Can Christianity Be Saved from Sexual Abuse? Purity Culture, Gender, and Sex
Two weeks ago, we hosted our second in-person event on our series this year “Can Christianity Be Saved?” focusing especially on questions of sexual abuse, women’s experience, and purity culture in the church. It was a rich and important kōrero, especially in light of wider public discussion about the horrific systemic nature of abuse across both faith and state-based care here in Aotearoa. Our first speaker was Metanoia’s own Jaimee van Gemerden who shared a powerful reflection on this theme. At transcript of her talk is published below.
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I want to start tonight by acknowledging the publication of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care last week and honouring the survivors who shared their stories in the pursuit of justice, truth telling, and changing structures of systemic abuse. While I won’t be talking tonight to these experiences, I want to acknowledge the lived reality which is expressed in the report and the need for religious institutions to take seriously the recommendations made. Even one story of abuse is too many, and my hope is that this report can serve as a watershed which ensures that now is the time for change to be made.
The focus of our discussion tonight is specifically on the reality of sexual abuse in the church. In recent history, it has felt like there is a revolving door of stories of sexual abuse perpetrated or covered up by church leaders. Some Christian denominations have become almost synonymous with abuse in popular culture and for many there is little surprise registered when another story of Christian abuse becomes public. Yet, despite the prevalence of these issues I find that the usual Christian response to new stories is to minimise: to label the perpetrator as a bad apple or to try and create distance with the community where the abuse occurred.
At what point, my question is, do we need to recognise that this abuse which proliferates is symptomatic of a cultural failing within Christianity, rather than the action of a few bad actors? I want to suggest tonight that Christianity has a rape culture problem, and until the beliefs which are foundational for this culture are addressed then the stories of abuse from which Christians wish to remove themselves will only continue to proliferate. Rape culture is a culture where sexual violence is normal: where blame is placed on victims and where accountability for perpetrators is minimal. This culture in Christianity is supported by a number of pillars of belief, three of which I want to consider tonight: beliefs around purity and gender, beliefs around leadership, and beliefs around forgiveness. While I talk, I challenge you to reflect on this question: are these beliefs fundamental to Christianity? or could Christianity be saved from the culture of sexual abuse that these beliefs have allowed to flourish?
Purity culture
When I say purity culture, I’m sure many different images arise for each of you. In some ways, the formal structures of purity culture can seem like quite a foreign thing here in Aotearoa. Images of purity balls where young girls pledge their virginity to their fathers are very American, and talk of purity rings, to me at least, conjures up thoughts of Disney stars like the Jonas brothers. And yet, while much of these cultural trappings didn’t appear in the Christian context in Aotearoa, the idea of the importance of purity is certainly pervasive here. One of the key features of this focus on purity is what has been described as a form of “Purity Prosperity Gospel.” This is the view that keeping sex until marriage is a way to protect yourself from harm, and to ensure that sex will be “amazing.”
One of the crucial consequences of purity focussed beliefs is the unwillingness to have robust discussions of sex. Some of you may be starting to disagree with me at this point and I know what you’re thinking: I can certainly say that my youth group education featured numerous—if not too many—discussions about sex. But what these conversations were really about were how not to have sex: how to maintain boundaries, what is not allowed, why you shouldn’t watch porn. In all the very plentiful relationship talks and gendered small group conversations, there was no time given to clear discussion of consent, safe sex practices, and what to do if something went wrong. Prior to marriage the messaging is clear: sex is bad and must be avoided at all costs.
This failure to talk about sex, though, creates an environment where it is challenging for survivors to come forward or, in some cases, to make sense of what has happened to them. One of the learnings from various royal commissions into abuse in religious settings globally has been that disclosures have been delayed due to young people being led by leaders to believe that what has happened to them is not abuse. This is connected to what I want to say about leadership later, but it is also a problem of education and especially of a particular type of abstinence only education which beliefs in purity push.
Connected to the purity prosperity gospel is a way of talking about relationships in the church which can often lead to the romanticising of dangerous, and potentially abusive, behaviour. The idealisation of romantic relationships in the church is complicated and I’m going to offer a hypothesis here which you are welcome to disagree with. The romanticisation of relationships is closely connected to a Christian idolisation of sex. While it may seem that purity culture demonises sex, the fear of pre-marital sex is accompanied by an obsession with how great sex is in marriage. The way sex is then talked about in the church raises real questions of how good life can be without it and, therefore, the need for everyone to get married so they can get some. Romantic relationships become, in this model, the best thing that a young person can be part of and consequently a lot of problems can be overlooked.
Some of you may have listened to the Dear Jane podcast where Jane talks about her experience dating her youth leader while a young member of the youth group. She describes how the church knew about the relationship and thought it was romantic, even God-ordained, and no one questioned whether she was safe. Jane was underage and was raped in that relationship that people in her church held up as an ideal. In this instance, and many others, the church’s obsession with romantic relationships led to a young girl being abused.
“Are these beliefs fundamental to Christianity? or could Christianity be saved from the culture of sexual abuse that these beliefs have allowed to flourish?”
While the focus on abstinence and the idealisation of sex is certainly experienced by both genders, there are ways that gendered beliefs in Christianity warp understandings of sexuality and contribute to a culture of violence. Growing up in a large, evangelical youth group, I was consistently surrounded by gendered expectations about sexuality. I’ll never forget a small group evening—our groups were divided by age and gender—where one of the male leaders came to our group to teach us the importance of modest dressing. We were at a friend’s house and planning to have a spa after he had talked to us. He told us about how boys think constantly about sex and that when they see our thighs their eyes just keep going up. Even with just us girls, it was pretty uncomfortable getting into the spa after that. I would’ve been about 15 then with the regular message being shared at youth group that girls’ bodies were suddenly sites of danger for the boys we had grown up with. My youth group leader cried when some girls turned up in bikinis at the hot pools, the implication being that the girls were cruelly harming their “brothers in Christ.”
