Christianity

Kissing Purity Culture Goodbye

by Hannah Baylor on April 13, 2021

Today’s post is from Hannah Baylor. Hannah Baylor is a PhD student in theology and Christian ethics at Oxford researching sexual consent and a Church of England ordinand. You can hear more about Hannah’s work here: Theology Slam: Hannah Barr on Theology and the #MeToo movement – YouTube

When people find out that I research sexual consent, it usually elicits three responses:

Ooo, that’s so important! (I think so!)

Have you seen that brilliant cup of tea video? (That cup of tea video is terrible; here is my ten-points reason why…)

Or, they tell me their story. It is an absolute privilege to be trusted with stories that have often never been told aloud; it’s a gift which I treasure.

Being immersed in a topic consisting of painful stories, abuses of power, damaging rhetoric, and continual threats to human flourishing, is often all-consuming and it can be hard to switch off from that. But recent events have had me questioning whether it is right to want to switch off, or whether vigilance is a habit to cultivate.

I recently began to do some research into purity culture in the UK. My initial thoughts were that purity culture wasn’t such a big deal over here, compared with the US with its sub-culture of daddy-daughter balls and abstinence-only education in schools. But as people shared their stories, my illusions were shattered. I discovered friends who had signed purity pledges and wore purity rings and people who had done the True Love Waits and Pure courses. So many people had devoured I Kissed Dating Goodbye; a Coptic friend said her church had really pushed that book on its young people. Purity culture in the UK is not just for evangelicals. The more I learned, the more people shared their stories, the more I realised that purity culture makes its mark on impressionable young Christians here in the UK.[1]

And then my memories returned. The sermons where ‘promiscuous’ girls were compared with chewing gum and un-sticky Sellotape. The unhelpful notions I had about dating that I’d acquired through osmosis. The church leader who shamed me over my body and called me a stumbling block. The email I had drafted to my rector, saying I couldn’t continue to help with the youth work, because the youth leader owned and taught from The Collected Works of Soul-Destroying Purity Culture and I didn’t have the power to challenge him but I wasn’t going to collude with him either in teaching harmful ideas. And finally, the memory of a throwaway line someone said to me at theological college, which I’d disregarded at the time, but then realised it was solid gold purity culture.

Purity culture in the US signals its presence. Bells, whistles, gaudy merchandise, political fanfare – you can’t miss it! In the UK, however, purity culture has a far more insidious character. It doesn’t necessarily announce its arrival; it seeps into church teaching through more obscure ways. What I recognise as particularly damaging from my own teenage Christian experiences is when legitimate Christian teaching and purity culture ideals were taught together, making harmful ideas harder to notice and reject. This is why I was so alarmed when I realised how casually and innocuously lines from the purity culture script were spoken by those who would otherwise absolutely reject its premise.

I’m training to be a Church of England priest. I will shortly be in possession of an awkward combination of power and authority: the power of ordination as an office, the power that other people confer upon a person in a dog collar and in a pulpit, the not-really-real power that is being a curate at the bottom of the Church of England hierarchy, and the power that the Holy Spirit gifts in her wisdom. And one of the many terrifying things about that power is the potential to cause pain. The last thing I want to do with my power as a soon-to-be ordained person is to say or teach something, which is not only wrong but is abjectly harmful.

I spoke to a variety of Church of England ordinands and curates who had been raised on purity culture. Some continue to identify as evangelicals, albeit often with a long list of caveats; others have eschewed it. I asked them about the interplay between their experiences of purity culture and the power they now have as ordained, or soon-to-be ordained, ministers. There was a uniform reluctance to preach on sexual ethics generally, and often this was to do with wanting to avoid saying the wrong thing and causing someone pain and shame. Another common reflection was how narrow purity culture’s focus is, obsessing over abstinence until marriage, and how this meant the vastness of issues of dating and inter-personal relationships was overlooked. Certainly, I find myself in the corner of every church debate about sexual ethics, shouting into the void that it would be nice if sexual consent got a look in, you know, for the sake of human flourishing and all that.

