Alas, the church-show goes on

An unwanted reminder of unaddressed wrongs 📬

Last month, as Christmas neared, our mailbox became a little vessel for merriment and cheer. Envelopes revealed smiling faces of parents and their kids, each photo now hung on our fridge. We retrieved packages from out-of-town family, stashing them till the big day. With enough happy mail, even the ads and bills and junk seemed impressionless. Then one morning, we received an unexpected postcard—direct mail from my old church.

If you don’t already know, this is the church where I experienced spiritual abuse, sexual harassment, and some of my greatest grief. Unholy stuff. Their Christmas invite had reached me, a former church intern who—in the senior pastor’s words—went on a “witch hunt” and caused division. I suspect if his staff had addressed the postcards themselves, my name would’ve been blacklisted, our mailbox skipped over entirely. Instead, my family (and my whole street) was told if we joined the holiday service, we’d rediscover the wonder of Christmas. We didn’t attend, of course. I think God was glad.

Springtime will mark six years since I tore myself from that community, so I’ll admit, I don’t know what I’d find there now. When the last board member handling the internal investigation left in 2020, he called me and I sat in my 100-year-old duplex, numb. Every elder, associate pastor, and board member who believed my written statement and others like it had been slandered, fired, or pushed out till they resigned. Soon after, an outside leader tasked with informing church members about the investigation died tragically. That was the last I ever heard about the topic.

There was no accountability, no apology, no reform. This shattered me then, five and six years ago, but it’s the outcome I’ve now learned to expect. Concerns or allegations rise from the cracks of a church and what might follow? Cover up! Gaslight! Then blame the victim! The tactics are so predictable they’ve almost turned stale.

It still pains me to know those church members weren’t given the news they deserved to hear. That news—the truth as best as I could remember and describe it—would’ve hurt or shocked or offended them. Some would’ve doubled down, protecting the senior pastor and their pride like they’d vowed it. Others would’ve left (or at least had the chance to in good conscience). Instead, the senior pastor and remaining leaders boarded up and padlocked the truth, silencing dissenting opinions off and online.

When the pandemic came, lockdowns and virtual services seemed to give the senior pastor a chance to remake himself and his church into a different entity. It wasn’t long till he reemerged as a fresh variable in the evangelical landscape. The church’s pre-pandemic rumblings faded into history, cobwebbed and untouched.

I believe many of us who left knowing the truth (or enough of it) wanted our community to be held and protected above all else. We loved each other. Leaving wasn’t easy—when is it ever? But we had to go. We’d been dependent sheep, leaning on a masquerading shepherd. We unfastened ourselves from the church we’d trusted to keep us safe. We let our good names plunge into shit and tell me, who would choose that for themselves? It’s not cause we were saints. It was simply less screwed up than bowing to a bully and his pack of lies. I guess that made us the divisive, witch-hunting ones.

I don’t know how a pastor can pastor when he wants special privileges and power more than integrity. How does he keep the truth off-limits and then sign a book deal? Or build an online following after his broken-hearted members leave his church in multitudes? Baffling, isn’t it? Does it ever make you wonder WTF?!

Some church people showcase signs and wonders as if God is a paid trapeze artist, moving about as we watch in awe. The supernatural enthralls them, sweeps them right up. Maybe God does show signs—and more often than we think—but in uncelestial, boring ways. Before I spoke up at that church, I’d sensed a subtle, daily-increasing alarm inside, a something’s not quite right alert. For someone else it could be an unnamed queasiness or uneasiness, I don’t know. Did God roll backwards then forwards in the sky—was it a sign? The signals or senses won’t always mean something, but also, what if sometimes they do mean something? What happens then?

In my case, I left my church and lost a lot. The lack of closure haunted me for several years, and the idea of God’s eventual-someday-justice wasn’t exactly comforting. (Or soon enough.) For a long time, I felt betrayed by God. I didn’t believe in a shiny prosperity gospel, but I did think my sturdy, godly reputation could save me from character attacks. It seemed like such a small favor. God would just need to keep me well-liked even as I told the truth and exposed misdeeds and wrote a statement to the church board and sat with attorneys and risked sharing my story with friends and fellow staff members. A small favor.

Naïveté was a prominent feature of mine, and it made me vulnerable to manipulation in the first place. I had little experience standing up for myself. Sure I felt small, but I thought God’s wisdom and strength would fill in the gaps, giving me spiritual stilts to run on. Well, surprise! My faith fell down a crag, caught right before it could be claimed lost. In many ways I’m still being hoisted up, on my way to who-knows-where, my eyes scanning for long-term safety. I want a place to land. And it’s a wonder, alright, but I want to do so with my faith. Even if it’s expressed and experienced differently than before. Even if not everyone can approve of it.

Just yesterday, I read how God entered human history “with an almost frightening quietness and humility.”¹ He revealed his love from a stable, far from batting eyes. Imagine loving your flock with such ferocity and purity that you become one of them, understanding their woes better than any. Although I’ve got a paltry amount of belief, that story of God becoming human still stuns me. Humility is a good place to start. —E.T.

Who else has received a sort of “postcard from the past?” Have you ever waited for accountability? Grappled with your beliefs in the absence of justice? Maybe the emotional cost of truth hasn’t felt worth it. The comments are open. Come share what you’d like, and I’ll meet you there.

1. J. B. Phillips, “The Christian Year,” from Good News: Thoughts on God and Man, 1963. (I read this excerpt in Watch for the Light.)