Chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis illustrates a telling moment in the spiritual history of the human race. Adam and Eve have disobeyed God’s commandment and eaten the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. By doing so, they have effectively declared themselves to “like God,” (Gen. 3:5) which is to say, His equals.
In that moment, Adam and Eve discover that they are in fact naked: “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.” (Gen. 3:7)
The nakedness of Adam and Eve is more than just physical nudity. It also represents their spiritual intimacy with each other, the world, and ultimately, God Himself. Nakedness means they are open, transparent, and vulnerable. Nothing is hidden, nothing concealed. They are fully exposed to and therefore known by God.
By discovering their nakedness and sewing fig leaves into aprons, our spiritual ancestors demonstrate that they can no longer live in this exposed state. As God’s would-be equals they cannot allow Him to have direct access their souls. As rivals for His godhood, they must separate themselves from Him and define themselves against Him.
Of course, there is a problem: they are not the real God and never will be. And when the real God shows up, their first instinct is to avoid Him:
“And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”” (Gen. 3:8-10)
We are witnessing here the anatomy of fear. Adam and Eve’s claim to be God’s equals lead them to separate themselves from Him by covering themselves up. They realize that their claim to godhood is false, but they are not willing to repent of it, so they would rather run away from the real God, in the forlorn hope that they can continue nurturing the illusion that they are “like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3:5)
What then is fear? It is simply the refusal to look at ourselves honestly, to take responsibility for who we really are. We persist in believing that we are the masters of our own destinies, even as we realize that we are living a lie. Fear is the attitude of running and hiding from the truth that we are not God.
All our fears have this common spiritual root. Consider, for instance, fear of economic insecurity—a common one these days. If I am constantly worried about my family’s material wellbeing, is it not because I refuse to accept that I am not ultimately in control of the larger economic forces of the world? Isn’t my fear just a stubborn insistence that I am playing god in my life, in spite of all evidence that it’s just a game?
If this is indeed so, then the antidote to fear is two-fold. First, it is a courageous confrontation with the truth. We need to look squarely at the ways in which self-reliance has failed us, the ways in which we are really not “like God,” the ways in which we are really powerless over our emotional, psychological, and material lives.
Secondly, the antidote to fear is a life lived in trust. We must stop running, turn and surrender ourselves to the real God. If there is any fear in our life at all, the chances are we worshiping the wrong God—an angry and judging and punishing and vengeful deity, an idol who keeps keep us running, enslaved to our fear.
And if we want to be free from fear, perhaps we should consider the possibility that another God might in fact exist, a God who wants to embrace us and care for us and who provide everything we need to live and thrive as His children.
The good news is that we do not need to believe wholeheartedly in such a God. We need only acknowledge the possibility that might He be real. That acknowledgement is alone enough to open the door through which His love can flood in upon us, casting out all fear and filling us with our lives with real and lasting joy.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
More on Abuse and Healing in the Church
In my previous article, I reflected on the issue of forgiveness and healing for clerical abuse in the Church, whether it was financial (as in the case of recent issues within my own jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church) or sexual (as in the current scandal that is rocking the Roman Catholic Church).
Today, I would like to examine the second issue, namely, what changes need to be made within contemporary Church culture to curb such abuses in the future.
The root issue behind the current scandals, I believe, lies in a faulty belief that the clergy are a kind of religious caste, much like the Levitical priesthood of ancient Israel. Many priests and bishops think of the clergy as a closed corporation of clerics, apart from and different than the laity. We are even tempted to think of ourselves as a higher level of Christian, somehow closer to God than non-ordained people, a sacred brotherhood that we must uphold, preserve and defend against outsiders.
It doesn’t take a genius to see how this understanding—or rather, misunderstanding—of the clergy could lead to hierarchical abuse. If I consider myself a member of superior and distinct group and already have tendencies to be controlling or abusive, then I will be tempted to use my power to satisfy myself at the expense of those who are “less” than I am. And when one of my brother clerics does something wrong, my first impulse will be to protect the brotherhood, rather than to defend those he has hurt...
