If eldership has a dark side, this may be it. After having done the wrong things for so long, you get to the point where you don't realize there are/were other options.

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.... McIntire claims he has been illegally kicked out and vows to take the presbytery to court. The session of his former church is struggling to continue with a weekly attendance of fifty elderly people, though 1400 persons are listed as members...

John P. Elliot writes, "mentally, the 92 year old senior pastor has his good days and bad days. When good, no one is sharper or wittier than McIntire. But his bad days were increasingly public matters. McIntire’s decline could be seen in the delivery of his two weekly sermons which he insisted on preaching each Sunday morning and evening. Collingswood elder Stephen Coker said that towards the end of his tenure they were simply incoherent. At the last celebration of the Lord’s Supper in September he had to be prompted to get through the liturgy. For these reasons the Session offered McIntire a retirement with a pension and health insurance. The elders came with a proposal for honorable retirement in April of 1996. He refused it so the Session took the issue to the congregation where the two meetings were ...a near riot" ("Christian Renewal" January 18, 1999, pp. 4&5).

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From a sad article in Banner of Truth Magazine.

So, ideas do have consequences. Form will determine function. By-products such as the unable-to-let-go syndrome, the rebellious preacher's kid, the lonely preacher's wife, etc. are just part of the bad fruit produced by a bad system.

Strong words yet words that must be said. These kind of messes are completely preventable.

The unspoken tragedy in this case is that the gifts of many others were essentially dropped into a "mass grave" as the selfish clergyman performed his "office." Macintire should have had a competent network of workers in place at this late stage, ready to mobilize - instead, most had thrown up their hands and left years before. Can't say that I blame them.

But let us not be overcome with evil but overcome evil with good.