“They subtly or even overtly erase the voices of women, of the marginalized of the violence done to us. I’ve read their accounts and I know what is missing. I know what hides in the cracks. I know whether accidentally or on purpose, the gaps they leave gape at me like wounds that are never sewn up, crying out to be seen, to be wept over, to be soothed and healed. In the absence of this telling, this listening, this learning, the past follows us. Its desperate fingers hold the hem of our garments, it will not let us go.”
From prophet to priest,
everyone deals falsely.
They have treated my
people’s brokenness superficially,
claiming, ‘Peace, peace,’
when there is no peace. (Jeremiah 6:13-14)
Dr. Valerie Hobbs and I have something in common. We both bear wounds from the church. Wounds that are healing, scarring, bearing a testimony. Wounds that we are not going to cover in shame. We will look at them and allow them to speak, help us mourn the violence done to us, help to even reveal our hope. Because hope will not deny our wounds of their pain. Hope will agonize the loss of goodness, groaning for glory. Valerie and I have become friends through our shared groaning and hope. So I will use her first name.
What we don’t have in common is our childhood. And the extent of the harm done. Valerie grew up under Dominionist theology and the fruits of that in the Neo-Calvinism of today. Don’t be mistaken to think we are talking merely about the fringes of the church here. I’ve experienced the manifestation of the theology Valerie grew up in. You will see in her book how it appears even in beloved Christian colleges like her alma mater, Covenant College.
No Love in War is an auto-ethnographic memoir, helping us see the everyday realities of how this theology manifests in interpersonal relationships of family, friendship, dating, education, and launching into adulthood. It reveals what it does to a person. How very manipulative it is. And the hate that fuels it. Ultimately, her book is a fight to love. To see Christ. And therefore, a refusal to treat hers and so many others’ wounds superficially. They must be seen and named.
This is what the LORD of Armies says:
Consider, and summon the women
who mourn;
send for the skillful women.
Let them come quickly to raise
a lament over us
so that our eyes may overflow
with tears,
our eyelids be soaked with weeping. (Jeremiah 9:18)
Our American culture does not employ professional wailers or lamenters. Maybe we need them. Valerie is a skillful woman we need to summon for communal mourning. God will not skip this step in blessing his church.
She uncovers “that gnawing knowledge we stuff down.” Because what is stuffed down in the body of Christ is also done to Christ. No Love in War is not a book that you read once, give a few accolades to, and then move on. I’ve already read it twice and will continue to return to it as her story helps me tell my own. It helps me to name the harm done. It helps me to mourn. It helps me to hope. And to see beauty. To settle for nothing less.
To read it is to feel like you are spending time with her. It makes you want to go back with Valerie in her story and bless the younger versions of herself for the goodness of her longings. Even for the methods she employed to cope. To bless her body that was so internally scorned and battered. When I read:
“In those early times of torment, I often fiend stomach pain so my mother might allow me to miss ballet class, speaking a lifelong digestive order into the world, such was my commitment to self-preservation.”
I want to mourn this with her and yet bless her fight for self-preservation, despite the devaluing messages that her body and soul received.
Here is the heart of her plea:
“What does a person do when she has witnessed so much cruelty and despair, yet never been asked or allowed to speak about it, to recall it, to try to understand, to learn, even to heal from it? What becomes of a person when almost no one asks what this place or this people did to her and her family and friends, and no one thinks to question what the outcome is of such a place? What fruit grew from this, from you? These are the things about which almost no one inquires. Denied permission to record in the public memory what we have witnessed, we carry the stones of memorial in our bodies documenting all we’ve suffered as a matter of historical record, an archive of the minutes of torment written into our very blood. The modalities of our memory are these: migraines, rashes and other skin disorders, digestive disorders, dental cavities, depression, insomnia, anxiety, allergies, cancer. When our voices are silent, when we cannot find the words, our bodies cry out, communicating in their own language that brutal history from which our tongues have been forbidden from telling.”
“Peace, peace,” they say. We need to look at this and wail. And name it for what it is. God does. Here is the beauty. When we weep together over what is done to his people, we are comforted to find Christ in one another’s faces.
I am broken by the brokenness
of my dear people.
I mourn; horror has taken hold of me…
This is the LORD’s declaration. (Jer. 8:21, 9:3)
“One of the cruelest acts of vandalism in an abusive community is its defacement of love and the glorification of hate and violence that goes on in its place.”
