How can the Good be Bad? Discerning Fruit in Churches that Hurt Us
by Conor Hanson
Does God plant bad things? Does he make good things grow into corruption? Of course not, that's absurd. Yet when we come to Scripture we read that “the sovereign LORD” laments the choice vine (i.e. Israel) he has planted in the land because it has become a corrupt and wild vine (Jeremiah 2:21). It's well attested what led God's people astray: idolatry -- the desire for other sources of security, wealth, power, stability, assurance, etc. In short, a desire for the blessings of God that circumvents God himself. God's not enough; we need something else, too. However, in spite of the adultery (the common metaphor of the prophets like Hosea) and disloyalty, God remains faithful to his people. He refuses to give up on them. As we reflect on this passage in Jeremiah, what could it mean for our experiences in churches today in which we have experienced such goodness, only to discover later that there was rot or corruption in the church? What do we do with the good we know was good, as well as the bad that has been revealed?
Jesus cautions us to test a tree by the fruit it produces, and so we look for this fruit in our respective ministry contexts. But how do we know we're seeing fruit rightly? What if we can't see that the fruit is, indeed, strange? This is where we can get uncomfortable, I think. It's possible for us Christians to be sure we are recognizing good fruit when what is actually seen is a deformed fruit that has been fed by toxic nourishment. The choice vine has, in fact, become corrupt. Or perhaps even more challenging: we see a fruit that is, in fact, good, but at the same time it is used to harm us or others. What makes this all so insidious is that bad fruit can be wrapped in a rind of orthodox theology and scripture; to deny the "fruit" seems to deny the truth.
However, even if we come to see this fruit for what it is, a question may plant itself firmly within us: if the fruit is truly bad due to noxious nourishment, or if I have suffered harm because of it, then why was it good (at times) for me or others? This is not a mere abstract exercise. This is a question I'm left with personally, as I resigned from the Greenhouse Movement and departed the Diocese of the Upper Midwest (UMD) in early September. It's a question, I find, that refuses to go away. I’ve seen others also wrestling with how to hold together the revelation of toxicity and unhealth in their (often former) church culture and leadership, while at the same time holding to what they know was good and from God, what spurred them on in their discipleship. What do we do with that?
I'd like to offer a brief and incomplete theological reflection on this question. It will be incomplete because even if I give the "right answer" or response, the question will remain. This reveals that the answer (as well as the question) is not merely cognitive or abstract, but incarnate. Each day the question must be approached with the One who knows what it means to come to suffering in the flesh, in a body. The answer must not simply be thought or spoken, but inhabited each day as we follow Jesus.
How can bad be good, or good be bad?
The question I and others wrestle with is the blatant contradiction in the heading above: how can good be bad? I can imagine the questions that are raised when this claim is made:
"You're telling me this leader is a narcissist/has narcissistic characteristics, or this leadership culture is insular and toxic, or this teaching is oppressive and shame-inducing. Yet if this is so, why have I received good from it? Why have I heard something from this leader and been encouraged to follow Jesus with greater faithfulness? If that was just the leader's personality, then why was it so good for me? Look at the changed lives, my own included. If this is so bad, then why is it so good? It can only be one or the other, right?"
I've been personally struggling with this. Stewart Ruch received me into the ACNA/UMD in March 2021. He prayed a very powerful and meaningful prayer over me, one that I see God materializing even now that I have left the UMD and Greenhouse. I've also, at the same time, seen and experienced the unhealth and toxicity in the UMD. Does this mean his prayer was a fluke? Or, perhaps since this prayer was meaningful does that mean I must change my view of what I thought was bad and unhealthy in the UMD? I don't think the answer to either of those is "yes," which doesn't make this any easier to process. It'd be easier to go one way or the other. We Westerners like moral clarity, a clear right and wrong, good and bad. I mean, many of us played "good guys, bad guys" growing up, myself included. And so our minds often go right to “rational” answers to this question: "Maybe God used this bad because it was the only way to make good." However, with a little reflection I think we ought to reject this. God does not need bad things or evil to bring about good.
So if we're unwilling to explain the question away as God using bad to bring about a good that couldn't be had otherwise, or we’re unwilling to accept that what we thought was bad is actually good and we need to change, or we’re unwilling to just reject it all and call it all bad, we're still left with the question: how could this good church experience also be bad? If God doesn't need bad to bring about good, then why has/does such good (encouragement and fostering of faithfulness to Jesus) come from something you say is bad (narcissistic leadership culture, tight-knit insular leadership, unable to handle criticism, etc.)?
I think the answer is simple, frustrating, and mysterious: God works in spite of the church’s sin, failure, and distortedness. Even sin and its corrupting effect on us, particularly within Christ's church, do not prevent God from working. This is something that takes practice to see, and even then our frustration or cries may not satisfactorily subside. We may see bad fruit in a particular leader and not want God to work through them. However, cultivating the eyes of faith in this shadow of sin and corruption, even in Christ's church, is precisely what we must press on toward. Like Paul we must strain and "press on toward the goal" together in the midst of the calamitous environment of this groaning world, and from within our groaning bodies.
Our God is in the business of bringing life out of death, good out of evil (Gen. 50:20-21). If you ask me how this works my simple response is, "I don't know." I would answer the same to a question of the "how" of Jesus' bodily resurrection, and yet these mysteries are not an emptiness, but rather a fullness. There is a fullness of God's presence even in the midst of evil and suffering and hurt among his people. We know this because God knows suffering and hurt in and through the bodily life of Jesus, his Son. Even in the passion -- especially there -- God is present.
When we find ourselves in a church community in which there is or has been good for us or for others, and yet at the same time there have been or are harms being done, we can think of the vine God has planted. It is indeed from God, while at the same time the vine often reaches out roots and nourishes itself from toxic sources. The desire to accomplish a godly or "biblical" goal can become distorted, the thought of "having it right" can be used harmfully, the desire to be faithful can utilize coercive tactics to achieve that faithfulness, our God-given gifts and personalities and charisms can become warped or misused. And yet what is good in it all can, in some mysterious way, be used by the Holy Spirit to bless in spite of the ambiguous fruit. To go back to my story, Stewart's prayer over me at my confirmation/reception service was used by God to encourage me even while at the same time I would argue the UMD leadership (particularly Stewart) wields episcopal authority in a manner that has been harmful for many.
As we begin to discern fruit, to look at our current or former church communities to see what was good for us that has also hurt us or others, it's important we remind ourselves that it is God at work in us, and not merely we ourselves. The church, while profoundly human, is somehow by God's immense and awesome grace, propelled along by the Holy Spirit into resurrection life even in the midst of her unhealth and failure. This means that even death and suffering and pain and hurt are not barriers to God working in and through his people, no matter how tattered we are as Christ’s bride. God can speak even through a corrupt leader and system, which reminds us to look to God, and not the leader or system.
By calling bad fruit for what it is, and naming God's work in spite of such bad fruit, we center God above all. By doing so we thereby position ourselves to enter into our pain alongside the One who truly knows it. Leaving a church or recognizing harm can feel like death to us, a death of that which was really good and life-giving. Yet all the pain, the hurt, the abuse, the isolation, the loneliness, the tears, all these things we carry can be shared with Christ, because he knows them. Intimately. And somehow, as only he can, our Lord can bring that which is seemingly dead back to life.
Conor Hanson is a former Greenhouse Catechist and a current stay-at-home dad. With degrees in Automotive and Philosophy, he likes reading non-fiction (with some fiction sprinkled in) and spending time with his wife and daughter. He currently lives in Minnesota and is learning to love it as a former Wisconsinite.