In the age before the internet, there perhaps existed some natural limit to the number of times one could feel betrayed by his or her spiritual leaders. In our time, it sometimes is an almost bi-weekly occurrence. When the news of the “moral failings” of well-known Christian teachers and pastors come across our screens almost as often as that of mass shootings, one begins to wonder which of these two modern tragedies is more successfully eroding our national faith. Nihilistic violence may shock the soul, but continued spiritual betrayal is almost too much for the human heart to bear. For relational beings, nothing—not even death—is so disorienting as the divorce of trust and trustworthiness.
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Ross Byrd
Ross Byrd is the teaching director at Virginia Beach Fellows and the owner and director of Surf Hatteras, a surfing camp for teens in the Outer Banks, NC. He was raised in the Episcopal Church and served as a lay minister and musician there for years before a stint as associate pastor of a non-denominational church. He and his wife Hannah are raising four surfing children. Ross has degrees from the University of Virginia (2005) and Reformed Theological Seminary (2013). You can follow his work on Substack at www.PatientKingdom.com.
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