What do you do when your leaders are bonkers? 

As Christians, that is, what do we do when our leaders are showing clear signs of being delusional sociopaths?

Two examples from Scripture come to mind: the first involving active participation – “doing something about it” – and the second not doing anything, or being passive.  

The active participation example is in Acts 4 when Peter and John came up against the delusional sociopaths of their day, who’d chucked them in jail (verse 3) for talking in public about Jesus. So much for free speech back then too. Instead, censorship and being hauled up before the authorities to answer for their dastardly deed (verses 5-7). 

Which they did. And well too, because it left the authorities without a foot to stand on. They didn’t know what to do (verse 14). So, just like authorities do today they resorted to coercion (verse 18). The response they got from Peter and John, however, was classic: “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God,” verse 19. 

The authorities desperately wanted to punish them for such outrageous cheek, but scared of a public backlash they issued “further threats” and “let them go” (verse 21). But Peter and John hadn’t finished with these folks yet. They “went back to their own people,” verse 23, “and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them.” And this is when their active participation and “doing something” began.  

Because in verse 24, “they raised their voices together in prayer to God” to “consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness,” verse 29. They weren’t hanging around; they went straight to God for the courage to ignore these thugs and not be intimidated. And God responded (verse 31). So in this case it was their active participation that got the problem dealt with.    

In another case of a delusional sociopath, however, there was nothing they needed to do, because God dealt with it himself. And the reason for that is a real shot across the bow for any leader today who thinks and acts like he’s a god. Herod was such a chap, who in response to an adoring crowd in Acts 12:22 shouting “This is the voice of a god, not of a man,” he gave no “praise to God,” so “an angel of the Lord struck him down and he was eaten by worms and died,” verse 23. His was “a sin that leads to death,” 1 John 5:16, that not even prayer can change.   

That’s very different to leaders who are being delusional, haughty and stupid, because that’s just being typically human – and that isn’t a sin unto death. Can we look upon them as fellow humans, then – brothers even – and “pray for them that God will give them life” (verse 16), by waking them out of their stupour, so they promote things right and good and true, rather than opposing them.