What I have to say as an ex-fundie who survived childhood sexual abuse in the church by no means is meant to defend the Duggar sisters, Jessa and Jill, in their defense of their Brother Josh Duggar who molested them when they were kids. I believe that their defense of him is wrong. However, I do understand why and how their understanding of the situation is so warped, and I think that the underlying issues are important to address.
First of all, I want to say that it is not just kids from some homeschooled Christian cults in red states who experience this kind of covered up abuse within the church. I grew up going to public school in New York City and Northern New Jersey in the New York City Metro area. I graduated from a state college as a student in one of the most progressive English departments in the country, not Bob Jones University or Pasadena Christian College. However, my family and I attended an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church in NYC, and a right leaning Reformed church in New Jersey, that was on a corner two and a half blocks away from our house in an average suburban town in a blue state. As I had described in a previous post, my stepfather, who was popular and handsome, insisted that we function as a “Christian” family. He was also a violent pedophile living a double life, one as a child abuser, and the other as the male head of a church going Christian family. Growing up, my sisters and I were brainwashed by our parents (my mother and stepfather) to keep our family secrets. The physical abuse was obvious to me but the sexual abuse was very sneaky. I was violated for years while completely dissociated and in denial about what was going on, though it took place out in the open on the living room couch after dinner.
I was twenty years old when I fell in love for the first time and had my first consensual sexual experience. Besides being filled with crippling guilt and fear for my mortal soul, I also suddenly starting to come to terms with what Mike had done to me, my sisters, and at least two of my cousins. As a God fearing Christian, I confessed my sexual “sin” to a female elder in my church and tearfully repented for having had sex with my boyfriend. I also met with my pastor because I wanted him to know about the threat that Mike posed to the other children in my family and to the children of our church (four of which were his own). At first the pastor was very sympathetic. But his tone changed when I expressed to him that I felt my mother should divorce her husband. My pastor harshly rebuked me for the mere mention of a woman divorcing her husband, even on account of his molesting her children.
At some point the pastor spoke to my parents. He encouraged my mother that she was fulfilling the will of God by staying married to a pedophile who molested all three of her kids because God hates divorce. My stepfather broke down and cried when confronted saying he was sorry for what he did. He claimed to repent (only when he was caught and confronted) and the pastor felt that the chapter was closed. I was firmly told that my stepfather had repented and that he was forgiven and transformed by God, and I should forgive him too. It seemed that Jesus would not forgive me for my sins unless I forgave others for theirs. I was directed to receive pastoral counseling from another area pastor. My stepfather wasn’t expected to get any counseling at all. The pastor I received Christian counseling from also believed in the transformative power of Christ which it seemed would be the key to my healing.
On one hand, my common sense told me that a person who only repents when confronted is not really sorry. Statistical facts also showed me that serial pedophiles don’t really change, let alone can one change in a matter of one conversation. On the other hand, my mortal soul was facing hell’s fire if I too didn’t put my full faith in the transformative power of Christ, forgive my abuser, and stop raising hell in my family and church. The driving force of my life as a Christian was to live without sin and I was told by my pastor and by my Christian mother that not forgiving my stepfather and moving on was a sin. I was torn internally and didn’t know what to do.
I even had my campus pastor from my college Christian fellowship tell me that my problem was that I wallow in my own mud. He was frustrated with me due to my unwillingness to take on a leadership position in the group. Due to my natural people skills and leadership abilities I was a shoo-in to move up the ranks. My refusal to do so due to the depths of my secret depression and anxiety, which I had confessed to him, eventually infuriated him. It seemed I was going against the will of God by not stepping up to leadership. “Your problem is that that you wallow in your own mud,” he said to me with a sneer of righteous judgement. One of the leaders at a campus Christian retreat I had attended told me that I was suffering because God had allowed evil spirits to torture me as a result of my unforgiveness.
