“Seek Yahweh while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to Yahweh, and He will have compassion on him. Turn to our Elohim, for He will abundantly pardon.”
Isaiah 55: 6-7
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Preachers are Considering Leaving the Ministry: Good Riddance
See “The Pastors Aren’t All Right: 38% Consider Leaving Ministry”:
“We have multiple pastors at every retreat that are contemplating leaving ministry,” said Burleson, who organizes the three-day getaways, sponsored by his congregation, Timber Ridge Church in Stephenville, and Vista Church in Heartland. “In a lot of ways, they feel stuck, which just adds on to the pressure and the burnout.”
Pastoral burnout has worsened during the pandemic. A Barna Group survey released today found that 38 percent of pastors are seriously considering leaving full-time ministry, up from 29 percent in January.
I think preachers are the biggest problem in Christendom today. To keep their jobs and to attract crowds, many of them wink at blatant sin and focus on tickling people’s ears. Anyone no matter how wretched he is can find a church with a preacher who is suited to his liking.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that the places we call “churches” are only for the sinless, because all of us are sinners who need a Savior. I am talking about churches that condone and glamorize conspicuous sin to attract followers and tell their congregations that their sins are acceptable to Yahweh. That’s pure nonsense, but there are plenty of those churches around.
In the mid-1980s, Yahweh took me out of institutional church altogether. Many of my Christian friends thought that I had abandoned the faith, because I wasn’t following the traditional church model. Yahweh led me out of a morass, and started teaching me about the faith of Abraham. That led to other changes in my life, and it is still unfolding.
The best way to describe the faith of Abraham is to say that it is faith with legs that go where Yahweh says go and that do what Yahweh says do. See The Trilogy for more details.
Out of Academia, Too
In 1985, I had just finished a stint in state government. I was Virginia Governor Chuck Robb’s policy advisor for regulatory reform from 1981 to 1985. My youngest daughter was born in December 1979. She was less than 2-years-old when I started that assignment. When it was over, she was walking and talking and doing all sorts of things, but I hardly knew her.
For most of her life at that point, five days a week I left home at about 5:00 a.m. (before she got up), and I returned at about 9:00 p.m. (after she went to bed). I saw her only on weekends. That means something to parents. It was not a good situation, and it could not continue.
Gerald Baliles succeeded Robb as Governor of Virginia. I was offered a position in his administration, but I turned it down. However, I did agree to chair the 1986 Governor’s Conference on Small Business for him in Roanoke, Virginia near Smith Mountain lake. I liked Baliles, but I was not about to go through 4 more years of 80-to-100-hour weeks.
In 1985, Katie and I bought a house on Smith Mountain Lake in Goodview, Virginia. We spent most weekends at the lake. During the summer, we spent a lot more time there. I was determined to be a husband to my wife and a father to my children. Our time at the lake together as a family produced the results I wanted. My memories of the lake are some of the most precious memories I have. The same is true for Katie, Melanie, and Rebekah.
Throughout all of it, I never stopped teaching, researching, and writing. While I was working full-time for the Governor of Virginia and the University of Virginia at the same time, I was researching and writing about regulatory reform and other business/government issues.
In 1992, I was promoted to chaired professor, but I was not on the right path. Yahweh was leading me away from institutional church and away from academia.
In 1996, our dean announced that she was stepping down. Dick Scott, a colleague of mine at UVA, was asked to chair the search committee for her replacement. The provost told him to select the search committee, and he selected me as a member of the committee.
One day, Dick came by my office and told me that he wanted me to serve on the search committee, but the provost had questions about my appointment. The provost thought that I might want to be dean, in which case, I could not serve on the search committee.
I said, “Dick, I do not want to be dean.”
Our search committee selected Carl Zeithaml to be dean of our school. Since I was on the search committee, I had a vested interest in Carl’s success. In January 1998 during Zeithaml’s first year on the job, academic year 1997-1998, I made my first trip to Israel. As I was preparing to leave, Carl and I were in his office, and he asked me to meet with him when I returned and tell him what I learned on the trip. It was a reasonable request, and he made it in a friendly way.
