#MeToo and #ChurchToo or "Gazing into the Mirror"
The following essay was written for my public theology course. The question was "What challenges do movements like #MeToo and #ChurchToo raise for the churches and how should churches respond to these?" This is a dense and confronting subject. My full bibliography is appended if anyone wishes to pursue any of these sources.
Gazing into the Mirror
“And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”[1] This verse has been a comfort and an inspiration to me, however the picture is somewhat passive, we are just gazing and the Lord is doing all the transforming. When churches are confronted by movements such as #MeToo and #ChurchToo different mirrors are required and more active responses. We must look in the mirrors of the world, our sacred text, our history, our current situation and Christ. These mirrors are not the fairy-tale mirrors. ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?’ and the mirror responds ‘You, my queen, are the fairest of them all’. Those fairy-tale mirrors are an echo chamber telling the listener what they want to hear. In real life my look in the mirror is honest and critical, with a view to change; adjusting the hair, the clothes, the goal is improvement. As James puts it “doers of the word” look in its mirror and act.[2] We, as church, must be willing to confront darkness and ugliness in these mirrors and make the required changes. The goal is to return ourselves, our church and humanity back towards the divine image-bearing roles we were created for. “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image according to our likeness;’”[3]
“Sexual abuse is unwanted sexual activity, with perpetrators using force, making threats or taking advantage of victims not able to give consent.”[4] This is not another way of having sex, it is not ‘romance gone wrong’ but “an act of power and control” and by its very nature “any form of sexual control over another is a violent act.”[5]
The concept of ‘Me Too’ was created by Tarana Burke, the story began (long before hashtags) when she received a disclosure of sexual abuse in 1997, the “Me Too” movement was created ten years later when she started a non-profit organisation to help victims of sexual harassment and assault. #MeToo took on new life in October 2017 over the twitterverse following a tweet by the actress Alyssa Milano, as Hollywood responded to accusations of sexual abuse by power brokers.[6] Social media was flooded by responses from millions of others who had experienced sexual abuse, this was possibly a wakeup call for many in our world who were blind to the extent of this darkness.
#ChurchToo originated in November with Hannah Paasch and Emily Joy and went global within 48 hours as survivors shared their experiences of “pain and abuse in the church”.[7] The huge response to #ChurchToo and investigations such as the Spotlight investigation highlighted in the movie of the same name make it clear that the problem of sexual abuse in the church crosses denominations and streams.[8] This essay does not address rape in other religions.
Our task is first to look at the mirror of the world and the image is sobering and distressing. Gender violence is endemic. “Approximately 15 million adolescent girls (aged 15 to 19) worldwide have experienced forced sex … at some point in their life.”[9] “We live in a global rape culture”.[10] One in four females and one in six males have been the victims of childhood sexual abuse.[11] Ten percent of rape victims are male.[12] These statistics tell us that we live in a Rape Culture. ‘Rape culture’ “is the whole environment that tolerates and even supports rape.”[13] Aotearoa/New Zealand was ranked worst of all OECD countries when it came to sexual assault.[14] Clearly there will be victims of sexual assault in our congregations and in the communities our churches serve. We live in a society that “tolerates and supports rape”. This became very public in the infamous Roastbusters case.[15] We, as church, can no longer plead ignorance, in fact this compels us to better inform ourselves. To gaze deeply into the mirror of our world and look at the marred, corrupt image of the divine image-bearers.
The temptation is to ‘other’ the problem – it happens ‘out there in the world’ not ‘in here in the church’. But the information is clear and #ChurchToo has brought it into the glaring light of day. Sexual abuse has occurred with distressing frequency in the church, people in power abusing the vulnerable in their care. Further, there are systemic problems in how the church has responded to such disclosures. There has been an unwillingness to believe the victims and moves to protect the perpetrators and the institutions. Victims have been shamed, blamed, silenced and paid off. (Whereas the blame and shame always and rightly belong only with the perpetrator). Perpetrators have been actively moved (or allowed to move) to other ministry situations where they can and have continued to abuse.[16] Poor responses by the church to those of their number who have experienced abuse outside the church has also been documented.[17] Rape culture is inside the church.
