CEFR Level C1-C2
Our Culture Approves of Assault
St. Patrick’s Day brought back something I think about often: consent. My understanding is that assault is legally defined as touching someone without their consent when that touch is harmful or offensive (https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/assault). With that definition, the US has a holiday where we teach children to cause others physical pain and call it fun, perhaps especially if the person we are trying to hurt is running away from us. Accompanying that practice, we teach children that they are wrong to be upset when someone causes them physical pain during the day when society has agreed that a specific type of hurting someone without their consent is acceptable.
Take a minute to think about how those socially acceptable practices may or may not affect how a person thinks about domestic violence or sexual assault, then come back for my thoughts on consent and spiritual practices. I Know Better Than You
In my experience in charismatic-light churches (e.g. Four Square), it is common to physically touch someone without first gaining their consent. Now, I’m not suggesting that we always have to ask people before we hug them hello (hugging is the normal greeting in the Southeast, at least in my experience). I am saying that we need to learn cues that the person may prefer another form of greeting and submit to their desires (cue the Pauline “submit” passages).
I once heard a preacher declare from the pulpit that he hugged people even if they didn’t want him to because he believed that they needed it. He spent considerable time on this point. His comments led me to believe that he thinks he knows what someone else needs emotionally more than they know (and also that he seems unaware of the concept of consent and how repeatedly having your ability to consent dismissed can cause emotional, mental, and spiritual damage). The arrogance around thinking that you know someone else’s emotions better than they do is not unexpected in my church experience. That’s a discussion for another day. More relevant to the topic of consent and spiritual practices is this person’s insistence on hugging people who he recognizes do not want that type of contact. Touching someone in a way that they have made known is unwanted seems to brush against the definition of assault. Even when hugging in greeting, we would be kind to take the definition of consent that says that anything less than an enthusiastic yes is a no. Not because we are afraid of being accused of assault, but because respecting another person’s bodily autonomy is the right thing to do. To do otherwise is to exert power over that person, the exact opposite of what Jesus said we should do. Who benefits from an unwanted hug? Not the person receiving it. Doing something that harms another in order to feel good about ourself is selfish. Selfishness is not a fruit of the Spirit (Philippians 2, Galatians 5). I think it’s worth considering if a culture of hugging in church contributes to people feeling compelled to allow themselves to be assaulted. Social pressure to conform is strong. In church, there is an added layer of spiritual pressure, even if the act is not explicitly described as spiritual. Few people are independent enough to ignore social influences. This is generally good. Being influenced by society makes us easier to live with. People who completely ignore social expectations tend to be harmful to themselves and others. The trick is to develop enough independence to be able to act contrary to social expectations when a contrary action is for your own protection or for the good of others while having enough social compliance to avoid being a completely offensive person or worse. I don’t think the solution is to stop hugging in greeting. I do think we need to think about what we do and actively offer people options, as well as train ourselves to notice and respond to signals that someone feels coerced into participating in our ritual. Coercive Prayer
Coercion is what I most often think about when I think about spiritual practices like praying for someone. If someone offers to pray for you, how can you say no? (My church experience is primarily in traditions where it is normal to offer to pray for someone when they are telling you about their week. It is also normal to call other people over to join the prayer.)
Maybe you would welcome prayer, but not in that context, or not from that person, or not at that time. Maybe you’ve had enough of being prayed for, you and God have come to an understanding, and you’re leaving the issue with God, so praying feels like a burden rather than a comfort (Matthew 6:7). Maybe you know this person tends to use prayer to tell you their opinion and if you agree to prayer, you know you’ll feel compelled to stay and listen because it’s rude to leave or interrupt while someone is praying for you. I have never once heard someone interrupt someone who was praying. Even in the most free-style “Spirit-led” prayer meetings, no one interrupted with the intention of stopping another person. I also have never heard someone say no to being prayed for, although I have had people later confide that they felt uncomfortable, but didn’t feel like they could decline the offer. Just wait until I get my hands on you!
Related to prayer is “laying on of hands.” That phrase gets me every time because outside the church, when you “lay hands on” someone, it suggests an act of violence. Contextually, in the church, the laying on of hands is considered a kind, holy act that somehow enhances the Spirit’s power. In my experience, I have only seen hands put on a person’s head, back, shoulder, or upper arm. It wouldn’t surprise me, though, to hear tales of hands “slipping” to a buttock or breast during a prayer huddle (when a bunch of people surround one or more persons and put a hand on the person(s) being prayed for).
Like prayer, I have never seen anyone decline having hands laid on them (the church seriously needs a better phase). I don’t know how you could decline without coming across as extraordinarily rude and without having people question your spiritual health. I can’t find the exact podcast episodes, but I have heard stories about people having panic attacks while being prayed over in a charismatic setting. In the story I’m thinking of, the panic came from being closed in by so many people. When their panic made them attempt to move out of the prayer huddle, away from all those hands on them, they were restrained. Some even ended up on the ground with people holding them down until they became still from exhaustion. I have not witnessed that, but those stories don’t surprise me at all. I could see it easily happening while the people praying thought they were really “pressing in” and “interceding.” When praying over someone, it’s worth considering Hosea 6, Matthew 6, and the multitude of passages urging us to think about others and their needs rather than pushing on with what we want to do. Again, in my experience, for all charismatics preach about personal freedom to worship without the constraint of rituals, there is no mechanism for maintaining self-agency during communal religious practices. You can’t decline to participate and you can’t remove yourself if things start to make you uncomfortable. I suppose technically you could, but given the intense power of social and religious pressure, I don’t think it is reasonable to expect people to be able to assert themselves in that way. What Are the Options?
Take a minute to think about the last time you prayed in a group. Would you have the power to suddenly interrupt whoever was praying and say, “We need to stop praying”? Seriously, who is brave enough to tell fellow Christians to stop praying? I suspect that if you felt like something was off, you would be more likely to quietly pray to yourself and hope that God made something happen to stop things or that you would start to question what was wrong with you that you weren’t “all in” during prayer.
My challenge to church leaders and attendees is to start openly talking about the fact that church culture coerces people into experiences that the person does not consent to have. (Using the “enthusiastic yes” definition of consent.) Then start modeling how to say no to prayer and other rituals. Reward people for being honest rather than acquiescing out of social and spiritual pressure. Explicitly say that it is acceptable to decline prayer or any other act offered to be performed for you and that declining does not necessarily mean you have a spiritual problem. Does that last paragraph make you uncomfortable? Consider this: If we force people into a religious act or social convention that they do not want to participate in, do you think God will honor your prayer or delight in your actions?
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