In today’s blog, we are talking about Institutional Abuse. Again… Truly, it’s becoming so challenging to hear about this issue over and over again and to see it played out within many institutions, but notably and repeatedly within churches across our country. One of the challenges in discussing “Institutional Abuse” is that the name alone dehumanizes the issue and allows us to separate ourselves from the real perpetrators, the humans who make up the institution. Over time, we tend to forget the individuals with brains, heartbeats, bodies, and feelings who were making choice after choice at the expense of another, or many other, person(s) often to protect themself, the perpetrator or the “institution”. No institutional engine exists which is not made up of human parts ensuring it operates as desired, so we cannot blame this issue on a faulty machine made of metal. True accountability in these cases requires individuals to bear the liability alongside the institution. It requires someone – anyone – to assume the responsibility to repair what has been broken.
The damage that is being done by institutions like the Southern Baptist Convention, Pastor John Lowe at New Life Christian Church in Indiana, the Archdiocese of Chicago – and so many other faith institutions – goes far beyond the actual victims of the abuse, although the victims are the ones who have been harmed the most. What the individual predators and perpetrators did to their victims is beyond horrible in the first place, but the devastating long-lasting effects of the “institution” of leaders who colluded with these predators, becoming abusers themselves, by vilifying, silencing and shunning victims or their advocates and refusing to take action to protect them and hold the perpetrators accountable for their wrongdoings is equally egregious and likely even more damaging.
On May 23, 2022, news broke releasing the highlights of a scathing investigative report, 400 pages long, in which an independent investigation revealed the committee’s findings that top Southern Baptist Convention leaders stonewalled and denigrated survivors of clergy sex abuse over two decades while doing everything in their power to protect their own reputation. According to news stories, the report says these survivors, and other concerned Southern Baptists, repeatedly shared allegations with the Executive Committee, “only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility from some within the EC.” (1) Years of sex scandals, rape and abuse by clergy in the SBC were made public in 2019 when the Houston Chronicle released a multi-part series detailing what they learned through reporter investigation and interviews. Those reports found many complaints had been filed as well as many requests for internal and independent investigations which largely either fell on deaf ears or resulted in efforts to silence those making the requests. Repeated demands for an independent investigation which could confirm or refute the abuse reports and make recommendations for reparation and change were finally honored at the SBC’s 2021 annual convention. The news reports circulating about this story and others compelled us to address this issue again. We hope this helps you to understand these issues a little better and help you make decisions over time about the institutions you become a part of either as a leader, staff member, or a member of the congregation. No matter what institution we belong to, it’s important to remember to keep the leaders accountable to maintaining healthy and safe environments for the community, congregation, members, staff they are supposed to represent.
What is Institutional Abuse?
The uniquely harmful nature of institutional abuse is due in large part to the fact that institutions carry a significant weight of responsibility and power when they become informed of maltreatment or wrongdoing within the organization. They are regarded as authoritarian, professional and influential and therefore carry the ability to impact individuals and other institutions positively or harmfully. They are publicly perceived to hold high integrity, therefore victims carry a greater expectation that the institution will do the right thing. The disparity between this expectation and what actually occurs when there is Institutional Abuse significantly exacerbates the trauma the victim is already experiencing due to the original trauma. So, the potential for wide-reaching impact and influence makes how an institution responds even more crucial.
When an Institution has been informed of maltreatment and has verified it, in part or in full, it is incumbent upon the Institution to hold leadership to account, rectify the maltreatment, provide reparations to the victim commensurate to the harm done, and to take steps to make sure it never happens again. Unfortunately, however, Institutions often deny such abuse exists, refuse to investigate the allegations to determine the truth, or know it exists and choose to ignore it, washing their hands of the problem as if it is not theirs to deal with. Sometimes, they even justify it, minimize its effects or stall implementation of consequences upon the abusers and reparations to the victims through various avoidance actions. All of these were involved at the very top level and down from there within SBC.
The more secondary abuse and psychological trauma wind their way through the systems within the Institution, the more insidious and harmful the impact is on the victim. Institutional abuse carried out in order to protect the abuser from taking responsibility and experiencing consequences, while delaying reparation to the victim, creates Double Abuse. Double Abuse becomes embedded in the atmosphere, activities, leadership, and reactions toward others who are routinely put into downgraded positions. It becomes an integral part of the institutional “engine.” As we said earlier on, over time we dehumanize the institution forgetting that it is composed of humans who choose daily whether they will allow Double Abuse to continue or if they will support the victim by seeking to end the abuse and hold the perpetrator to account for the abuse.
