As news has begun filtering out about the sexual abuse within, and the subsequent mishandling and cover-up by the Reality TV-starring Duggar Family, Christians of all theological perspectives should take note of some of the important truths we need to uncover and remember in times like these:
1) All families are filled with flawed, unhealthy, profoundly screwed-up people.
This includes your own. No one is immune to great weakness and darkness and hypocrisy no matter how high a sheen they may manage on their exterior lives. This is one of the great commonalities within our shared humanity; that we are equally capable of inflicting incredible damage on others, equally capable of self-destruction, and equally in need of forgiveness and mercy in the times that we falter. Even, and perhaps especially in moments like these, it is a great mistake to use the failings of another to fuel our own moral superiority or to feed our judgmental appetites. We are all never too many steps from a fall.
2) No human beings are worthy of worship.
The Duggar Family once again illustrates the inherent danger in deifying ordinary people simply because they espouse our faith. Our modern Christian culture is as much a celebrity-making machine as the secular world, and whether it’s Duck Dynasty or the Duggars or the Palin Family or Kirk Cameron, followers of Jesus seem desperate for believers they can publicly hang their collective hats on. We are all-too willing to blindly adore those we only know from a distance, and to fashion from them flesh-and-blood false idols. These days are a valuable reminder that our need for a hero to worship has already been well satisfied.
3) Christians should never excuse away, minimize, or exploit the horrible actions of other Christians.
One of the saddest, most predictable, most insidious responses to the unfolding fiasco has been the all-too familiar “circling of the wagons” by some influential, high-profile Christians, who practically stumble over themselves in such crises rushing to support the perpetrators while calling for little or no accountability from them. In some even more disturbing cases, some self-serving charlatans even leverage their powerful positions during such terrible scandals, not to undercover truth and to seek real justice for the victims involved, but as a cheap excuse to conveniently redirect the conversation toward a profitable political agenda. These efforts do nothing other than make a really lousy testimony to the watching world; one that confirms their worst beliefs about Christians: That we have little use for the truth when it hits too close to home. They see us once again vehemently protecting “the family”, even when there is horror in our house.
4) The Church needs to lead clearly and well when responding to sexual abuse.
Our spiritual communities have to be places where we shine a raking light into the blackest spaces and drive all the demons out into the open. Much too much of our legacy for far too many years, has been of a Church sacrificing victims’ needs on the altar of Public Relations management. Our inability to admit, understand, and mete out justice for sexual violations has been one of the most heinous crimes we have committed as a Body, and it has left in its wake a trail of mortally wounded people who now view God through the lens of undeserved shame, blame, and guilt. If we continue to create havens for those who prey upon the young, the vulnerable, and the innocent, and fail to protect and restore those hurt because of some badly conceived effort to save face for our faith institutions, we prove ourselves unworthy of carrying the name of Christ.
5) There is no real joy in such tragedies.
For those who feel some sense of twisted satisfaction seeing the Duggar Family and their fortunes tumbling in the public eye, (even though it may be quite understandable and I too admit this was my knee-jerk response), the wounded and bleeding heart of the story is that young girls have been violently victimized and scarred, and that several families are being ripped to pieces from the inside and are having their personal pain made viral. These should never be moments of triumph or celebration for us, as they too can be our own pettiness and hatred disguised as righteous anger. There are no responses to events like these more appropriate and more God-honoring than honest, agenda-less grief for the pain of others and a true desire to see healing come.
Whether you are a Christian rejoicing at the deserved comeuppance of a family you believe has profited from exploiting themselves and their faith; whether you are grieving deeply for the stolen innocence of those who have been harmed at the hands of a trusted abuser; or whether you are feeling led to defend and protect a fellow family in faith in a time of great (although self-inflicted )adversity, we all should approach times like these with humility, with prayer, and with a genuine hunger to reflect our religious convictions as clearly and as firmly as we are able.
Ultimately our personal integrity and our spiritual maturity are not measured by those public figures we identify with from afar or by the shiny veneer we apply to our own visible religious personas, but by the deep and individual response of our hearts to the suffering and brokenness of others.
This is the challenge to all who claim Christ in times like these.
