Between Blind Obedience and Walking Away: What the Atonement Teaches Us About Imperfect Leaders

We put our trust in a religion, an organization, a person. Then we find out they were wrong about something.  Often our tendency is to lose trust. We feel bamboozled.  We feel gullible.

What we do in response is often to distance ourselves from that entity completely.  No trust left.  Our society supports this.  We live in a cancel culture.  One thing wrong and the person or entity is done.  No second chances. 

But, that is not how things work.  God sent us here to earth knowing we would make mistakes and be wrong.  He also provided Christ who came with a plan for what happens when things go wrong.  This is the Atonement. This takes care of all of it.  When we do something wrong, we can repent.  We can turn our direction and focus back towards God.  Repentance isn’t just about restitution.  It is about aligning ourselves with truth.  The Atonement also takes care of when others do something wrong.  It can heal us when others have hurt us.  In the process, it may even make us come out better and stronger than before we were hurt.

While we don’t just keep accepting deception and abuse from those who harm us over and over, not every mistake is abuse and deception.  Sometimes a mistake is a lack of understanding and truth.  Sometimes it is caused by not enough good information, sometimes it is caused from past trauma, or just being human.  And humans also lead entities such as organizations and religions.  They are subject to the same human weaknesses. 

Do we want to throw out all the good in a person or entity when they make a mistake?  If the mistake is big enough, perhaps.  If the mistake is just the one of many that is now discovered, maybe. 

But too often we think of the idea of restitution as the guiding principle for mistakes.  The problem with that is, we think the ultimate solution to a problem is to find someone or some institution to blame.  Then if we get rid of them, we solve the problem. 

That rarely is the case. 

We have canceled many politicians out of government, but the government is more dysfunctional than ever.

What if we kept some of the people in who made mistakes?  In business they often say that failure is one of the most powerful teachers. If we kept some of the people in who failed, what kind of wisdom might we have?  If we stayed with an institution who acknowledges mistakes and failures and changes, what kind of institutional wisdom might it have to offer its members? What if some of these people and institutions are better for having gone through mistakes or failure?

The problem with blind obedience is that we make things either/or.  Who we follow must be perfect OR we must leave them. 

I want to be a part of something that is growing and learning.  I want to be a part of something that can try and fail and move forward.  I don’t want to have to leave every time there is a mistake.  If I do that, it’s possible I just watch the same mistakes over and over from different people and entities.

Do I believe in Christ’s Atonement? If I do, what does that mean for how I interact with other people and organizations?