background of that woman. It’s certainly not in the text. There’s some assumptions being made. And some people believe that the Holy Spirit gives them instructions on the background story. I don’t believe that we should be doing that in theology. But we don’t know the story of the woman caught in adultery. We do know something, that the man caught in adultery wasn’t there. Something happened to him for some reason, they didn’t bring him forward. And Jesus was very compassionate with her. But it was a strange tweet.

julie reyes  52:23

Well, and one thing we do know is it was a pretty patriarchal culture where women didn’t necessarily have the rights that men had. Right. And a woman could easily be caught in adultery. And it’d be I mean, a power situation where she wasn’t really consensual partner, so we really don’t know. And I think, again, it is stunning to me that that is the message that he came out with., now.

RON CANTOR  52:52

It’s almost I don’t mean to interrupt you, but it’s almost like saying in the present situation, you Jane DOE’s, you teenage girls, don’t forget you’re also a victimizer. And I can’t agree with that.

julie reyes  53:04

It’s pretty stunning. It is pretty stunning. Yeah. Are we all sinners? 100% .100% And should that make us gracious? 100%. But right now, that message, that’s pretty tough. I want to go to Matthew 18, because I do not want to end this podcast without touching on this passage, which has been used to tell for example, Jane Doe, that she needed to come and confront Mike Bickle. Fortunately, her husband stood in for her which is still, I mean, a pretty difficult situation for a husband to do as well. But let me just read it, and then let’s talk about how this is being used. Because it is being used in churches, as though this is a prescription for how you should deal with a sin an elder. Let me read Matthew 18. It says, If your brother sins against you, go, and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen to even the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, I say to you if two of you agree on earth about anything they asked it will be done for them by my Father in heaven, For where two or three are gathered in my name there am I among them. Okay. So, this is being used as not only if somebody assaults you or sins against you, but even if you see sin in an elder that doesn’t relate to even you, that this is the prescription you have to go to him, one-on-one or her could be a her. What’s the right application of this verse?

RON CANTOR  55:00

Yeah, I think most scholars would agree that that is talking about personal offences. It’s not talking about rape. It’s not talking about clergy sexual abuse; it’s not talking about sex with teens or with children. I know of one congregation mega church, that when there was criminal behavior, and I believe in that state, you were required, if somebody of age was with a child in the children’s ministry, that you would have to report that to the police. And what they would do is they would bring the child and the abuser together for reconciliation, which is just nutty. It is just so wrong. And of course, it’s based on Matthew 18. No, I do not think that Jesus is telling a vulnerable, powerless young lady, that you go to the senior pastor of a mega church or a mega ministry, and you confront him because he raped you or you confront him because he manipulated you into sexual sin. I don’t buy that for a minute. And I think that sometimes people will use that as a way of avoiding, you can’t confront me because I didn’t sin against you. If she wants to confront me, you tell her to that, you know, come on, grow up, be a leader, be a man. If God forbid, it was my wife being the victim, you better believe that I would not send her back to confront. I would be there, and it might not be pretty. You know, God bless the husband of Jane Doe, that he did not send his wife to confront Mike Bickle but went himself. But that was used, as I understand it, from what I understand about the situation, that was constantly used as a way to cry foul. Now listen, there are some times that we mess up in confrontations. I’ve been in high profile computations, where I’ve made mistakes, where I’ve done the wrong thing. You cannot cry foul, because you made a mistake in a technicality, and therefore we’re going to ignore adultery, we’re going to ignore rape, we’re going to ignore the abuse of interns, because you failed on point two,. We’re often going to get these things wrong. The bigger issue is the moral failure, is the crime, is the rape, is the adultery, etc.

julie reyes  57:21

I am so tired of this passage being used really to bully and manipulate vulnerable people when they try to come forward. And I love that you say, you know, we don’t sit there and let’s nitpick at the victim at how they did this. Or the whistleblower, because, again, this is talking about a personal offense. It’s not talking about a person in spiritual leadership whose mishandling that leadership. There should be a way of reporting that without the vulnerable person, which again, anybody in the congregation, anybody on staff who’s below the pastor, is a vulnerable person. And there should be a way to report that. And again, I think passages like I Timothy 5:19-20 are much more applicable than this, which deals with, you know, a personal offense. I can remember once being in a church meeting, and then saying, if you have some thoughts about something to speak them. And so I stood up and I spoke them. And I learned firsthand the power of the man with the mic in front of the entire church, the way I was shamed the way I was, you know, which actually ended up backfiring, because it’s like, Oh, my word, did he just treat her like that? But again, these are the sorts of things that we are doing so poorly within the church.