These responses are a huge blot on the reputation of the church in the wider world. Importantly they do NOT represent the God of compassion we claim to worship, the God who sides with the poor, the oppressed and the vulnerable.[18] In the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus demands extra care for and prioritising the vulnerable ones.[19] Most important, such responses revictimize and retraumatise the victims while failing to protect other potential victims. The challenge requires the church to acknowledge her failure and her complicity. Such acknowledgement should involve public repentance, apology and restitution as church institutions.[20] GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) is an American evangelical organisation providing resources and independent investigations to “equip the Church with a vision for authentic community, where responsibility, accountability, and compassion are second nature and caring for children and adult survivors of abuse are non-negotiable.”[21] Similar organisations across the globe would be useful in assisting the church to change her response. Both systemic and individual responses are called for, a generic apology is insufficient and individuals who have been harmed should be sought out and heard and responsibility accepted for the harm done by the church and her leaders. Mary De Muth gives a moving account of a day when she was approached by a man at the Lausanne Congress for World Evangelization, this man knelt before her with tears in his eyes and apologised “on behalf of all men for all the awful things that have ever happened to you.”[22]She compared it to Jesus taking on the mantle of sin and found it profoundly healing.
How did this rape culture develop in our world and in our church? Is this something new? Can we blame a lack of morals and religion in our world for this? The fact that this is being discussed more in the media and in books, studied academically, prosecuted in courts and shared on social media could lead one to think it is either new or increasing in prevalence, a factor of our times. We only have to look at our church history to find early examples of this. Basil the Great in 330 CE instructed how the church should respond to sexual abuse by clerics or monks indicating the problem existed in the church from the earliest times.[23]
If we look back earlier we find rape culture in our sacred text. There are many accounts in the Bible of sexual abuse, Johanna Stiebert points out that while the majority are male-on-female, there is also male-male rape, female-male sexual harassment and the account of Abram, Sarai and their maid, Hagar from Genesis 16 and 21 show Sarai complicit in the sexual abuse of Hagar.[24] Accounts of male-female rape often focus on the female as property. The story of David and Bathsheba is a story of rape; in view of the large power imbalance, Bathsheba could not possibly consent. David is condemned for his actions by the prophet but the sin is painted as one of theft of property (Bathsheba) from her husband Uriah. Bathsheba’s voice is silent. What is even more disturbing is that part of David’s punishment appears to be the rape of his wives “I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbour, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun.”[25]This is not an isolated incident. The Bible is a foundational document in Western civilisation and although today it is rarely referenced, our laws and societal attitudes have been shaped by this text.
A challenge for the church today in light of #MeToo and #ChurchToo is to honestly wrestle with rape culture in the Bible, this process is painful but necessary. It appears that our sacred text has helped to shape rape culture in our society. Intertextual readings can be helpful here. David Tombs reads the rape of the royal concubines alongside 13 Reasons Why, as he examines “Abandonment, Rape and Second Abandonment”.[26] King David’s behaviour is appalling when we look at it honestly; when we read of him abandoning his concubines to be raped, we in the 21stCentury are horrified, but the text does not even call David to account. Neither is there any condemnation of his later behaviour in locking the concubines away in their ‘shame’ named by Tombs as “second abandonment”.[27] As Tombs highlights, if we excuse David’s behaviour as “understandable in its historical context” we neglect the ethical challenge.[28] It is scriptural texts such as these that we must encounter and wrestle with as ‘woke’ people now. Emma Nagouse read Lamentations 3 through the lens of To Ransom a man’s Soul from Outlander as a way of examining male rape.[29] This intertextual reading highlights themes of “trauma, shame and victim blaming – often overlooked in the biblical text…”[30] Thus intertextual readings can highlight problems in the way rape is portrayed in scripture but can also be used to help us better understand the impact of sexual abuse in our world.
