I Don't Want You to be Hopeful

Admittedly, I'm a bit of a hope junkie, which is not the same as being an eternal optimist. I believe that if God looks like Jesus, then there is always reason to be hopeful, no matter how dark the situation. I've continued to believe this despite the world feeling darker and darker.

But I'm growing to see a flaw in my way of thinking that is only getting clearer as time goes on.

The activist Greta Thunberg has an idea with shocking ramifications. And it's something she said when she was only sixteen years old.

Adults keep saying: “We owe it to the young people to give them hope.” But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.

I don't want you to be hopeful. 

That line stings, and yet her logic is brilliant. She said this in the context of climate change, but we could easily apply her logic across various areas. I'm thinking of it in the context of the church in America.

Last week, Dr. James Dobson died. He shaped American evangelicalism by blending conservative family values with political activism, largely through his organization, Focus on the Family. He influenced Christians with advice on parenting, marriage, and morality, while also mobilizing the Religious Right as a powerful force in American politics. Specifically, he shaped the childhoods of many Gen X and Millennials who were raised in the church. One of Dobson's focuses was on teaching parents to apply physical punishments with the intent of breaking the will of the child.

Spoiler alert: this didn't play out well.

I've spent the better part of a week meeting people in their visceral reactions to the pain this caused them. Here are a few stories shared in my comment section (edited for clarity):

• "I would get hit until I was able to make myself STOP crying because Dobson insisted that crying is to manipulate the parents."
• "I have so much trauma from the beatings with the belt that I’m 40 years old and still can’t wear belts. The clink of the buckle will send me into an anxiety attack."
• "This made it so my first relationships with men were abusive because I was taught to equate violence with love. I’ll never forgive him for that."
• "Not going to lie, this is why I'm not having kids, I don't know if I could uncondition myself from how I was raised, and I refuse to have a child go through the same abuse I did."
• "He told parents to name the belts they beat the kids with to hide the fact they were beating their kids when they threatened the belt in public. I simply have no words."
• "My brother is autistic. We were homeschooled by my mom in the middle of the woods in PA in the 90s. I can still hear my brother’s screams in my head. And my mom didn’t take a measured approach."
• "I learned to compartmentalize. I hid my emotions. I obeyed till I didn’t when I turned 18. I got married in July after graduating from high school in June. Quit the church right away."
• "The sound of the belt snapping as my stepfather came up the stairs still is SO vivid 40 years later."
• "My dad would hit me *until* I cried, but if I cried for too long, I was “exaggerating” and would get hit again. But don’t worry, y'all, it was okay because he told me he only did that because he loved me, and it hurt him way more. Then I had to hug him and tell him I loved him. And apologize for putting him in that situation."
• "I barely survived. At 8, I wanted to kill myself..."
• "Had to swallow spoonfuls of liquid dish soap for lying. Dawn tastes better than Palmolive.🤦🤦" 
• "I have watched my nieces and nephews get the shit beaten out of them in the name of Jesus. I spoke up. Crying as I write. I babysat my friend's kids, and 4 of 7 were in the bath, and I did not understand what I was seeing. Their backsides were black and blue from the waist down. I spoke up. And was either punished or told. You don’t have children??? Fast forward. 25-30 years. The children go no contact, and everyone wonders why. I have a family member whose adult children do not talk to them."
• "Sooo your video just helped me realize why I rarely cry 🫠 I never connected the dots to Dobson until this moment."
• "Having to hug the person who beat me was a different kind of trauma I had to work out. And to know a man of god told my mother to do that to me? My parents still don’t get why I can’t go to church or have anything to do with how they raised me. I’m grateful my son has never known this pain."

These are adults explaining how this has caused immense damage to them over the years and, in many cases, has forever scarred them. I've received over a thousand comments like these just in this last week. That's a literal count, not an exaggeration.

Thankfully, some parents who used these techniques have been leaning in and listening. I've seen them respond with apology and regret. This opens the door for healing.

And then there are other Christians who double down and victim-shame. Here are some very different comments I received this week:

• "Grow up and take responsibility for your adult life."
• "Dumb and ignorant much? Calling a wambulance. Lol"
• "Sissy 😂"
• "You must be queer."
• "Have some wine with that. Doesn't wine fix everything?"
• "Oh Puhleeeeeze. Poor Meee. Whaaaaah"
• "Yeah, I’m that parent that used this. My kids thank me. I’m so thankful you are NOT my child. I would not want a relationship with you. Can’t wait to see how YOUR kids turn out."

Thankfully, these comments do not represent the majority of the feedback I'm receiving. However, upon examining who chooses to add a "like" to these comments, I found a lead pastor in Ohio and individuals with Bible verses in their profiles.

If your response to people sharing decades' worth of pain and trauma is to mock them, we don't view Christianity in the same way. I'm not even sure we're following the same Jesus.

In fact, this is a literal exchange I got in with one commenter:

So... is there hope for the church today? I'm not sure (I'm going to dive into this more in next week's blog post). It might take a few more of us withholding our messages of hope to get more people to wake up and take action. I hope you sit in the discomfort of the comments above until it shifts something inside you. Things are not okay with the current state of Christianity in the US.

I don’t want you to be hopeful.

I want you to panic.

I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.

And then I want you to act.

I want you to act as you would in a crisis.

I want you to act as if our house is on fire.

Because it is.

Photo by Chris Karidis on Unsplash