Abuse in the Church & the Theologies of Glory & the Cross
by Rob Sturdy
All humans are theologians because we all speak about God. We speak not only with words, but with our deeds. How the church receives victims of sexual and spiritual abuse is theology; it is a public speaking about God, not only to the victims but to the watching world. How we respond to sexual and spiritual abuse in our communities testifies to the God in whom we believe.
Below we explore two ways of speaking about God, coined by Martin Luther. One, called the theology of glory, sees God at work in power, strength, and victory, but never in suffering and shame. The other, called the theology of the cross, sees God in suffering. The first of these will lead to Christians who fear, misunderstand, or despise suffering people. The second sees God uniquely revealed in sufferers, since the God of Jesus Christ is, after all, a suffering God. Only one, the theology of the cross, is able to speak about God in a way that is true and useful to survivors of sexual abuse in the church. After a brief historical overview of the terms, we explore the relationship and effects these two theologies have in the life of the church, especially as they relate to those suffering from abuse and misconduct within the church.
Theologies of Glory and the Cross
In the spring of 1518, a small, mostly inconsequential group of Augustinian monks gathered for a debate in Heidelberg, Germany. The subject of the debate would be statements made by one of their own, a man named Martin Luther, who only a few months prior had sparked a major controversy critiquing certain practices of the church and its theology. This gathering was an opportunity for Luther’s critics to hear for themselves what was being said, as well as an opportunity for Luther to defend his statements. Rather than going backward and revisiting the earlier controversy, Luther pushed forward and offered 28 new statements. These had a unifying theme that he called the theology of the cross. Contrasted with the theology of the cross was the theology of glory.
What is the theology of glory? It is a way of perceiving God’s work in the world through progress, achievement, victory, power, strength, and glory. Where such things are to be found, the theologian of glory assumes God’s blessing and favor. Where such things are absent, the theologian of glory assumes God’s curse. The theology of glory, argued Luther, was the theology that comes most naturally to us.
Fundamentally incompatible with the theology of glory is the theology of the cross. This, argued Luther, was God speaking for himself. There could be no greater theology, no greater speaking about God, than God’s own Word become flesh. What Word did God speak in the flesh? What did he speak from his own body? Well, he was born into a poor family and was raised in a slum of a country town. He was a racial minority, despised in the wider world of the Roman Empire. When he began his ministry, he did not attract the wealthy, polite, religious, or reasonable. Rather, he attracted the poor, the sick, and the immoral. His ministry culminated in utter failure, being abandoned by his friends, accused of blasphemy, and ultimately executed for treason. He died naked and alone, with a pitiful cry of despair on his lips. Luther’s insight was that through the life of Jesus, especially in his suffering, God was speaking about himself. Rather than being found in health, progress, and victory, God is most present among the poor, the sick, the sinful, the lonely, and the defeated.
Abuse in the Church and the Theology of Glory
Abuse in the church, whether sexual or spiritual, interrupts the narrative about glory that the church so easily falls into. Through “vision nights,” testimonies of triumph, announcements of new building campaigns and campuses, growing numbers, and charismatic leaders, the church comes to believe that because of all this glory bought by our faithfulness and skill, we must be under God’s blessing. However, the presence of a victim of sexual or spiritual abuse rudely interrupts the glory story. Rather than the neurotic insistence on positivity, the air is now filled with the gloomy cloud of negativity, hurt, and pain. How can the church return to a state of blessing so that they can once again speak about God in the way that comes most naturally to them? What must the theologian of glory do?
Rather than bring what was done in the darkness into the light, that through confession and honesty we might gain God’s promise of forgiveness and cleansing (1 John 1.9), it is not uncommon for the victim of abuse to be forced into one of two options. The first option is to keep quiet so that the matter might be resolved in such a way that the interruption of the glory story is minimal. Sadly, this option is most frequently presented by the pastoral leadership whose investment in the glory story is not only theological but personal. The second option is exodus, where the Christian community effectively expels the victim from the church, either directly by prohibiting them from being on site, or indirectly through myriad means of shunning or shaming. With the cloud of gloom being lifted through silence or exodus, the theologians of glory are free to return to the uninterrupted bliss of their own design.
But this is not an option for the victim whose silence or expulsion hardly returns them to blessing. It is the second of these two, being expelled from the community, that many victims of abuse find most bewildering and hurtful. How is it that my friends, upon discovering that I was injured in their community, not only refuse to help bandage my wounds but distance themselves from me and pass by, as the priest and Levite did in Jesus’s Parable of the Good Samaritan?
The reason pastors, friends, and even family, might come to pass by the victim is that the victim is dangerous. If you stop to help, you might be covered by the same cloud of gloom, hurt, and pain that they are covered in. If you stop to help, you may be forced to sit long hours with someone while they rage, cry, and sink in and out of despair. If you stop to help, you too might be ostracized, slandered, and expelled. Since the theologian of glory does not understand how God can be present in hurt, loss, evil, and pain, the theologian of glory does not understand God’s presence with the victim. And since they cannot see God’s presence with the victim, they choose to remain where they believe God to be most present. Passing by the injured brother or sister on the side of the road, they quicken their steps to re-enter the glory story.
