I LIVED THROUGH an attack that took a full year off my life. I used to tell people somewhat facetiously that I planned to live until I was eighty-five. I intended to preach twice on Sunday, play golf on Monday, and die quietly in my sleep before dawn on Tuesday. Now I tell them I’ll be lucky to make it to eighty-four. The stress and anxiety produced by one personal attack from someone at church cut off at least twelve months of my life.
The attack was already underway the day I listened in disbelief as one of our elders relayed a message that he said came from a powerful church member: “He said that he will destroy you. He will get your picture on the front page of the Sunday newspaper and destroy you. He said that you will never preach in a Southern Baptist Church, or in any other church, again!”
This was no idle threat. The person I believed was behind the warning had the power and the contacts to get me on the front page of the paper. This person demanded we close our newly constituted deliverance ministry. This ministry operated under the umbrella of the church counseling department and provided such services as prayer therapy for those exposed to occultic activity, discipleship training in spiritual warfare in accordance with Ephesians 6:10-17 and 1 John 2:10-12, occasional direct confrontations for people suffering with demonic problems, and cleansing prayers for places and objects that may have had occultic contamination.
This particular member had encountered the ministry and did not like what he saw. I believe he decided it was theologically inconsistent with our church polity and that it was his responsibility to remove it. He held several trump cards that threatened the ministry’s existence, held out the possibility of a church split, and could potentially discredit my ministry. The first card was that few, even among our church leaders, knew of the existence of our spiritual-warfare endeavors. I assume he figured that if our members knew we were helping people with demonic problems, they would be confused or frightened. The reason our deliverance ministry operated quietly, especially during its infancy, was that just as we never talked openly about someone’s marital problems, neither did we discuss in public someone’s demonic problems.
The most miserable night of my life, next to the night my daughter was born with birth defects, was the night that trump card was played. Before our church elders, I was accused, along with others in the deliverance ministry, not only of having a deliverance ministry but of biblical inconsistencies and thus abuse. I was so shocked at being accused of heresy and described as a “misguided, religious fanatic” that I could not speak in my defense. At 11:00 p.m., when the meeting ended, I went home and wept. The fear of a church split and my forced termination paralyzed me. I was so shaken I wondered whether I might be guilty of the charges.
Julie awakened to find me crying.
“The issue is in the hands of the elders now,” she said. “If you have cultivated them well, you will be all right.”
I wondered whether the years of weekly discipleship classes, meetings, lunches, and shared ministry with my elders were about to pay off. Julie was right; the situation was out of my hands. But I didn’t sleep that night.
When the newspaper arrived at 5:15 the next morning, I turned quickly to the classified section and began searching for a new job. Slowly it dawned on me that I was qualified to do little in the marketplace. Not many jobs call for college degrees in Greek and religion. My thinking tumbled out of control. Even if I were not fired, the church would be devastated, split down the middle.
Shortly thereafter I was disturbed by a knock at the door. Bad news travels quickly. Our children’s minister had come with a word of encouragement. “The fact that the battle gets rough is no reason to quit or back down,” he said. “Much is at stake. Many people need what our deliverance ministry has to offer. You are on the right track. Don’t back down. We are with you.”
Easy for him to say, I thought.
Trumped again
In the next few weeks the elders held fast. They did nor ask me to resign. After many hours of discussion, we voted to continue learning about spiritual warfare and developing a strong deliverance ministry. I am glad I did not have to make this decision alone.
But soon the next card was played. Through a series of circumstances, the elders were forced to take a key issue in the dispute to the church for a vote.
I was astounded, though, when only ninety people (out of about three thousand) bothered to attend the business meeting. The church split I feared never materialized. As a result of the vote, eighteen people left the church; that hardly qualified as a split. None of my fears transpired like I imagined. About this time my brother-in-law passed along to me one of his favorite sayings. I liked it so much I recorded it in the front of my Bible: “Nothing is ever as good or as bad as you think it is.”
While my worst fears were never realized, the attack seemed relentless. Several weeks after the vote, I got my first call from a newspaper reporter. He asked all sorts of questions about our church, about demons, exorcisms, and our deliverance ministry. The third time the reporter called, he asked why I was reluctant to answer his questions.
“I don’t need the publicity,” I said. “I have no control over what you’ll write or over which comments you’ll include and what context you’ll put them in.” He never called me again.
But feelings of anger and hatred began oozing into my consciousness. Hatred filled my heart. I knew the importance of forgiveness, but I hurt so badly, I could not bring myself to say the word “forgiveness,” much less do it.
One morning I sat in my car in a hospital parking lot and tried to empty before God a heart filled with anger and hurt. The sick parishioner inside the hospital would wait until later. I opened my Bible to David’s imprecatory psalms and sought peace as I read how the sweet singer of Israel prayed for God to bring down disease, destruction, and despair upon his enemies. Expressing my anger and calling out for vengeance brought momentary release, though I found no long-term satisfaction in the exercise. I had not yet discovered the biblical principle that the only sure way to empty the hurt and anger seething in my cup was to mourn my hurt with someone who knew how to comfort.
I have purposely not related many details of this story. Telling one side without the other is not fair. I resist attempting to attribute motives to others, but the attack by my adversary seemed to be motivated, at least partially, by pain. I believe he got hurt—a lot. He was likely wounded by the actions of some on our deliverance team. He was hurt by the rebuff by our elders when he demanded a hearing but didn’t get one. I am certain he was wounded when I misinterpreted the flag of truce he waved early on to settle the issue. He wanted to meet with me. I chose to let others go in my place. I am sorry he was wounded, too.