One person I spoke to said what they lamented about purity culture was it presented everything as black and white; as an ethical system, it’s an attractive one, because it sets up a dichotomy between right and wrong and then unstintingly upholds it. As an ethicist, I am naturally wary of ethical systems, which present themselves as catch-all solutions. I think such systems force us to abdicate our responsibility in the ethical life and leave those with the most power unaccountable for how they wield it. Purity culture is concerned with rendering its adherents powerless and its enforcers absorbing all of the power.

People shared their stories with me, and it was, as ever, a gift to be trusted with them.

And what no-one wanted was to cause anybody any harm.

For people like myself who grew up with purity culture spooned into our Christian diet in ways we were not always cognisant of, untangling our sexual ethics is an on-going process. I have spoken elsewhere about the need for power literacy, particularly for those of us inhabiting roles replete with multifaceted power; this is a skill that we must never be complacent about.

Power isn’t static, but this doesn’t mean that it is necessarily unstable; in fact, the opposite is true, the more static power is, the more unstable it is. We must remain vigilant to the potency of our power and when it is accumulating, and allow ourselves to be challenged on it and to dismantle it. It also requires awareness of the things we don’t condone but which may still have shaped us, and critically interrogate our stances on certain issues to ensure that we are not perpetuating a cycle of harm and shame.

I didn’t relish being proved wrong about the prevalence of purity culture in the UK. It has been uncomfortable to reckon with my own experiences of it and to realise that I and many of my friends are not as unscathed by it as we might have originally thought. But the awareness that it has raised within me at a point where I am on the cusp of receiving a significant amount of power, is invaluable.

So, here’s to kissing purity culture goodbye and power literacy hello.

[1] I highly recommend Vicky Walker’s book Relatable: Exploring God, Love, and Connection in the Age of Choice (Malcolm Down Publishing, 2019) for empirical studies with Christians in the UK and their experiences of purity culture.

Traumatised People are not your “Mission Field”

by Chris Greenough on April 1, 2021

Today’s post comes from Dr Karen O’Donnell (Coordinator of Centre for Contemporary Spirituality, Sarum College) and Dr Katie Cross (Lecturer in Practical Theology, University of Aberdeen).

As theologians working in the field of trauma, we make a very conscious choice to use, as much as possible, the language of those who themselves experience trauma. This means that we usually refer to people who have experienced trauma as “trauma survivors” rather than “victims.” We also avoid language of “recovery” or “healing” because trauma survivors often say that this is not what they are doing in the aftermath of trauma. Rather, they are engaged in work of post-traumatic “remaking,” an act of creation that may last a lifetime. The language of “recovery” and “healing” has long been noted as unhelpful by trauma survivors. So, it is concerning to us to see this kind of language being used in a number of recent Christian initiatives and publications about trauma. For example, a recent initiative by the Bible Society called “Navigating Trauma” intends to provide Christian-based courses run in churches or other Christian organisations. It will “use scripture to accompany participants in their journey through the effects of trauma towards a place of peace.”

What is the use of the word “trauma” in these recent initiatives and publications intended to convey? In much of the literature surrounding these initiatives and publications, there seems to be little, if any, distinction between traumatic experiences and suffering more generally. The wide range of research, from both medical perspectives and socio-cultural perspectives, indicates that such a collapsing of experiences is unhelpful, unclear and unlikely to put people in a place that is conducive to their flourishing. People who experience trauma do not simply have an ongoing reaction to an experience of suffering. Rather, they experience rupture in specific ways, and have very particular types of reactions to internal and external stimuli. Trauma is not the same as suffering, and yet trauma is a word people have taken ownership of and used in a variety of ways. It is not our intention to gatekeep people’s experiences, or to deem who is “traumatised” and who is not. However, the hyper-flexible use of the term has negative implications for those who are experiencing traumatic-response reactions that have a dramatic impact on their lives. Given that the Bible Society indicates that anyone who is clearly experiencing an ongoing mental health crisis – as many trauma survivors may do – will be signposted to professional help, who is this course actually for? Who will actually be helped if it is not for those who are experiencing traumatic-reaction responses in real-time?

