“The religious leader is the most untrustworthy of leaders: in no other station do we have so many opportunities for pride, for covetousness, for lust, or so many excellent disguises at hand to keep such ignobility from being found out and called to account.”
Eugene Peterson
In my first Substack post I describe Eugene Peterson’s metaphor of Tarshish—the exotic land of religious careerism and exploitation—and how it has given me language for my own experience of vocational crisis. I want to share more about that experience today.
If you’ve read my wife KJ on IG, here at
, or in The Lord is My Courage, you already have some context for our story and healing from religious abuse. Today I find myself perplexed as I contemplate the cul-de-sac I have arrived at, having resigned from two churches and unsure how to relocate my vocation. In simple terms, those two resignations represent my own turbulent and heart-wrenching flight from Tarshish. But I figured it may be helpful to describe (in more detail) why I fled.Why I Resigned From Church #1
I resigned from Church #1, after five years on staff, because it turned out to be a narcissistic religious system, unaccountable for its prideful and domineering culture.
I resigned because the senior leader modeled a shrewd arrogance. He was effective at intimidating others with his intellect. On occasion, when others were willing to push back, he showed his rage. He was overbearing and quick-tempered (Ti. 1:7), and rather than disqualifying him, those deficits of character served as currency in a culture of deference to power.
I resigned because the church was pretentious. For a while I learned to mimic this attribute, until I could no longer stomach our self-importance and badmouthing of other churches.
I resigned because I was leading the church’s pastoral care ministry. I learned that I was valued to the degree I made the church look good and built attractive programs.
I resigned because titles were carrots dangled for years and offered to the loyal, not the qualified.
I resigned because I saw colleagues be berated behind closed doors, then come to my office confused and in tears.
I resigned because we were a church that valued propositions over presence. We were gatekeepers of ‘the gospel’, but our ego made us hostile to the interior life.
I resigned because I watched the senior leader verbally crush and discard a dear friend/pastor and his family, then spin a web of coercion to rally other leaders to his own defense.
I resigned, in the end, because the elders chose to protect the institution and not the people wounded within it.
‘Fool Me Once’
Less than a year passed between leaving Church #1 and being hired at Church #2. In hindsight I still hold some regret for taking another job with a church that quickly, but we needed to pay the bills and Church #2 seemed different—healthy! So we took the leap.
At some point, we should discuss the manifold problems with job interviews and assessments in ministry. We did our best to discern but we (like so many) fell victim to a presentation that didn’t match reality—which I encountered pretty quickly in the job.
Why I Resigned From Church #2
I resigned from Church #1 after five years. I resigned as associate pastor from Church #2 after six months.
Church #2 was perhaps ‘less toxic’ than Church #1. The senior leader was not a bully, but he was not healthy.
Both churches were performance-driven and intoxicated with ungodly ambition (Jm. 3:16).
I resigned from Church #2 because the senior leader curated a culture of chasing success.
I resigned because the senior leader privately admitted his exhaustion and poor mental health, but rejected my appeals to slow down—for himself and for the church.
I resigned because leaders emphasized the experiential and charismatic expressions of faith, but lacked a commitment to emotional and relational health.
I resigned because the senior leader was more concerned about our image than our integrity.
I resigned because my value to the senior leader was measured by my capacity to attract new people to the church. (Side bar: I recall one time when the senior leader handed me a note in the middle of my sermon, offering ‘live’ feedback to improve my oral delivery!)
I resigned after a final meeting with the senior leader in which he declared, “It sounds like we’re parting ways here, Ryan.” This sounds like two people agreeing to go different directions. In reality, it’s when one person—the leader—decides he doesn’t want to change or listen, and the other has to inform their spouse they had no choice but to resign. This is what KJ & I have since called being “Christian fired.”
I resigned out of love for the staff and the congregation. We were a church that churned out burn-out (among both volunteers and staff) in the name of “advancing the Kingdom.”
Grief & Re-imagination
I remember back in 2009 when KJ & I visited the seminary I would attend the following year. I had originally applied to the counseling program but the admissions team proposed a different path. “We believe you are called to be a pastor,” they asserted, “and we’d love to admit you to the Master of Divinity program.”
Thirteen years later, I’m struck by how much simpler and less agonizing my life would have been if I had just become a counselor. As it turns out, there is no market for pastors in Tarshish—only performers, religious executives, and institutionalists. While we continue to heal and wait at this lamentable cul-de-sac, I am heartened by the growing community of saints seeking to reimagine faith divorced from empire. However jobs or titles evolve in the coming years, I’ll continue to align myself around that hope.
Thank you for this, Ryan. Still unbelievable to me how many stories there are like yours. My wife’s pastor-boss said she should quit because they didn’t work well together. Why did he think they didn’t work well together? Because she disagreed with him re: handling cases of abuse. When she didn’t quit, the elder board unanimously voted to fire her. #ChristianFired indeed. Thank you for your witness of enduring faith and hope and love for our Good Shepherd and his sheep. Wonderfully written.
“I am heartened by the growing community of saints seeking to reimagine faith divorced from empire.” YES. This. Me too.