Well, until that happens (which will be when Jesus comes again), here's a bit of ugly reality I came across this week, and my daydream about how much different it could be, if only "Christians were Christian".
The Ugly Reality:
I watched the documentary "Holy Water-Gate: Abuse Cover-up in the Catholic Church" this morning. Ugh. As many of you know, I myself was Roman Catholic for some time, until disgust with the whole system and discovering real-Jesus-truth meant I couldn't stomach belonging to it any longer. But even now, every time I believe I can't think any less of the Roman Catholic Church and its demonic hierarchy, something comes along -- like this film -- to prove me wrong.
In the film we see first in the Roman Church, of course, the fact that men who want and do sexually abuse and rape children are accepted and protected as "ministers" of the Gospel. And it goes on for years, and for thousands upon thousands of victims. But then the film goes on to show the Roman Church "leaders":
- telling lie after lie,
- pretending to be interested and concerned (slicker than most politicians, in fact),
- refusing to make any real fix,
- being more concerned to "protect the rights of priests" than children,
- suing victims in court for "defaming" the reputations of pedophile priests and the Roman Church,
- sending "investigators" to harass and intimidate victims and their families to make them "zip it up",
- persecuting those within the hierarchy who ask for change,
- making the whole Roman Church accomplice to child rape and seeing child rape as "just another sin to be unconcerned with",
- being entirely focused about what this all means under Roman Catholic "canon law" (meaning, the human-created doctrines and rules they've spent centuries making up and scaring, hurting, and killing people with), and never showing any interest in God's law and how that might actually differ from any even be more important than their "canon law".
- Never showing any Holy Spirit from their hearts.
All of this goes right in with all the other horrible crimes of violence, rape, oppression, mass murder, and more that the Roman Church has been guilty of for more than 1,700 years. And it's all because there has never been any Holy Spirit or real Jesus presence in the Roman Church. How can I say that? Because I judge whether something is real or not the way that Jesus tells me to.
The Daydream Not to Hold Your Breath for:
If these Roman "Christians" were really Christian, reports would occasionally surface of a minister of the Gospel who sexually abused a child (just like occasionally a report would surface of a minister of the Gospel who had murdered someone, or stolen something). However, since the church leadership had dealt with these problems centuries ago when they were first reported, they already had standard measures in place to deal with those very few rotten apples who somehow slip through the cracks and into ministry work.
Their centuries-old standard procedures would involve the church helping the victim, family, and others heal emotionally, physically, and spiritually from the damage done by the false minister. Part of that healing would involve the fully and always open investigation (and its results), kept open to not only the victim and her/his family, but also to the rest of the church and community. In this way, accountability was maintained by all, further discussion could come up regarding anything that needed to be changed, and trust of the local church would be actually earned once again. God would be glorified and given thanks (instead of being cursed by people who have been taught to associate Him with child rape).
There would be no lawsuits, because there wouldn't need to be any. There would be no shaming or silencing of the victim, because the people of the church would take full responsibility for how it did (or did not) demonstrate Christ to others within its community and to the world. There would only be love and care for others above self and one's own, and repentance when that mark was missed -- just like Holy Spirit-filled hearts conduct themselves.
