Sermon Review: Psalm 109 -> authoritarian spiritual abuse

Southside RPCNA is where Ben Manring questioned the qualifications of an elder candidate. This past Sunday (6/17), Pastor David Hanson preached a sermon on Psalm 109. It shocks me that a pastor can read exactly the opposite into a passage of scripture than what seems to be the intent, but, when it comes to taking pains to justify spiritual abuse, even the Bible takes the back seat.

I quote this Psalm in its entirety because you will need to read and re-read it to remove the spell of cognitive dissonance that Pastor Hanson wants to cast over his members and listeners.

Psalm 109 (NASB)

O God of my praise,
Do not be silent!
For they have opened the wicked and deceitful mouth against me;
They have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
They have also surrounded me with words of hatred,
And fought against me without cause.
In return for my love they act as my accusers;
But I am in prayer.
Thus they have repaid me evil for good
And hatred for my love.

Appoint a wicked man over him,
And let an accuser stand at his right hand.
When he is judged, let him come forth guilty,
And let his prayer become sin.
Let his days be few;
Let another take his office.
Let his children be fatherless
And his wife a widow.
Let his children wander about and beg;
And let them seek sustenance far from their ruined homes.
Let the creditor seize all that he has,
And let strangers plunder the product of his labor.
Let there be none to extend lovingkindness to him,
Nor any to be gracious to his fatherless children.
Let his posterity be cut off;
In a following generation let their name be blotted out.

Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord,
And do not let the sin of his mother be blotted out.
Let them be before the Lord continually,
That He may cut off their memory from the earth;
Because he did not remember to show lovingkindness,
But persecuted the afflicted and needy man,
And the despondent in heart, to put them to death.
He also loved cursing, so it came to him;
And he did not delight in blessing, so it was far from him.
But he clothed himself with cursing as with his garment,
And it entered into his body like water
And like oil into his bones.
Let it be to him as a garment with which he covers himself,
And for a belt with which he constantly girds himself.
Let this be the reward of my accusers from the Lord,
And of those who speak evil against my soul.

But You, O God, the Lord, deal kindly with me for Your name’s sake;
Because Your lovingkindness is good, deliver me;
For I am afflicted and needy,
And my heart is wounded within me.
I am passing like a shadow when it lengthens;
I am shaken off like the locust.
My knees are weak from fasting,
And my flesh has grown lean, without fatness.
I also have become a reproach to them;
When they see me, they wag their head.

Help me, O Lord my God;
Save me according to Your lovingkindness.
And let them know that this is Your hand;
You, Lord, have done it.
Let them curse, but You bless;
When they arise, they shall be ashamed,
But Your servant shall be glad.
Let my accusers be clothed with dishonor,
And let them cover themselves with their own shame as with a robe.
With my mouth I will give thanks abundantly to the Lord;
And in the midst of many I will praise Him.
For He stands at the right hand of the needy,
To save him from those who judge his soul.

Hanson: Psalm 109 teaches us to distrust ourselves

After claiming that our sense of justice is inherently God-given "he will write the law on our hearts", Hanson then flips the script (is there some Reformed playbook?) and talks  about how our innate desire for justice is somehow evil. "We want to be legislature, judge and executioner." This is a false dichotomy. Our inherent sense of justice is not de facto vigilante justice. This is a horrible caricature, and perhaps it speaks more about the pastors' hearts who preach.

[8:55] Psalm 109 calls you and me actually to a certain distrust of ourselves in these matters and instead to a trust in the righteous courtroom of God. ... And so Psalm 109 is given so that we would not trust our own courtroom, but instead that we would have this model to trust the judge, the perfect judge. 

 [10:17] in verses 1-5 we a call here that entrusting your case means, and begins with, distrusting yourself. [He repeats this for emphasis]

I had to read and re-read verses 1-5 to find this sense of self-doubt. Still can't find it. In fact, Hanson has to conveniently ignore the self-doubt when he points to the ultimate fulfillment in Jesus. [43:00] Does Psalm 109 mean that Jesus distrusted himself? Of course not! So this entire point has to be held in cognitive dissonance. This Psalm is all about self-doubt for us, but not for Jesus.

If Hanson had to honestly engage with this text first from the perspective of Jesus, it would be obvious that he is adding to scripture his own evil desire to manipulate and control through self-doubt.

Hanson: Psalm 109 says our hurt is insignificant to God

[11:55] And notice here that what is described is an extreme evil. That the case that David has to deal with in the courtroom of his brain is not 'you know there was a meeting on Friday at work, and my boss blamed me for keeping the breakroom a mess when in fact it's my coworkers.' And therefore I'm going to pray and sing this way.

