“I’m Sorry”

The telephone call came from the director of a counseling center I had met a few weeks before. A mainline congregation sponsored the center; she called me specifically because I served as an evangelical pastor. A woman coming to them for counseling suffered because of an abusive marriage. Her husband had graduated from a seminary and used the Bible to justify his behavior. He referred to Greek word studies she didn’t understand to insist that since he was a man, God elected him as her “covering,” her head. He expected her to submit to whatever he said, to take whatever he did as God’s will for her. The Bible says so, he insisted. The director asked me to provide an alternative interpretation to the Bible passages.

I agreed to meet with this woman and the counselor. I tried to think through what might be said. I felt like I prepared in the dark.

I waited in the reception area while the counselor started the session with the woman. When the counselor called me into the room, I saw the woman for the first time. She seemed under physical duress, as if muscle tension would pull her face apart. I remember her skin looked ashen, as if the shadows had drained it of life. She told me of her fervent desire to live as a Christian and that she believed the Bible is God’s inerrant word. Sexual infidelity is the only legitimate reason for divorce, she said, and her husband was not guilty of that. Then the key question came: If she was going to remain a Christian, did she just have to put up with the abuse?

I don’t remember much of what I said. I’m sure I stumbled over my words as I tried to articulate something helpful. I do recall suggesting that marital faithfulness must be understood in a holistic way, not reduced to only sex.

As the conversation came to a close, I did something I had not anticipated. I stepped into one of those in-the-moment actions. I didn’t think about what I might say; I just said it. “As a man”–I used that phrase–“As a man, I’m sorry you have been treated poorly by men.” I paused as I searched for the next words. “As an evangelical pastor, I apologize that the Bible has been used to beat you rather than as a source of light and life. I’m sorry.”

I pondered the apology as a walked to my car and drove away. To this day, more than twenty years later, those words form the most vivid part of the memory I have of that experience.

I received a phone call from the counselor a few days after the session to thank me for taking the time to meet with this woman. After I left the room, the counselor said, the woman wanted to talk about the apology. Evidently my attempts to respond to her questions about key biblical passages didn’t matter as much as two simple words: I’m sorry.