Just Shoot Them

It would be kinder to shoot them

I’m angry because I’m a woman and I’m tired of being told that by my lack of certain external physical characteristics, I’m just not quite worthy of following whatever God’s call may be on my life.

It was only when my life spun out of my control—a broken marriage, lost job, career smashed, all of my external standards that had made me acceptable destroyed—that I discovered the message of grace.

“We may as well just take them out and shoot them.” My friend spoke those words after she heard about another set of people that the Southern Baptists have deemed unworthy of ministry. The latest group? Now, rumor has it that the North American Mission Board will exclude the possibility of divorced persons serving as chaplains. They’ve already been barred from missionary service. So we add these to the rest of those who need to walk five feet behind with their heads bowed, namely women who’ve been told: don’t preach and don’t talk back to your husbands.

I have great respect and affection for the Southern Baptists and know of the strengths and goodness of those people who really want to serve God. It is because of a dear group of Southern Baptists that I first discovered the message of the gospel.

But I’m angry. I’m angry because a denomination that makes these pronouncements does a disservice to that very message.

I’m angry because the principle of wifely submission to her husband is inextricably entwined with the whole concept of mutual submission. And if she’s supposed to submit, he’s supposed to lay down his life for her. I don’t see that one talked about so much. Instead they use the phrase, “servant leadership.” It doesn’t even come close.

I’m angry because I’ve lived through the agony of a broken marriage and I know firsthand the additional pain that comes from people who insist that I should wear a scarlet “D” on my chest for the rest of my life.

I’m angry because these pronouncements are a deep perversion of the Scriptures that the Baptists say they hold holy.

I’m angry about a message that is supposed to say, “All of us have equal status before God. We are all lost and we have all been offered the free and full gift of grace” instead says, “Only the perfect may apply” and a few powerful people get to define what perfect looks like. There is something terribly akin to the Aryan brotherhood that gave rise to the Nazi atrocities with these edicts.

As I write, my anger wanes and turns to grief. I understand only too well where the Southern Baptists come from. For years, I sought to live that way—to find some list of rules that, if I could only follow them well enough, would make me acceptable, both to God and to myself.

I spent years studying the Bible. I learned Greek and Hebrew so I could study those words in their original languages. Then, I, too, could make absolute pronouncements and announce with rock-solid certainty: “Thus says the Lord.”

I wanted to be able to control my world—and everyone else’s as well.

And the more I sought control, the more I found myself imprisoned. Imprisoned by a set of rules that can never bring holiness. And in my imprisonment, I sought to bring others in with me.

Grace—that gift that cost God everything but is given freely. Grace—the knowledge that in my unworthiness, I am fully worthy. Grace—a place of freedom and hope that only stays free when I give to others what has been given to me.

Before I understood grace, I was engaged in what I saw as a righteous crusade. I was determined to force others into my belief system because I was sure I was right. I finally figured out that Jesus reserved his harshest words for those in his day who were also sure they were right.

Ron Susek, in a book about church conflicts called Firestorm, writes, “People believe they are engaged in a “holy war,” and nothing is more dangerous than an evil spirit cloaked in a religious cause.”

I’ve been talking about Southern Baptists in particular, but I could be talking about any Christian denomination, including my own, the United Methodist Church. The action from the mission board may have brought up my anger, but the question goes across the board for any group that practices legalism. Are Southern Baptists evil? No, but any message that says, “Don’t try to follow God’s call unless you look and act like me,” sends an evil message. Because if that is the case, my friend is right: we may as well take the less perfect out and shoot them. It’s a lot more honest than pretending to invite them in and then killing them slowly.