Deconstruction. Losing your faith. Jesus and John Wayne. That Mars Hill podcast. I (Soren) gathered members, guests and lay leaders at CTK for a wide ranging discussion of what we do When the Church Does Harm.

We leaned heavily on Chuck Degroat’s Book When Narcissism Comes to Church… buy it here or on the bookshelf at CTK.

Before this became a roundtable, I was going to give a talk. I think our discussion was way more insightful, but my notes still provided the bones. They are below for your use, or disuse:

Outline of the discussion

Introduction
1. ground rules
  1. not therapy-
    1. no church names
    2. (lets not be like mars hill, rallying around us being different)
  2. goal is to teach us to recognize quickly, respond graciously to the wounded and repair to prevent that sort of thing from happening again
2. context
  1. Divided by Faith
  2. Jesus and John Wayne
  3. Mars Hill, Catholic Abuse, Ravi Zecharias, Sexual Abuse Report in the SBC
  4. What scenarios come to mind when you think of the church doing harm?

Recognition
1. What is the mission of the church?
  1. 2 Corinthians 5:15-20- what words describe the church?
    1. new creation
    2. reconciled
    3. ambassadors
    4. heralds
  2. 2 Corinthians 6:14-18- what are some of the implications of that for them?
    1. god is with us
    2. we are separate and different
    3. we are part of Gods family
  3. 2 Corinthians 7:8-11- how will that feel?
    1. Grief is not harm.
2. What is harm?
  1. Definition of spiritual abuse
    1. What it isn’t and why its important to recognize what it isn’t (Degroat, 15)
      1. diagnosis can be another form of power
    2. What it is (from Degroat 125, Mars Hill definition)
      1. principles of faith are wielded as weapons of command and control
      2. leverage eternal principles for power
      3. Silencing/moralizing/certainty/experioentialism/unquestionedhierarchy/utterly ambiguous (liberals who are using affirmation to feel safe)x
    3. “An attack on him was an attack on you.” (Mars Hill)
  2. Occurring on an individual and historical scale- examples

Transition: What do we do when somebody comes to us (or we ourselves realize) that this harm is happening?

Response
1. Powerlessness
  1. feature of abuse
  2. so much of what we do is an attempt to avoid being powerless again
  3. sometimes that means run away
  4. sometimes that means conquer
  5. always it means retraumatization.
  6. Our task: address the underlying powerlessness). How do you empower somebody, or even yourself?
2. Curiosity (not secrecy)
  1. takes gentle engagement to prevent running away.
  2. avoidance will lead to retraumatization
  3. that means being willing to risk a little wrath.
3. Empathy (not defensiveness)
  1. Temptation (esp. among those of us who have had positive experiences- so much identity bound up in this) is to get defensive.
  2. Matthew 15:10-20: No need to worry about the symbols. Worry about the good.
  3. Matthew 24:1-2
  4. Question: What was that like for you? I’m so sorry that happened. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you, but thanks for telling me.
4. Encouragement
  1. Growth vs. Deconstruction
  2. Josh Harris Example
  3. Bonhoeffer quote
  4. You have something to share with the church. Re-engage. Help us. But now you are in a better position to do it. What would be some signs that you were getting ready to be retraumatized again? How would you know?

Transition: How do we make sure it doesn’t happen again?

Repair
1. The new reformation- an information rich age
2. institutions of trust
  1. Clarity
  2. Communication
  3. Consistency- even when it hurts
  4. Humility
    1. a constant feast of misrule
    2. to build institutions on power is to invite deconstruction
    3. leader must be willing to be constant, and yet let him/herself be moved.
    4. like Jesus in Phillipians. Or Paul in
3. in an information-rich environment, the ones that survive will be built on trust

Questions to prod your thinking:

Introduction:
1. How did you get interested in the topic of “When the Church Does Harm?”
2. Have you ever been harmed by the Church? Done the Harming?
Recognition (from 2 Cor. 5-7): What is it like?
1. What does a harmful church culture look like?
2. Have you experienced a helpful church culture?
3. Have you ever experienced a godly grief?
Response: (from Matthew 15:10-20ish) How do we recover?
1. What did it feel like to be you in that harmful culture?
2. What was it like to be powerless?
3. What were some meaningful responses to you as you sought to recover? What makes the responses so difficult to provide?
Repair:
1. How do we build different institutions? (from Philippians 2:1-11)
2. How do we teach people to re-engage?

“Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest and sacrificial. God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idolized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands set up by their own law, and judge one another and God accordingly. It is not we who build. Christ builds the church. Whoever is mindful to build the church is surely well on the way to destroying it, for he will build a temple to idols without wishing or knowing it. We must confess he builds. We must proclaim, he builds. We must pray to him, and he will build. We do not know his plan. We cannot see whether he is building or pulling down. It may be that the times which by human standards are the times of collapse are for him the great times of construction. It may be that the times which from a human point are great times for the church are times when it's pulled down. It is a great comfort which Jesus gives to his church. You confess, preach, bear witness to me, and I alone will build where it pleases me. Do not meddle in what is not your providence. Do what is given to you, and do it well, and you will have done enough.... Live together in the forgiveness of your sins. Forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer