Last week I had an Instagram visit with J. Warren Welch. Warren is a gifted and insightful poet with a couple of books to his credit and an active social media presence. Anyway, he shared the above piece he wrote with me.
This piece has impacted me in ways that I have tried to express going on five six drafts now.
Up front, I understand this is not everybody's experience and many folks are happy, content and very satisfied with their church. I am sincerely happy for them.
That said …
Jesus as a trauma bond rings true (in degrees) in my experience/work but the phrase sets me back on my heels.
Welsch’s experience is excruciatingly heartbreaking. I know it is not an isolated instance. There are too many stories of physical violence, sexual exploitation, spousal abuse, heavy-handed/abusive child discipline and psychological manipulation- often under the veneer of “in the name of God”.
Trauma bond.
What we believe about God shapes the way we interpreted and apply our sacred texts, and how we behave - in the church and in the world. Bad stories can produce bad behaviour… and trauma.
Tragically, many of our inherited stories we tell about God can be problematic - old stories of God behaving violently, committing genocide, killing people for disobedience, and killing his own son to atone for our sins. Stories of rapture/being left-behind and the lost destined for eternal conscious torment, to name a few.
Many affirm a loving God who isn’t very loving at all, but rather a god who is mostly angry, legalistic and vindictive. Ideas that God is good and all-powerful/all-controlling and yet suffering and evil abound. The idea that might makes right - that all-controlling, coercive use of power is legitimately divine, legitimizes our own coercive use of power.
Sadly, even nice churches can inflict religious trauma given the right kinds of pressure and circumstances. Consider the abuse of power by leadership, including sexual abuse. Consider the drama/politics between the various power centres within congregations and around the board table. Consider those with financial means who threaten to starve out the church by withholding their money if things change contrary to their liking. Often hot debates like women in leadership or the full inclusion of sexual and gender minorities in the church can cause deep wounding - in no small part because of bad stories we tell about God.
Trauma bond.
I am just going to say it - some people’s god really needs to get saved. Their inherited images of god need to be delivered from the mutations of Greek metaphysics and empire along with its controlling violence and abuse of power.
We need better stories about God. If we believe God is love, then we need rugged, healthy love stories. Stories that privilege love over stories of dominating violence and coercion.
(Sigh)
I suppose I could continue on with some (re)new(ed) faithful stories rooted in divine love. Steps forward for faith communities towards love. But not here. Not now.
Maybe what I will do is sit with this poem for a while longer.
If you are resonating with Welsch’s piece when you’re ready, may I point you to the last three verses? He points to a path, a way through. A way forward.
He writes:
“So I’ll drag their Jesus right beside me
To love the poor and the orphans
To love the queer and the broken.
To love the immigrant, the woman
And all the rest of the unchosen.
….
So I’ll just love hard and then we will see.”
I get it. This is not easy to do. We will probably need a few faithful, forgiving friends that together we courageously practice the way of self-giving, consensual love (includes good self-love too) - and in doing so drag along our toxic inherited god, kicking and screaming until such time as they meet the God-who-is-Love, and get saved.
