About Sin and Spiritual Abuse

In the Old Testament, we find that God cannot look upon humanity, because to do so would destroy us.  He has to hide his face, and even Moses can only see his back as he passes.  We are told that God’s holiness is so supreme that it will destroy anything that is not as holy as he is.  If God turns his face fully upon that which is profane, or evil, it is immediately destroyed.  God hides his face, as an act of mercy towards us.  He veils himself towards us, and he veils himself in the Temple.  When Christ dies, this veil is torn in two, not just for those who encounter him physically, but for all of mankind.

To maintain a relationship with God, the ancient Israelites had to protect their own sanctity from contamination from outside.  Their faith is under seige, and in danger of defilement at every moment.  Christ turns this concept around, and shows us that holiness sanctifies all that it touches, and cannot be defiled.  When he enters the house of a sinner, he is not contaminated, but rather the sinner is sanctified, and enabled to recognise how far he is from God, and to wish to return. 

By definition, evil cannot exist in any place where God is.  When God withholds his sanctity he leaves a place of separation; an absence of God's sanctifying love which we call evil.  He knows this evil is there, but he does not turn his face towards it, or look upon it.  This is parallel to Christ turning his back on Satan; he does this so that he does not destroy him.  It is not clear why God does not look directly at evil and destroy it, but the meaning must be found in love.  Whatever God looks upon, he sanctifies.  Where evil exists, and continues to exist, God’s face is turned aside, not in wrath or anger, but in love.

This is why the concept of sin includes separation from God, and why without Christ the committing of sin has such a devastating effect on mankind’s relationship with him.  Not because of what we do, but because it creates the only possible barrier between him and us. In our unredeemed state, God removes his holiness from us, to protect us from it. When looking up at the clouds, we can either see them as hiding the sun, or as protecting us from getting burned.  Both interpretations are true. 

John the Baptist preaches a gospel of repentance, forgiveness and baptism; Christ does not.  John behaves like an Old Testament prophet, which is, of course, who he is.  Christ behaves like God, with one important difference.  God cannot look upon unredeemed man without destroying us.  Christ can and does; he delights in doing so, over and over again.  He loves unredeemed mankind, in any shape, any form whatever.  In Christ we can see that God is bored with the sanctimonious, and wants to get to know the really interesting people.  So Christ enters and starts fellowship with everyone he meets; and he begins with relationship, not repentance.  Repentance is the product of forgiveness, not the agent of it.  The agent of forgiveness is Grace.

Because Christ is God, his divinity casts out sin like the sun burning up a puddle, but his humanity means that the person before him is not destroyed, but purified by his presence.  Christ cannot see the sin because it has gone; only the brother or sister in front of him remains.  To the pure, all things, and all people, are pure.  If we truly follow Christ, we must do the same.  Almost invariably the repentance offered to Christ is as a result of the acceptance that he offers first, freely and without condition.  His forgiveness is not conditional upon repentance, but rather repentance is the first fruit of his forgiveness.  This is why Christ offers something very different from any other prophet, any other faith; because only he is God.

God's grace always precedes any action, any thought, any move on our part towards him.  And our response to his grace always meets him more than half way towards us.

Christians who revert to calling for repentance before offering God’s acceptance are reverting to the Old Testament pattern of John the Baptist crying in the wilderness.  More importantly, they are forgetting that our duty is to love God, one another and our enemies; nothing more, nothing less.  A duty so simple a child can understand it, and so complex that we spend a lifetime learning what it means.  Christ does not impose himself upon anyone.  He stands at the door and knocks; he does not batter it down.  He leaves us free to accept or reject what he offers, as we prefer, just as the good parent does not hold onto his children for a lifetime, but allows them to be free.  What God demands from us in return is not belief, but love.  And Christians certainly do not have a monopoly on love.  Any person, of any faith, who demonstrates Christ’s sacrificial love towards his brothers and sisters is following Christ.

Those who insist on an elitist Christian God, one who rejects all other faiths, all other love, also forget Christ’s words in Matthew 25, warning that not all who call him Lord will enter eternity, and not all who enter eternity will be those who call him Lord. 

Repentance is the fruit of Grace.  Christ’s presence is equal to Grace, and there is usually no need for him to even mention the repentance bit; his very presence sanctifies, if we allow it to.  God in Christ is able for the first time to look into the eyes of sinners without fear of destroying them, and through Christians he can continue to do this.  When God does this, he sees his own image reflected back, and he forgives.

So, which is it to be?  Do we step into God's place and burn up our fallen brothers and sisters in the holy fire of our righteous anger, or do we follow Christ and offer them our unconditional love and acceptance?  Which of these two choices will enable the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts? 

In the end, most of what we regard as sin is irrelevant. What matters in our faith is love and relationship.  All the rest is so much chaff, blowing in the wind.

