Steph
just forwarded me a blog post that has taken my metaphorical breath
away. I haven't had a chance to properly take it in; all I have are
questions and impressions. No answers, sorry. Most unlike me, I know;
I'm usually much more of a know-it-all. Steph is sitting over at her
computer, working on her own reaction, so keep checking back to see
what she eventually posts.
Katie Sherrod, a writer in Forth Worth, TX, today posted
Complicit in Abuse,
in which she examines her experiences in the modern Episcopal church,
and the struggles the Episcopal Church of the United State of America
(ECUSA) finds itself in, and compares them with the realities of living
in an abusive relationship:
Those of us in places
like Fort Worth really want to know. For at least fifteen years those
of us in the Diocese of Fort Worth who support the ordination of women
and the full inclusion of LGBT people in the life and work of the
church have been trying to get some help, or least encouragement, from
the national church as our diocesan leadership moved year after year to
isolate and separate us more and more from the national church. The
Episcopal Women's Caucus, Integrity and Claiming the Blessing are the
only organizations in the church who responded to our cries for help.
Only now that the same issues we've been struggling with here are
threatening the larger church is the national church finally paying
attention.
It is perhaps easy -- all too easy -- to
look at the ongoing relationship (or lack thereof) between the greater
Anglican Communion (AC) and the U.S. and Canadian national churches,
and find parallels of abuse. I have no doubt that many of those
parallels are absolutely valid. It's hard to see some of the demands
voiced by some of the more rigidly conservative members of the AC as
anything other than naked plays at retaliation for decades of colonial
exploitation -- act that were far too often abetted by the Communion --
with a bit of empire-building of their own thrown in for good measure.
No church official that rises to the level of bishop can possibly fail
to recognize how incendiary the act of open interference in another
church's hierarchical issues will be. "But they invited us in" is at
best a tattered lace glove over the iron fist of a blatant act of
manipulation and control.
See? I said it was easy. Seductively
so. Taking the abusive relationship as a model for understanding the
relationship of ECUSA as a body with other churches in the AC provides
insights that we perhaps would be unable (or unwilling) to consider
otherwise. The map, however, is not the territory, as one commenter
illustrates:
You have no idea how offensive your
claims of victimization really are. It is really offensive when you
belittle in this way the experience not just of people who have
suffered domestic violence but even more so those who have suffered
martyrdom, and then say we guilt trip you when we object to your
demeaning and mocking our experience. Again, you are the ones who have
the power, and generally it is those who have the power who are the
abusers.
It's all too easy to dismiss this
commeter's claims. They've posted anonymously, an action generally
looked down on by standard netiquette and almost destined to draw (in
some corners of the Net) accusations of being a sock puppet, a coward,
and worse. The very real pain and anger that come through this comment
are sure to turn many readers off; they're too raw for us to handle.
The temptation is to dismiss this person as a raving loony, thus
absolving us of the responsibility of listening to what they say.
Those
of us who have a horse in this race, however, are not the typical Net
users. By virtue of our professed beliefs, we have accepted an
obligation to not react in a customary fashion. When remembering the
traditional Gospel litany of "the least of these," I have only to
imagine how Jesus would respond to that comment. How would He deal with
someone whose past pain is so great that a simple blog post provokes
this strong of a reaction? Would He debate the correctness of the
commenter's arguments? Would He chide them for angry, divisive language?
No, I don't think so.
So
why was that my first reaction? My first impulse? I have never been in
this kind of dysfunctional relationship in my life. I have no metric to
measure this person's pain by. Who am I, then, to jump to the
offensive? And why does it seem to be more and more the norm, these
days, for fewer people to stop and ask these questions of themselves
before they sit down at the keyboard? Why is it that we Christians, who
are by our own professed creeds and beliefs called to be peacemakers,
so often jump into fisticuffs with each other?
Is it because we have become so immersed in the world that we simply cannot think of any other way to be?
The
comment from Anonymous sends, to me, a chilling and strong warning --
not as much because of what they say, but rather because I have seen
the likely responses far too many times. After you've watched your
fellow Christians take out their swords and start fighting among each
other, you learn a certain fear. After you've picked up your sword and
joined in the melee, you nurse your own secret cache of shame. It
becomes much easier to strike out at anyone and anything that threatens
to bring that grubby mess of guilt to public view than to stop and
think before acting.
Could it be that we in the church have
learned the real lesson of the Adversary -- how to be victims -- all
too well? Do we really believe our own rhetoric about the
transformative power of Christ in the world around us? Are we in such a
strong personal relationship with the Word that we expect the daily
grace of peace that passes understanding, or do we view it as merely
another weapon with which to conduct the struggles of our day-to-day
lives? Do we live as overflowing vessels of Divine light and love, or
as hoarded jars of stagnant pond water?
It seems to me that
applying the model of the abusive relationship is a powerful tool in
understanding how we relate to others in our diocese, our church, the
AC, and the world. But it also seems to me that as professed believers
in God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we need to be
exceedingly careful in our responses. We are called to relationship --
with God, with our fellow believers, and with those around us. Can we
be true to our calling if we react from our all-too-human reflexes and
reactions, instead of claiming the heavenly love, peace, wisdom, and
loving-kindness that is our portion if we only have the strength of
will to take it?
I do not know where to draw the line. I do not
know, when dealing with my fellow believers, when to say "Enough is enough!
I divorce you!" without feeling in danger of violating my commission. How do we discern when we have been guilty of making
others victims of the same attitudes we hold ourselves to be victims
of? And in the light of Christ's sacrifice for us, do we as Christians
even have the right to be thinking of ourselves as victims in relation
to each other?
According to our strongest traditions, we have
been called to be one body. We affirm this relationship on a regular
basis. How, then, do we continue to be one body when we begin to reject
each other? How can our body survive when we allow this autoimmune
disorder to continue?