Dr. Juedes:  But the mind is part of that and understanding the deception that happened in the group, understanding the motives of some of the leaders or some of their methods helps some of the inner healing to happen too, because you recognize why there is that depth of feeling, and why there is that difficulty in separating from it.  And you know, you mentioned about CES continuing many of the structures of The Way like the Board of Trustees and ordination and things like that, you know, they also carry on the emotional shortfalls or the spiritual shortfalls as well, and that’s really what we’re seeing in the changes there now, because some of the theology, some of the attitudes that caused the decline and the splintering of The Way is also causing some of the decline and splintering in CES, as well.  They’ve dislocated not just the structures of trustees and stuff, they’ve dislocated some of the theology and the attitudes that end up bearing the fruit that they always bear, which is not good. 

Pawtucket:  Right.  Along those lines, with The Way and all the different offshoots, there is, ultimately, there is The Man of God.  I wonder if you would address that, just in a biblical light, the error of that and what the alternative is in a church such as yours.

Dr. Juedes:  Well, the positive part of it is, you know, God has placed leaders in the church for a purpose.  Whenever Paul planted the church in the Book of Acts, you know, he set apart elders, or overseers, there are a few different words for that.  Elders are necessary.  We need leaders, we need teachers.  One of the problems in The Way and, to some degree, in the splinter groups too, to some degree in CES, and Michael Rood, and so forth, is that it ends up being not just, you know, a college of elders or overseers or leaders, but one or sometimes a council of leaders who are not just overseeing a particular group of people, you know, a church or a fellowship, but a national or in their case, they want an international kind of an oversight, but beyond that, it goes to the problem of not having any way to correct them.  So in the Book of Acts in the New Testament you definitely see leaders who are corrected by other leaders or by people beneath them.  You know, there are mechanisms for that. 

The trouble with a lot of sects or cults is that the man of God or the trustees or whatever it would be, there is no way to correct them and as they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely – that’s really true and it’s because of our sinful nature.  It’s difficult to be in a position of power without misusing it unless you really have character and wisdom to keep yourself from deceiving yourself.  That would be the natural progress unless you consciously make efforts to be humble and to have other people be able to correct you.  And those mechanisms just aren’t there to really genuinely correct the people who are in charge and if you use terms like the man of God, I mean, that’s almost intentionally used in order to exert more authority than you should have. 

In the New Testament, you know, there is more than one elder, where perhaps for lack of a better term, better in terms of character or in spirituality or in maturity, but there is more than one of us that are that way and even if you are more mature, you never come to the fullness of Christ, so there is always something lacking.  So the term the man of God and things like it really have a sense of being beyond that, of being above everyone else and having a special connection with God that other people don’t have.  So whether that’s man of God or apostle or prophet, all of them carry that kind of weight of having a special relationship and revelation from God that others don’t have and no-one else can really have a shot at correcting you if you’re, if God’s already approving what you’re saying, and the way you are, how can any other person correct you?

Pawtucket:  It’s so subtle the way it happens and it’s easy to see once you’re out, but when you’re in there, it’s just, you become in awe of this person or these people.  It’s very scary.

Dr. Juedes:  Mm-hmm.  And there’s an element of that that’s good, I mean, we want to submit to God’s teaching and there certainly are scriptural verses about submitting to your leadership, but you also need to have the other part of that and recognize the other part of that and recognize the weakness and the sin is in the leaders as well as in everyone else, to, you know, prevent that kind of really idol worship from causing problems in the leader who is letting that happen in others as well.  What I recognize, as you know I’ve been pastoring churches for 25 years is, well, people respond to me different ways, but some of them really trust me.  You know?  I mean, they really trust me and they really look up to me and they really respect me, and what I consciously have to do is take a step back and not let myself take advantage of that – you know, I have to be more cautious with people who are more trusting just because what I say or what I do has that much more influence or impact.  Now, if you don’t step back and do that, you end up really becoming egotistical, you know, taking it in and deceiving yourself into thinking that you’re more than you really are.