You have not strengthened the weak; you have not healed the sick; you have not bound up the injured; you have not brought back the strays; you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them.
—Ezekiel 34:4–6

What a word to evangelicals and the deconstructed. At some point, these defections are no sign of persecution due to faithfulness, but a sign of faithlessness and a rot to the core.

Thus says the Lord God: I am against the shepherds, and I will hold them accountable for my sheep and put a stop to their feeding the sheep; no longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, so that they may not be food for them.
—Ezekiel 34:10

If my previous analogy to the deconstructed has merit, then the verse makes it sound like these people leaving the church is a mercy and salvation to them. It is God’s faithfulness, not his judgment, at work here.

For more on failed shepherds, abusive leadership, and God’s concern for scattered sheep, read: I Am a Failed & Abusive Leader.

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