Day 3: Loose Lips Sink Ships or Silence Kills?
#RethinkChurch is doing a 22-day journey for self-reflection based on John Wesley’s 22 questions. I will be trying to compose short blog posts addressing each question. I am using these posts to encourage Christians, especially Progressive and Mainline Christians to reflect deeply on what it means to be Church in a world marred by oppression and violence.
Day 3: Do I confidentially pass on to another what was told to me in confidence?
Content warning: discussion of sexual abuse.
I struggled to write this blog post. Because to me this question brings up a contradiction that is true of most institutions, including the Church: on the one hand, gossip is a fact of life on the other hand, silence regarding abuse and injustice is pervasive. Members talk about the trials and tribulations that others experience, passing on confidential information without a second thought.
Of course, the way members in church gossip, may differ from secular institutions. I am sure we can all recall instances where a member stands before the congregation and says something like, “let’s keep Karen in our prayers, she is in the midst of a difficult divorce….” The problem with such a request is that Karen may not have asked for prayers and may not have wanted her business to be detailed in that way. Public calls for prayer can become a way for Christians to slap a holy veneer on gossip.
In other cases, where public accountability is necessary, silence reigns. By now the abuse of children and adults by Catholic and Southern Baptist clergy is well known. Exposé after exposé has been published detailing the widespread sexual abuse that occurred as well as the many attempts to cover-up and downplay the extent of the abuse.
Priests and Pastors were moved around, victims were pressured to shut up, and officially silence reigned. Of course, there were always whispers. The silence was never total. Members talked amongst one another about what they had heard either to dismiss and ridicule the victims or in a desperate attempt to protect their loved ones from harm.
Now, however, a public reckoning of sorts is occurring even though justice via the legal system remains slow going and elusive. Nevertheless, anyone who believes that abuse is rife only within the Catholic Church or the Southern Baptist Convention is lying to themselves. Think back to the “confidential information” that somehow makes its rounds through the congregation although no one publicly discusses it: the warnings given to young women and children to avoid being a lone with a certain deacon, the leader that hugs women a little too tightly for a little too long.
And of course, churches are not only silent when it comes to sexual abuse committed by clergy or religious leaders, but other forms of injustice are often whispered about but never discussed openly: women pastors who face constant sexual harassment, blatant and “benevolent” racism, and bullying of congregation members by other members and by religious leadership, or even bullying of the pastor by members of the congregation. These are all issues that many churches experience but very rarely discuss openly. Instead stories are passed member to member, yet institutional reforms never occur.
Instead of interpreting John Wesley’s third question so that it only refers to loose lips or gossip, let’s explore in depth the specific circumstances where institutions choose to speak up and when they choose to be silent. Let’s have frank conversations about the power dynamics that determine when an issue becomes public knowledge and accountability is demanded and when the issue is quietly discussed but the only ones facing repercussions are the victims.
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