This is a tactic, like sin leveling. So, yes, David is angry at being hurt, but David was really hurt. Our little hurts just don't matter like this! The implication is that our little hurts don't matter to God, and if they don't matter to God, they don't matter to the church, and if they don't matter to the church, then you should accept it and move on.  

Hanson: Suck it up or you're sinning

[13:30] And right there in a nutshell, right there in one verse [Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice] Paul has summarized exactly what the courtroom of my brain and your brain says that when you have made all these false, wicked accusations against me. When you've drug my name through the mud, I am free and justified in my bitterness. I am free and justified if I decide to be angry and wrathful and burst out against you. I am free and justified if I choose to gossip against you.

Keeping on the theme of our little trauma being insignificant, Hanson goes on to explain that even if our trauma is big like David's, we still have to essentially suck it up. The quote may sound insignificant, but we have to understand that "anger" and "gossip" are redefined and weaponized in the RPCNA.

Let's say my child is raped by an RP pastor. If I confront the pastor, I'm just being "angry". If I talk to other members about it, I'm "angry" and a "gossip". If I go to the police. "angry". The press, "angry". He says over and over "repay evil with evil", but he never really describes a just process for resolving conflict. In fact, pretty much every approach is poisoned into some form of evil. Not surprising where he decides to take it.

Hanson: Justice is between you and God alone

[17:40] Distrusting your own courtroom and entrusting your case to God means, verse 1, that we come to God alone. Notice David's disposition here. What is the court of appeal? It's not his own court, and it's also not the court of public opinion. Most of us are ethical enough to say that it would be wrong for me to do something malicious in turn. You said something unkind to me, therefore I'm going to race out to the parking lot and key your car. I think most of us are clear that that is not the biblical response. But we will struggle a lot more with you said something unkind to me that is completely out of line and I'm going to make sure that at least six other people in the congregation know about it. But David here takes the matter to the Lord and the Lord alone.

Again, what is potentially a valid response to trauma gets blown out of proportion and turned into some sort of checkbox for wrongs. But, what if I go to a trusted friend and ask for their help in responding? This is a false dichotomy and it's so broad that you could drive a Mack truck through it. What if someone tells me they're going to shoot me as soon as I exit the building? Seriously, don't tell anyone?!

This is the same sort of gaslighting we see time and time again in the RPCNA. The purpose is deliberate. DON'T TRUST YOURSELF. Don't stand up or speak out. Preserve the peace at all costs, even if you drive yourself to a mental breakdown!

Hanson: David isn't asking for specific judgment, just general principles

[25:21] And actually what's happening here in verses 6-20 is that David is just praying God's law back to God. God I am being grossly mistreated here. Here is my case, and by the way, here is what you have promised in your law will happen to those who deal this way. You have outlined that this is your justice.

[33:20] Lord you repay them according to your standard of righteousness, your standard of justice. So entrusting our case to the Lord means not trusting ourselves, first of all, and secondly means trusting God's standard of right and wrong. God's standard of perfect justice.

Hanson completely ignores the language of verses 6-20 and turns it on its head. The "imperative" part of speech means "the form of a verb that is usually used for giving orders". David is saying to God, do this! do this! Yes, David is, in the Spirit prophetically speaking what will happen to his accuser, and what will happen to Judas, but the example here is not a mere recitation of statutory law in the hopes that something will stick.

Hanson's implication is that David is saying, "God, if this is a class 2 felony, then your law says he should get 5-10 years in jail. God, if this is a class 3 misdemeanor, your law says he should be fined up to $500." David is saying, God! I want this guy to be in jail for 10 years!

It's problematic for Hanson to flip the script yet again and say that this David somehow just tossing the offense into the wind and hoping for something to stick. Instead, David, a man after God's own heart, is demanding his rights before God. It's not, "Hey God, it'd be nice if you put him in jail for a few days," but "YOUR LAW says that he gets 10 years, and you'd better get it done or you're not true to your word!"

Hanson: Psalm 109 says we have to hand it all to God because we're depraved

[40:50] Those are reasons why we can say that it is good and appropriate for us to sing and to pray Psalm 109. Psalm 109 removes the court case from my courtroom and says "I know I'm totally depraved. I know I miscarry justice. God, I turn this over to you. It affirms God I'm trusting your law, your rules, your penalties, and not mine."

Hanson: Now forget everything I just preached when it comes to Jesus

[42:40] And they said we know that Psalm 109 applies to us right now, because Psalm 109 is really talking about the approach that Jesus had to the courtroom that really mattered. And it's in Psalm 109 that we read 'let another man take his office' and they identified in a particular way and appropriately so, recorded by the scriptures, that Psalm 109 was talking about the relationship between Jesus and Judas Iscariot. And so Psalm 109, we know, is actually a psalm that would have been on the lips of our savior and that scripture tells us explicitly applies to him.