Through her story, Valerie reveals how hard it is to see clearly. How the messages stick to you. How the shame is unrelenting. How hard it is to leave:
“One of the most difficult acts is leaving, in believing that I can go, I can exercise choice, free will. I too can act. It takes an act of enormous courage to discard the lie that I need these people, that person, that Man, the falsehood that without them I will be lost…”
It’s escaping, really. It’s a fight to see what is real. To get out of the cracks and see the nature of beauty. It’s digging down deep for that mustard seed of faith to walk in this path of Love.
“But here’s the real sting, not only that we embrace the hate that harms us, but that we can also be ignorant of Love, deprived and unaware of it, unable to locate even our longing for it…Dominionist theology, what all this empire building ultimately robs us of—the stunning mystery of intimacy and connection, of gentleness and dignity, of complexity, of knowing and being known, of letting go, of reveling in beauty without calculating its kingdom purpose.”
6 Comments
wajill
on June 26, 2023 at 8:01 am
Thank you for sharing this. I look forward to reading her story. Keep exposing the lies. I left the PCA and a faith community in Texas. I didn’t suffer to the extent you and Valerie have, but I suffered enough. I’m done with them.
The analogy of war is very fitting. I would say that the leaders of the Reformed church see themselves as officers in the war, and the rest of the members are privates. It’s not just women, but also men who are expected to unquestioningly follow the orders of superiors. It’s also men who are told that whatever they suffer at the hands of the church, her leaders, and the world, are an unwelcome and unworthy distraction from the suffering of the leadership at the hands of the church, fellow leaders, and the world. We accept friendly-fire casualties in the name of the “greater battle”. That is not the way of Jesus, who flips that upside down. The greatest shall be the servant of all. Maybe in Heaven we will see the celebrity pastors sweeping the streets while the faithful women who tirelessly worked to better the kingdom get their deserved rest and acclaim.
And, to leaving… The theory of the Reformed church is that members must convince their sessions that they’ve “done enough” to reform the church. We have to make a “request” to transfer or have our names removed from the rolls. Not surprisingly, when I told my church I was leaving, DARVO was present in full force. I was the attacker against the poor session. While they acknowledged their common human frailty and error (not sin, mind you) in not knowing how to treat me in love while being attacked (sigh), they didn’t offer to work together towards reconciliation or offer a true apology. Instead, they offered to help me fix MY sin. Hard pass. I don’t think I can learn to grow in love, grace and joy from men who refuse to show me love or grace and rob my joy.
Greetings, Mark… love to dialogue if you’re interested… share experiences for the value that brings in thinking things through in God’s presence with someone who has understanding because of ‘common experience’. I’ve been working to get to some of the deeper roots underlying the very serious problems that are being ‘laid out on the table’. Just like physical disease, which causes serious ‘symptoms’ that can be lethal if not addressed, there are roots underneath the lethal problems being surfaced that are killing churches today. managing the symptoms is not sufficient; the underlying causes need to be diagnosed and then treated, as well.
The symptoms are what actually cause the majority of the suffering and are problematic themselves, severely so, impacting the vitality and, when unchecked, in ways that become lethal. (the symptoms are serious and addressing them is the exact right thing to do, and many are addressing the symptoms and going deeper as well, and are right in their analyses; there’s just more to uncover that hasn’t been fully brought out into the light, yet, though).
I see a few roots; publicly listing them here would not be productive (but likely would stirr up further controversy for the person who this site belongs to…which would not be a good thing to do).
I worked in academics, in medicine. Everyone in an academic medical center knows that the mission is both a worthy one, and ‘what it is’-mitigating human suffering (and death) caused by diseases and lifestyle choices that can be changed to make people better. the latter is more difficult to deal with; and one our world is afraid to deal with, though discussing this approach is not off limits…
In the church, there’s a suppression of discussion of any problems under the guise this somehow ‘violates the peace of the church’. that’s nonsense.
There needs to be a place where people who have clearly been led on a path in God’s providence, to KNOW the problem well in a way that only comes through empirical, experiential wisdom, can listen and learn from each other, and engage in a conversation together toward uncovering the deeper roots and finding ways that both mitigate the harm done by known problems, and figuring out ways to address other problems that we are able to surface.
I worked in academic medicine; I have some critical issues with the way medicine is done on a national basis; we have whole areas of our demographic that don’t have anything close to ‘equal access’, and the pandemic showed us the high cost that the lack of access brought on some demographics in America-where the majority of death and serious morbidity took place. The facts are there for anyone to see, who looks.
the same is true in the American church; the demographics hurting the most in America, where God has called His people to minister, are there for anyone to see who has open eyes and a heart willing to care…
I think about difficult, multifaceted, complex problems much more clearly when I am emeshed in a community of people oriented toward a common goal who have been grappling with the same problems and evidence progress in our understanding of them.
