December 11, 2014

Matthew 18 vs Patriarchy

  Reading over the BJU Investigation Final Report by GRACE today I was particularly struck by the part of how Matthew 18 does or does not apply to cases like sexual abuse.
  As someone who has been victimized in other ways, many people have pushed Matthew 18 in my face with less than any grace as if I cannot speak about what I have endured or the things I suffered until I follow their rules for me.
       (And no, while Matt 18 may be a biblical rule for conflict resolution, making it a requirement before someone speaks publicly is a personal rule that you are putting on another person over whom you have no right to put rules.)

  I remembered, during my reading, a rather traumatic event in my teenage-hood where a semblance of Matthew 18 happened.  Like all flashbacks of my traumas, this is a memory captured in a picture frame, everything crystal clear and piled in emotion, the faces and words of people hanging in the air as the scene plays out in one still life painting...  
  During one of our home-church sessions with the only like-minded family that my father could find to agree with his bajillion rules (and even so they disagreed on things like headcoverings and speaking in church... somehow those werent so bad all the sudden?) my brother somehow got up the nerve to confront my father about his past actions and his lack of repentance for them as evidenced by his comportment around people and how he acted to his family and children.

  Like he always does, my father argued that his role as head was divine right and that no matter what serious sins he committed in the past (less than 3 years ago), he had definitely repented and no longer needed to act like he was repenting.  He was free to be the patriarch as was his right.
  Slowly, my mother and older sister and myself joined in the conversation, truly sharing our hearts and crying, all of us in tears, except my mother who sat stone-faced in the corner.  She shared the least of all of us, my thought is that her pain had reached the point where tears didnt even help any more.  My big brother with tears streaming down his face, the instigator of this confrontation, sat with his back to kitchen, glaring angrily at my father through his pain, hurt, and finally letting out the magma that had been seething for years.  My older sister sat closest to me and my mother.  She had found a way out, and was planning an escape.  She contributed only when the emotion in the room reached maximum levels.  And then there was me.  I sat looking alternately out at the dismal ice-scratched face of central PA through the lace curtains, and around at the room.  I had the foolish hope that this confrontation would mean something, that somehow our hearts and tears would result in the overthrow of the spell that the Pied Piper of patriarchy had put on our "head."
   First my brother, then the rest of us adult children (I was the youngest at 18 and a couple months), and briefly my mother reiterated the problems we had with how my father conducted himself as a commiter of serious sin.  Finally, the discussion included the father of the other family we met with that Sunday afternoon... the other "pastor," the only one allowed to talk in his family, the only other part of our "church."  

  And this is when the partiarchy overwhelmed Matthew 18.  Because they dont work together.  Because like oil and water, like bleach and a stain, one must win and one must submit or get the thread it clings to burned into disintegration.  The other patriarch scolded all of us, including our mother, for doubting my father's testimony on his own behalf.
  Obviously we were all bitter and had refused to forgive our father.  We were not being the proper subjects to his god-appointed ruling.  The other patriarch's earnest, pale face and shiny bald head turned mostly towards my older brother as the instigator, I see him sitting comfortably close to my father, at times reaching out a caring hand to touch my father on the shoulder as emphasis for what a stellar patriarch my father was.  My mother retreated further into the corner, I think if she could have turned green she would have faded into the pale sage of the walls.  My older sister left the room shaking her head at the pointlessness of it all.  My brother clenched his fist and his face turned bright red, anger coursing through him as he looked like once again he had been beaten/spanked as he was as a child.
  I dont remember my own reaction, but inside another part of me shriveled up and died.  It was pointless fighting against the patriarchs.  Of course we were in the wrong, of course we had not truly forgiven.  After all, what can stand against the combined wisdom and headship of god's appointed heads?  I remember driving home feeling more suicidal than before, if that was possible.  My father was not held to repentance or required to act like he needed to make amends.
   He would often tell me that he was owed respect and that he had no need to earn it, and then this situation only perpetuated his superiority.  We bowed and kissed the boot that stepped on our backs.


  Fast forward less than a year later, maybe even as little as 6 months, my oldest sister found a way out and ran away from home in the middle of the night.  I looked into her eyes 2 days before this and saw something that took the breath away from me.  I knew that she needed to leave, or she would die.  Still suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, I realized that nothing I believed in mattered as much as my oldest sister's life.  I disobeyed all my parent's beliefs and helped her escape.
  Not knowing my involvement, my parents feared that I might be influenced by my sister's "rebellion" and decided to send me to Bill Gothard's Journey To The Heart in Northwoods.  This was a prodigious expense for my poverty-level parents, but they made it happen in order to "save" me from the same future.
  As I was packing, my mother asked me to speak to Mr. G in a re-attempt of the final step of Matthew 18.  Her exact words were "He is the last man your father respects and who can hold him accountable."  Although I had to fight to get a personal audience with G, I attempted to help my mother, my family, and myself as well, still unaware of the contrary nature of patriarchy and biblical accountability.
G took the usual course and told me to find the sin in myself and to write down the things I was grateful for that my parents had taught me.  Instead of seeing this as the last-ditch attempt of a family to seek biblical resolution for a serious sin, he turned on me like a patriarch, defending his own, and demanded that I once again submit myself to patriarchal rules.
I left in tears, ashamed of myself, because that is how he wanted me to feel.

Fast forward to today:
  While I think that scripture has some significantly good things to teach us, I think that the first thing that needs to be demolished is patriarchy.  Like the Eye of Sauron, it permeates all corners of the Fundamentalist Conservative Worldview, and opposes any attempts at dissent, even though it is a cruel, evil, and twisted power.  Patriarchy will not allow Matthew 18 to work against themselves, and therefore they render it useless.  Any other biblical passages you bring up will also be shot down.  There is no accountability or reason allowed when it comes to men.  Sin and impurity and even abuse will be allowed as long as they can keep up their "good old boys" club, and they will send the women and children through pain and torture as long as they remain in power.
SMASH THE PATRIARCHY!!!!!!!