The Pragmatics of Forgiveness

“It is for freedom that Christ set us free” – Galatians 5:1

“Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die”*

“Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.”” – Matthew 18: 21&22

Forgiveness, the need for it and the “how” of it, has come up in a number of conversations of late. I wrote something about it a while ago and it felt like a good time of year put it out there. I hope it helps.

In 2007, I was given such a significant gift: some really good, healthy, solid teaching on forgiveness!** I know that it may sound over-the-top or like I am trying to lure you into some sermonising, but that evening changed my life and has led to so much freedom for me and for others around me that any language I try to apply to it will sound superlative. I recognise, in trying to write about this, that I run the risk of paralysing myself with needing to do double-clicks and disclaimers (my colleagues don’t call me “the amplified version” for nothing and there is always more to say about these things), so I will put quite a few footnotes, or write some follow-up posts or something, but actually wanted just to lay out some practical steps which I have found sooooo helpful in building and exercising my “forgiveness muscle”. 

There are so many compelling reasons for choosing to live in forgiveness of others. For me, the most compelling has been that, when I am holding onto unforgiveness, I am giving that person a huge amount of influence over my life: how I see myself, what I hope happens in the world, whether I go to a certain shopping centre or not, a huge amount of psychological energy spent on analysing, processing, ruminating – energy that could be better spent on loving and being loved. I find it most terrible that someone’s actions have led me to be influenced more by them than by God, that I begin to identify myself through the lens of their actions or the hurt caused by them, being formed by the broken dynamics between us more than I am formed by the truth that I have been created in love, for love, by love and through love and that nothing can separate me from this Love. The process below helps me recognise, reorientate and recalibrate into alignment with this truth.  

This is a practice and a process. Sometimes it can take me 5 minutes to walk through, often it will entail me carving out a half hour to do this intentionally, sometimes it will happen over a number of days and once it happened layer by layer every morning over a number of months. Each and every time, the freedom and joy is palpable…this is a gift and God knows how to give good gifts to us! 

When you have realised you need to work on forgiving someone, here are some of the steps that have really helped me (I will put a list of some ways you can recognise that forgiveness is needed at the bottom!)

Praying through Forgiveness:

1. Recognise the wrong that has been done by the other person – both in the physical, and in the spiritual: what has the damage been; what lies has the action made you believe about God, about yourself and how you have been created, about your relationships; what has been eroded or destroyed? I have found it helpful, doing this myself and with walking other people through it, to go into real detail here – you can really walk free when you acknowledge honestly how, and how deeply, it has affected you.

2. Acknowledge that the person owes you a huge debt*** – you can even go into what you believe they owe you…realising how much they hurt you, apologising, some act of remorse/penance, quitting your life entirely, etc. Try to avoid toning this down or employing “Christianese” like “I feel like you owe me”…there is a debt owed: just state it. 

3. Choose to hand the debt over to God fully – as Someone who created that person, who loves them beyond anything you can imagine, and can deal with the debt in the kindest and most redemptive way possible (as God has done with ours!). This is a really important (and sometimes really hard!) step. It is helpful to use words like, “I forgive you”, “I choose to release you from this debt and to give it over to God.” etc. I have found, when the hurt has been very deep, it is helpful to have someone pray with me through these steps and “witness” me handing it over (sometimes, in the early days or when deep, deep hurt had been done, “witnessing” entailed actually saying the words for me and me repeating them!). 

4. Part of handing over the debt is cutting off any soul ties between you and this person which have come about through their actions (“soul ties” is just a term for when any one person has a disproportionate amount of influence over your thoughts, feelings or actions…and they definitely develop when we hold unforgiveness) and choose to walk free of those bonds, and set them free too. You can just say, “I choose to walk free from anything which has given you more influence over me than the Truth of God’s love for me.”

5. There is one more step which involves the other person, but first there is some restoration work between you and God too 🙂 Now is the time for recognising the lies which you believed about yourself, about God, about God’s relationship with you and the world as a result of the actions of this person. The good spiritual word for what to do next is “rebuke”: stand against those lies in the strongest possible way. Call them out. Cut them off.  (I once put this note in for someone I was helping through this process. I am not quite sure why I put it here specifically, but maybe it will help, so I will leave it: “Remember: if it has flesh and blood, it ain’t the enemy!”…maybe it was to remind them that we are not rebuking the person we have just forgiven! We are now doing restoration work!). 

6. Some more “R” words: Repent of playing into those lies, allowing them to be stronger than God’s truth. Ask God for forgiveness for allowing the lies to be “louder” in your life than God’s love and truth. Receive God’s forgiveness (because God is always offering it!). Replace these lies with the Truth about God, about how God has made you, about your relationships with others.

