Lonnie Frisbee again
It's remarkable that the "Lonnie Frisbee" post of March 2007 keeps generating interest, after a year and a half. It seems to me that a couple of issues raised in the comments deserve a new post.
I agree that it would not have been right to let Frisbee continue in a place of leadership until his perversion was dealt with. To do so, among other points, would have been to exploit him for his gifts at the expense of truth - but that's exactly what the problem was anyway, both at the Vineyard and Calvary Chapel, and why he didn't get help, instead being squeezed like a lemon and then discarded.
I was in the Vineyard for a while, and what happened to Frisbee was consistently their way. If someone like Frisbee had a problem, or even when Wimber blundered down some wrong path, that person or booboo was just painted out of the picture like the disappearing commissars in their portraits with Stalin. They just became non-persons and non-events. There was never any contrition, any acknowledgment of a problem. Everybody just moved on, in total dissociation and denial. This happened much more than once or twice; indeed, was it ever done otherwise?
Debacles are intended by God to be instructive, so we always screw up when we contrive to hide from them. It's not only an indication of Wimber's moral turpitude that every bad thing or person would disappear into the Vineyard's memory hole in the manner of 1984. It also ensured that nothing could be learned, which is why that ministry in one way or another kept returning to its folly like a dog to its vomit. That's a lot more destructive than homosexuality or any other sexual problem, and indeed ensures an environment in which such problems, and many others, never get cured. Look no further for why healing didn't happen much there, whatever the theology. Healing is for people who face up to sickness instead of resolutely hiding from it in order to look good to men.
The Vineyard is a real poster child, but is it not the usual way of American culture in general, and of its churches, which are so completely conformed to it? Don't we all need to lay this to heart? If we want healing for ourselves and others, what say we take Malachi's advice and consider our ways?
I agree that it would not have been right to let Frisbee continue in a place of leadership until his perversion was dealt with. To do so, among other points, would have been to exploit him for his gifts at the expense of truth - but that's exactly what the problem was anyway, both at the Vineyard and Calvary Chapel, and why he didn't get help, instead being squeezed like a lemon and then discarded.
I was in the Vineyard for a while, and what happened to Frisbee was consistently their way. If someone like Frisbee had a problem, or even when Wimber blundered down some wrong path, that person or booboo was just painted out of the picture like the disappearing commissars in their portraits with Stalin. They just became non-persons and non-events. There was never any contrition, any acknowledgment of a problem. Everybody just moved on, in total dissociation and denial. This happened much more than once or twice; indeed, was it ever done otherwise?
Debacles are intended by God to be instructive, so we always screw up when we contrive to hide from them. It's not only an indication of Wimber's moral turpitude that every bad thing or person would disappear into the Vineyard's memory hole in the manner of 1984. It also ensured that nothing could be learned, which is why that ministry in one way or another kept returning to its folly like a dog to its vomit. That's a lot more destructive than homosexuality or any other sexual problem, and indeed ensures an environment in which such problems, and many others, never get cured. Look no further for why healing didn't happen much there, whatever the theology. Healing is for people who face up to sickness instead of resolutely hiding from it in order to look good to men.
The Vineyard is a real poster child, but is it not the usual way of American culture in general, and of its churches, which are so completely conformed to it? Don't we all need to lay this to heart? If we want healing for ourselves and others, what say we take Malachi's advice and consider our ways?
posted by Peter Attwood at 8/10/2008 11:24:00 PM
1 Comments:
Peter, your blog always leaves me with little to say, but much to think about. I appreciate being privy to your ruminations.
Joe
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