As quickly as Carl said that, Yahweh spoke to me and said, “Don’t have anything to do with him.” I was surprised, but I followed Yahweh’s instructions. I never got back with Carl. From that point on, I had as little to do with him as I could.
In September 2000, I told Carl that I would retire in May 2004. I’ll never forget his response. He seemed stunned and said, “Neil, what will you do?”
I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t. Truth is, I didn’t know exactly what I would do, but Yahweh did. It was as though Carl thought leaving UVA was unthinkable. Well, it wasn’t unthinkable to me. If Yahweh wanted me to leave, I would leave. It was as simple as that.
Pretenders Need to Leave Their Pulpits
Since I retired from UVA, I have spent a lot of time in Israel, and I have gotten to know a lot of pastors and people who have been “called to the ministry”. I think a lot of them, maybe most of them, were hearing voices, but they didn’t hear Yahweh’s voice.
One guy stands out in my mind. His name is Scott. I won’t tell you his last name. He left the ministry, because as he told me, “It didn’t pay enough.” When Yahweh gives someone an assignment, money is not the most important criterion. Yahweh owns the cattle on a thousand hills. To Him, money is nothing, but to Scott, it was everything.
Many times since I published His Name is Yahweh and other books, introduced the His Name is Yahweh website, started posting SnyderTalk editorials, and giving talks about the Name Yahweh, people have come to me or contacted me via email or Facebook Messenger and told me that they wanted to support my “ministry”. They meant that they wanted to give me money. I told them that I don’t have a ministry, that I have a job to do, and that I don’t accept donations. Take a look at the “Donations” tab on this page. This is what it says:
SnyderTalk does not accept donations. If you are being led to donate to SnyderTalk, please send your donations to Ir David [City of David] Foundation.
Ir David [City of David] Foundation needs your support. It is doing important work, and I know that Yahweh is behind what the people at the City of David are doing.
If you haven’t been to the City of David, the next time you visit Israel, you should go there. You will be glad you did.
For many pastors, money means too much. For some of them, money means everything. It’s true that there are complications associated the pastor role. The COVID pandemic produced a lot more of them and caused many pastors to start looking for a way out.
They should have learned a lesson from Jonah. He was called by Yahweh, and he wanted a way out, too. He ended up in the belly of a big fish. In the end, he did the job that Yahweh gave him. People who are really called by Yahweh aren’t given an escape hatch. If they don’t do what Yahweh tells them to do, they suffer the consequences.
As I said, I believe that many pastors who say that they were “called to the ministry” weren’t. They should get out. Not only them, but the ones who were “called to the ministry” to fleece the flock. There are plenty of them, too.
Yahweh is beginning to make wholesale changes in the church starting at the top. Pastors who are contemplating leaving the ministry are part of the process.
I Knew that I would Leave UVA before I Arrived
In the 1970s while I was working on a Ph.D. degree in business strategy, Yahweh told me that I would do something specific for Him, but He didn’t tell me when. He also said that I was in the right place and doing what He wanted me to do. See “Yahweh’s Precision Timing: He’s Never Late and He’s Never Early” for details.
That experience affected me down to my marrow. It still affects me today. I told 2 people about it: Charles Stewart and my wife. At that time, Charles was the associate pastor at Milledge Avenue Baptist Church in Athens, Georgia. I was a deacon in that church.
In January 1998, I read an intriguing book titled The Bible Code. I knew that Charles would enjoy reading it, too, so I called him. By that time, he was the preacher in a church in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He had read the book already and had delivered a sermon on it.
During our conversation, Charles told me that he would be going to Israel in mid-March 1998 with several people. He told me who they were and what they would be doing in Israel. As he explained his plans, I was thinking, I sure would like to join you, but I didn’t say anything.
