As I mentioned Friday, I think that the current publicity over the scandal in the Catholic Church will have a negative effect on the whole Christian church. Here is where we are going to experience the truth of 1 Corinthians 12:26 “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it.” The painful anger that has been stirred up among believers who have felt betrayed reinforces the growing cynicism that many in our culture are experiencing that leads to a rejection of all forms of the institutional church.
I recently spoke to a pastor of a healthy church and he mentioned the sense of shame that many Christians seem to be experiencing about the faith. At the time, he particularly pointed to the antics of the right-wing stream of Christianity as bringing shame on believers. I would imagine that the stories of the large number of children that have been abused by clergy will increase that sense of shame. One priest from Ireland who was interviewed on the news spoke of the fact that one could no longer walk down the street with your priestly collar on and get the type of respect that had been true in the past.
So let us think about how you exercise ministry in a climate of shame. We have certainly witnessed the slow disestablishment of the church in our society. Not only is there no official establishment of the church but we have also lost the cultural support of the church. A clear example of that is that a church can no longer assume that society will clear Sunday morning of competition for the hours of worship. So now we face not only competition for people’s time and attention but do it from a position of shame. People are quick to accuse both the church and its leadership of a failure not only to live up to their faith but even the cultural assumptions of morality.
I’m told that the early church faced a series of accusations from the society around them. They were accused of being Atheists because of their refusal to worship the Roman gods. They were accused of cannibalism because it was said that they ate the body of their leader and drank his blood. They were accused of immorality because of rumors about what happened when they exchanged the kiss of peace. What they were not accused of was a lack of compassion for the needy. Some church historians believe that that sense of hospitality for the least of these was the power that drove their message in society. Maybe that is a good place to begin in our understanding of what it means to be the church in a time of shame.
