The Thinking ‘Kat: No Equivalence
Of late, my friend Bruce Gerencser has been in conversation with a Christian, by the name of Dr Arv Edgeworth. Dr Edgeworth has sent Bruce a number of emails, emails which typically follow the pattern of most diehard Evangelicals. Dr Edgeworth’s latest email to Bruce struck me as a rather strange attempt to draw equivalence between sexual ‘misconduct’, and spiritual ‘misconduct’. This email relates to Bruce’s long-running Black Collar Crime Series, a series which brings the alleged crimes of pastors and preachers to light.
This isn’t the first time that people have tried to minimise the impact of sexual assault. It’s not the first time that supposedly learned men of faith have tried to play it down. The effect of sexual violence is going to differ from person to person, but generally speaking it leaves life-long scars, well beyond the immediate physical trauma. Deep, emotional and psychological wounds from these terrible events will loiter in the consciousness of the victims for decades, even if they manage to get a conviction against their attacker (which remains a big if). Dr Edgeworth wants us to think of the spiritual, well, how about the ‘spiritual’ damage done to the victims of sexual assault, especially when their attackers are seemingly upstanding pillars of society, who use their position to escape responsibility from their actions?
Pastors are generally respected within their communities. There are many examples of them exploiting and abusing their status to commit and cover up crimes. From the instant they assault someone, they and their cohorts close ranks, rendering the suggestion of impropriety outrageous, whilst manoeuvring to disguise or destroy evidence. Victims are bullied, coerced and threatened into silence. Sometimes, after years or decades of bottling up shame, rage and fear, they will come forward, though by then it can be very hard to get justice.
What doesn’t help is that some ignorant people whine when victims come forward. ‘Why did you wait so long?’ Their derisive response to someone plucking up the courage to face what happened to them is one of the reasons why some people never come forward. These same whingers decry at the time that the victims can be lying. Yes, sometimes people lie about being assaulted, but people also lie about carrying out assault! Indeed, a lot of convicted criminals – including those of the clergy – will have previously lied, denied, and evaded talk of their crimes. If it is reasonable to practice innocent until proven guilty, it is reasonable to extend the benefit of the doubt to those who claim to have been assaulted.
As to whether or not spiritual misconduct is worse, what does that even mean? If a pastor has a change of heart and leaves Christianity, that is their right. The last time I checked, people have free will, and the right to follow what they believe. If that pastor’s story is capable of shaking the beliefs of others, is that the fault of the story? Or does it speak to something else? There is an expression, ‘if it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be’. To paraphrase that, if your faith can be destroyed by someone speaking honestly and plainly of their experiences within it, perhaps it deserves to be. It is also not a question of ‘misconduct’. Why can’t someone share their negative experience of religion? What makes religion immune to criticism? Nothing should be immune from criticism.
If you believe in everlasting consequences for the soul via de-converting, that is up to you. I for one am more concerned with the damage done by lying pastors, who have used their position of respect and authority to get away with some awful crimes.