7. Once you have done the restoration work, come back to the person you have forgiven. Now is the time to pray blessing over the person. This normally comes easily (now!), but I once took months to get to a point of being able to genuinely want the best things for a person (but this isn’t about feelings – it is about declaring blessing in line with God’s truth about them). One thing I can ALWAYS pray for someone, no matter where I am in the walking out of forgiveness, is that they will be overtaken by God’s love and know how incredibly they have been created and how God delights over them.

I have found that some of the lies or hurts can take a little bit of time to shut-up or heal, so it is helpful over the next few hours and days to be aware of when any thoughts or feelings around this arise and just continue to respond to them with the truth, with love and with continuing to pray blessing over the person. And sometimes, even a few years later, another layer might be revealed for you to work through (I do think God is very kind in knowing how much we can deal with when and what stage!). Know that there is always freedom when God shows us these things, so walk into it trusting in that!

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2 Double-clicks/Disclaimers for now:

1. If you are in abusive relationship: get out! Then work through forgiveness for you own health and healing and to be able to seek whatever legal or other help you may need without any undue influence of this person over your life. Forgiveness does not mean saying the person did nothing wrong (quite the opposite: it is acknowledging the deep harm which has been done) and does not mean you need to continue in the same state of relationship as before. Many people far more qualified than I am have written good, good stuff around this.

2. Forgiveness is a choice by the person who has been wronged and can’t be demanded from the person who has done the harm. If you feel like you need to tell a person or group of people that they are holding onto unforgiveness and they need to forgive you/a group you are part of: you do the work of repentance and of bearing fruit in keeping with repentance and trust that someone else will help them with the forgiveness journey. I say this for individuals, but I also want to acknowledge that, in South Africa, white people as a whole have had such incredible, mindblowing forgiveness extended from our black and brown siblings as a whole, and we have not as a whole borne fruit in keeping with repentance. I wanted to say that because many times, the sentiment of “just move on” relates to the same dynamic of *who* needs to do the actual work here. As a white South African, I have no right to tell my brown and black siblings how they should express pain, lament and anger at the ongoing inequality and violence of poverty and dehumanisation…my work is to bear fruit in keeping with repentance (turning around).

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* Many people attribute a version of this quote to Nelson Mandela describing resentment, but there are many origins to this. I found this page interesting to explore more https://www.quora.com/Who-said-the-phrase-Holding-a-grudge-is-like-drinking-poison-and-waiting-for-the-other-person-to-die 

** Here I need to do “acknowledgements” because this is something I learned, not came up with myself. I had been invited to a teaching series at Christ Church: Kenilworth where my (later to be) colleagues from The Warehouse and others were running a course called “Growing in Jesus”. The course material has also been called “Jesus Ministry” and “Living Free” and originated with some wonderful people in Tacoma, USA & Fulham, UK and has been taught beautifully in a number of ways by a number of communities in Cape Town. I don’t know how to “quote my sources” more. If others do, please pop the references here! 

***I know the way I write can sound like I am saying you must do it with the person…please don’t! I am writing in this way because there is something quite powerful about “having the conversation” in the presence of God: speaking directly to the person as if they were there. In the almost 14 years of freedom, I have only ever once brought it up with the actual person…and that was someone who I prayed with consistently, who understood the joy and language of forgiveness and it was months after I had forgiven her. I felt God prompting me to tell her about it…I was so confused because I had recognised quickly that I needed to forgive her, done it with utter joy and our relationship had carried on flourishing. When I eventually said I felt like God was asking me to tell her, but that I had forgiven her ages ago, her response was, ‘I am so glad you have told me, because now I get the chance to ask for forgiveness, even though you have already given it.”   

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Some ways to recognise we are holding onto unforgiveness:

□ I find myself holding grudges

□ I retreat into isolation from others

□ I erupt in anger, or boil inside

□ I think of ways to get even with others who have hurt me

□ I “just bury” the wrongs done to me without really addressing them

□ I pity myself

□ I carry bitterness and anger against those who have offended me or wilfully wrong me

□ Instead of stating the truth, I make excuses for those who have hurt or wronged me

□ I often feel sorry for myself

□ Occasionally I think I’m some kind of martyr

□ “Nobody has it as bad as me”

□ I want to get even with people who have caused me pain

□ I insulate and protect myself behind a wall of defensiveness

□ I do not trust others

□ I just “can’t” forgive

□ I am angry with God for allowing “bad things” to happen to me

□ I act “like nothing happened”, instead of confronting issues that have hurt me

□ I “can’t get over” my past

These most definitely came from published course materials, but I typed them out years ago and can’t find the notes to reference them properly.

