Tag Archives: social issues

Call Me What You Will

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A reflection by Lindsey

This is a post that I really don’t want to write. In some ways, it’s the post that I never thought I would be able to write. But the universe being the universe has ways of forcing my hand because certain things need to be said for the benefit of others.

The internet has exploded this week, dividing Christians along unfortunately all too predictable lines. The choice of a single word delineates sides: do you say Bruce or do you say Caitlyn? Concerns about appearance dominate both sides: either Caitlyn is stunning or Bruce has fallen more deeply into the hole of self-disfigurement than could have ever been realistically imagined. Sadly, this conversation is the conversation of the Church. And it’s manifestly voyeuristic, detached, and ugly on both sides.

Call me what you will: transgender, genderqueer, or gender non-conforming. At this point, I don’t care. I’m done, at least in the moment, trying to stake out a claim in the vocabulary war that regards people like me as territory to be won. I see messages on all sides arguing that people like me should have a place in the church, everyone with their own choice prescriptions about what I should or shouldn’t be doing with my body.

Call me what you will, because at this point, I’ve simply decided I’ll respond to any form of civil address. I live, breathe, work, and exist in a world that names me before I name myself. Salespeople ask me for my name, but it’s really only a pleasantry to ascertain my last name before assigning me a title. Each and every day, I go to work where people talk about me using a name, pronouns, and titles. I’ve grown numb to pronouns and titles, even though in my own sphere, I try to fight for three syllables of recognition that my preferences matter. I know asking my students to call me “Instructor” is a manufactured construct, but it’s the best I can do to find a workaround to a culture of politeness that threatens to rob me of my sanity.

Call me what you will, because at this point I’ve figured out that it’s possible to find my own safe spaces even if I know that you will never understand. I’ve learned that if I want to give my soul space to dance, then I cannot allow your opinion of me to rob me of my music. Trying to be the person God wants me to be demands my everything. Sometimes I just need to find that much more courage that God wasn’t joking when Christ promised to guide us through all things and remain with us always. I have never been down with conforming myself to social expectations because, quite frankly, my allegiances belong elsewhere. Occasionally country music gets it right:

You’ve got to sing like you don’t need the money
Love like you’ll never get hurt
You’ve got to dance like nobody’s watchin’
It’s gotta come from the heart if you want it to work.

Call me what you will because I know the fullness of my heart can never fit behind a restroom door. Whether I choose to be a superhero or a person capable of standing on my own two feet whenever I have to pee shouldn’t have to be your concern. Truth be told, I’ve had a long and enduring suspicion that your concern has never been about me in the first place.

…………

If you were honestly concerned about me, perhaps you would take the time to ask questions and to listen. If you truly cared, maybe you would consider that your well-meaning “advice” does little more than prove to me that you aren’t willing to take the time to understand me and the challenges I actually face. If you wanted to show “Christian compassion,” then maybe you wouldn’t be quite so confident that you understand the full weight and implications of verses like Matthew 19 when it comes to people in my shoes.

No one wins my trust by an impressive display of their ideology. Celebrating that Caitlyn looks awesome tells me that maybe I should only come to you if I’m ready, willing, and able to pursue certain medical choices. Bemoaning the magnitude of Bruce’s disfigurement sets me on my guard that you might decry the disfigurement of my heart. My soul lives inside of my body. I’m much more interested in knowing whether you have the courage to see when my soul comes alive and the emotional intelligence to know when my soul is withering. Do you dare risk sharing your soul with me in friendship’s mysterious intimacy?

Call me what you will because that’s the best and most reliable way I can tell whether you know I exist. Call me what you will because you are telling me how you see me. Call me what you will because I have gotten so good at playing these games on my own territory.

Happiness looks good on people. Everyone who has figured out how to come alive in a body and share a soul with the world is beautiful. Fight for your friendships; true friends are few and far between. And maybe, just maybe, your soul will find a way to dance.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Sin is Communal: Why Churches Need Better Responses for “I Have Been Sinned Against”

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This is our fifth post in our series on sexual abuse. Don’t miss parts one, two, three, and four.

