The problem and solution to sexual abuse in the church
“What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we’ll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all.” (quote from the HBO series Chernobyl).
Sex scandals in the church often cause sadness and anger when we hear about them. Yet, many people are now unsurprised at their occurrence due to the abundance of recent headlines that have circulated on traditional and social media. To talk about sexual harassment or rape within a religious institution no longer generates shock, but the distaste and repugnance that is felt with those conversations never go away. News of scandals of this nature has been accompanied with various attempts to prevent it from reaching everyone’s ears. Among other reasons, these efforts take place because the credibility of the church depends on its moral and spiritual righteousness. But what happens when “moral and spiritual righteousness" requires the church to undermine its credibility by talking openly about these scandals? It triggers a conflict of loyalties between the reputation of the religious organization and the truth of the victims, between wanting to control the consequences and giving visibility to corruption. Every choice has a very high price.
The cost of lies is that we can reach a point where we no longer recognize the truth. It is too high of a price because only the truth will set us free. Therefore, I would like to offer a critical view of the church, not to destroy it, but for it to be redeemed and cleansed by the power of truth. That truth has been incarnated by Christ, who did not hesitate to denounce and go against the religious system of his time. While it is true that there are a great number of historical cases of sex scandals within the church as an institution, the problem of which I speak is a universal problem of all men and of all ages. Namely, the problem of human wickedness and its need for spiritual regeneration. I hope, however, not to fall into the error of minimizing this extremely complex matter with irrelevant abstractions.
When speaking about “the church" it is indispensable to establish a distinction between (1) the history of the church, and (2) the theology of the church. In both cases, I am referring to the group of people who make up a church and not to the building or space in which they meet. In the first case, (1) it is known that there have been many “churches" over the centuries. These churches have different names and different groups of people associated with them such as “the Catholic church", “the Protestant church", and “the Anglican church", among many others. They have tried to represent, with greater or lesser success, the body of Christ on earth. In the second case, (2) when we speak of the theology of the church, we want to emphasize the set of biblical principles that define or point out the essential characteristics that a church should have. In addition, this accumulation of biblical truths has the function of legitimizing or validating whether or not a certain group of people is in fact a church, and not just another social group. In synthesis, the first use of the word “church" is a historical attempt by a particular group to embody what that group in question has understood by “church", while the second use of the word “church" offers a guide or manual by virtue of which the edification and preservation of the church can be carried out. In other words, the first sense of the term “church" alludes to an application by a collective, as opposed to the second sense of the term “church" which refers to a theory. Some biblical scriptures on how a church should be (in its second sense) are the following:
Being aware that we need each other (1 Corinthians 12).
We are to act like Christ toward one another (Colossians 1:15-18).
Elders are to care for the members without abusing their authority while avoiding greed (1 Peter 5:2-3).
Members should encourage one another (Hebrews 3:12-13).
The church is the family of God (Ephesians 2:19-21).
The main problem is the fact that the members who make up a local church are imperfect and fallen people. Hence the need for Jesus to die for the sins of mankind. That is to say, a church will always have problems of corruption just like any other organization that is composed of human beings. Consequently, it follows that any structure, no matter how perfect, is not free from being perverted by human wickedness. For this reason, the Bible is also full of measures to deal with injustices of various kinds (1 Corinthians 5:1-13; 2 Corinthians 2:5-8; Matthew 18:15-20...). According to this, the church is always walking towards an impossible ideal: to be like Jesus. In light of this, it is not Christianity or religion that causes sexual abuse, but the lack of true Christianity and the absence of moral transformation. That said, it is important to note that––although it is tragically true that sexual abuse will occur due to the impossibility of eliminating human evil in its entirety––such sexual nature crimes should be the most extreme outlier and not the norm within the body of Christ. When sexual abuse is the norm in a religious institution, it is because there is a culture that allows, through inaction or silence, these sins to continue to occur.
Churches that systematically allow these abuses have a deep-rooted practice of trying to control the damage or consequences that may be caused by the knowledge of what happened. The perversity of this common practice lies in the fact that priority is given to the credibility or image of the church, instead of being concerned with what the victim has really suffered. Moreover, some interpret attacks or complaints against the church as a positive indicator. The reasoning goes like this: the church is being criticized for its holiness in the same way that Jesus was criticized for his teachings. And they even quote verses such as the following to justify this position: “Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets." (Luke 6:22-23). The problem with this view is that the church is very often criticized, not for its holiness, but for its lack of righteousness. It is extremely dangerous and naïve to always interpret criticism received by people outside the church as a sign that one is doing God's will. When these lies become part of the collective consciousness of the church, there is a danger of not knowing what the truth is.
But how does a member or group of people come to adopt this way of thinking? Finding the answer to this question is vital to eradicate the culture of inaction and silence. The problem originates when members interpret that their way of operating is what legitimizes or validates their church. In other words, there is a failure to recognize the source that legitimizes what a biblical church is. There is a great discrepancy between the number of “churches" from the historical perspective and the number of “churches" from the theological perspective. Many churches throughout history would not be considered “churches" by Jesus because they fail to practice elementary things. When a person confuses their spiritual identity with the identity of being a member of a particular church, they can fall into the error of validating their spirituality through what the church says and does and forget the source: Jesus and the New Testament. If one has a commitment to the local church, it should be first and foremost because he/she loves and follows Jesus. But commitment to a local church does not automatically imply that one loves and follows Jesus. When there is confusion about this, one falls into a sin of loyalties. The loyalty a member has to the church should be the result of the loyalty he/she has to Jesus, not the other way around. For it is Jesus who has the authority to legitimize what kind of people make up a church. Spiritual blindness and corruption are the result of getting our spiritual validation from our congregation, rather than from Jesus and the love of God. If these sexual scandals continue to occur systematically, they occur by virtue of adultery of the heart: the institution is loved more than its founder. Accordingly, any attack on the church is interpreted as an attack on one's identity as a Christian. Hence the felt need to “defend” the church.
What is the cost of lies? What is the price paid for this conflict of loyalties? The price paid is the perpetuation of these abuses. The price paid is that victims of sexual abuse are not taken seriously. The price paid is that Jesus is repulsed by this institution that has finished destroying the broken soul. The cost of lies is that the church ceases to be God's church. The cost is that we no longer recognize the difference between the truth and the lie.