“White men should learn in silence and submission”*

With uninterrogated power comes gross culpability

A friend and I sat next to each other in a gathering of around 500 young people from all over Southern Africa – we were part of the intercessory team and were waiting to pray with anyone who wanted it after what promised to be a time of rich testimonies of God’s liberating love. It was near the 3rd anniversary of the horrific murder of my friend’s dear husband: he had been one of the first to die in the Westgate Mall shooting in Nairobi in 2013. We sat with goosebumps as two former leaders of opposing gangs shared their testimony of discovering God’s deep love for them and of reconciliation: even after one had barely lived through a hit ordered by the other. Greatly moved by this story of reconciliation and with despair that she would probably never be able to meet and offer love and forgiveness to her husband’s murderers, my friend asked if I could ask them to come and pray with her. What followed was perhaps the most appalling spiritual bullying I have ever directly witnessed. Without even pausing to ask God for wisdom or words of guidance, they launched into rebuking and binding unforgiveness and bitterness, declaring all sorts of things in strident tones over her “unrepentant heart”, agreed with each other in “high-fived” amens and left…

We sat in stunned silence…eventually I hesitantly (in question form, not wanting to frame the entire story from my point of view) offered that I believed she had just been bullied. She had probably also been waiting to see whether it was just she who had experienced it like that and, with my affirmation of her experience (“you did not just imagine that in your grief”), we turned to our beautiful Creator and prayed with each other for a long time. We prayed for the two men who had clearly experienced great liberation, but with very little discipleship into a new way of being; for people who have been “prayed” for in this way and might not have recognised the abuse; for deeper and deeper discipleship of all people in the likeness of our Jesus who, being in very nature God, consistently emptied Himself of all power. This Jesus who was Good News to the powerless and marginalised and such a threat to the powerful of this world (human and unseen) that they sought to kill him and who, even in that moment, laid down any power he had at his disposal (an army of angels, disciples of a Kingdom which was so not of this world that they would not fight with swords) and was crucified. This kenotic, self-emptying, self-sacrificial love is not only the way (and being) of Jesus, but the way of all who seek to be disciples of His…to follow Him, to embrace Him as the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Ah, I became preachy…but I do get so excited about seeing the Kingdom established on earth as it is in Heaven and us following the way of the Lamb who has been slain in aligning with that vision and reality.

Why do I tell this story? I want to talk about bigger patterns and more systemic stuff (as well as  – perhaps foolhardily, but hopefully helpfully – bring in some scripture which I think speaks to this), but wanted to start with an individual story as an illustration. In my take of the situation, the two beautifully transforming men had both experienced leadership and authority in a gang set-up. With a misformed, uninterrogated and undiscipled view of what these meant and how these played out, they had been paraded out onto the “testimony circuit” and, when an opportunity presented itself, they had fallen back on the old ways that they knew: violence, bullying and strange displays of “strength” which were not aligned to the way of Jesus. The fault was not their own – they had only just come to faith and had lots of “unlearning” to do, but I do believe the fault lies with our lack of commitment to deep, long-term discipleship and our deeply entrenched blindspots to power – how it is acquired, how society gives it and how it rears its head in the ugliest forms when it remains uninterrogated.

Where else have I seen this?

• A white, male church leader posted something on facebook which was meant to be speaking up for a group of marginalised people with whom he identified. A few comments in, he was screaming (all caps) at a younger women of colour (a lay member of the church) who dared to question some of the assumptions he had made using her own experience as a lens. While he thought he was courageously standing up for others, he hadn’t interrogated the places he held power and ended up bullying someone who had far less worldly power than he.
• A group of older, white, Afrikaans theologians who had played a pioneering role in leading their denomination to repent of apartheid heresies and find new ways of honouring all people as created in the image of God, met together during the  #feesmustfall movement on their campus and crafted a theological response to it – a response so full of cultural, class, racial and generational blindspots that it very quickly elicited a far deeper response by an intersectionally diverse group of theologians. These original men were no doubt earnest in their desire to follow God and had done some really good interrogation of their power in some areas of life (and had probably taken some severe knocks for it in their denomination) but had failed to do so fully and, as a result, hadn’t even noticed or questioned how a group came to be made up solely of white, older men. As a wonderful (white, male, older, Afrikaans, theologian) friend of ours once pointed out: when we read and interpret the bible and context with a homogenous group of people, culture will trump the Gospel every time.
• An older, more educated female theologian lambasted a young man who, in speaking his second (or third) language, referred to something as male which, in English, is gender-neutral…correctly sensitive to the structured patriarchy in the world, but completely unaware of all the other aspects that rendered this young man far more powerless than she, she turned a chance for gentle discipleship (or silent humility for the conversation having to be conducted in the only language she speaks!) into one of verbal violence and individual identity bullying.
• Just in this last week I have heard of two unrelated white people who have been on journeys of discovering their own white privilege and the power that they need to lay down, completely unconsciously using other aspects of power in their grasp to put other white people asking questions “in their place”. So “woke” to how their whiteness plays out in race relations, they are still completely ignorant of other power dynamics and again fell back on using what power they have to diminish others. (You can read this post on intersectionality if you want to understand some other power dynamics which are at play).

