Church - sinful or sick?

One of the many things I have learned from the emotionally healing and

spiritually growing process of 12 Step Recovery is that "we're as sick as our

secrets."  Secrets are those things about our life around which we feel shame

and are afraid that if the rest of the world knew about us, they would

ostracize us.  In the past 13 years of intentionally observing this in myself

and others I have come to believe that most if not all of us are inclined to

harbor these secrets of our life.



To bring them "out in the open" doesn't mean we tell everyone.  However, we

need to find those trusted people/settings where we can speak them out loud,

talk about them, and give them the light of day.  This is the kind of imagery

that the Gospels and the Apostle Paul use in regards to the life, death and

resurrection of Jesus Christ for our lives...he has brought us out of

darkness into a great light.  The Light of the World.  How do we hook up "we

are as sick as our secrets", with our belief that we cannot heal ourselves

and only through the gift of our Savior Jesus Christ have the "people in

darkness seen a great light!"?



I have also come to learn from others and observe that organizations function

addictively.  In fact, addictive behavior (which I believe is at the core of

the pain of our society...we might even call it sin or "sickness" as Jesus

did in referring to himself as the great physician) is conveyed in our

society via organizations.  We are more focused on individual behavior in our

society and to a growing degree family behavior.  However, organizations

("organic") function like an individual and are the carrier of the

disease/sin/addiction among us.  (five levels of addictive behavior are:

individual, family, organizational, national, world; right now we are

nationally seeking a fix in Iraq for terrorism and we are finding ourselves

mired deeper in painfulness; the addictive behavior of our nation is abiding

outlandish statements made about political opponents and accepting that kind

of discourse as the norm!)



The reason I am writing all this is in light of the last two "Loar's Logs" I

have written in "The Caller" and the response I have received from them.  I

heard that the phrase "stinkin thinkin" really flew in the face of some

folks.  And that the way I cast a broad-stroke description of how all of us

in the system of Fairlawn-West Church were involved in some way of

contributing to and furthering the kinds of behaviors that have been part of

this church (as well as a host of other churches and organizations in our

world) was unfair and undeserved.  We have developed a social understanding

of "addiction" as something those sickie alcoholics, drug addicts and other

kinds of folks do.  We have divorced ourselves from all notions of sin,

spiritual sickness, and addictive behavior in our own lives. This is where

our secrets begin because we don't want to be lumped in with those folks.

("who among you will cast the first sone?") And thus, we have separated

ourselves from the realization that we need help.  As an Episcopal priest

friend of mine in Houston said to me 13 years ago when I began 12 Step

Recovery, "What do you need God for, David?  You seem to have all the answers

already."  Why bother with the Christian faith and God and Jesus Christ and

the church if we know already what we need to have for our lives? Or if we

really don't think we're "bad" enough to need it?  "We're not sick.  Or we're

not as sick at least as those folks.  We just need a little help in our life.

We don't need any major help/change/transformation in our lives!"  At that

point, we have just said we don't need Jesus in our life!



OK, now this is where all of this has headed.  Two people who have been major

leaders in the United Church of Christ and have been closely related to

Fairlawn-West have been suspended from ministry because of behavior that was

considered by the wider body to be unacceptable. (shame and secrets)  Those

two are Stephanie Haines who was the interim minister here before I arrived

and David Schwab who was the Eastern Ohio Association Minister which is our

UCC regional body.  Stephanie was suspended in the spring.  It was written up

in the national UCC newspaper "United Church News."  At the time she was the

Conference Minister for the Pacific Northwest Conference of the UCC.  Right

next to it was the news that David, who had become the Conference Minister of

the Ohio Conference last summer, was on temporary suspension until a further

review was held.  We received word on Monday that David has been suspended

for a minimum of two years.



In that conundrum of "repsecting privacy" what happened in either case has

not been made public, but that clearly just leads to speculation about what

they did to lead to being suspended.  (shame and secrets)  In both cases I

have heard 2nd hand (gossip?) at least part of the story.  BUT the details

don't matter!!!  The pain.  The secrets.  Its part of us.  Like the canary in

the coal mine (canaries apparently would die first before the humans if the

air was being sucked out of the mine...so the humans would know to get out

quick), Stephanie and David...and me...and you...are indications of an

unhealthy...dare we say, "sick"...dare we even go on to say "addictive"

system within the church as an organization!  The power of sin or darkness is

great.  We are as sick as our secrets.



The nature of sin is "corporate".  That is, God does not find us sinful one

by one which is the way the modern world reduced down and managed the sense

of sin.  That way we can control who is known as sinful and who isn't "really" sinful.  And

many of us tend to put ourselves in the latter basket.  On the other hand a

good number of us put ourselves in the former basket in ways that beat up on ourselves.  Neither is true in and

of itself.  Scripture says that we hold the reality of sin together as a

community.  We like to think that God judges us one by one and if we keep our

nose clean (or at least keep secret the unclean part of our nose), we will be

good enough to get to heaven.  Scripture says rather that we are judged as a

community of God's people.  We are in this together.  Even those other folks

we have judged the worst are part of the pool that God has placed us in.  We

can deny this...and many of us do! Or we can confess that we are part of this

reality of the world of sin, and that we can't climb out of this pit on our

own.  Only the grace of God in the great disease healing physician Jesus Christ can

save/heal us.



In the last two "Loar's Logs" I told secrets as I have heard them and

experienced them.  That has led to anger, denial, frustration and even flight

for some of you.  A "geographical fix" (the grass is greener over there)

cannot heal this.  We now come to face the reality of whether we can truly

confess our sin and ask for help, healing and forgiveness.  If we can't, we

have no right claiming to be a church.  This is the whole unfolding story of

Christian scripture.  We might like to keep it at arm's length as something

we read, but it has a deep truth which will reveal itself not just about our

church, but about ourselves.



Stephanie and David aren't canaries.  They are a sister and brother in

Christ.  No matter what the official bodies say.  They may need help, but SO

DO WE!  They may be getting help.  Are we?  Or are we separating ourselves

from them?  Hanging the scarlet letter on them so that we can protect

oursleves from facing the truth about ourselves and our sin/disease that

we share in common with them?  Remember, God saves us as brothers and sisters

in Christ, the body.  Not one by one.



Here are links to some online articles which are very helpful in

understanding how organizations function addictively and specifically how the

church functions addictively.  If you can't pull them up or would prefer a

printed copy, I will have them available if you let me know you would like

some.



Is the Church an Addictive Organization by Anne Wilson Schaef

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=751



The Church Addiction Test by Tom Bandy

http://www.easumbandy.com/resources/index.php?action=details&record=1071



Addictive Organizations by Tom Heurerman

http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/wf/addorg.html



=====

David Loar

http://www.loar.org/ ...family

http://discipledavid.blogspot.com/ ...David's blog

http://www.fairlawnwest.org/ ...church

Akron, OH