If world systems are not moving ahead of some parts of the church, they have at least become willing to right some wrongs within all levels of their respective hierachies right down to the ground level. The world has taken a stand against a form of interpersonal aggression which it identifies as Lateral Violence. Bea Shawanda defines Lateral Violence as "the emotional and spiritual violence done to another person often backed up by harmful behaviours." Some of these behaviours include acts of aggression involving such practices as blaming, shaming, innuendo, slander, gossip, back stabbing, put-downs, and among others, discrediting people. These practices may be incorporated into managerial applications in the world as well as into presbyteries, any local sanhedrin workings, and church steering committees like Boards, Sessions, and so forth. No secular body nor Christian group per se nor individual, for that matter, can claim innocence unless they have otherwise passed not only a serious self-examination, but a cross-examination. What used to come naturally to people in the church as they became new creatures in Christ was a deliverance from even worse pastimes than being laterally violent. In the past, a laterally violent Christian would have been an incongruity. Now, once ridiculed as Bible Thumpers, a cross-section has shed righteous behaviours to become People Thumpers. In so doing, they have become laterally violent.
The despotic reside right where you find them in the world or in the church. In order to maintain control, the use of lateral violence has proved to be a masterful tool in seek and destroy missions. Through the use of misinformation, the dissemination of wrong or negative information, threats, labeling, and numerous other dastardly practices, persons or groups of persons are laterally bombed to smitherines. Yes, and as you have guessed, the victim does not get the opportunity to speak his/her own truth. In effect, lateral violence spells terrorism in the first degree, incorporating the invisible terrorist. Where once the world could look to the church to find sanctuary -- and should still be able to do so -- the church might have to look to the world to adopt measures to reorientate its membership to once again become that safe haven for the downtrodden, the dispossessed, the pariahs -- in short, the sinners.
In John 13:34 Jesus says to, "love one another: as I have loved you..." 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us that, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature..." That which is preached must be practiced. Why? Any ongoing practice of lateral violence coming from a person in the world is one thing, but oozing forth from the blood bought is quite another. But who wants to take stock? Matthew 12:34 says, "A good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good things: and evil man out the the evil treasure brings forth evil things."
One can take a big bite out of lateral violence just by clenching one's teeth and swallowing hard. However tired some find what Matthew 7:12 says, it still applies, "Do to others what you would have them do to you..." So many find this to be a verse for the other guy. For those who profess to be in Christ, each must keep in mind the warning in Matthew 12:36: "..every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." All are welcome to try to reconcile incessant and unrepented lateral violence within the framework of their Christianity; like grease and pure oxygen, however, they just won't mix. If we could each cut a mile off our tongue, we would still have a good foot of it on which to stand.