I also see this story playing out in both Paul’s first letter to Timothy and in the reading of this text which I believe has been used to keep half the church from exercising their gifting, identity and calling fully. Recognising the dangers of spelling out the connection I see where other people might see two completely separate issues, I am still going to try and illustrate for you why I think they are related.

Paul penned this pastoral letter to Timothy while Timothy was stewarding the church of Ephesus. In his circulated (if not published) “Letter to Harriet”, Duncan McLea describes the context in this way: “Timothy was leading the church in Ephesus – a city dominated geographically, economically, culturally and spiritually by the Temple of Diana (“Artemis” in Greek)…Diana was the goddess of fertility and was depicted as a many-breasted figure, and the temple dedicated to her was run by virgin priestesses assisted by castrated men. One can but imagine what influence this had on Ephesian culture and how it fashioned their worldview and influenced their understanding of gender roles…and what having spiritual authority in the hands of virgin women priestesses and castrated men did to their understanding of leadership in society. No doubt these influences spilled over into the church.” In this context, newly converted and undiscipled women were being taken in by false prophets and using the power afforded to them in the prevailing culture to assume “authentin” – a type of authority which was self-appointed, usurped, dominating and even sexual – over others, spreading false teachings and gossip. In his letter to Timothy, Paul is encouraging Timothy that these women should first be discipled in the new way of being: “women should learn in silence” – in exactly the same way as students of the Talmud (only men up until this point in history), women were to learn in humility and silence, to be instructed so as to be able to distinguish truth from lies, to exercise humble authority, to understand their identity and giftings as rooted in Christ, and not in gender or the created order, and then, eventually, like all who learn, to teach, instruct and disciple others in these ways…but first to learn.

Just like those of us who have been afforded huge power by the structures and systems of this world – in our whiteness, in our class, in our grasp of a global language which happens to be our mother-tongue, in our level of education, in so many ways – have to learn to be silent, to be last, to refuse the microphone, to listen humbly, to lay down power, to decentre our experiences and our opinions, to learn new ways of being which promote the equality of all people, so too these women needed to learn a new way.

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So, why the title of this blogpost? I believe people have taken the teaching of Paul and, with hermeneutical goggles fogged over by uninterrogated power, have used this scripture to build and maintain an unhealthy and deformed body of Christ.

Let me try and illustrate:

I believe that those of us who wield a great amount of structural and systemic power have a particular need to interrogate the huge amount of power which society has given us and, in following the way of Jesus, to learn to lay down this power at each and every opportunity afforded to us. I believe we need to listen in humility, I believe we have to learn in submission to those who are not like us and who bring another way of seeing the world and I believe we need to stop assuming authority in a space, a process or a dialogue because we believe somehow we have been given special authority and anointing as leaders for those spaces and times. I believe the discipline of submission and practice of learning is imperative to our discipleship in 2018. In my longing for a world which resembles Heaven more and more, I might even give this advice to people stewarding church spaces in our decolonising world as a prophetic word: “White men must learn in silence and submission. At the moment, in the spaces I steward, I generally don’t let white males frame the dialogue, hold the microphone or interpret world events. Don’t let them assume authority over any person, process or narrative. They need to do a lot of unlearning of worldly power and domination before it is safe – for them and for others – to have them teach the ways of Jesus.”

However, I would be horrified if I ever imagined that, 300 years from now, people had stuck religiously to my advice, believing it was meant for all time, in all places and within all power-dynamics…I would be horrified if it meant that white men were unable to speak, to teach and to exercise leadership in their churches and all white boys were told from an early age that there was a specific way they had been created which meant they would never be able to play the same roles as girls…we don’t know why, it is a mystery, but we must accept it because Wendy said it.

I would also be horrified if entire groups of people had never taken the time to interrogate their own power because it was clear that white men were the ones most in need of that and we had instead built up another system of intersection power which needed to be demolished.