RON CANTOR  58:37

We were in a situation a few years ago, where there was a somebody who I believe is a predator. And there were whistleblowers that had been in his organization, and they went to the person to whom he was accountable. And that person would not meet with him. He would not meet with him, he would not hear, and they were the worst sexual sins I’ve ever seen. And not only would he not meet with him, he then publicly, when they finally made the evidence public, he said what they did is worse than the sexual perversion of the person they were accusing. That’s just bad leadership. As leaders if there are these accusations, allegations of severe sexual sin, number one, no, you don’t have to go to the person first. You should go straight to leadership. And number two, we should be beyond the world. In the world, you have a human resources department in most corporations, where you would not have to go to the CEO or the Vice President, you would go to human resources, and they would protect you. And why is it that we cannot protect people in the body of Christ, but unbelievers can do it in corporations? Instead, we’re gonna send them as sheep to wolves to the very person that perpetrated against them in the first place. That’s just not biblical. It’s not right and it’s not protective.

julie reyes  1:00:01

Preach, preach. I so believe that passionately that needs to happen. And one of the things I will say, and I think we’ll end here. I have been heartened in this all-International House of Prayer scandal involving Mike Bickle. And I’m trying to think of another situation. I mean, in almost all the stories and investigations I’ve done,  there are people who used to be on staff,  or who used to be in leadership, who come forward and often become my main sources. Rarely have I seen, and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen the kind of organized group, where you have former leaders who say, you know, investigate these things, and then actually stand on the front lines for these women. And they took the hits first. I mean, the advocates who came out and made a public statement in late October, saying, you know, we are convinced there are credible accounts of Mike Bickle having this predatory pattern, sinning sexually against these women, and preying on them. I mean, they took the hits initially, and they even from, you know, I remember when General Fuller called some of them liars and really went after them. And they were willing to stand. You know, we talk a lot about men standing in the gap. I am sick and tired of men talking about being leaders and what that means. And when it comes to standing in the gap for women, and taking the hits for them, I hardly ever see them do it. But in this case, I did. And I would say thank you, to those men, Dwayne Roberts, and Alan Hood. There are women involved in that too, you know, Elizabeth Herder and others who have just really, really done incredible work. But that, to me, is one of the most heartening things that I have seen. And I just think those men and women deserve our support, and really our gratitude.

RON CANTOR  1:02:05

Yeah, I’ll just Amen to everything you just said there. I know several people on the advocacy group. Some have been friends; some are new friends. Dwayne Robert and I are going to be in Brazil, in May ministering together on this topic. And I know what it’s like to be in that position where we had to confront a high-profile person a few years ago. And you’re putting your entire reputation on the line, it’s very scary. And you don’t know which way it’s gonna go. In the midst of it, it looks like it’s going the wrong direction, your life is over. Everybody hates you, everyone’s against you. And I’m just so proud of them that they had the courage to bring this forward and that they didn’t back down, when it did look like the you know, things were just gonna be washed away and pushed away. And so God bless them and God minister to them. Because they took some arrows in the Spirit. That is a very wounding thing that you go through when people are suddenly talking about you online, using your name, challenging your character. So God bless them. And may God minister life and grace to them.

julie reyes  1:03:15

Yeah. And I would say that to you as well because Ron, you’ve stood out there. And I know that makes you kind of a lightning rod when you say something. But I’ve appreciated that. And I appreciate your candor on this podcast. So thank you very much.

RON CANTOR  1:03:19

Gracias.

julie reyes  1:03:31

And thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And just a quick reminder, The Roys Report is dependent on donations from listeners like you to continue our work. So if you appreciate podcasts like these, as well as our investigative journalism, would you please help support us this month? Again, we don’t have big advertisers who are big donors. We just have you, the people who care about rooting out the corruption and abuse in the church. So if you’re passionate about our vision to report the truth and restore the church, please go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE, and you can give there. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. That way you won’t miss any of these episodes. And while you’re at it, I really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me. Hope you were blessed and encouraged.