If I Were a Survivor, Where Would I Go to Church?

Today I’m not going to write about the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, ending the 50 year old constitutional right to abortion in America. I woke up with a different burden on my heart before SCOTUS released that decision, and my burning question now seems more important than when it was first conceived:

If I was a survivor, where would I go to church?

I sat in a church not too long ago, fully embracing the awkwardness of a survivor and her abuser sitting separately in the same congregation. Anxiety swelled in my chest as I breathed in the palpable tension. All the unspoken words suffocated by silence, the pretending things are ok when they’re really not. I knew it all too well. Since I’ve been that survivor before, my heart feels her sadness personally. Far more maddening than the elephant in the room is everyone pretending that there isn’t one. The only nod to her sideways reality exists in the knowing few's inaudible hushed whispers when she leaves the room.

The church’s unified response to abuse is deafening silence. (It seems to be one of the only things the church can agree on.) I can’t help but think that purposeful indifference only exacerbates the wound.

Sexual abuse scandals abound across the global church. It’s become cliché. Not a day goes by without a headline of churches covering up abuse, silencing victims, and defending perpetrators. Despite vast amounts of exposure, the hemorrhaging continues. Five years ago I wrote pieces on this subject that I never published. Deep down I hoped things would just improve, and that I wouldn’t have to say anything. Maybe I’m eternally optimistic at heart, or maybe, like so many survivors, I just kept hoping against all evidence to the contrary that things would get better on their own. ‘Maybe this time things will be different…’

The truth is things can change for the better, but not without our participation.

Growing up my dad would always say something that annoyed me: “we don’t go to church, we are the church.” I always thought that was a punt; an excuse to be lazy on Sundays. But I’m slowly beginning to see the wisdom in what I think he was trying to say: that church is not a place we go; rather, it’s being who we were always called to be: light in the darkness.

So maybe my original question is flawed. Maybe a better question is: if we ARE the Church, how are we being light to survivors of sexual abuse and domestic violence? Are we ignoring, disbelieving, shaming, ostracizing and gossiping about survivors? Or are we healing the sick and binding up their wounds?

I can’t speak for the church (defined as those places we go on Sundays), but as for me, I want to be light to the survivors in my life. For all of you survivors who have been ignored, disbelieved, and mistreated by people in religious buildings, I’m sorry. You are enough. You are worthy. You are loved. You are important. You matter.