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 PrintableVersion Savage shepherdsFleecing the flockSAVAGE SHEPHERDS This is the moving story of a man who was rescued from a life of debauchery by a church which showed ‘a degree of God’s compassion and mercy’ towards him and brought him into a life in which his ‘house was always full of people, laughter, happiness and noise…’ However, when he began to question the teachings and practices of the church, he was subjected to great pressure to conform. When he finally left the church, attempts were made to discredit and even destroy him. The story can be summed up in the words, debauchery, deliverance, doubts, departure, and (almost) destruction. It is a record of spiritual abuse. Prior to his conversion he was, to use his own words, ‘hard-drinking, fast-living’, ‘unfaithful to [his] wife’, ‘profligate’, ‘wild, unscrupulous’, and living ‘a life of depravity’. The pastor of the River of Life Fellowship, a charismatic group linked with the ‘Fort Lauderdale Five’, leaders of the Shepherding movement, visited him in his office and challenged him about his lifestyle, but was ‘forcibly ejected’. However, within 24 hours he was kneeling in the pastor’s home where he was led to Christ. His life changed dramatically and as he grew spiritually he was gradually given leadership responsibilities. However, in one respect he did not change. He admits that he remained a rebel and describes himself as ‘a loose cannon’. He began to question the beliefs and practices of the church. He not only criticised the church, but also the traditional hymns the fellowship used, especially the hymns of Charles Wesley, William Cowper, John Newton and Gerhard Tersteegen. From the example he gives, it appears probable that he neither understood the Puritan notion of ‘desertion’ nor made allowances for the nature of poetry. It is interesting that when he left the River of Life Fellowship, he did not join an evangelical church, but attached himself to a breakaway group from his own church. He states, ‘I found traditional religion dull, boring and hypocritical (I still do)’. While still a member of the River of Life Fellowship he had forged a business associate’s signature on a document, and it was this misdemeanour that his former leaders seized upon in order to discredit him. This resulted in months of investigation by the police fraud squad. Undoubtedly, many traditional churches would find the author hard to handle, but this is no excuse at all for the horrendous persecution that he endured. The Shepherding movement, which was a well-intended but misguided attempt to plug gaps in the visible church’s practices, was a short-lived phenomenon of the late 1970s and early 1980s, a mere blip on the screen of modern church history. Probably, even within that movement, such spiritual abuse as Harbinson suffered, was unusual. Moreover, spiritual abuse has not been limited to such churches. From the Pharisees and Sadducees of our Lord’s time, through the Roman church of the Middle Ages and the Spanish Inquisition, spiritual abuse has occurred. Some would even include Calvin’s Geneva! Even today it is possible to find persecuting priests, overbearing overseers, domineering deacons and malevolent ministers. This book is a salutary warning to both sufferers and perpetrators of spiritual abuse. The Scripture does refer to the danger of hearing only one side of a dispute. I would love to hear what ‘Tom’ and the leaders of the River of Life Fellowship have to say. Stanley Jebb,
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