Programmes such as “Navigating Trauma” discuss what to do when people with trauma come to church. They do not address what should be done when people’s trauma comes from church. The ways in which Scripture and church practices are weaponised in spiritual abuse are largely overlooked. Our previous work in Feminist Trauma Theologies (SCM Press, 2020) highlights some of the different ways that the church can actively induce or theologically legitimise trauma. The #ChurchToo movement has drawn attention to the church’s role in harbouring and covering up sexual abuse. Too often, victims exist within a culture of blame, with their trauma ascribed to their perceived spiritual faultiness and “sinful” nature (Cross, 2020). Churches can induce trauma by exclusion, turning away minority groups on the basis of gender identity and/or sexuality (Robinson, 2020). In Ghost Ship, Azariah France-Williams highlights the trauma that Black and minority ethnic Christians face while working and worshipping in institutionally racist churches (France-Williams, 2020).

Common church practices can also be distressing for those living with complex trauma. In her book Trauma and Grace (2019), theologian Serene Jones describes an encounter with “Leah.” During a communion service in their church, something in the liturgy provokes a traumatic reaction for Leah, who physically removes herself from the church building. Later, she describes her reaction to Jones in this way:

It happens to me, sometimes. I’m listening to the pastor, thinking about God and love, when suddenly I hear or see something, and it’s as if a button gets pushed inside of me. In an instant, I’m terrified; I feel like I’m going to die or get hurt very badly. My body tells me to run away, but instead, I just freeze… It was the part about Jesus’ blood and body. There was a flash in my head, and I couldn’t tell the difference between Jesus and me, and then I saw blood everywhere, and broken body parts, and I got so afraid I just disappeared.
(Jones, p.7)

As trauma theologians, we recognise Leah’s story as one that is all too common. What is needed here is a clearer understanding that the church can often be a difficult place for traumatised people to navigate.

Because the church can be complicit in both creating and provoking trauma, the insistence that Scripture and practice are the best route to “healing” is misguided. It’s also important to note that routes to healing are not always possible in the ways that they are promised by new church trauma programmes. Many people who experience trauma will be engaged in some form of post-traumatic remaking for the rest of their lives. The process is one that is ongoing, complex, iterative, and chaotic. Part of the problem with a course like the one the Bible Society is providing is that it will last a certain number of weeks and then finish, with an expectation that something will have been accomplished in that time period. An informed understanding of trauma indicates that this is unlikely to be the case.

In much of this work, the traumatised person is referred to as a “mission field” or a “missional opportunity” for the church. In fact, this is not new language. In her 2015 book Suffering and the Heart of God, Diane Langberg writes this disturbing sentence: “I think a look at suffering humanity would lead to the realisation that trauma is perhaps the greatest mission field of the twenty-first century.” Not only is she conflating trauma and suffering too simply here but we have to question how is the term “mission” understood here? Mission is usually understood as primarily an evangelistic term – it is about sharing the gospel of Jesus with people who have not heard it and baptising and teaching new believers. Even in the context of the Church of England’s Five Marks of Mission, the third mark of “responding to human need by loving service” is subordinate to, and shaped and formed by the evangelistic nature of the first two marks (“proclaiming the good news of the kingdom” and to “teach, baptise and nurture new believers”). To view traumatised people as a “mission field” and your work with them as missional is to instrumentalise trauma and colour it with this “good news.” Rushing to a place of healing and resurrection and proclaiming hope in Jesus can be toxic and deadly when working with trauma survivors and takes no account of the lived reality of post-traumatic remaking.

Combined with the undistinguished use of the term “trauma”, this is an opportunistic approach to vulnerable people. Offering care and support, functioning in the very real and powerful role of witnesses to trauma experiences, is an act of love and compassion that needs to be genuinely trauma (not suffering) informed. It should not be an evangelistic opportunity designed to get more people through the doors of your church. Traumatised people are not your mission field.

References

Cross, Katie. ‘“I Have the Power in My Body to Make People Sin’: The Trauma of Purity Culture and the Concept of ‘Body Theodicy’” in Karen O’Donnell and Katie Cross (eds) Feminist Trauma Theologies: Body, Scripture and Church in Critical Perspective. London: SCM Press, 2020, pp.21-39.

France-Williams, A.D.A. Ghost Ship: Institutional Racism and the Church of England. London: SCM Press, 2020.

Jones, Serene. Trauma and Grace: Theology in a Ruptured World (Second Edition). Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2019.

