Pastor Bill Hybels, author of The Case For Church, joins Ken Burns to discuss his new book, The Case for Church: How To Protect Your Faith in the Face of Scandals, and why pastors should be held accountable for the crimes they commit.
00:02:50.720So, you know, one, as the attendee, how should an attendee look at that as devastating as it is and not cause them to lose faith in a man upstairs?
00:03:04.080And two, what can senior pastors do to protect themselves against this common pattern that happens to many great men in history?
00:03:14.080It's unfortunate that we're mentioning their names.
00:03:16.260where I can go a list of history, you know, and we have thousands of names that we can give with
00:03:20.900this. How do you? Well, I think first of all, for those who are quote unquote victims in the sense
00:03:26.420that they're part of a church that a pastor falls and so forth, how do they not lose their faith?
00:03:31.420I think number one is our faith is not in the pastor. Our faith is in Jesus. Our faith is in
00:03:35.740God. And I mentioned to you earlier, the reasons why I became convinced that Jesus is who he claimed
00:03:42.120to be through his resurrection from the dead. Historical data. I go back to that. I go back to
00:03:47.860that. Yes, there are men of God who fall and who sin and who forfeit their pulpit because of
00:03:54.960immorality. But I go back to the evidence. I go back to the, how do I know? How do I know
00:03:59.960Christianity is true? I look at the four E's and say, yeah, Jesus did return from the dead. He did0.86
00:04:04.680prove he's the son of God. That has nothing to do with Bill Hybels. So I want to set that boundary
00:04:10.940and say, I want to rely on, you know, it's called in the Christian world, apologetics,
00:04:16.840defense of the faith, reasons to believe.
00:04:20.160In terms of the pastors, there's got to be accountability.
00:04:24.440There's got to be, you know, I see a lot of churches where the elders of the church are employees of the church.
00:04:31.280They're, well, you can't hold the senior pastor accountable if he's your boss, right?
00:04:36.400So you're getting paid, you got a salary, so your incentive is to protect them.
00:04:40.140Exactly. So, you know, who are the elders of the church? How are they chosen?
00:04:46.500And what access do they have to the pastor? Is a pastor willing to open up his life? Are there
00:04:51.720people who he discloses to? Like my friend Mark. You know, I mean, we each, that's our accountable
00:04:58.720relationship as followers of Jesus. We want to hold each other accountable. And if Mark ever
00:05:04.960senses that i'm kind of going astray he'll pull me aside and if he doesn't hit me across the face
00:05:10.140i know he's going to tell me hey strobel um listen what you did that's inappropriate you need to do
00:05:16.100you know so there's got to be that kind of um accountability iron sharpens iron the bible says
00:05:21.700yeah are you i'm assuming you're familiar with the the modesto manifesto that billy grant came
00:05:27.720up with with his crew yeah uh what do you think about the modesto manifesto is this where you
00:05:32.840are never in the presence of a woman that's right yeah i you know what 1948 he sat there and he says
00:05:38.260hey guys it seems like he knew and look what happened to billy graham he lived a life of
00:05:44.020authenticity and effectiveness until the end it's not easy it's not easy and i wonder is there a
00:05:49.180cause and effect there they had a rule of three right because he told he tells a story i believe
00:05:54.360one time where it's like he's in a room by himself a real attractive girl comes in i don't know if
00:05:59.800It could have been a different pastor.
00:06:01.260Rob, fact check me on this if he told the story.