EAST LANSING (MI)
Christian Today
February 5, 2018
By David Robertson
Rachael Denhollander is my new heroine. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite as brave, compelling, articulate and gospel centered as her testimony in the Larry Nassar trial. But it’s what I read later in an interview the former gymnast gave to Christianity Today in the US that really got to me. She said: ‘Church is one of the least safe places to acknowledge abuse because the way it is counselled is, more often than not, damaging to the victim. There is an abhorrent lack of knowledge for the damage and devastation that sexual assault brings.’
Denhollander talks about how she lost her church for speaking out against sexual abuse. This is absolutely horrific. Why would churches find it so difficult to deal with cases of sexual abuse? Is it because of the ignorance of what real sexual abuse is? A lack of expertise in being able to determine what has actually happened? Or inadequate child protection policies in churches?
Ignorance is one thing. But cover-up is another. Often this is done from what may be considered good motives – a desire to protect the reputation of the church and organisation and also a desire to protect the reputation of the gospel of Christ. This attempt to ‘protect’ the gospel is bound to fail, not least because the gospel does not need our protection – and certainly not when it involves cover-up and lies.
This is where poor theology really lets us down. If we believe what the Bible actually says about human nature being depraved, why should we be surprised when we find evidence of that?
As Denhollander (who is herself an excellent theologian) points out: ‘Jesus Christ does not need your protection, he needs your obedience.’ It’s an obedience that requires us to seek justice, speak the truth and offer the ‘tough love’ of the gospel, even if this means upsetting some within the church or the organisation.
Christian organisations, often based around the personality, gifts and charisma of one leader, are particularly prone to being defensive about that leader. After all if his reputation is destroyed, so is the organisation. It’s not so with the church, unless we happen to have fallen into the trap of thinking that the church belongs to our particular leader.
But it’s here that too many churches have abandoned something that would really help them in dealing with this issue, a key foundational principle of the New Testament church – church discipline. This is not about the powerful lording it over the weak. It is about the weak being offered the protection of the church. If we are a biblical church we recognise that even the great leaders (like David, Moses and Peter) can fall. We are not concerned about preserving the reputation of our own local leaders because we recognise only one absolute Shepherd, Jesus Christ – and we accept what he says about all under shepherds being fallible. Rachael Denhollander should have found safety, security and justice within the local church. Instead she experienced what can only be described as further abuse.
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