Thread by @word_water_wine

Spiritual Abuse and #Racism at the @WhiteHorseInn @Core_Christ @MichaelHorton_ and the URCNA.

I wanted to share part of my story and the #spiritualabuse that I experienced in seminary @wscal, in a confessional Reformed church, and in working for a Reformed non-profit.

Between listening to the podcast on the fall of Mars Hill, seeing the abuse around John Piper and his school, the doubling down of institutional support in many corners of Reformed Evangelicalism, and the continued retrenchment of white

supremacy in Christian culture, I’m so quickly reminded of the spiritual abuse and racism that I saw in my time in the URCNA (United Reformed Churches in North America) and at WSCAL and the White Horse Inn with Michael Horton.

The feelings, memories, and trauma these interactions and stories evoke will never go away and the sorrow at what transpired will never fully be captured by any words. The level of impenitence and continual disregard for simple biblical Christianity was astounding and still is.

The spiritual abuse, trauma, and white supremacy were and are devastating to so many.

As a disclaimer, I am speaking from my experience in the URCNA. I know that my experience at WSCAL was likely different from someone in a different denomination or even

church. Since much of what I went through was hidden from view, someone could go through WSCAL without ever seeing what happened and think everything is fine. But everything was not fine.

I recently read some excerpts from Michael Horton's new book that rightfully decried racism and its evils. But I couldn’t help but be disgusted by the complete hypocrisy and cowardice of such empty platitudes in light of my experience.

When I worked for the White Horse Inn and Core Christianity after seminary, I saw similar empty platitudes but no real corresponding courage to stand for the truth at a personal cost in their particular context.

Racist Reformed donors would routinely get angry for a post or podcast that discussed racial reconciliation or anything that seemed to attack their White privilege/comfort.

They threatened funding and the WHI quickly would cave to their demands — scrubbing black women and men’s posts and appearance on their shows. POC who didn’t toe the party line were summarily removed from the scene.

While the racism wasn’t overt in the sense of Machen or Dabney who were overt White Supremacists, the covert playing of both sides was much more subtle and dangerous. What many of us saw was the dangers of the “White moderate” who decried the extreme evils of

the Trump mob but quietly acquiesced to the structures and comforts of rich, white donors who care little about the plight of the oppressed or POC.

What many of us saw was what Duke Kwon aptly described: “the Reformed and evangelical tradition(s) has repeatedly, across centuries, found itself in collusion with the worst embodiments of white supremacy in America even while presuming its orthodoxy at each juncture.

The answer, we believe, is found in its methodology—its culturally captive mode of theological reasoning/application and the implicit theology it engenders. It is one that centers white cultural concern, performs the basic impulses of white supremacy.

It masquerades as sound—and mere—theological reflection… We firmly believe that if we do not learn to recognize this methodology and disabuse ourselves of it—and challenge the promulgators and sanctifiers of it—

its tragic effects will continue, and Reformed evangelicalism will serve not merely as an inert presence in our racially broken world but as an obstruction to its healing.” thefrontporch.org/2021/07/sancti…

When racist, abusive pastors nearby barked about anything related to social justice in the organization, Horton & Mark Green (the president of White Horse Inn) yielded again & again.

Behind closed doors

Horton would continually bemoan the racist URC church in Escondido and even WSCAL profs. He would do nothing about it.

Publicly, they just went on supporting the white supremacist, abusive structures. Horton would occasionally write off a one-hit piece on Trump but he’d quickly back down after that. WHI would brace for impact for these one-off pieces, hoping to financially weather the storm that

would come after that. But where were the prophetic articles or speeches calling out the individuals he knew to be racist and abusive in his specific context?

Where was the real courage to stand for truth and transparency, since after all, we were in the “Truth business”?

Things came to a head in 2018 for me. I was randomly “let go” — completely out of the blue. My presence/writings were later scrubbed from Core Christianity and WHI. It was supposedly due to budget cuts that they needed to

immediately terminate my position.

All the directors were shocked and no one saw it coming. Many of them reached out to me personally and said as much.

But after talking with those who were present, I knew that this wasn’t the truth and Mark Green and Horton had other reasons.

My crime? That very day I had publicly mentioned that there was a pastoral abuse and racism problem in Reformed churches. I stood up for a friend and his experience of these things. That posture led the local URC

pastors/professors & a confessional PCA leader to call for my immediate removal to which Michael Horton quickly acquiesced. I was let go *that* day for simply stating something Horton knew was true but was too cowardly to say publicly as a minister of

Christ. And the POC I stood with was permanently blacklisted. This too is how White supremacy works.

They tried to preemptively silence me through a non-disparagement agreement with a payment of a measly 2 weeks' pay. Of course, I disagreed and didn’t sign it.

This immediate and conclusive firing was just the cherry on top. Before this, there was a decade of spiritual and ecclesiastical abuse in Horton’s church, Christ URC in Santee, by pastor Mike Brown. Horton was the assisting pastor there.

Unsurprisingly, Brown was one of the pastors who consistently fought for my removal from the White Horse Inn.

Here’s why. Mike Brown was like a “Truly Reformed” version of Mark Driscoll. He would scream at folks in his office and had severe anger issues.

