Borrowed Offence

The Offence teaching is one way that people are controlled in WOF churches. This teaching also causes people to stay in the churches for fear of the disasters that might follow them.

I can recall asking about people who I had not seen in church for a while. The response was whispered, “They were offended.” Uh-oh. That was as good as saying they were backslidden and in a perilous spiritual position.

Visiting ministers would come to our old church and tell horror stories of those who became offended. I’m thinking of one in particular who told stories of disease, car accidents and death as the result of being offended at a pastor. Our own pastor told a story about a man who “borrowed’ the offence of another man and nearly died. He went on to say offence was like the flu, that you could catch it from others. The pastor was keen to point out that unlike a flu patient, offended people want to spread their offence and share it with others. As a result, if you left our church, you were usually shunned if you met congregants away from there.

The strange thing is, when groups of people would leave the church, the pastor would let everyone know his displeasure. They would become a cautionary tale for the rest of us. When a large number of people began to leave, the pastor heaped disdain and scorn upon them from the pulpit for many weeks. They became responsible for every problem the pastor had (funny how such Stalinist moves never caused them to come back or draw new people).

Sounds to me like the pastor was offended! Didn't he realise the peril he put his congregation in?

I have a hard time understanding how you could have bad luck if you got mad at a preacher but if a preacher got mad at a lay person, he was perfectly within his rights to chew them out from the pulpit. How is it okay for him to share his offence with the congregation?

I guess he misunderstood what the expression "bully pulpit" means. It's not "be a bully in the pulpit!"