Some would suggest that the answer to this problem is simple: down with the clergy! The whole hierarchical structure, they would say, needs to be torn down, and either reconstructed or discarded forever.
I cannot agree with this point of view, partly because it is too simplistic, but mostly because clerical hierarchy has been an integral part of Christian Church government since the time of the Apostles. The failures that we see in the financial and sexual scandals of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches are not an indication that an ordained clergy is an innately corrupt idea. Rather, the current clerical culture reflects a dysfunctional understanding of what the clergy is supposed to be, according to the New Testament. What we need is not revolution or reform. What we need is restoration.
What does the New Testament teach about the clergy? Perhaps the most fundamental and important metaphor for the Church government throughout the New Testament is that of a Roman household in antiquity. At the top of this institution stood someone who is known in the New Testament variously as “the householder,” “the lord,” “the master” or even “the king.” (I don’t really have the space for all the scriptural references; go look them up for yourselves!)
In antiquity, this paterfamilias (literally, “father of the family”) was the supreme authority in his household, possessing the literal legal power of life and death over his wife, children, slaves, and animals.
Taking up this metaphor, the Apostle Paul taught that all the members of the Church are “members of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19) with Jesus Christ Himself as the first-born son who has inherited lordship and authority over the household from His Father (see, for example, “the parable of the wicked tenants” in chapter 20 of Luke’s Gospel).
What place is there for an ordained clergy in the household metaphor? Since the paterfamilias in antiquity was often absent from his estate, he would frequently appoint a trusted slave as a steward, acting on his behalf to administer his affairs and keep accounts. Again, Jesus makes numerous references to stewards in His parables.
The technical term for the senior steward on a Roman estate was episkopos, or “overseer.” It is the word from which we get the words “Episcopal” and ultimately, “Bishop.” If the estate was large, the episkopos would appoint assistants, known as presbuteros, from which we derive “Presbyter” and its misleading synonym, “Priest.”
Again, the New Testament writings often use the terms “overseer” (episkopoi) and “elder” (prebuteroi) synonymously to describe leaders in early Christian communities who taught, ordained others, presided over worship, exhorted, corrected and disciplined.
Here’s the crucial point though: while overseers and elders had real and distinct authority in the Roman household, they were just slaves, no more or less so than any other slave. Applying this metaphor to the New Testament understanding of the Church, then, it becomes clear that the clergy have never been conceived as a separate caste, a closed brotherhood apart from the people of God. In the end, they were just “slaves” who were appointed to the task of eldership and oversight by the Lord of the household.
If the segregation of the clergy from the laity is the poisonous wellspring of the scandals in the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches, then the antidote lies in restoring an authentic New Testament vision in which the clergy are fellow members of God’s household—distinct yes, authoritative yes, but not separate, and by no means exalted and idolized as a superior caste.
Concretely, this restoration means building a culture of transparency and accountability, in which clergy work in a spirit of full disclosure and consensus with lay-persons to make decisions for the good of all. It means revisiting the issue of enforced clerical celibacy (both of priest and of bishops), which in my opinion has exacerbated the segregation of ordained and non-ordained, especially when it is applied as a rule and not an option.
The ongoing task, then, belongs to you and me. We cannot change the current state of the Church as a whole, but we can go back the New Testament (as it has always been interpreted and understood); we can discover there the truly original vision of the Church; and we can implement that vision here and now in our relations with one another—clergy and laity alike—as fellow citizens, saints and members of God’s family.
Today, I would like to examine the second issue, namely, what changes need to be made within contemporary Church culture to curb such abuses in the future.
The root issue behind the current scandals, I believe, lies in a faulty belief that the clergy are a kind of religious caste, much like the Levitical priesthood of ancient Israel. Many priests and bishops think of the clergy as a closed corporation of clerics, apart from and different than the laity. We are even tempted to think of ourselves as a higher level of Christian, somehow closer to God than non-ordained people, a sacred brotherhood that we must uphold, preserve and defend against outsiders.