Current Christian theology is also problematic. Ruth Everhart discusses the contribution of patriarchy and purity culture on rape culture.[31] Valerie Hobbs in her analysis of sermons on divorce and concludes there is “a need for members of religious communities to examine closely the ways their own discourses promote rape culture.”[32] Emily Colgan on examining evangelical Christian self-help literature also found a “rhetoric … which normalizes gender violence, enabling it to thrive in Christian relationships.”[33] While challenging that which promotes and enables rape culture one must also consider some positive movements to resist it such as Thursdays in Black, an activist movement which was launched by the World Council of Churches.[34] The very existence of the body of literature examining rape culture in our Bible, our history and our churches is a sign of hope, a sign that we are starting that difficult process of looking into the mirror.
In addition to considering how we have contributed to rape culture it is our task to consider how to respond to disclosures of sexual abuse, whether they occurred within or beyond the church. It is very clear that our record on this has been poor. In the podcast Believed, women who had been victims of Dr Larry Nassar were interviewed.[35] The overwhelming need was for these women to be heard and believed; sexual abuse involves silencing victims either physically or by coercion. If the church did nothing else, just restoring victims their voice and providing a safe space where they can be heard and believed would be a huge step forward. There has been a very unfortunate tendency to first react to a sexual abuse disclosure by doubting the veracity of the complainant when, in fact, the incidence of false complaint is around eight percent.[36] The church can turn around its response “let us instead listen and learn from the courage of the abused. They are our prophets now, with voices that will no longer allow us to hide or ignore the epidemic”.[37]
De Muth discusses the Biblical image of the shepherd as we look at our responses – the good shepherd of John 10 and the bad shepherds of Ezekiel 34. Our challenge is to recognise where we have not “taken care of the weak”; “if we dismiss the hurting, the broken and the abused, we cease being the disciple-making church, and we instead become citadels of unreality and privilege”.[38] It is time for us to consider the ministry that we are called to. The parable of the Good Samaritan calls us to get involved and not just stand by. De Muth contends in that parable there is not even a category for the revictimization that we have been guilty of perpetuating.[39]
Our response must be one of handing back control to the abused, this includes not “prescribing a healing journey for them” or demanding they forgive their abuser – the victim is on their journey in their time, our part is to accompany them, empower and support them.[40]
Reporting abuse and referring to the police is critical. It is not our job as church to undertake investigations of crimes. Safety is our priority and an abuser must be removed for the sake of others. In the Anglican province of Aotearoa/ New Zealand it is made clear in Title D of the Canons that legal and state processes take precedence over church processes.[41] Every church should have safeguarding policies and procedures that are reviewed and updated regularly.
I think it is time for the church to creatively reimagine the mediaeval concept of sanctuary. The old understanding was “a consecrated place giving protection to those fleeing from justice or persecution”.[42] With our unfortunate history of protecting the perpetrators and silencing the victims, that could well describe what we have been doing. What if the church became a sanctuary for those fleeing from abuse towards justice? Could the church become a safe place where the abused could feel cared for and heard, a safe place which protected the vulnerable and prevented abuse happening, a safe place to empower the powerless?
The final mirror to gaze into is the mirror of Christ himself; turning in a new way to that verse from 2 Corinthians. Having discussed the stripping of Jesus as a form of sexual abuse Tombs and Figueroa explored this with a group of nuns who were victims of sexual abuse. The response of one of the nuns, Maria, gave the name to their paper “Seeing His Innocence, I See My Innocence”.[43] The effect, for Maria, in seeing Jesus this way was to help remove the shame and guilt which had persisted for her as it does for so many victims. Perhaps it is in seeing Jesus as both good shepherd and victim that we will finally redeem our history, go on that painful journey of repentance we must take, change direction and make the required changes; changes that result in churches becoming true sanctuaries, safe places for the vulnerable with ministries of caring compassion. In doing this we will become truer images of Christ being “transformed from one degree of glory to another”.[44]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
American Psychological Association. ‘Sexual Abuse’. https://www.apa.org. Accessed 6 June 2020. https://www.apa.org/topics/sexual-abuse/index.
