when church cheats

Have you ever been cheated on in a relationship?

Your significant other failed to keep promises. They lied. They used mutual friends to cover up. They spun tales of how awful a person YOU were to them. They spent hours plotting to leave you, to hide things from you, to lie to your face. When they finally got up the nerve to leave you or to “come clean” about the affair, they immediately left shame mode and launched into attack mode on you as a person, as a loyal partner, as someone who mattered. If others were on your side, the adulterous one could turn them quickly to question you. You felt it happen. You saw their eyes look from the other person to you in split seconds, wondering what part you played in your own betrayal.

You have been deeply wounded and live with the effects of trauma, of being betrayed by the one person who is most intrinsically responsible for loving you. You start to beat yourself up. You think through every conversation. You wonder if you could have done more, said more, BEEN more, to avoid this horrible tragedy unfolding.

But you start getting this sinking feeling. Sinking feelings are often truth bombs that your brain just can’t quite figure out. You know somewhere in a deep place that it should never be your fault.

This is where we are in the American Church.

The church has cheated on us. Our church leaders have spun a false narrative to cover their tracks, to say that it wasn’t their fault, it was ours. That we cheated first, and instead of owning their part in sin and deceitfulness, they question us in our loyalties & discernment.

They have to pitch it like WE let the marriage die. Like WE were the ones who … what? What are the excuses for not trying to salvage a marriage any more? Our churches’ witness was lost when they chose other ideals, other values, even other people (politicians for example). We keep getting fingers pointed at us – those of us who keep wondering out loud how our relationships have gone so very horribly wrong. We keep saying things like, maybe I should have… or perhaps I am wrong here but… Meanwhile the ones who have foregone even the attempt at confession and owning their part in the mess are free to heap the blame on the one left alone and trampled.

We are left alone wracking our brains trying to understand how WE did something to cause the spiritual affairs we suffered through. This is what the church has done for these past several years. And now we’re reaching critical mass. The victims are gathering in the wilderness

You do not need to endure the ongoing abuse and shame thrown at you. You do not need to listen to the voices that ask what part YOU played in the affair of your spouse. These are not voices that love you. These are voices that would rather see you in pain then pay the costs of sin.

Or perhaps they think “the things that make for peace” are

• ignorance
• compromise
• rewriting the narrative so no one looks too bad
• egregious sins diminished to little lies and petty crimes
• shaming those most wounded into silence
• easy forgivism

Be done with this, beloved.

Shut them out. Cut them off like an eye that lusts. They are not acting as God’s protectors of your souls.

Be free. Please. It may be that you walk thru a valley for a time. But I promise you will find green pastures and quiet streams in due time.

Until then, we wander together – not lost, not forgotten, not unworthy. We wander with purpose. To light the way for others and even our future selves for when we need it most. We take what’s been given us, learning how strong we can be and how much dark we can still see through. Our eyes adjust. Our vision gets clearer all the time with every step away from the places we’ve been.

And one day, we suddenly realize how bright it has become. It is how much we are loved.

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