A few days later, Charles called me and said, “Neil, the LORD [Yahweh] told me to invite you to join us on our trip to Israel.” That’s all I needed to hear. I was ready to go, and thanks to a sabbatical leave, I had the spring semester off to work on my research. As it turns out, that trip to Israel got me started on the path that has led to everything I have been doing since that time including writing the book His Name is Yahweh.
As quickly as I started writing that book, I knew that my time at UVA was rapidly coming to an end, but I still didn’t know the details. I have been working with Yahweh long enough to know that He sees time differently than we do. What seems like an eternity to us is a blink of the eye to Him. Even so, I knew in my bones that my time at UVA would end soon as I understand time.
Truth is, I knew that I would leave UVA before I arrived in August 1979. Since I didn’t know when I would leave, I decided to take full advantage of every opportunity I had. I wanted to learn as much as I could. I wanted to know how to research, write, teach, publish, and consult. Thanks to my role at UVA, I got to do a lot of all those things.
I also wanted to learn about higher education from the administrative perspective. At UVA, I had ample opportunities to get involved in university administration at every level. I ran many programs, served in administrative capacities of various sorts, and gained an in-depth knowledge about the innerworkings of UVA. I owe a debt of gratitude to Bill Shenkir. He was my dean at UVA for 13 years, and he was instrumental in making those opportunities available to me.
Last but not least, I wanted to get some real-world political experience. Thanks to my role at UVA, I was able to work with the Governor of Virginia and the President of the United States. My job in the Governor’s Office had to do with running an administration day-to-day. My job in the President’s Office focused on political organizing at the grassroots level.
During the 25 years that I spent at UVA, I developed a strong attachment to the place. It’s a great university, and our students were second to none. Saying that I was settled in is an understatement. See “The Trilogy” for details. I knew that leaving would be difficult for me, but there was no doubt in my mind that when the time to leave came, I would go.
Carl Zeithaml Made Leaving UVA Very Easy for Me
In the summer of 2003, I was well-underway with the book His Name is Yahweh, and I went to Israel to gather more information. On that trip, I delivered a copy of the book’s manuscript to Rabbi Chaim Richman in Jerusalem. At that time, he was the International Director of The Temple Institute, and he was heavily involved in an effort to reconstitute the Sanhedrin. In 2004, the Sanhedrin was up-and-running for the first time in about 2,000 years. I was in Jerusalem in December 2004 when members of the reconstituted Sanhedrin ascended the Temple Mount, many of them for the first time.
In 2003, I wanted input from Rabbi Richman about Yahweh’s Temple. As it turns out, that information will become a central part of another book that I am writing. Although I haven’t finished it, I have written a lot about Yahweh’s Temple that will be integrated into the book. For example, see “Yahweh’s Temple was not on the Temple Mount“. To complete that project, I will need to spend lots of uninterrupted time in Israel working with Israeli antiquities experts. Because of the controversial nature of the book, I need to make sure that every “i” is dotted and that every “t” is crossed.
That’s par for the course. While I’m doing research for one book, I always discover new avenues for research. At this point, research is part of the fabric of my being — i.e., it’s part of who I am, and it’s what I do. Looking for significant connections that help to explain complicated issues is natural for me.
When I returned from Israel in 2003, I filed for a $1,000 reimbursement from my chair account to pay for a small portion of the trip’s cost. Carl’s associate dean, Ellen Whitener, told me that the school would not reimburse me. According to Ellen, she discussed it with Carl, and they decided that Yahweh has nothing to do with business.
That’s ridiculous. Ellen knew better, but she went along with Carl anyway. It was a big mistake.
The amount of money involved was a mere pittance. It was a small fraction of the cost of my trip. My trips to Israel typically cost well in excess of $10,000, because I do a lot of traveling in Israel to obtain the information and other things that I need. The money didn’t matter much, but the rationale that Ellen gave me meant a lot.
University administrators do not have the right or the authority to tell chaired professors what to think, what to research, or what to write about. It’s called “academic freedom”, and it applies to chaired professors more than anyone else in academia.
