Why do we shoot the wounded?

First, they are no longer useful. The mess they’ve caused in their life as well as others' has marked them. The mark of humanity on them is not valuable when the façade of having all the answers is needed. If the church system is teaching you that your behavior is of utmost importance to your “walk”, the failed, wounded person is not valuable. Their failure reflects on the system. The production of moral people is more important than attending to the hurts of failed ones. Push the failures out of the way and get on with the pretense of success. How else will we get other moralists to support the system.

The second reason we shoot our wounded is that the resources needed to restore them are not available. We don’t know what to do. We see the pain and that makes us feel uneasy. So we do nothing. The wounded either get sicker, die, or, by God’s grace, are able to find a solution on their own.

Thirdly, we judge them. We believe that they shouldn’t have done what they did and therefore they don’t deserve our time or commitment to help. We are put out by their behavior. “How could you?” “You make us all look bad.” “You were supposed to know better.” “Don’t get close to me. I might catch whatever it is that caused you to do such a thing.”

I believe that these three reasons are cultured in the church system of today. For the system to survive, soul care cannot take a prominent position. It takes too much valuable time to tend to the hurts and pains of souls. The programs need to continue.

You can't just go around being human, you know. What do we do with our humanness? In a moralist society we suppress it and tell others to do the same. This produces liars and experts at denial. Denial produces mental instability. There’s got to be a better way!