As we discuss sexual abuse, we think it is important to address the problem that churches rarely respond to victims well. Many Christians will focus solely on the importance of the abuser repenting and the victim forgiving. Abuse is treated as though it impacts identically two people: the abuser and the victim. But this isn’t the case. Recently, Joel Miller wrote an excellent piece highlighting the limitations of this paradigm by analyzing Josh Duggar’s public statement. Miller notes how Josh references himself over 20 times while only obliquely hinting at his victims twice. If abuse only impacts two people, talking about one’s self can seem a lot like taking personal responsibility. But abuse does not impact only the abuser and the abused.

When we recognize the communal reality of sin, we need a way for people to blow the whistle and say, “I’ve been sinned against!” A person who comes forward ought to be taken seriously and soberly. There is a problem in the community, and the Christians who gather together need to take action in order to seek God’s justice lived out through communal repentance. But that rarely, if ever, happens. Instead, anyone who tries to sound an alarm that he or she has been sinned against is treated with grave suspicion and often gets a number of admonishments. Accusations of sexual abuse go against the grain because they call into question the abuser’s character. Abuse is about lording power over another; abusers frequently pick out people in the community who are least likely to be believed if they can ever summon the courage to come forward.

As Christians, we cannot speak of sin’s potential to rupture our relationships with other people if we do not have space for victims to say “I have been sinned against.” Part of the reason why sexual abuse is so insidious is that abusers depend on forcing their victims into silence and removing their victims’ ability to object to what is happening. Even if a victim attempts to pursue a “Matthew 18” approach in an effort to stop the abuse, the victim will at some point need to go to the Church in order to say, “I have been sinned against.”

Churches encourage people to deal with their own personal sin by avoiding judging others. There are times and places when it is appropriate to tell people to remove the log from their own eye, yes. However, instances of sexual abuse should not be occasions for admonishing the abused to focus on his or her own sins. Well-meaning Christians have assumed far too often that a victim comes forward because he or she needs help forgiving the abuser. Really, victims come forward to help expose a larger problem affecting the entire community, and forgiveness is a lengthy process that cannot be taken lightly. A church that demands victims simply forgive their abusers is a church that absolves itself from its responsibility to all of its congregants.

Christians can be notorious in asking victims to identify whether their sin had any part in the abuse. Especially if the victim has a developed or developing female shape, an absurd number of Christians will respond by peppering her with questions like What were you wearing? Did you have anything to drink? Did you say or do anything that could have indicated that you were open to sex? Were you immodest in anyway? How was your hair styled? and other such nonsense. Asking people who have been seriously violated to sear their own consciences for any hint of wrongdoing is spiritual abuse. Christians who ask these questions are not interested in providing comfort; these questions are about placing blame.

Unfortunately, many pastors and biblical counselors are experts at adopting a patronizing tone when talking with survivors. They focus on how the survivor needs to forgive and repent for his or her own part lest the survivor cultivate “resentment.” We can’t think of a more effective strategy for ensuring that sexual abuse victims do in fact come to a place of resentment…of the church and the shoddy theology used to justify this pastoral approach.

Recognizing that sin is communal opens the door to a different pastoral approach. Communities that see the communal nature of sin will ask themselves questions like, “How have we contributed to this situation? What changes can we make so that this never happens again? How can we help other churches be more proactive in this area? What can be done to ensure that the allegations are investigated by appropriate legal authorities? How can we extend pastoral care to known victims? Are there other people who have been victimized? What can we do to hold the abuser accountable?”

There’s a tension for Christian communities. An abuser that goes to confession has taken a sacramental step towards his or her own healing. In traditions that do not practice sacramental confession, an abuser might share with an accountability partner which can also be a step toward healing. We are strong advocates that the seal of Confession must never be broken. Any person walking a path of repentance must be encouraged to continue his or her journey. We are constantly falling down and getting back up in order to grow towards Christ. A victim who seeks the church because he or she has been sinned against is calling attention to how the communal nature of sin directly impacts the community. Communities must be walking their paths of repentance together, changing policies and procedures that permit people to be victimized. Our churches must strive to be the most compassionate, the most loving, the most truthful, and the most hopeful communities in existence. But that can only happen when communities are constantly searching out their hearts so that God can shine light in every dark corner, including the culture of silence that permits abuse to continue.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

 

Sexual Abuse and the Dynamics of Disclosure

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This is part four in our series on sexual abuse. Be sure to check out parts one, two, and three.