It doesn’t take a genius to see how this understanding—or rather, misunderstanding—of the clergy could lead to hierarchical abuse. If I consider myself a member of superior and distinct group and already have tendencies to be controlling or abusive, then I will be tempted to use my power to satisfy myself at the expense of those who are “less” than I am. And when one of my brother clerics does something wrong, my first impulse will be to protect the brotherhood, rather than to defend those he has hurt...
Some would suggest that the answer to this problem is simple: down with the clergy! The whole hierarchical structure, they would say, needs to be torn down, and either reconstructed or discarded forever.
I cannot agree with this point of view, partly because it is too simplistic, but mostly because clerical hierarchy has been an integral part of Christian Church government since the time of the Apostles. The failures that we see in the financial and sexual scandals of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches are not an indication that an ordained clergy is an innately corrupt idea. Rather, the current clerical culture reflects a dysfunctional understanding of what the clergy is supposed to be, according to the New Testament. What we need is not revolution or reform. What we need is restoration.
What does the New Testament teach about the clergy? Perhaps the most fundamental and important metaphor for the Church government throughout the New Testament is that of a Roman household in antiquity. At the top of this institution stood someone who is known in the New Testament variously as “the householder,” “the lord,” “the master” or even “the king.” (I don’t really have the space for all the scriptural references; go look them up for yourselves!)
In antiquity, this paterfamilias (literally, “father of the family”) was the supreme authority in his household, possessing the literal legal power of life and death over his wife, children, slaves, and animals.
Taking up this metaphor, the Apostle Paul taught that all the members of the Church are “members of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19) with Jesus Christ Himself as the first-born son who has inherited lordship and authority over the household from His Father (see, for example, “the parable of the wicked tenants” in chapter 20 of Luke’s Gospel).
What place is there for an ordained clergy in the household metaphor? Since the paterfamilias in antiquity was often absent from his estate, he would frequently appoint a trusted slave as a steward, acting on his behalf to administer his affairs and keep accounts. Again, Jesus makes numerous references to stewards in His parables.
The technical term for the senior steward on a Roman estate was episkopos, or “overseer.” It is the word from which we get the words “Episcopal” and ultimately, “Bishop.” If the estate was large, the episkopos would appoint assistants, known as presbuteros, from which we derive “Presbyter” and its misleading synonym, “Priest.”
Again, the New Testament writings often use the terms “overseer” (episkopoi) and “elder” (prebuteroi) synonymously to describe leaders in early Christian communities who taught, ordained others, presided over worship, exhorted, corrected and disciplined.
Here’s the crucial point though: while overseers and elders had real and distinct authority in the Roman household, they were just slaves, no more or less so than any other slave. Applying this metaphor to the New Testament understanding of the Church, then, it becomes clear that the clergy have never been conceived as a separate caste, a closed brotherhood apart from the people of God. In the end, they were just “slaves” who were appointed to the task of eldership and oversight by the Lord of the household.
If the segregation of the clergy from the laity is the poisonous wellspring of the scandals in the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches, then the antidote lies in restoring an authentic New Testament vision in which the clergy are fellow members of God’s household—distinct yes, authoritative yes, but not separate, and by no means exalted and idolized as a superior caste.
Concretely, this restoration means building a culture of transparency and accountability, in which clergy work in a spirit of full disclosure and consensus with lay-persons to make decisions for the good of all. It means revisiting the issue of enforced clerical celibacy (both of priest and of bishops), which in my opinion has exacerbated the segregation of ordained and non-ordained, especially when it is applied as a rule and not an option.
The ongoing task, then, belongs to you and me. We cannot change the current state of the Church as a whole, but we can go back the New Testament (as it has always been interpreted and understood); we can discover there the truly original vision of the Church; and we can implement that vision here and now in our relations with one another—clergy and laity alike—as fellow citizens, saints and members of God’s family.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Abuse and Healing in the Church
In November of 2008, newly-elected Bishop Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) addressed a general assembly of clergy and laity with the words, “We have been raped.”
He was speaking in reference to a scandal that spanned over thirty years, involving financial corruption, from misappropriation of funds to shady loan schemes to plain old thievery. The persons involved were highly-ranked: the Chancellor himself was defrocked and two leading Bishops were forcibly retired as a result.
