I read a lot of articles, posts and other 'stuff' that don't make it into my sermons, blogs or other writing that I do. I read them because they lead to other thoughts, ideas and concepts. Recently, in preparation for a sermon on humility, humbleness and humiliation I read an article about the Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene. Greene was fired from the Tribune for having an inappropriate relationship with a 17 year old who he had given an interview to while she was in high school. The article that appeared in the Chicago Magazine in March of 2003 was entitled The Sad Saga of Bob Green.
This story told of a person who was driven by accolades of success. He had a certain talent for being able to read the pulse of his readers and understanding what they wanted to hear. It is a suspicion that he often fabricated stories to get the righteous indignation of his readers frothing and to make himself look like a hero. He was created by a following of readers that wanted to believe what he wrote was true and wanted to believe that he was as good as they thought he was. Now for the irony of the situation. He was fired because the teenager, now a woman, thought her relationship with him might be worth something - either fame or money. Turned out, it was. Some quote I found tremendously insiteful from this article by Marcia Froelke Coburn and Steve Rhodes :
"What was Bob Greene's talent?" says Jim Squires, the Tribune's editor from 1981 to 1989. "He arrived at a point of view on common, everyday issues, and he expressed it in a way that obviously a huge bunch of readers in the country would look at and say, ‘I agree with that. That's exactly the way I feel.' And that is a talent. That is a great talent."
The trouble was, in public comments Greene made it clear that sometimes he did not believe what he wrote. He was just finding an angle that would make a good column-draw attention, promote his career. He mixed candor and calculation so shrewdly that, looking back over his work, it is impossible to tell when he is being honest and when he is just reaching for effect.
He had that ability to understand not only what people wanted to think and hear but what they wanted to feel. He used to to his advantage and his readers were ready to overlook the other behavior that they didn't want to know about. He of course is not the only one who used his relationship ability to excuse his behavior. I listened in absolute mystified amazement to David Letterman confess to his affairs with women on his comedy show and heard people laugh about his situaiton. He is funny, witty and in sync with want they want to believe. So....we excuse what we don't want to know about.
Now, here is the crux of my blog. While people are arguing about sexual orientation, blessings and ordination there is an age old problem that we just politely ignore -- until someone produces proof that will be publicly embarrassing. The church of full of people like Bob Green who use their ability of relating to others and spiritual massage to excuse poor behavior. If one reads the whole sad saga of Bob Green the handwriting was on the wall. He was cutely referred to as a womanizer. The staff members of the newspaper warned young women staffers and interns about his behavior and cautioned them in being alone with him. He behavior was excused by his editors because his readers (the locals) loved him and he provided the Tribune with a loyal following. He kept people at peace with the Tribune! From the mega churches to the local priest of a small congregation we excuse inappropriate behavior of spiritual people (not just men and not just clergy) because they are able to hook the people with their ability to publicly relate to them. I've known clergy who, in their rage, have thrown things at acolytes, berated lay readers and sworn at empolyees on a regular basis. But, because of their other gifts their behavior is likely ignored or explained away because people like them. I've known congregations and bishops to ignore clergy who consistently use sexist, racist or homophobic language because 'they don't kow any better.' They are not called to account or brought up short because they serve the instituions desire for peace at any cost.
Does this ring a bell with anyone else? It isn't a modern phenom -- God knows David as well as God knows Bob Green or David Letterman. Sure, we all have our weaknesses and our achilles heel. But when does that weakness and achilles heel need to be tolerated and when does it need to be unacceptable for the church who promises to respect the dignity of all human beings. We probably need more people to threaten to sue the church for the kind of behavior in order for the church to feel the pain. This is stuff worth talking about, folks. The church is an institution and it will only respond when it's survival is threatened. That's how the anglican church got the attention of the episcopal church. That is how the rampant pedophilia was brought to a halt in the roman catholic church.
The problem with this is that we go from silent permission to witch hunts. There must be something in between. One of my hopes comes from the mandatory programs of sexual misconduct prevention that have been put in place in most diocese (the insurance companies threatened to not cover the diocese if they didn't require their employees to attend these sessions). More vestries and diocesian boards are stepping in when inappropriate expressions of anger from church leaders are consistently expressed to employees and church members by first offers of therapy, anger management classes, official reprimand and, if all else fails, termination. Yet, it is amazing to me as I travel around the nation and hear of other episcopal dioceses,denominations in our U.S of A that don't have anything like this in place. It is better than it used to be, but, it is not as good as we want it to be.
We can do something as individuals--as people who have promised to respect the dignity of every human being. When we are told stories from individuals who have been inappropriately dealt with by the church leadership we can 1) empower them to make a difference by reporting it. 2) if they are not willing, reporting it ourselves and protecting the victims as much as possible and 3) working within our parishes and denominations to put mandatory programs in place to put people on notice that their poor behavior will not be excused and will be noticed. It also reminds us of who we are and to whom we are ultimately responsible.
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