RZIM — You May Not Want To Face It But — It’s Over!

closed . . . . .

√ You have nothing to export!
√ You are offering “junk bonds,” and most everyone knows that!
√ Your stock has crashed to new and unrecoverable lows!
√ It’s time to turn the lights off and close shop!

RZIM has nothing to sell, surely not credibility! Its apology rings hollow when you realize that they were unable and/or unwilling to detect the stench. It is time to close down the business, and that is what it now about. There is no longer any reason to maintain the storefront. No one cares to read his books, support his organization, quote or cite his words, or use his name as a source. It is time to box it all up, haul it away, and turn off the lights as you walk out.

The very person whose ministry was about making the argument that Christianity is credible “(apologetics”) has proven his words incredibility uncredible! He has perhaps done more damage to the name of Christ and Christianity than the decades of ministry, which were at one time accounted as good. If my ministry used the word “apologist” to describe its work, I would change the name and avoid such a descriptive promotional appellation.

As I have repeatedly written, the “church’s” model for accountability is broken, AND that was known and proved long before this story broke. It didn’t take this example of moral failure to establish that conclusion.

This has been known and felt by church members across America who have experienced the same leadership complicity in covering for the directional, oversight, and moral breakdown of its leaders, administrators, missionaries, and pastors.

As I stated, the RZIM example is not proof of leadership’s failure to hold men accountable when an organization gets too large. That reality has been already and continues to be, proven by example after example. Check out Dave Ramsey as the most recent example of that template!

If this stench could be left unaddressed for years . . .
then there is no stench that can escape being ignored!

Instead, RZIM is proof that any ministry, even the least of these, is well able to ignore the smells of abusive behavior by the very leadership which is there to prevent such unbiblical and unrighteous behavior. If this pervasive rancid stench could be ignored by those given the position of oversight, . . . If this stench could be left unaddressed for years . . . then no stench can escape being ignored!

No matter how small the organization, ministry, or local church, the fact is that ungodly, unbiblical, abusive, sinful, or immoral words and actions can be ignored or dismissed by those who ought to be the last protectors of God’s people. That too has been proved over and over. Those who have been put in place to hold leadership accountable can become ignorantly or knowingly complicit in allowing the bodies to be hidden and the odors to be ignored.

It is time for the least of these — the smallest of ministries, missionary boards, and local churches — to clean up its approach in addressing the wrongdoing of its presidents, leaders, board members, deacons, missionaries, administrators, and pastors! The stench is just as real and noxious when it wafts across the room of a few staff members & employees, or the pews of a small congregation, or the membership assembled for its church business meeting. And yes, the stench is just as ignorable and coverable by any and all who have been given the responsibility of being “watchmen,” there to protect the city, not the ministry elite.

It is over,
even if they continue to open the front door,
turn on the lights,
and excitedly welcome the few straggling customers who wander in,
not knowing what has really happened!

♦♦♦♦♦ ♦♦♦♦♦ ♦♦♦♦♦ ♦♦♦♦♦ ♦♦♦♦♦