I have been reading about TB Joshua. It got me rather perplexed. Apparently, he didn't just have 'moral failings'. Don't we all? But there were miracles and conversion and church growth (along with all those controversies that always accompany such movements). In my boring, uncharismatic, mainstream traditional church wild, bizarre and bad things don't happen. But neither does growth or passion for the things of God.
We can adopt two extreme opinions (unnecessarily IMO) - one, those sexual and other predations and coercions are exaggerated or lies by hostile actors or two, the entire ministry was counterfeit or satanic. But do we need to do this?
I understand personally the temptation that as believers saved by grace our works good or bad should not affect our salvation. Our good deeds and inner renewal should be in response to the Work of Christ, who now calls us His friends. My Orthodox friends say that the more they grow in Christ, the more they are aware of the greatness of their worldliness and especially their pride - the original sin in the Garden of Eden.
Now that church leadership has been left behind in my retirement, and I know more about the private lives of my co-leaders after their deaths, I see how flawed they actually were, how often quite concerned for their own dignity and getting their own way. (I always knew that I was such a person and that held me back from from what I was capable of doing).
We can adopt two extreme opinions (unnecessarily IMO) - one, those sexual and other predations and coercions are exaggerated or lies by hostile actors or two, the entire ministry was counterfeit or satanic. But do we need to do this?
I understand personally the temptation that as believers saved by grace our works good or bad should not affect our salvation. Our good deeds and inner renewal should be in response to the Work of Christ, who now calls us His friends. My Orthodox friends say that the more they grow in Christ, the more they are aware of the greatness of their worldliness and especially their pride - the original sin in the Garden of Eden.
Now that church leadership has been left behind in my retirement, and I know more about the private lives of my co-leaders after their deaths, I see how flawed they actually were, how often quite concerned for their own dignity and getting their own way. (I always knew that I was such a person and that held me back from from what I was capable of doing).
