“Where we you last night? God, where were you?” Is not this the real problem? Where is God in all of this? Where is God? It wasn’t the “church” she faulted, even though it was the “church” that increased the pain, the fear. And it isn’t only teenagers who are sexually assaulted; it cab be anyone from birth until after death. Again, where is God? (No platitudes,PLEASE)
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Yes, I meant abuser. Thank you. The difference is also that in the church, the proverbial circling of the wagons casts all those present into the role of the abuser or his protectors. If the church doesn’t act to protect a legitimate victim the church then becomes complicit. Better to let the courts address it.
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On this Easter weekend, and especially on Friday, as Ive reflected on the horrendous abuse that Jesus experienced that crucifixion Friday, I’ve found myself wondering, how can we worship our abused God, and so fail to reach out to the abused amongst us? I’ve felt profoundly exposed since publishing my story, and there has been only one church leader who has reached out to me with a response of care related to not just the abuse I experienced, but also an understanding of the re-wounding done by the church leader’s response as I was forced to sit facing them in their black suits, white shirts and black ties. This leader is Tom Lemon, and he truly demonstrated the heart of Jesus in his response. Why though has he been the only one? With the others it’s like they either are horrified by the story, or they start “circling the wagons” to protect the church’s image. Never, in the story of Jesus, as he related to his church, do I see him protecting his church. Instead I read how he spoke directly to the wrongs, with tears in his voice, and then his last week he wept, and said, “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often have I wanted to gather your children as a hen gathers her chicks.” So, with tears, on this Easter weekend I say to my church, “Oh Adventism, Adventism, how often has God longed to gather the wounded, abused children amongst you.” I pray the day will someday come when, rather than “circling the wagons,” Adventist leaders will weap and seek forgiveness for how they have too often perpetrated, and covered up abuse.
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Now six weeks after the article telling my story was published, there are 175 active participants on the private Addressing Abuse in Adventism FaceBook page, multiple Adventist Pastor/Perpetrators have been identified during this time, and we are creating a new model for responding to victims of these sexual abuse. In discussions with church leaders I find that the majority still have HUGE BLINDERS on in regard to this issue, and what alarms me even more is that some of them are profoundly proud that “we have the problem solved.”
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@kittykittykitty I cried out to God so many times as a teen. Some of it was about the sexual abuse and some was about the loneliness and isolation I felt in my search for God.
I hope this isn’t a platitude. The thing I discovered so many decades after my teen years was that I’d been taught a false narrative about God. I’d been taught where he was supposed to be and where he wasn’t supposed to be. In the end those teachings were wrong. I discovered that in truth, God was in the places I’d been taught he wasn’t at.
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