Some Thoughts Concerning Grief
I tire of blogs, labeled as theologically “emergent” or “liberal”, which spend their time slagging off those pesky fundamentalists. I’m not annoyed because I’ve had positive experiences with conservatives: I’m annoyed because I haven’t. I need to learn how to deal with hurt and disillusionment.
Besides, my experiences of other forms of Protestantism show me there’s more interesting things to think about. That’s one of the reasons I started A Man Born Blind. After ranting and ranting about how shite I think everything is, I wanted to try and express something beautiful and life-giving while being honest about my “emergent” and “liberal” biases.
And yet the hurt remains, the disillusionment as scalding as ever. The idiocy I experienced swirls around my head:
‘If young women get pregnant, they should be forced to give birth as punishment for having sex before marriage. Abortion should never be an option.’ ‘We wouldn’t let a pedophile marry a child, so why let a man marry another man?’ ‘Single people are selfish.’ ‘Don’t listen to music that’s in a foreign language. It could mean anything.’ ‘But women should earn less than men!’ ‘We should be allowed to call black people [the N-word]. They do. It’s political correctness.’ ‘Under no circumstances is it right to leave a church. No church is perfect. You should stay and be dedicated.’ ‘Gay people can’t love each other. It’s not real love.’ ‘Children are sexually abused as a test from God, to make them stronger.’ ‘Women who get beaten by their husbands should stay with their husbands. They’re married!’ ‘All women are designed to stay at home and be mothers.’ ‘Jesus wasn’t culturally sensitive, so why should we be?’
I could go on. I can only give you my word that these statements were spoken: they weren’t said jokingly. The Bible was used, in accordance with an internal logic, to justify all of them. Here’s my point:
Is it possible to grieve one’s experiences without pointing fingers? Can those who back away from pernicious communities express their suffering without sinking to the level of the perpetrators? Perhaps I’m asking for communities which can be honest about pain in aid of healing. This, God damn it, would include seeing the enemy’s point of view. In the best possible scenarios, it would include reconciliation. Is that the only way these situations can reach a proper conclusion?
