Betrayed

I was ten when I discovered that grownups don’t necessarily mean what they say in church.

It was a Sunday morning.
I was staring through the window at the people passing by.  I knew those people.  Some were out neighbors. One was my best friend.  All were heading for our church, which now was not our church anymore.
Instead, our family and some others were gathered in the town’s tavern for worship.

As I watched the people through the window, I felt deep shame.  I heard some boys chant, “Har, har, har--they go from church to bar.”

I also felt a deep sense of loss.  Sundays would never be the same again.  I felt cut off from the people we belonged to.  Why couldn’t we be together anymore?  How could people who had worshiped together all their lives split apart like this!  All I knew was that something terrible had happened.

I remembered the visits of church members, some of them family friends, and the arguments about baptism and covenant and about big words like regeneration.

I cringed as I remembered the times voices became strident and the words became angry and friends would leave as enemies.
I remembered Dad’s elder meetings that lasted until midnight.
I remembered him writing letters late into the night to theologians like Klaas Schilder.
I had noticed the deepening lines on his forehead and the weary look in his eyes.
But I hadn’t understood his preoccupation and deep anxiety.

It was 1944.  The Nazis had our country, and life wasn’t safe.

I was scared that more planes would be shot down over our town, that more soldier bodies would have to be buried in our churchyard.
I was scared that someday the Germans would discover out hiding place, shoot the family we were hiding, and then shoot my dad as well.
I was scared that patrols would stop my mom on one of her courier excursions and find  the incriminating material.
I was scared of guns and bombs and enemies.
I was scared of fighting.
I wanted Holland to be free again; I needed a world where people got along, where no one needed to be afraid anymore.

That’s why I had liked my church.  It was a good place to be, especially in wartime.  

In a hostile world, we felt closer to each other there.
We were united, and we were protected by God against a common enemy.
With one voice we would sing Psalm 68: “God shall arise and by His might/put all his enemies to flight,” and that gave us hope.
We would pray for God’s care, and that gave us trust.

But then some of the people in the church started fighting each other.

They didn’t use guns.
They used the Bible for words to shout at each other, to prove right and wrong, to condemn, to call each other nasty names.
They used the Bible as a gun.
And now we couldn’t go to the same church anymore; we didn’t belong together anymore.

My dad said it happened because synod forced everybody to accept a belief about baptism that wasn’t biblical.  But I didn’t understand it.

And I didn’t understand why Christian people threatened by a terrible war were now threatening each other and taking each other to court.
I didn’t understand why as kids we couldn’t spend time with our friends anymore, why my dad’s business lost so many customers, why a lot of people didn’t talk to us anymore.
I didn’t understand how any of this was possible among people who believed in God, who listened to the Ten Commandments every Sunday, who sang the Psalms together, who prayed together for a new heart, who were supposed to love God and each other.

The world became more confusing, more frightening to a ten-year old in the tavern on that Sunday when the war and hate tha had entered the church tore it apart and splintered it to pieces.

He felt betrayed, and for a long time he found it hard to pray.
For a long time church was not God’s house anymore.