The church doesn’t seem to foster what was normative to some degree, across most of medicine. Every doctor, as aware as they are of their own particular ‘giftings’, knows that they require a team to carry out their work; even a doctor in private practice in a rural community, requires additional support from both technical and managerial staff. More complicated medical problems require increasingly larger teams with members who have additional training, knowledge and expertise.
Somehow, in contrast to the biblical paradigm of Christ as the Sole Head of HIS Body, orchestrated through the Person of the Trinity who stands now in the immediate ‘paraclete’ role, the Spirit of God, who gifts and orchestrates the functioning of the whole Body as an integrated unit, we’ve adapted american culture to how the ‘American’ church operates… in almost all its basic aspects..
That’s not a small problem to begin to address…
I’ve sadly seen in my walk in life, many of the ways ‘authority’ has been both wrongly taken as a basis for operation, and misused in multiple ‘communities’ I’ve been part of, including ones I actively served in, as a ‘servant leader’ following Jesus.
One of the ways we learn is from walking paths where there are mistakes made; those often can be the richest experiences, when we take adequate time to reflect on them, afterwards…
Gaining the most from those experiences, often requires what Aimee is doing after her very difficult and life impacting experience; reflecting on them, guided by the difficult experiences of others.
I spent an hour and a half yesterday, skimming through a book written by aa respected linguist, that doesn’t deal with linguistics, but shares her very difficult experience in a way that informs a very important issue in our day. I’ve not read enough to say more than that. And didn’t post it in response to Aimee’s comment, yet. I don’t think I’ll be qualified to post even after reading and grappling with what Dr. Hobbs has written in this narrative. I’m not sure i know anyone emeshed in that more extreme ‘cult like’ environment; though I sadly know people on the ‘shiny happy people’ spectrum.
Anyway-I just wanted to make an introduction. If you’d like to communicate, Aimee has been gracious enough to make the connection, so that emails don’t need to be posted where they can attract nuisance emails or stalkers who have nothing better to do than harass other people.
I’ve seen other comments, and would love to chat and ‘share experiences’ toward finding better ways to adress problems of common concern.
I finished the book today. wow… It’s a compelling and a difficult read. But one well worth taking time to read and think about. But there’s so much depth that it requires more than can be posted in a comment, to give a response worthy of the writing.
I am a third of the way through this book, and it is (dramatic, thoughtful pause) dark.
It is also very well written.
But it…is…dark.
I think Hobbs captures the exact right tone of the darkness that results when broken people use a mutant version of God to dominate others. Hobbs has written a book in the lineage of the darkest passages in Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
Thank you for sharing this. I look forward to reading her story. Keep exposing the lies. I left the PCA and a faith community in Texas. I didn’t suffer to the extent you and Valerie have, but I suffered enough. I’m done with them.
The analogy of war is very fitting. I would say that the leaders of the Reformed church see themselves as officers in the war, and the rest of the members are privates. It’s not just women, but also men who are expected to unquestioningly follow the orders of superiors. It’s also men who are told that whatever they suffer at the hands of the church, her leaders, and the world, are an unwelcome and unworthy distraction from the suffering of the leadership at the hands of the church, fellow leaders, and the world. We accept friendly-fire casualties in the name of the “greater battle”. That is not the way of Jesus, who flips that upside down. The greatest shall be the servant of all. Maybe in Heaven we will see the celebrity pastors sweeping the streets while the faithful women who tirelessly worked to better the kingdom get their deserved rest and acclaim.
And, to leaving… The theory of the Reformed church is that members must convince their sessions that they’ve “done enough” to reform the church. We have to make a “request” to transfer or have our names removed from the rolls. Not surprisingly, when I told my church I was leaving, DARVO was present in full force. I was the attacker against the poor session. While they acknowledged their common human frailty and error (not sin, mind you) in not knowing how to treat me in love while being attacked (sigh), they didn’t offer to work together towards reconciliation or offer a true apology. Instead, they offered to help me fix MY sin. Hard pass. I don’t think I can learn to grow in love, grace and joy from men who refuse to show me love or grace and rob my joy.
Greetings, Mark… love to dialogue if you’re interested… share experiences for the value that brings in thinking things through in God’s presence with someone who has understanding because of ‘common experience’. I’ve been working to get to some of the deeper roots underlying the very serious problems that are being ‘laid out on the table’. Just like physical disease, which causes serious ‘symptoms’ that can be lethal if not addressed, there are roots underneath the lethal problems being surfaced that are killing churches today. managing the symptoms is not sufficient; the underlying causes need to be diagnosed and then treated, as well.
