The Disturbing Saga of Matt Chandler's "Confession"
Unable to find the sexual sin Matt Chandler committed, people seem to be reaching the conclusion he did nothing wrong. I think Matt Chandler agrees but I don't think the Bible does.
When I was in 5th or 6th grade, my parents went away for the weekend, leaving my 17-year old brother in charge of his 6 younger siblings. I don’t know exactly what I did to piss off my brother this time, but I do remember being in our pool and seeing him streak out the patio door, jump in and proceed to try and drown me. Okay, he probably wasn’t actually trying to drown me but he held me under long enough that it traumatized me. I used to be on the swim team and now I hate diving into water because I hate having my head under the water that long. In fact, I don’t much like having my head under water at all.
Although I don’t remember exactly how things went down when my parents got home, I think it’s safe to say they were not pleased. I don’t remember exactly what my parents did, but I do know the next time they left town an aunt came to stay with us. When men misuse their power, it creates trauma. And when men create trauma, it is good and right for them to experience consequences, which just doesn’t seem to happen in American churches. Largely because the only people available to dole out those consequences are other men who are probably doing the exact same things. Do you see a problem there?
How I feel about Matt Chandler right now is pretty much exactly how I felt about my brother that day, largely because it’s pretty much the same situation. “Dad” put Matt Chandler in charge of guarding, protecting and shepherding His other children, and I think Chandler abused that trust. But unlike my brother, I don’t think Chandler even believes he did anything wrong. Perhaps the even bigger problem, however, is that among all the people looking on, no one can seem to recognize that if they can’t find a sexual sin, that doesn’t mean Chandler didn’t abuse the position of trust he was placed in.
Whatever you think the Bible is - some ancient fairy tale or a hammer to beat people over the head with - I have found it to be an endless source of wisdom and inspiration. To that end, it has a number of things to say about this situation that I think Chandler would have been wise to pay attention to. In my opinion (and this is certainly just my opinion) the American church has become way too focused on sexual sin to the point of completely missing almost every other thing the Bible points out as literally being equally sinful. Christians seem to have a very long list of things they claim God hates, but here is the list from Proverbs of what He actually hates.
There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes (a proud look)
a lying tongue
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil
a false witness who breathes out lies
and one who sows discord among brothers. (Proverbs 6:16-19)
You know what I don’t see on that list? Anything whatsoever to do with sex. The truth is that the sexual sins the Bible identifies have much more to do with how they harm someone than just simply the act of having sex. Adultery is a sin because it causes a great deal of chaos and animosity in communities. I think it’s fairly clear why rape is a sin but so is beastiality. Most men like to think of beastiality as being sex between a human and an animal, but I think beastiality is when human beings rut like animals. You know, like when man simply “mounts” his wife like an animal.
Human beings have the ability to connect emotionally, spiritually and intellectually, in addition to physically. So, I personally believe God grieves when human beings rut like animals. Just because sex occurs between a man and a woman doesn’t make it automatically “holy,” even if you are married. Too many church leaders have promoted the idea that God hates sexual sin, when nothing even remotely sexual shows up in the list of things He does actually hate. But men keep picking apart Chandler’s confession trying to find the sexual sin and are perplexed as to why he could possibly be being “disciplined” if there is no sexual sin?
So, let’s look at what Chandler did actually do. He stood up in front of potentially millions of viewers (including streaming) and stated that he had been DM’ing with someone in a way that was inappropriate. He stated that his DM’s were neither romantic or sexual in nature but that they were “unguarded” and “unwise.” He went on to say that the concern was in the “frequency” and “familiarity,” but then immediately followed that with “we believe in brother - sister relationships here.”
So which was it? How can there be a frequency and familiarity problem when they believe in brother - sister relationships? He goes on to say that the familiarity “played itself out in course and foolish joking.” But what kind of joke exactly could force a high-profile pastor to make a public apology and be put on a leave of absence? There’s just so many dichotomies and conundrums here. While most people seem to feel they aren’t being given the full truth, they also seem to be trying to figure out where the sexual sin is. Without being able to find it, the general consensus seems to be if there’s no sexual sin, he did nothing wrong.
And where do they get that idea from? I think they get it from pastors like Chandler himself, who in turn cannot help but have been heavily influenced by his predecessor Mark Driscoll.
In order to build a megachurch, you have to find a common message that will unite thousands of people. Christianity Today’s podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, discusses how Robert Schuller built one of the first modern day megachurches by focusing solely on the positive rather than talking about ugly things like sin. A very strong argument could be made that Mark Driscoll built a heavily masculine dominant church by focusing almost solely on sex in a way that was highly appealing to men.
The problem is that he was so successful in what he did and how he did it that it is to this very day sending shock waves and ripples throughout our entire society. A work that I believe (and I am not alone in believing) is alive and well in The Village Church.
