While few clergy are trained psychotherapists, they pick up a great deal of wisdom as part of their job. They get, for example, to understand how to deal with bereaved people, the things to look for that take place as part of the normal grieving process. They become familiar with many of life’s vicissitudes. They learn when silence is better than platitude and when words might be helpful. I like to think that I can now deal better with a range of pastoral situations than when I begun fresh out of college nearly fifty years ago.
The situation in facing an individual who has been sexually abused in a church setting is going to be a challenge for even the most skilled of pastoral carers. This blog cannot, of course, offer advice in this area, not least through my lack of direct experience. Although I have met (mostly online) some dozens of people who have been abused in this way, I do not claim any special expertise in this area. Listening, however, to some of the stories, I do begin to understand some of the catastrophic mistakes that are, even now, made by well-meaning clergy and ministers. The biggest mistake is to introduce the idea of Christian forgiveness early on this process of responding to an individual’s story. The only person who stands to benefit by such an act of forgiveness early on is the listener. She or he cannot bear to hear the grimy details of the abuse, particularly when it demonstrates the utter hypocrisy of a man of God taking advantage of a vulnerable person. If the victim can be persuaded to forgive then the story is effectively shut down. The victim is then supposed to indulge in a generous outpouring of Christian love towards the perpetrator so that the one being counselled can ‘move on’ and heal.
The kind of pastoral concern that is more about taking care of the listener than the victim obviously won’t do. Anyone with an ounce of experience will know that there will be in abuse cases several layers of issues to deal with. These will include guilt, induced shame and a sense of powerlessness. ‘Christian’ forgiveness can so often prevent one part of the process of healing which is, arguably, essential to any healthy recovery. The stage I am referring to is a sense of anger towards the abuser. Pastoral care will often include allowing an individual to feel visceral rage towards the person who abused or humiliated the victim in the past. It is uncomfortable having to witness this anger. But we know that it is a common stage on the journey to come to terms with the abuse event. The victim is perfectly entitled to be angry and when it is felt, it needs to be articulated. The expressed anger is part of the way that many victims begin to reclaim the power that was so cruelly taken from them. As victims, the abused were put into a situation where they were dominated and controlled. The angry victim is now the one who wants to cry out their pain, their grief and their lost innocence. But, in and through that anger, the victim is reclaiming a voice, a right to be heard and the power that belongs to every human being.
The question arises as to whether the anger of victims or survivors should be expressed outside the setting of psychotherapy and pastoral care. From the point of view of the institution where the abuse took place, such anger expressed openly is embarrassing and inconvenient. No institution wants to be reminded of the past failings of some of its representatives. How convenient it would be if the past could be left in the past so that no one in the present had to think about it or respond to it. But few institutions outside a dictatorship can ever suppress the past and the anger that simmers because of injustice and outright evil. The attempts to hide the pain of the past is likely to be met by failure. As the saying goes ‘truth will out’.
Next month a few survivors of church sexual abuse will be demonstrating outside General Synod in York. They will represent other survivors who are not present. Some of these latter will be reliving their anger and pain at home. Others will still be at the pre-anger stage of shame, guilt and self-blame. We have no means of knowing how many victims exist but we know, from the convictions in British courts, that there are still numerous others who are invisible. These hidden victims are out there, and our hearts go out to them.
To members of General Synod who meet a survivor at Synod or elsewhere, I would ask this. The survivor you are encountering is one of those who may be angry. But this anger is both justified and healthy. It is necessary for this anger to exist for at least two reasons. First it activates in the individual the necessary energy to reach out for help which is necessary for his/her individual healing. The second reason that this anger is healthy is because it is helping to move the institution, here the Church of England, to rectify past failures. The anger is also part of the energy that may make the Church a safer place in the future. Welcome the anger; embrace the anger because in some way this anger is a reflection of God’s anger towards individuals and churches that have tolerated the terrible evil of sexual abuse against the innocent.