Blyth, Caroline. The Narrative of Rape in Genesis 34: Interpreting Dinah’s Silence. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Blyth, Caroline, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards, eds. Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion Biblical Perspectives. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72685-4.
———, eds. Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Christian Perspectives. Religion and Radicalism. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
———. Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. New York, NY: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2018.
Bolz-Weber, Nadia. ‘Perspective | We’re in the Midst of an Apocalypse. And That’s a Good Thing.’ Washington Post. Accessed 1 June 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/03/14/were-in-the-midst-of-an-apocalypse-and-thats-a-good-thing/.
‘Canons / Resources / Home - Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia’. Accessed 25 April 2018. http://www.anglican.org.nz/Resources/Canons.
‘CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Sanctuary’. Accessed 1 June 2020. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13430a.htm.
Colgan, Emily. ‘Let Him Romance You: Rape Culture and Gender Violence in Evangelical Christian Self-Help Literature’. In Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion, edited by Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards, 9–26. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72685-4_2.
Cunningham, Robert. ‘Addressing Our Past’. Tates Creek Presbyterian Church. Accessed 7 June 2020. https://tcpca.org/addressing-our-past.
DeMuth, Mary E. We Too. Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 2019.
Denhollander, Rachael. What Is a Girl Worth? My Story of Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth about Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics. Carol Stream: Tyndale Momentum, 2019.
Denhollander, Rachael, and Jacob Denhollander. ‘Justice: The Foundation of a Christian Approach to Abuse’. Online Magazine. Fathom Deeply Curious, 19 November 2018. http://www.fathommag.com/stories/justice-the-foundation-of-a-christian-approach-to-abuse.
Dickson, Ra, Gwenda M. Willis, and Saxxxx /sexual Abusedickson. Article Primary Prevention of Sexual Violence in Aotearoa New Zealand: A Survey of Prevention Activities, n.d.
Dube, Shanta R., Robert F. Anda, Charles L. Whitfield, David W. Brown, Vincent J. Felitti, Maxia Dong, and Wayne H. Giles. ‘Long-Term Consequences of Childhood Sexual Abuse by Gender of Victim’. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 28, no. 5 (June 2005): 430–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2005.01.015.
Everhart, Ruth. ‘A Pastor’s #MeToo Story: WHEN THE CHURCH SILENCES WOMEN AND PROTECTS ABUSERS.(Cover Story)’. The Christian Century 134, no. 26 (20 December 2017): 22–25. https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.otago.ac.nz/docview/1977195567?accountid=14700.
———. The #metoo Reckoning: Facing the Church’s Complicity in Sexual Abuse and Misconduct. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP, an imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2020.
———. ‘Women of the Bible Say #MeToo’. The Christian Century 135, no. 16 (17 July 2018). https://www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/women-bible-say-metoo.
UN Women. ‘Facts and Figures: Ending Violence against Women’. Accessed 5 June 2020. https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/facts-and-figures.
Garcia, Sandra E. ‘The Woman Who Created #MeToo Long Before Hashtags’. The New York Times, 20 October 2017, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/us/me-too-movement-tarana-burke.html.
Haddad, Mimi. ‘#SilenceIsNotSpiritual: 8 Ways to Disrupt Abuse’. Mutuality (blog), 15 January 2018. https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/article/mutuality-blog-magazine/silenceisnotspiritual-8-ways-disrupt-abuse.
Hobbs, Valerie. ‘Rape Culture in Sermons on Divorce’. In Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards, 87–110. New York, NY: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2018.
Joy, Emily. ‘What’s Purity Culture Got To Do With It? — Emily Joy Poetry’. Emily Joy Poet (blog), 18 December 2017. http://emilyjoypoetry.com/whats-purity-culture-got-to-do-with-it.
