The church is a whore!?

"The church is a whore, but she is my mother."  Some say Augustine said this, others say maybe Martin Luther.  Still others say neither, as there is no where found a written reference to either making the statement. 

That being said, I find it interesting that this statement is popularized in our generation.  Many of us have the scars, wounds, and gangrenous hanging limbs that are a result of being hurt by church leaderships, and, at times, the unintended injuries inflicted by the lack of leadership in the church.  It is not difficult to find the flaws in the church, but then again if you put any group of people together the issues and flaws that become evident are in direct proportion to the number of people in the group.  People equal problems.  We all have them, and they usually show up when we are with other people.  My question is what do we do with wounds that have been inflicted by others?

We can model ourselves as victims and bury our head, or we can seek healing, which inevitably will involve other people.  Many will blame God for what has been done in His name, but is that not burying our head?  If our faith in the character, grace, and love of God was contingent on how other Christians, whom God loves, act out of their own wounds, then were we putting our trust in God?  Does God fail when people fail?  And if so, does God fail when we individually fail?  Is it God who fails if I enter into a mid-life crisis and decide that it is time to leave my family to open a bar in Honalulu?  I don't think anyone would try and console me by saying, "It wasn't your fault, it was God's." 

If people's failings are God's fault then the only thing that we can pin on Him is that He didn't make us perfect.  Which, actually, He did, but we failed.  And if that is the case then it is God's fault for giving us the choice, or the ability to choose.  Which He did.  He gave us options, set up an order that holds us responsible for our actions, said I love you, and gave us a way out of the consequence of our bad choices.

At any rate, the church is a conglomeration of people who have been (and are being) made better by the grace of God, and even in the process of being made better we do stupid things to one another, leaving each other hurt and full of questions.  We are all hypocrites and actors on a stage, to one extent or the other.  We are all hiding behind some form of mask.  So, do we hate the church, that technically we are a part of if we confess Jesus, for her hypocrisy, or do we continue to look to be conformed to the image of Christ?  He said, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." (Matthew 5:44-45 ESV) 

I will never forget what Randy Clark said to the student body when I was a student at Elim Bible Institute, "will you love My church even when it hurts you?"  (Randy Clark did say this too, I was there)  Possibly a much better quote than the one attributed to Augustine, but the idea is similar. 

I have scars that have made me who I am today, and I have wounds that I am working through.  By the grace of God those wounds will become scars, and I will be able to helps others who are wounded.  And in the midst of looking to help others I'll inevitably get hurt again and those wounds will need to become scars.  But I commit to love the church anyway.  If not only because He loved me when I was His enemy, then because I will need someone to love me even though I hurt them.