| Subject: Repost: SJ: When Church Hurts (2003/01/01) |
Author:
Eugene
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Date Posted: 21:40:31 09/21/03 Sun
2003/01/01
SJ: When Church Hurts
Mark 9:42
“And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.”
On October 28 of last year, my friend David Dong (also David Sodeyama’s best friend since childhood) committed suicide. For the last year of his life, I hanged out with him quite a bit; moreover, at one of the lowest moments of my life, he encouraged me to go on living with hope.
Although I have only known him for a year, I have gotten to know him as a generous and very personable guy. I know little about his life before we met, but all those who were close to him testified that he was a loving and giving person who would empty his own pocket for any one in need. He was a shy and awkward kid, but developed into a person who could just get any one to open up to him -- mainly because he always opened himself first. He treated “sinners” - homeless persons, drunkards, etc. -- as human beings, and I realize that kind of dignity is often more needed by these human beings than the so-called “sympathy”.
Before I met David, he was on a spiritual search and had spent three years with a “Christian” group known for their strict legalism. After their attempt to “disciple” him, he practically cut off all his former friendship and withdrew from his way of relating to “unholy” people. When I met him, he had just left the cult and sought healing from the emptiness it created in him.
David’s death remains a mystery for most, if not all, of us who came to know him. In his suicide note he merely said that he had been depressed about the meaninglessness of life. About the churches in general, he simply stated that knowing the impurity of the churches was the last straw that broke his back. I remember the last time I saw him at a Bible study; at the time we were both struggling with the problem of church attendance -- I was kind of giving up on churches and he was trying his best to attend a (in my opinion) really good church.
“So,” David asked me when we were by ourselves, “How is your church life?”
“I don’t know. It just seems like I don’t know who ‘my people’ are anymore.”
David looked sincerely sad, “I know what you mean. I am also struggling with the same question.”
It is sad to realize that what is supposed to be a “body” does not even remotely resemble a “people”. It makes you wonder whether the churches as we know it really is what Christ would call his body....
Of course whenever we talk about the follies of churches, we never failed to point out that, as a human institute, church is far from perfect. However, sometimes some churches hurt more than our spirit can bear. Many people wonder about David’s death: Isn’t suicide a sin? I think it is a sin but, once committed by children who really were hurting and really sought His healing, it is pardonable by Christ. However, those who had led his little one to sin....
The problem of the millstone around the neck is not at all about the inherent imperfection of the church. It is more about whether a certain group of people can become one unity and align their common heart to the heart of Christ. There is no ambiguity!
Re: SJ: When Church Hurts (2003/01/04)
By: once a victim
church has driven me to attempt suicide before, yet church has also rescued me from that deep pit of depression. It all depends on how you look at the situation.
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