Confidential Communications and Toxicity in the PCA

About ten years ago I opened my email to discover a chain of communications from a highly regarded reformed-tribe Seminary Professor with several other Pastors. They were discussing another Pastor, a man I certainly counted as a friend, and their words about him were, well, less than flattering. In fact, some of the content was demeaning and disparaging.

The problem is that I wasn’t supposed to be part of that conversation. I’d been inadvertently added by the author because the person he intended to copy has a name very similar to mine and, as has happened to just about all of us, his address book added my name to the address line in the original email instead of the intended recipient. The exchange was ongoing, happening in real-time, and I was now part of it without their knowing it.

Now what?

There’re a few key things you should expect from Pastors and one of those is confidentiality; unless what we’re hearing is criminal, involves abuse, or is endangering to life, we’re keeping it quiet. If it’s in one of those ‘danger’ categories, we’re not going to pretend we’re competent to handle it; instead, we will hand the matter over to those whose work is specific to those areas, those who by law must deal with such matters, while we continue to care for the souls of all involved. In doing that, however, we’re not violating confidences and spreading abroad the pain or misdeeds of others. Confidentiality matters.

Pastors need confidentiality too. We also have our need for friends and colleagues with whom we can share our concerns, anguish, views, burdens, distress, and fears, and we cherish those relationships. Sometimes those relationships are spread across great distances and so the use of private correspondence - correspondence openly marked as confidential and which cannot be forwarded to others without the written permission of the parties involved - is one more way we get to talk about the important issues we face in ministry, whether in our congregations and denominations or our own personal lives. Because of the trust involved, one can be less guarded with one’s words or emotions. Those trust-based communities of confidentiality are critical for our wellbeing and sometimes simply to do good work.

And this brings me back to that email thread.

The men in the email conversation I was inadvertently included on needed that confidentiality too and I knew it. I didn’t download what I’d seen in order to pass it along to my friend and I never told him about it either (it wouldn't have been news to him that the men in that exchange would have written what I saw that day). What I did do was immediately reply to the original sender to inform him of what had occurred, assure him that I was deleting the emails, urge him to take up his concerns in person, and ask to be removed from any future correspondence. He graciously responded and that was that.

So what?

Well, this past week a whole cache of confidential emails between a group of PCA Pastors that goes back to 2013 was handed over by one of the members of that group to another Pastor who then published all of those emails on his FaceBook page. When challenged over the toxicity and sinfulness of that action he removed the cache - and apparently moved it to his wife’s DropBox page, which is, frankly, kind of bizarre. Maybe it’s been removed from there too. If so, that's good.

A few men who are on the other side of current debates in the PCA from many of us on that compromised email list have spread those emails further thinking, I guess, that they’ve uncovered some dark conspiracy. Not only this, but one of their numbers created a fake Twitter account using my colleague's identity to further spread the emails (I reported it).

If you wonder why a lot of people think that there’s a significant level of toxicity in the PCA, this episode should be evidence enough. There are many other issues, of course, some far larger and certainly more consequential. For all of the beauty in my denomination - and there's so very much I cherish - this kind of thing just highlights how messy things can sometimes be. 

There’s a not very old at all proverb that says, “Dance like no one is watching, but email like it will be read in a deposition someday.” Sadly, its wisdom is seen once again.

To be clear, I’m not aware of anything I wrote in any email in that group of Pastor-friends that I’d be ashamed of. One person tried to make hay from the fact that in one email I referred to Overtures 23 and 37 as a "monster" that needed to be defeated. That’s exactly what I think of those Overtures and while that language would be out of place in a formal floor debate, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that with a group of friends. My opposition to these Overtures isn’t exactly news, as is well-known from all I’ve written about them elsewhere.

Here’s the thing. My colleague and friend who coordinated this email list of other friends was wounded by this betrayal - and make no mistake about it, a betrayal is exactly what took place. It was sinful. It was also unethical. It’s also, given what I’ve come to know about some of the men who are part of that ‘other side’, hardly unexpected. And I mourn that. 

The Pastor who passed along those emails has behaved in a cowardly way who sinned against his brothers in numerous ways, the biggest being his failure to rebuke them in person and repeatedly if he thought they were wrong. All he had to do was say something like, “David, what you’re saying in that email is sinful and you need to withdraw it and apologize.” Or perhaps, “Cassidy, what you wrote is really jacked up and misleading. It’s subversive and contra-confessional. You’re spreading error. I’m giving you this week to correct and retract it. If you don’t, then you and I need to have a conversation with your Session or Presbytery about next steps.”

Instead, imagining himself to be an operative from a foreign entity in an ecclesiastical spy thriller, he acted in a way that was neither redemptive towards those with whom he knowingly and repeatedly promised confidence, nor edifying for the Church to which he has taken ordination vows that involve subscription to doctrinal and vocational standards this kind of action contradicts. 

The Pastor who posted the emails on his Facebook page is a Facebook ‘Friend’ of mine. I guess I could unfriend him. But what difference does that make? I think the better course of action is simply to say, “I forgive you and I hope you won’t do anything like that ever again.”

And as for the guy who collected up eight years of email and handed them over to others intending harm to people who trusted him, well… brother, get some help. Seriously. That’s a dark place. No one who loves you wants you to live there. In the meantime, take a break from the ministry. Confidentiality matters.