A Culture of Safety

It has been a while since I have made a blog post.  Between writing a doctoral thesis, doing interim work with two wonderful congregations, and just life in general, the blog has taken the back-burner.  However, this morning, I am mentally juggling a few things: Primarily, I am beginning a new ministry position at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Racine, Wisconsin, and as Executive Director of the Hospitality Center, which is housed in the same building.  In that, I have been thinking about all the things I must do to care for all the souls that walk through the doors, both on Sunday and during the week.  

As I am looking ahead to a new start, I have also been pondering two bits of church conversation I have seen online in the last few days.  The first is a rather disturbing letter I received from the General Convention President of the House of Deputies, talking about how she was the victim of inappropriate behavior by a retired bishop.  She spoke of her disappointment at the disciplinary actions (or lack thereof) taken.  I found myself deeply saddened by this whole incident.  Abuses of power have no place in the Church.  While President Ayala-Harris does have a prominent position with an extraordinary amount of influence (probably more on some level than the retired bishop who made the unwanted gesture toward her), that power dynamic shifted at the point when she was put in the victim position.  It should be a reminder that position and authority do not make someone immune from attack.  

The second conversation has been around the blog post that has been circulating in the last few days around Rev. Alexander Lang, a Presbyterian pastor, who left ministry with a lengthy explanation of why and the challenges that ministry today brings.  This post has been met with a wide degree of responses, from support to pretty harsh judgment.  The point that really struck me in his article was the following: 

As a pastor, you know you’re not going to be able to please everyone. You know that some people are going to dislike what you do. You expect to bring new people through the door who identify with your preaching, while others will leave who disagree or don’t like your style. But when you see that there is a group of people whose sole goal is to dismantle your career, that is an entirely different beast that no one expects, particularly from people who supposedly label themselves Christians.
Thankfully, their campaign was unsuccessful, but their efforts certainly caused damage and left me wondering: Is leading the church really worth the investment if this is what I’m going to get in return?

It is clear to me that the underlying issue of Rev. Lang's resignation was that he was bullied and abused, and then expected to return to his abuser and love that abuser, like nothing happened.  Further, I am certain that even though his attackers lost, the damage was done anyway.  While I can understand some of the criticisms of his being paid higher than the average he talks about or that he has unearned privilege, none of this should negate the fact that something really awful happened to Rev. Lang, and I am disturbed at the dismissiveness I have seen around this.

What is the Church to do?

As I am pondering these stories, and my own new call, what weighs on my heart is how the Church needs to have a culture of being a safe place.  The church needs to be a safe place for people from the those perceived as most vulnerable to those perceived as powerful.  Culture is really at the heart of this.  The Church should not accept destructive behavior.  In this week's Gospel, Jesus gives us an outline of how to deal with conflict, and he ends with the words, "and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector."  While the Church must be an inclusive place, inclusivity does not extend to those who refuse to reconcile and cause harm to the community.  

I was heartened to see that a number of bishops, in response to the incident with President Ayala-Harris, have called for a review of Title IV (the Episcopal Church's disciplinary process).  I absolutely believe this is a necessity, but also raises some further questions in my mind.  I would like to see some clarity in how disciplinary processes work, and consistency in how the Church responds to certain offenses.  Additionally, it is absolutely necessary to extend the disciplinary process to lay leaders.  I would even argue that, since all baptized Christians are ministers of the Church, this means anyone who has any active role in a congregation.  There has been too much malfeasance at the hands of people in the pews and the Church has washed its hands of it.  This must stop.  

In tension with all this, we have to recognize there have been times that Title IV has been used as a weapon against clergy, by bishops or lay people with an agenda.  Also, while I am seeing calls for more punitive actions, there are times when a "pastoral response" to discipline is absolutely the most appropriate, and this should not be completely discouraged.  Sometimes clergy make poor judgment calls that are not necessarily harmful to their congregations.  These are usually personal matters that do not involve parishioners.  While reform is necessary, some caution must be exercised to not do this in a reactionary manner.  

Ultimately, we as the Church, must not see this as simply an action and reaction, but as a whole cultural shift.  One of the gifts for me of spending a couple years of interim ministry in the time after COVID (well, hopefully the worst of it) is that I have seen some of this already happening.  The double-edged sword of the pandemic is that it meant many people left church, and it meant that those who are left want to be there and have no patience for conflict.  I hope this is the beginning of a new era where we get a glimpse of a Church where pettiness and power plays can be put aside.  

I also see it a a good sign that these challenges have seen sunlight.  I commend President Ayala-Harris and Rev. Lang for being so open and vulnerable about their struggles.  It is also important to pay attention to the statistics Rev. Lang's article cites, around the struggles of leaders in the Church.  These incidents must be known and I hope everyone who reads them is saddened on some level.  

Further, the Church needs to build into its new culture good boundaries of what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior.  No one, from a toddler in the nursery to those in leadership should have to deal with incidents that cause harm and are destructive to the building of God's realm.  We Christians should be appalled when Christians harm one another.  Full stop!

What does the right culture look like?

I ask this rhetorical question, partly of my own wondering.  Jesus gives us plenty of examples of how the Church should behave, particularly in the Gospel of Matthew.  The Church in Acts has many examples of the Church working through conflict and disagreement in healthy manners.  And St. Paul writes extensively on how Christians are to love one another.  Biblical models are extraordinarily helpful, but those models were written at a time when the Divine physical presence of Christ was still in people's recent memory and the Holy Spirit at least seemed a bit more visible.  At the same time, the Church has had these models for a couple thousand years and still fallen short of this cultural ideal.  

The bigger question is not what we are doing as Christians, but how we should be as Christians.  Jesus gave us a model of prayer that says, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven", and he also taught through his parables that this means God's Realm involves separating the wheat from the chaff.  This may involve harmful people, but more importantly it involves harmful behavior.  I am reminded of the adage that says, "Hurt people hurt people."  We all have hurt we are dealing with, and exposing and healing that hurt must be the culture of the Church.  

My hope and prayer is that the Church strives, not to react, but to reform.  We need a culture that promotes a safe environment for everyone who is trying to build up Christ's Realm.  This is the model of a Church that Scripture commends to us and it's a model that I am seeing starting to form.  The Scriptural command to "love one another" must start in our spiritual home.  This means having a culture that is free from abuse and power plays.  This is a culture where people feel safe to speak openly to one another and to their community.  This is a community where those of good will are free to be wholly who they are and freely exercise the gifts with which God has endowed them.