Langberg, Dianne. Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores. Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2015.

O’Donnell, Karen and Katie Cross (eds) Feminist Trauma Theologies: Body, Scripture and Church in Critical Perspective. London: SCM Press, 2020.

Robinson, Leah. “Women in the Pulpit: A History of Oppression and Perseverance” in O’Donnell Karen and Katie Cross (eds) Feminist Trauma Theologies: Body, Scripture and Church in Critical Perspective. London: SCM Press, 2020, pp.161-179.

Writing Gender Justice: Alternative Icons of Women

by Emily Colgan on March 4, 2021

Today’s post is an interview with Hilary Willett (she/her) who fights for gender justice by writing icons and reclaiming the lives of biblical women.

Tell us about yourself: who are you and what do you do?

My name is Hilary. I’m from Christchurch, New Zealand and currently living in Auckland. I’m studying to be an Anglican priest in the Diocese of Auckland.

What have you been doing and what are you working on?

I completed a Masters of Theology in 2018, looking at feminism and the Bible. This was a pivotal point in my faith journey. Before doing this thesis, I had believed that both Christians and biblical texts had always generally been fairly supportive of women in positions of leadership. My thesis disrupted this belief and I began to realise the extent to which the Christian church has suppressed or marginalised female leadership.

After finishing my thesis, I felt a call to leadership in the Anglican Church. In 2019, I was discerned to begin training for ordination. I’m now doing a second Masters in Theology, part-time, to aid my leadership formation. In 2020, I did a course on writing icons with Libby Brookbanks, and I discovered that I loved it. So, in my spare time, I’ve been writing icons of women and have recently started selling them and accepting commissions.

Which aspects of your work might be particularly interesting for supporters of the Shiloh Project?

Icons are considered sacred images and used in devotional ways. They are also considered to be a way of communicating orthodox theology, so instead of being “painted” they are written. Every part of an icon has theological significance: the colours used, the gestures of the subject, the gold-leaf/gilding, even the primer used to prepare the surface that will be written on. Everything in an icon has a symbolic meaning.

Traditionally, however, only men are allowed to be iconographers. This means that men have been the only ones allowed to communicate theology about the women and men represented in icons. I feel uncomfortable with this, particularly the idea that in iconography women are only being written by men. So, I started to write icons of women.

How does your work connect to activism?

I came away from my thesis on feminism and Christianity acutely aware of just how many men write the theological narrative. This dominance prevents women from writing themselves and leads to significant theological bias. In icons, this is particularly noticeable. Women are often represented as white (even when the majority of saints depicted are not Caucasian) and delicate (rarely do women look strong or have strong gestures). Women are often dressed in white or have white head-coverings to symbolise their purity. It seems that writers of icons are very keen to uphold purity as a prime virtue in women, which then reinforces this value in individuals who use icons for prayer.

Complex biblical women, such as Jael, Hagar, Delilah, or the woman who bled for twelve years, are very rarely recorded as icons. The few icons I found of the “bleeding woman” (Matt 9:20-22; Mark 5: 25-34; Luke 8:43-38), for example, depicted her as grovelling on her knees before Christ. This representation makes this woman one-dimensional. There is little visual reference in the icon to this woman’s faith or her courage in approaching Christ, despite the customary purity taboos forbidding a woman in her position from touching a rabbi. Her active defiance of the rules and her determination to be healed demonstrate strength and conviction, but these qualities are not represented visually in the bleeding woman’s icon. This is in stark contrast to say, Peter or Paul who, despite their failings, are regularly and reliably represented in icons. They are depicted as standing upright and righteous and are often depicted in a variety of colours. For instance, in a traditional Orthodox church, there is a section of the church called the “Deisis” (prayer/supplication). Peter and Paul are almost always a part of this prominent section of the church. They are written in full colour, venerated as complex and well-rounded individuals. Mary, the pure, is often the only female regularly included in this important section of the church.