I started to see a real therapist who told me that if I made him aware of any threat to children he would have to call CPS. I gladly told him that my stepfather who was a pedophile was volunteering for a children’s program at my church. He called CPS for me and was informed that there was nothing they could do without substantial proof which I didn’t have. Eventually I had a mental breakdown and ended up hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital. I told the hospital staff everything that had happened.
Upon my discharge, on the way home from the hospital, my sister cried tears at me, angry that I had told the hospital staff what had happened. She claimed that I was smearing the name of an innocent and repentant man. My mother and others from her prayer group prayed that I would get off my meds because it seemed that a person who willfully receives God’s grace doesn’t need meds. I was also shamed for being depressed and anxious and needing therapy and medication to keep me stable. A real believer would not have PTSD. A real believer would have experienced real healing by now. Not only was I living in soul damning sin for not forgiving my stepfather and being able to move on, but I was also suffering all the symptoms of PTSD due to my lack of faith (not the abuse).
Eventually I decided no longer to attend church. I even moved away from the east coast and to the Midwest by myself to start over. During this time I would receive harassing Christian text messages from members of my mother’s church network aimed at bringing me back to the Lord. This only stopped when I threatened to call the police. I also realized that Christian friends don’t treat you the same once your world view changes or expands. Having had lived a rigid Christian lifestyle, even though I grew up in a densely populated and diverse part of the country, I was insulated within a rigid Christian community. These friends judgmentally dump you as a friend when you are no longer exactly like them. And when they continue to talk to you after that, it is only for the sole purpose of evangelizing you back into the same institution that helped ruin your life in the first place. I found myself alone with no friends and no family while feeling disconnected from the new secular world around me.
At some point I had learned that my parents had started their own home church in the basement of their home. I called the police. The police went to their home and looked around but found no children there at the time. I was told again that there was nothing they could do.
So why do Fundamental Christian victims of sexual abuse so often wind up defending their abusers? One reason is because the price to pay for functioning in reality is too great. Not everyone is strong enough to bear it. Living in the deep depths of denial is the mind’s tool of self-preservation.
Another reason is that Christianity makes people selfish. In their interview with Fox News, Jenna and Jill displayed absolutely no concern for the potential danger their brother may have presented or continue to present to other kids in their community. All they seemed to care about was how the exposure of their family’s secret affected them. A person’s soul must be dead if they are to embrace the “joy of the Lord” while believing that that same Lord is damning absolutely everybody else to eternal damnation in hell’s fire. While all others are damned to eternal demonic torture, it only makes sense that this same God should help a Christian get a promotion at work. The good works are done so as to be the saved rather than the damned. And all human suffering is believed to somehow be a part of God’s great and wise plan. To be able to adhere to such a senseless and horrific ideology, one must be wrung dry of natural human empathy.
A third reason is due to a lack of information in such insular communities. Unlike the Duggar sisters I went to public school, watched Oprah, and read normal books outside of a crazy Bible school curriculum throughout my life. This provided me with enough information to continue to question the teachings of my church and the Christian community.
And the last reason I will mention is incredibly important. In viewing all natural and healthy sexual activity and desire outside of a marriage between a man and a woman, including sex with girlfriend or boyfriend, or even thinking about sex, as a sin against God for which Jesus died, the severity of sexual perversions forced without consent are minimized. Pedophilia or rape are equated to masturbation or gay sex. By assuming that marriage (not the mutual consent of adults) makes sex okay, marital rape is either justified or ignored. In so repressing all natural and healthy sexual desire, secrets are necessary and all kinds of perversions are bred. These perversions are then hidden and excused within the same system which gives them life in the first place. Fundamental Christian groups cover over and easily forgive the perversions and violations that are common among them because their systems can’t and won’t function otherwise. But for this, so many people suffer.
In saying all this, I hope that the Duggar sisters manage to keep their own children safe. Although my hopes are set high on behalf of their innocent children deserving of a happy childhood free from abuse, I am by no means an optimist.