Why do you say the leadership lacks integrity?
This is another blog post written in the early 2000’s, referring largely to the leaders at that time. That said, knowledge of the abuse and failure to act in response to it remains a leadership hallmark today.
How can I make the argument on the one hand that those that participated with LRD or knew of his activities and still remained with CFCMI do NOT lack integrity and then, on the other hand, claim that those that did the same things, but just happened to be leaders, compromised their "personal character to a phenomenal extent", and that they "demonstrated a severe lack of personal integrity"?
Here's the difference. It's one thing to sacrifice a personal value or standard knowingly, when it's only going to hurt yourself (or at least you believe this to be the case). We make compromises all the time to ourselves...all of us do that. Yes, what we are talking about here are extreme cases, to be sure, but still the point remains, the average parishoner/CFCMI member is "only hurting themselves" (or at least that's what they think).
The integrity issue comes in when you are responsible for leading others and you know they are looking directly to how you handle a situation for their own personal guidance. In fact, in this case, the leadership is in the position of DEMANDING that those they lead come to them for personal guidance. If you are in this type of position, know that something is wrong and make a deliberate decision not to stand against it, knowing full well that those you lead will suffer for your personal compromise...THAT's a lack of integrity.
In addition, I believe the CFCMI leadership were not under the same coercive effects I described in the "Do parishioners that stay lack integrity? post, like we were when we were young, naive, thought the pastors could do no wrong and were sure we were one step away from Hell if we didn't do what they said. These leaders (by the time they got to that point in the organization) knew, and know today, differently. They have been around long enough, seen enough flat-out wrongdoing and had it described to them in confidence by countless victims/participants to know that what was going on was ABSOLUTELY not of God. In many cases, they were willing facilitators, participants and even recruiters for the wrongdoing (I know this to be fact from numerous first-hand accounts).
And yet they, in my opinion, made very deliberate, conscious decisions sacrificing their integrity by not making ANY STAND WHATSOEVER...all the time knowing (again, in my opinion) that there were people blindly counting on them to do the right thing. That is what I'm talking about.
I think there were many that began moving up in positions in the church and probably reached that point where they said "Wait a minute, I just can't do this any more. It's just wrong." Or came to some similar decision. So, they either just left, made some sort of stand and were asked to leave, or otherwise expressed their lack of loyalty and were kicked out. Pastors, Assistant Pastors, Secretaries, Int'l Board members...I'm not talking about "lightweights" here. Many names come to my mind (those that were talked about as being so evil...when really they were probably making a righteous stand!), and I'm sure this happened.
So the net result was that the leaders that did display integrity in difficult situations were simply weeded out. To reach "true" leadership positions you simply HAD to demonstrate lack of integrity. That's my view.
I know these are harsh or strong statements to make and that it is a generality I am making that may not apply to each and every individual in the higher leadership of CFCMI. But, particularly since the events of the last decade or so have brought so much to light and so few have stepped up to make a stand, I believe this characterization is appropriate and accurate.