I shall not be present outside Synod next month. I shall be at a conference in the States. But even though separated by 3,000 miles I shall be hoping and praying that the Synod embraces and welcomes in some way the energy of survivors who ultimately seeking for what every Christian should welcome. They are asking for justice, accountability and honesty especially among those who lead in the institution. Without that openness the institution must surely crack and splinter under the strain of suppressing the wrong and the anger that has existed for decades within it.
I’m very pleased you validate the importance of survivors expressing anger and link it to the process of their healing.
I would like to see a much greater understanding, especially by church leaders, of the process of recovering from trauma; it seems that many don’t even have a basic awareness of it, feel helpless to act in a supportive way and would much prefer to leave it to professional therapists.
At IICSA in March we heard a lot about bishops having to have done the C4 safeguarding course before being consecrated but I don’t know how much mandatory training they have to have done, if any, in terms of understanding the recovery process (e.g. using the model of Judith Lewis Herman) for survivors of trauma, whether sexual abuse or any other form of trauma.
I would like to suggest that such training is mandatory for all licensed church ministers, whether lay or ordained, as it has great potential to enhance their ministry and to support those who have been traumatised.
Thank you JayKay. I have to confess that I did not look up Judith Herman before writing this piece. I am just conscious of the way that righteous anger motivates many survivors and keeps them at the task of seeking justice. It has infected me as I hear of appalling tales of professional incompetence from those who appoint themselves as experts in this area. As far as I can see the issue of church sexual abuse is so complex and many sided that there are no experts in this field. There are people who have expertise but when they claim to experts in every aspect of the issue, they are probably delusional. Humility before the many aspects of this topic is essential before you can be of any help to survivors. The ‘experts’ all seem to be on the side of the institution and that makes less than able to ‘see’ with the eyes of the survivors. Without that perspective, they can never be experts of any description.
Yes, I don’t think that we would want to see church leaders who regarded themselves as experts in this; it seems that there is an extra layer of complexity for survivors of church abuse. On the one hand, as a survivor, I am reluctant to speak with people who don’t have a basic understanding of church structures because it is just so wearing having to explain these as part of my story, but on the other hand people who are within the church and do understand the structures are usually incredulous of my story.
However, I think it would certainly help if bishops and others with influence in the church understood at least one basic fact: “Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.”
They might then realise how anything less than encouraging the truthful telling by the victim of their story seriously OBSTRUCTS the victim’s recovery. Any of their actions or words that minimise the truth or make it difficult for the victim to speak their truth cause additional harm to the victim. I doubt that many bishops or leaders actively wish to make healing or recovery even more difficult for victims of abuse than it already is, but unless they are prepared to understand the recovery process – and the importance of the victim’s truth being heard respectfully – then this is very likely to happen.
Oh my goodness. I’ve been banging on about these issues for years. The senior churchman I tried to approach for help wouldn’t listen on the grounds that it was in the past. He wanted me to see a trained counsellor, for whom I discovered I was meant to pay. The counsellor of course has no power. Talking about it is part of the healing process of post traumatic stress. And thank you Stephen for your insight that demanding forgiveness the way they do is all about the listener. Brilliant. Thank you.
Yes, Stephen, you have put this very well.
Some of you might also want to read my guest blog on ViaMedia: https://viamedia.news/2018/06/19/the-trouble-with-fish/
Great Janet!
Thank you Janet for your guest blog. You might like to see the question I left after Simon Butler’s blog.
Good for you! You’re right, both parties have to be truthful and honest for mediation to work.
Incidentally, there seems to be a second comment that isn’t visible.
Simon Butler isn’t replying to me, either. Is it me, or did his blog have rather a critical tone?
In my experience the church welcomes an angry survivor, the angrier the better, because then they can say ‘there you are mad and bad, no need to listen or engage with them.’
