Engaging the pain caused by the brokenness of believers is essential for honest, faithful ministry. Today, PARSE friend pastor Bob Hyatt offers a helpful perspective on where our hurts come from, and guess what? Grammar matters. – Paul
I recently did something I don’t do often . . . I wandered into the comments section. This particular comments section was for an article asking questions about a certain high-profile pastor who recently resigned. This comment section was a little different, however. Rather than focusing on that high-profile pastor, the commentors turned their attention to another, slightly less high-profile pastor and some marital issues he had had in previous years.
I probably shouldn't have read on, but I personally knew many of the figures named, and the conversation pushed the "voyeur" button for me. I spent hours wading through the he-said, she-said.
Through the whole back and forth, there were a lot of common themes—the church hurts people, pastors abuse people through the power they wield and therefore shouldn't be trusted. "This is why I'm no longer a Christian," was a common sentiment.
No one has ever been hurt by THE church. Many people have been hurt by A church. And the difference matters.
The entire thing saddened me. Not just for those who had been hurt by the situation being argued over, but for those who found yet another brick to cement into the wall they had been building between them and Jesus, between their hearts and his church.
As I read on, noting comment after comment about the church and the ways it contributes to people’s pain, one thought kept repeating in my head:
No one has ever been hurt by THE church. Many people have been hurt by A church. And the difference matters.
The difficulty, of course, is that we see particular churches ("the church particular") with all their faults, rather than the underlying spiritual reality which is, as C.S. Lewis said "spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners." Worse, we are drawn to the negative examples. We see the abusive pastor and miss the thousand authentic ones standing behind him or her. We mentally mark the hurtful churches and forget about all the healing ones.
We mentally mark the hurtful churches and forget about all the healing ones. This is the way our minds work.
This is the way our minds work. We make inferences about Muslims because of terrorists. We say "Christians are hypocrites" because we have known some that are. This is known as the Fallacy of Composition—inferring that something is true of the whole because it is true of some part of the whole.
The problem is that it is just that, a fallacy.
Our churches aren't perfect by any means, and the people serving in those churches are sinful, fallen human beings as well. But there are many pastors out there who are doing their darndest to love people and serve Jesus who don't deserve the same broad brush as the few narcissistic control freaks who have somehow wandered into the ministry deserve. There are more communities of faithfulness who are refuges for hurting people, serving their cities with love than there are abusive churches that use people up and spit them out.
If you have been hurt by a church, or by certain pastors, let me say I'm sorry. I too have hurt people in my ministry. Our church has, at times contributed to the problem. I think more often than not, we've done right by people and tried our hardest to be kingdom agents of healing. I don't think we are by any means special. I think the vast majority of pastors and churches have heads and hearts in the right places.
In light of that, what I'm asking is if we could all take a step back and consider our language when talking about these hard issues. Saying "the church is patriarchal and hurts women" just isn't true. But saying "many churches are patriarchal and hurt women" absolutely is.
There are more communities of faithfulness who are refuges for hurting people, serving their cities with love than there are abusive churches that use people up and spit them out.
The real kicker for me is that much of the time, when I hear these overly broad statements they aren't coming from opponents of Christianity or disgruntled former Christians, but from well-meaning Christians who are merely trying to own up to some of the present and historical mistakes that have been made. Trying to do the right thing and admit culpability in our shared failings, too often we can cross the line and begin to paint the entire body of Christ with the same broad brush.
Own the hurt you and perhaps even your church have caused to others, but do so personally. Avoid saying things like "Pastors do x" or "The church often fails to do y." Those may be true statements, but they desperately need the nuance of "As a pastor, I sometimes do x" and "Churches I have known or been a part of have often failed to do y." Without that nuance, even in the midst of owning our own stuff, we unwittingly drag along with us the rest of the pastors and churches out there who have never done either x or failed to do y. And in the process of trying to own up to personal failure, we hand someone another brick for their wall.
Using the proper article allows us to admit our mistakes, but holds out the hope to people that whatever horrible experience they have had with a church, the body of Christ as a whole remains a place to find healing and growth.
That to me is the vital difference between 'the" and "a." Using the proper article allows us to admit our mistakes, but holds out the hope to people that whatever horrible experience they have had with a church, the body of Christ as a whole remains a place to find healing and growth. That whatever disappointments they have been dealt by pastors or other leaders, the vast majority are trustworthy shepherds who want to help and not hurt.
Bob Hyatt is a writer and pastor of the Evergreen Community in Portland, Oregon.
