All I am saying is that Brennan was one of the few who was, without excuse, justification, or minimization of the problem, honest and humble enough to admit that there was something within him far darker, far more evil, than any of us would like to admit. The eye opening thing is that if you spend enough time interviewing and talking with pastors, in a pastor-to-pastor setting, you will find, that every single one of us, has something that is deeper, darker, and more evil inside us than we would ever like to admit. Often, we don’t want to admit even to ourselves just how depraved we are still capable of being! We are at war with that all the time. The only ones I have ever known who ever get relief, and healing, are those who in keeping with James 5:17 actually humble themselves enough to confess their sins to each other.

I’m not excusing Brennan’s behavior, nor advocating for his elevation nor esteem. I am not excusing sin. I preach about it regularly. I think your most poignant point, was he is to be both admired, but mostly pitied. He surely experienced, first-hand, the sharp and chastening love of a perfect father, who in the end stripped him of everything but His enduring love. I see that as the saddest, and also the most reassuring point of Brennan’s life; Our father never ceases to “discipline those he loves and chasten all who he calls sons” (Hebrews 12:6) I think the testimony here, is that of a man who knew His father loved him, and continued to chasten him, right up to the end. But the love he felt, he never doubted, and his faith never wavered, and because of that he brings hope to so many in our churches who feel like they somehow have been overlooked by the Father, because they still struggle with sin.

Anyway, I appreciate the conversation, and your thoughtful original blog. I just finished “All is grace” last week and was looking to see what kind of responses there were to it. Yours was one of the most thoughtful, and least snarky, so thanks for that as well. Not that it matters, but it was reading the “Ragamuffin Gospel” ten years ago in a jail cell, that convinced me that maybe, just maybe, God wasn’t finished with me yet. I’m so glad I did, and that He wasn’t!

No, I’m quite sure that is _not_ the sum total of what the Apostle Paul meant by “above reproach.” Look, Paul is absolutely explicit that a drunkard cannot be a pastor. It’s in I Timothy 3:3. He lists other things as well, such as not being a brawler. If some guy is out there getting into fist fights repeatedly because he’s got such a hot temper and having to be bailed out of jail by the deacons, it simply isn’t enough for him not to “make peace with his sin.” He’s a habitual brawler, he brings scandal and disgrace to the name of the gospel, and he is not qualified to be a pastor.

Paul was “into” lists, and he wasn’t exactly ambiguous in what he was saying. It’s a false dichotomy to say that either we demand someone be “without sin” or else we continue to support people’s being in ministry despite their being, in an on-going manner, enslaved to disqualifying sins. One can pity someone who is, presently, an alcoholic who keeps on getting drunk, lying to people, getting drunk again, and so on and so forth, but he can’t be in ministry. It’s that simple. It’s not enough for him to “hate his sin.” He has to be free of the addiction and not continually returning to it, for particular types of sins that are disqualifying. Some of these are sexual. Some have to do with substance abuse. Others have to do with a violent temper. Paul also mentions being out for money. If you have a pastor who embezzles church funds or is addicted to gambling, he’s disqualified from ministry.

I have been a Christian for many years. I began walking with the Lord in my pre-teen years and became active in international missions and a witness to the power of God, the power of prayer, and the absolute truth of the Gospel in my early teens and continued throughout my teenage years.

Sadly in my late teens I became the recipient of what I then thought was a pretty harsh interpretation of deaconal, “church discipline” for a sin that I had confessed to my pastor, was repentant of, and had discontinued. This began for me a 15 year time where I was completely disillusioned with the “church” but never abandoned my faith in Christ. I did however begin to question much of what I deemed to be pharisaical morality, so often preached in the church, and decided to experiment with “forbidden fruits”. You won’t be surprised to hear that I learned through that time that the word of God is true and that sin ALWAYS brings death to something and I have, as Brennan experienced a great deal of hardship because of this. I have been plagued with addictions and habitual sins that have been and continue to be a constant struggle for me.

This brings me to my point. I am now a pastor. Reading the life of a man like Brennan who was so completely enthralled with God, made his life a ministry, and went out of his way to preach the Good News of God’s grace through faith, to any and all he could, in the face of his own withering inadequacy and failure, is to me the greatest proof of the scripture that “Jesus came to save sinners, of whom I am chief”. These words, penned by Paul, are not “Jesus came to same sinners of whom I WAS chief”, but “of whom I AM chief!”

You and I both know that all pastors, all spiritual leaders, all who follow the gospel, are constantly waging a war, by the power of the Spirit and the Grace of God, against sin and it’s eternal consequences Yet we, without exception, continue to have sin in our lives. To take the term “above reproach” as meaning “without sin” is an absolute impossibility, and has been the downfall of many a great man of God, and the disillusionment of a great many lay Christians, who having placed their pastor upon a pedestal, have had their faith rocked by the very sin that necessitates our constant reliance upon the saving Grace and constant intercession of Jesus Christ our great High priest (Hebrews 4 and 6).

Brennan Manning, in the books of his I have read, never made peace with his sin, never attempted to justify it, often hated himself for it, and to my mind, this is the very definition of “above reproach”. Not a life impossibly lived without sin, or a life constantly trying to cover, hide or make excuse for sin, but one lived in transparency, humility, repentance, and the eternal hope that in Christ there is and will be freedom!

I would suggest that his veneration, or elevation to a position of prominence was not a result of his desire to be venerated. Nor the elevation of his own holiness, desire, or lack there of. It was instead the result of the amazing abundance of Grace, love, forgiveness, and justification that we all receive in the person of Jesus Christ, and Brennan’s willingness to never permit his own failure stop him from constantly preaching that with all his might!

Isn’t that what the gospel is all about? Isn’t that what Jesus demanded of Peter in John 21:17, immediately after Peter’s incredible, seemingly impossible, failure and denial?? You are correct, Brennan Manning wasn’t worthy of any status, or veneration. I think he would have agreed with you completely. But his message didn’t elevate himself, it elevated God’s grace in Christ Jesus, and for that his message has grown incredibly loud, something I think he is now smiling about as he drinks in the freedom and love he so faithfully longed for!!