There’s a story going around social media about a mother who has been ordered by a court to not take her daughter to church or to read the Bible to her.
And people of faith – especially Christians – are very distressed by this.
How has this country reached the point where the courts have the power to not only tell a parent how to raise their child, but to specifically order the parent to not raise their child in the church?
Let’s go to God in prayer.
God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.
There are a lot of examples of Jesus healing physical ailments:
- a man born blind
- a paralyzed man
- sick children
- even Lazarus, who had died.
But there are deeper injuries that need to be healed, and they are often unseen.
- Rejection.
- Loneliness.
- Abuse.
- Oppression.
There are many sources for these injuries, but too often, they come from Christians and Christian Churches.
There are churches that claim to be Faithful and Welcoming, but the Welcome only extends to the point where they will faithfully tell you to repent of your sin of homosexuality.
There are churches that claim to be Open and Affirming, but will say they LGBT people don’t make good leaders.
There are churches that will reject interracial couples.
There are churches that will reject divorcees.
And there are churches that will demonize one of the parents in a separated or divorced couple.
The headlines about the woman who was ordered to not take her daughter to church are alarming, but the details give a little more context: The mother was in a relationship with the pastor, and the pastor had been verbally attacking the father and the daughter.
She wasn’t ordered to not take her daughter to any church; she was ordered to not take her daughter into an abusive situation at a church.
The harm we can experience from emotional, psychological, and spiritual abuse may not leave physical scars, but that harm can be very real, deep, and lasting. And when that harm comes from the church, it is often spoken with the authority as being from God.
That’s a very heavy way to put a burden on someone.
Many churches feel they are the opposite of this kind of church:
“We don’t do this kind of harm.”
That’s not the opposite of harming people.
Think of harm as stealing someone else’s food. Is the opposite just not stealing someone’s food? Or is it feeding the hungry person?
So if someone has been harmed by the church, the opposite cannot be just not adding additional harm. The opposite is healing.
Healing looks a lot of different ways. It depends on the needs of the person.
One of the first ways that many people are rejected by the church is to be denied communion. So we have an open table, where are all invited. Importantly, we have communion every Sunday so that the very first Sunday someone comes to church, they are welcomed at a table from which they had been turned away.
Another way people are rejected from the church is to be denied leadership positions. It can be helpful to see people line one’s self in leadership positions.
Representation matters.
Our Pride dinners are an outreach to LGBT people. Our Mardis Gras dinner was an outreach to the whole community.
These can be healing for people who have seen the church as abusive or antagonistic.
As we read in the epistle to the Romans, all the commandments
are summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Romans 13:9b, NRSVue
But I’m not saying this just to say “Congratulations, church! You got it right!”
There’s always more we can do. We must continue to find ways to reach out to people who have been harmed by toxic forms of Christianity, with offerings that are healing.
Christianity has been used as an excuse for killing and removing indigenous peoples, for slavery of people brought from Africa, and their descendants, for racism, for Eugenics, for subjugation of women, and many other harms.
We don’t heal those harms by just not harming people more. We heal those harms by taking concrete actions.
So my challenge is this:
that we think about those who have been harmed, by our church, by our denominations, by Christianity.
And seek ways to heal the harm that has been caused.
As we read in Romans:
Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
Romans 13:10, NRSVue
Amen.
Let’s sing NCH 175 O Christ, the Healer, We Have Come
* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue
* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.
Leave a Reply