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2007-02-06 issue:

Protecting our children from the church

A Grace and Truth column

by Anne Stuckey

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I remember when we carried our daughter to the front of the church at West Union Mennonite Church in Parnell, Iowa, and promised to be loving parents to her and to bring her up in the way of Christ, teaching her to love her neighbor as herself, just as Christ taught us. I was moved by the promises the congregation made to this infant, that they would love her and be Christ’s light to her as she grew into the woman God called her to be. It was a comfort to know that as parents we were not the only ones responsible to teach her, that the community of faith also bore the responsibility of molding this child. In the years that followed, this congregation showed her Christ’s love through Sunday school teachers and “aunts and uncles” in Christ who reveled in her unique gifts. And how she blossomed under such warmth!
I realize not all children are given the blessing of safety in the church that our daughter experienced. Some are violated in ways we don’t even want to admit could occur in Christ’s body. So we put congregational sexual safety policies in place, hoping to keep our children from that kind of harm. And now that this child of mine is an adult, I am thankful the church has been a warm, welcoming place for her to grow. That is the kind of experience that we want for all our children throughout their lifetime in the broader church we love.

However, now that our daughter is serving in a Mennonite church office, it hurts me when I hear that a person in the broader Mennonite church has been able to say hurtful things to her. At what point did it become accepted in the church for us to attack each other personally?
And I know this isn’t an isolated incident. When I was Director of Ministerial Services and maintained the list of current available pastoral candidates for congregations, I also had a Mennonite pastor threaten me and my children with harm if I didn’t publish his availability.

Somehow, it is not so hard for me to accept that kind of hurt for myself because I know it will not jeopardize my love of the church. But that is not a guarantee I can make for my children.
What happens to the Christ light that we are to shine for others when we become adults?

The local congregation is called to be the hospital where God’s healing can flow to his children. That identifies most of us as broken and in need of healing. But that does not give us permission to act in ways that are decidedly not Christlike.

We harm each other with judgmental decisions and cutting words. Exclusivity and a refusal to listen to alternative viewpoints narrow the circle of people to which we are willing to give our love. Our individual needs often take precedence over the good of the whole community and certainly over the good of any single brother or sister in the church. So if we can’t trust the church to care about and love our children, whom can we trust?

Laban and Jacob knew they had the power to hurt each other as well. God led them to erect a pillar and heap of stones as a boundary between them. Laban said to Jacob, “This heap is a witness, and the pillar is a witness, that I will not pass beyond this heap to you, and you will not pass beyond this heap and this pillar to me, for harm” (Genesis 31:52). Today the model of Christ’s love is the barrier we cannot cross to harm another.

A Mennonite Central Committee poster reads, “A modest proposal for peace: let the Christians of the world agree that they will not kill each other.” May we amend this to say, “A modest proposal for health in the church: let the Christians of the Mennonite Church agree that they will not harm each other with words.”

Anne Stuckey  is associate  pastor at Zion Mennonite Church in  Archbold, Ohio.

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