Two and a Half Cents

This week's news coverage has included the recent discovery of unmarked children's graves at a church-run school in BC. It's an example of how bad things can go and we can expect to hear more about nominally Christian people behaving badly as this story continues to unfold. Today I'd like to share a few thoughts about reacting to hard news connected to our Christian faith.

First, it's very sad. It's OK to find the story very sad even if we haven't participated directly in it. Kids taken from their families because of a system forced on them by governments and churches is very sad on many levels and to hear how many died and were treated with indignity in that situation can feel overwhelming. We might find ourselves moving between the different grief stages when we hear news like this or we might feel like running away from the news so we don't need to think about it. The story might bring up difficult memories that seem unrelated. Be kind to yourself and others as we think about this and talk about it together. On the other hand if you don't give a care one way or another maybe it's time to let your guard down and think about the experience of others a bit more and let yourself feel sad or angry.

Second, it's important to listen. I didn't go to residential school and neither did my parents or grandparents or any other relatives. The government of this country has never had a formal policy to eradicate my culture. Church people don't usually tell me that I will go to hell for following the ways my parents taught me. I can imagine and project and compare and relate but I don't know about those experiences. I need to listen quietly and respectfully to others. This is hard to write but we live in a mostly segregated community and attend a mostly segregated church, not by law or policy but by custom and habit. It can become hard to hear other points of view. Whether we hear from someone we know or a First Nations person from Portage or Brandon or Kamloops on the news describing their experience, our first job is to hear that person out. That's hard for me. I want to respond, sometimes argumentatively or sometimes compassionately, but the urge to put in my two cents is very strong. My two cents can stay in my pocket this time. Having said that, here are three more things to think about.

Third, to a large extent, we stand with the accused on this issue. It may be that our particular branch of the Christian church didn't run residential schools and that some elders we know were punished for speaking their mother tongue rather than English in school. However, my ancestors assimilated into English-speaking Canadian culture as the school system and government told them to. Our congregation has put some effort into not standing out and we try to be as welcoming as possible by getting rid of unique cultural traditions that newcomers might find awkward. While this has its place it also means that we give up the ability to deny involvement with wider church culture when it becomes uncomfortable. If we want to be generic Christians we can stand with the undifferentiated church when it comes up for criticism. To put it a different way, I don't know the differences between Ojibwe, Cree, Dakota, and Dene cultures although those First Nations are all here in the province, so I should not be surprised when the accusations about abusive behaviour by Christians are levelled at all of us whether we are Anglican, Catholic, Baptist, Mennonite, or non-denominational. The Christian groups that partnered with government to run residential schools will need to suffer specific legal liability but when general frustration is levelled at all of us as people of Christian faith we may need to absorb it without splitting hairs in response over which sub-group of Christians we happen to be connected to.

Fourth, many church groups including our congregation and conference are involved in education, activities for children, and learning additional languages as part of wider efforts at spreading the faith or what is sometimes called evangelism. We need to look carefully, soberly, and with nerves of steel at the missionary efforts that we are involved in and root out abusive behaviour as we find it. This applies to us locally and those we support and partner with further away. We may need to change or stop some things and mourn and apologize for things done in the past. We should be asking direct questions to our board, ministerial, conference leadership, and the leaders of ministries that we partner with. Christian people are not always well-intended and we have a famously difficult time confronting problems in our own ranks. Even when we are well-intended we don't always come across as we should. In the gospels Jesus says, “let the little children come to me” and that invitation does not come along with compulsion, fear, threats, hoops to jump through, intimidation, secrets, trickery, boundary violations, racism, or being pulled out of safe space. It is always an invitation to blessing and relationship. In Scripture, Jesus does occasionally yell at people and call them names but when that happens they are adults taking advantage of positions of power.

Fifth, there are many people in between the organized perpetrators of a bad thing and the victims. Each residential school at which abusive behaviour took place had staff members, community members, board members, and members of surrounding churches who knew what was going on to some extent. These are people who are both victims of a system and part of it at the same time and I need to be careful to not assume what people did or did not know. However, when I hear about abusive systems I wonder how many people knew but were afraid to say, knew but didn't want to lose their job, knew but didn't want to damage someone's brittle reputation, knew but didn't think it would make a difference, knew but hoped someone else would fix it, knew but hoped to solve the problem gradually through policy change, knew but thought it was an acceptable price to pay, or knew but had something else on their mind beside mercy, justice, and humility before God. When we hear a missionary report or a service worker speak or a camp staff member describe their work we can ask, “What else is going on?” We can ask, “Is there anything difficult or uncomfortable in your experience?” We can ask, “Which things need attention in order to become more Christ-like?” We can ask, “Are you OK and are the people you work with OK?” We can ask, “What do we have to learn from the people you've met?” We can ask the same questions about the activities we are involved in locally.

The very first problem that the brand new Christian church faced in the book of Acts was connected to systemic racism and access to services. The more things change the more they stay the same. The church was providing food for widows. In Acts 6 we learn that those from a Greek-speaking background had a harder time getting food than the local widows did. The new church took specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely action to fix that problem. They immediately appointed a group of seven capable people representing both cultures to manage the food distribution program. They recognized the issue publicly. They gave the new group a mandate to do what was necessary without interference from the preachers and evangelists in order to make the situation fair for all who applied. That position in the church is now called a deacon. That's a simple practical model that we are still invited to.