Christian Witness and Abuse

Christian faith is inherently public. It is not private, insular, nor is it self-oriented. It goes out, making itself seen and heard. It is not a city in a remote forest, but set on a hill for all to see. According to Karl Barth, the reason faith is inherently public is because God Himself has acted publicly in history. God has gone out of Himself for us, giving of Himself for the redemption and restoration of His creation. The shape of Christian life mimics and is shaped by the triune God’s action in history in the person of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. As Barth puts it, “faith that believes in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit cannot refuse to become public.” (Dogmatics in Outline) By God “going public,” as it were, His people have a corresponding responsibility to be public in their life. Specifically, “there is public responsibility in the Church’s language, but also in worldly attitudes and also and above all in the corresponding actions and conduct.”

All that may be very obvious to many Christians. Of course we’re supposed to publicly witness! Our confession is that of proclamation, after all. In Jesus, God’s Messiah and Son, the kingdom of God has come near. Just look at the shape of Jesus’s life to see the evidence. Repent and believe this! There is the question, however, of whether we brush too quickly past what else Barth says. “Worldly attitudes” must also mark the Church’s public witness. It is true, Barth makes clear, that the Church has its own grammar: 

“God’s congregation possessed and at all times possesses its own language. Nothing can change this. For it has in history its own special history, its own special road. It speaks, when it confesses, in relation to this special history.”

This is precisely what makes our witness distinctly Christian, because that witness will flow from the history of God’s self-giving, His self-disclosure, His gathering a people for Himself, etc. But it is a witness that is in history more generally, as well. The Church is in the world, an inescapable reality with which we all wrestle. This means that Christian faith must be, in Barth’s words, “translatable into the speech of Mr. Everyman...who [possesses] a quite different vocabulary and quite different spheres of interest.”

But there’s a catch here that we Christians must not miss. If Christian faith is to be translatable, it must also be open to being corrected on its presence in the world. Encountering “worldly attitudes” is an opportunity to bring our witness of Christian faith not only closer in shape to Jesus Himself, but also to make such faith more translatable in our context. We Christians must be willing to learn from the world how we are to be more faithful in the world to our own witness which God has given us to embody. “Let us beware of remaining stuck where we are and refusing to advance to meet worldly attitudes,” says Barth. Those worldly attitudes can actually be used by God to pressure (think refining process) His people into greater faithfulness, turning away from unhealthy spiritual practices and towards that shape of life more like Christ’s. An example here would be the #MeToo movement. The “worldly attitudes” around this movement are an opportunity for the Church to examine herself, rather than write off such a movement as “secular liberal humanism,” for example. An initial posture towards this movement of “what can I learn from this? What are they really saying? Is there something to this?” is already a Christlike posture of humility and charity.

The current crises surrounding the allegations of abuse mishandling in the UMD, the subsequent request of the UMD for the Province to take over the investigation into abuse, and the concerns regarding leadership cultures that could foster such alleged mishandling are all opportunities for the Church to examine the shape of her life in the world. When abuse victims, either sexual or spirtual, come forward, there is the opportunity to learn from them how to be open, to be self-giving, to lose control, and thereby being made more like Jesus Himself. If Barth is right in his characterization of the Christian faith, that the Church’s life is always inherently public, then how we respond to abuse allegations is itself a public witness, as we always respond as Christians. Being open to worldly attitudes in these moments is an opportunity for the Church to bring our public witness of faith more in line with the life of Jesus. What is the shape of our life saying to the world? 

This is, of course, where things get difficult. We may be tempted to justify our current practices as perfectly acceptable for Christians. Various denominations and ecclesial structures have implicit and explicit understandings of how the Church can, should, or will respond to various problems and crises. The Anglican church is no different. But if we take Barth’s challenge seriously, then perhaps such crises are opportunities both to examine the assumptions at work in how we as the Church respond, and to be open to learning from the “worldly attitudes” how to respond in better and more faithful ways. Our guard can and often goes up at this. “We’re not the world, we’re the Church!” But is it perhaps possible that our particular polity can, in some instances, prevent us from being conformed into the shape of Christ’s life? Is it possible that we can learn from abuse victims, or legal experts, or trauma experts, or from many others how we can become more Christlike? This is not to suggest that Christian leaders are all wearing “world blinders'' and just pressing on, refusing to be open to critique and input. Rather, in being open to examining our public witness (including our various eccesial practices and processes) there is the opportunity to step in the Way of love, self-giving, and Christlikeness.

In instances of sexual or spiritual abuse, why would examining our ecclesial structures and practices matter? The reality is that victims of abuse are those with whom Christ identifies. In the downtrodden, the outcast, the poor, we meet Christ (Matt. 25). So to meet them, learn from them, receive from them, is to encounter Christ Himself. If we are open to doing this, such a posture creates the opportunity to shift our ecclesial practices so that we center the downtrodden, caring for them, and thereby ministering to Christ in them. No doubt there is much complexity in that whole process, no matter which ecclesiastical appendage of the Body of Christ. Patience and prayer are needed as we await each day. But while we wait, we have time to think carefully about the shape of our life (Anglicans included) and the corresponding ecclesial practices that express that life. Crises of spiritual and sexual abuse press us to encounter suffering, justified anger, and hurt in the abuse victims with whom Christ identifies. Such an encounter, though, presents an opportunity for us as Christ’s Body to become more like our Lord.

Perhaps when we examine ourselves and establish a good way forward we may be worried that if we were to take a route that was not “typical” of our ecclesial tradition we’d be crossing ecclesial boundaries we should not cross. In other words, we could be tempted to worry we may be losing as the Church. And yet losing is a perfectly acceptable description of the death of our Lord. In all estimation, in being crucified, He lost. But it was precisely in that loss, that worldly attitude that assesses what is good and right and successful, that God shone forth His light. As imitators of God and Jesus’ Body, our faith is public, just as God’s action has been (Eph. 5:1). Let us enter into relation with abuse victims, the downtrodden and weary and abused, because it is there where we meet our Lord. Let us reflect with care and soberness how to enter into the loss, either of power or ecclesial correctness, to be made more like our Lord in our encounter with Him in abuse victims. How else is Jesus to be seen if not through us, His public witness to the world?