The theme of betrayal is one known to biblical writers in both Testaments.  The account of Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss is a key moment in the Passion narrative, but we do not often go on to reflect deeper on the meaning of this word.  The book I am currently reading explores the word in a secular context and the way that it finds a prominent place in many abuse scenarios. 

A lot has been written in recent years about trauma and the way it impacts individuals physiologically and psychologically.  Typically, someone faced with assault, abuse or sudden catastrophe will automatically activate primitive levels of the brain in an attempt to deal with the threat.  The response of the body/brain to any dangerous challenge is the fight/flight reaction.  Such a reaction may well assist survival but there are some situations where abuse is faced but neither of these reactions is viable.  One scenario that makes fight/flight impossible is the domestic abuse situation.  A woman or child cannot easily escape an abusing man as the home they live in is the only place on offer for physical survival.  ‘Battered wives’, as they used to be called, often have nowhere to go, so they adopt a third approach to the abuse which is to freeze inwardly and hope that the abuse or violence will stop.  Of these three responses, freezing is probably the least effective in terms of putting an end to violence

The book Blind to Betrayal by Jennifer Freyd and Pamela Birrell sets out the way that domestic violence does far more damage to a victim than an incident of random attack by a stranger.  To be beaten up, psychologically and physically by a lover, sometimes over many years, is far more damaging than physical pain.  It is a betrayal.  It betrays the trust, the loyalty and the love that had originally brought two people together.   It has a devastating effect on the confidence of the abused.  The likelihood of being destroyed psychologically is enormous.  One of the factors in a domestic violence situation is that both parties have in the relationship made themselves vulnerable to the other.  If one party decides to turn on the other violently, he or she will have gathered plenty of ammunition through which to damage and abuse the other partner.  Much of this abusing is done without anyone else knowing, so, in addition to the pain, there is often a dreadful loneliness.

It has become a commonplace of psychological thinking that man and women are born to build relationships and attachments.  From the time of babyhood every child reaches out to those who are responsible for her care because she knows that she needs them for mere survival.  If the carers/parents abuse or neglect the child, there is no alternative on offer.  The child cannot fight or flee but, like the abused partner, she has to cope as best she can with the scraps of attention available.  By not having basic emotional needs attended to, the child has to grow up without a proper sense of self or adequate levels of confidence and self-esteem.  The list of psychological issues that can befall the neglected child when they become adult is extensive.  Having had their self/subjectivity neglected, the damaged child often grows up depressed, disassociated and unable to cope with forming lasting relationships for herself.  The child from the earliest days had reached out to the parents/carers, seeking affirmation and protection as well as the chance to become a person.  The nurturing relationship between parent and child was tragically not present.

A further casualty of the legacy of neglectful/selfish parenting is the inability to trust.  We can speak of the right of every child born into the world to be able to trust their parents.  If the ability to trust the nurturing parent is responded to by abuse or other failure, the legacy for the child is massive.  How will the child ever learn to trust anyone outside herself if the parents have failed in this area?  Every act of abuse represents a catastrophic episode in the child’s life, and if the abuser is in a position of trust, the damage is especially costly.   People in positions of power in the family/church/school are all representing places that should always be safe.  When those places cease to be safe in the child’s eyes, the world becomes a far more dangerous place.  The act of betrayal by the adult has changed the child.  Instead of an attitude of openess and trust towards the world, there is one of suspicion and fear.  Growing up to learn about life in and through the experience of others becomes impossible.    The abused are often left to fight all their battles totally alone unless they can receive expert help.  The abuser has taken away ready access to the support of others through the ability to trust.

Enough has been said to indicate the point that the experience of betrayal on the part of someone who should be able to be trusted will always make abuse a far more serious event than the original act.  When an act of betrayal is perpetrated by a man of God, then the situation becomes still more complicated at a variety of levels.  The survivor is unlikely to look to the church as a source of help since the institution and the offender may be one and the same in their minds.  Can we really blame any survivor from mistrusting officials and representatives of the church which was the source of the original hurt? The sense of betrayal by what was once a place of safety may also have alienated them from their sense of trust in God.  The abuse, in short, has robbed them of their sense of self, their faith and their ability to trust what had been once a place of security and love.  It is hard to know how these important markers of identity and potential happiness can ever be returned.  How do we give back the possibility of faith and inner security to someone who has had it brutally and suddenly snatched away from them?  Can the church not have far more compassion towards those who show inevitable bitterness and loss in the face of so much betrayal and pain? 

Those who are responsible for the good name of a church denomination often fail to recognise how much is lost when individual members are betrayed by the failure of leaders in an act of abuse.  The loss to self-esteem and identity that is experienced by an individual is inevitably going to be shared as others come to hear of the abuse and the institutional failure that surrounds the event.  In Australia the sentencing of Cardinal Pell is not only about one act of sexual abuse committed decades ago.  It is about a potential collapse of trust by many people in an institution that has failed at so many levels.   People quickly realise that for every perpetrator of horrendous acts against children, there are always bystanders and colluders who have made the action and a cover-up possible.  Destroying trust through acts of betrayal is a serious matter.  It takes humility and contrition on the part of an institution or an individual to put right the broken trust.  If things are ever going to be right in our broken churches, we need to see much more evidence of this contrition on the part of leaders.  It needs to be freely extended both towards those who have been wronged and those who look on with dismay and sorrow.