When we decided to write this series on sexual abuse, we made a conscious choice to write it together. Mutual disclosure of the hard life stuff has characterized our relationship almost from the beginning. Our relationship unfolded for us because in the other, each of us found a person who could look into our lives naturally with compassion, grace, and mercy. So many survivors of sexual abuse need to have places where they can have open, honest, and safe conversations about their experiences. Unfortunately, those safe spaces seem rare to the point of being precious.

It’s these kind of observations that make Lindsey’s head spin. Before we started having candid conversations about Sarah’s sexual abuse, Lindsey thought that virtually everyone healing from sexual abuse had companions on the journey. After all, don’t abuse survivors share their stories with their closest friends, get help, and move forward in life? Isn’t that what we are led to believe? Lindsey has sat through dozen of trainings on sexual abuse for mandatory reporters, but theory only gets you so far. The simple truth of the matter is that disclosure is risky, especially when it comes to disclosing to one’s closest friends. Who wants to share his or her story with a trusted friend only to be met with disbelief, dismissal, blame, and even an aggressive to command to “forgive” and get over it already? Often, survivors have more experience with such responses than non-survivors may imagine.

Abuse depends on a culture of silence. It’s more than one’s abuser saying, “Never tell anyone what happened.” It’s more than one person’s bad reaction. Survivors of sexual abuse have to climb a mountain of cultural misconceptions about what counts as real abuse, what justice ought to look like, and what one is asking for when he or she discloses instances of abuse. Sexual abuse survivors who share their stories are often shunned for airing dirty laundry and refusing to let private matters remain private. Every time an abuse survivor tries to break the silence, he or she can run into a cultural wall of, “You know, you really need to talk about this with a therapist. I’m not trained to help you deal with your problem.” When we say that, we think we are giving good advice and doing what is best for the person. But we aren’t. Sexual abuse is a huge problem. We’ve stopped looking at statistics because it seems like the numbers keep growing. What can a friend do to help bring about real and enduring healing in cases of sexual abuse?

Listen.

It seems too simplistic that listening would be the most critical action in helping another person heal from sexual abuse. However, note that listening breaks silence. Abuse silences the victim. Listening gives space to be heard. Often, abuse shoves the story deep within a survivor. Survivors have learned never, ever, ever to tell their stories because speaking comes with costs that are too high. Imagine a survivor who has had the courage to write her story of molestation on a t-shirt for a Take Back the Night event. She goes with a close friend to look at the shirts, all while observing whether this friend has ears to listen. Walking through the t-shirts, the friend comments appropriately on some messages left. The survivor’s hope builds as her shirt is approaching. 3 steps, 2 steps, 1 step, BREATHE, linger, wait. Her friend is another 2 steps away… “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe someone put that shirt in the display. Who cares if your brother touched you? That’s totally normal. Hasn’t she ever heard of kids playing doctor?” Sometimes, both direct and indirect ways people tell a survivor to shut up can be even more painful than the abuse itself. The silencing continues, and the survivor needs to gather herself before moving forward. She can’t find a voice even in anonymity.

It can be easy for people who haven’t been sexually abused to say, “Okay, I get it. Some people react badly. But I would never react in that way. I know to listen.” Here’s a pin for popping that balloon. It doesn’t work that way. If a survivor has tried to share his or her story with 24 other good and trustworthy people, you’re simply the 25th person in that line. Survivors aren’t stupid. A culture of silence means that survivors are attempting to fly to a safe haven with no navigation aids. In a culture saturated by social media, some survivors have decided to throw caution to the wind and say something on a public platform: why risk systemically testing your friends one by one to see if any among them know how to listen? Isn’t it better to get it all out at once and see who is still standing by you when the dust settles? But even then, a survivor encounters the demands of a culture of silence that shames him or her for “oversharing” and asserts that certain things are best handled through “proper channels.”

