The tragedy of false accusation

Because I sometimes write about Christian leaders who fall into scandal and sin, I was expecting the call.

A reporter from the NBC affiliate in my hometown of Charlotte, N.C., wanted to interview me about a local pastor whose church had abruptly placed him on paid leave while an “H.R. complaint” against him was investigated. This was not any church. It was Calvary Church, perhaps the most prominent church in town, with a massive cathedral-like building on a major thoroughfare. The pastor, John Munro, is a friend. Our tenures on the board of a local seminary had briefly overlapped. I had come to respect his wisdom and leadership in his church and in the community.

By the time the reporter arrived at my house two hours later, I had emailed people I trusted who might know something. One of them was an elder at the church. They politely but unequivocally told me they would not comment, that a biblical process was unfolding, that an independent investigator—someone outside the church with the skills and credibility to get to the truth—was looking into the charges, and that when that report was complete there would be a complete disclosure.

In other words, they were doing exactly the right things. And that’s what I told the reporter.

What I did not tell the reporter is that almost 20 years ago, I had a similar situation happened to me.

I spent most of the financially booming years of the 1990s working for the accounting and consulting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers. I was responsible for marketing in about 25 offices in the eastern United States. Part of my job was to have good relationships with the managing partners in these offices, who were my “clients,” and that usually meant getting to know their administrative assistants.

One day, I was visiting the Raleigh office, where the managing partner, a man I had known for years, had a new assistant. While waiting for him to finish a phone call, I asked the woman several questions: Where was she from? How long had she been living in Raleigh? I noticed a ring on her left hand, so I asked her how long she had been married. She said she wasn’t married, and I quickly added, “Oh, sorry. I thought that was a wedding ring.” We were in a public space, and several people were around and overheard the conversation. That was fortunate, because a week later I learned she was accusing me of sexual harassment.

Because of my reputation and relationships in the Raleigh office, and because the conversation took place in a public area with witnesses, all ended well for me. As it turned out, this assistant proved disruptive in other ways, and within a month or so she left the firm for unrelated reasons. But I am all too aware that if the circumstances had been only slightly different, my life could have been severely disrupted and my career at PricewaterhouseCoopers likely would have come to an end.

I share this story to say this: When Christian leaders engage in behavior that disqualifies them from ministry, we should quickly deal with them, to protect victims and to restore (if possible) the fallen leader. Most of the situations we write about in WORLD involve churches that act too slowly, and whose victims suffer further victimization by justice delayed, or denied altogether.

But the situation with Calvary Church and John Munro reveals other possibilities. Less than two weeks after I did my television interview, the independent investigator said Munro was innocent of the charges against him. He returned to the church last Sunday to a standing ovation.

I wrote recently that we in the church should be relentless in our defense of innocent victims. John Munro’s story shows the other side of the coin: Sexual, financial, and emotional predators abound—but so do false accusers.

If our defense of innocent victims is to be credible, we should also defend and fully restore those exonerated after submitting to the humiliation and disruption of accusation and investigation. They should bear the consequences of their own sins, but not for the sins of a false accuser.