Obviously, this is where the entire logic of his entire sermon completely unravels into a ball of spaghetti on the floor.

What would Hanson "teach" Jesus by this sermon?

Jesus should distrust himself.

Jesus's hurt is insignificant to the Father

Jesus should "suck it up" when he is wronged

Jesus should never spoken openly about the injustice committed against him

Jesus should "turn it over to God" because he's depraved.

Conclusion: RPCNA preaching turns scripture into spiritual abuse

This sermon is completely typical of what you see. "Exegesis" is merely the pastor putting his own words into the Bible. He cannot possibly understand Psalm 109, because his interpretation of Psalm 109 cannot possibly apply to its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus! And therefore the instruction from his false interpretation cannot apply.

In fact, this is just Hanson dictating his own rules for dealing with persecution in the church.

You're an insignificant worm.

God doesn't care about your little problems.

Whatever emotions you have or justice you desire is inherently wrong.

Shut up about it.

Don't take any action.

Maybe Satan could say it better, but I think Hanson has tried hard.

Synod Ben Manring decision, the Jesus test and standing...

 RPCNA Synod met last week. I was most interested in the Ben Manring case, since it was likely that Synod would kick the can on the many issues coming from GLG, but this required some sort of decision.

Ben Manring was disciplined by his church for e-mailing publicly available information about a potential elder candidate to his congregation. The potential candidate had signed a complaint to Synod in opposition to the handling of the IRPC case. Synod had voted against the complaint and Manring thought that the candidate's disagreement with Synod was material to his qualifications as elder. Such a complaint might be seen as a divisive course.

A little bit of irony here is that Professor JG Vos was credited for single-handedly saving the RPCNA from demise. The mechanism that JG Vos used was mass mailing his complaints to any person who might have any impact on a decision. When a controversial speaker spoke at Geneva chapel, JG Vos transcribed his speech and put it in the mailbox of every faculty member. When the RPCNA was considering women in leadership, Vos wrote a letter and sent it to every session and elder in the RPCNA. As far as I know, no one, especially the conservatives who rule the RPCNA petitioned to have Vos disciplined for his actions.

The opinion of the Session, which was supported by the presbytery and ultimately Synod, was that a member did not have the right to e-mail fellow members about elder qualifications. This is a horrible decision on many levels. I'll talk through a few:

It fails the Jesus test

Here is my summary of the Jesus test. Any opinion that makes Jesus a sinner is wrong. Some say drinking alcohol is sinful. Yet, Jesus says, "I come eating and drinking and you call me a glutton and a drunkard." In other words, Jesus drank alcohol. If drinking alcohol is sinful, then Jesus is no longer the perfect Son of God and unblemished lamb. We are still in our sins. It's a pretty powerful test.

So, in the Manring case, Manring was rebuked by his session for telling the congregation something that was not what the session wanted them to hear. Synod apparently ruled that a member does not have the right to e-mail the congregation something in conflict with the view of the session.

Why does that make Jesus a sinner? Jesus publicly rebuked the church leaders of his day. He called Pharisees hypocrites. If a church member is sinning if they make a public statement in disagreement with church leadership, then Jesus is a sinner. The RPCNA is now on dangerous ground. In protecting the authoritarian hierarchy of the church, they are condemning Jesus. Who is their god? Jesus or Hierarchy?

It undermines church elections

Part of philosophical underpinnings of RPCNA elections comes in the interpretation of Acts 6. The church leaders in Acts 6 were elected by the people, then ordained by the apostles. According to the RPCNA, there is a belief that church leaders should be elected from the people. They would reject any idea of prelacy - the Catholic/Episcopal belief that church leaders are appointed by church leaders.

Many Sessions fall afoul of this already in their authoritarian bent by "nominating" candidates, which puts an undue burden on members, who may take this as the very representatives of Jesus saying they approve of a candidate.

But, what is here is even scarier. The qualifications of an elder candidate are material to the election. Manring believed that the candidate's opposition to the handling of the IRPC matter was a significant consideration in whether he could be an elder. In fact, he believed that signing the petition disqualified the candidate from the office.

Given the unique understanding the RPCNA has had about elections, it is surprising that they now want to muzzle members. What would the RPCNA do if a member was convicted in a secular court for writing that a political candidate had signed a petition supporting abortion? Would they say, well, the state is your authority and you should trust God to bring about his desires? Of course not, they would go ballistic!

