The Company Line: Sometimes it Does More Harm than Good

by Harriet Hairston

Disclaimer:  This piece is not an indictment on the instituion of church.  Let that be known from the get-go.  However, there are challenges many people have with "the company line" of the church and the difference between personal conviction vs. biblical doctrine.  Because of the disconnect, many have given up on the institution because of the misrepresentation of a minority of individuals within it.  This article seeks to address that disconnect from a very personal standpoint.  Names and dates (with the exception of my personal  involvement) have been changed to protect the innocent and not so innocent.

Some organizations ask you to "toe the company line" when it comes to certain issues such as media coverage and/or creation of policy, rules and regulations.  I'm all for that. After all, a house divided against itself just cannot stand.  It's a scientific and spiritual fact.

I'm not the type to be a rebel without a cause; however there are two instances where I have learned to go against the grain of the company line.  1) If the company shouts against the consistent tenor of the truth; and 2) if the company line has missing information and an expectation arises for me to assume the majority stance without weighing all information present.

Example of #1:  Kevin and Penny had been married for three months.  One day, Penny called me and begged my then husband and I to come to her house, saying that something terrible had happened.  So we hopped in our truck and high tailed it to their residence, only to learn the police beat us there.  I walked in the house, and Penny was on the couch, crying hysterically.  She and Kevin had been arguing, and there came a point where she put a finger in his face.  He then put a Penny-sized hole in the wall by pushing her through it. 

Her question was should she pack up her two children and go, or should she stay? Before I could give a response, a leader from our ministry had stepped onto the ghastly scene, berating Penny for calling the police and telling her that the last thing the community needed was another black man--in college, trying to make something of himself--in prison.  Penny dropped all charges and stayed with her husband because  "the Lord said so."

Example of #2:  After six years of acting like my marriage was made in heaven, the reality of emotional abuse, control, and fiscal irresponsibility took its toll, and I left.  Well, that's a lie. In reality, after being the sole breadwinner for 5.5 of the 6 years we were married, when unemployment came down my street and I had nothing monetary to offer, I was forced out of the home my husband and I shared with no money and nowhere in the state to go.  That's the truth of the matter.

Three months, two court dates and a legal separation later, the same man who told me that I had nothing better to do than clean up after him...the same man who evicted me and took my son...the same man who temporarily made my life seem like the beginning scene of a Tyler Perry flick...was asking for forgiveness and desiring for me to return.  Upon telling a few ministry leaders some nominal details of my plight, they gave me the company line about how "God hates divorce" (true), "You have to forgive him," (true), and "You all need to reconcile" (false).

Penny and I haven't spoken in about a year.  Last we talked, Kevin had given her chlamydia, and the two of them were in marriage counseling.  We no longer attend the same church, but leadership has advised her that she is taking the high road by staying with her husband.  I don't know if that's true or not, because things may have changed between then and now.  For their sake, I hope it has.

I recall a time when Penny got very upset with me because she felt like I was being hypocritical.  "How can you talk so bad about what my husband is doing, when your husband does you the same way, Harriet?"  Penny had crashed through another wall, only this time, it was the wall that I had erected of the fictional "happily ever after" nature of my relationship.

Hypocritical?  Guilty as charged.

Now that I'm in a similar situation (granted, my spouse never laid a hand on me physically, but it's much easier to heal from physical wounds than mental and emotional), I have the inside scoop on the company line.  The same lines I "encouraged" Penny with while she was being pushed through walls and subjecting herself to sexual danger are the very lines I hear today: 

     - "It's not God's will for you to get a divorce, Harriet."

     - "If you divorce and attempt to remarry, God will see you as an adulteress, Harriet."

     - "Forgiveness means maintaining a relationship and doing your best to improve it, Harriet."

Now I understand Penny's response and reaction to the company line that I uttered from my lips with little to no interior knowledge of what she was going through within the four walls of her home.  Granted, it's not my style to curse anyone out...but I understand.  It's not my thing to roll my eyes and tell people they don't know what the hell they're talking about...but I understand.  It's definitely not my style to tell a person to go back to their Bible, and come back to me when they have the whole understanding of what God--not the church and/or denomination--says about the issues I'm dealing with.

I'm a tad bit more refined than that.  Penny gave me a run for my money, though.  She taught me that being refined was no good if it meant closing my eyes to reality and walking around in some fantasy world of false "Thus saith the Lords" and discompassionate "In the name of Jesuses."

One thing that has been revealed to me through prayer:  God is not a sucka.  He doesn't expect me to be, either.  Forgiveness is mandatory...maintaining a relationship is not.  Divorce is ugly, but giving up on love doesn't have to be the byproduct of it. 

Moving on is hard.  It's easy to act like I'm OK, but at times I feel like my insides are in labor, my ♥ hurts so bad. The only thing that keeps me pushing through the pain is knowing the beauty guaranteed on the other side of this personal transformation. I'll never be the same again, thank God.

That beauty will be revealed from within me--not because I toed the company line, but because I put my face at the feet of Christ, and He welded the broken pieces back together.

I'm broken, y'all.  I'm fragile and extremely vulnerable and raw.  But I'm ALIVE.  The company line tried to kill me, but the cross came to my rescue again. 

I'll never be the same.  NEVER.

One ♥!

My-Life, have you ever toed the company line of expectations from family members, friends, church and/or work when you knew it was killing you?  Have you ever taken the company line and tried to help someone else with it? There are times when the company line heals, but other times when it harms.  What results did you get?

H. Roberta Williams is a woman who slips and slides in and out of labels.  She writes to converse with the proverbial elephants within the living rooms of so many individuals she meets.  Her goal is to allow transparency to be the vessel through which healing can flow.  She makes her own life an open book so others can read God's purpose in her and gain courage to walk out their own.  She can be reached at h.robertawilliams@yahoo.com.