Although it’s well-intentioned, discussing the “proper channels” shows a deep misunderstanding of how trauma from sexual abuse work. So much of what non-survivors know assumes that the abuse is actively occurring right now and is principally a legal matter that needs to be addressed by the police. Have you filed a police report? Do you need to go to the hospital? Are you going to press charges? What evidence do you have? Unfortunately, this kind of “support” is limited and assumes that there is a standard, simple path that all survivors need to take after being abused. Non-survivors can be absolutely clueless in knowing how to listen to a survivor sharing about events from years ago. If a survivor is still processing sexual trauma from over 5 years ago, far too many non-survivors will gaze at the survivor with disgust and say, “Look, I’m not your therapist. If it’s still on your mind that much, then you need to get help…serious help.” Trauma is never simply erased. As survivors heal, they get better at dealing with the various kinds of memories that surface, even if these memories remain unexpected and intrusive. Anyone can listen. Some topics can certainly be difficult for non-survivors to hear. It’s great to say things like, “I’m so glad you trusted me with this story. Thank you for letting me listen. It sounds like you might benefit from talking about this with some more people besides me as well. Do you have a therapist that you’re talking with now? Would you like help in finding someone?” Because disclosures can be exceptionally difficult for listeners it’s okay to seek out support for yourself when a disclosure hits you particularly hard.

With it being so hard to find people who are willing to listen, many survivors catch the memo that there’s no place for their stories to be heard. Often, they stuff the hurt, the pain, the anger, the betrayal, everything, all inside. It’s a futile exercise as inevitably our body revolts. The silence becomes crushing, and survivors seek balm for the pain that cannot be shared safely with others. Sarah has heard more disclosures of sexual abuse while drinking heavily with other people or during eating disorder treatment than either one of us care to count. Survivors will self-medicate in a number of ways, many of which are self-destructive. If there is no one willing to listen, there is no other way to deal with the pain than numb it. Even then, people in their lives tend to see the destructive behavior as coming from a place of resentment and lack of forgiveness rather than a place of incredible hurt.

As hard as it is to talk about sexual abuse, it’s possible to make a difference by becoming someone who is able to listen. Sarah finds that listening well comes rather organically after having done so much healing work over time. As a non-survivor, Lindsey has tried to cultivate active listening strategies.  It’s hard to listen if you’re doing the talking. Lindsey believes that “Stop talking” is the First Rule of Listening. Some of us are cursed with a tendency to yammer when talking about difficult topics. Watching for your own tendencies can be helpful. It’s also good to practice asking open-ended questions. Think about difficult experiences in your own life where you really needed someone to listen. Who among your friends have been good listeners for you? What do they do that makes them effective listeners? When you speak, express gratitude that a person has trusted you with his or her story. Acknowledge that sharing can be difficult. Lindsey makes an active point of rehearsing how Lindsey wants to respond when a survivor opts to disclose. As of this writing, Lindsey’s immediate response goes something like: “Thank you so much for trusting me with your story. I’m incredibly sorry that you’re having to deal with this. I am willing to listen as you want to tell me more. Are you safe?”

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Talking about “Real” Sexual Violence

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This is part three in our series on sexual abuse. Click these links for parts one and two.

As we have written our first two posts this week, we have received a number of ideas and requests for topics to include in this series. A few readers have requested that we write about signs of sexual abuse, especially those that Christian parents may fail to notice. One reader asked specifically for more information about what to do if a person who claims to be abused fears perceived sexual advances from other people who are not abusers. Several people who have interacted with us online the past couple of days have used language such as “serious sexual violence,” “legitimate sexual violence,” and “real sexual violence” to differentiate what they see as levels of seriousness when it comes to unwelcome sexual advances made on another person. This is the topic we have chosen for today, and we think it relates well to the suggestion that we write about signs of sexual abuse. (If you have any suggestions for items to include in a future post on that topic, please let us know.)

Why is it that when we discuss sexual violence there is always a tendency to use a tier system for ranking the actions? Touching a young girl’s breasts becomes a not-so-serious tier 1 offense, whereas raping that same young girl is a tier 5 offense. Part of it may be that the legal system responds differently to different specific acts of sexual violence, so we feel justified in thinking of some as “not so bad” and others as “real sexual violence.” In reality, trauma of any kind impacts different people in different ways. We as a society think it’s normal for a veteran to develop PTSD, but tell people who have experienced sexual violence that they should just get over it because it wasn’t that big a deal…except in “some cases of violent rape.” This attitude keeps people from getting help when they have experienced sexual violence, and when we carry it into the church it prevents victims from finding safety in what should be the safest place on earth.

If you are not a survivor of sexual violence, you may have some misconceptions about how victims feel, what kinds of sexual violence can have lasting impacts, and what it means when a person tells you about an experience of sexual violence. The two of us had a long conversation last night about what Lindsey, who is not a survivor, mistakenly believed before meeting Sarah, who is. We’ve listed them below with some additional explanation.