As an intern at his church, he would berate and degrade us in our meetings and tell us how stupid we are for wanting to go into the ministry. “People are going to hurt you so you can’t be friends with them or let them in.” We needed to build up a wall and

shut everyone out, he opined.

He was extremely paranoid and stalked his church members on social media when they missed church. If there was any theological disagreement or discussion, he and the elders would push people out. The “church discipline” was severe and swift.

Brown had little grace or mercy for anyone but himself.

Many of us interns would go home floored after hearing him yell at us for an hour and threaten to ruin us if we did *anything* that made him look bad or The Brand look bad.

He ran the church like a cult. His was the most biblical and truly reformed. It was the best church in San Diego we were led to believe. He was abrasive and had no EQ. He would bluntly berate people to their faces and ream them out if things didn’t go his way.

Women and young people were emotionally and verbally attacked by him in discipline cases.

I remember one session meeting where he chewed out the other assistant pastor in front of everyone for merely wanting a discussion. He routinely embarrassed and humiliated his

elders and co-pastors and no one stood up to this evil.

Brown thought he had all the power. On several occasions, he argued that he could do what he wanted since Horton was there tacitly approving everything with his presence and that he was a WSCAL grad

with two degrees after all.

For years people left the church like a revolving door but that’s because they were “sinful” and “wanting evangelical excitements.” Brown was a loose cannon that no one wanted to confront even though the glaring red flags were

there which I really began to see as an intern.

His flattery and abrasive personality were continually overlooked. He just had a “personality problem” we were told. At least he “preached the Gospel.”

Folks in the URCNA & at WSCAL knew all about this. Folks who could’ve stopped it simply enabled the abuse. Horton again did nothing about this issue. He would justify himself by saying that he was just a professor and this “wasn’t his expertise” or his “responsibility.”

At the end of 2013, I personally confronted the abuse of power. My time at WSCAL was ending and my heart was broken for all the people damaged in the wake of this tidal wave of abuse. I was beside myself and didn’t know what to do.

My conscience was overwhelmed seeing that no one was doing anything about this or willing to stand up to Mike Brown. So many people I cared about were being tortured with no respite.

After speaking with a visiting professor, Hywel Jones, about the situation, I was convinced that I couldn’t just graduate and

leave Christ URC Santee without standing for all those who were hurting like myself. I had to say something. Jesus calls us to transparency and accountability if we are truly people of the truth.

One Sunday I was feeling quite overwhelmed by all that was happening and didn’t make it to church. The following morning Mike Brown called asking why I wasn’t there. He told me that I had made him look bad since I wasn’t present as an intern.

I knew I couldn’t end the conversion without confronting the issues at hand. I shared with him all that had been on my heart and let him know how abrasive and harmful he was in how he pastored people.

Even if it was unintentional, his actions were detrimental and destructive. I told him repeatedly with tears that I cared for him and wanted him to get help and healing.

Sadly, Brown couldn’t hear anything I had to say and immediately twisted everything, no matter how gentle and compassionate I was. He twisted the truth and said he was

immediately bringing it to the elders for me to be “disciplined.” I was aghast and realized that there was little hope for this pastor or this situation. He turned his abusive intent on me with a vengeance.

After personally confronting Mike Brown, Brown

immediately twisted the situation and made me the perpetrator. It was classic DARVO. He thought that he was the real victim here. He brought this to the elders and lied saying that I was going after his job.

The elders heard me out and, to my shock,

agreed with all my criticisms and said I did nothing wrong.

The elders' attempt at enacting reconciliation was giving Brown a Sabbatical. They organized a meeting for Brown to apologize & repent to the interns but he did not show up. He refused to repent as the elders demanded.

Ironically, I was made to apologize *to him* for making him feel bad.

During this attempt at reconciliation, Horton told me that Brown shouldn’t be a teacher let alone a pastor. His actions showed little of Jesus’ care for others.

But the whole confrontation was short-lived. The elders’ attempts at confronting this went nowhere. Brown was completely unrepentant and didn’t bear any fruit of repentance.

None of the elders or pastors followed through concerning this abuse or saw it as a disqualification. Why? Because they had been given a theology by WSCAL and Horton which translated into them thinking that purity of the Gospel was all that mattered.

This was just a "personality problem."

Besides, he was confessional and we have “Word and Sacrament!” I was told. This was a theology of abuse enablement.

Mike Brown wasn’t held accountable and told me that I was not welcome unless I completely supported him.

None of the elders or pastors had the

backbone to follow through on biblical discipline. One of the elders told me I was not safe there and to transfer to another URC quickly. Mike Brown was allowed to continue tyrannizing his people and I was not welcome since I upset the “peace.”

Thereafter, Brown consistently sought my demise after this confrontation and slandered me to anyone he could.

A few years ago, close to when I got fired from WHI, Christ URC finally had enough of Mike Brown’s toxic abuse and the URCNA regional committee

finally intervened. They said Brown was a complete “monster.” It was a decade of disastrous oversight. But instead of public repentance and reparations to anyone hurt by this decade of abuse, they did what the URC famously does with a problematic pastor—

instead of holding him accountable for not meeting qualifications for ministry, they shipped him off out of the way. Brown was sent to Italy as a missionary to get him out of the way because the URC church in Italy could “handle him” and keep him in line.

