Morally Wounded?

I mentioned in last week’s post that “a study out of Boston University reports that 35% of clergy have PTSD.” A Navy chaplain I respect responded that perhaps clergy deal with PTSD. Or maybe we are dealing with Moral Injury. (He recommends the Brad E. Kelle book pictured above.)

I’m thinking that Moral Injury is rampant today – if not universal. All of us experience daily damage to our core values:

• When government leaders vote to cut support for children and the elderly while offering tax cuts to the wealthy, we wonder how this makes any sense for people elected to Serve The People.
• When law enforcement officers abuse – or kill – a person who has committed a minor crime or no crime, we wonder if we can trust public servants with the power of badges and guns.
• When Pastors preach week after week about living faithful lives but – in secret – they are unfaithful to their marriages, their neighbors, or their congregations, we wonder how we can ever take their sermons seriously.

Moral injuries are the invisible wounds resulting from our own failures to do the right thing or the failures of others whom we trusted to do the right thing. Because we all fall short of God’s glory, moral injuries are part of human life. We hold up star athletes and then feel crushed when we learn they are not what they seem. We idolize a family member only to learn that there are secrets that break our hearts.

Moral injury in the Church is particularly damaging in that one person can trample the souls of a whole congregation of people in one fell swoop. People leave Church when it turns out that the person entrusted with their holiest moments has acted out in unholy ways.

Maybe we are naive. Maybe we simply need to buck up and realize that everybody is disappointing.

As a Pastor myself and as a leader of Pastors, I can’t say that I’m not shocked anymore. I’m still a little shocked. Or actually, it’s not shock I feel. Maybe it’s the pain of knowing that countless layers of hurt result from clergy misconduct. The consequences are far-reaching.

How do we address moral injury in our lives? Yes, grace abounds from On High. And it takes time for us humans to reach a place where we can offer grace when our very souls feel crushed. But this is the work of the Holy Spirit. We can only regain trust, we can only forgive by the power of God’s Spirit. The very fact that this is possible is such a relief.

Thanks I.C. and here’s the Venn Diagram Source.