Trolling Pastors and the Culture of Appeasement
Trolling Pastors
There are Reformed and Evangelical pastors that spend more of their time trolling on social media than shepherding their flock. They’ve also convinced themselves (and others) that their trolling is the contextual equivalent of “contending for the faith.”
These same pastors also love to expand their jurisdiction of spiritual authority to anyone and everyone within their reach. They will slide into your DMs, subtweet you, write on their blogs, and if possible, contact your pastor/elders to show you that they have the big guns. This issue is exacerbated when these pastors are connected to seminaries, denominations, and Christian organizations, because then they have the gall to believe that they have authority over anyone connected to those institutions.
Culture of Appeasement
When I worked in the leadership of a Reformed organization, I witnessed dozens of letters, emails, phonecalls, messages from Reformed pastors who were somehow connected to the organization who wanted to make a living hell for staff members that they had a beef with. These folks would also make petty threats, such as, “I will no longer promote your ministry to my entire church” or “I will tell my congregants to no longer donate to your ministry” if the organization did not cave to their demands.
I ultimately ended up leaving the leadership of the organization after seeing compromise after compromise after compromise and seeing people give in to the demands of these bully pastors. I ended up leaving after I saw unethical (though not illegal) treatment of staff members that surmounted to trying to control everything about their lives and God-given gifts. The culture of assuaging and appeasing bully pastors in Reformed circles was alive and well, and I wanted nothing to do with that.
So, when I see these same pastors continue to do their trolling and when I hear stories from people who have been stalked on social media, verbally harassed, ostracized, and mentally/emotionally abused by these same pastors, I know exactly what’s going on behind closed doors.
If you’ve been on the receiving end of this type of trolling and bullying from these pastors and their ilk, I want you to know that you’re not alone. You’re in good company with many others, and we’re all standing together in solidarity with you in Christ.
