I failed.

-Pastor Melissa Fain-

Last week I was roundly reminded of my humanity.

I have written in this site almost every week, of every month, of every year since July 2012. Sometimes, I've written daily or twice a week. That's so many words. At least a books worth, if not two or three. No one can write that many words without something stupid being said. 

A good leader is not the one who stands without fault. Yes, there are faults that should call for immediate and permeant dismissal. Abuse, in all it's forms are usually one of those things. I'm not talking about those kinds of faults. These are simple mistakes. In a world of cancel culture, how simple mistakes are handled in the pulpit set the standard for far more than one specific mistake. It can define a ministry.

What did I do?

On July 17, 2020 I published a review of The Chosen. Someone asked my opinion, so I it seemed appropriate to at least sit down, watch and write what I thought. 

You can read it yourself, but if I were to boil it down now: It's an innocent show for people who are already Christian. While I had little issues with how they handled miracles and the multiple accents of the actors, my major issue was Biola hiding their relationships to one another and this movie. More than that, I was sickened when they pulled testimonials of the show from YouTubers and only gave the channel name for the YouTuber who works at Biola. If I'm not able to look up full resources, something is not right.

I failed when, for whatever stupid reason, I confused Andrew and Stephen. There is every reason why this shouldn't have happened.

For one, I spent almost a lifetime in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Their logo is a red Chalice with a white St. Andrew's cross. Amongst ourselves we've joked that we are the "No Drinking" denomination. The cross is always something youth members completely botch when they are trying to redraw. You can kinda look at the logo and see the shadow of Jesus' cross. It's a point of conversation among one another, so you are not in the denomination long before you find out it is St. Andrew's cross.

Secondly, I've written multiple times about Stephen and he did not die on a cross, he was stoned. Paul (at that point known as Saul) was there. I've also written how I believe seeing Stephen stoned was one of the reasons Paul was much more diplomatic in what he said in public. (Think his speech that started with him praising the altar to an "unknown god.") 

To say Stephen is Peter's brother (which is what I did) is completely wrong. I’m not upset someone (albeit crudely) brought it to my attention. I’m more upset it remained up on the internet for over half a year. I don’t like being part of misinformation. I will always correct it the moment it is discovered.

How to handle mistakes online.

When this mistake was brought to my attention, I did not raise my defenses. Well, let me walk that back just a little. The way it was brought to my attention raised my defenses completely. I was bristled and ready to fire for a good hour and a half. It was during that time, I made sure I wasn’t sharing anything online. 

During that hour and a half I asked myself some important questions:

1. What happened?: I don’t know. Sometimes you make stupid mistakes. This was one of them. I would have had a clearer idea if it was brought to my attention soon after I wrote it. I am more personally horrified that it sat unchecked and unchanged since July than someone catching me in a mistake.
2. What did I do? I removed the entire section that talked about Peter and his brother, left the comment, and replied to it with apology. I then brought the issue out into the open. I’ve read enough Bible verses on keeping things in the shadows to know the danger in those kinds of actions.
3. What does it mean? Not much. 
   1. In relation to the post, it takes out one of the more interesting things about The Chosen. Peter is unsure of himself. Considering how many times Peter is the first to blurt out answers to Jesus, and how gungho he is as an Apostle, it’s kinda interesting to see him more hesitant. I wouldn’t write him that way myself. I believe he acted in the moment, and I also don’t believe that was a learned action. That’s my understanding of reading scripture that includes Peter.
   2. It gave me an opportunity. When I fail, which happens because I’m human, I need to handle it appropriately. There are too many that allow what is wrong to persist because it would paint them in a negative light. In reality, we are the sum of our actions. When we fail, how we deal with failure is sometimes more important than the failure itself. This is me dealing with failure.
   3. It didn’t change my theology. What I believe about God and our relationship to God is exactly what it was before this mistake was brought to my attention. Considering how interconnected scripture is to my theological grounding, that means it is not too big of a deal. I mixed up two Disciples I already knew were different people, and I openly set the issue right. If the correction changed my theology you’d see way more than one post. I’d have to pull out multiple posts over the many years. This is simply embarrassing. I’m an idiot. Let’s move on. 

In the future: Even if I don’t respond, let this be known that I read comments made to Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and Fig Tree’s site. I take them all seriously, and act accordingly. I hope this post helps you feel comfortable bringing future questions to my attention. It might simply be a misunderstanding in how I wrote something. I like to clarify. I want truth, and if it’s truth at my own expense, so be it.