One of the questions we asked was, how could the misconduct have flourished for so long without being noticed? The answer was painfully simple. People knew of the abuses, but chose to maintain and even uphold a culture of silence and denial, in which absolute obedience to the ecclesiastical authorities was upheld as paramount, and anything like dissension was suppressed with guilt and threats.
In many ways, our Church was like a dysfunctional family in which one or both of the parents are abusive and everyone else is forced to toe the standard party line that “what happens in the family, stays in the family.”
What changed in the OCA? Much to the chagrin of those who wanted to keep everything “in the family,” a few individuals spoke out and refused to be silenced. The Internet acted as a powerful tool by which the curtains of secrecy were thrown open, allowing the light of honesty and truth to finally shine through.
Once the word was out, the demands for obedience, the accusations of disloyalty and threats of exclusion could no longer contain it. The people of God kept on demanding the truth until newly-elected Bishop Jonah spoke those words that we so desperately needed to hear before we could heal: “We have been raped.”
I recount these events because they are awfully reminiscent of the current explosion of sexual scandal throughout the Roman Catholic Church. Being unaffiliated with Rome, I cannot and will not presume to judge their situation. What I can do is share my own experience with analogical situations in our Church—the lessons we have learned, the struggles we continue to face as we deal with the fallout—and leave it to you to draw your own conclusions as to how they might apply to the Roman Catholic situation today.
Reflection on the situation of the OCA, I see two larger questions. Firstly and most immediately, there is the question of how to reconcile the abusers and their victims. Second, there is the question of what changes need to be made in a corrupt ecclesiastical culture to ensure that such abuses will never again be tolerated.
Regarding the first question, my personal experience of the OCA scandal has convinced me that there can be no active forgiveness for those who raped the Church unless they repent, by which I mean, offer a genuine apology, and demonstrate the intention to make real and concrete amends to those they hurt. In my opinion, it also means a willingness to face civil justice, and whatever consequences that may involve...
But aren’t we supposed to forgive, regardless of the other person’s attitude? Our leaders sometimes fall prey to the temptation of calling us to excuse crimes without any initiative for repentance from the criminals involved. In response, I ask you to consider the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:23-35.
A master forgives his servant an impossible fortune. This same servant then refuses to forgive a fellow servant a paltry debt. Jesus condemns his refusal to forgive and enjoins us to forgive each other from the heart. He only does so, however, on the assumption that someone is saying, “Have patience with me...” In the parable, the master actually repeals his original forgiveness, because he sees that his servant could not have repented of his own immense indiscretion if he could not forgive another who owed far less.
Simply put, you cannot forgive an abuser who does not want to be forgiven. Have you tried hugging someone who doesn’t want to hug you back? It’s a cold and uncomfortable experience. Have you ever said to someone, “I forgive you,” only to have them look at you defiantly and reply, “Forgive me for what?”
Forgiveness is the embrace of reconciliation of God to humanity, and one person to another. For this reason, it is not possible to forgive those offenders who beg for a simple transfer, a retirement without consequences, who say that they “regret what happened” without actually saying, “I’m sorry that I did this.” Why? Because they either don’t know they need embracing, or simply don’t want to be embraced, period.
This being said, we as victims still need to be willing to forgive. After we have grieved for the crimes committed against us—a process which naturally includes denial and anger and depression—we need to come to the place where we are willing to see within ourselves the capacity for the evil actions we see at work in others. We need to seek for others the embrace that we would have for ourselves, even if they will not embrace us. The words that Jesus spoke on the Cross--"Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34)--must become our words, even if our forgiveness is not reciprocated.
Whether or not the financial, moral or sexual abusers in our churches repent, we must engage in this process of becoming willing to forgive, individually and communally, if we are going to find true healing. Even if we cannot embrace those who have raped us (because they won’t), we must work to let go of their psychic grip on us, or their rape will continue in our souls until there is nothing left but a hollow shell where a human being used to be.
More next time.