“A person will always begin talking about sexual abuse by saying, ‘I was raped.'” If a person is confiding in you about a story of sexual violence, it is possible that “I was raped” will be the first item shared by the victim. But this is usually not the case. It’s very common for a victim to begin by sharing other details in order to test the listener and determine if that person is safe for further sharing. Victims have had their senses of trust and security violated. It can extremely difficult to share about an experience of sexual violence. One should never assume that the victim has already shared everything that happened, or that if the victim decides to tell more later the additions to the story are exaggerations for attention-seeking purposes. It took Sarah more than two years to share every detail of Sarah’s abuse with Lindsey.

“It’s only real sexual violence if the person was forcibly penetrated.” Sexual violence occurs when one person behaves sexually toward another person in a way that was not wanted or welcomed. It can involve touching and fondling as well as penetration and other actions. Often, an abuser who begins with unwanted sexual touching will eventually proceed to engaging in other sexual behaviors toward the victim. In this case, telling a victim the abuse isn’t real unless it’s penetration is like telling a person with symptoms of ebola, “It’s not real until you’re bleeding internally.” Even if the abuse doesn’t progress from fondling to rape, unwelcome sexual touching can be just as traumatic especially if the victim is met with disbelief instead of support.

“If it really happened, there will be an overwhelming amount of evidence to corroborate the victim’s story.” We’ve known many Christians who have stated confidently that their churches have the perfect policy for dealing with allegations of sexual violence: the story is investigated (whether by church elders alone or involving police too) and if there is sufficient evidence, action is taken. If there is not sufficient evidence, the incident is let go and treated as though it never arose in the first place. Such policies originate in the erroneous belief that there is always evidence if the victim is indeed telling the truth. In reality, it is almost impossible to prove that sexual violence occurred in most cases. If there are no witnesses and the perpetrator does not confess, the situation often becomes the word of the victim against the word of the perpetrator. But lack of evidence does not mean that the incident of sexual violence never occurred.

“Fear experienced by abuse victims is limited to the context of the abuse itself.” When victims lose their sense of security and trust, the world can become a frightening place. Other people who remind the victim of the perpetrator in any way may be perceived by the victim as a threat. Victims may fear touch from others or sights, sounds, smells, and other environmental factors that trigger memories of the abuse and the events surrounding it. It is common for people who experience sexual abuse to be hypervigilant. Victims may perceive innocent behaviors of others as threatening. This does not mean that the victim has fabricated the abuse story and is experiencing sexually deviant delusions; instead, it is a sign that the victim has indeed been abused. Do not accuse the victim of lying if this happens. Instead, assist the person in finding help from a trained professional.

“A support person always has a second chance to be a safe person.” If a victim confides in you, you may expect that person will give you multiple chances to respond well. There’s a perception that if a support person responds poorly during the victim’s first attempt at disclosure, the victim will understand, immediately forgive, and simply try the disclosure again. Most of the time, a support person only gets one chance to respond well. This is not to say that victims are never understanding when a support person feels clueless, but if your first response to disclosure of sexual violence is one of skepticism or outright disbelief, do not expect the victim to give you a second chance. This isn’t about vindictiveness or lack of forgiveness. It’s about the victim’s self-protection. Many victims of sexual violence come to see that very few people in their lives are safe people for discussing what happened to them. If you want to be a safe person in your friend or loved one’s healing process, you should never respond to the disclosure with the attitude that what occurred was not “real sexual violence.” Even if you have doubts or are unsure about the details, do not question the realness of the story. Seek help for yourself if needed.

Can you think of other misconceptions about “real sexual violence” and how it is disclosed? There are several beyond what we have listed here. Let’s discuss them together in the comments.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Sexual Violence, Manipulation, and Cheap Grace

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This is the second post in our series on sexual abuse. You can read the first post here.

A reflection by Sarah

Forgiveness is one of the most central ideas in all of Christian teaching. Christ commands us to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who sin against us.” As he hung dying on the cross, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Forgiveness seems like a straightforward concept: forgive everyone, always, and as many times as necessary. Yet anyone who has tried to put these teachings into action can attest to how challenging forgiveness can be. One reason forgiveness is so hard is that perfect forgiveness requires understanding both God’s mercy and God’s justice in a perfect way. Forgiveness, like other components of God’s mercy and justice, reflects the unfathomable and unknowable heart of God. When discussing sexual abuse, it’s paramount to sit in the tension between God’s mercy and God’s justice.

