When My Pastor Lost His Religion
When I was 18, my pastor stood up one Sunday and announced that he would not be preaching. He went on to explain that he had been having an affair for the past 20 years with the wife of another pastor and that he was leaving his wife and children for this woman, stepping down as pastor, and leaving the church... phew!
From time to time, I have seen him. (Like the time I went to see Star Wars at the movie theater and my boyfriend said, "Hey isn't that your old pastor kissing that lady?") He grew a mustache, lost some weight, and avoids the church like the plague. How did it come to this? How did a man of God lose his religion? He is ultimately responsible for his actions, but in many ways, I think the church family pushed him to that end because we created a judgemental atmosphere that damaged his relationship with God.
I have noticed a strange dichotomy in many churches. One can literally feel the division of the church into two groups: the "born again" and the "new-comers." The born again group includes the hierarchy of the church: the pastor, the deacons or bishops, the head of the greeter ministry, the head of the youth ministry, the choir or band, etc. They have prayer chains and mid-week meetings. The new-comers are the people who are just attending, but not involved, the people moving from another church, etc.
In these churches, both groups become polarized. There is a belief that the born again group is above sin, that they do not stumble, that their job is to lead the new-comers to a deep relationship with God because they already have one, and, at the same time, an assumption that the new-comers know little or nothing of God. The born againers speak of their sins in the past tense or talk of lame sins: "I am trying to read at least one chapter of the bible a day. I know I need to make the time..." You never hear one of them tearfully stand up and say, "Yesterday, I was smoking crack. .." or "yesterday, I had sex with my ex-boyfriend." I mean, why is it always the new-comers that answer the altar call? Why do the born-againers never feel God calling them?
And the born-againers look down on the new-comers. They assume that they don't own bibles. They assume that they never attended a church before. They talk slowly to them, explaining the definition of a parable, telling them what God meant by this or that (with absolute authority), quoting bible verses left and right. In some sick way, they need the new-comers. They need someone to be unholy to make themselves feel holy.
After reflection, I have come to believe that this type of atmosphere is so powerfully damaging to both groups. The born again group is forced to divide themselves into their true selves and the masks that they wear to other church members. They cannot speak of their questions and doubts. They must lean away from the truth and become what others expect them to pretend to be. This causes what Erik Erikson describes in Gandi's Truth as "moralistic repression." As he says, "(t)his. .. did violence to what alone can free a man from inner compulsion, namely, the conscious acceptance of certain truths about himself and others" (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993. pg. 245). They must take their feelings and push them deep into their souls and deny them. Instead of working through the problems, they must pretend that they do not exist.
And the new-comers are either alienated and demeaned or forced to put on the mask and become one of the born-againers. They begin using the church lingo, quoting bible verses, trying to "prove" their holiness.
To quote Erik Erikson again, " It is not enough any more. .. For we now have detailed insights into our inner ambiguities, ambivalences, and instinctual conflicts; and only an additional leverage of truth based on self-knowledge promises to give us freedom in the full light of conscious day, whereas in the past moralistic terrorism succeeded only in driving our worst proclivities underground, to remain there until riotous conditions of uncertainty or chaos would permit them to emerge redoubled" (pgs. 234-235).