He was speaking in reference to a scandal that spanned over thirty years, involving financial corruption, from misappropriation of funds to shady loan schemes to plain old thievery. The persons involved were highly-ranked: the Chancellor himself was defrocked and two leading Bishops were forcibly retired as a result.
One of the questions we asked was, how could the misconduct have flourished for so long without being noticed? The answer was painfully simple. People knew of the abuses, but chose to maintain and even uphold a culture of silence and denial, in which absolute obedience to the ecclesiastical authorities was upheld as paramount, and anything like dissension was suppressed with guilt and threats.
In many ways, our Church was like a dysfunctional family in which one or both of the parents are abusive and everyone else is forced to toe the standard party line that “what happens in the family, stays in the family.”
What changed in the OCA? Much to the chagrin of those who wanted to keep everything “in the family,” a few individuals spoke out and refused to be silenced. The Internet acted as a powerful tool by which the curtains of secrecy were thrown open, allowing the light of honesty and truth to finally shine through.
Once the word was out, the demands for obedience, the accusations of disloyalty and threats of exclusion could no longer contain it. The people of God kept on demanding the truth until newly-elected Bishop Jonah spoke those words that we so desperately needed to hear before we could heal: “We have been raped.”
I recount these events because they are awfully reminiscent of the current explosion of sexual scandal throughout the Roman Catholic Church. Being unaffiliated with Rome, I cannot and will not presume to judge their situation. What I can do is share my own experience with analogical situations in our Church—the lessons we have learned, the struggles we continue to face as we deal with the fallout—and leave it to you to draw your own conclusions as to how they might apply to the Roman Catholic situation today.
Reflection on the situation of the OCA, I see two larger questions. Firstly and most immediately, there is the question of how to reconcile the abusers and their victims. Second, there is the question of what changes need to be made in a corrupt ecclesiastical culture to ensure that such abuses will never again be tolerated.
Regarding the first question, my personal experience of the OCA scandal has convinced me that there can be no active forgiveness for those who raped the Church unless they repent, by which I mean, offer a genuine apology, and demonstrate the intention to make real and concrete amends to those they hurt. In my opinion, it also means a willingness to face civil justice, and whatever consequences that may involve...
But aren’t we supposed to forgive, regardless of the other person’s attitude? Our leaders sometimes fall prey to the temptation of calling us to excuse crimes without any initiative for repentance from the criminals involved. In response, I ask you to consider the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:23-35.
A master forgives his servant an impossible fortune. This same servant then refuses to forgive a fellow servant a paltry debt. Jesus condemns his refusal to forgive and enjoins us to forgive each other from the heart. He only does so, however, on the assumption that someone is saying, “Have patience with me...” In the parable, the master actually repeals his original forgiveness, because he sees that his servant could not have repented of his own immense indiscretion if he could not forgive another who owed far less.
Simply put, you cannot forgive an abuser who does not want to be forgiven. Have you tried hugging someone who doesn’t want to hug you back? It’s a cold and uncomfortable experience. Have you ever said to someone, “I forgive you,” only to have them look at you defiantly and reply, “Forgive me for what?”
Forgiveness is the embrace of reconciliation of God to humanity, and one person to another. For this reason, it is not possible to forgive those offenders who beg for a simple transfer, a retirement without consequences, who say that they “regret what happened” without actually saying, “I’m sorry that I did this.” Why? Because they either don’t know they need embracing, or simply don’t want to be embraced, period.
This being said, we as victims still need to be willing to forgive. After we have grieved for the crimes committed against us—a process which naturally includes denial and anger and depression—we need to come to the place where we are willing to see within ourselves the capacity for the evil actions we see at work in others. We need to seek for others the embrace that we would have for ourselves, even if they will not embrace us. The words that Jesus spoke on the Cross--"Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34)--must become our words, even if our forgiveness is not reciprocated.
Whether or not the financial, moral or sexual abusers in our churches repent, we must engage in this process of becoming willing to forgive, individually and communally, if we are going to find true healing. Even if we cannot embrace those who have raped us (because they won’t), we must work to let go of their psychic grip on us, or their rape will continue in our souls until there is nothing left but a hollow shell where a human being used to be.
More next time.
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