Lately Mike Winger, a prominent YouTube preacher, has been confronting sin in the church through lengthy videos.  He provides ample evidence for his claims.  Lately he has exposed Shawn Bolz and Todd White.  People online are mixed.  Some are saying “thank you,” and “finally,” while a whole host of Christians are saying why aren’t you following Matthew 18?  This is the verse where it says go first to someone in private, then a handful of others, and then publicly.  They claim that there is not a place for public confrontation as it is mean.

That is true in some cases, but not all cases.  Biblically, there is a place for public confrontation.

With leaders such as the above, it is obvious if you watch the recordings that people in fact DID try to go to them in person, and others did try to confront them in groups, but because of their place of influence, they did not listen or step down.  They kept right on going.  In doing so, they have hurt many people.  And the hurt wasn’t stopping.

In the case of Shawn Bolz, he was committing prophetic fraud and was sexually immoral in his conduct.  In the case of Todd White, he has been shown to be abusive and falsely represent situations, pressuring people into testimonies.

For Shawn, he should have been fired.  But nothing happened.  It took exposure before Bethel church actually did something.  And for Todd White, his board tried.  Todd refused to step down or stop his ways. This was a harder case where he wasn’t exactly “employed.”

Either way, attempts were made to correct behavior.  And those attempts were not received.  Furthermore the people over them did not take sufficient action.

In cases like this, where people have very public ministries, there is a place for public confrontation like Mike has been doing.  If they keep going, are persistently unrepentant, they keep harming.  They harm both people and the gospel.

1 Timothy 5:20 (ESV): “As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.”

 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

If you step into public ministry, it means that the door is open for public rebuke.  This DOES NOT mean going on witch hunts.  Nor is it an issue to attack every shortcoming.

The issue is when the sin is persistent and unrepentant.  We all stumble.  But when there is not repentance, and not fruit of repentance, but continuation in leadership without proof of repentance, there is a real problem.

In the case of those that Mike Winger is exposing, they had been confronted in Matthew 18 style by others, but they did not repent.  Nor did the leaders take action that was appropriate to the measure of the offense.

Mike should not have had to do this.  But since the Bethel leaders did not deplatform Shawn, and the Todd White board felt powerless to control Todd (who is still going strong), someone needed to do something.  So Mike went public.  It is a matter of protecting the people.  It is needed.

So no, we don’t need a bunch of Christians going on YouTube witch hunts for every minor thing said.  But, if there has been continued abuse, no repentance, and the harm is continuing with no action to stop it, then there is indeed a place for public confrontation from a Biblical perspective.