It's not surprising that an authoritarian, cultish church is going to spiral into prelacy. Of course, they will do it talking out of both sides of their mouths. Like a former church that paraded a candidate around the church, and then when the election came, claimed "we don't want to nominate a candidate, we want this to come from the congregation!" Complete horse crap! In fact, this church conducted the election in such a way that any congregational input was disallowed. It was a session meeting and the only time the floor was open was for nominations. So, a member wanting to bring something up (like Manring would have) would have been in contempt of court.

It destroys accountability and creates a secret society

Presbytery and Synod documents are considered open to all church members. There's a reason for this! At least at the time this was written into the RPCNA Constitution, the pastors and elders believed that light was an antidote to darkness. This was at a time when the church debated whether a member or leader could be a member of the Masonic order. The church ruled that any organization that relied on secrecy and the suppression of truth was incompatible with Christianity. Hear that again. SUPPRESSION OF THE TRUTH IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH CHRISTIANITY! So, Synod's rule that e-mailing the congregation about concerns with a candidate that are derived from the public record is somehow a rebukeable offense is creating a secret society, in contradiction to the church's own law and order. If members cannot openly speak the truth for fear of discipline, then the church has shut its ears to the truth. Why is the RPCNA so afraid of the truth? On the judgment day they are supposedly preparing their members for, every sin will be publicly exposed. Do these men truly fear God? I honestly have to say, no. They fear other men. This decision seems to come from the mentality of what the leaders might expose themselves to. In other words, if Manring is allowed to expose uncomfortable truths to the congregation, what happens if my sins are exposed? This isn't about serving God, it's about PR and damage control.

It's not surprising, then, that what seems to be the biggest takeaway post-IRPC is putting the church in control of the narrative. The Stephen Rhoda paper sought to make it a chargeable offense to go to the press. The Orlando/RPH paper was about the offense of going to public courts, and now the Manring paper creates a precedent that saying anything that could be taken as undermining the session's narrative is cause for discipline.

Manring's only "win" in this was that the session didn't follow the right procedure. It was okay to rebuke him for telling the truth, but they should have told him first before e-mailing the congregation.

Just remember, in an authoritarian system, it's okay to sacrifice a few lambs to protect the hierarchy. It's okay to send a wife back to her physically abusive husband to "protect the sanctity of marriage". It's okay when one member is told to shut up about another member's abuse to protect the public image of "Christ's Church". It's especially okay when a member is thrown under the bus to protect the power and control of the church structures.

For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation...' (Luke 11:49-50)

Why the RPCNA pushes shame and doesn't understand joy

 

Having read a lot of books on shame (Chronic Shame by Patricia DeYoung is a good example) and most recently a book on Joy (The 4 Habits of Joy-Filled People by Marcus Warner and Chris Coursey), I want to piece together why NAPARC churches, and the RPCNA specifically, are stuck on a fear loop and unable to teach their members a joy-filled life.

Throughout life, when we experience trauma, we often need others to come beside us and help us deal with the intense emotions.

The Fear Loop:

One approach to dealing with trauma involves rejection. Often, rejection stems from believing that certain emotions are evil or are an incorrect response to the situation. Maybe we see a child who is crying because the Mac-n-Cheese was homemade and not from a box. Rejection can take multiple forms from direct threats to non-helpful verse quoting, but the point is ultimately that their strong emotions are not welcome.

"If you can't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about"

"Your dad is in a better place now. No reason to be upset."

"All things work together for good"

"This too shall pass"

"It's been a month since that happened. Time to move on."

There's a lot of complexity to the effect of rejection (see Chronic Shame). Essentially, our right brains are looking for a connection with our caregiver, authority or friend, and when we are rejected, our left brains fill in the blanks with the only theory possible - that the rejection is rational and that there is something wrong with us. (DeYoung calls this left-brain response "shame")

Since we are communal beings who want to fit in, we learn to suppress trauma so that we do not suffer rejection. This suppression has negative consequences. It leads to anxiety, "chronic" shame, and fear of rejection. It can cause adverse health conditions.

I think that this loop is the experience of many lifelong RPs, and a pretty typical experience within our American culture. Rejection is a natural response to, a screaming child, or an angry parent or whatever thing breaks the peace. We want that to go away, and rejection is the simplest approach. We couch that rejection in religious terms, and now God is part of the fear loop. We're taught that our strong emotions don't belong in the throne room of God, and since we approach God's throne in prayer, our prayers need to be positive.

When I've experienced "Joy" taught in a fear cycle church, it's taught in a completely repressed or dissociative sense. In other words, joy is what we experience when we suppress our natural emotions for the "good" of the community. Joy is a pasted-on smile.