Nagouse, Emma. ‘“To Ransom a Man’s Soul”: Male Rape and Gender Identity in Outlander and “The Suffering Man” of Lamentations 3’. In Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion Biblical Perspectives, edited by Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards, 143–58. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72685-4.
Paasch, Hannah. ‘Sexual Abuse Happens In #ChurchToo -- We’re Living Proof’. HuffPost, 29:35 500. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sexual-abuse-churchtoo_n_5a205b30e4b03350e0b53131.
Pease, Joshua. ‘It’s Time’. RELEVANT Magazine (blog), 18 September 2014. https://relevantmagazine.com/issues/issue-96/itstime/.
Russell, Deborah. ‘What Can Be Done about Rape Culture? - Massey University’. Accessed 5 June 2020. https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/news/article.cfm?mnarticle_uuid=802AAB27-AF9B-496D-9265-3A550330B713.
Satjipanon, Paht. ‘Cross-Examination: The Blight of Rape Culture on New Zealand’. Equal Justice Project. Accessed 5 June 2020. https://www.equaljusticeproject.co.nz/articles/2016/08/cross-examination-the-blight-of-rape-culture-on-new-zealand.
Stiebert, Johanna. Rape Myths, the Bible and #MeToo. Rape Culture, Religion and the Bible. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2020.
Tombs, David. ‘Abandonment, Rape and Second Abandonment: Hannah Baker in 13 Reasons Why and the Royal Concubines in 2 Samuel 15-20’. In Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion Biblical Perspectives, edited by Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards, 117–41. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72685-4.
Tombs, David, and Rocio Figueroa. ‘Seeing His Innocence, I See My Innocence: Responses from Abused Nuns to Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse’. Seeing His Innocence, I See My Innocence: Responses from Abused Nuns to Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse. Accessed 7 June 2020. https://www.academia.edu/42147523/Seeing_His_Innocence_I_See_My_Innocence_Responses_from_Abused_Nuns_to_Jesus_as_a_Victim_of_Sexual_Abuse.
Van Dorn, Maggie. ‘Deliver Us’. Deliver Us. Accessed 1 June 2020. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deliver-us/id1450824969.
‘Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics | RAINN’. Accessed 5 June 2020. https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence.
Wells, Kate, and Lindsay Smith. ‘Believed – The Hit Podcast from Michigan Radio & NPR’. Accessed 1 June 2020. https://believed.michiganradio.org/.
Winn, Harriet. ‘Thursdays in Black: Localized Responses to Rape Culture and Gender Violence in Aotearoa New Zealand’. In Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards. New York, NY: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2018.
Footnotes
[1] 2 Cor 3:18
[2] James 1:23-25
[3] Gen 1:26
[4] American Psychological Association, ‘Sexual Abuse’, https://www.apa.org, accessed 6 June 2020, https://www.apa.org/topics/sexual-abuse/index.
[6] Sandra E. Garcia, ‘The Woman Who Created #MeToo Long Before Hashtags’, The New York Times, 20 October 2017, sec. U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/us/me-too-movement-tarana-burke.html.
[7] Hannah Paasch, ‘Sexual Abuse Happens In #ChurchToo -- We’re Living Proof’, HuffPost, 29:35 500, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sexual-abuse-churchtoo_n_5a205b30e4b03350e0b53131.
[8] Tom McCarthy, Spotlight, Biography, Drama (Open Roads Films, 2015), http://spotlightthefilm.com/.
[9] ‘Facts and Figures: Ending Violence against Women’, UN Women, accessed 5 June 2020, https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/facts-and-figures.
[10] Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards, Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives(New York, NY: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2018), 1.
[11] Shanta R. Dube et al., ‘Long-Term Consequences of Childhood Sexual Abuse by Gender of Victim’, American Journal of Preventive Medicine 28, no. 5 (June 2005): 430–38, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2005.01.015.
[12] ‘Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics | RAINN’, accessed 5 June 2020, https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence.