Whenever people attack me or gossip about me or try to undermine my ministry, it is easy to blame their fallen nature and respond by raising defenses and fending off the onslaught. However, a better model exists. Hurt lurks behind anger. Why were they so angry with me? Because somewhere along the line, I hurt them. Why do people say those nasty things about me? Because I disappointed them, or someone close to them, and they got hurt. Angry behavior is a direct result of their hurt. The best way to diffuse anger and personal attack is to discern how your enemy was wounded and proceed to heal the hurt. A heart to heart discussion of the hurt, how it occurred, and a deeply felt apology can defuse most personal attacks. But I did not know that then.
Prerequisite to forgiveness
For three months I awakened early every Sunday to check the front page of the newspaper but found nothing there. Finally I set aside the threats as idle. The following Sunday I did not bother to check the paper before driving to church. As I opened the door, the first person I encountered held up the front page of the Sunday paper: “Have you seen this?”
The publisher had used an old file photo of me, in happier times, from the newspaper archives. The big smile on my face looked incongruous with the negative comments from local pastors criticizing and making fun of our church and me. I was so traumatized that I didn’t stop to read the article. I determined my best course of action was to ignore the front page until I had time to develop a proper response. I preached that morning and went home to lick my wounds.
Later, in the quiet of my room, I pored over every word in the article. I had to admit the reporter had done a fair and accurate job of reporting. While not as bad as I had imagined it would be, the article did report on our spiritual-warfare ministry. I knew fallout was soon to come.
Late that afternoon one of our ministers relayed a reported message from my foe: “They will be lined up outside Roger’s door on Monday morning demanding his resignation.”
The next morning when I came to the office, Gary Shrader, our missions pastor, gave me perhaps the best bit of advice I have ever received. “Right now,” he said, “is the time when the average pastor does something really stupid.”
I waited for him to continue, but there was no more to come. Then I understood the message had been delivered. I blurted to him, “The pressure is so great I want to quit and resign—but that would be stupid. Also, I want to stand in the pulpit next Sunday and blast my rival and tell everyone what he’s been doing behind the scenes—but that would be stupid.”
The next Sunday Steve Dowdle—who was overseeing both our counseling and deliverance ministries—and I together delivered the Sunday morning message. We called attention to the previous Sunday’s front-page article. I spent the first half of the sermon explaining the theological underpinnings of spiritual warfare. Steve then described the processes, both psychological and spiritual, that we used to help people who struggled with the occult. The response was overwhelmingly positive.
No one lined up outside my door to demand my resignation. Instead, I received calls and letters from people and pastors who were excited that someone was willing to stand against the Evil One. My favorite word of assurance came from a retired marine general who read the article and invited me to play golf. When we finished he said, “I suppose you are wondering why I asked you to play. I read the article, and a friend from your church filled me in on what really happened. I just wanted to meet a pastor who’s been through the fire and survived.”
A friend surveyed the scene and observed, “This reminds me of when Joseph dined with his brothers and announced, ‘You meant this for evil; but God meant it for good.’ “
The support blunted the agony but did not take away the dull ache in my heart. I told God I forgave my offender, but I knew that I was lying. I never wanted to see my antagonist again. I fantasized terrible things. I imagined that one day he was in hell and called out for water. God asked me to take to him a drop on my fingertip. Slowly I shook my head and said no.
While the conflict subsided, I harbored for years an unforgiving spirit of bitterness toward this man. It became increasingly difficult to hear from God in prayer, and especially to interact with him when I worked on my sermons. My quiet times were distracted, and the joy and peace of the Spirit seemed further away than I ever imagined possible. I tried to tap in to the forgiveness God gave in Christ and extend it to my enemy.
I thought I had finally forgiven him, until one night I dreamed I was serving in the armed forces in World War II as an army lieutenant. We had captured a platoon of German soldiers, and one of my men asked if we could shoot them. I was shocked at the diabolical suggestion. “Of course not,” I replied. “We are Americans; we don’t shoot prisoners.” Just then one of the captured German officers turned and, in my dream, I recognized my adversary.
Instantly I cried, “Shoot him! Shoot him! Shoot him!”
I awakened in a cold sweat to hear Julie shouting, “Roger, Roger, wake up, wake up! You’re having a bad dream!” I shook as I related to her the dream and the feelings it evoked.
“I can’t believe it has been over ten years,” I said. “I still have such deep emotions buried inside. I thought I had forgiven him a long time ago.” So once more I prayed and tried to forgive this person for the pain he had caused. In bed, at 3:00 a.m., Julie allowed me to do what Jesus spoke of in Matthew 5:4: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
“Why don’t you tell me how much he hurt you?” she began. So I did. She knew which questions to ask: “How did it feel when you realized you had been betrayed? What was it like to sit up all night thinking you were soon to be fired? Describe the trauma you experienced at the elder meeting the night you faced your accusers. How did you feel when two of your closest friends turned their backs on you? What was it like to go to the denominational leaders for help and feel like you were rebuffed?”
I began to mourn, and Julie began to comfort me: “I am so sorry for the things that happened to you,” she said. “I know it hurt more than words can describe when you saw yourself on the front page of the Sunday paper. My heart grieves for the sorrow you endured at losing church members over this issue. I know you felt like a failure.”
When the tearful process finally concluded that evening, I was ready to forgive him. And I did.
Recently I ran into the gentleman and his wife at the mall. I had no inclination to turn and walk the other way. We smiled, shook hands, and talked like any two civilized adults about families and health. Perhaps someday we will open the door to the past and do some healing together. Perhaps not. But I know that while he may not be my best friend in heaven, we will both be there, saved by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Copyright © 1998 Roger Barrier