Brown was accepted by the URC in Escondido as their missionary by pastor Chris Gordon. Gordon also sought my removal from the WHI for speaking out against racism and spiritual abuse according to my supervisor at the time.

This is the church that Horton

would say is racist and destructive and, painfully, the church I had to go to after the Brown fiasco. My time there did not last long after seeing the same destructive patterns and hearing similar problems from their interns and members.

When Mike Brown’s actions clearly made him disqualified for ministry, the URC just kept plugging away because The Brand would be affected if they had to repent publicly. When the church body at the regional level took this stance, I knew there was little hope for reform or

biblical discipline/justice. No one took public responsibility for anything or anyone.

Again Horton/WHI, the URCs, and WSCAL continue to support such abusers — funding them and platforming them.

While Michael Horton acts like he is on POC’s or victim’s side, he only is theoretically. Horton enabled the abuse again and again — even when Horton told me men like Brown were narcissists.

Having written a book on *Ordinary* Christian life and being grounded, there was a whole lot of emotional and spiritual abandonment of the ordinary people in front of Horton.

His theology when applied was truly a nightmare.

I was Horton’s intern, student, congregant, and employee. I had a very intimate knowledge of his theology, piety, and practice. But Horton, again and again, washed his hands of involvement in clear evil that

was happening around him. What makes matters worse is that his theology directly enabled this abuse to go on for so long. His theology gave the framework for ministries in his actual backyard and church home to get away with spiritual and ecclesiastical

abuse and racism as long as they were “orthodox.”

I have spoken with Horton about these issues since day one in 2010 and he has done nothing. Every time I and many others have spoken to Horton, he has fed us to the wolves.

Abusers and enablers have missed the greater demands of justice by not standing for the oppressed in front of them. He has missed the voice of Jesus.

The rampant overlooking of rage, abuse, manipulation, misogyny, lying, narcissism, racism, and evil by men who are ordained ministers and professors of the church will never cease to amaze me — all to protect the

brand, the ideal, The Only Faithful Seminary, having “the Gospel.”

The White Horse Inn/Core Christianity brand was more important than the truth or the vulnerable. Justice, transparency, and the truth were not important. The value of being Truly Reformed

and the moniker of confessionalism overlooked true public faithfulness to Christ and his people. Being “for Christ, His Gospel, and His Church” was really just about power.

I’m reminded of Diane Langberg’s words, “We forget that anything done in the name of God that does not bear his character through and through is not of Him at all. In our forgetting, we are more loyal to the words of humans than to the commandments of God.”

Honestly, I’m thankful that I got fired that day from the WHI. It was the best thing that could’ve happened to me to remove me from such a context that has the deceptive veneer of truth.

Confessionalism and being Gospel-Centered was a pretext for power and being The Truth Gatekeepers.

I am thankful that I never went straight into full-time ministry after seminary or lay ministry in this church world. I didn’t know it then but this “failure” was God’s grace to me and my wife, preventing so much needless heartache and abuse that looked like service to God.

I wouldn’t be who I am today, finding the healing Jesus wants for us all.

Going into the ministry in this context would have been fruitless and irreformable. It would be unhealthy and unsustainable to fight such a battle in this fundamentalism.

When a church culture readily

provides safety for wolves and predators, real Gospel ministry is fruitless. There were only certain truths they were willing to stand for — justification, the confessions, Word and Sacrament — but not siding with “the least of these” that Jesus called us

to or standing up to the rampant abuse of power right in front of them. It sadly took me a decade in this context to see its true colors.

I also need to publicly repent of ever wanting to be at this table that Jesus would/will overturn. I am truly sorry for pushing that brand and way of life.

If I have ever hurt you, dear readers, with immature and ungodly behavior or by being complicit in this system of abuse and racism, please forgive me. There’s really no excuse for this.

Please message me and I will do what I can to repair the evil I have done knowingly or unknowingly.

While it was extremely painful going through this for 10+ years — losing friends, relational and financial means, spiritual trauma, a career, and so much more — I really see God’s

grace in these “failures” and lack of apparent success. God was bringing me on a path of health that I never could have imagined. And for that, I am thankful for my eternal soul.

Further, I wrote this piece anonymously over two years ago when I had friends who were still in harm’s way and would have received intense fallout from the evil pastors around WSCAL/WHI at the time. timothyisaiahcho.medium.com/spiritual-abus…

There’s so much more that could be said about the toxic work environment at the White Horse Inn under Mark Green that Horton stood by and allowed. Mark Green was the opposite of a Christian boss and didn’t act in a way becoming of a minister.

I agree with Timothy Cho’s articles in which he describes his experience at the White Horse Inn where he was the Director of Operations in much of the time that I was there.

They are very similar to my own.
timothyisaiahcho.medium.com/leaveloud-from…

I hope to write more about the specifics of the other churches and situations as time allows. But for now, this will need to suffice.

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