Recognize and Restore

God is calling each of us to a more committed walk with Him, and an essential component of
drawing nearer to Him is repentance. Hosea 6 says:
1 Come, and let us return to the Lord; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
2 After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up, That we may live in His sight.
3 Let us know, Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, Like the latter and former rain to the earth.

I remember a conversation I had with a well-known Christian leader a few months ago - it had been an active news day, complete with revelations of improper behavior...before we started our on-air interview, we were discussing how God was shaking things up.  I believe that!  We are in a turbulent world, and there does seem to be a wave of exposure of bad behavior, with a sense of wanting to make things right.  This illustrates a distinct theme of Scripture - we serve a God who offers hope in brokenness and healing that can come as we face the facts about our sinfulness and be willing to repent.

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In a powerful statement in a courtroom where victims spoke against a physician, an Olympic doctor, who victimized them, there was a reference made to this Scripture, Matthew 18:6:
6 "But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Jesus went on to describe the depths of sin in this world in the next verse:

7 Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!

But, He also pointed to His grace and restoration in verse 11:
11 For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.

Sometimes it takes someone to lead to bring about justice.

And, as Esther O'Reilly writes at The Stream about one of the many athletes abused by former Michigan State and Olympic doctor Larry Nassar:

If there’s one single person who can take the credit for finally bringing Nassar down, none have a better claim than Rachael Denhollander: victim zero, first to speak out and open the floodgates of justice. In 2000, Nassar repeatedly abused her over the course of a year after she sought his care for back pain at the age of 15. Confused, afraid, and assured by the responsible adults around her that nothing was amiss, she kept silent for years. Now married with three children, she has become an advocate for sexual assault victims.

Rachael was the final speaker against Nassar, whose trail of perversion and sexual assault is staggering.  The article states that he "received the maximum sentence of 175 years in prison for multiple counts of sexual assault on his patients. He already faced 60 years for possession of child pornography. Close to 200 more women, including gold medalist Aly Raisman, also issued victim impact statements over the course of four days leading up to his sentence."  This led to the departure of leadership of the university and the USA Gymnastics Board.

Denhollander was the final witness to speak against Nassar before he was sentenced.  And, because of her Christian faith, she was able to give an eloquent and stirring perspective of the gospel.  She said, in part:

Should you ever reach the point of truly facing what you have done, the guilt will be crushing. And that is what makes the gospel of Christ so sweet. Because it extends grace and hope and mercy where none should be found. And it will be there for you.

I pray you experience the soul-crushing weight of guilt, so you may someday experience true repentance and true forgiveness from God, which you need far more than forgiveness from me — though I extend that to you as well.

O'Reilly writes:

Denhollander’s passion and clear-eyed wisdom come as a welcome breath of fresh air. It speaks to the Church today, as Christians are split over whether to keep sexually rapacious men in political power, or disgraced clergy in their pulpits.

But her message that Christ alone can redeem damaged bodies and spirits also speaks to a confused culture that has only half the truth of sexual brokenness. For women who have been violated against their will, there is healing. But there is also grace for the women who have consented to be used and cast aside by the hookup culture. And there is grace for the men who used them.

Turns out that Rachael, in the midst of her own pain and brokenness, has been involved in advocacy for sexual assault victims in another context, as well - in the Church.  A gripping Christianity Today article offers these insights:

In the beginning, I wrestled with God’s perspective on abuse, where he was, why he didn’t do anything, and whether or not I was guilty or stained by it. I worked to get to a place where I could trust in his justice and call evil what it was, because God is good and holy.

One of the areas where Christians don’t do well is in acknowledging the devastation of the wound. We can tend to gloss over the devastation of any kind of suffering but especially sexual assault, with Christian platitudes like God works all things together for good or God is sovereign. Those are very good and glorious biblical truths, but when they are misapplied in a way to dampen the horror of evil, they ultimately dampen the goodness of God. Goodness and darkness exist as opposites. If we pretend that the darkness isn’t dark, it dampens the beauty of the light.

And, she, in standing against abuse that had been alleged in an evangelical church context, faced significant opposition, and in her "impact statement," she said that her actions had cost her "her church."  She elaborated for CT:

The reason I lost my church was not specifically because I spoke up. It was because we were advocating for other victims of sexual assault within the evangelical community, crimes which had been perpetrated by people in the church and whose abuse had been enabled, very clearly, by prominent leaders in the evangelical community. That is not a message that evangelical leaders want to hear, because it would cost to speak out about the community. It would cost to take a stand against these very prominent leaders, despite the fact that the situation we were dealing with is widely recognized as one of the worst, if not the worst, instances of evangelical cover-up of sexual abuse. Because I had taken that position, and because we were not in agreement with our church’s support of this organization and these leaders, it cost us dearly.

She relates that "people are motivated by poor theology and a poor understanding of grace and repentance and that causes them to handle sexual assault in a way where that a lot of predators go unchecked, often for decades. When you see a theological commitment to handling sexual assault inappropriately, you have the least hope of ever changing it."

The Church is no doubt being challenged in these days in its thinking and responding to matters of sexual abuse.  And, reflecting on what Rachael said in the Christianity Today article, I would say that people do not have to be afraid to enact church discipline for those who have sinned in this manner for fear that somehow their own reputations or the reputation of the church or the gospel itself would be damaged.  Because, God's reputation and His glory are far greater and more wondrous than what humans can testify to.  

We have to be willing to expose and confess sin, with the hope of restoration.  Rachael's demonstration of forgiveness and a stated hope for repentance has made a powerful statement, and when repentance and restoration does occur in the life of a person who has committed heinous acts, that brings honor to God in an incredible way, because it shows His nature and the power to change a life.  

I do believe God is speaking to the Church today, and we all do well to develop a sensitivity to listen, to hear, and to respond with love and grace to those who display courage in speaking out.  Certainly, not all allegations will be proven to be true, but that does not prevent Christians from hearing the stories, validating the right for a person to speak out, and seeking the truth, with the ultimate aim of providing justice in the way that God intends.