Can we in the church support both victims and abusers? A more appropriate question is, should we support both victims and abusers? The vast majority of churches I worked with over the years supported abusers at the expense of victims. The most asked question I received was, “How do we minister to our brother (the abuser)?” It always irritated me that the abuser was the primary concern and not the victims. Abusers are often assigned accountability partners, prayer partners, support teams, etc. Victims almost never are assigned much beyond blame and shame. But should the abuser even receive support?
Description of abusers
Before we talk about whether to support abusers, we need to define what an abuser is. An abuser, regardless of their position in the church or elsewhere, is someone who is intentional about seeking victims out. Peter calls them bold and willful (2 Peter 2:10). They “count it pleasure to revel in the daytime” and are “reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you” (vs. 13). They “loved gain from wrongdoing” (vs. 15), “indulge in the lust of passion and despise authority” (vs. 10). Peter describes them this way: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire” (vs. 22).
Paul (a reformed persecutor of Christians and witness to murders), has similar descriptions of abusers. They “creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions” (3 Timothy 3:5), and are “always learning but never able to arrive at knowledge of the truth” (vs. 7). They are “lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,” (vs. 2-4) and so on. Abusers in the church, according to Paul, get worse and not better: “while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (vs. 13).
By the way, both Peter and Paul specifically talk about impostors within the church. Both describe people who masquerade as good, godly people. But secretly they mistreat people. They are arrogant. Abusers lie, cheat, and mislead. And they love it. That is why they don’t stop. Their intention to deceive and inflict harm sets an abuser apart from someone who makes bad decisions or from someone who struggles with addiction. It sets them apart from people who make insanely stupid decisions but then can later learn from them. Abusers don’t care. They don’t stop. They revel in their deceptions.
What to do with abusers
I think the Bible is clear. If someone is preying on innocent victims they will do it again. If they are manipulating, lying, and pretending but secretly are cruel, twisted, and defiant, they won’t stop. Paul says of these “Christians,” Avoid such people” (2 Tim 3:5). Peter implies that they should be avoided. He’s more clear on their destruction: “And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep” (2 Peter 2:3). They are “irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed” (vs. 12).
Paul tells the Corinthian church to handle an abuser like this: “cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump” (1 Cor. 5:7). He continues: “I am writing you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler (verbal abuser), drunkard, or swindler (rapacious or ravenous)–not even to eat with such a one” (vs. 11). His conclusion for the Corinthian church is to “purge the evil person from among you” (vs. 13). Again, these are abusers, not merely people who mess up. We know this because Paul addresses drunk Christians at the Lord’s supper in chapter 11 and never suggests kicking them out. He clearly is speaking about removing abusive people in chapter 5.
Reasons to avoid abusers
Many Christians are shamed for avoiding people or kicking them out. They believe that doing so is contrary to what Christ commands. But Jesus himself often warned his people about wolves in sheep’s clothing. The entire chapter 10 of John is Jesus condemning leaders for allowing ravenous wolves into the flock of sheep. He said that a good shepherd will lay down his life to protect the sheep but the hired hand cares nothing for the sheep and will leave when the wolf arrives.
We avoid abusive people for a few reasons. First and most important, we are protecting innocent people from known abusers–people who have a known history of manipulating innocent people for the purpose of abusing them. Second, it is an act of grace for everyone, including an abuser, to keep them away from people who they intend to harm. It’s quite the opposite when we treat them with kid gloves and pretend like serial abusers are Jesus’ closest bro. I wrote a post before about why it is dishonest for churches to hide abusers within the church. For a host of reasons, it’s just wrong. Don’t do it.
Third, we avoid abusers in hopes of repentance. Paul urged the Corinthians to “deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord” (1 Cor. 5:5). In other words, this jerk wants to produce victims? Let Satan have his way with him and see how he likes it! Maybe it will wake him up and in the end he might be saved. This is a far cry from how churches routinely handle allegations of abuse today.
Finally, we avoid confusion for victims of abuse and send a clear message to abusers that abusing innocent people won’t ever result in rewards. There are a couple instances where I unapologetically asked people to leave our church. Both were visitors. One had just gotten out of prison and was chasing kids around attempting to tickle them. The other was a man who I could tell was manipulating me. A church member disclosed later that this man had verbally assaulted her months before at her apartment complex. She thanked me for removing him.
Conclusion
I personally don’t think it’s possible, wise, or biblical to support abusers and victims together. In fact, I think it’s appropriate and necessary to remove abusers who fit the descriptions above. I know there are complexities to this, and these will be addressed in later posts. I will also write several posts for how we actually care for survivors of abuse in the church because right now the church is failing. For now, stay safe. Keep known predators at bay. Protect the innocent.
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