We need to hate the assumption and abuse of power, not because it is wielded by a specific gender or skin colour or language or class or weight or marital status or age or orientation or academic standing or [insert intersectional category of your choice and experience], but because we love equality, we love Shalom, we love each person as an image-bearer of our Creator, we love mutuality and servanthood, we love the Oneness which we are given in Jesus and we are working together to see the reign of the One-who-is-called-Love be established on earth as it is in Heaven.

I believe we can and we will do so much better!

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*It has come to my attention that not everyone lives in my brain (!!) and so many people are not aware that the title of this blogpost is a play on a well-known and worn piece of scripture. This is what a certain passage in Paul’s first letter to Timothy says, “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.” Apologies for the assumption that, just because it was “ingrained” in me, it would be so for everyone else. (eye-roll here)

Let’s talk about sex (and Jesus)

(this is a long read – grab some coffee)

A Letter to the Church

When atrocities take place on a grand (or small!) scale – such as war and genocide, racism and racist systems, and the ongoing and pervasive gender violence we see, hear about and experience on a day-to-day basis – I believe it is the role of the Church to stand up against these systems, to call out the evil intrinsic in them and to offer another Way. We have something so beautiful to offer the world – the Good News of the Kingdom and all that it entails.

But I also believe that, before we can be a voice of Hope and Love in the world, we need to examine ourselves carefully to see whether there is a need to prophesy to ourselves before raising our banner to society at large. Our constant prayer of “Search me, O God and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” needs to be one which we pray corporately, and with more urgency than ever before: “search us, O God…know our heart…see if there is any offensive way in us”.   

I am writing this blogpost because I believe that we, as the Church, need to do some deep soul-searching, with honest and contrite hearts, around any offensive ways we have inside us – as a body – which might match, contribute to, or give licence to the ongoing gender violence in our society. I believe we need to do this before we can become a voice of integrity against gender violence in our broader social context. I have been wanting to write a post of this nature for a while now so, while I am certainly writing in the context of the stories which are coming more and more into the light as our sisters express their pain through social and other media, I also write from a more long-standing conviction that many of my sisters have been, and are, paying the highest price for a belief which not only spills into the Church from the patriarchy of the world, but has actually been upheld by many denominations in the belief that it is a responsible interpretation of scripture.

But to clarify why I believe we have much to see and much to repent of, I would like to start by laying a foundation to these thoughts.

Let’s talk about theology (and South Africa):

Theology, very simply defined, is what we know or believe about God’s essential nature, activity and presence in the world. I want to start this line of thought at a place we all agree. Can I start with the assumption that we all agree that we can – or should be able to – trace a clear connection between our theology and both the content and quality of our individual lifestyles? And that this also affects the quality and nature of the wider social landscape in which our theologies intersect, merge, clash or blend?

I think I can also assume that most South Africans would now acknowledge that the political systems of colonialism and Apartheid, with their accompanying social and economic plans, were rooted in an evil belief – a belief that allowed one group of people, by virtue of their specific DNA, to subjugate and rule over another group of people whose DNA differed.

As I stated at the beginning of this blogpost, when such evils have managed to wreak the kind of destruction we have seen in our societies and world, it is necessary for us, as the Church, to examine carefully whether our theology played any part in it. Yes: We can all point to the fall, the departure of humankind from God’s original plan for us and the brokenness that this state perpetuates, but it is imperative that we examine whether we have, in any way, conformed to these systems and perpetuated them inside the Church.

The devastating truth, as we now know, is that the Church during the colonial and Apartheid eras could hardly be differentiated from the rest of society – with the always notable exception of the few, to the greatest extent how we lived, how we gathered, how we worshipped, mirrored the exact divides and attitudes prevalent in the context in which we found ourselves. (Did you know there is a Slave Church in Cape Town’s city centre? How did those two words EVER come to stand next to each other? How was that ever acceptable?)

As a whole, the Church not only did not speak up against these atrocities and live a life which set us apart from these evils, but rather, many denominations decided that these issues did not fall within the ambit of preaching the “Gospel” and so did not involve themselves in standing against these systems and structures.

Alongside this group was another part of the Church which actually developed and taught theologies which drove and ratified these systems.

It is a heart-breaking and, indeed, horrifying truth that only a small part of the Church saw one group of people violating the image of the Creator in another group of people as an issue central to the Gospel, named the theologies which propped these systems up as heresy, and actively fought against the deep injustices which were fruit of this heretical root.

