When I’m addressing a group largely composed of people who have experienced brutality (a lot of my congregation), I focus on validating their pain; on the solidarity Jesus offers with those who suffer; on their essential human worth, dignity, and strength.

I also tell them that it is a healthy response to push away from people and systems who abuse them.

That, while they can and are asked by Jesus to forgive people, they do not have to reconcile. This is difficult, especially for people who grew up Christian and live under false expectations of excessive niceness. Who have not been taught the deep, difficult spiritual work of reconciliation — work that requires both parties to enact.

Desmond Tutu — Shutterstock.com

Reconciliation is an ideal goal for Christians, but as father-daughter duo Desmond and Mpho Tutu teach us in The Book of Forgiving, reconciliation can only happen when when the abuser owns the damage they’ve caused, apologizes, renounces continuing the harm, and offers any restitution demanded by the victim. Short of that, victims can not reconcile with their abuser.

I was abused by progressive evangelicals — by individuals within it, as well as by the system. So were many of my congregants. So were many people who attend the Wild Goose Festival. Progressive evangelicals are dangerous for queer people. If you’re straight, you may not be able to hear that. If you’re a progressive evangelical, it will probably make you feel angry and defensive, because you don’t want to think of yourself as dangerous, especially if you consider yourself affirming. But if you listen to the voices of those who have been harmed, you must accept this as true: progressive evangelicals are dangerous to queer people. Especially progressive evangelicals who think they’re not dangerous.

As someone who was abused by that group, I now draw healthy boundaries to protect myself and pastor congregants to do the same. It took me five years of therapy to unlearn the poor boundaries I learned in evangelicalism — boundaries that resulted in me reluctantly splaying my personal life all over the altar at the demand of a hostile crowd and allowing people to poke and prod at my most intimate relationship.

Many of my congregants have been through conversation therapy, have had family members refuse to see them, have been told they will go to hell, have been kicked out of homes, have been kicked out of churches, have been shamed in their faith communities by making public “confessions” of being gay, have attempted suicide, have been denied jobs, have experienced deep depression and chronic anxiety because of being rejected by people of faith, have been told the way they are attracted to romantic partners is intrinsically distorted. I’ve heard enough tearful stories — and lived my own — that I’ve evolved from “let’s all agree to disagree on this” to a position of protecting, defending, and advocating for the abused. At this point in time, choosing a “traditional” reading of Scripture over the cries of the oppressed is choosing to make an idol of the Bible over the one commandment that provides the lens for all Christian ethics: love your neighbor as yourself.

Through my own journey back to health, I’ve learned that I do not have to speak with my abuser(s) or with the people who stood there and watched the abuse happen. In Girardian terms — if you’ve studied the scapegoat theory of atonement — I don’t have to interact with the mob who stoned me. (Ken and I go through scapegoat theory in detail in part two of Solus Jesus: A Theology of Resistance.) In fact, it’s not healthy for me to interact with them. It’s also not healthy for me to interact with the people who watched the mob stone me but who did nothing.