Around noon on Thursday October 16, Coracle offered our monthly zoom discussion “Questions That Matter”.  The question for that day was “How do you handle disillusionment as it relates to the church and certain Christian leaders?”  Then, unexpectedly, a couple hours later my own denomination was rocked by disturbing developments for our world-wide Anglican Communion.  Not even a week later my denomination was further rocked in a way that hit much closer to home because of two back to back Washington Post articles about Christian leaders in the US behaving badly.  I’ve been here before and written about it before (“On Jean Vanier (and Other Disillusionments)”).  In 2022 Coracle spent a whole year on “Doubt, Deconstruction, and Redemption”.  Coracle is a big fan of dealing in truth and honesty, and asking hard questions in good faith. Anything that does not reflect God’s truth should be deconstructed, so that we can truly know who God is—especially if the version of God we were taught is not the real God.

Going back and reviewing my notes from that conversation on handling disillusionment with the church and her leaders proved helpful in the wake of my own with my denomination.  Are you disturbed and feeling disillusioned by the church these days and certain Christian leaders?  Here’s some of the wisdom that was offered on that day:

• Name it and grieve it, and seek out the company of others so you don’t feel alone; pray for those who’ve behaved badly and be inspired by people like Jeremiah and the other prophets.
• Remember the etymology of what it is to be disillusioned: “dis” is to get rid of an “illusion”, that is, losing that which was never true to begin with.
• Take agency and stay steady in your calling.
• Remember that the Church is a human institution (with divine origin) and is full of humans who are not perfect. The Church is a corpus permixtum (St. Augustine), a mixed body of wheat and weeds (Mt 13:24-30). Let them grow up together, God will separate them later.
• Recognize the patience of God.  Remember, as dirty as she can be, the Church is still the Body and Bride of Christ.  Remember God called Hosea to stay married to Gomer the prostitute, and he did.
• Here’s where we landed:  Stay focused on Jesus.  Look at him, stay connected to Jesus.  Take the energy of the disillusionment and apply it in the direction of spiritual practice.  Move towards contemplation and mysticism, and do small concrete acts of love often.

If you’re struggling with disillusionment with the Church, disoriented, still in love with Jesus and struggling because of his body, or deconstructing or reconstructing…get involved with us.  Not only can we handle that, we welcome that.  One of my very favorite quotes of all time is Flannery O’Connor… “I hate religious language for the truths that it hides.”  What she means is that God is so much more gorgeous than mere religion.  And that’s true.