Human Trafficking in the Church — Part 1
The Root of the Problem
Human trafficking is an enormous problem in the world today because it is an enormous problem in the Church.
Any time we see a particular crime or sin become a systemic problem in society, whether it is abortion, domestic violence, violent crime, or some other sin, it can always be traced back to its source in the sins of the Church. That is why God told Solomon that whenever a society experiences judgments, the key to ending those difficult times of judgment is the repentance of God’s people.
“If I shut up heaven so no rain falls, or if I command locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, pray, seek, crave, and require of necessity My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.”—2 Chronicles 7:13-14 (AMPC)
A few years ago, the Vatican published an editorial expressing outrage at celebrities who were photographed wearing crucifixes as fashion accessories. The Vatican called out certain celebrities by name, demanding that they stop wearing the sacred crosses and clean up their sinful lives. In light of the child sex scandal that exposed grievous widespread sins among the leadership of the Catholic church, “Cher responded by lecturing the pope. Her spokeswoman says the Holy Father should ‘clean up his own house’” (Hume). In this instance, Cher’s response might have been a message from God to the Church.
Systemic problems with crimes or sins in society are always symptoms of systemic problems with sins in the Church, among God’s people in that region. If God’s people will clean up their lives, then God promises to heal the land. When the disease is healed, the symptoms go away.
Human trafficking is no different.
As a society, our approach has been to arrest people and imprison them for crimes of human trafficking, but that only treats the visible symptoms. That never deals with the source of the problem itself. And so, we continue the endless cycle of arrests and imprisonments, but the problem just continues to grow. Until we deal with the root problem, we will be forced to spend more money to hire more law enforcement officers to arrest more people. And we will be forced to build more prisons to house the ever-increasing numbers of offenders. And on, and on, and on, with no resolution to the problem.
Years ago, at a festival outreach, I was praying for a man who had a serious health problem. As I prayed, the word “BITTERNESS” came clearly into my thoughts. I stopped praying and asked the man if there was anyone that he had not forgiven.
He dropped his head and began to sob. Through the tears, he confirmed that there was an offense in his past that he had not been able to forgive. After spending more time with this man, he still could not bring himself to forgive the offense that he experienced many years ago.
He walked away, still holding onto the offense, and still suffering from the serious health condition which had resulted from, at least in part, his unresolved bitterness.
Just as health problems in our bodies can often be traced to unresolved spiritual issues, the same is also true in society. Problems with crime and suffering in society can often be traced back to unresolved spiritual issues as their sources.
That is the case with human trafficking.
Physical human trafficking in our society is a glaring signal that is pointing back at a grievous, widespread sin of spiritual human trafficking in the Church that is so much a part of Church culture that most Christian leaders do not even consider their actions to be wrong.
Spiritual Human Trafficking
The US Department of Justice defines human trafficking this way:
“Human trafficking, also known as trafficking in persons or modern-day slavery, is a crime that involves compelling or coercing a person to provide labor or services, or to engage in commercial sex acts. The coercion can be subtle or overt, physical or psychological. Exploitation of a minor for commercial sex is human trafficking, regardless of whether any form of force, fraud, or coercion was used.” (The United States Department of Justice)
Physical human trafficking involves pulling people away their vocations and from serving their own interests in order to work in the service of the traffickers. It involves pulling people from any covenant marriage relationships that they may have, or hope to have in the future, and persuading them, often through violent means, to devote themselves to prostitution, giving their “love” to others with whom they have no covenant marriage relationship. All of this is for the benefit and enrichment of the traffickers.
The Apostle John was shown that spiritual human trafficking would so characterize the end-time institution of the Church that this controlling religious system would be called the “Mother of Prostitutes” in Revelation 17:5.
So, what is spiritual human trafficking?
Spiritual human trafficking, like its physical counterpart, involves pulling people away from their first love, Jesus, with Whom they have a covenant relationship, and away from serving His calling on their lives, and persuading them to give their “love” to other interests to serve other purposes in the interest of the traffickers. This leaves the victims violated and often exhausted but brings much benefit and enrichment to the traffickers.
In other words, spiritual human trafficking happens when spiritual leaders pull people away from their individual callings from God—purposes that they were born to fulfill—and persuade them instead to serve the interests of the institutional church or other ministries.
I once had a dream in which I observed the actions of the pastor of the church that I was attending at that time. In this dream, I watched as the pastor recruited prostitutes to work for him in the church. There was already at least one group of prostitutes in place, working for him in the church. The pastor was bringing in another group of prostitutes and placing them within the church to begin working for him. It was one of the most shocking dreams I have ever had. This particular pastor is a very kind and generous man who is deeply devoted to God. How could this be?
I didn’t fully understand the symbolism of spiritual prostitution in the church until I realized that it meant that the pastor had gotten off course. He was no longer pursuing God’s will for the church. He had left pursuing his “First Love” (Revelation 2:4). Instead, the focus had turned inward to building up church programs and building facilities. Church members were being recruited to help accomplish these pursuits. They were being pulled away from pursuing God’s will for their lives and were instead being put in place to serve the pastor’s will for building up the church. In doing that, they were turned into spiritual prostitutes.
There is nothing inherently wrong with filling positions of responsibility in the local church, but when a church leader pulls people away from God’s callings on their lives, turning them away from serving God to serving his own cause, for his own profit, serving his dreams and desires for his church, according to his own plan, rather than God’s plan, he turns church members into spiritual prostitutes.
In these churches you’ll notice that when church leaders approach potential volunteers, hoping to recruit them into service, these prospects are rarely asked “What do you love doing most?” “What is your passion?” or “What do you feel called to do?” Instead, you’ll hear questions focused on what the church needs, like “Can you help us in the nursery?” “Could you help run the media projector?” “Would you be willing to give a couple of hours of your time each week to help us?”
Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with volunteering in a church, but you’ll notice that when a church is engaged in spiritual human trafficking, the emphasis is never on building up the people or supporting them in their quest to find and fulfill their purposes in life—the reasons for which they were born. The emphasis is on using people to build the church. This results in people being pulled away from their individual destinies in God to serve the interests of the church leaders who take on the role of human traffickers.
So, people are misplaced into positions for which they may be wholly unsuited, because those are the positions that need to be filled in order to build the institution and its programs. This often leaves volunteers discouraged, frustrated, unfulfilled, and exhausted.
Countless destinies are lost as a result.
Mike Breen describes this issue very well in his blog post from April 4, 2012 entitled “The Plug-and-Play Problem of Church Leadership”.
The dream that I had about the pastor-turned-pimp was a timely personal alert to me because not many days later, I received a text from this pastor asking if I would be willing to serve on the church hospitality team and greet people as they entered the building on Sunday mornings.
If I agreed to this, I would have less time for my own ministry and for the things that God has specifically called me to do. Also, as an introvert, I would not be a good fit for this role at all. I also realized that the pastor was not primarily concerned with helping me to fulfill God’s calling on my life. The primary aim was to use me to serve the interests of his vision for the church.
I politely declined.
References:
Breen, M. (2012, April 4). The plug-and-play problem of Church leadership. Mike Breen and 3DM. Retrieved February 17, 2022, from https://mikebreen.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/the-plug-and-play-problem-in-church-leadership/
Hume, B. (2015, March 25). Vatican takes issue with a Hollywood fashion trend. Fox News. Retrieved February 17, 2022, from https://www.foxnews.com/story/vatican-takes-issue-with-a-hollywood-fashion-trend.
What is human trafficking? The United States Department of Justice. (2020, October 13). Retrieved February 17, 2022, from https://www.justice.gov/humantrafficking/what-is-human-trafficking
