Craving Connection During Deconstruction
For the first four decades of my life, church was my world. It provided human connection and made me feel like I was a part of something bigger than myself. Church was where my children developed friendships with peers and connections with adults who claimed to love them. I truly believed that the church was made up of imperfect but goodhearted people who would be there for you and love you no matter what. The church was supposed to be the hands and feet of Jesus, living out the first part of Isaiah 61 that Jesus read in the synagogue.
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
The church was supposed to represent light in our dark world and healing for the brokenhearted. It was supposed to be so many things that I found out all too quickly it was not.
When my world was falling apart, instead of finding hope and family within the church walls, I found abuse, exploitation, victim-blaming, and abandonment. Rather than finding healing, my pain and vulnerability were used against me, and my brokenness was replaced with an irreparable shattering.
Some of the most difficult beliefs I have had to deconstruct in recent years are the beliefs that pastors are good, churches are safe, and people who make up the church are loving. I have come to understand that these things are merely an illusion designed to maintain status, power, and control.
The typical response to experiences like mine is, “But that’s not all churches,” and I am sure they are right. There must be good churches out there … somewhere. Yet, what I found as my children and I visited churches, trying desperately to find a place where we could belong again, was a network of pastors whose main goal was to protect each other’s images as they slandered and vilified the people they abused.
As story after story of corruption, abuse, and coverups within the evangelical church in America have come to light, the church no longer represents (for me and so many others) a place of safety, hope, healing, or the human connection we all long for. Is it really a surprise, then, that around 40 million people have stopped attending church in the past 25 years? (1)
Leaving the church left an incredible void in my life and the lives of my children. Deconstruction is necessary but incredibly lonely. Trying to find a place where you can connect with other people is difficult. Even social media, which initially simplified connection, has become a place that facilitates anger and hostility, isolation and detachment.
Science continues to prove that real connection with other human beings is vital to our mental, emotional, and physical health (2). Churches around the world capitalize on this need by using words like “home,” “family,” or “belong” in their names, slogans, and mission statements. Unfortunately, for those of us who have encountered soul-crushing abuse within its walls, these are worse than empty promises; they are a betrayal.
For me, finding genuine human connection has become one of the biggest challenges in my life. I long to find a place in the real world that represents everything the church once represented for me and especially for my children. Friendship, care, conversation, connection, relationship — how do we find these in 21st-century America, where “church” has become synonymous with corruption, abuse, and pain? I certainly do not claim to know the answer, but it is something worth pursuing. If those of us whose eyes have been opened to the evil that resides within too many church walls can work together to create connection, if we can fight the urge to isolate and push past the fear of being harmed again, perhaps we can find the answer together.