‘...There is not a single nature who is in the first place or last place in creation in the Creator’s knowledge.., similarly there is no before or after in His love towards them: no greater or lesser amount of love is to be found with Him at all. Rather, just like the continual equality of His knowledge, so too is the continual equality of His love.'

St Isaac of Syria

The First Person of the Trinity. 

From the 10th Century Sherborne Pontifical,

owned by St Dunstan.

Spiritual abuse

Having concluded that most sin is as irrelevant to our relationship with God as the misbehaviour of a toddler is irrelevant to his relationship with his parents, I now come on to one very important exception; spiritual abuse.  This is a particularly nasty variant of emotional abuse, but the two are very similar.

Spiritual abuse is just about the single most serious sin any person can commit towards another person.  This may seem hyperbolic, but the effect of spiritual abuse on a devout believer is to destroy not only their relationship with the person committing it, but also to damage, and perhaps even destroy completely, their relationship with God himself.  Because of the power dynamic it also constitutes psychological incest, in my view.  This can have a profound and most literally soul destroying effect.  Who knows how many people today have suffered from this kind of thoughtless, pointless, damaging behaviour? 

What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?  Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 

Matthew 16 v 26

 

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 

Matthew 10 v 28

It is very clear on whose behalf Christ says these attempts to destroy the souls of believers are made. 

When a person stands in a position of ministry towards another, he or she takes on to some extent the ability to speak for God, and this is a responsibility which is sometimes taken very seriously, but sometimes very much abused, in my view.  Most cases when this trust is broken will be relatively minor and insignificant.  At its worst, however, spiritual abuse will cause people to lose not just a bit of their faith, but all of it.  And the responsibility for that loss of faith will not lie with us; the faithful.  It will lie with the minister whose carelessness allows it to happen; no doubt whatever about that.  The responsibility for sins resulting from spiritual abuse will rest with the minister or the priest causing it. 

Spiritual abuse can take many forms, but it is always the sin of blasphemy; people claiming to speak or act for God over and above their authority to do so.  They cannot admit their own opinions as their own, and so pretend that God thinks this way, and worse still, that he is communicating a message of condemnation via a third party; a minister.  Once you are aware that such behaviour exists it is relatively easy to tell whether they are actually speaking for God or not; in Christian terms, you simply have to consider whether Christ would actually speak in this way, bearing in mind that Isaiah says very clearly that he will not break a bruised reed, and he will not quench a smouldering wick.  Christ did not pick up a stone, and hurl it at the woman caught in adultery, piously telling her that it was 'God's will' for her to be pelted with stones.  Christ always behaves according to the prophecy in Isaiah.

People do not know the full facts about anything, Christ does.  Therefore, it is a very dangerous thing indeed for anyone to presume to pronounce judgement on other people, in his name.  By all means offer them his love, mercy and compassion; that will rarely if ever be out of place.  But do not say that their vocation is not real, or that it is God's will for them to suffer ill health, unemployment, the loss of a loved one or any other painful experience in life.  Quite simply, this is not true.  These events are the result of living in a fallen world; they are NOT the will of God.

It makes sense for any believer to behave as if the difficult times in their lives are sent by God, and to give him the thanks for all the good times, and to try to give him the honour he deserves, whether the times are good or bad.  This is not the same thing as a minister telling someone that what has happened to them is God's will, or spreading slander about them around the parish, or denying their vocation before God.

All of these are very human behavours, and if they were just that; humans being human, they would not matter a bit.  I am very imperfect myself, and I don't have a problem with other people being human.  I do, however, have a problem with other people offering me an interpretation of God that makes him into a necessarily vindictive, callous, uncaring and frankly psychopathic individual.  I have a problem because it takes me some time to work out what is true and what is not true about this huge blasphemy.  And if it takes me time, when I have been a believer all these years, then what would it do to someone whose faith is fragile, or who is relatively young in faith?

My God is not vindictive, callous, uncaring or psychopathic, therefore when I am told it is 'his will' for me to be treated in a way which amounts to vindictive, over a period of time, then I know for a fact that this is blasphemy.  I am sure that Christ would not treat anyone this way.  God's message is always positive, in other words.  It is never the case that God rejects anyone, and least of all someone who he knows to have a very challenging existence, one way or another. The very idea is unthinkable.  He does not always give us what we ask for, but when his answer is no he does not at the same time attempt to destroy our integrity,.

So why do people do these things, and convey these negative messages?  Clearly, they are not, on the whole, bad people.  They are, on the whole, well meaning, but perhaps more than a little thoughtless.  In my view the simple truth is that they are afraid to take responsibility for their own decisions, and most importantly admit to their own prejudices.  As the saying goes, you can be pretty certain you have constructed God in your own image, when he hates all the same people you do.  Such prejudice is nothing whatever to do with God. 

Newsflash: God gives us the free will to make our own choices, and we do.  When we have done so, it makes no sense to then absolve ourselves of all responsibility for our own decisions and dump them on the Deity.  That is quite simply not what he is there for.