CW: discussion of spiritual and sexual abuse, including child sexual abuse.
In November 2019, a sexual predator was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama. Initially arrested on charges of child pornography production and distribution, further investigation yielded evidence of heinous child abuse crimes graphically detailed in the listed charges of an AL.com article along with other news reports. Since that time, I scrolled through the headlines and content of perhaps hundreds of other articles detailing the criminal acts of other pedophilic predators. However, November 2019 held a particular piercing.
The predator arrested was a member of the congregation I was pastoring none of whom, least of all me, suspected he could be capable of this evil.
While the victims’ stories are their own to tell and my own response in those dark times not something I’m willing to publicly detail. What I can tell you is that a person intent on evil, determined to defile goodness, dwelled in one of God’s communities. A community who defined themselves, like many other spiritual communities, by their hospitality toward the stranger.
I was already an unyielding advocate for children’s safety and unapologetically unmerciful toward those to harm them. In the wake of the revelation of this person’s true self, I have only become increasingly unyielding when it comes to sexual predators in the church and those who shield them. I understand the sinister danger that waits to prey on our vulnerable; God forgive me, I understand how well evil disguises itself. I will advocate without compromise so long as children are being harmed. Thwarted by child protection polices, no abuse took place on church property, during our supervision, but the effects of this revelation, of course, radiated like a spider’s web intertwined in multiple communities and family systems.
Adam Young, a therapist whose podcast The Place We Find Ourselves focuses on family of origin, trauma, and story on the path to healing and wholeness, argues across various episodes1 that a significant measure of whether or not an event will be traumatizing for a person depends on that individual’s support system, particularly their parent(s) response to their experiences.
He offers an example of two children who experienced a similar traumatic event with one having a home characterized by silence and shame while the other’s is characterized by trust and openness. The child whose caregivers are unable or unwilling to cope with a child’s emotional wounding, therefore unable or unwilling to offer support and care, is likely to be traumatized. The shame and isolation around their experience along with the lack of anyone else to co-regulate and bear compassionate witness to their experiences is too painful for the child to bear. The child who can go to their caregivers with their experience correctly expecting receive tender, honest care is much less likely be traumatized. Their experience, their story, is honored by caregivers, relieving the burden of the shame associated with their experience. This victim of able to speak the truth trusting their caregivers are able and willing to hold their suffering.
In other words, Young posits that trauma is measured not only in an individual’s response to their experience(s) but also to that same individual’s support system, or communal response to their experience(s). In many cases, an individual may report a traumatic experience then describe their parent/community response as “even worse” than what initially took place.
Let us consider the case of the Village Church – an SBC church led by evangelical mega-church pastor Matt Chandler. Now an adult, a woman sued the church for willful negligence to protect her as a child at a 2012 summer camp when she was abused by another pastor on staff. After coming forward in 2018, the young woman’s mother later said, “No one has ever apologized to her, ‘Hey, we are sorry we didn’t protect you.’ This is what has stuck with me the entire time.”2 Several articles and quotes corroborate Bragg’s claim that at no point did Matt Chandler contact or meet with the victim or her family despite their attempts to initiate contact. More than this, after coming forward they lost close friends and their daughter experienced bullying. At the 2019 SBC convention, Chandler emerged from his sabbatical to dispute the Braggs’ experience of how the church handled the case. A moment Christi now calls, “A day of trauma for us as a whole family.”
In other words, when Christi’s daughter, Christi herself, and the rest of their family were rejected by their spiritual community and leader, Christi described the experience as “trauma.”
I wonder how different their experience would have been if their then-pastor had called them immediately, come to their house, expressed a deep, undying remorse that Christi trusted them with her daughter only for her daughter to be indelibly wounded under their care. If the truth sets us free, then Brown daughter was imprisoned for six years. I wonder how relieved, how soothed, Christi’s daughter would have felt had Chandler, on behalf of the whole church community, mourned the six years she suffered in silence.
Instead, they heard from the Village Church, “We aren’t perfect.” To which I reply, if Christi’s daughter cannot, “No one expect the church to be perfect; we expect the church to be sorry.” (Read more on church repentance, or the lack thereof, at this No Ordinary Life post.)
But it wasn’t just Chandler who failed the victim and this family. To this day, the pews of Village Church are filled with individuals who know of the Bragg family yet continue to support Chandler, the rest of the staff, and Village Church institution itself. Beyond the pews of a single church, the SBC is a convention of hundreds of churches comprised of thousands of people whose silence continues to reject the victims led by hundreds of pastors who did not stand up to Chandler’s callousness. Beyond the pews and the SBC we find social media followers, Podcast listeners, book buyers all of whom ensure that the Bragg family will not only suffer from the betrayal of their church community and pastor, but the apathy of third, fourth, fifth times removed individuals who continue to support Chandler and the Village Church – eagerly consuming and promoting their name and their content.
Do you see the weight that can press upon a victim and their loved ones?
Multiply the Bragg’s story by a thousand and we may begin to approach the true level of apathy the Christian church has toward victims of sexual abuse and misconduct in our stained-glass temples.
I began this post with a story from my own tenure as pastor to emphasize that I am well acquainted with the type of tragedy Christi Brown and thousands of others have experienced. I know how Chandler and other spiritual leaders could and should have risen to the occasion. I know well how the presence of a tender and compassionate witness can soothe the piercing wounds that ripped through this mother’s heart.
The Brown family, most of all the Brown daughter, was and is failed not only by Chandler himself, but the SBC, Christian publishers, and conservative evangelical conference circuit that continues to platform him. They are failed by every book purchase, retweet, podcast subscription, and full sanctuary.
It is not just Chandler and it isn’t just the Brown family. Abuse victims across congregations and denominations are routinely told that their trauma simply isn’t a big enough deal to stop consuming the content and celebrity of unrepentant, merciless ministers.
“Then Jesus had a little child stand among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me.”
But when we turn away from the child, who are we welcoming?
Every episode is a treasure, but the first 15 or so stretch across the stories of family of origin and attachment. I could not more strongly recommend listening through The Place We Find Ourselves.
“...when we turn away from the child, who are we welcoming?” Yesssss