When Church Fails

"Those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me".
Paul - Galatians 2:6

Some of you may have picked up on former gymnast Rachael Denhollander's story last week, regarding how she confronted her abuser with point-blank gospel truth about herself, God and forgiveness, but it turns out that this was only the first part in her story.

In an astonishing follow-through piece this week in Christianity Today, we learn of another dimension to her pain - caused by the failure of the church to support her.

The awful truth is not only was she not helped through the trauma of her experiences by the church she attended, she was actually cut off from membership simply because the church entirely failed in its call to minister to and aid a suffering member of its body, leaving her facing an even greater amount of suffering and vulnerability.

The CT article mentions the particular church group involved, but this is sadly not uncommon. Back in the 80's, Christian sociologist Ronald Enroth wrote a telling study into how commonplace such a plight was in America in the work, Churches that Abuse, showing how miss-application of presumed authority and teaching that permitted this created a plethora of damaged and broken people. Andrew Walker was to touch on some of the same manner of abuse which occurred here amidst similar schemes in his book, Restoring the Kingdom, but most of these abuses and their perpetrators have become forgotten some 40 years on, causing some to, mistakenly, think that such errors don't happen now.

Of course, the troubles don't always begin too extreme to begin with. A piece today on the Mockingbird website shows how easily this failure can become established.

 It all sounded so worthwhile in Paul's day.
Be a "super-spiritual" follower, not only having believed, but now, keeping all these requirements given to us by Moses himself.... my, won't that please God!

We totally fail when our best intentions become about anything but what Christ alone has done at the cross. That is what should cause us to lay ourselves down for each other, but we're so easily lead to thinking that we can make things so much better by our own spit and polish.
It doesn't take long before others are suffering as a result.

The church does something wonderful when it points away from itself to the weakness, the failure, the tearing truth of the cross. There and only there can life emerge from death.

Let's really learn something from Rachael's valuable work of speaking the truth in love.