by Janet Fife

Christmas was sheer magic when I was very small. One of my earliest Yuletide memories is of being taken to see the decorations in downtown Philadelphia, where we then lived.  A department store devoted an entire window to Santa’s Workshop, complete with Christmas tree, piles of toys, automaton elves, and a small train chugging round a track. ‘Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy,’ from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, was piped to those of us outside. I was utterly entranced.  In 1956 I had never watched TV or seen a movie, so this display of colour, movement, and music made me feel I was actually in Fairyland.

Christmases continued to be magical after we moved to the Chicago suburbs. We had lovely decorations: paper chains, hundreds of cards stapled to red ribbons and hung from the picture rail, and a little carousel where gold angels circled over a tea light. Our tree ornaments were the most enchanting I’ve yet seen:  tinsel and angel hair; baubles in rich colours; red and blue ‘lanterns’ with whirligigs inside; coloured glass tubes of oil that bubbled as it warmed. Choosing and decorating the tree was a festive event for the whole family.

At Christmas1963 I had just turned 10, and we had our first TV.  One evening my father and I were watching it alone by our magical Christmas tree – were my mother and sisters out shopping? – and there was a Christmas special on. The now hackneyed items on it were vivid and fresh to me then. I stood and sang my heart out to ‘Silent Night’, and danced to ‘The Sugarplum Fairy’.  For a few minutes I was that enchanted three-year-old again. Then my father raped me, while the choir sang ‘how silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given’.

I’ve never publicly shared this part of my story before. I’m doing so now because it illustrates several useful points about survivors and our experience of church. 

The first and most obvious is that Christmas, with all its associated traditions and decorations, is not a happy time for everyone. This should be reflected in the way hymns are chosen, liturgy conducted, and intercessions led, mindful of those for whom this is not a season of abundance and rejoicing. It’s a classic case of afflicting the comfortable – who want to turn a blind eye to the suffering around them while indulging the myth of a baby who didn’t cry and a town rammed to the rafters but somehow silent and still – and comforting the afflicted, who feel less alone if they know that others care about their pain. This applies not just to survivors, of course, but to those who have been bereaved at Christmas, are lonely, enduring family conflict, or any number of other unhappy situations. Christmas is an intensifier which makes sorrows sharper and burdens heavier.

‘’The hopes and fears of all the years’ accumulate for the abused, for rarely are the fractures forgotten, and the misery completely mended,’ writes Lori Anne Thompson: ‘Christmas is a crushing time for so many survivors; a time when the chronic loss accumulates in an acute, exclusively Advent-like agony.…The hangover from this level of harm leaves hope like a Christmas cracker joke — useless and cheap.’ (https://loriannethompson.com/2021/12/14/as-advent-advances/)

The whole meaning of the Incarnation is that Jesus came to share all the ills that flesh is heir to. He was born with the stigma of illegitimacy, as one of a subjugated people, without even a cradle to sleep in, and from his infancy under the threat of violence. While still a young child he and his parents became refugees, aliens in a strange land, with all the discomfort and insecurity that entailed. No one ever understood him or his mission; ‘he came unto his own, and his own received him not.’ If we emphasise these aspects of the Christmas story, we will truly be preaching the gospel of Christmas and comforting his people.

My second point is that the effect of abuse on a survivor is heavily influenced by the context of the abuse.  At the most basic level, it should be understood that an incident which might be laughed off in one context, could be seriously traumatising in another.  ‘Anne’, writing in Letters to a Broken Church, describes two sexual assaults at the milder end of the scale. They were so psychologically damaging because they were inflicted by her training incumbent, a man who she should have been able to look to for spiritual guidance; they were intended to humiliate and demean her, and were carried out in the context of sustained bullying; and she was completely in his power regarding her job, housing, finances, and future in the Church. He was a man it was dangerous to resist or deny. The damage was further compounded when she complained to the bishop who not only refused to act, but informed the abuser of Anne’s complaint. Thus the church hierarchy as well as the incumbent became involved in the abuse, and the Church as well as the church became unsafe for Anne. There is no simple equivalent between the seeming severity of the actual physical abuse and the degree of psychological, spiritual, and emotional harm done.

Thirdly, the lasting effects on the victim will differ from one survivor to another, depending on many factors – including how otherwise stable their background is, and what therapy and support have been available – as well as the context of the abuse. Although finding Christmas difficult is common among those who have been abused, there are perhaps not so many who have panic attacks triggered by Christmas trees and ‘Silent Night’, as I used to. It took years of therapy, and good friends determined to ‘redeem Christmas’ for me, to moderate the panic into mere dislike. Other survivors will have different trigger points. One I know was abused by a man with the surname ‘Lord’, making it almost impossible for her to sit through a church service. It’s a good thing she has never encountered the kind of Christians who assume an inability to say ‘Jesus is Lord’ signals an urgent need of exorcism.

It follows that any ministry with and among survivors, at Christmas and always, must be conducted with sensitivity and the willingness to listen – and there are survivors in every congregation, every chaplaincy, every care home. There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to working with those who have been abused.  As Jesus used a variety of methods when healing the sick, so must we be prepared to adapt to each survivor and their circumstances.

This sensitivity is sadly absent from the Church (at least, the Church of England) in most of its dealings with survivors, and is notably missing from its published material. Neither the Church of England’s Towards a Safer Church:  Some Liturgical Resources nor the Church of England Evangelical Council’s recent In Lament, Penitence, and Faith advises ministers to consult survivors in the congregation before planning such a service or selecting and using the material.

Both sets of resources lump together material on healing for survivors with penitence and lament, under the general head of Safeguarding. Neither includes advice on how to set up and introduce a service – not even the basic need to provide listeners or counsellors for those whose memories or emotions are stirred.

Elementary errors such as these could be avoided if the Church – that is, the bishops and the Church’s senior ciivl servants – were prepared to learn from survivors. Eight penitential seasons have now passed since I wrote to Archbishops Welby and Sentamu:

          ‘When you need to write a letter like the one we’ve just had, or to make a statement, run it past a survivor first. Most of us don’t want you to look uncaring and incompetent, we really don’t. We can help you to write sensitively, to respond appropriately, to offer assistance that will actually make a difference. Many of us have years of experience working with other survivors; researching; struggling with the theological and spiritual implications of being abused. Some of us can even contribute liturgical material you might find useful. We survivors offer a resource for the Church that you need badly. Don’t continue to despise it.’ (http://survivingchurch.org/2018/03/25/survivors-reply-to-archbishops-pastoral-letter/)

We are told that they do consult survivors, but it’s odd that it’s never any of the many survivors I know or their survivor contacts.

In that open letter to the archbishops I quoted Jesus’ dictum in the Sermon on the Mount:  ‘when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. (Mt. 5:23-24)

Eight penitential seasons, and our leaders still cannot humble themselves to learn from survivors, or to engage in any meaningful repentance for the harm done them.   Eight penitential seasons, and our leaders still continue to offer their gift without attempting to be reconciled with the Church’s victims. So, this final week of Advent 2021,

‘‘Speak not, unless you can sing the song of sorrow into the silence of night. It is in this sacred space that even a match is meaningful to the miserable.  (Lori Anne Thompson).