Theologian Katie Cross interviewed a number of women who grew up in purity culture about their experiences, explaining how in this framework women’s bodies are viewed as inherently sinful. I was struck reading her work by how one of the participants described her experience. She describes how confronting it was to realise that she “has the power in my body to make people sin.” This is the way that gendered beliefs about sexuality make women feel about their bodies, and not only does this create a culture where women are held responsible for men’s feelings, it also means that survivors are held accountable for the actions of perpetrators. If a woman is responsible for dressing in a particular way because men can’t control themselves, then a man who abuses is less at fault than the woman who didn’t protect him from her body.
I do not mean to say here that women are the only victims of a culture of sexual abuse in the church. There is significant documented evidence to show the harm done to men in religious settings and it is important that these stories are heard and listened to without judgement. Tied in with the gendered beliefs about women’s sexuality I have described here are expectations that women are likely to be victims—itself an example of a benevolently sexist belief which diminishes women’s agency—and men who are victims are therefore less likely to be believed and are often shamed into silence. Men are set up as the active, enthusiastic participants in sex, with high sex drives and who think about it all the time, while women are just happy to please men. These frameworks are not just bad for women, they contribute to the silencing of male survivors.
Leadership
Further than just gendered beliefs about sexuality, gendered beliefs have become foundational to almost every aspect of evangelical Christian culture and this is especially true when it comes to leadership. Whether explicit or not, women are generally placed below men on a hierarchy: in church leadership, in family groups, or in any relationship. The consequences of these gendered hierarchies are not insignificant. Let’s take the example of a young, dating relationship. The boy is pushing the girl to go further and she wants things to stop. She might say no but they’ve both been taught that he has more authority than she does. Maybe she tries to appeal to her father, to the pastor, or to God—surely he’ll listen if he thinks they will disapprove. Why is her no not enough? Christian beliefs that subject women to another’s authority due to gender mean that anyone of that gender has more authority than her.
The problems of these hierarchical beliefs connect to how Christian beliefs around leadership contribute to a culture of abuse. It is common for Christians to place a high value on respect for authority—especially of church leaders. Priests and pastors are often seen as being representatives of God on earth and hold significant authority for their congregants in this role. The Royal Commission notes in their report published last week that “the assumed moral authority and trustworthiness of clergy and religious leaders allowed abusers in faith-based institutions to perpetrate abuse and neglect with impunity.” When these representatives of God abuse this power two things happen.
The first is that people don’t believe that what has happened is abuse. This could manifest in a number of ways: either the survivor’s story might be disbelieved because a leader is seen as being above that sort of action, or a leader might convince a survivor that the action was in keeping with God’s will and not abuse. Leaders can also exert this power through diminishing others’ abusive actions and undermining survivor’s disclosures of harm.
Secondly, for many survivors the connection between their abuser and God means that sexual abuse extends into spiritual abuse. The perpetrator’s actions are inextricably connected to God. The covering up or silencing of the abuse by other church leaders or members further extends the spiritual element of the experience. God is made to be a callous, abusive, and uncaring divine.
When I was a youth leader we were made to sign long documents that declared that we would act in a way that was “above reproach.” That language strikes me now with a different connotation. While the intention of the pastor was that we would abide by particular standards of behaviour, the other side of the coin is that leaders are often “above reproach” for those they have power over. How does one reproach a representative of God? These strong views of the infallibility of leaders have significant consequences in the development of a culture of abuse.
Forgiveness
The final contributing belief I want to briefly touch upon is how Christians understand forgiveness. One of the issues raised in various royal commissions globally, including our own, is how abuse has often been treated in Christian contexts as a moral failing which can be readily forgiven – the Aotearoa commissioners describe how concerns or complaints have been treated as “a sin to be forgiven, rather than (in many cases) criminal behaviour.” I appreciate that this discussion of forgiveness may be quite challenging for some. Christian attitudes towards wrongdoing are based on a fundamental belief that Christ’s action in the world means that all people can be forgiven for anything. The logical extension that has been made to this belief in Christ’s forgiveness is that Christians, too, should forgive all wrongdoing, regardless of the harm caused.
On some level, I want to support this idea of forgiveness—reconciliation with God is a significant part of my faith and I am unwilling to draw boundaries around who may or may not receive divine forgiveness. However, human appropriations of divine unconditional forgiveness have a lot to answer for in creating an environment of harm in Christian settings. Christians have been shown to be less likely to escalate criminal actions to police inquiries as the church feels sufficient to mete out divine justice—justice which, in this case, simply means forgiveness and restoration. Survivors are all too often expected to undergo mediation with their abuser and are outcast themselves if they refuse to unilaterally forgive. I will say this bluntly, Christian beliefs in unconditional forgiveness have caused abuse to continue in the church.
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I am convinced that there are significant problems in the wider Christian culture in Aotearoa which contribute to an environment where abuse can too often go unchallenged and even unnoticed. There is more work that needs to be done to unpack the roots of these beliefs and to establish whether they are intrinsic to Christian faith or a warping of Jesus’s message. I am also aware that what I have done tonight is simply to raise a list of problems and give little accounting to the solutions. My encouragement to you now is to identify these beliefs and, if you are part of a Christian community, to try and spot them in your own context. What is certain is that Christians need to start naming the beliefs that make our spaces unsafe and critically deconstructing their centrality to our faith. Without this action, there will be little improvement to the culture of abuse the church has created.
Jaimee van Gemerden is editor at Metanoia.
