Denial of abuse IS spiritual abuse

In the past couple of days I’ve received four messages from people crying out because they warned church leaders of their abuser, only to be told that they are being over-reactive and “judgy.” These were not petty allegations either. There was plenty of evidence given to those leaders, including news articles, sex offender registry links, and lists of charges that were filed against the criminals. Yet, to no avail, the pleas for church leaders to warn their congregations fell on deaf ears, leaving them completely underwhelmed and unmoved.

Not only were church leaders not willing to warn their congregations about the abusers’ serial criminal activity and charges, but in three of the four cases, they offered the abusers a platform for teaching and preaching to church members. Victims were left feeling deflated, unheard, and were warned by those same leaders that they need to drop the matter or else. This behavior is spiritual abuse at its worst. There is a radical difference between ignorance and willful denial. Both are equally dangerous to innocent people, but willful denial will enable abusers more than anything. When leaders refuse to even look at the evidence at hand, they are abusing their position as leaders. When they become aggressive toward victims (or anyone, for that matter) for speaking up about current or past abuse, they are behaving no better than the abuser.

The above scenarios are not uncommon. To be sure, ask any survivor of abuse what their church’s response was when they warned church leaders about an abuser. Most–but not all–will share stories of leaders denying, minimizing, or ignoring abuse allegations. When leaders deny or minimize abuse “in the name of Jesus,” it sends a very clear message to the victim that their wounds don’t matter and that the abuser is more important. Worse, it sends a message to all the innocent people in the congregation that their safety doesn’t matter. Shutting down people who legitimately warn others of legitimately dangerous predators is spiritual abuse. It’s exactly what Jesus spoke about when he said, “He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.” (John 10:12, 13).

My mission in life is to understand child predators and how they so successfully con everyone in their lives so that I can help spare innocents from being harmed. But I also want to know the heart of God. At no point in the Bible does God ever condone defending, supporting, or turning a blind eye to abusive oppressors. In fact, God consistently defends the cause of the oppressed. Abusers are crafty, smart, charismatic, and persistent. If we are serious about making our church gatherings safe, we need to be serious about keeping abusers at bay.

A repentant child abuser wouldn’t fathom being near children again, let alone teaching and preaching. Positioning oneself as a spiritual leader and mentor after having serially raped and molested multiple victims is a misnomer. Child abuse is not a sin where someone accidentally “falls into temptation.” It’s a crime. And a sophisticated one at that. It takes a very high degree of practiced lying and deceit to successfully gain access to children, repeatedly molest them, guarantee their silence, and remain undetected. Abuse depends on the trust and naivety of others. This is exactly why abusers can never be trusted again. Abusers know how easy it is to get away with abuse, so why in the world would they place themselves in a culture where leaders are swooning over them and they are surrounded by children?