One of the things I love about myself is my ability to repair. I am really good at seeing someone else's perspective, taking responsibility for my part in whatever fractured the relationship, and making a change to bridge the gap between us.
After this week, I am left wondering if it is possible to make a repair too quickly.
Something else I am really good at is abandoning myself and my needs. Especially if my needs are at odds with someone else's. This was something I needed to do to survive in childhood, but find it more harmful than helpful in my adult context.
When I felt accosted by multiple violent word pictures and problematic theology in a single church service, I refused to abandon myself and accept it (yay, me! this is healing). But I couldn't catch the pastor after church to talk through it, because previous attempts to share my reality as a survivor of abuse resulted in spiritual bypassing, ignoring, or prayers for me to change my mind. These interactions with him have left me feeling re-traumatized rather than loved or supported. Yet this outrage needed to be expressed and witnessed! It needed to go beyond my friends who agree with me. It needed to inform people who missed it entirely and are happy to go along with the [harmful] status quo. So I posted on Facebook.
I kept it short, vague enough to not cast blame, and mildly sarcastic to tone down my rage and make the post more engaging and digestible. Most importantly, I put myself on the side of those who have been hurt by the church.
It didn't take long for people to weigh in. Those outside my church resonated with my outrage. They affirmed that I was right to be upset and that the things I witnessed were not okay. Some fellow congregants had other opinions. They called my post "inflammatory" and offered to supply the context that was lacking.
It snowballed into in-person meetings and emails and texts with over a dozen people who were deeply hurt. Rather than waking up to the harmful rhetoric they've become accustomed to and the poisonous theology behind it, they turned on me as the perpetrator of harm against the church.
I'm not sorry I spoke up about issues I see in my own church. But I apologized anyway.
I apologized because I was in a survival state left over from trauma in my past. As a child, I constantly received the message that showing up with my true self, especially with my anger and discomfort, was wrong, bad, dangerous, sinful, and deserving of punishment. So when this pattern was repeated in response to my Facebook post, it threw me into a deep shame spiral in which I felt the weight of every other time I had been silenced and named "bad" by those whose love I wanted most. I reacted by doing what I did in childhood: fawning. I took responsibility, apologized, and and offered a plan for doing it differently in the future. I did this individually and publicly.
This repair may have comforted the people whose toes I'd stepped on, but it didn't make me feel better. I was left absolutely reeling in my shame spiral and heartbroken that my true self, especially my anger and discomfort, are still not welcome by people who claim to love me.
Repair couldn't pull me out of my shame spiral. What pulled me out was a good friend (who goes to my church!) telling church leadership that I hadn't done anything wrong. What pulled me out was enough people acknowledging my pain at the harm the Church has done and agreeing with my friend that I had been honest and brave, not vindictive or spiteful or defaming.
I did everything right in the repair process but the relationship has not been restored. Their half of the repair is still undone. No one has taken responsibility for the pain I experienced in church. No one has made plans to do things differently. No one has apologized for centering their own comfort or the image of the church over the harm done.
I also apologized because I never want to hurt anyone and I want people at church to feel safe with me (and like me). I know how it feels to be hurt. I know how it feels to be unsafe. I don't wish that on anyone and I hate that some people felt that way after reading my post. But if I have to choose between their comfort and calling out harm when I see it? I hope I call out harm every time. Maybe I could have called out harm more gently. Maybe there's a better way to be heard. But it is maddening that the truth I was trying to bring to light was left in the shadows because they turned the spotlight on my tone and platform instead.
So allow me to state it again:
1. Augustine, not God, is the author of the concept of Original Sin. There are other helpful ways to understand the problem of evil and death in our world that don't put us in quite the same fight/flight/freeze state that "GUILTY AND DESERVING OF ETERNAL TORTURE JUST FOR EXISTING" does. Having a close, loving relationship with a God that is going to abuse you for eternity if you don't do what He wants is not humanly possible. Augustine's teachings on the subjection of women have enabled the abuse of women for centuries and withheld from the Church, the valuable input of female voices.
2. Jesus teaches us to be One with him and to do God's will. This is not the same thing as teaching us to empty ourselves and become compliant robots. God could have made compliant robots. They did not. They are not going to burn up our passions and desires to replace them with Their will. They gave us those passions and desires and we should lean into them rather than away from them! But when we believe that we are EVIL AND GUILTY SINCE BIRTH it is impossible to trust our God-given passions and desires.
3. We cannot play the middle. Laws are being broken by those who are supposed to enforce them. People are being abused. Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, we must call out injustice and speak truth to power. People with spiritual authority need to be very careful about how their messages come across. Repeating "we need to cover each other's shame" over and over is empowering abusers. Shame is dissolved when it is brought to light, not covered.
4. You cannot invite someone to the Lord's Table and tell them that Jesus wants us to eat this meal in remembrance of Him and then call them a murderer for having crunched Jesus's body and swallowed his blood. This meal is about Jesus' solidarity with the suffering. Not shame on us for causing his suffering. This meal is about equality around the table - everyone eating the same meal together. This meal is about protesting the sacrificial systems that preyed on the vulnerable. This meal is about Jesus' presence with us. This meal is about Jesus' covenant with us to save and heal us.
I found this document supremely helpful for understanding why Communion can be so triggering for me. This quote about why the Church needs to change rather than having alternate services for survivors is worth sharing here:
We have taken up this task because we believe that love for the church demands it. We present a liturgy designed for regular use in whole congregations, as opposed to use during alternative services for survivors only, because worship that overtly endangers some cannot be worship that forms the collective into the love of Christ manifest. When the wisdom of those who have survived traumatic violence and coercion is allowed to inform our corporate worship, when those who have been egregiously harmed are regarded as valuable members of our communities, we take a step closer to becoming that which the Lord’s Supper seeks to create: a graced community of imperfect yet beautifully made creatures relentlessly committed to loving God, each other, and the world.
After apologizing last week, I have become nervous about a possibility I was not aware of previously: I have set myself up to become a scapegoat. Vulnerability is dangerous when people weaponize it against you. This was my childhood reality. It is why I have kept myself closed off to everyone for so long. "If they don't know me, they can't hurt me." I found so much healing in being vulnerable with people that I wanted to paint vulnerability with a wide, wide brush. I want everyone to know me! Maybe I went too far.
Now that they know my trauma history, if people feel uncomfortable with what I say, it won't be hard for them to blame my woundedness rather than looking honestly at themselves. After all, "hurt people hurt people," I said this myself in my apology! To a small extent, this has already happened. People with whom I'd already been vulnerable decided my Facebook post was a result of my trauma rather than an honest voice holding their church accountable. "First I was hurt and angry, and then I realized, you've been through so much," they said. "We're praying for your complete healing." Thank you. Please also pray for yours and the Church's.
To those who responded with, "You don't owe me an apology. You did nothing wrong. Thank you for speaking up; this is important and needs to be said." I see you. I feel safe with you. Thank you for your support and understanding and bravery in being willing to look at other peoples' pain and your contribution to it.
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