Christian “Niceness” Hurts Us

I shouldn’t trust you, and you shouldn’t trust me. On making our theology count for something

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I grew up in Texas—the land of football, soccer tournaments, and travel baseball that instituted a draft in pre-K. We know how to do youth sports in Texas. And in youth sports there are lots of little siblings running around fields.

I also grew up in the era of “stranger danger.” I lived in regular fear that one of one of my younger brothers was going to get snatched from under the bleachers while we were blissfully unaware under the Friday night lights.

It was drilled in us to never accept candy from strangers, never help someone looking for a lost puppy, or never follow someone to look at their Nintendo in their shady van. Once my dad left us in the van while he ran inside to pay for gas and the van started rolling backwards. A kind bystander jumped in to rescue us from rolling into the street, and I put my lungs to use screaming like we were being sent to slaughter.

I knew how to reject the advances of strangers. I never once thought about rejecting the advances of a family friend.

This is no shade on my parents. No parents in the 80s and 90s were teaching their children that the most feared person should be someone who knows their name and favorite color. But we know differently now. Most children are abused by someone they know and trust, not the stranger in the van waiting at the end of the street. We should always be vigilant against the threats facing our children, and they could still get snatched at a ball field. But statistically, our attention should be focused in on who is closest to them—and giving them healthy boundaries to keep them safe when something makes them uncomfortable.

I’ve been in a lot of ministry contexts over the last two decades, and often when we’re talking about protecting children we waffle when it comes to believing that someone could hurt our children in our building. We suspend belief that someone we know, who came into our homes, who loved us and was a friend to us, could violate all of that to do harm, rather than good. I’ve spent the last year reflecting on what I missed, what I could have done differently, and what I’ve learned—some of it I’ve written about here. The prevailing thought I keep having is that while Christians are regularly flabbergasted that this happens in our churches and institutions, we shouldn’t be surprised. Exposure of abuse is cause for reflection and a change in practice, but it shouldn’t shock us.

I believe in total depravity, which is a theological term for saying I believe that humans are broken and sinful to the core. While we’re created in the image of God, when humanity fell into sin in Genesis 3, so did our perfect state. David writes in Psalm 51:5, “behold I was born in iniquity.” Paul says in Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Every person has the hope that redemption is possible, but every person is broken beyond repair in their own strength. Our desires and inclinations need a rewiring by the Holy Spirit. Our thoughts and actions left to themselves are completely reprobate. The image of God in us leads us to do good things (this is called “common grace”), but even this is short-lived. Sinful actions—even illegal ones—should never surprise us. It’s part of our fallen nature. This means we believe in a justice system that hands out harsh sentences to offenders. We believe sin is so serious it must be punished and dealt with. This also means we believe sin must be confessed because keeping it in the darkness will destroy us. And this means that when someone sins, we grieve because it’s not how God intended it to be.

But it also means we believe all humans have the capacity for great evil. The image of God in us leads us to do remarkable good, but the depravity in us leads us to undo all of that by our flawed nature.

Let’s apply this into how we protect children in our churches and institutions. We like to us the language of family when talking about church. We’re not wrong to do that. Scripture tells us we’re part of the family of God. What does a good family do? They know each other. They trust each other. They take care of each other. When you drop your child off in the nursery, and you hand her to a woman who has known you since birth, you don’t think twice. You send your kids to vacation Bible school and don’t ask about who is with them all those hours because your kids love it (and let’s face it, you love the free childcare). Or you send your children hundreds of miles away to a camp with a sordid past, but it wasn’t your kid and they fired the people, so it must be okay. We believe people can change. We believe in grace. And we don’t want to be judgmental.

Often we feel bad for questioning policies or asking more questions. Ministry leaders work hard. They love our kids. We’re glad we don’t have to wrangle them during the service. We don’t want to be the squeaky wheel who looks for danger around every corner. But remember what I said at the beginning—we are totally depraved. Some of the most solid churches regarding this doctrine have the laxest policies on child protection. They’re simply too trusting. Of all the things to be called “too judgmental” about, this is a hill I’m willing to die on. I think we all should.

I don’t have all the answers, but based on the data, our trusting nature towards who steps into our Sunday School classrooms filled with vulnerable children must change. I’m thankful for the volunteers who show up every Sunday. But I don’t trust them, and they shouldn’t trust me. We’re all one step away from making a mess of our lives, but for the grace of God. And the wise church builds her house on the foundation of safety, not the shifting sand of “it could never happen here.” It has. It does.