Blog Against Sexual Violence: Think Before You Preach

Sexual violence is utterly evil. God hates it and we should too.

It happens all the time: usually by men against women and children, sometimes by men against men, sometimes by women against children, rarely by women against men.

It is vastly fostered by sexism, racism, and homophobia. The clergy sexual abuse I suffered as an undergraduate at a Catholic University, from my adviser in the Religious Studies Department, was perpetrated by a married Protestant pastor. However, it was vastly fostered by the denial of my vocation to Catholic priesthood, which led me to seek him as a mentor and also convinced me I was worthless and undeserving of protection, and that God was on his side. It left me with a severe case of post traumatic stress disorder, and I have blogged about it here, here, here, here, and here.

It happens overtly in cases of rape and covertly in cases of false "consent" which was impossible because of a power imbalance, which is what happened to me. No one told me otherwise for seven years, including the university to whom I reported it, priests to whom I "confessed" it, and several therapists--one of whom said it was "what I needed at the time." I am still disentangling myself from the horrendous damage over twenty years later.

It happens frequently in church, one of the prime places sexism, racism, and homophobia are found. This is one of the most damaging places because it fuses sexual and spiritual abuse and because the normal response is to excuse, minimize, deny, and/or blame the victim. Christy has a brilliant post about this here.

Urging victims to forgive without seeking justice or helping them achieve it, or insisting that they find spiritual meaning or value in their experience--as happens constantly in pulpits, religious books, and pastoral counseling--is a further rape which grieves the Spirit of God.

Presenting Jesus' torture and unjust execution as God's direct, salvific will, and glorifying his acceptance of that fate without careful theological explanation, as will happen in countless pulpits during the Triduum, is a huge bar to healing and prevention of this ongoing crucifixion.

Please, before you preach on Jesus' words in the Garden of Gethsemane, or tell people to pick up their cross and follow him: think long and hard, and then think again, about how your interpretation will be received by the many silent survivors of rape, molestation, and sexual exploitation in your pews.

If you don't know, ask. If you do know, listen to your own spirit, and speak lovingly to the survivor in yourself as well. Also, remember that everyone's experience is different.

Please read everything Marie Fortune ever wrote, and Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us, by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker. You may not agree with their rejection of all redemptive suffering (I don't) but if you don't grapple with their critique in forming your own position you are likely to miss some very crucial pieces of the puzzle.

If you love a survivor, please be patient with them and with yourself. If you are a survivor, please love yourself and let God and others love you, and be patient with them and with yourself.

Please pray for the day when our churches are part of the solution, not part of the problem.