My Thesis:
I recently left the church after having once been an elder and also working for twenty years in church elderly homes as a male nurse and later in management. In caused a ripple and many people, knowing how I spoke for a liberal faith, were perturbed and some were downright annoyed. I left saying that I blame nobody personally, but that the structure of the church as I experienced it is generally malevolent for people who engross themselves in activities so wholeheartedly as I have.
I described the problem as a dilemma, since the church (in my experience) pursues an idealism that stems against reason and would have believers shout “nonetheless” or “anyway” in the face of opposition and fight on, despite evidence that their position was purely idealistic and that other approaches could be considered. Often, the resistance I experienced was not to protect substantial content, but to protect habits (often deemed “tradition”) and prevent change in the light of human development.
My contention is that church leaders knowingly or unwittingly promote this idealistic behaviour and accept that there will be the collateral damage of numerous people falling into burnout and depression as a result of it. Having been myself the victim of burnout, I was amazed to find out how many other people who worked for or were committed to the church had experienced the same. Looking into this aspect, I discovered that not only are there many burnout victims, but also cases of alcoholism, religious paranoia, phobia and schizophrenia to be taken into account, not to mention the numerous cases of helper-syndrome. It turns out that not only people looking for an ideal, but also people looking for a niche, in which they could live out behaviour which would be a source of conflict in normal society, tend to be committed to the church.
The discovery of rehabilitative centres, which amount to psychiatric clinics, in which at least members of clergy can recover from these numerous disorders, shows that the problem is not unknown, but it is not accepted that the problems are widespread. Recently it has been found that pedophile priests have also found a haven in these centres, once their tendencies are found out. However, the tendency to play these things down and continue in the ways which produce these problems is the normal practise.
A second problem that has become apparent is the effect of peer-pressure and indoctrination, especially in lay-movements. On the surface these groups or churches appear to be very charismatic and there is the odd miracle, with laying on of hands and the person concerned falling backwards in a trance. The members sing themselves to ecstasy and tears to hype up the atmosphere and a very emotional sermon is held which has everybody crying out hallelujah. As outward-going as these people are when it comes to witnessing their faith, there are a large number of people who succumb to the external influences and therefore spend as much time in the church and at retreats “to build up for the encounter with the world” as they can. They need the hype to cope with modern day reality – if the actually do. I know of many members who lead dual lives, in which their behaviour in work is different to the way they present themselves in their parish. There is a clear bracketing of accepted behaviour in the world which finds no acceptance in the parish to be observed.
I spoke with a social-worker regarding her work, after her having had difficulty finding a place to work which fulfilled her requirements, and we conversed in the normal language of social science, psychology and nursing. In the religious environment I noticed how she presented herself as a bulwark in the tide of “psychological wish-wash” and that all these people needed was Jesus. Another woman spoke to me about employment in the care of disabled people, ensuring she knew how important it was to understand the psychology of the people she would care for, but in the religious environment she spoke derogatively about this aspect of her job, saying that the disabled “rejected Christ”!
These examples are the kind of cases which have caused me to question the vocation I had when going into nursing at a relatively late stage in life, which I had understood as an expression of love. There are numerous other examples. At first I had confirmation of the fact that faith is a healer, which I attributed to God working through the faithful. Gradually, however, I noticed how other Christians were critical of the things I had learnt, despite the positive experience I was having with that growing expertise. I even had to intervene when I saw a “brother” reacting to a patient in a completely unprofessional manner and reaped contempt for the specialized knowledge I recommended using in that case. Strangely, where I found acceptance in the church, there was no acceptance between the different groups. The one was “too wordly” and the other “too fanatical” in the others eyes.
Therefore I find that the church, not only locally, but generally, doesn’t have the healing effect it would like to have. The bright shine only blinds the onlooker for the human frailty underneath. On the other hand, I have had many positive experiences helping people with nursing in combination with spiritual counselling and a non-literalist reading of the bible. Expression of the love of God, whether by theistic practitioners or not, is to be found in more genuine places than the church. In fact, after leaving the church, one becomes more aware of what else is going on around the world – which is quite sobering.
This doesn’t mean that individuals in the church manage to create a healing atmosphere despite the adverse structural conditions, but it is very often a struggle against the mainstream.
Does anybody else have views on this?