Let’s Talk about Roots (and Fruit)

“…Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree produce good fruit. So you will recognise them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7: 16 – 20)

When plants first begin to grow, it can be quite difficult to tell them apart. They first shoot up as a tiny bit of green, then they get to the “two-leaf stage” where many plants look exactly alike. One could be forgiven, at this stage, in thinking that a diseased or poisonous plant was a healthy one. Even when they grow to look like the plant they are meant to be, it is sometimes difficult to tell whether they will indeed bear good fruit (or even the fruit of the seed you thought you were planting!!). And even as they bear fruit and it seems offish, it takes some time to figure out whether it is the soil that the tree is planted in, or whether it is the tree itself which is producing bad fruit. But, once it is established that it is indeed the tree itself that has a diseased root or whose fruit is poisonous, there is absolutely no excuse to wait any longer before the whole tree is destroyed.  

As a gardener and a parent, if I found out that I had planted a tree with poisonous fruit, I would waste no time in yanking the thing up by the root – and I would dig down as far as I possibly could to make sure that no tiny bit of the root remained which could start germinating this plant again. I would scour the ground around where the tree had stood and make sure no baby saplings started growing from seeds which had fallen from the tree. I would certainly not wait until the tree had finished blossoming and pick all the fruit off before my children could possibly get to it. Neither would I erect signs saying the rest of the tree seemed to be OK, but not to go near the fruit. No – the whole thing would be ripped out.

Over the past 22 years (and longer than that for some), as the South African church has woken to the horror of this fruit and its heretical root, many churches have done the work of uprooting this theology entirely while others are beginning to get to the roots, recognising how far the disease has spread. Still others have a different response – scrambling to pick all the bad fruit off the tree as quickly as it reproduces. It is embarrassing that the fruit keeps coming back: shameful that we are still governed by the divides which give one group of people, by virtue of their DNA, more power in the room, more access to privilege and more opportunity for human flourishing than another group of people. So we try and pick the fruit as quickly as it appears, claiming that the good fruit will come SOON, as long as we rid the tree of its bad fruit. Sometimes I get the feeling that we even hang fake fruit on the tree and try to convince ourselves and others that this truly IS now a good tree, bearing good fruit.

We rearrange what people can see above the surface of the ground, but the tree still produces bad fruit because we are not fixing the disease, we are not destroying the root. That will take a whole lot of digging, a whole lot of getting down into the dirt, a good lot of hard work and a new planting…something a little too threatening to those who have not only tended the trees, but have set up dwelling places in its shade.  

Part of the problem, I think, is that it seems to be difficult for us to distinguish between the trunk of the tree which seems to be healthy and strong, the lovely green foliage which gives shade to those under it and the fruit that the tree eventually bears. I don’t doubt that many people who promoted slavery and Apartheid with what they thought was a biblical backing (Paul told slaves to obey their masters, remember? It was quite clear…<close sarcasm font>) thought they were doing the right thing and thought they were treating “their” slaves or servants or those of other colours or classes “kindly”. I am sure many were horrified at other people for treating their slaves violently, or decried the actions of Apartheid police when they viciously beat up, tortured and killed people of colour. And I am sure that people met in their one-colour-only churches and prayed against the violence of Apartheid. And yet now we can look back and see quite clearly that even the “best” slave master had believed a demonic lie – one that allowed one group of people, by virtue of their DNA, to subjugate and rule over another group of people.     

And so,

Let’s talk about sex (and Jesus):

But I don’t actually want to talk about sex. Sex is a biological distinction based on which sex organs are visible at birth. I would rather like to talk about gender. Gender is the social meaning, significance and value which is placed on the sex you are identified as at birth. Whereas sex is a biological label (and, most often, binary), gender is a social construct. [Much like skin-colour is a result of a specific DNA combination, but race is a social construct]. This means that the understanding and expectations we have of someone, or a group of people, based on their sex organs, differs across time, culture and place and is shaped by many factors: including people’s belief systems and theology.

When Jesus began His ministry in human form, those who were women were hardly even considered to be human – pious Jewish men would pray and thank God that they were not a gentile, a slave or a woman. One can only imagine what this reflected about a woman’s place in society. A care-filled reading of scripture shows us that, through His life, ministry, works and words Jesus broke down every stereotype which dehumanised women (indeed, not just women, but any and every group of people who had been marginalised and subjugated by the religious and political powers of the day). In a way, His death and resurrection were the official inauguration of the Kingdom – one in which all people were recognised as bearing the image of the Creator and were thus beloved, holy and One with God and each other. This Kingdom restored the VERY GOODness of creation before the fall, when male and female were given the task of caring for the earth together, side-by-side, with none ruling over the other.  

