God can and does use broken vessels. But when we see that a vessel has cracks and fissures so extensive that it lacks the ability to hold water, prudence tells us that we should reconsider how much we rely on it.
3. Grace and Justice Are Not Opposed to One Another.
In these conversations, themes of grace and forgiveness often loom large. As the chief virtues of the faith, it’s fitting that they would.
Nevertheless, whenever language of grace is employed to stop our pursuit of truth and justice, we have misunderstood what grace actually is. Grace and justice are not opposed to one another.
Exposing the truth about what victimizers have done and taking appropriate action in response to it is a grace to the abused. Listening to and valuing the voices of survivors restores some of what was taken from them: their dignity, their agency, their valuable contributions to the community of believers.
In order for the abused to experience grace, abusers need to experience justice.
This isn’t to suggest that there is no grace available for those who have perpetrated abuse or built organizational cultures that tolerate it. In the poignant if not uncomfortable words of pastor and author Albert Tate, “Jesus came for both the oppressor and the oppressed.”
However, there is no grace in denying or minimizing the impact of church scandals and leadership abuses. Jesus tells us that keeping harsh realities in the dark is the work of evildoers.
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
(John 3:19-21)
Whoever does what is true does not fear the light. Some wrongly believe that to be vocally opposed to systemic injustices taking place within the church is tantamount to being opposed to the church itself. But nothing could be further from the truth.
None of this is easy. In fact, it’s all incredibly painful. But in an attempt to minimize our own pain, let us not become guilty of failing to tend to the pain of the abused and mistreated. In our denials, we only deepen their wounds.
Let us take our example from Jesus, who for our sake stepped into the depths of pain that we might be made whole.
This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.
