Silence Enables Wickedness

The lies were so many I could not process them all.  The weight of it left my hands shaking even as I held tightly to my coffee cup.  How could this be happening?  Why didn’t anyone even try to find the truth?  Not one inquiry.  Not one question had been asked of me.  Instead, the entire thing was taken as though spoken by George Washington himself. The actual truth had no place, for it had not been invite to the conversation and would not be involved in the aftermath. 

I had lost friends; those people who had fringe relationships with me; the people who came to my classes; and those who served in mutual projects.  People who had once called me deeply spiritual now insisted I was a mental case. I had lost respect.  Even that which I had done well was now called into question.  People who once thought me a decent, moral human being now believed I was something I was entirely not. 

Such is the result of a smear campaign.  The brutal lies of those who have a self determined case for revenge.  The best way to hurt someone who has refused to bow to a demand  is to convince others that refusal was born of a deeply ingrained character flaw.  It took only gathering a circle of three to spread the cancer of gossip throughout the world I once thought loved me.  The people I cared so deeply about were now having meetings about me without my presence.  Worse, the judgments during those conversations brutalized my heart and tore at my sense of trust in the one organization American culture expects to cling to honesty.

The church. 

Worse still, the people in the church who once claimed to believe in me, and who had pledged familial love, turned away, claiming to either stay neutral, which is in itself a lie, for neutrality is always a siding with the aggressor; or to need to stay out of the thing altogether, which ultimately sides the same.  In a smear campaign the liar wins most of the battles, if for no other reason than they will not give up.  Christians, you see, are told to not be argumentative, or gossips, or wrathful, or slanderous, or hateful.  The liar knows this and so, twists defense of the truth into accusations of one of these, and thus, speaking truth in any way only helps the aggressor’s case.   

It’s a brutal process, this smear campaign.  More painfully still is the tendency for this American culture to tell others not to talk about it. That pseudo righteous silence finishes the slaying of a person’s world.  As I stood there on my porch, I knew all of this.  It had happened to me before.  Twice.  The American church has, over the last half century, determined that hateful lies are a good way to deal with each other. 

Now before you freak out and say I am being overly general, or giving some other excuse that is tantamount to victim shaming, hear me out.

I have been helping people through their beliefs about God for four decades.  In the last ten years I have spent more time with people who, dealing with smear campaigns, have stood on their porches holding coffee cups to steady shaking hands, than I have any other kind.  People are desperately hurting one another, and then they are destroying the victim with an unholy demand for silence. 

Take my case.  I had unwittingly upset a pastor.  I had not done so purposefully but nonetheless, I had indeed done so.  I had not known the church was pastor centric, and I had inadvertently offended that center.  As a result, I had received a corrective phone call from a protector, a call in which I refused to bow to the sin of pastoral worship.  Worse, I talked publicly about it.  This is what led to the smear.  The resulting hatefulness and slew of accusations was born of a man’s demand that no one ever challenge his self proclaimed command. 

So, he destroyed my reputation in the church and then set about destroying me in other places.  He was largely successful.  People suddenly questioned me, avoided me, talked to me less or even insisted he was right.  Most took the 'I am staying out of it' rout.  I was left alone on my porch, with my shaking hands and a rapidly cooling cup of coffee.   

I was tired that day.  I have dealt with this so much, and it has long been my belief that the power behind this ungodly gossiping behavior, that has permeated so many churches, lies a simple truth. 

Silence empowers wickedness. 

I have seen it for decades.  So, I decided not to be silent.  For the next several months I opened my mouth often to tell the truth about what is happening not only in my case but in thousands.  I told my own story, but I also got permission to tell the stories of others who were being trashed. I cried out in anger, desperation, sarcasm and bluntness.  I told the truth.  I jumped up and down and waved my arms at the church as a whole and especially at those who claim to be its godly shepherds. I held nothing back.  Repeatedly, in three minute intervals, I begged churches to listen to how they sound. I told them why they are losing people.  I repeated their own words back to them and showed them how hypocritical they are. I laughed at them.  I cried in front of them.

And it did nothing.

Well, except to get me called unfair and judgmental.   Modern Christendom, the evangelical church n particular,  is so slave to the heresy that telling the truth about their own sin is wrong, that whenever someone does it, no matter how they do it, they brand the person as ‘bitter’ or ‘angry’ or the one that makes me sick to my stomach as it is the most manipulative, ‘unhealed.’  Rather than listening to the cries of broken people, they label instead as backsliders who left Jesus.

None of these things fall within biblical structure. This idea that one should put up and shut up when hurting is diametrically opposed to the heart of God.  In fact, Jesus insisted on hearing the truth.  Your son is demon possessed?  Lets hear about it.  You have an issue of  

blood?  Tell me your story. You know a guy living in a graveyard because he is so dangerous?  Explain it all.  You were a whore?  I am listening.  Your son is dead?  What happened?  People came to Jesus and spilled it all.  Some brought others and told their story for them.  All said it right there in the public forum.  Jesus never once, during his time on earth, told someone they should be silent about what had hurt them.  He believed in getting it all out on the table and hashing it over.  Did someone sin?  Who?  What needs done?  He participated.  For Jesus, there is no shame in crying out and screaming, “I hurt, and it is because of another!”  Jesus, the master storyteller, listened to every story that came to him. He heard, he honored the pain, he healed and he helped.

But now? The shushing of the hurting is an art within the walls of the church that has left honest communication leading to healing behind, and adapted the smear campaign as its main defense mechanism, to avoid facing any need for change.  Amidst its arm waving music and gut trembling sermons meant to reach that emotional, sensual center God purposefully wove into our psyche so that we can connect with him, the church has embedded an emotion of control--shame.  Shut up or get trashed.  Be quiet or be called a problem child.  Hide what happened or risk having every part of you burned at the stake of gossip. Accept that you are not allowed to ask for resolution, or justice or even grace.  Shut up and take it.  That is the only acceptable thing to do.  The problem with this heretical teaching is that demanding silence or promising shame is not from the Holy Spirit.  It’s from another spirit—one that does not know the one true God of the Bible who is determined to free his children from the shame of not only what they have done but what has been done to them.

Four days ago I took down all my social media.

I am no longer going to cry out to the church that it is hurting people. 

No.  All the begging and anger and proving and sarcasm and yes, tears, have left me with only one conclusion.  The church involved in shame does not want the ways of God. 

But many people who have shamed by the church do. 

This place is for those who have been hurt.  We tell our stories without shame.  We give a safe place to hash it out and and we will seek Jesus—The real Jesus who loves our stories--  The Jesus who wants to know it all and will listen to every word--The Jesus who wants to help and who will not shame or blame or set up smear campaigns. 

The Jesus who loves. 

So, if you have suffered hurt or smearing or shame or some other brutality, if you have been told you are unholy for talking about it, this is where you belong.

You are welcome here.  You matter.  You are worth hearing.

Tell us your story.