Leaving Beyond – Grounded In Scripture

Written by: April J. Buchanan

When corrupt movements respond to exposure by quietly removing the names of those who have been called out, it is not repentance or reform. It is merely scooping dung off a pile of dung. Image management is not righteousness.

To see a church like Bethel in Redding, California, scrub a name such as Shawn Bolz is not honorable or commendable. Bethel itself produces men like him. This is not a matter of a healthy tree bearing a few bad apples. It is a dead tree producing dead fruit. Cutting off one rotten apple does nothing to change the nature of the tree. You cannot reform what is dead.

While efforts to expose rotten fruit, ungodly lives, false prophecies, and the real harm done to real people are commendable as far as they go, the problem runs far deeper. It is truly commendable when men love the church and desire to maintain the purity of Christ’s bride. Marking false teachers and false prophets and warning the church about them is not easy work. It invites harsh criticism and slanderous attacks, often from the biblically ignorant who prop up those very false teachers. A man of conviction does this work anyway.

However, when false teachers are treated as brothers merely in need of church discipline rather than identified as wolves, a serious danger remains. The issue is not merely that people are hurt, that prophecies fail, or that immorality is discovered. These men are false teachers. Their lives reflect their false profession. Their doctrine, their immorality, and their protection of one another are not separate issues. They are the fruit of the same corrupt root.

The fruit is not merely bad behavior. The fruit is their teaching. The fruit is the system that elevates experience over Scripture, anointing over qualification, and charisma over truth. The fruit comes from men who are still dead in sin, men with unregenerate hearts. You cannot reform that. Scripture does not call us to rehabilitate wolves but to expose them.

If false doctrine itself is not confronted and rejected, and if reform does not mean a return to sound doctrine, then the system remains intact. In such environments, false doctrine continues to produce false converts who rise to positions of authority and perpetuate cycles of spiritual abuse and deception.

It should not surprise anyone when these same men later make statements aligning themselves with the language of justice and accountability, attempting to appear righteous or repentant. Nor should it surprise us when others respond by accusing those who speak clearly of being divisive. Both reactions are predictable. Neither indicates repentance. Both are strategies of self-preservation.

Asking a wolf to reform is impossible. He cannot. Instead, he smiles, relieved that he has not been fully exposed. He simply changes his outer garments, adopts the language of humility, admits to mistakes, and promises to do better. All the while, beneath the surface, he remains the same ravenous wolf. In fact, he often emerges more empowered than before. When exposure targets only some bad fruit while affirming the man as a brother, or refusing to name him as a wolf, it grants him cover to continue devouring the flock.

Scripture does not treat wolves and erring believers the same way. A Christian who falls into doctrinal error or sin and responds to rebuke with genuine repentance gives evidence of the Spirit at work within him. That is discipline unto restoration. Wolves, however, are not corrected into health. They are identified, marked, and avoided.

Exposing wolves is not merely pointing to isolated failures or unfortunate outcomes. It is naming false teachers for what they are. To refuse to do so is not charity. It is disobedience. It leaves the flock vulnerable and grants predators room to continue their destruction under the appearance of reform.

Reform is not merely picking off bad fruit. It is a return to sound doctrine that purifies the church.

You do not ask a corrupt tree to produce good fruit. It cannot. You expose it for what it is.

Grace and peace, y’all.
Soli Deo Gloria