I have been hurt at church. From a Sunday School teacher who thought I was too mentally “slow” to mix Koolaid and count cookies to exclusion from youth group cliques, from accusations of secret sin and demon possession in my family, to staunch opposition to any Christian music written in the last forty years–and beyond into adulthood experiences.
It’d be easy for this post to devolve into a screed enumerating all the ways I’ve been offended by Christians and ending with “I quit!”
Not only is that the wrong mentality, but it isn’t fulfilling reading unless you’ve got a bone to pick with the church.
Instead, I’ll try to limit myself to a few examples for the sake of illustrating that sometimes, people at church just miss the mark in Christian relationships:
“Someday God will use you, but until then, you just keep taking that [Ritalin] pill.”
–A Christian Comedian joking about ADHD on a video we watched in youth group.
“Why don’t the two of you just get married so we can be the ‘young married’ class?”
–Another joke told at church to me and a friend.
“I’m so glad none of us have kids.”
–The consensus of the young married group at church, the morning my wife and I were planning to announce we were expecting our daughter.
“You’re a freak of nature.”
–A compliment on being a stay-at-home dad.
“Your brother’s possessed. God’s punishing your family.”
“You’re fat.”
“Leave your psychology homework at home. We won’t help you with that.”
–During a Youth Group tutoring night.
This is a sampling of remarks people told me over the years I’ve attended church.
I don’t think anyone meant to be hurtful; mainly, they wanted to help by revealing some perceived truth or way forward out of a difficult situation.
Yet, sometimes, church hurts. At various times, I responded with indignation or anger, but those are not the “more excellent way” of love.
When hot button issues are in play, it’s easy to lose one’s cool.
Conflict Points
In my experience, there are a number of areas of life that create tension in church relationships:
- Politics: Implying that Christians have to align with a particular politician or party
- Personal Life: Criticism from people only casually familiar with personal circumstances
- Intellectual Life: Treating certain ideas as incompatible with Christianity without understanding them or seriously discussing them
- Social Life: Not including people in activities, whether because of class, race, gender, age, (dis)ability or other factors.
This list doesn’t include outright sexual or physical abuse, which is surely grounds for leaving a church situation and finding help.
I am mainly concerned with areas of hurt that can happen during normal engagement with other Christians, and how to cope with these experiences.
Raising Awareness of Differences through Hurt
People rarely invest the time to understand something that is not part of their experience of the world.
Take my ADHD, for instance. When I heard that comedian’s line about God not using people who have ADHD, it struck me as profoundly lacking in empathy. This is talking about the God who “chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27).
Why should I explain that ADHD is likely the result of heredity and may be linked to the neurotransmitter dopamine, and that even people with ADHD can learn strategies that can mitigate the effects of the disorder and allow them to function? Why should I have to defend myself to those ignorant of the condition? Shouldn’t people understand that people with ADHD can and do live “normal lives” and sometimes achieve excellence in their careers or activities?
Well, tiring as it might be, some people genuinely don’t understand, having never met someone who can explain the condition or what it feels like. There’s only an outside perception that people with ADHD are “space cadets.”
Maybe by getting to know me, that perception can be challenged. But, I won’t change minds by hostility.
Judging Those Who Hurt Us
Jesus commanded: “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:1-3)
Are there possibly ways in which I am blind to my own ignorance of others, but readily able to see the faults in how others treat me?
I daresay, I have my own slate of biases, prejudices, and ignorances that plague my thinking. Rather than (just) taking offense, is there a more loving response?
Would I want to be judged based on my own exacting standard of thoroughly empathizing with others’ hidden struggles?
When Jesus says, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12), that should inform how I handle hurtful situations.
Empathy for the Unlovable
Imagine yourself at your very worst. The prettiest, cruelest impulses of your nature overtake you–for a moment–and you say a hurtful thing to a spouse, friend, or child.
The person looks at you, stunned. Through your seething frustration, you can only see this moment as the end of the relationship. Oh, you may continue to live under the same roof or run into each other, but you’ll never get along the same.
Instead of responding in kind, the person says, “I’m sorry I hurt you,” or some unexpected extension of grace: “you’re still my friend,” or “I love you.”
In this scenario, it is humbling to not be hated or lashed out at in kind. You realize your error and ask forgiveness, perhaps.
You come to understand the gap between your prideful self-image and reality. Instead of finding condemnation, you find a peculiar opportunity for transformation before you:
As Jesus says to the church in Revelation: “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.” (Revelation 3:17-18)
You and I are unlovable, shamefully naked, poor and blind when we first come to God. He doesn’t turn us away, seeing in us what we can be in Him. Dare we have any less of a vision of what our friends, enemies, neighbors, and fellow Christians can be?
When we refuse to give grace, we are not living as Christians (Matthew 18:32-35):
“Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
Jesus doesn’t mince words, here: our unforgiving hearts mean we have not accepted–let alone understood–the magnitude of forgiveness to cancel our debt before God.
So, yes. It was unfair to have all those slights and comments about me from the church. They ranged from innocent, if ill-considered, remarks to malicious.
But, I can also be wrong in how I respond.
Responding with Grace and Truth
Grace and Truth about Personal Issues
Let’s take a tense example, like the ADHD comment.
I might have simply responded with the truth: ” I have ADHD. I didn’t like that joke, because I think God can use anyone, don’t you?”
This response points out a truth (“God can use anyone”) and invites people to agree with (or at least discuss together) an idea. It doesn’t say “how dare you?!”
Grace and Truth in Politics
Or, in the case of politics, when I’m told that finally Obama, Bush, or Trump is “God’s man in the Oval Office” (I’ve heard it about all three from different Christians), then maybe a gentle correction is enough.
If people are to be consistent, then this verse in Roman’s 13:1 should apply to every President, not just the ones we like: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”
More to the point, however, I can ask if there’s a need for us to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” in terms of general obedience to laws, “but unto God what is God’s,” namely our ultimate allegiance, obedience, and worship.
It’s fine to acknowledge the good politicians do, but we must not confuse our allegiances to the point where we either excuse or even condone their flaws. This corrective lens to partisanship hopefully allows us to have a constructive dialogue.
Grace and Truth as the Only Way Forward
If we have grace, we will forgive our family in Christ. If we have the truth, we will lovingly point it out to others. In this way, we can address the pain in our experience without compromising the truth or cheapening the grace to which we are called.
With grace, we can forgive our family in Christ. In truth, we can lovingly point out hurt. This is how we address pain in the church without compromising the truth or cheapening the grace to which we are called. Click To Tweet