The organizational structure of these types of institutions is designed to support individual members of it by denying, reversing blame, justifying, lying, diverting, or masking guilt by offering partial or weak apologies and exploiting the victim. Institutional abuse often presents itself as righteous indignation or hierarchical or patriarchal preferential treatment towards the abuser, but in actuality the abuse equals organized immorality by a collection of people who deserve the consequence of public outcry and appropriate liability. Anything that avoids fully acknowledging the truth and the layers of harm done including avoiding subsequent reparations to the victim becomes Double Abuse at the highest level.
INSTITUTIONAL SPIRITUAL ABUSE
Institutional spiritual abuse is incredibly damaging to its victims. Why is this so? Ideally, spiritual institutions should be a safe haven for victims where abuse is not tolerated in any form. Church, religious and spiritual leaders and their organizations often provide, or are perceived to provide, a place for victims to feel safe, find solace, and receive physical, spiritual, and emotional support. When victims who courageously seek help from their faith-based community experience Double Abuse in the form of spiritual abuse it is devastating to them, often shutting them down completely.
For many victims, the pain they endure when spiritually abused by religious leaders can pierce much deeper than other sources of pain. This form of abuse is particularly complicated for victims to identify because the spiritual abusers are people in whom they have placed incredible trust and whom they expect will lead and help them to do what is right. Spiritual abuse can push victims into deeper oppression and self doubt. They never imagine their spiritual leaders would exploit the tenets of their faith in order to coerce or compel certain behavior in the victim that makes everyone but the victim feel better or sanitizes appearances especially when the abuser is a member of the institution’s staff, volunteer teams or a significant donor.
Although the details conveyed in the 400-page report have not all been divulged, there are multiple examples of institutional spiritual abuse in SBC leadership’s conduct. SBC leaders at the highest levels “routinely silenced and disparaged sexual abuse survivors, ignored calls for policies to stop predators, and dismissed reforms that they privately said could protect children even though it would open SBC up to liability later on.” These are all examples of leaders using their authority to stonewall complaints about abuse, turn a blind eye towards abuse claims, create policy that allows and sustains ongoing or future abuse, and to collude with those continuing to molest and abuse others. Still, these leaders remained in their positions because they were trusted as spiritual leaders to do the right thing.
Another notable example of institutional spiritual abuse was when one of SBC’s executive leaders who was central to the cover-up, August Boto, attacked two abuse survivors and advocates, Christa Brown and Rachael Denhollander, equating their work on behalf of victims to curb sexual abuse stating, “it is a satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism. It is not the gospel. It is not even a part of the gospel.” Although this is an absolute distortion of what the Bible says about these things, Boto used his executive position and influence to successfully ignore their cries for justice for the victims of sexual abuse as well as to lead their institution to ignore their claims and calls for necessary reform and redress. But he was not acting alone. His colleagues in SBC’s leadership refused to hold him accountable for the spiritual abuse or to correct his misuse of Scripture to justify the ends he was seeking. In the end, the best thing SBC did was to finally authorize a truly independent investigation by an organization outside of SBC and its legal counsel, sufficient to end the collusion and stonewalling its leaders were using to avoid accountability and liability for their own actions and those of the predators they employed.
CAN WE PREVENT INSTITUTIONAL ABUSE?
1. Independent Investigations for Abuse Claims
Where there are allegations of abuse, especially when the alleged perpetrator is a member of the institution’s staff or lead teams, including its elder or governance board (who may be volunteers), it would benefit the organization and the victim to have the complaint investigated by someone who is independent of the organization. Where the institution is not amenable to this as a starting place, if the Institution and the victim cannot come to a meeting of minds after an initial internal investigation, it is best to bring in a non-affiliated or independent Investigator to determine how best to protect the victim, identify areas of abuser culpability, and bring into better focus cultural defects and the intent behind social justice and legal protocols. This also can protect the Institution from further liability. These areas would include, Title IX mandates for higher learning institutions, legal regulations for corporate institutions, and moral and social obligations in religious settings. For Institutions, the primary purpose of ethics is to protect the organization over any one individual’s misdoing and managing areas of culpability. If the Investigator is not entirely autonomous, they can become a tool of the Institution, wittingly or unwittingly. If the Investigator and the Institution are not adopting the highest legal protocol to protect victims, their motives are not of the highest caliber. When either the Investigator or the Institution has divided loyalties, or are subtly or overtly pressured to take a path that serves either of them in any way, they sacrifice objectivity and impartiality, along with the priorities necessary for the victim’s safety and recovery. This lack of honoring the victim and the intent of legal and social justice heaps more injury upon the victim, and in failing the victim ultimately accommodates the abusers, leading to a covert collusion that exploits the victim and their families in extraordinary ways, while exposing the Institution to greater liability.