Science shows us that mammals bond around a shared threat and those bonds are very strong. This is also referred to as crisis bonding. Nothing brings people together like a crisis and nothing gets them working hard together like a shared threat. Research also shows that two parties having a negative attitude towards a third will also create much stronger bonds than those same parties having a positive attitude towards a third. This is often referred to as hate bonding. When you put these facts together, along with the information shared in the Mars Hill podcast, it creates a very disturbing picture.
Mark Driscoll built a movement by creating a shared threat: women and gays. I’ve often wondered why there seems to be so much overt hatred towards gays and lesbians coming from churches today. While churches have been preaching the “evils of homosexuality” for decades, there was never the outright hatred for gays and lesbians that you see emanating from it today. Although homosexuality was certainly considered a sin, the desire seemed to at least be more to see them delivered from hell, rather than one of wanting them sent straight to hell to burn forever, as seems to be the case today.
Driscoll also preached a brand of complementarianism that went far beyond the scope of most churches or denominations. Not only did Driscoll relegate women solely to the role of wife and mother, the way religion has largely done throughout history but he also sexualized women in a way that reduced them to essentially being nothing more than a man’s own private whore.
Driscoll manufactured a masculine crisis in a way that made women and gays the enemy with spectacular success. He was so successful, in fact, that there are few (if any) corners of the Evangelical world that don’t seem to have been highly influenced by it. A very real argument could be made (and I am not the first to make it) that Mark Driscoll’s message paved the way for Evangelicalism’s total and complete embracing of Donald Trump.
Which brings us to Matt Chandler. Although Chandler may be a very different person from Driscoll, he entered ministry right on the cusp of Driscoll’s ideas, ideals and beliefs absolutely dominating Evangelicalism to the degree that his voice eclipsed almost all others. Driscoll even wrote a book called “Real Marriage” that was really more of a book on sex than anything else. So what do you think happens when there is this intense focus on sex and sexuality?
Most people are familiar with the phenomena of turning down the radio when you are looking for an address. This is because our brain is only capable of processing so much information at once, so when we need to devote more attention to one thing, we need to minimize our attention to something else. In other words, we are only capable of concentrating on so many things at once. After watching so many men go down in flames as a result of sexual scandal after sexual scandal, there’s a pretty good chance Chandler had some pretty good guardrails in place to protect himself against sexual sin.
But this is the problem with elevating one sin over another or treating one type of sin as if it eclipses all others. The Bible specifically mentions gossip at least 37 different times and look at the context in which it frames it.
For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder. (2 For 12:20)
Notice that this doesn’t say anything about sexual sin, but it does paint a picture of supreme “unhealth” (to use a word from Matt Chandler’s “confession”).
They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. (Rom 1:29-31)
Once again, this doesn’t paint a very pretty picture, but there’s also no sexual sin listed. These are the ways in which the Bible frames gossip. Not as some little “petty sin” that women engage in at the hairdresser but as a deeply wicked act. It’s very interesting that just a few days after Matt Chandler made his big “confession,” The Gospel Coalition (which has strong ties to Chandler) published an article about “Biblical Confidentiality.” Not gossip, of course, because once again that would be a woman’s sin and therefore beneath men.
This is, once again, the danger of complimentarianism as it is practiced in too many churches. While there can be no doubt that there are indeed innate differences in men and women, in churches like Driscoll’s and most SBC churches, men are placed on a higher pedestal above women. Although they claim that men and women are equal, they also claim for themselves the sole right to decide what is and is not important. This means that the only focus in most churches is on sins that men believe themselves to be in the greatest danger of - or that men perceive to be a threat, like homosexuality.
What that also means is that when you put so much focus and emphasis on a very narrow range of sins, like sexual sins, you completely lose focus on the much longer list of sins compiled in the Bible. Like gossip, slander and malice - not to mention pride.
Although we don’t know what actually happened, there are few people that don’t find Matt Chandler’s “confession” on Sunday to be somewhat “hinky” to say the least. So let’s look at what we do know and what he has publicly stated.
We know that he sent a bunch of inappropriate DM’s to a woman, which by his own admission were not sexual or romantic. We also know (by his own admission) that both his wife and her husband knew about the DM’s, so there was nothing untoward going on there. What we also know by his own admission is that immediately upon being confronted about them, he went looking for his elders. Not his wife, his elders.
Originally, I took that to mean he cared more about his “business” than his wife, but now I see that through a very different lens. I think that when you are under attack you immediately move to shore up your defenses where you are most vulnerable. If the allegations made threatened his marriage, I think calling his wife would have been his first move, but it wasn’t - which tells me his marriage wasn’t under attack. This also leads me to believe he was actually telling the truth about his DM’s not being sexual or romantic in nature, because he didn’t seem to feel like they were a threat to his marriage.
In fact, based on the bizarre nature of his “confession” I would say that Matt Chandler appears to be a man that doesn’t actually believe he did anything wrong. Which is also why there didn’t seem to be any type of apology. He said he was “embarrassed” but never actually apologized to anyone. In addition, in light of the inability of anyone to identify any type of sexual sin, the “Christian Internet” seems to also be thrown by these events because they also can’t find anything that he seems to have done wrong.