This new way of being was once again confirmed at Pentecost (the birth of the Church) when Peter proclaimed the realisation of Joel’s prophecies: the pouring out of the Holy Spirit onto people of all ages, genders and classes. Paul again confirms this (and adds “ethnicity” or “race” into the list) in the “baptismal manifesto” in Galatians 3:28 when he declares, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female*, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

I cannot express to you how radical this teaching of the early church was – it is difficult for us to recognise it now because its very radical nature has transformed the world over the last 2000 years in such profound ways that we can no longer imagine the context in which those words were said, written, received and read. But it is important for us to try, otherwise we miss the very richness of what Jesus lived and taught. That now, because the Kingdom of God is amongst us, no group of people can, by virtue of their DNA, birth circumstances or living conditions, lay claim to authority or leadership over another group of people different to them. Instead we are invited into the beautiful Trinitarian dance of mutual service and submission – each of us submitting to each other out of reverence for Christ. Just imagine how wonderful and beautiful this Kingdom could be as it is established wider and deeper amongst us – no wonder people were attracted to the early church and no wonder it grew in huge numbers daily. What Good News to so many people!

I can go on about this, but there are people who have already done a good lot of work explaining the full and beautiful trajectory of God’s story in the bible, as well as dealing with “the tricky verses” which seem to go against this.

So, what I would really like to do is come back to the original point of this blogpost.

Let’s Talk about Gender Violence (and the Church):

When atrocities take place on a grand (or small!) scale – such as war and genocide, racism and racist systems, and the ongoing and pervasive gender violence we see, hear about and experience on a day-to-day basis – I believe it is the role of the Church to stand up against these systems, to call out the evil intrinsic in them and to offer another Way…but only after we have examined ourselves and repented of anything within ourselves (including theologies and structures) which have matched, contributed to or given licence to these evils.

I believe we need to begin with an interrogation of gender divides or hierarchies – and specifically the belief that men have been created to lead – before we can examine whether we have had a role to play in gender violence**.

When it comes to gender hierarchies, the Church has once again had different responses. Many Churches have recognised that the belief that men are created to lead (and therefore that women are created to be under men’s authority) has direct roots in the same thinking that gave rise to colonialism, slavery and Apartheid: that which allows one group of people, by virtue of their DNA, to subjugate and rule over another group of people with different DNA. These churches see this as an integral issue to the Gospel of the Kingdom, and have done the hard work of pulling up the roots of this system and are beginning to see good fruit from their newly planted and beautifully tended trees.

Others still consider this issue not to be central to the Gospel and so either ignore it as an issue or gather on Sundays to pray and preach against gender violence, without fully interrogating the root of this violence.

And still others form theologies which drive and ratify gender hierarchy.

And, much as those people who treated “their” slaves well and kindly – allowing them to build lovely churches for themselves – would have been appalled to think that they had anything to do with the violence meted out to enslaved people, many Christians cannot see the connection between the theology that males are created to rule over females and the gender violence which is so pervasive in society. (Indeed, many call us back to these hierarchical roles as a way of curing this societal disease!)

Because, let’s face it: at the first stages of growth, this belief can even look beautiful: man is made to protect, provide for and lead woman – what could be so wrong with that? The trunk looks strong and the wonderful green foliage gives shade to many. But, higher up the tree, some fruit begins to form: if a man is made to lead a woman, then men are made to lead women. Women as a whole cannot lead men as a whole – this would be unbiblical. Or women can be part of a pastoral team, but under the covering of an all-male eldership. A little further out on the branches, males stand up and walk out of a church gathering en masse when a female missionary begins her report back of her time in the field – believing this is the Godly thing to do. Higher up still, men discipline their wives when they need to be brought back into line for disobedience to their husbands. Pastors counsel women who have been abused (or “disciplined” as some call it) that they should submit to their husbands and God will reward them for their obedience….do you see where this is going?

Perhaps it is difficult to see the connection between even these full-grown fruits and the gender violence that has flooded our newsfeeds in the last few weeks. It would be a relief to believe that the more “benign” fruit of this church tree has fallen into diseased social soil and has born saplings in the outside world, and that it is the fruit on these saplings which has turned poisonous. And I do believe that the context in which this theology takes root can have an influence on just how poisonous the fruit is. But the question we need to ask ourselves is whether the Church has stood out as a peculiar group of people who are strangely different to the context in which they find themselves – a people within whom there is no trace of violence?

Here it is vital (quite literally) to note that even a cursory overview of the literature available shows that, as opposed to the Church standing out as an incontrovertible beacon of hope in a world battered by stories of domestic abuse and gender violence, the rate of domestic abuse is as high, if not higher, in homes where beliefs of gender hierarchies are adhered to as it is in broader society. On top of this, studies show that the belief of male headship and female subordination leads many church leaders to counsel women not only to stay in abusive situations, but to imply that the abuse they suffer is as a result of their insubordination and that submission will lead to different results***. As one part of the Church works towards the emancipation of women from these horrific personal and social conditions as a core outliving of the Gospel of the Kingdom, a large part of the Church still mirrors the very injustices which we are trying to eradicate.

