The pressure’s on. The evangelical church in general, and the Southern Baptist Convention in particular, are being called to account for silence and collusion in regard to abuse. Catalysts for change include a host of exposés and a lot of people jumping ship.

Still, many churches and denominations, pastors and other Christian leaders have continued in denial and willful blindness, as if nothing is amiss. Many have continued to celebrate abusers – and to hammer and shun victims and whistleblowers.

But some who previously were silent, or even complicit, have appeared to take up the challenge and to lead the way toward change.

Sadly, the latter may be more dangerous than the former, for the appearance may hide the truth.

Any number of motives can prompt leaders in our church systems to create an illusion that refuge for the abused exists, where it does not.

What’s needed from the church and its leaders?

Humility to face the church’s dismal response to abuse – and to own our personal part in it. Humility to grieve and confess.

Humility to realize how easily abuse hides, how blind we can be to it and how fully an abuser can fool us all.

Grace to seek as long as it takes to see fully what we previously could not see at all.

Humility to stand with abuse victims and to learn what real help looks like, instead of standing in front of victims, telling them what to do. Humility to listen long and well, and to speak up to confess ignorance, ask questions, seek insight.

Courage to stand against evil, even and especially evil hiding in the church.

Humility to step back, let go – and let others lead the way.

Simply put: The people who need to lead the way toward change are abuse victims who know what has really helped them and what has not – and the people who have invested their lives in learning to really help.

Beware of churches attempting to microwave repentance and change.

Beware of male church leaders riding in like knights in shining armor to save the damsels in distress, while denying the existence of the dragons in their midst.

Beware of leaders of either gender who are eager to be admired or desperate to do damage control, and who present themselves as saviors of the abused.

Don’t miss the warning signs

People didn’t like Jeremiah. They didn’t like the negative messages he preached. They wanted to believe the best about themselves and their leaders, as do we.

But Jeremiah deeply cared about his people and his Lord. He spoke up at God’s call to warn of wrongs and dangers the people desperately needed to see. Twice, Jeremiah cried,

From the least to the greatest, each is eager to profit;
from prophet to priest, each trades in dishonesty.
They treat the wound of my people as if it were nothing:
“All is well, all is well,” they insist, when in fact nothing is well.
(Jer. 6:13-14; see also 8:20-21 CEB)

We may not want to believe any of that could apply to our pastor, our leaders, us. Especially, we may not want to believe it could apply to someone we admire and trust, who openly condemns abuse. We who think it noble and brave for a church leader to speak out on such a taboo subject may completely miss the warning signs that all is not well.

And thus, what we want to believe can blind us to what is.

Please. Save yourself a LOT of grief.

Beware of people decrying abuse when …

They’re eager to profit

Once upon a real time, Pastor-Man becomes aware of the #metoo movement. He decides to preach against sexual abuse of women.

Standing before his congregation, he introduces the hot-button topic. Having done a bit of research, he sounds knowledgeable. He seems distressed by what he’s learned, eager to affect change. Much in his sermon seems scriptural and good.

But be on the alert. Abusers, and those who collude with them, can do all of the above. Pay attention to anything that doesn’t seem right in your spirit. Don’t let it pass, but rather, hold on to it and inspect it.

In his first sermon ever to address sexual abuse, Pastor-Man suggests oh-so-subtly that victims who want to heal need to belong to his church, a church that hasn’t yet taken any of the humility steps above. He inserts this suggestion while expressing his deep concern for victims. Worse, he exploits a woman who trusts him, manipulating her to say the same.

Beware of leaders with mixed motives, who use victims’ pain to promote themselves and their agenda.

They trade in dishonesty

Urging men to honor women, Pastor-Man tells an anecdote from early in his marriage. With relish, he describes a small but embarrassing mistake his young wife made in doing her household chores. He reenacts the hurtful way he teased her about it.

Pastor-Man assures the congregation that his wife’s mistake and his response were both “young-married bloopers.” He uses the story to get a laugh.

Yet young Pastor-Man’s response to his wife was not a blooper. It was cruel. Now, as he describes what he did, he shows no shame or remorse. And still he continues to belittle her over one long-ago mistake.

Pay attention when a leader’s attempts to honor women demean and dishonor instead.

Pastor-Man preaches that women can guard against sexual harassment and rape by dating men who act like gentlemen in public. Does he not know? Or maybe he does: Abusers grooming a target may play the gentleman well.

Warming up to his subject, Pastor-Man denounces sexual violence in any form. He warns against it. Especially, he warns against covering up abuse to protect the church’s reputation. Passionately, he draws a line in the sand.

And then – he erases the line.

Suddenly apologetic, struggling for words, he says, in essence: “I know, of course, that no sexual abuse is happening here.”

