As my publicist has been pitching media outlets for potential interviews in advance of my new book’s April launch, I’ve been fascinated by the feedback. In particular, it’s been interesting to see how female podcasters are intrigued by a dude talking about emotional, spiritual, and sexual abuse in the church. Their piqued interest affirms my literary agent’s pitch to publishers last year: that Hurt and Healed by the Church is like many books on the market right now—but with a unique feature: it’s written by a dude. And I’m probably the first son of a sexually-predatory pastor to write a book about reconstructing my faith in light of that reality.
Anyway, one of the podcasters on my media tour asked why male voices in the church shy away from this topic. I believe that question has multiple answers.
Men would have to admit to contributing to conducive conditions.
In most conservative congregations in America, if a woman wanted to report her abuse or the red flag activities of another parishioner to a deacon, elder, pastor, or spiritual leader, she has little chance of looking into even a single set of female eyes on the other side of the table. A large percentage of American evangelical churches hold the belief that a woman’s voice isn’t worthy of the same platforms and decision rooms as men.
It’s not just in churches. One of my dad’s victims reported his sexual predation to the exclusively-male administrators of her “distinctive Christian college,” who did nothing but refer her to the exclusively-male pastors who knew my dad, who in turn did not come to her aid or comfort. There wasn’t a single woman in that chain of decisions. I live 10 minutes from Liberty University, which holds similar theological views of women and who just got hit with a record $14 million dollar fine for covering up sex crimes and even punishing the victims who dared report them.
Whether a church preaches that women should be silent in the church or “just” that women are to be submissive to men, the messaging around those views tells victims that a woman’s voice doesn’t count as much as a man’s. Some go so far as to tell abuse victims that they should suffer in silence to protect a pastor, teacher, student, or institution’s reputation.
No matter where a church is on the spectrum of discounting the equality of the female perspective, most of them are inherently telling past, present, and future victims that (1) their autonomy might be expendable to a man’s reputation, (2) their stories might be met with skepticism, and (3) their commitment to the gospel might be questioned. With such patriarchal actions and words, these women are told that the brave and scary act of speaking up may not be enough. They might need to describe their shame at high volumes in public spaces for the best chance of justice. Until men of faith are willing to cede their power, position, and privilege to women, those men will be less likely to advocate for what pastors of my youth liked to call “weaker vessels.”
Men would have to follow Jesus’s transcribed example.
Jesus elevated women above their cultural privileges in both secular and religious systems. He assigned a woman to be the first proclaimer of a resurrection gospel. He publicly applauded the faith of women. He stood next to a woman when others pointed their weapons at her and assured her of his lack of condemnation. He let multiple women publicly touch him, anoint him, and learn at his feet in a culture where all of the above was taboo for a rabbi.
Jesus compared himself to a mother hen, wanting to protect his chicks—a callback to an Old Testament declaration that his Father would comfort like a mother. He accepted the comparisons to both a lion and a lamb. He relinquished power and his own life for the eternal sake of others’ souls. He started a movement with intentional sacrifice. His anger burned for those who used the church for their gain and for those who made access to a loving God more difficult. The Inventor of Justice said it would be better for someone to be drowned with a millstone around their neck than to interfere with a child’s innocence.
Women of every stripe felt safe around Jesus—safer in his orbit than anywhere else in their respective worlds. That safety came from a countercultural rabbi with palpable empathy, contagious mercy, zero ego, and instantly-offered dignity. Jesus’ posture toward the hurting, ostracized, disillusioned, and disenfranchised spotlighted the greed, hypocrisy, and insecurity of the religious establishment. It got him indicted in a rigged trial and eventually killed.
Standing up for the church’s victims, advocating for women in faith spaces, and seeking justice for powerful perpetrators will cost men friends, positions, and inclusion. But none of us will ever give up as much as Jesus did. And none of us can say we’ve fully taken up our crosses to follow him, if the women in our shared spaces don’t know we’d give up everything for their physical, emotional, and spiritual safety.
Men would need to wrestle with nuance in the Bible.
The fruit of the Spirit are not gendered. Spiritual gifts aren’t sorted by sex. The great commission wasn’t given only to those with a penis. Jesus didn’t tell anyone that women are excluded from any roles in or the mission of the church. The Bible’s human transcribers punctuate creation accounts with the fact that men and women were created both in God’s image.
Despite all of this, conservative pastors like to pull a few verses from Paul’s personal correspondence with Timothy to affirm their chauvinism. They fail to notice that the Paul who recommended the limitation of women in Timothy’s congregation praised women leaders in his letters to other churches. They skip over the verse in that same letter to Timothy that isn’t congruent with the words of Jesus—the one which says that women will be saved through childbirth. (No evangelical would say that all women who’ve given birth are going to heaven.) Theobros downplay the equality of Paul’s female fellow church planters. In fact, the conservative-activist translators of the ESV Bible intentionally changed the translation of terms that indicated gender neutrality as well as the leadership positions of women. “Christian” men intentionally ignore Ephesians 5:21 when they proclaim Ephesians 5:22—ignoring the fact that in the original Greek’s grammatical structure, the second verse basically says that what applies to all believers submitting to each other applies to women too.
Maybe there were subcultural contexts between different churches that we’re missing. Maybe Paul changed his view of women over time. Maybe Paul was speaking out of his own preferences instead of divine inspiration (like in passages where he describes using alcohol for stomach aches or asks people for personal favors). These tensions and inconsistencies require men to approach Scripture with less dogmatism, fewer strident assumptions, and an acquired comfort with mystery.
By leveraging only the verses that subjugate women, men weaponize Scripture. Why would a woman who’s been told from pulpits, Bible classes, and women’s retreats that consent and autonomy are expendable to the whims of men trust men to help them find safety, advocate for justice, or even just believe their stories? Until men are willing to read all of the Bible, filter it all through the example of Jesus’ life, and wrestle with the resulting nuance, women in their congregations understandably question if their bodies will be safe and their stories will be valued.
Men would have to abandon their political messiah.
Roughly 80% of white evangelical men tell pollsters that they support a man who has
- been found guilty of rape
- bragged about sexually molesting multiple women
- been accused of sexual assault by more than twenty-five women
- boasted about unabashed voyeurism in the dressing rooms of beauty pageants, including Miss Teen USA
- talked openly with his staff about his daughter sexually, allegedly including what sex might be like with her
- cheated on his pregnant wife with a porn actress
Women and girls walk past this sexual deviant’s name on the windows and bumpers of vehicles in their churches’ parking lots every Sunday across America. In sermons and on social media, past and future assault victims can hear pastors align themselves with this debauched criminal. One church sanctuary in San Antonio reverberated with chants of “Let’s go, Brandon!” When attentive souls see pastors, Christian school teachers, denominational leaders, and fathers so deliberately look the other way on an incredible rap sheet of sex crimes, why would a woman or minor believe their reporting of their assault will be taken seriously?
Church-going men can’t stand up for victims with any integrity until they give up on their dreams of an authoritarian state ruled by a sexual predator. Until these men love their wives, daughters, nieces, and granddaughters more than they love political power, cognitive dissonance will prevent them from advocating for the safety of the vulnerable.
The church should be the safest place for women and children. Congregations should be filled with people who most believe victims. Faith communities should attract refugees of a broken world rather than be the most likely place where predators can hide in plain sight.
Until the men in churches, schools, and crotch-scratching retreats are willing to sacrifice their idols, address their insecurities, and repent of their complicity, I expect being a male voice for the vulnerable will continue to be the exception to the rule.
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Stock images purchased from iStockPhoto.com
