I posted an angry Facebook status after church on Sunday because the number of troubling things I heard was too high to ignore and I needed to be heard and to alert others to the harmful rhetoric that many have gotten used to.
Part of healing from spiritual abuse has been researching theology, doctrines, and Biblical texts and interpretations. I'm sniffing out everything that smells like abuse and tracking down its origins. I'm getting angry at the patriarchy and the use of Scripture to justify oppression over. and over. and over.
I will grant that I am highly sensitive to the scent of abuse and I have not yet calibrated the volume or frequency of my "use your voice" feature which has only just begun to be unlocked. I choose to see those as strengths rather than weaknesses.
Some wise voices in my life were uncomfortable with my post. I do think that I was hasty and, ironically enough, drew attention and shame on my church on a Sunday when the pastor was preaching against that behavior. Here is my more thought out critique of what bothered me and a statement that I very much love the people in our congregation and trust that they have good hearts and want to follow God (but so does my abusive mother, so I take that with a grain of salt):
#1) Augustine of Hippo cemented misogyny into Christianity. It's easily google-able so I'm not going to spend time on it here. In a class on church history, I wish the harms this guy caused were more blatantly laid out and steps were taken to separate our beliefs from his. How are we going to heal if we don't acknowledge where we went wrong? Sadly, his beliefs are still quite pervasive.
#2) Praying in front of the congregation is a hard job and I don't personally want to do it. I hate to make it harder by critiquing people's prayers. And yet...
Praying that God would "burn up our desires and plans and replace them with His will" reeks of violence, coercion, control, and shame. It spiritualizes control, confuses abuse with self-giving, and cultivates self-hatred rather than discernment and attunement to our embodied selves. It is a tool of patriarchy masquerading as pious behavior and I want it exposed.
Of course we have desires that need God's healing and redirection. And of course God will attend to those through Their safe and loving presence. No burning required. The overarching theme I see in scripture is a slow pruning and purifying so that we will be more fully alive as our true selves They created us to be, not a violent burning that leaves an empty shell of robotic compliance.
The person who said those words yesterday was only repeating what she's heard and read other spiritual leaders say for centuries. If no one points out what these words are actually teaching us, we will continue to be stuck in shame and fear which block us - on a neurological level if not emotional level - from a close, loving relationship with God.
#3) This is the one I don't take issue with. I hadn't thought of it in these words before and I would like to reflect more on how it impacts my theology.
#4) I have so many notes. The passage being preached was the second half of Genesis 9 when Noah's son finds him drunk and naked, tells his brothers, and gets cursed because of it. His brothers cover Noah without peeking and get blessed because of it. There are so many directions to take this sermon. To me, the most important thing to say is that this passage has been used to justify the enslavement of black Africans and we can in no way condone that message. That needs to be said before we can reread the passage for any message of love or healing or liberation. To ignore that historical fact is harmful to the victims of enslavement as well as future victims of oppression.
What we can take from this passage is that we are not to exploit vulnerability but restore dignity. This takeaway is consistent with the rest of scripture and the actions of Jesus. Other possible parallels to draw, are God's making of clothes for Adam and Eve as they left the garden and Paul's description of clothing ourselves with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation. The verse "love covers over a multitude of sins," also has potential, but smells of manipulation and enabling abuse.
Using the phrase "covering shame" is confusing and abstract. Is there another understanding other than "enable abuse" or "hide sin" because I can't hear it any other way. Restore dignity? Yes. Cover shame? Probably not. Full disclosure, I'm hearing my pastor say this after having experienced him literally cover my dad's shame instead of exposing his sin. God doesn't ignore sin when he offers covering for shame. He makes the clothes for Adam and Eve after they've had a heart to heart about their sin and paid the consequences for it.
I'm still so confused about the jump from "covering shame" to commenting on current events and shaming people for being blinded by their political parties. If the point was that we are all in echo chambers when it comes to news and media, it's a valid illustration. But what it has to do with restoring dignity, I don't get.
The analogy is entirely unfair and betrays the pastor's own echo chamber because he thought the two victims were comparable. He said Renee Good was somewhere she shouldn't have been (like Noah?? is that the connection?). That is wrong. Renee Good was where Jesus would have been. She was protecting her neighbors while obeying the law and restoring dignity to marginalized immigrants and people of color by not just looking away when aggressive officers were brutalizing her neighborhood. He compared her death to that of Ashli Babbitt who was killed during the Jan 6 riot. Now SHE was somewhere she shouldn't have been. I think the pastor's point was that I only see it that way because of my political affiliation. I suppose it's possible that he's so right I can't even see it, but I doubt it. I think his other point was that just because Ashli Babbitt was somewhere she shouldn't have been doesn't mean she deserved to die; her shame should have been covered? Still not sure what that means.
If he wanted to speak out about current events, and he should, the pastor could have used Alex Pretti as an example of someone who was trying to restore dignity and cover someone's shame. He could have used all of Minneapolis's response to ICE as an example. I don't think it's shameful, but I wouldn't squirm in my seat too much if he had said it was shameful to be caught undocumented and the people who have been attempting to hold ICE accountable have been offering a cover to that shame.
But he didn't say that. And he didn't mention how the curse of Canaan has been misused. And I am again left feeling unsafe with someone in spiritual authority who is not standing up for the oppressed.
#5) I have spent most of my mental energy on number two and four so I don't have many notes on this one. This was the first time I have heard taking communion described this way and it was bizarre and disturbing. This is another example of churchy language that shames and confuses which leaves people vulnerable to domination and control. Leaving us with those feelings was not Jesus' intent at his last supper. Why would my pastor say that?
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