Abuse in the Church and the Theology of the Cross
One of the more telling exchanges on Easter Sunday is the exchange between Jesus and two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24). Luke tells us that Jesus came upon two of his disciples while they were discussing the crucifixion that had taken place just a few days prior. One of the disciples admits that “we had hoped he (Jesus) was going to redeem Israel.” It seems at some point the disciples believed that Jesus was the savior, but then they changed their minds. What happened?
The thing that happened was Golgotha. The crucifixion of Jesus was devastating to the theology of glory, a theology held even by Jesus’s closest friends and followers. Surely God could not be near the friendless, naked, dying man on the cross. Therefore, this man could not be who they thought he was.
But they were all wrong. Not only was God near the events of Golgotha, he was actually subjected to them. Luther observed that the friendless, naked, dying man on the cross was God himself hidden in suffering. God was most present in the place people least expected him to be. This is important to remember, first for victims of sexual and spiritual abuse and second for the church.
First for the victims of sexual and spiritual abuse: It needs to be forcefully and repeatedly said: God is not absent towards victims of sexual and spiritual abuse but rather most present. He can seem distant, indifferent, and absent, leading us to cry out as Jesus did, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” Even in this cry of dereliction, God has not fled from but rather entered into the deepest moments of human pain, confusion, and despair, since it is the Son of God himself who cries out from the cross. If the words of the old creed are to be believed, that Christ descended to hell, then there is no depth of human suffering and hopelessness that God himself has not been present to in Jesus.
Since God is hidden in suffering, it is often only through the eyes of faith that we are able to believe he is present. Though often abandoned by pastors, family, friends and church, the theology of the cross teaches us that God has not abandoned the suffering but is present to them. Furthermore, God has personal experience of violent hands abusing his own body. God has personal experience of being slandered. God has personal experience of being abandoned by friends. God has personal experience of the confusion and despair common to all of suffering humanity. God is not only present to sufferers, but he is present with understanding and sympathy. Even more than that, He knows how to raise himself up from Golgotha. He has promised to raise you as well. In my own journey of experiencing clergy misconduct and abuse in the church, it has been very hard to see Easter from Golgotha. But Easter came nevertheless. Dear friends, God is faithful, present, and powerful to you and for you. If you can’t remember this on your own, allow your friends to insist upon it on your behalf.
Second for the Church: It needs to be forcefully and repeatedly said: God is not absent towards victims of sexual and spiritual abuse but rather most present. I remember, as a young priest, the very first time that I was asked to sit with a parishioner while they died. At the hospital doorway, suddenly overwhelmed by my own incompetence, afraid of the smells and sounds of death, and aware of my general cowardice, I was undone. One of the things Luther said in his disputation was that the theologian of glory needs to be “deflated and destroyed” through a confrontation with suffering. Standing outside the patient’s room I was deflated and destroyed and begged God for help. Curiously enough, having been emptied of glory, I was filled with Christ. In the hospital room, holding hands with a man named Gene, I experienced the tangible presence of Him who was no longer hidden (to me) in suffering, but rather revealed through it. God was most present where I had least expected him.
When victims of sexual or spiritual abuse are present in the church, they can be and have been forced into silence and exodus. But the church that silences victims or expels them from the community trades the genuine presence of Christ in suffering for the false god of reputation, power, and prestige. It is the false god of the theologians of glory. Churches can nevertheless choose not to silence or expel. We can choose to seek God where we least expect to find him, confessing our inadequacy, complicity, and sin, We can:
Allow the knowledge that such evil has occurred in our community to deflate and destroy us from the false belief that our success or doctrine makes us immune to the presence of sin.
Refuse to keep things hidden, and alternatively embrace the shame of our failure by bringing all things to light.
Raise a cry of lament instead of keeping silent.
Humbly admit we are inadequate to the demands of the moment and seek independent expertise to us, and give these experts real authority over the church’s processes.
Expose the offender and the system to the light and trust God to graciously transform all things as he has promised.
Extend a genuine and sincere embrace to the victim, entering the pain of their trauma and staying with them through the difficulty of their recovery as best as we are able.
Each of the steps above are painful and therefore introduce suffering into the corporate life of the church. Unlike the suffering of the victim, which causes injury, the suffering of the church in this regard can bring healing. This kind of suffering deflates and destroys the theology of glory, leading the church nearer to the truth by disclosing the secret of God hidden in suffering. In doing so, the church will be free to discover God’s surprising and tangible presence in the places least expected.
In conclusion
I began by noting that we are all theologians because we all speak about God. Not all theologies are equally near the truth. Minimizing or silencing abuse to maintain the power and the glory of the church is a theology that speaks a false word about God. It is not only sinfully wrong, but endlessly destructive.
The theology of the cross, on the other hand, which is finely attuned to perceive God’s presence hidden in suffering, has power not only to restore and repair the injured, but to heal the church by leading it more deeply into the tangible presence of God. In a lamentable era where national denominations mishandle such matters, and individual churches refuse the difficult journey to Golgotha, individual Christians may nevertheless put on these new spectacles of faith to perceive God’s presence and power in suffering, and immediately make a difference wherever God may have placed them.
Easter can be hard to see in the midst of Golgotha; nevertheless, it will come.
Rob Sturdy is a pastor, preacher, and theologian serving as the Anglican Chaplain to the Corps of Cadets at The Citadel, his alma mater.