In the last week or two, we have seen a group of survivors of sexual abuse bonding together so that their joint protest can be heard.  The group in question has absolutely to do with the Church of England.  Indeed, it has nothing to do any church; it is rather a cohort of women victims of Jeffrey Epstein, those who have been abused or trafficked by him.  They are, metaphorically speaking. shouting from the rooftops.  These women realise that speaking their truth to a society, dominated by a rich and powerful elite, is an uphill task.  Their cause and their longing to be heard must be spoken out in the open air to those who are prepared to listen.  So, this group of survivors have been to Capitol Hill in Washington to tell their story to a society which has, up till now, always silenced them.   Communicating these cries of the weak and vulnerable has been hard in a society which is now under the authority of a President who cares little for truth or the rule of law.  Trump’s indifference to the needs of abused or downtrodden victims of any kind is notorious; his example has been followed by many others who do little to show compassion for ‘the least of these my brethren’.

Before I suggest some uncomfortable parallels with our own situation in Britain, I need to summarise the story that has created headlines in the States and will be familiar to the many readers of SC.  The women on Capitol Hill form part of a cohort of survivors/victims who have been both ignored and marginalised after being abused, many in their mid-teens.  Their exploiters were men, wealthy and well-connected men, many of whom control the organs of political and legal power right across American society.  What chance did such women have of being heard when they realised what had been done to them?  They had been promised money and careers as models.  The actual reality saw them picked up and then discarded the moment their usefulness as sexual play objects for the rich ceased.  Many of them are now adrift in a society where the compassion or support to help them rebuild their lives has always been in short supply.

I have called this blog reflection the ‘triple whammy’ of abuse.  What do I mean by this?  I am describing the way in which the abuse of children and young people involves three distinct stages or levels, making it far more heinous than an assault perpetrated against an adult.  Any sexual assault against a child will always be massively damaging.  Recovery from that abuse event requires the support of a highly specialised therapist and cannot be completed in a short series of sessions.  There seem to be at least two stages of recovery that have to be gone through.  My description of this process to be undertaken by the abused will of necessity contain generalities as I have no training or expertise in this area.   A first stage of recovery does, nevertheless, seem to require a victim to be able to face up to the original assault whether it was a single event or repeated many times.  It takes a very special skill and patience on the part of a therapist to bring to the surface such an event that may have taken place thirty, forty or fifty years before.  Having excavated, as it were, that terrible episode, the therapist has a second task.  This is the attempt to untangle and repair any distortions in the personality that have been caused by the assault or abuse.  The victim of abuse may typically have had to battle to preserve a capacity for trust, so that the ability to form normal relationships later in life is maintained. It is for this reason that sexual abuse is sometimes described as soul murder.  The selfishness of the abuser has been the possible cause of the death of part of the personality of a young person.   Seeing a young person as a delicate precious entity that calls out for protection and cherishing to promote growth and flourishing, should be built into the instinctual sensitivity of every human being.  To allow abuse to children, at a time in their lives when they can neither understand what is happening nor defend themselves and their emerging personalities, is a deeply serious affair.

There is a third part of the ‘triple whammy’ which we have only briefly touched on.  The victim/survivor seeks not only therapy and healing as part of the process of recovery.  He/she also may seek justice and accountability.  In the case of the Capitol Hill women, there is the profound symbolism of raised voices close to the centre of the American government and the justice system.  In a sentence, the survivors/victims of the appalling abuse inflicted on them by Jeffrey Epstein and his wealthy friends want to see that the ruling authorities are on their side and justice be administered.  They want to believe that all the material which has been gathered by the Department of Justice, the so-called Epstein files, will be shared with them and the public in general.  This information will shed light on those who knew about the scandal of their abuse as well as the activities of those who were the actual perpetrators of the terrible evils.  Why, for example, have the recordings of abuse in Epstein’s homes and recovered in the FBI raids, never been shared or made public?  Are the interests of the powerful abusers thought to take priority over the hundreds of victims who were taken to these homes?  These survivors have now found each other, and their combined voices create an instrument of real power, able to stand up against the institutional cruelty and inertia of powerful institutions who are concerned only for their wealth and their reputations.  The victims of Epstein and Maxwell who have suffered the abuse of trafficking and sexual exploitation have never had the chance to receive justice.  Together it just may be possible, even in a country now ruled by the forces of the authoritarian Right, that public opinion may demand the purging of such dreadful evils.  It is this fight, waged by the aggrieved victims against powerfully embedded systems of power, that is this third difficult stage of the struggle that many survivors are making.  The plea of the Epstein survivors is also a plea that every American citizen is or should be caught up in the same search for the path back to integrity and truth.  The current political climate has allowed many American citizens to collude with shameful and corrupting ideologies which will weigh them and their society down for many decades to come.

American society needs to wake up to the fact that the voting choices of tens of millions of its populace have created a situation of toleration for, even promotion of, misogyny, racism, greed and the constant oppression of the poor to allow the rich to become even richer.   Voting for candidates who bury truth in the cause of increasing the power and privilege of the rich is in essence a surrender to a corporate evil of massive proportions.  We do not know whether the infection of the evil, which tolerates the oppression and exploitation of the weak and vulnerable, has become so endemic that it can never be eradicated from American society.  The restoration of respect and honour for the stranger and the poor is far from the concerns of those currently in power and those who support them.  The voices of the abused women calling out on Capitol Hill are a challenge to these profoundly evil attitudes which bury and distort anything resembling a Christian morality.  The Bible that is claimed to be at the heart of American Christian values speaks extensively of justice and compassion for the poor and oppressed.  Perhaps one day the Christian instincts of the American people may return to these values and be able once more to hear those in need.

My readers will not be surprised to learn that the voices on Capitol Hill in Washington DC are a reminder for me of another struggle much closer to home.   Like the Epstein victims the survivors of sexual abuse in Christian churches also cry out to be heard by their fellow Christians and by society at large.  Also, like the Epstein abused women of the States, they also face enormous obstacles on the path to healing and justice.  The members of both groups have been the recipients of repeated blows to their bodies, minds and souls.  Indifference and acquiescence in a system that accepts without question the interests of powerful institutions is widespread.  These attitudes often re-victimise and threaten damaged and abused members of our Church.  Like the women on Capitol Hill, the survivors of church abuse face the ‘triple whammy’ of sexual abuse.  It is for the rest of us to understand and, where possible, to alleviate their pain.  We long for them to recover the shalom with which they were born.  Those of us who claim membership of Christ’s church are entrusted with the task of doing all in our power to create around us, with others, a place of safety as well as healing for all who have been wounded through the sin of others.