Well, here's the update.

The healer didn't get a chance to heal. He was asked not to come back.

Originally, my thought was sort of a "serves him right" type of thing. But the more I thought about it, the more I lamented the loss of a true teaching opportunity.

One of my biggest complaints about life in the body of Christ is that we actually avoid the "life" part. Life is filled with disappointments and people being misled and people making mistakes and people telling great big whoppers. Yet we try to make the body of Christ appear devoid of any of it. This, even when it's plain and clear to everyone, including those on the outside, that we, in fact, ARE full of it... and it makes us look stupid, naive, and hypocritical.

I spoke to another teacher, who was every bit as critical of our speaker as I was. Yet, he was "grieved" by the fact that this guy wasn't being allowed to come back. I really like what he had to say. "If this guy had come back and done his thing, and everything he said was going to happen actually happened, we could have rejoiced about a wonderful act of God. If he fell on his ass, it would have been a great lesson for the kids in how to hold someone accountable."

If there's one thing we don't know how to do in the body, it's how to have a good fight. It's a fact... you fight with people you know. If you get to know someone well enough, you're going to eventually have a knock-down yelling match with them. If you don't, someone's not pulling their weight. But that's the beauty of family. We learn to work through this crap, because our love and commitment to each other is bigger than the conflict.

Yet, in a church where we hardly know each other and, worse, don't really want to know or be known, conflicts are buried, tossed out, shouted down, or otherwise avoided. "I don't want to be bothered with your point of view, mainly because I don't want the messy hassle of either holding you accountable for your error or admitting mine. See you next week!"

All of this was confirmed to me by the memo circulated by the administration. Our school is a place where we "avoid controversial theological issues" that might "divide or otherwise polarize our body." It's better that we have our heads in the sand than that we learn how to live with each other.

And all of these issues are related.

My students who were so afraid to disagree with the speaker are products of a system that operates and thrives on a lack of intimacy. They're scared to think the wrong things because they are not as valueable as their opinions are, and their worth is based on whether they think the right things or not.

There is no accountability for what Christian leaders say because there is no intimacy. If I don't like what the speaker says, I can go somewhere else, fire them, or ask them not to return. What I certainly do not have to do is face that person like I would my biological brother or sister and resolve the issue. Their value to me is based on what they can provide for me in the way of information, inspiration, etc., and if they aren't pulling their weight, hey, it's not like we're FAMILY or anything.

So it's a sad situation all around, and it continues to reinforce in my mind the idea that it might just be impossible for true body life to take place in an institutional setting.
posted by Stephen at 12:09 AM | |