In conclusion, while I do believe that we have particularly fertile soil for violence in our society (particularly because this root of inequality has changed so much of our soil), and that many a good and right thing can be adopted by those outside of the church and warped and used for destruction, I do not believe gender hierarchy is one of those good and right things that has merely been warped by society. I believe it goes against the original “very good”ness intended by the Creator, against the life and ministry of Jesus, against the mission of the Holy Spirit and against the call to the Church to be one body. I believe it is part of the same heretical root which produced slavery, colonialism and Apartheid… and I believe we are continuing to know it by its fruits.  

 

An Epilogue

I know many wonderful Christian men reading this would never DREAM of raising a hand to their wife or any woman. I also know this can feel really, really difficult to read without feeling defensive. But I also believe that our sisters are paying the highest price for this belief system and so, in the balance of things, I am OK with risking some discomfort in my brothers.

I will end on this note. I love and honour the impulse in men who have responded to the stories of violence against girls and women with a call to all men to stand up and protect women. I would like to suggest that this is a good start: all Christ-followers are called to protect the vulnerable, the weak and the marginalised. But our greater call is to join Christ in tearing down the dividing walls of hostility between all people and work towards a society in which each person is honoured as an image-bearer of the Creator. For now, I will humbly accept your offers of protection, and am grateful for them because we, as women, are indeed vulnerable. But please can I ask, rather than enforcing the power dynamics which are already at play by confusing your current role as protector with being in perpetual authority over us, that you join us, side-by-side, in tearing down the systems which keep us vulnerable and in need of protection – including those systems that dwell within the Church.   

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Footnotes:

This article was first published in a newsletter and on the website of The Warehouse, where I work. You can go to the site www.warehouse.org.za to find more articles relating to theologies which sustain injustice – and others.

*Just to distinguish again between sex and gender: When Paul said this, he was obviously not meaning that there would be no more distinction between our mostly-binary biological sexes – only that your biological sex, like what position you were born into, or what race of people you came from, would give you no more or no less standing in the Kingdom. That, just as gentiles were recognised as being able to receive the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit and all the spiritual gifts and Kingdom citizenship that came with it, so too were women, as were those who had been enslaved or shut out of Jewish worship by virtue of their different race.

**I use the term “gender hierarchy” intentionally. Many people use the term “complementarianism” to talk about men and women being equal in our salvation, but holding different roles in church and family life. The word “complementary” would be a good description if it referred to a system where women could occupy positions of authority in the church or home which men could not, while the reverse was true for other roles. However, men are not blocked from performing any role in church (save, perhaps, soprano?), while women are certainly barred from being pastors, teachers, or elders – depending on which church one is talking about. Men are also believed to be the natural leader at home – set in authority over their wife by virtue of their maleness alone. This, then, is not a complementary system, but rather a hierarchical one.

***“To quantify clergy beliefs about domestic violence and divorce, a questionnaire was sent to more than five thousand Protestant ministers in the United States. A full 27 percent of the clergy who responded said that, if a wife would begin to submit to her abusive husband, God would honor her obedience and the abuse would stop (or God would give her the grace to endure the beatings).” Study quoted in https://www.cbeinternational.org/resources/article/priscilla-papers/clergy-responses-domestic-violence

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Some recommended readings:

(There are so many. These are the main ones I kept going back to in writing this, as well as some others which I read afterwards and which convinced me I wasn’t mad to be taking this on!)

“How I changed my mind about Women in Leadership” – published by Zondervan and Edited by Alan F. Johnson. I would highly recommend the whole book, but particularly – when it comes to the greater conversation around self-arrogated leadership of one group over another – a chapter by Gilbert Bilezikian entitled “Renouncing the Love of Power for the Power of Love”.

“Beyond Sex Roles – What the Bible says about a Woman’s Place in Church and Family” – Authored by Gilbert Bilezikian and published by BakerAcademic. This provides a wonderful overview on leadership itself and God’s intention around that, as well as being a key biblical exposition of particular themes and passages around women in the church and society.

The website for Christians for Biblical Equality (www.cbeinternational.org) has a wealth of seriously helpful resources. I was particularly encouraged by this publication (https://www.cbeinternational.org/sites/default/files/Ideas-Have-Consequences-reprint-web.pdf) in general, and both Mimi Haddad (beginning pg 9) and Alan Myatt’s (beginning pg 21) articles specifically.