Thinking the truth of sexual abuse would be a distraction means we don’t know the gospel of the crucified and risen Lord, and that we have a disembodied faith.
The disembodied faith of SBC leadership causes 3 tragic results…
• The debasement of bodies (primarily of women and minorities)
• The distortion of truth (as a way of life, not just an idea)
• And the disfiguring of mission (separated from character)
Is it any wonder so many young people are deconstructing their faith when institutions like the SBC are in denial about how they have been destroying people’s lives, and covering it up?
Is it any wonder people are leaving faith because they just don’t see the love and the truth that Christians proclaim?
Is it any wonder people are turning from God because they just can’t imagine loving a God that allows these kinds of people to run his church?
The Sex Abuse Report of the Souther Baptist Convention
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, a bombshell report was released about sexual abuse within the Southern Baptist Convention—commissioned by the SBC (trigger warning regarding the topic of sexual abuse, but I don’t talk about any details).
Sarah Pulliam Bailey fairly summarizes the report with these four points (I skimmed the SBC report Sunday evening):
1. Top leaders repeatedly tried to bury sex abuse claims and lied about what they could do
2. A former SBC president was considered “credibly accused” of sexual assault
3. Unheeded warnings went on for decades
4. Leaders seemed to put concern over potential litigation over people’s safety
Basically, SBC leadership punished accusers and survivors while protecting the perpetrators of sexual abuse.
Russel Moore, who was a top official in an office run by the SBC and who left last year because of things in this report, calls this the South Baptist Apocalypse because of what he describes as a “criminal conspiracy” happening within SBC leadership.
And the ever insightful David French asks, “How many bad apples must we pluck before we recognize that the orchard is diseased?”
The current SBC president, Ed Litton, notes that “Your sin will find you out”.
The 3 Results of a Disembodied Faith
So I want to expand on my complaint that the conservative, evangelical-fundamentalist church in America needs to recover an embodied faith by pointing out three results of a disembodied faith.
1) The Debasement of Bodies in Disembodied Faith
The modern search for timeless truth as a foundation for certainty—beyond cultural differences and religious disputes—actively disregarded the embodied realities of our physical, sexual, and cultural bodies as vehicles for discovering truth.
Over time this meant that evangelical-fundamentalists decided that the body of Scripture was the only body that counted in the pursuit of truth.
This disembodied faith—by definition—debased physical bodies, especially those of women and people of color through sexism and racism (but also through disassociating from our emotions causing tragic mental health results).
Concerning sex and gendered existence, this disembodied faith of modernity caused a body denying purity culture that offered little in sexual formation and offered much in shame and abuse through prioritizing male bodies over female.
It is tragic—but not surprising—that over the last 20+ years the SBC has both sought to dismiss the female body (by moving more and more toward a gender hierarchy of male headship) while also engaging in the domination of the female body through sexual abuse.
This disembodied faith denigrates bodies.
And we—the white, evangelical-fundamentalist church—must repent.
2) The Distortion of Truth in Disembodied Faith
Similarly, the disembodied faith of modernity distorts truth as content we hold in our mind.
But really, truth is something we are conformed to in our bodies, through our communities, as a way of life in the world.
Authority and Corresponding: Disembodied
The disembodied faith of modern evangelical-fundamentalism so often acts like truth is a matter finding the right authority who will guarantees the truth (the Bible and the Bible teacher/preacher).
And—sorry if this is getting too philosophical—this disembodied faith thinks that truth over here (in the mind) corresponds to something over there (in reality).
And disembodied faith leads to a blind trust in authority.
• “They must know more than I know.”
• “They must be trusted over my own thoughts and experiences.”
• “They must know what is best for me, even when I feel like I’m the one being led astray, being taken advantage of, or abused.”
This is what a disembodied faith centered on authority creates—a situation ripe for abuse.
Accountability and Conformity: Embodied
An embodied faith, on the other hands, knows there isn’t a gulf between our minds and reality.
Instead, we are always already fully engaged in the world—engaged with our minds, emotions, bodies, communities, and cultures. You could say that our minds are always embodied, embedded, and extended in reality.
And because of this we don’t look for authorities to tell us the truth.
Instead, an embodied faith knows that we are accountable to the truth of reality.
Truth and reality are bigger than us and our ideas. Truth holds us accountable as reality. Not the other way around.
And because truth is something we are accountable to, not an authority over, truth is something that we are conformed to.
Truth changes and transforms us. We are conformed to the truth in our minds and bodies. The close we move toward the truth the more we are shaped—even transfigured—by the truth.
The disembodied mind thinks that its truths correspond to reality as a representation of reality. But really, our embodied lives are conformed to reality through relationship with reality.
And this accountability and conformity to truth happens in community where we are all shaped and transformed together.
And a community continually shaped and transformed by the truth (rather than relying on a single authority to tell us the truth) reduces distortions of truth that lead to abuse.
This disembodied faith distorts truth.
And we—the white, evangelical-fundamentalist church—must repent.
3) The Disfiguring of Mission in Disembodied Faith
The debasement of bodies and the distortion of truth lead directly to the disfiguring of gospel mission. This disfiguring reduces mission to merely the proclamation of a message disconnected from the character of the people proclaiming it.
As in many other terrible examples, the SBC reports notes that sinful abuse was hidden out of fear that the mission would be hindered, that the beauty of the gospel would be marred by the sin of the speaker, that those receiving of the gospel would be repelled by a revelation of sin.
Not only is this the fear, but this was the reason given to those reporting abuse and those surviving it.
“If you report this abuse YOU will be the reason the mission fails. YOU will be the tool the devil uses to destroy the mission. YOU will be the cause of people falling into hell.”
This is spiritual abuse at its purest.
Not only has someone been abused by a spiritual authority, but now they are told that reporting the abuse will set back the mission of the gospel itself.
Instead of lifting up the gospel of the crucified and risen Lord who endured abuse and shame for us, the covering up of sexual abuse by leaders for the “sake of mission” is to throw the gospel down to the demonic level of causing more abuse and shame in others.
As if the one crucified for us was not already disfigured enough by our sin for our salvation, now the covering of abuse for the sake of mission, disfigures the gospel so much that those who desperately needs are fleeing from it.
This disembodied faith disfigures mission.
And we—the white, evangelical-fundamentalist church—must repent.