“The church is under attack!” This response peppered my Facebook feed over the weekend as people reacted in outrage, mistaking a bacchanalian feast in the Opening Ceremonies for a recasting of Da Vinci’s painting of The Last Supper with drag queens.
The enactment was intended as a tribute to the Greek heritage of the Olympics. Frankly, I’m growing tired of this predictable response.
Without a doubt, there are places in this world in which being a Christian is a very dangerous thing. People lose their jobs, freedoms and sometimes, their lives for following Jesus. That’s not what these people are talking about.
It is hard for me to square the notion of a church under attack when Christians are working to enact legal mandates to display the Ten Commandments in our schools or mandate the teaching of the Bible to all students. These actions would have certainly brought outrage from my Baptist ancestor Thomas Helwys, a man who died in prison for advocating religious liberty for all.
He wrote: ”For men’s religion to God is between God and themselves. The king shall not answer for it. Neither may the king be judge between God and man. Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews or whatsoever it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure.”
As a therapist, I spend a fair amount of time listening to people who have no use for Christians. I recommend others do the same.
What I hear is not the workings of evil opposing God’s work. What I hear are people astounded and disgusted at church hierarchies that continue to avoid confronting the terrible evil in their midst that is manifest as the sexual abuse of children. Even now, the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention is working to avoid accountability for that.
I hear people astounded and disgusted that pastors forced to resign from their churches for sexual misconduct and abuse of power merely pick up their tents and start over elsewhere, with no confession or repentance. In fact, they repackage the experience as part of their persecution story.
I hear people astounded and disgusted at Christians supporting politicians who are willing to endanger a pregnant woman’s life, all while crying about the sanctity of life. They do this while also working to stop programs that feed the hungry children in our cities and towns.
They are astounded and disgusted by churches denying women full participation in leadership, whether as clergy or as lay leaders, denying their gifts and muting their voices. They are astounded and disgusted by the deification of Donald Trump, a man who never met a commandment he wouldn’t break. The internet is replete with pictures and memes of him cast in the role of savior and as our Savior’s best buddy.
Over the weekend, a friend shared one that she’d found that represented the Last Supper. Donald Trump sat in the place of Jesus. Let’s be outraged about that.
I spend my time listening to people who grew up in churches and are committed to following Jesus but have sworn never to darken a church door again. They became leaders in their local church and the ugliness of the behavior they saw from the inside turned them off from participating ever again.
Or people who were faithful in church until their child came out as gay or transgender and their church’s welcome suddenly wasn’t so welcoming.
Or the people who grew up being told they were going to hell for who they loved, for being who God made them to be. These people were so bullied by people in the church they considered taking their own lives.
I think we’ve gotten our words confused. The church isn’t being attacked. It is being held accountable.
In the immortal words of Frank Kelly’s comic strip Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
If the church is to be attacked, let it be because we have loved too extravagantly. Let it be because we have been courageous in challenging unjust systems, even when those systems contribute to our own comfort. Let it be because we insisted on hearing those who have had no voice.
Let it be because we challenged local ordinances that would prevent us from feeding those who are hungry in our streets and national systems that punish people experiencing poverty for being poor. Let it be because we have taken our mandate to be stewards of God’s good creation seriously.
Let it be because we take confession and reconciliation seriously. Let it be because we use conflict as an opportunity to do the hard work of growth— not to declare winners and losers.
Let it be because all are truly welcome at the Lord’s table in our house, even those whose differences make us uncomfortable. Because that’s precisely what Jesus would do.
Let’s be attacked for the kinds of things that got Jesus into trouble.
Peggy Haymes is a minister, therapist, and coach in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