There is a lot of talk about churches "grooming" people for abuse. This is a mechanism by which spiritually abusive churches groom their members. The members are trained, by continual rejection, that their strong emotions are problematic. They are not trained to understand and deal with the emotions, but rather suppress them in the name of the peace of the church. When an evil person comes along, they know that members of these "fear cycle" churches have suppressed their natural defenses against evil people, in the supposed name of Jesus. People lose their ability to discern the difference between pastors and wolves because they are using the same techniques (fear manipulation) to motivate change in the church.

Ultimately, the fear/shame loop teaches an incorrect view of God and an incorrect view of humanity. We see God as the scowling judge, and not as our loving father. No matter how we shove our emotions and paste on a smile, we know we are never pleasing. We look at our peers with contempt and distrust, because our hurts and pains are never important enough to be reconciled. Instead, visible peace must be preserved at all costs, even if it means I hate my fellow church member for what they did to me, but I know that the church will discipline me for my "uncharitable spirit" if I ever bring it up.

The Joy Loop:

A different way of dealing with trauma is mirroring. Whether we agree with the cause of the strong emotions or not, our first step is to respect the humanity of this person by being present. Job's friends sat with him for a week helping him process these emotions before they started questioning whether the emotions came from truth or falsehood. For children, it might be saying something like, "I see that you are really really angry." - naming the emotion. We want their whole brain (see The Whole-Brain Child by Siegel and Bryson) to be engaged in processing the emotion.

I think this is shown in scripture. We don't believe in a God that, like the fear cycle teaches, is somehow unable and unwilling to deal with our strong emotions. Quite the opposite. We believe in a God who wants us to pour out our hurt and pain, our joy, whatever is on our hearts, to him, and we believe that same God calls us to do the same for others as we represent him. Even if we are unable to listen, we can be honest.

"I understand you are hurting and you deserve help, but I'm too busy right now." 

"That's a huge burden! I'd love to help, but I'm emotionally spent."

Maybe we sound like we're uncaring, but what is more uncaring, being honest or saying something trite to put their burden back on their shoulders with the added confusion that something must be wrong with them?

The joy loop isn't easier. It's more difficult, in my opinion. We humans, by nature, are going to avoid the pain and commitment of walking beside someone as they process their trauma. It takes a second to reject someone, but maybe hours or weeks to sit with them and hear their story.

However, God has modeled the joy loop and set it as the pattern for how we operate as a church. We're told if one member suffers, we all suffer. That isn't a fear cycle statement. In the fear cycle, one member suffers and the rest say, "suck it up and put a smile on your face!" God asks us to do the hard things. True reconciliation, true restoration. We don't slap a band-aid on trauma so we can "move on".

I was in a church situation, unfortunately, I was young, opinionated and abrasive. The church was split over some important issues, but nothing that was "fundamental". Instead of acknowledging the strong emotions, having adult conversations and perhaps compromising, or at worst, parting ways as brothers, each side launched into an underground proxy war. First, elder candidates were scrutinized about their beliefs, and, in response, became evasive and defensive lest they say something that would cause open war. Then the session made some decisions that were not popular, causing complaints to presbytery. The pastor kept saying, "we need to move on." It was awful, and as I look back, the whole thing was important, but I'm sure we could have figured out a compromise if we first acknowledged the strong emotions and asked for understanding and clarity.

When emotions are accepted, then that gives us the time and space to process those emotions instead of repressing them. Maybe we acknowledge that we overreacted, or that the emotion came from some incorrect understanding or wrong belief. This happens so much in marriage!!! Once we process the emotions, we can return to joy. Not a "suck it up and paste a smile on joy", but a joy in understanding that we matter.

In my opinion, this teaches a faithful view of God. God wipes tears away, not by shoving them back in my eyes, but by bringing justice and reconciliation. He isn't afraid to dive into my trauma and turmoil. God does not want me to repress who I am, but wants the true me, the me he created, to shine forth. In the same way, it is more important for the church to weigh into the hurts and the disagreements and the trauma than to hide the truth from the congregation or the outside.

Legalism:

When people call the RPCNA "legalistic", pastors are correct that it is not technically "legalism". Legalism supposedly means that members would have to believe that they are saved by their works. Instead, legalism is more appropriately a church that, for one reason or another, is using a fear/shame cycle to goad its members into external righteousness. The Pharisees were likely legalistic in a similar sense, because of what Jesus says about them. Externally righteous, but internally filthy. The ones who knew better or should have known better are shutting the door to those who would enter.

It's not surprising that some of the issues coming before Synod this year are about sessions using their "authority" to cover up uncomfortable truths and to maintain control of the narrative.