Far too often, institutions handle investigations of these types of claims “in-house.” In faith-based organizations, for example, it’s often the elder board who investigates claims against the lead pastor, who is usually someone with whom they are in very close personal relationship. Their history in ministry and relationship make it almost impossible to believe the pastor could actually be guilty of the misconduct alleged. By ensuring a truly independent team is evaluating any such claims the institution takes an uncomfortable and potentially compromising burden off of the staff or leaders within the ministry who may or may not be under undue pressure to resolve the matter favorably to the accused.
2. Do Not Maintain Secrecy of the Offender
One of the recommendations made by SBC’s independent investigator was to create and maintain an Offender Information System. Far too often, faith institutions protect the privacy of the perpetrator over accountability, reconciliation and over the victim’s best interest. Perpetrators in faith institutions often move from one organization to another and, while this might work to alleviate some of the liability or ongoing abuse within the first organization, it does nothing to stop the perpetrator from obtaining another position of power and finding more victims. Holding abusers accountable requires strong consequences and it’s important that institutions seek to prevent them from acting in leadership roles within their institution or another faith institution. Moreover, those institutional leaders who spiritually abuse victims or their advocates in an effort to silence them and protect the abuser and the institution over providing redress to the victim should be held accountable for their behavior also. Their abuse of power should be stopped by taking that power away from them.
All too often, organizations seek to protect themselves by keeping secret any misdeed that takes place. Often, they justify the secrecy “to protect the integrity of the institution,” “to prevent harm to their overall ministry,” “to avoid liability”, and often, to deceptively “protect the privacy of the alleged victims.” True repentance requires full transparency by both the abuser and the institution. They are also making public the ways they have found their organization lacking, as well as the corrective and redemptive actions they are taking.
Along these lines is the rampant use of nondisclosure agreements (“NDA”) that keep victims from sharing their story and possibly alerting other potential victims about the perpetrator. SBC investigators recommended SBC refuse to use NDA’s before being willing to provide redress to victims, unless it is the victim who is requesting it. Knowing that any abuse will be made public may serve as a deterrent to abusers in these institutions.
3.Training, Training, Training
If you have been following The M3ND Project for any time, you know how we feel about proper training of faith institutions. We could not agree more with SBC Investigator recommendation that they provide a “comprehensive Resource Toolbox including protocols, training, education, and practical information.” One of the biggest causes for Double Abuse is the lack of training and education organizations have on how to address abuse within them. Truly, there is no excuse for remaining untrained. Plenty of nonprofits, including ours, provide comprehensive resources to equip organizations to prevent and respond well to abuse. Training will not only protect the institution itself but will protect the victim and increase the likelihood that the faith institution will actually become the safe place their members believe it is.
Victims reach out in desperation to Institutions (churches, temples, mosques, schools, corporations) for help when facing Original and Double Abuse because possibly no others in their immediate circles are believing them, acknowledging them, or confronting the abusers. Too often, rather than receiving the interventions or support they need to stop the maltreatment or to implement accountability, victims are met with Institutional judgments, systemic bias, disbelief, or worse, with another layer of abuse via inappropriate ultimatums directed at the victim that then further oppresses them while pushing them towards incorrect interventions and away from those that could be helpful. Understanding proper protocols for responding to victims of abuse will prevent these types of secondary abuses from taking place.
What you can do as a member of a faith-based institution is to ask its leaders what policies they have in place to protect against abuse or to handle allegations of abuse. Ask them if the staff, leaders, elders and volunteers are trained to understand the various forms of abuse and to be able to respond compassionately and effectively when a victim reaches out for help. Direct them to our website. If you feel able, stand up to any efforts by them to stonewall or silence victims or their advocates.
Resources
- AP News Report on Southern Baptist Convention- https://apnews.com/article/baptist-religion-sexual-abuse-by-clergy-southern-convention-bfdbe64389790630488f854c3dae3fd5
- The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen, 20-21
- NBC News Report on New Life Christian Church- https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/indiana-pastor-admits-adultery-congregation-woman-says-took-virginity-rcna30254
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If Only. . . RZIM’s Response to Ravi Zacharias Sex Abuse Allegations Blog- https://themendproject.com/if-only-rzims-response-to-ravi-zacharias-sex-abuse-allegations/
- How the Powers that Be Can Cause Harm: Institutional Abuse- https://themendproject.com/how-the-powers-that-be-can-cause-harm-institutional-abuse/
- When Institutions Spiritually Abuse- https://themendproject.com/when-institutions-spiritually-abuse/
- Double Abuse®: What Is It, Why Do We Do It & How Can We Prevent It?- https://themendproject.com/double-abuse-what-is-it-why-do-we-do-it-how-can-we-prevent-it-2/