10 yrs ago I sat in a room with a few pastors, one of whom was in the midst of a meteoric rise in fame. I noticed him frequently making sexist, inappropriate jokes, while the other pastors laughed. They brushed it off as harmless, and continued to commend him to me & others. (1/)

Years later, this pastor completely destroyed his church. He was fired. Many of his church members lost their faith, or had to spend years in counseling.

At no point did I hear any of those pastors acknowledge that the seeds of destruction had been plain all along. (2/)

And unfortunately, this is a pattern. I have a long list of toxic pastors who were once commended to me as "gospel-centered" or "theologically correct," even though their fruit was very evidently bad. And those who commended them were largely silent when the fruit bore out. (3/)

There is a famous phrase--"Character is destiny"--and time and again, we think we can escape it. We think some other thing will be a greater determiner of the outcome, when Jesus himself has promised that if the tree is bad, the fruit will be bad. (4/)

But the reason I am sharing this today, is that I just read an interview with @albertmohler in which he essentially made the excuse, "How could I have predicted yesterday's events would happen?" And I only have to say one thing:

ENOUGH.

(5/)

ENOUGH. You pastors who keep making excuses for your friends because of "grace."

ENOUGH. You pastors making excuses for leaders with character failings because they are "anointed."

ENOUGH. You pastors looking the other way because that leader's theology is "correct."

(6/)

And ENOUGH making excuses for a leader's ghastly immorality because of policy.

Yesterday people died.
Churches have died.
People's faiths have died.

We must have the moral fortitude to name what is clearly in front of us, because anything less is a dereliction of calling.