#MeToo, Ministry, and Blood

Unless you have lived under a rock for the past week then you are probably aware of the hashtag #metoo that went viral recently. Triggered by movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's deplorable practice of sexual assault and harassment, the hashtag is meant to shine a light on those issues as well as unite women who've been the target of that behavior. The movement has since sparked a conversation of how widespread the issues are and why they seem to persist even in places that seem, for the most part, egalitarian.* There are some corners of thought that have dismissed the whole thing as some kind of liberal slacktivism, but scrolling through my social media feeds and seeing women I trust post #metoo.... I have to say that I was deeply disturbed. Disturbed by the fact it happened to them and disturbed that people would be dismissive of it.

Sexual Ethics in Christian Ministry

The history of Christian ministry is littered with stories of sexual misconduct by people in positions of authority. It also suffers from the fact that it hasn't quite yet learned how to discipline such a thing, and even though the church has been making progress with how to counsel people who've been the target of sexual predators, there is still a long way to go.

There is one story in particular, which I just learned about, that rocked me to my core. I need to talk about it here because I think its implications for those who deal with theology and public ministry are of large importance. As some people know, my wife and I started an online ministry called Storied Life Ministry. One of the theological cornerstones were based on theological concepts of time and eternity by John Howard Yoder as communicated by Stanley Hauerwas. Yoder's, and by extention Hauerwas, understanding of God's activity in eternity influenced me so much that I determined a large part of my life would be spent trying to relate that concept to why we should give our testimonies, our stories. Yesterday, I found out Yoder had a sordid history of being a sexual abuser and harasser through a large part of his career.

I heard one commentor recently say that the #metoo thing was ridiculous because it was trying to say sexual abuse and sexual harassment are the same thing. Some argue that because sexual harassment isn't physical then it can't be sexual assault, but I disagree. I do believe that a lot forms of sexual harassment are equal to assault. Yoder's case shines a light on why. Since Yoder was an Anabaptist, he was committed to the cause of non-violence, something that is a staple (and I think a good one) of the Anabaptist tradition. So, instead of physically assaulting these women, he would write them letters of what he'd like these women to do. This next portion is a statement from one of the women who he sent a letter to:

"went into this bizarre, long, detailed description of what it would be like for him to sit in a chair and watch me sit on his bed, take off my clothes and nurse my baby. He described in vivid detail my breasts and other body parts. When I read the letter, I felt I had been raped. The thought of this dirty old man sitting at his seminary desk fantasizing about my nude body was terrifying to me, and I felt extremely violated and angry. I had never done anything to communicate to him that I was interested in anything but a mentor-protegee relationship."

I don't know about anyone else, but the language this woman used implies that sexual harassment can be the same as assault.

Hauerwas recently wrote an article (where I learned about what Yoder did) where he admitted that he felt like he was in a sticky place. He was very much influenced by Yoder and yet very much disturbed by his former friend's actions. He doesn't want to defend Yoder's actions, but Hauerwas doesn't necessarily want his former and current students to dismiss Yoder's work in light of his past behavior.

I don't know if I can get on board with Hauerwas. I understand where he is coming from and I still like Yoder's thoughts on eternity and God's relationship to it, but I don't know if I can bring myself to read anymore of his work, especially knowing that Yoder was uncooperative with the discipline he received.

Causes, Meeting God, Blood of Christ

Where do I go from here? Maybe I can use this revelation as a way to talk about a few things we need to remember in the ministry whether academic or in the church. 

Faith in Christ does many things. One thing it does is inspire causes. A cause for a lot of Anabaptists is to raise awareness of how Christ's followers should practice non-violence. There are even compelling theological works by Anabaptist scholars that center on a non-violent atonement theories. Admittedly, I haven't read enough on the issues of Yoder to make an informed guess, this is speculation, but I wonder if he used the cause of non-violence to justify his actions. This would not be abnormal. Even though a relationship with Christ does inspire us to pick up a cause, we cannot let the cause itself to become central. We have to remember that Christ is the center of said causes because only he can ultimately take care of that cause completely. When we remove Christ's centrality, we simply become activists. Activism is necessary, but it alone is not enough to represent Christ's work.

Secondly, one of the things that came to my mind after finding out all of this stuff was how the heck can some one who contributed such brilliant intellect to Christian theology commit such heinous acts? A few days ago I read something that warned Christians that it is not enough to just meet God intellectually. What is instead needed is that a person must meet God with their whole being, or give their whole selves to him. The danger of meeting God in one place of our lives leads to the compartmentalizing our relationship with Him. Meaning, God is Lord only over part of what we are willing to give Him. Then one may begin to think that there are parts of our lives that we don't need to give over, parts that we think we can keep hidden from God. In the book of Jeremiah, however, the reader learns that God sees both the mind and the heart (Jer 17:10). There is not a thing or act that can be hidden from Him.

Building off of that, compartmentalizing our relationship with God minimizes the power of the blood of Christ in the sense that one is saying that no, Christ cannot redeem this. In John, we see that Christ shines a light in the dark places; he exposes the unseen and reveals our sin. In the life of every Christian, Jesus brings out our sin into the light of day and we acknowledge it and ask him to help us get rid of it. It is my opinion that when God does this through Christ, and we do nothing, that it will be revealed on a scale that we would never imagine. And it will be ugly because they will have let it go and it will have mutated into something worse. The blood of Christ atoned for our sins and ultimately vanquished its consequences. If Christ's blood can do that, can it not lead you deal with your sin when it is first revealed? 

Conclusion

The church is not perfect because it is made up of humans. Nevertheless, we are given the Spirit of God to empower the mission given to us. Ministers, theologians, and clergy, both male and female, have an enormous responsibility to the body of Christ by not trying to hide behind causes, intellect, nor hide behind authority. We need to remember that we have and always will need God involved with every aspect of our lives. We need to do this so that no one will have to claim #metoo because of the church.

P.S. 

Hopefully this didn't come off as gossipy. I think that what I wrote about Yoder is a problem that needs to be discussed. If you are interested in what other Christian writers are saying about him in particular, here are some links:

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/10/18/4751367.htm

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news5/2015_01_Goossen_Defanging_the_Beast.pdf

*This does not mean in the theological sense, but in the sense that these places give the perception that men and women have been treated fairly for sometime.