Cover Up Culture or Age of Accountability.

When you hold abusers accountable, you are supporting a victims healing.

Cover up culture is part of my story. I spent a majority of my younger years (6yrs old to almost 30yrs old) in the same church. There are 3 different times the act of sexual abuse was covered up by leadership and these are just the stories I know of. One of the stories played out while I was a young teenager and didn’t pay much attention to what was going on around me. Another story happened while I was a young adult but still trusted leadership. The third story is my own which didn’t come to light until I was an adult and no longer attending the church. However, my abusers were still attending. At that time, I was reading Dan Allender’s book “The Wounded Heart” and decided to follow his guide to steps to take to try to reconcile with my abuser. One of these steps was for the abuser to make the leadership of any potential place they frequented where they would have access to children, aware of the abuse perpetrated. My abuser made leadership of this church aware and it was covered up. No consequences or accountability came about. No support for healing or guidance on reconciliation. In fact, the response was more along the lines of how unfair I was behaving towards my abuser. (You can read the whole story here in my book.)

These responses are so very common. I have been speaking out against them for the past 20+ years and I will continue to do so. However, my sense is that the age of accountability is closer than it’s ever been and it is long overdue. Here are a few steps I believe absolutely need to happen when any account of abuse is reported:

1. Determine if the abuser needs to face criminal charges. This may mean contacting Social Services or a trained professional counselor to determine if the specific report is a crime. This has to be the number one step always!

2. If the report is determined to be a crime, authorities must be contacted and reported to. The authorities take it from there as far as what is next for the abuser. If it is determined not to be a crime, then leadership should refer the abuser to a trained professional counselor as well as refer the victim to a different trained professional counselor.

3. If a crime has not been committed, support can still be offered to both the abuser and abused but leadership should defer to guidance from the counselors or should confer with a different professionally trained counselor.

Any church, organization or institution that implements these steps even as first steps, would be miles ahead of the way things have been handled up to now. Three things that absolutely need to change are:

1. Stop trying to handle these situations “in house”. This has only lead to cover up culture.

2. Leadership needs to realize they are not equipped to counsel abusers or abuse victims. They need to leave counseling to trained professionals.

3. Every leader of a church, organization and institution needs to equip and educate themselves about how to properly handle reports of abuse and how to support abuse victims/survivors. This can start by listening to those of us survivors who are willing to talk and share our experiences. We would love to be a part of a community where we find safety and support.

Any response other than what I have outlined here will result in leaders and anyone who supports them being complicit in abuse and cover up. I am relieved to say that exposure is finally happening. I am so glad to see this shift in our culture and I pray it continues. This evil needs to be rooted out!

In conclusion, I need to address responses in personal relationships. How others respond to abuse in personal relationships with those of us who are victims/survivors is just as important. Responses to abuse require us to be bold and courageous. This is what I require from those around me. If you say you love me and desire to be in close and continuous interraction with me, your response to abuse needs to be bold and courageous. The response needs to be in agreement with what I have laid out in this post. Anything less will disrupt and prevent close and continuous interraction, and will dictate the level of relationship we are in.

If you are a victim or survivor and would like to have more conversation with me on this subject, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. I would love to chat with you.

Choosing healing together!