The symptoms are what actually cause the majority of the suffering and are problematic themselves, severely so, impacting the vitality and, when unchecked, in ways that become lethal. (the symptoms are serious and addressing them is the exact right thing to do, and many are addressing the symptoms and going deeper as well, and are right in their analyses; there’s just more to uncover that hasn’t been fully brought out into the light, yet, though).
I see a few roots; publicly listing them here would not be productive (but likely would stirr up further controversy for the person who this site belongs to…which would not be a good thing to do).
I worked in academics, in medicine. Everyone in an academic medical center knows that the mission is both a worthy one, and ‘what it is’-mitigating human suffering (and death) caused by diseases and lifestyle choices that can be changed to make people better. the latter is more difficult to deal with; and one our world is afraid to deal with, though discussing this approach is not off limits…
In the church, there’s a suppression of discussion of any problems under the guise this somehow ‘violates the peace of the church’. that’s nonsense.
There needs to be a place where people who have clearly been led on a path in God’s providence, to KNOW the problem well in a way that only comes through empirical, experiential wisdom, can listen and learn from each other, and engage in a conversation together toward uncovering the deeper roots and finding ways that both mitigate the harm done by known problems, and figuring out ways to address other problems that we are able to surface.
I worked in academic medicine; I have some critical issues with the way medicine is done on a national basis; we have whole areas of our demographic that don’t have anything close to ‘equal access’, and the pandemic showed us the high cost that the lack of access brought on some demographics in America-where the majority of death and serious morbidity took place. The facts are there for anyone to see, who looks.
the same is true in the American church; the demographics hurting the most in America, where God has called His people to minister, are there for anyone to see who has open eyes and a heart willing to care…
I think about difficult, multifaceted, complex problems much more clearly when I am emeshed in a community of people oriented toward a common goal who have been grappling with the same problems and evidence progress in our understanding of them.
The church doesn’t seem to foster what was normative to some degree, across most of medicine. Every doctor, as aware as they are of their own particular ‘giftings’, knows that they require a team to carry out their work; even a doctor in private practice in a rural community, requires additional support from both technical and managerial staff. More complicated medical problems require increasingly larger teams with members who have additional training, knowledge and expertise.
Somehow, in contrast to the biblical paradigm of Christ as the Sole Head of HIS Body, orchestrated through the Person of the Trinity who stands now in the immediate ‘paraclete’ role, the Spirit of God, who gifts and orchestrates the functioning of the whole Body as an integrated unit, we’ve adapted american culture to how the ‘American’ church operates… in almost all its basic aspects..
That’s not a small problem to begin to address…
I’ve sadly seen in my walk in life, many of the ways ‘authority’ has been both wrongly taken as a basis for operation, and misused in multiple ‘communities’ I’ve been part of, including ones I actively served in, as a ‘servant leader’ following Jesus.
One of the ways we learn is from walking paths where there are mistakes made; those often can be the richest experiences, when we take adequate time to reflect on them, afterwards…
Gaining the most from those experiences, often requires what Aimee is doing after her very difficult and life impacting experience; reflecting on them, guided by the difficult experiences of others.
I spent an hour and a half yesterday, skimming through a book written by aa respected linguist, that doesn’t deal with linguistics, but shares her very difficult experience in a way that informs a very important issue in our day. I’ve not read enough to say more than that. And didn’t post it in response to Aimee’s comment, yet. I don’t think I’ll be qualified to post even after reading and grappling with what Dr. Hobbs has written in this narrative. I’m not sure i know anyone emeshed in that more extreme ‘cult like’ environment; though I sadly know people on the ‘shiny happy people’ spectrum.
Anyway-I just wanted to make an introduction. If you’d like to communicate, Aimee has been gracious enough to make the connection, so that emails don’t need to be posted where they can attract nuisance emails or stalkers who have nothing better to do than harass other people.
I’ve seen other comments, and would love to chat and ‘share experiences’ toward finding better ways to adress problems of common concern.
Bill
I finished the book today. wow… It’s a compelling and a difficult read. But one well worth taking time to read and think about. But there’s so much depth that it requires more than can be posted in a comment, to give a response worthy of the writing.
I highly recommend it.
I am a third of the way through this book, and it is (dramatic, thoughtful pause) dark.
It is also very well written.
But it…is…dark.
I think Hobbs captures the exact right tone of the darkness that results when broken people use a mutant version of God to dominate others. Hobbs has written a book in the lineage of the darkest passages in Jeremiah and Ezekiel.