Which is exactly why I continue to believe that what he really did was gossip, which in his case would take on a whole new level of import simply based on the amount of sensitive information he would be privy to about not only his congregation but probably very high profile individuals as well. Regardless of what he did or didn’t do, however, I think perhaps Chandler’s biggest sin is that of pride. And I would hope we all know the Bible’s most famous line about pride. Although with the intense focus on sexual sin, perhaps too many people do not know what the Bible has to say about pride so here it is.
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18)
I think men have gotten so caught up in guarding against and condemning sexual sin, they have literally forgotten there is any other kind. I think they diminish the damage that gossip causes to the point that they literally don’t even recognize it as a sin. But let’s look at the possible outcomes here.
Chandler is telling the truth and he sent DM’s to a woman that were simply unwise. There is no evidence that he crossed any lines in this relationship, nor - based on his behavior - does this seem to have been threatening to his marriage in any way.
Chandler gossiped about members of his church family.
What we now know, which Chandler did not reveal in his confession, is that his DM’s were sent not to a third-party for review, but to a law firm. Which means there were legal concerns about what he had communicated. Which kind of casts a great deal of suspicion on the idea that he was simply DM’ing a woman a bit too frequently or telling crude jokes. In any one of these scenarios, however, there is almost no situation that I can even begin to imagine in which Chandler could not have just quietly taken a leave of absence to deal with any issues.
If he was actually telling the truth about the issue with his DM’s, that really constitutes more of a private matter between himself, his wife and the other couple. Based on his own confession and whatever evidence we might have, they don’t seem to have crossed any lines into actual impropriety, but may have simply been heading in that direction - which is not really cause for some big public announcement.
If he really needed to announce something, he could have simply announced he was taking a sabbatical. Unless there was a legitimate impropriety - which he seems to deny there was - then there was literally no need for a public announcement. TVC has a long history of covering up far, far more scandalous accusations than this, and based on his “confession” people are having an extremely difficult time understanding where exactly the sin or impropriety is. So if you’re going to make a big announcement that doesn’t seem to be one of confessing to any sin at all, why even make an announcement at all?
Unless…
…the actual sin you committed is one you are refusing to believe is even a sin at all.
Like gossip.
In the Mars Hill documentary, one of the speakers talks about Mark Driscoll “buying his own press” and I think the same thing happened to Matt Chandler. I think like so many men, Matt Chandler got so caught up in the narrative spun by Mark Driscoll that he completely lost sight of the vast number of other sins the Bible talks about far more than sexual sin.
Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. (James 3:4-5)
Although many of our word these days are sent digitally rather than orally, the concept is still the same. It is our words that the Bible focuses on far, far more than our sexual activity. It also tells us to guard our hearts (not our bodies), because our hearts are the place from which everything else flows. (Prov 4:23) It also says that from “the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. I think Matt Chandler - like so many men - was so busy keeping his body pure that he forgot about his heart, his mind and his “mouth” (words).
And this is why I believe his “confession” was so odd. It wasn’t an apology, it wasn’t an admission of guilt or of wrongdoing. It was the acceptance of a slap on the wrist for something he didn’t think he really did wrong in the first place. If I could paraphrase the actually content/ subtext of his speech, it would go something like this:
“Hey guys, I’m super sorry and really kind of embarrassed but I did this thing that was kind of wrong but not really and the elders think I need to take a leave of absence, so I’m going to, but don’t worry - I’ll be back very soon and go right on being your pastor for at least the next 20 years!”
Now, I don’t know about you, but in my book, this is called pride. Humility says “Father, forgive me,” pride says “I didn’t do anything wrong!” Remember that list of things God hates? The very first one is a “haughty eyes,” which is often translated as a proud look. So, let’s just say for the sake of argument, what Chandler actually did was gossip - which I’m going to say is a very high possibility regardless of whether it was the specific problem in this instance or not.
Although he is saying the words, I would personally say Chandler is refusing to admit he did anything wrong - which I would also personally say is the sin of pride. Because he is refusing to admit he did anything wrong, I think he also got up on that stage and basically (for all intents and purposes) lied, which is also a sin God hates. Since Chandler was confronted in February, they had nearly 6 months to come up with a plan for minimizing the situation as much as possible, which in my book would be a “heart that devises wicked plans.”
You wrote: “While there can be no doubt that there are indeed innate differences in men and women …” I’m curious what you think those “innate differences” are.
I don’t think there are any, unless you only mean the physical or genetic ones (different body parts, men can’t get pregnant, etc). Even in those cases, there are some people born with both male and female genitalia or genetics other than the usual XX female or XY male.
Also, I’m confused because it seems like sometimes you use “man” or “men” to refer to all humans and other times you use those terms you seem to mean only males. Is this true, or am I misunderstanding your use of these words?