When I first became aware of the news about Josh Duggar’s sexual abuse of his sisters and at least one other girl during his teen years, I was not surprised that his response to the public focused on his asking for and receiving forgiveness both from God and the victims. What did surprise me was seeing that a large number of people I know believe this should be sufficient grounds for ceasing criticism of Josh and his parents and letting the crime remain a “private family matter.” It’s naive to think such a situation should ever have been a private family matter in the first place, and it’s even more naive to think forgiving an abuser is simple and straightforward. I do not claim to know what Josh Duggar’s victims’ psychological and spiritual processes have looked like over the years. It’s possible that they have indeed forgiven him fully. But it’s much more likely that there’s more to the story than we will ever hear. It’s possible that the forgiveness Josh claims they have extended to him is not actually forgiveness. I draw from my own personal experience in saying this.

In some manifestations of conservative Christianity, forgiveness is used as a tool of manipulation. This does not happen only in the Quiverfull movement, but across a wide variety of Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions. To put some flesh on what I mean by “manipulation,” I’ll share a bit more detail about my own story.

One morning when I was 14, I had finally worked up the courage to tell my parents that I was being abused by a deacon at our church for two years at the time. We were at church early, the perpetrator had fondled my breasts and vaginal area while I was waiting outside the door of the women’s restroom, and I could not contain the truth any longer. I ran into the sanctuary, pulled my mom out and into the restroom, and began to tell her about what had been happening to me. I had barely scratched the surface of the details when I noticed her facial expression. It was cold and severe as she informed me that she thought I was either exaggerating or outright lying. No sooner than she dragged me back into a pew did my abuser approach her and comment on how tall I was growing, and that my height would come in handy next weekend when the church windows needed cleaning. My mom was completely fooled and forbade me to say anything about my “tale” to my dad immediately after church. I could not help myself, so I disobeyed and began blurting out random details of the story as we drove home. My dad’s response was to throw a screaming fit in the car, which terrified me into retracting part of the story and justifying my “incorrect” perception of my abuser’s behavior. This only made things worse, and I spent the rest of the day crying myself into a migraine as my parents told me that I was mentally ill, sexually deviant, unfit to be alone with my younger sister, at risk for tearing apart the entire church community, and in danger of going to hell. That evening, every inch of my privacy was revoked and I was forbidden to speak to anyone about this.

Over the next few months, the need for repentance was hammered into my skull day after day. Not my abuser’s repentance — my own. I was told that I should not commune and that I should instead be contemplating the state of my soul. Most of my mental space was consumed by suicide plans and how I would manage to find one that would work given how closely my parents were monitoring me. All this time, the abuse was continuing. I never had the chance to share the full extent of it because my parents’ condemnation was so swift and unwavering. Eventually, my dad saw what he thought might have been the deacon fondling me. His advice was that I should stay away from the deacon but be understanding and forgiving because of the deacon’s old age. Much later, my mom saw the abuse with her own eyes. Around the same time, a friend from church shared with me that she had also been abused by this deacon. When her parents and my parents eventually talked to each other I learned that this problem had been occurring for years with multiple victims, and those in the community who knew about it preferred to sweep it under the rug.

From that point forward, my parents began saying to me, “We’re sorry. Forgive us,” as though that should be enough to end the pain and bring about healing. Simultaneously, they made it clear that I was never to inform anyone of what had happened to me, and that disobeying this request would only cause more problems for me. At one point they took me to see a local psychiatrist who was all too willing to let them control what I said and did not say about the abuse. The psychiatrist — a mandated reporter, a person with a license to practice medicine — did not report anything. I was never asked for my opinion about how justice could be served. My abuser got away with everything. He was never held accountable by the community in any way. By the time I was an adult and considered reporting the abuse myself, he was ill and mostly homebound — no longer a threat to community safety. He had the privilege of reposing with the public image of a virtuous Christian who was a role model in the community for decades.

