When the Church Hurts You

It hurts.

Isn’t it strange how those two words capture so much of what I feel and so much of what I fear to say? The actions of other Christians—Christians I respected, who taught me so much—have hurt me.

When you go to see a physician, he or she asks you, “Where does it hurt? How severe is the pain? When did the pain start?” When you go to see a counselor, he or she asks you, “What in your past has hurt you? Who has hurt you?”

But in the public square where we discourse with other Christians, admitting that you’ve been hurt is another matter entirely. Some will see you as a slanderer for admitting that others have hurt you. Some will see you as weak. And once you declare your hurt, you are no longer its sole owner. What you have felt privately becomes a matter for public consumption. You are not simply a person but a person who hurts…and dwells on that hurt. You are a person who takes on a victim mentality, a person who can’t let bygones be bygones. Even those who welcome you with open arms cannot change the fact that the public declaration of your hurt has made it no longer your private property. The freedom gained through emotional exposure is fleeting, but the knowledge that others now possess a part of you that can never be returned lasts forever.

I have often told myself as much. I see some of my friends pour out their emotions daily for the whole world to consume, and I think, “There but for the grace of God go I,” less because of what they have said and more because of whom I am. What works for them does not seem to work for me. I am a woman in a world dominated by men: a world in which the admission that one has been hurt is viewed as a kind of weakness peculiar to females. Men admit to anger, but not hurt. Why remind people once again that I can never be the sort of serious person whose opinions deserve their attention just as much as those of male teachers?

Then I think of all the others who have been hurt far more severely than me. I allow myself to dwell for just a moment in that ocean of human pain. What is my hurt compared to that of others? Who am I to make a claim to the world’s sympathy when I am blessed beyond all measure? I have friends whose fathers have abused them, who have been abandoned by their spouses, who have clung to the hands of dying children while their souls were torn apart. What do I know of that kind of pain?

All these things, along with a general sense of propriety, have caused me to typically remain silent. I am more afraid of committing gossip than leaving others ignorant of my experience. But try as I might, I cannot escape the questions that come to me at random moments in the day.

“How could they do that? How could they be such a hypocrite? Why did I ever trust them? Who can I ever trust again? Is there anyone who is faithful—anyone at all?”

This is the hurt that is caused by the Church. It is a double hurt, for it threatens our trust not only in the individuals who have hurt us, but in God himself. I am old enough now to have had more than one person I looked up to as a sort of spiritual role model end up severely disappointing me in one way or another. Each time it has happened, I have become more cautious. I have been slower to praise the work of any person. I have braced myself in advance for the day I will be disappointed again. My fear is that one day, I will no longer be able to trust at all, and I will have no one I look up to spiritually.

Sometimes I ask myself why this should be. When a person I look up to behaves in an unadmirable way, why do I feel the need for them to explain their actions to me, espeically if we have no personal relationship? Why do I think that talking to them would help me to understand? To admit that they have hurt me is to admit the power they have over me. Caring about another person does give them a certain power over you—valuing their opinions and teachings equally so. The fact that someone has hurt you does not mean that you have been too emotionally attached to them, but it can feel that way at times.

I fear if I reach a day when I say, “I will not care about anyone else, nor will I trust them,” then my love will have grown cold and I will be a fearsome thing.

But caring, respecting, trusting—all these things make one vulnerable to hurt. And I have been hurt, even as you have probably been hurt. Anyone who has been part of God’s Church for long enough has been hurt by it. Who among us has not despaired over the sins of our fellow believers, particularly those who had formerly had a positive influence on our faith? Who among us has not wondered at one point or another if we could trust the Church after seeing its members fail in such spectacular ways? We are all carrying around hurt that haunts us—at least, those of us who have been bothering to pay attention and who feel keenly the injustices of this world. I feel the weight of injustice as if it were a physical pain in my body.

Some have suggested that I should put my hurt aside and flee from all problematic individuals and institutions. My question is, “And go where?” What part of the Church is there that is not somehow tainted by sin? Where is this magical denomination that is getting everything right? Scripture tells us not to place our trust in princes, for they cannot save. I fear that, to a certain extent, this principle must be applied to the members of the Church: not the Church as a whole, but the individuals within it. Some trust may be afforded them, but not total trust. Total trust belongs to Christ alone.

Lately, when I see the failings of so many Christian leaders, it causes me to long for Christ more than ever. This is a somewhat fortunate occurrence, for many are driven in the opposite direction. For me, at least at this moment, the perfect light of God shines all the brighter when I compare it to the darkness around me. For others, the darkness becomes so utterly dark that they can no longer see the light. I pray that I will never reach that point.

It is the strange will of God that our path to the New Jerusalem should cause us to walk past a parade of sins committed by his Church. It is strange that he would tell us to love this Bride of his that reeks of iniquity—to embrace the thing that is liable to hurt us. The relationship between Christ and his Bride is a mystery, and no more mysterious than when we are made keenly aware of how much that Bride still needs to be purified. And yet I am part of that Bride, and I too need purification.

How do I move forward when I am hurting?

Do I need answers? Answers would be nice, but I am unlikely to get the answers I want. I think that my healing must come from acknowledging a few facts.

First, that it is Christ who is my salvation and not any of my brothers and sisters. They may fail, but he does not. That is a blessed truth and one to which I must cling. Second, that the sin in the Church is not outside of me but within me, which is to say that even as my brothers and sisters are guilty of sin, I too am guilty. There is no need to create a false equivalence: I have not engaged in the same heinous acts as some others. I need not take their shame upon myself when they commit spiritual and moral indecency. Even so, admitting that I too am guilty and need a Savior is part of my healing. I must not think of myself more highly than my conduct deserves, or I will no longer be able to look to Christ for my righteousness.

I believe that part of my healing also involves the very admission that I have been hurt, regardless of how that makes me appear to others. I am just as human as anyone else. My emotions are real and they mean something, because I am made in the image of God. My hurt ought not be dismissed by others, but neither should I let it control me and rob me of joy. Rather, I must bring my hurt to the Lord. I must confess the ways that the Church has let me down and lament the injustice in this world. That is the proper response to such things. The answer is not to stop feeling, but to feel more fully and purely: to bring even my emotions under the reign of Christ so that they become an outpouring of praise to his glory.

It hurts. I hurt. I have been hurt by members of the Church.

Those are hard statements and not as freeing as one might hope, but they are also valuable. I believe they are necessary statements. There is no need for details to be shared publicly. The point is not to prove myself more of a victim than others or heap shame upon those who have hurt me. The point is to say something about who and what I am in this moment: a person made in the image of God with a heart that longs for justice and righteousness to be done on earth.

Where I have personally failed to practice justice and righteousness, I must repent. Where others have failed to do so, I must lament. There is power in godly lament that acknowledges the fallen nature of this world, for only in that acknowledgement do we declare by contrast the holiness of God and perfection of his kingdom. Those who feel deeply the injustices of this kingdom are looking for another.

If you too have been hurt by other Christians, I am sorry, friend. I am sorry that sins have been committed. I am sorry for the pain you have experienced. There is hope and healing in Christ, who suffered beyond anything we can imagine and rose again victorious. He was betrayed by those who ought to have worshipped him—betrayed by those who served as spiritual models for the nation. Yet he did not stoop to bitterness, and he prayed that God would forgive them. He alone was without sin, and he has given us a model for how to deal with the hurts of this world: by looking to the joy set before us and running the race with endurance, trusting always in the one who offers us the heavenly prize.