I recruited and hired Ellen. She was a strong Christian and a rock-solid academic. That’s how I know that she knew better than to say that Yahweh has nothing to do with business. Over the years, I worked with her to get her promoted through the ranks. Although she was associate dean, she had no idea what she was doing. She was easy pickings for a man like Carl Zeithaml. Because Ellen didn’t do her job, she gave Carl the opportunity to demonstrate his pettiness.
Ellen should have told Carl, “Those funds are for chaired professors to spend on their research as they see fit.” That was the truth. Every year, chaired professors in our school were budgeted $1,000 to support their research. Chaired professors got to decide how that money was spent.
Ellen failed to do her job. At that time, I was just a few months away from retirement. I could have fought Carl, but it wasn’t worth the time and energy. Carl just wanted to poke me in the eye, so to speak, as a parting gift, and Ellen let him get away with it. Doing her job would have required Ellen to challenge Carl and to tell him why he was wrong. She didn’t have what it took to do that.
I can understand why Ellen didn’t want to challenge Carl. In many ways, he reminds me of Idi Amin, the former President of Uganda. He thought that he was president for life, that he could do whatever he wanted with impunity, and that faculty were there to do his bidding. I think he saw faculty as props on a stage during a play that he was directing. Regardless, Ellen had a job to do, and she didn’t do it.
In April 2004, a few days before I left Charlottesville, Ellen invited me to lunch. At the end of the lunch, Ellen told me that she wanted to pay the tab. I said, “No, Ellen! You will not pay for my lunch. Judgment begins with the church. You made a serious mistake.” At that point, I did not want and would not accept anything from Ellen.
The first year after I retired, Ellen died. She was given the opportunity to do a job, and she shirked her responsibility. That $1,000 was small potatoes, but it was connected with my work for Yahweh. He took it seriously.
Consider this example. Yahweh told Moses to lead the Children of Israel out of Egypt and to take them to the Promised Land. It was an assignment that took more than 40 years to complete. Moses was Yahweh’s man each step of the way, but Yahweh would not allow him to enter the Promised Land with the other Israelites. Why?
The answer is that Yahweh had told Moses to speak to a rock and water would gush forth from it, but Moses was angry with the Israelites when the time came. Instead of speaking to the rock, he hit it with his staff. That’s the only reason Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land even though no one had done more for Yahweh than Moses.
Things that seem trivial to us can be gamechangers for Yahweh. That $1,000, as insignificant as it was, was monumentally important to Him.
I think Yahweh will hold Carl accountable for Ellen’s death. Withholding that $1,000 was his idea. Ellen went along with him, and it cost her. I hope someone who knows Carl will share this editorial with him. I really hope that people who think Carl Zeithaml was a “dean without peer” will read it. I beg to differ with them. They know only the person Carl wanted them to see. A part of me is itching to tell the story in detail, but that takes time and energy. I don’t want to waste either on Carl. Besides, he’s Yahweh’s problem, not mine.
By the way, Carl Zeithaml has never written a real book. To most people, that doesn’t mean much, but to serious academics, it means a lot. I’ll leave it at that.
Thanks to Carl Zeithaml, leaving UVA was very easy for me. He was the kind of dean who thought faculty should bow down to him and kiss his ring. That’s not the kind of person I am. After working with Carl for 7 years, I was ready to leave.
Don’t Take Yahweh Lightly
I’m reminded of the message that Yahweh sent to Belshazzar, the King of Babylon. Yahweh wrote it on the wall during a feast that Belshazzar had prepared from himself. For the banquet, Belshazzar ordered his staff to use the cups and other utensils that the Babylonians had stolen from Yahweh’s Temple. This is what Yahweh told him:
“Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.”
In English, this is what it means:
“Elohim has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it. You have been weighed on the scales and found deficient. Your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.”
That very night, Cyrus the Great, the Persian king, conquered Babylon, and Belshazzar died.
“It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living Elohim.” (Hebrews 10: 31)
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“I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me — just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father — and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to My voice, and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd. The reason My Father loves Me is that I lay down My life — only to take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from My Father.”
John 10: 14-18
