After posting Sexual Abuse Is A Crime (why the Josh Duggar story needs to matter to Christians), I have seen a lot of questions (primarily on Facebook! Thank you for sharing!) kind of along the lines of “okay, so it’s a crime and ought to be reported/treated as such. What then?”
A friend of mine captured these questions eloquently in an email earlier this week, and I thought I would post the email in hopes of opening a discussion. I am hoping some some of my readers (and first-time readers) will chime in with their thoughts/questions/opinions, or even rebukes and rebuttals, so we can all learn and grow in understanding. I will follow this post up with a reply in the next few days.
Here is the email, reposted with permission:
I wanted to send you a quick note about the blog post you recently wrote. I wanted to email you because sometimes what I’m trying to say in a comment seems to me to be too easily misread as “argument” by others who don’t know me. And also because I know this is all so very personal to you…so close to your heart. So this is my question:
I completely agree with all that you wrote. Every last bit. As a non-survivor, I don’t understand it like you do, however. So when I read your post, even though I agreed with it, it just left me with huge questions:
- So how *should* we deal with this? The answer is never just, “throw them in jail.” And I’m talking specifically to a family situation where it’s a juvenile and sisters are victims.
- What would you have done had this been your own family situation? Jail/juvenile detention, yes. But there has to be so much more. If this happened in your *own* family, how would it have gone down, both for the the perpetrator and the victims?
- I think it’s easy to be angry at someone unrelated to you who has molested (and we rightly should be) and just say “throw them in jail”. But if it had been your *own kids*, what else besides jail would have been done for the saving of his soul, to bring about repentance, to cause him to understand the full impact of the crime and sin against his victims, to make him hate his sin…to make right (is this possible? I don’t know) what was done to the victims.
- And what all would have been done for the victims? Although I realize putting someone in jail is a vitally important for the victims, as you said in your article, but even I know that’s not enough for healing. What else happens?
So those are the questions that a non-survivor has. I realize these are questions particular to the recent case — just b/c that’s what was being discussed and I actually think the fact that it was all among siblings is what is raising all the debate and controversy. How does a parent deal with that? They love the son, too, and don’t want to see him go to the system, either. We both know bad things go down in juvenile detention. If the parents didn’t deal with it thoroughly, what should have they done, instead? And that’s why I’m asking how you would have dealt with it if it were in your own home. I truly would like to have some insight to this, but WILL NOT be reading any sites that are blogging about it and arguing and throwing dirt and etc.
Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I really appreciated what you wrote.
Can you resonate with the questions in this email? Do you share her questions or have questions she didn’t ask? Do you have answers to her questions that you can share with the rest of us? I really want to understand the common perceptions about sexual abuse, and what kind of questions or opinions the subject raises.
Please consider taking the time to post your thoughts in the comments, and feel free to keep yourself anonymous if that makes it easier! Thank you. I appreciate you all so much. We’re always learning.
I honest don’t know how I would have reacted had this happened in my home.
I was abused once by an uncle, I was very young and he was a teenager.
I guess I was so shocked I never told anyone. I have since then ask my sibling if he had abused them and they all said no. I have no way of knowing how my parents would have responded had I told them. I don’t know why I couldn’t tell, I just couldn’t
I was afraid to be left alone with my maternal grandfather, because I overheard that he had abused my cousin and my uncle threatened to kill him.
I don’t know to what extend this had on my life. It may account for some bad decisions I made over the years.
Praise God I turned out okay
Jean, this made me cry! You have turned out more than okay, you are wonderful. 🙂 Thank you SO MUCH for you transparency in this comment. It touched me more than I can say. What courage, and what grace God has given you.
What is it like, in this different era, when people talk more openly about these things? Is it strange? Healing?
I love you, my friend.
I forgot to say how well I thought you presented your thoughts and heart in this really difficult subject.
Thank you.
Those are sincere and well stated questions. I cannot say I am going to say what I think I would do.
Number one, no matter how young those girls, they SHOULD be told immediately that their brother was doing something to them that, even if they did not even know about it (and how can you tell, please, remember children are very intuitive and intelligent, they could have chosen not to tell, in a home atmosphere of hush hush).
I do understand if your son does this to other children in your family, he is your son, you still love him. But MOST SPECIALLY, if you live a life placing yourself as a PUBLIC example, YOU HAVE a MORAL obligation to not keep it that private.
Acknowledged, there are many so down in the lane of evil conduct even, or mostly, in juvenile facilities, but it’s not for the parents to categorize or minimize offenses, the same we are told not to do that with sin. But, theology apart, we should not categorize offenses either. Just because we are a good family with many good points in our favor, and exemplary conduct in many aspects of our life, we should not fall into the mistake of special treatment of offenses that are criminal and immoral.
So, if not a juvenile facility, there must be a place, a person (please, outside of the family and church circle, though maybe in those circles you can find genuine good help too), a third and objective help, for the perpetrator AND victims alike.
It’s up to the offender to build his reputation back up, IF he is changed, IF he has taken steps that prove a change… and a third opinion, someone outside family and friends, has to determine this.
I don’t have all or many answers, but I know the case Harmony discussed has evidences of having been dealt with in a selfish private manner. I think we are all offended somehow, we feel cheated (to more or lesser degree… I was never a fan, but even so, as part of the “public”, I feel bad as a person who has been fed lies and dishonesty. But at the end of the day, what matters to me the most is the victims. If they say they are fine with it, you know what?, I am very happy for them, praise the Lord, but no one should have written off their answers and fed them to them for all these many years, as we should have not had to witness and accept the offender as a man of honor and of no reproach, with that dark spot in his past.
Thank you so much for this lengthy reply, Silvia. It is so tough! I’m really thinking it through, still.
Wow Silvia, I love what you have to say. Especially about “not categorizing or minimizing offenses. This is one of the greatest challenges that the church faces. When the Lord gave the ten commandments, he did not put them in an order of priority and tell us that one was worse than the other. We are told repeatedly from Jesus during his time on earth that to lust is to commit adultery, to anger is to murder. Jesus sees no difference from one sin to the next. When someone sexually offends someone, it is wrong. Every. Time. It is not less wrong if they are a pastor, or if they are nine. It is not less wrong if they are a drug dealer or a Fortune 500 CEO. It is a sin. And it is wrong.
The only push back that I have from your comment is to be happy for them if they are fine… I think that victims are never fine. We use “Fine” as a defense mechanism. I myself have never been sexually abused, but I am speaking on behalf of a person thing. I believe that people really can overcome and become healthy people, but I don’t know if a victim of abuse is ever simply “fine.”
I understand and I am rectifying my opinion. I meant that, (knowing they are not fine, as you point), if they are in a stage where they don’t want to come public with their testimony, should we not respect that? As you say, it is a defense mechanism to appear not affected, but if that is the case, maybe they are not ready for the attention or the invasion of their privacy for something that was dealt in a way for them, and which they learned to bury.
Excuse my second sentence… it should say I’m not sure I’d do that which I am writing, but it’s what I believe I’d do.
🙂
I read it again and I am not that sure… I feel a desperate need to give answers, but I realize I don’t have them… I don’t want to sound dogmatic in my comments… I just want answers and not people hurt or offenders cut loose without some civil and moral “payment”? I don’t know…