Bad news: Gary Smalley was actually "cold and dead inside" while he was a big-shot leader churning out the Christian book hits.
Good news: Everything's cool now, seriously.
Smalley writes in the latest Focus on the Family newsletter-thing: "Restored How I lost my love for God and how I got it back again."
Huh? It's a neat story, kept kinda generic, but makes me wonder: "Did we miss something? How do we go straight from, 'I've got it all together', to 'Okay, I didn't have it all together, but now I do'...?"
I wrote recently about how church culture allows that we are all "sinners", but only if it's A) generic-sin-in-theory, or b) in the past. A pastor (half of pastors anonymously confessed to struggling with porn on a pastors.com survey) can't truly be specifically honest about current struggles with sin, unless he picks just the right ones. We can't be real about who we are now. We can only say, "Here's what I overcame."
Smalley, for all I know, may be writing earnestly, with gut-wrenching honesty, about his experience down Mr. Big Shot Lane in some new book. I'd read it. But the point is made, vividly, again, because the narrative, over time, in Focus went straight from, "Gary Smalley rules!" to "Okay, Gary Smalley was messed up, but now he seriously rules!"
There's nothing in-between. But the story? It's in-between.
I honestly have nothing against Smalley, and wish him the best, although he was one of the worst interviews, out of many hundreds, I've ever done. (I've interviewed scholars, anti-religious activists, writers, scientists, peace protestors, politicians, artists, actors, ex-death row inmates, you name it -- and mainstream Christian authors are the worst interviews, bar none. You can't converse with them. They. Do. Not. Listen.)
Maybe we can help. Smalley says he became a celebrity, and really enjoyed the power and rank and money and attention. It's understandable. Rank and power and attention can mess people up. Maybe any of us in a church culture that confuses "leadership" with occupying elevated places owes him, and others like him, an apology:
And hey -- let's make sure it never happens again.