Anger is one of the hardest emotions to deal with, and not let’s be self righteous about this, none of us deal with it very well when we feel in some way threatened by it. It is perhaps more useful to ask is anger a constructive way of the survivor being heard? I would say that in most case it isn’t.
Anger will often trigger something in the ‘personal baggage’ of the person that the survivor is expressing their feelings to and that will result in distancing, deflection and non-engagement.
For the survivor anger usually covers up deep rooted pain and it is therefore important that they protect themselves and explore those feelings in a safe and protected environment where an outpouring of feelings won’t be judged negatively. Once the survivor feels strong enough they can then approach the appropriate church person and say as calmly as they can ‘I am hurting and I need you to engage
with that.’ Someone who is controlled is far harder to dismiss.
Until fundamental human nature changes and we can all deal better with anger that feels a threat to us survivors need to protect themselves and have a safety net for those very difficult feelings of anger and in general that is not the church because not being heard or seen will only increase the anger and the retraumatisation will continue.
Trish, I agree with you expressing anger in an emotional way can meet with a rebuff, and that therefore it’s best to try no two do that within the Church. Churches as a rule are not terribly good at dealing with what might be perceived as ‘negative’ emotions, whether coming from a survivor or not. However people who have been victimised aren’t always going to be able to control the way or the place their anger is expressed – and the Church ought to learn to deal with that.
The survivors who had been speaking out in the public sphere are mostly using their anger to energise them to campaign, but are being rational and logical in what they say and how they express it. That’s much harder to dismiss, although the Church is doing its damnedest.
When Jesus took a whip and stampeded cattle and sheep through the Temple to clear out the moneychangers, he was expressing his anger at the victimising of the poor more violently than anything the Church is seeing now.
I hope that all survivors, in the Church and out of it, have a safety net of supportive people. For some of us, social media is one way of both giving and getting support.
Excellent article. In my case, my former rector, Bob Malm, has been hard at work behind the scenes trying to convince people that I am mentally ill for being angry about his conduct, all while conveniently claiming that these events took place several years ago. That ignores the fact that, among other things, he is pursuing a restraining order against me, falsely claiming that I have threatened him. Meanwhile, Bob’s comments range from referring to me as “twisted,” to proferring sneaky little questions to fellow bloggers such as, “Is that healthy?”
Were the church here in the States actually healthy, it would recognized that anger over its conduct is well justified, and that the majority of abuse in the institutional church is not sexual, but relational in nature, involving bullying, power plays, and spiritual abuse. It is that failure to recognize the full depth and breadth of abuse, together with a willingness to protect abusive clergy, that has led me to renounce organized Christianity.
Terrible. I’m so sorry. I will pray for you, and for a miracle.
Please pray for me. I have made an approach to someone about getting my licence back. It went well, and they have undertaken to take it further. No guarantees of course! Please take up God bothering in a big way!
Athena, I’m praying for you & for them.
I’m praying for you too.
Just run across this rather apt quote:
“What is therefore, our task today? Shall I answer: ‘Faith, hope and love’? That sounds beautiful. But I would say–courage. No–even that is not challenging enough to be the whole truth. Our task today is recklessness. For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature….we lack a holy rage–the recklessness which comes from the knowledge of God and humanity. The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets, and when the lie rages across the face of the earth…a holy anger about the things that are wrong in the world. To rage against the ravaging of God’s earth, and the destruction of God’s world. To rage when little children must die of hunger when the tables of the rich are sagging with food. To rage at the lie that calls the threat of death and the strategy of destruction peace. To rage against complacency. To restlessly seek to change human history until it conforms to the norms of the Kingdom of God.”
And remember the signs of the Christian Church have been the Lion, the Lamb, the Dove, and the Fish…
but never the chameleon.”
Excerpt of a sermon preached by, Kaj Munk, Danish Lutheran pastor, 1898-1944
killed by the Gestapo in 1944 , after preaching this sermon.
Wow! Wonderful! Inspiring, actually. Thanks.