Mary and I just returned from clergy conference at which the topic was domestic abuse. It was a long hard day. We heard personal stories of domestic abuse and also learned some valuable information from experts that we as clergy need to know. In many cases clergy hurt the situation more than help it….One person told the story of a woman whose priest told her to stay in an abusive relationship because God disapproved of divorce!….We learned a lot of dos and don’ts; safety first the modus operandi of any abuse situation….and we also learned how vast this problem is in our culture….and perhaps most importantly we learned that this problem has nothing to do with a bad temper, or stress, or substance abuse, or anger management, though those things can exacerbate the problem….but the issue for a chronic abuser is power and control…power and control….the abuser is constantly taking calculating steps to isolate, disorient and hurt his victim…victims of abuse are best described as captives…and the saddest reality is that children in a family in which there is systematic abuse learn this behavior….and the rehabilitation for an abuser has long odds.
It strikes me after a few days of reflection that this problem, the problem of excessive power and control, permeates our cultural and collective life as well…and it causes abuse….the insatiable need for power and control permeates our world….in corporate America and the global economy for that matter, in the military industrial complex, in finance, in politics and government…the goal is power and control, wealth and military might, the outward and visible signs, the sacraments, as it were, thereof. And this insatiable need for power and control engenders abuse in our world, and that abuse always affects first the most vulnerable, the poor, the voiceless ones who live on the margins of the human community. In arguing against the doctrine of Papal infallibility in the mid nineteenth century Lord Acton said it best: “that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. I don’t have to remind you that the agendas of the gospel writers was to subvert the corrupt power and control of the empire, and cause that power to be redistributed among the powerless…to give dignity and voice to the abused of our world…So, as Christians who claim to follow the gospel teachings of Jesus….this is our vocation as well….to empower the powerless…to free the captives of abuse and neglect. Community organizers know this: that when groups of people who lack power find their voice and dignity they find the ability to change their world and the world around them.
One participant in the Rector’s forum just the other night asked the question vis a vis our vocation to bring mercy, justice and dignity to our world….Where is the moral authority? And I think that authority lives in the people…the collective conscience of the human community…people got us out of Vietnam….people got African Americans civil rights….people are demanding freedom from abuse and demanding empowerment and dignity all across the Middle East. One of our problems in the U.S. is that we have a large privileged class, and it is easy for us to be satisfied with such privilege….and satisfaction insidio begets indifference. The frightening irony is that the very power and control we condemn (as I am doing) are the very engines in no small way of our privilege.
We have printed in this week’s Herald an article by Bonnie Anderson who is trying to live out her Christian vocation as a proactive leader of the church (she is the president of the House of Deputies) She, who is one of us privileged, has chosen to be in solidarity with the disenfranchised of our world….We would do well to follow her model…Our voices must be used for the voiceless…We must be about making sacred place for the place-less of our world, as Jesus commanded….the immigrant, the refugee…the unsheltered, the sick and the poor….We who have abundance must find a way with voice and creative action to redistribute freedom, power and dignity in our world, to empower others with a measure of creative control by relinquishing our own need to control, the long odds notwithstanding…..because never doubt that corrupt power and control abuses….and the abuse must end.
Excellent article. good to know the awareness ,of the depth of the abuse in american society, is growing among those who are in the best position to assist those being abused and less fortunate.
the puzzle to me is the “why” does anyone have the unhealthy need to totally control another human being, even to the point of death?
any answers out there?