#Clergylivesmatter

It's an old, sad, pattern. Allegations of abuse inside a church's walls begin. People are ostracized, members driven away by the old guard circling the wagons. Counter attacks fly. Character assassination of the accusers spreads through the rumor mill like wildfire, all working to discount the credibility of the victims. People insist that they will withhold justice until they have heard both sides, all the while ignoring the fact that only one side is speaking publicly.

We spent huge amounts of time in school examining these patterns, learning the ways to predict them and subvert them before the call for fair judgement became complicity in abuse. Barring our oldest clergy, I doubt a single pulpit thumper like myself got through school without studying it somewhat, and younger clergy spent significant time with it.

But we still see it. It's rare, but it's there, and every time it comes to the same thing. Abuse is about power, and power gropers in the church always tend to follow the same lines. And there is always someone there to defend them in the name of "fairness," or to protect the reputation of the institution.

Frankly, I think it's time we toss out the reputation of all our institutions. They do more harm then good.

So when I see similar patterns emerging elsewhere... I find them very hard to ignore.

In the same way that a great number of clergy do what we do because we want to do good, a great number of police are the same way. But the power seekers are there, and the thing about power seekers is that they seek power. They establish themselves deep into the bones of the organization, until it becomes a layer of protection around them that the folks just trying to do their job don't get.

In the church, when an abuser comes to light, a lot of people who don't condone the abuse still try to hide it, again for reputation's sake. But in the end, that doesn't work, because the abuser isn't just going to stop. Why would they, having been caught and then PROTECTED? Power is their drug and they WILL pursue it, until like any addict, they go too far, and then when it is impossible to hide, the reputation that would have been tarnished is instead destroyed. You still can't talk about priests in social circles without people bringing up rape and pedophilia. How many generations of good priests will it take to clear that shame? Five? Six? Will it ever be cleared?

We don't know, because it hasn't happened yet.

I've spoken to many people, some of them police officers, about the rise in police violence awareness. They protest groups like Black Lives Matter in the name of preserving the reputations, and raise hashtags like #bluelivesmatter in order to protest the backlash against peace officers. But here is the thing... you can't protect good cops if you are protecting bad cops.

Again, look to the church, at all those hard working priests have been tarnished, forever, by the actions of a tiny minority. What if the Church had responded, owning it's abusers and removing them so that the world could see that the safety of parishoners was more important than the church's reputation? We failed to get that right, and I don't know how long we'll pay the price.

The public opinion on police is turning, but it might not be too late for the Cops of the United States to do the right thing, removing their abusers from power and showing that the safety of citizens is more important than the reputation of the fraternity.

But so far, it hasn't happened. So far, all I see are wagons circling and the fraternity looking to its reputation, rather than the safety of the people.

And it feels depressingly familiar.

 

The Worst Thing About Trump

How could you pick just one, right? He lies so often and so blatantly you start to wonder if he even really has a concept of what truth IS. He regurgitates populist tripe against minorities, he treats women as objects and laughs about it, demands loyalty beyond what any President should receive and, to top it all off, doesn't seem to be a very good businessman, either.

But none of that is the worst thing about Trump. The worst thing about him, by far, is his effect on other people.

I'm not even talking about the people who grow more and more frightened the closer he gets to power, though that is bad enough. No, I am talking about the everyday Americans who go into public forums to stump for their candidate and promptly turn into horrible people.

Yesterday I stared in horror as a member of my congregation posted meme after meme excusing the behavior of Trump while attacking Chelsea Clinton. Chelsea! Not Hillary, not even Bill, but their daughter, apparently for being the child of rich parents, which I always thought would never be a crime according to Republicans.

I've seen Trump Supporters, people whom I love and can vouch for as loving people, attack transgendered people as potential rapists. I've then seen them claim that bragging about sexually assaulting women should be seen as unfortunate, but normal, behavior. (So why are worried about trans people?) I've seen them excuse the murder of young black men as an acceptable, if unfortunate (maybe) consequence of law and order. I've seen them advocate prison, exile, or even execution for political rivals. I've seen them applaud violence against protestors while passionately condemning email use, heard them cheer for "bombing the shit" out of terrorists while claiming to fear refugees from the countries they want to "bomb the shit" out of, and I have even seem them do these things scant minutes after praying to a loving, compassionate God that they claim to believe in!

It's a tough place for a Pastor to stand in. I've seen colleagues of mine forced to tone down their rhetoric in the name of some illusory political "fairness" as they get attacked by Trump supporters in their congregations, wondering if their ability to do ANY kind of ministry might get eclipsed by the demand that they not reveal how the things he does are so antithetical to the Gospel.

It's not easy for politicians, either. I've watched Trump supporters demand other conservative politicians walk in ideological lockstep with the Donald even if it means betraying their core ideals, as if this election was a football game and we could pressure the politicians to support the nominee like forcing players to support the quarterback.

I'll probably get a comment or two about how this post is biased, how it doesn't cover both sides, but this, very simply, does not happen with Hillary Clinton. You don't see anyone out there saying that every Secretary of State should use their own private Email Server, or that Benghazi was a perfect execution of foreign policy. No one holds up Clinton's flaws to claim that they are virtues, no one has ever described her as the perfect candidate, or denied the roll that politics has played in her career. She just isn't that kind of candidate. People support her, not because she is the perfect human being, but because she is the most qualified for the job, or barring that, because she, quite simply, isn't Donald Trump.

And here is my worry... this is just the effect of Donald Trump, the candidate. Imagine his behavior modeled, not by a presidential candidate, but the President of the United States. Imagine the normalizing effect that would have on these behaviors, as people saw their WORST impulses exemplified, EVERY DAY, by the most powerful person in the world?

Don't tell me it wouldn't happen. I already see it happening every day. But this is just the beginning. Donald Trump has to be defeated, because if he isn't, his effect on the American People will only get stronger.