[13] Deborah Russell, ‘What Can Be Done about Rape Culture? - Massey University’, accessed 5 June 2020, https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/news/article.cfm?mnarticle_uuid=802AAB27-AF9B-496D-9265-3A550330B713.
[14] Paht Satjipanon, ‘Cross-Examination: The Blight of Rape Culture on New Zealand’, Equal Justice Project, accessed 5 June 2020, https://www.equaljusticeproject.co.nz/articles/2016/08/cross-examination-the-blight-of-rape-culture-on-new-zealand.
[16] This was highlighted in the Catholic church in the Spotlight investigation and the wider church in Ruth Everhart, ‘A Pastor’s #MeToo Story: WHEN THE CHURCH SILENCES WOMEN AND PROTECTS ABUSERS.(Cover Story)’, The Christian Century 134, no. 26 (20 December 2017): 22–25, https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.otago.ac.nz/docview/1977195567?accountid=14700.
[17] Denhollander documents the failure of her church to support her when she went public with her complaint against Larry Nasser, there was complete silence and not a single offer of support or even prayer. Rachael Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth? My Story of Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth about Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics (Carol Stream: Tyndale Momentum, 2019), 181.
[18] Luke 4:18,19
[19] Matt 18:10-19
[24] Johanna Stiebert, Rape Myths, the Bible and #MeToo, Rape Culture, Religion and the Bible (Abingdon, Oxon ; New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2020), 22.
[25] 2 Sam 12:11
[26] David Tombs, ‘Abandonment, Rape and Second Abandonment: Hannah Baker in 13 Reasons Why and the Royal Concubines in 2 Samuel 15-20’, in Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion Biblical Perspectives, ed. Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018), 117–41, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72685-4.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Emma Nagouse, ‘“To Ransom a Man’s Soul”: Male Rape and Gender Identity in Outlander and “The Suffering Man” of Lamentations 3’, in Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion Biblical Perspectives, ed. Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018), 143–58, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72685-4.
[31] Ruth Everhart, The #metoo Reckoning: Facing the Church’s Complicity in Sexual Abuse and Misconduct (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP, an imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2020).
[32] Valerie Hobbs, ‘Rape Culture in Sermons on Divorce’, in Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards (New York, NY: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2018), 104.
[33] Emily Colgan, ‘Let Him Romance You: Rape Culture and Gender Violence in Evangelical Christian Self-Help Literature’, in Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion, ed. Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018), 22, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72685-4_2.
[34] In the 1980s as part of the ‘Decade of Solidarity with Women’ see Harriet Winn, ‘Thursdays in Black: Localized Responses to Rape Culture and Gender Violence in Aotearoa New Zealand’, in Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards (New York, NY: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2018), 54.
[35] Kate Wells and Lindsay Smith, ‘Believed – The Hit Podcast from Michigan Radio & NPR’, accessed 1 June 2020, https://believed.michiganradio.org/.
[37] Robert Cunningham, ‘Addressing Our Past’, Tates Creek Presbyterian Church, accessed 7 June 2020, https://tcpca.org/addressing-our-past.
[40] There is a powerful argument that the concept of ‘forgiveness is for the sake of the one sinned against rather than the sinner’ is not at all Biblical – see DeMuth, We Too, chap. 11.
[41] ‘Canons / Resources / Home - Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia’, accessed 25 April 2018, http://www.anglican.org.nz/Resources/Canons.
[42] ‘CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Sanctuary’, accessed 1 June 2020, https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13430a.htm.
[43] David Tombs and Rocio Figueroa, ‘Seeing His Innocence, I See My Innocence: Responses from Abused Nuns to Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse’, Seeing His Innocence, I See My Innocence: Responses from Abused Nuns to Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse, accessed 7 June 2020, https://www.academia.edu/42147523/Seeing_His_Innocence_I_See_My_Innocence_Responses_from_Abused_Nuns_to_Jesus_as_a_Victim_of_Sexual_Abuse.
[44] 2 Cor 3:18
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