career suicide

After this, Absalom bought a chariot and horses, and he hired fifty bodyguards to run ahead of him. He got up early every morning and went out to the gate of the city. When people brought a case to the king for judgment, Absalom would ask where in Israel they were from, and they would tell him their tribe. Then Absalom would say, “You’ve really got a strong case here! It’s too bad the king doesn’t have anyone to hear it. I wish I were the judge. Then everyone could bring their cases to me for judgment, and I would give them justice!” When people tried to bow before him, Absalom wouldn’t let them. Instead, he took them by the hand and kissed them. Absalom did this with everyone who came to the king for judgment, and so he stole the hearts of all the people of Israel. (2 Samuel 15:1-6)

An author I read a lot just wrote an ugly article, racially motivated and just plain ugly. The weblog he was a part of for a decade disavowed him for it. Their comment was that he was free to write whatever he wanted, just not for them anymore. He had always been an edgy guy, with views that were a little out of the mainstream, but he had never crossed such a line before.

And the line he crossed was done with such force and strength that it worked to completely and irrevocably sever his relationship with his primary employer.

What I cannot for the life of me figure out is why. Why would he all of a sudden write such an article knowing full well that it would kill his career with conservatives?

Absalom had done this. He was King David’s favorite son, but he had been in exile from the king for killing his own half-brother. His half-brother had raped Absalom’s sister so Absalom had good reason, but it hurt David.

He finally had come back, and now he decides he would be a better king than David and stands at the city gates telling everyone how good he would be.

Things finally come to a head and David is once again on the run with a force behind Absalom trying to unseat David. It ends tragically with Absalom’s death.

When this writer wrote this article, he had to know it would kill his career. Or at least, his career with conservatives. It would be like me writing an ugly article for the back page of the bulletin knowing that Pastor Mel doesn’t always read them first before publishing them. or like a preacher standing up and censuring his church or his denomination from the pulpit. Or like a husband telling his wife he thinks she is fat and ugly and he never has liked her.

Any one of those would destroy a relationship beyond reparation.

Someone within our congregation recently wrote a mass letter to our church telling them that he did not agree with the pastor on something and that he didn’t think it was right. He had been working behind the scenes for a while and was gaining no support, so he finally wrote this letter. I suppose he hoped it would wake people up to his line of thought.

What it did was get him removed from the church. There was nothing wrong with him believing the way he did, but when he went behind the leadership’s back to teach and promote it, he was wrong. When he wrote the letter – and he was a former pastor himself, he had to know – he placed himself in direct opposition to the biblical model of authority.

When this writer wrote this article, he had to know it would kill him with his supporters. Was it career suicide? What was it? A death wish? He couldn’t figure out what else to do so he went for broke?

Absalom had to know it would not work. But he was so full of himself and his own self-love that he started thinking that his was the only real way to go. The man in our church must have too when he wrote that letter. The man who wrote the article online must have too.

I never agreed much with that author, but I respected him as an alternative voice. I guess he was just too alternative to live with us.