The New Jersey conference of the AME church held a seminar today on Sexual Harrassment and Misconduct. All ministers in the New Jersey conference were required to attend. Church leadership within each local church were strongly encouraged to attend.
As I was sitting there within this packed church (approximately 1200 persons), I found myself asking about the genesis of the seminar. I understood the purpose of it, but I wanted to know what brought it about in the first place. The purpose was to protect the church, its officers and members from creating inappropriate, harmful and/or criminal situations within the church. We have certainly become a litigious society.
The genesis of this seminar and so many like it had to come out of the pain of some individual or child that was hurt by someone in the church. Have we so lost our way that we forget that it was God who saved us and not we ourselves? It is disturbing to me to think that this has become so real in the context of the Christian church that we must conduct seminars to tell us what is inappropriate behavior.
The responsibility falls to me (and you) to allow God to rise up in us so much so that God manages our behavior. Are we seeking God enough? Even in the midst of the pitfalls of the human condition, in the depths of our sinful acts, I am reminded that we still serve a God of mercy and redemption for all those who seek Him. We may be able to litigate many things, yet grace, mercy and forgiveness must not be counted among that particular list.
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