CW: Some mentions of sexual assault and spiritual abuse, but nothing graphic.
When Dan was a boy, he idolized his grandfather: they were inseparable. Dan’s grandfather was a minister, and the way Dan described it to me,the grandfather was revered in their small town. He moved with integrity, his word was his bond, and he embodied manhood to Dan, and to many others in their town.
It was his grandfather’s example that led Dan to become a minister himself, and his most prized possession is the Bible his grandfather preached from every Sunday, which Dan inherited at his grandfather’s death, more than 30 years ago.
A few years ago, (long after the death of the grandfather), it came out that his grandfather was a serial child molester. He had not only molested children in his church, but his own daughter, Dan’s aunt. The aunt that was always quiet and withdrawn as an adult. The aunt that had trouble navigating the world. The aunt that had always seemed, somehow, broken.
I always wondered how you navigate that. What you do when you discover that someone you loved and respected, who taught you so much, who you idolized and wanted to be like–what do you do when you learn they were a monster?
What does that do to your story? Are the things you learned from him now invalid? Is your judgment flawed? How do you know he didn’t try to turn you into a monster too? Or maybe he did? How do you process those memories? Are they now questionable?
# # #
In my late twenties, the questions I had around faith were no longer capable of being answered by the Methodism of my childhood, and I went searching. I flirted with Buddhism for a while, but I am far too much a practitioner to ever be happy sitting on the floor.
I discovered the activist Catholics (like Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin) who taught me you could be Christian and work for justice, too. They led me to death penalty protesters, who led me to nonviolence, which, if you stay there long enough, will lead you to Mennonites.
To a person, everyone that I asked who I should read to understand the Mennonite position told me to read John Howard Yoder. So I did – I bought Politics of Jesus and realized I had came home. These were my people. It wasn’t just that it made sense to me, but it made sense of me.
I joined the church, and then was pulled aside and told by several elders, that it was obvious I had a call to be in ministry. They would query me, shelter me, love me and, eventually, ordain me.
My work now as a Christian minister is directly because of my Anabaptist convictions – convictions I was first exposed to in the words of John Howard Yoder.
In recent years, it has come to (more public) light that during his lifetime, Yoder abused, molested or raped more than 100 women, in the name of pursuing “the perfection” of his theology.
The man who taught me the basics of nonviolence was a perpetrator of violence. The man who wrote against abuse of power was an abuser of power.
What does this do to my story? Is what I learned invalid? Does this invalidate nonviolence? Are the theories I learned about power wrong? Is nonviolence just a pipe dream? How much of my story does this put into question? Hell, how much of the theories around my work does this put into question?
# # #
These days, I’m a pastor, and I seem to attract folks who have been hurt by the church. Lord knows there is a lot of them. I have had deep conversations with so many people who have been sexually abused by church leaders I have lost count.
A significant portion of those folks are members of the LGBT community. When I was working in the unhoused community, a huge percentage of Queer folk were unhoused because of their family’s understanding of Christianity.
Lindsay was kicked out of her home at 16, when she came out to her mom. Her mom called the preacher, who said that tough love was the only thing that would change her sinful ways. Her mamma kicked her out and refused her calls since then. The last time I saw her, some eight years ago, Lindsay was 26 and a survival sex-worker, with a crack habit and HIV. And she hadn’t been home in 10 years.
Or the woman – one of the most gifted pastoral personalities I know – who was told she could never be a pastor, because she was a woman. And while she knew there were churches that did not believe that, none of those churches were her church. So she didn’t go into ministry, convinced what she thought was her call from God was invalid.
I know all these stories, and more. They are legion. I have heard about your assault at the hands of your youth pastor, the power trip the senior pastor at your last church put on you, the ways your grandmother was preyed on by that prosperity preacher on TV, the time you got called a whore by the church when you most needed help. I have heard all of those stories.
But none of them are my story.
I have always had a wonderful time in church. I was always loved, and taught to love. I belonged, I felt safe there, I grew up there, developed life-long friendships there. The problems I had in my twenties were about religion – they weren’t about church.
I loved church – right up until I learned the truth. Until I was a trusted pastor person, who got trusted with other people’s stories. Until I learned that many people did not have my experience. I loved church until I learned that for many people, the church was their molester, or at the least, the enabling system that allowed the molestation to happen.
I am a pastor. I preach most weeks, and I bury and marry people. I say the words of institution at The Lord’s Supper, and I baptize folks when they’re ready.
But I seldom go to church anymore – at least, not when I am on my own. Not when I am not paid to be there. Not for my own benefit.
Because I have too many questions: How much of what I learned was invalid? How much was abusive, but I didn’t recognize it? How much was coercion? How much was propaganda?
How much, dammit, of my own story is now in question?
When I talk like this to folks, some of them ask why I stay. Why stay in the church, if you know how problematic it is?
Well, there are several reasons, but a big one is that I want to make damn sure that when that queer kid comes out, when the vulnerable person shows up, they are as safe as I can make it for them. I want everyone to feel that their pastor is the one person who can hold their heavy things with them, and who tell them, with absolute assurance, that they are beloved children of God, who loves them and does not judge them.
In the end, I just want everyone to feel as safe as I did… before I knew.