Then, he keeps preaching against abuse, as if he had not just torpedoed his whole sermon.

But you, notice! You, realize:

Pastor-Man has said much about abuse, more about women victims, but he has not used the term “abuser” at all. He has spoken as if the sexually abused are crimeless victims. He’s talked of abuse as if it all happened long ago and far away – in some adult’s childhood, in some secular workplace, in some other church.

Beware of church leaders who decry abuse and the covering up of abuse and, perhaps in the same breath, collude with both.

Beware when the words and the behavior do not match.

They offer superficial help for deep wounds

Pastor-Man offers simple solutions for sexual abuse.

He calls men to be pure. He makes no distinction between the temptation to sexual sin, which both genders face, and the lifestyle of strong deception, sexual domination and violence that male abusers deliberately adopt.

In fact, Pastor-Man preaches as if all men who attend church want to be godly and to overcome sin. Yet sexual predators are often drawn to church, where they seek to get away with evil, while appearing godly and good.

Pastor-Man tells abused women to forgive. He takes a vital biblical principle intended to free us. He twists it to oppress. When forgiveness is forced and, counted as a cure-all and wrongly equated with reconciling and “moving on,” it can do much harm. In abusive situations, it can be deadly.

As Pastor-Man continues to talk, he shames victims away from seeking justice. He omits other crucial biblical principles, including these:

• The call to be “wise as serpents” in regard to evil. Being wise to evil includes seeing past the fog abuse creates and the masks behind which abusers hide. It means recognizing abuse and abuser for what they are.¹
• The principle of fleeing from those intent on harm. How rarely is this one mentioned!²

Beware of church leaders who do not place responsibility for abuse squarely on the shoulders of abusers.

Beware of those who use Scripture to keep people in abusive systems and to give abusers a pass.

They offer superficial treatments for my people’s mortal wound.
(Jer. 6:14 NLT)

As strong as that translation is, what the Hebrew conveys is stronger:

By treating as nothing what is crushing and real, their attempts to heal curse and kill.

They say, “All is well,” when it is not

The musicians take their places onstage as Pastor-Man begins the altar call. He sounds no call to abusers, no cry to abandon such evil behavior at all costs. Instead, he calls to any abused women in his audience, “Come. Be prayed for by a godly woman. And be healed.”

To urge abuse victims to “respond now” to a public invitation is monstrous. It manipulates battered ones who want to please God, who trust their leaders and who long to be heard. Promising help, it may instead retraumatize anyone who responds. It may endanger any person in the room who is currently being abused – especially anyone being abused by someone, say, sitting next to her on the pew.

Beware of any attempt by church leaders to coerce victims to speak up.

Beware of leaders whose plan for helping is to enlist “godly church members” to counsel or pray with victims. “Godly person” does not equal “qualified to help an abuse victim” – any more than “godly person” equals “qualified to perform surgery.”

Beware of those who promise instant healing, by any method, from any kind of abuse. Instant healing will not happen, and the victim will be blamed.

In short: Beware of leaders who act in any of the ways Jeremiah denounced. Their offer of help is a sham.

Do not think it will be easy to see. The warning signs may be subtle, and masked by a lot that seems good. What’s more, you may not want to see.

But please, please, ask God to open your eyes.

A preacher and a woman

A preacher sees a woman, beaten, raped and lying beside the road. He walks over to her and peers down on her with pity.

“This is terrible! It’s wrong! It should not happen!” he cries.

Then, he speaks to the barely conscious woman. “You can be healed! I’ll send a woman to pray over you. No, no, dear victim! Don’t tell me who did this. Just know: The key is to forgive.”

As he turns to fetch the prayer warrior, he glimpses a person fleeing the scene. It’s the woman’s husband, an elder in the church. The preacher pauses, takes a breath – and then walks on as if he had not seen the fleeing man.

“All is well, all is well,” he calls back over his shoulder to the woman. But it is not.

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I wrote the original version of this post early in 2018. It was one of my first attempts to speak up about abuse in the church, and I was hesitant to post it. So I asked Barbara Roberts, blogger at A Cry for Justice, to preview what I had written. To my surprise, she did! She read carefully, offered helpful advice for editing and encouraged me to publish. I did so on March 19, 2018, under the title, “Be wary of churches breaking the silence.”

See also

• Illusionists! The abusers we have not seen
• Masters of misdirection
• Behind the façade in the SBC
• Bullying in the church
• Shunning in the church
• I choose light
• The truth will set you free

Footnotes

1. See Matthew 10:16. ↩︎
2. See Matthew 10:23; Luke 21:20-21. And see examples in: 1 Sam. 19:11-12, 18; 20:1; 21:10; Matt. 2:13-15; Acts 8:1; 9:23-25, 28-30; 14:3-7; 17:1-10. ↩︎