As the years have gone by, my parents have begged for my forgiveness repeatedly. They ask me why I can’t just move on with my life, why I can’t accept their apology, and why I am still so bitter and resentful years after the last occurrence of sexual abuse. They inquire as to why I don’t just focus on the good memories of my childhood, as though the good times outweigh the reality that I was sexually abused and the abuse was hidden. What they don’t realize is that forgiveness is a process, and in situations like these it can take a very long time. To them, moving on with my life means not needing or wanting to talk about this anymore. It means shutting up, doing all the life things I’m doing now at age 30, and just not thinking about what happened all those years ago. To them, bitterness and resentment are the same as having strong feelings about it half my life later.

This is the problem with the brand of grace that’s peddled throughout much of American Christianity: Jesus forgives all sins immediately after we say that we are sorry, so it follows that every Christian who wants to be forgiving like Jesus will let go of any wrongdoing once the offenders have apologized. That is the mentality I was raised with, at least when it comes to forgiving parents for making accusations of lying and sexual deviancy in addition to covering up child sexual abuse. That’s why when I was a teenager, I thought parroting “I forgive you” to my parents was the only way to show faithfulness to Christ. I believed that the state of my soul was dependent on it, especially after years of hearing stories about how miserable my grandmother was when she reposed because of all the grudges she had held during her lifetime. I honestly believed that I had forgiven them until my mid-twenties when I realized that I had never really processed what had happened to me and how I felt about the fact that no one was ever held accountable.

“I’m sorry” does not yield automatic forgiveness. Grace is not a gum ball machine where a person can insert a quarter, then go skipping along and blowing bubbles in ten seconds. It’s easy to assume that a survivor is bitter and resentful when you are not the one who has to live with the lasting consequences of a child molester violating your body and your parents insisting on covering up the whole situation. This is why I am skeptical of the claim that Josh Duggar’s victims have forgiven him, and therefore all is well. Perhaps they have, but why are we assuming that is so? Why are we so willing to say that this situation is a private family matter where the victims chose to forgive and move on with their lives? The language in every statement from the Duggar family about this issue suggests a high likelihood that Josh’s victims were manipulated into “forgiveness.” Whether that is the case or not, it happens constantly in conservative Christianity and is inexcusable.

You may have read this whole post and decided that I am a bitter, resentful person who cannot find enough strength in Christ to forgive my parents or my abuser. I have been working for several years on forgiving my parents, and I will probably be continuing that work for several more years. That’s okay. It takes time. I have a kind and patient spiritual director, and will soon be looking again for a kind and patient therapist. Though I cannot yet say that I have forgiven my parents, I can say with confidence that I have forgiven my abuser fully. He sinned against me terribly, but I am no longer angry with him. I hope that in the hereafter, I will get the chance to meet his redeemed self and come to an understanding of the whys that still run through my mind from time to time. On the day I learned of his death, I prayed for the repose of his soul. Some survivors will think I am crazy for this, but I genuinely hope that he is at peace and free from whatever demons and passions that had hold of him when I was young. Getting to a place where I can say all of this has taken hours of therapy and spiritual direction and has required the support of my extensive family of choice. It cannot be forced. A person cannot be manipulated into hoping that her abuser is at rest rather than in torment. I would not hold this attitude up as an expectation for any other survivor. I could not have gotten to this place if I had not willingly distanced myself from the cheap grace messages I had been exposed to in my earliest years as a survivor.

As I engage in discussions on Facebook about the Duggar scandal, something one of my friends commented continues to stick out to me. The implications of this comment are frightening: “Any Jesus who would forgive something like this is no Jesus of mine.” I have to wonder if this kind of thought would still come up in response to sexual abuse if Christians did a better job of teaching forgiveness. If what I had learned about forgiveness as a child and teen was the traditional Christian understanding of forgiveness, I would agree with her. When we reduce forgiveness to, “Being sorry and apologizing is good enough to erase the sin entirely,” we distort the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection. We communicate that Jesus will save the child molester who makes a public showing of remorse, no questions asked…but when it comes to the child who has been severaly sinned against, her  salvation is dependent upon being manipulated into “forgiveness.”

Forgiveness is intimately connected to God’s judgement. When humans make so many misjudgments in cases of abuse, it can be difficult to trust that God can and will enact truly perfect justice. Until there is perfect justice, the cries of victims will continue bear witness to a world in desperate need of redemption. And so I continue to pray, “Lord have mercy. Show us a new way to relate to one another where abuse no longer exists. Bring healing to all of those who have been wronged. Open the doors of repentance to any who perpetuate the evils of abuse.”

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