I try to correct this bias by writing women differently. I spend some time researching alternative narratives, sometimes going very much against traditional theological presentations of certain women. In writing icons, I include ‘difficult’ characters and characters that are not in scripture or “sainted” by the Church. I write women with different skin tones, different personalities, and different body shapes. I tend to avoid using white clothes for women, unless it is absolutely necessary. One occasion where I did find this necessary, was with Phoebe, the deacon. Her white alb was a part of her official, ceremonial robes that deacons wore in the church. It is necessary for a deacon to wear an alb in their leadership role. In this case, Phoebe’s white clothes felt to be more about her leadership role in the church, which I wanted to highlight, rather than about her purity as a woman.

I also try to bring out the complexity of the women who have been venerated as pure and the humanity of the women who have been marginalised. As noted above, for instance, the ‘bleeding woman’ is usually depicted grovelling before Christ. When I re-wrote her, however, she is standing upright. Christ was not in the icon, as I wanted her to stand in her own right. I re-named her the “Daughter of Faith”.

Daughter of Faith (the woman who bled for 12 years)

I try to find something commendable in each of the women I write, with the view that women are worthy of respect, even if they are complex characters and don’t live up to patriarchal stereotypes. Women do not all need to be the purest of the pure, or the fem-est of the fem, to be admirable.

Finally, I enjoy writing women in contexts that are meaningful to the person who will use the icon. When I wrote Mary as an icon, I placed her in Taranaki (Aotearoa New Zealand) because that where the person who was receiving the icon was from. It felt important that the caring presence of Mary was placed in this own person’s context, making it meaningful and relevant to the person using the icon.

What has been the response to your icons?

To be honest, it has been overwhelmingly positive; it really has been lovely to see how many people are connecting with these images. Occasionally, some people haven’t understood exactly what an icon is and wonder why I don’t just paint landscapes, but it has been fun explaining this to them. One thing I often try to do is explain the symbolic features of any new icon I write. I think this has helped with the response, as it gives people the tools to “read” exactly what I am “writing”. It has meant that even people who have not been all that interested in icons in the past, are really keen and interested now. It has been a great experience!

Find more of Hilary’s icons at Lumen Icons: https://lumenicons.tarotpoetry.nz/?fbclid=IwAR0IoK0FX-4No_qWeeDlUDHpv8YqUOUH_9Nbvb-64max8SIf–0ZS9ZkmN8

Is it a duty to be beautiful?

by Johanna Stiebert on January 8, 2021

Today’s post is by Rev Dr Judith Gretton-Dann. Judith is a priest in the Church of England, based in Oxford. She has a PhD in Physics and has previously been involved in science research. She is currently working on a Theology DPhil, looking at the technology and crafts of the Hebrew Bible. This involves seeing how the archaeological evidence and anthropological research into the technology of Bible times sheds light on metaphors, to help open up our understanding of the texts.

Judith is passionate about congregations engaging with scripture in its fullness. She believes that scripture is relevant and important for the whole of life, not just an interesting topic of conversation for Sundays.

Judith’s contact email is: judith.gretton-dann@kellogg.ox.ac.uk

Be Young and Beautiful?^{^[1]}

Within certain strands of Evangelical teaching, a premium is placed on women’s looks, and an equivalence drawn between outward appearance and spiritual condition. One lengthy response to what is considered the rise of feminism within Evangelical churches is by a group called The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Titled Recovering Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood (RBMBW), the document seeks to make the expectations of behaviour for Christians bipartite, distinct and complementary, depending upon people’s gender (understood as being ‘male’ or ‘female’).

In the course of saying that, “God gave each of us a desire for beauty… it is part of our desire for him, who is loveliness incarnate,”^[2] it places the responsibility for creating beauty, both in their person and surroundings, on women.

Beauty is described by (mostly male) preachers as something that should be aimed for, cultivated and desired by women. Whilst the preachers quite often claim to be talking about spiritual beauty, in their admonitions to women, their understanding is that physical beauty is a proof of spiritual beauty, that men will judge your spirituality by how physically beautiful you are.

There is much advice about the right sort of clothing to wear – women must “dress attractively… but [not] dress to attract,” according to Joshua Harris.^[3] And in the book Quiverful, Katherine Joyce says that single women are told they must wear feminine clothes to prove to their fathers that they are virtuous women worthy of protection.

Harris suggests that beauty “will attract truly godly men to you,”^[4]which, in turn, feeds into the idea that to be acceptable to the church, young women should be aiming for marriage. The corollary of this is that women who do not attract godly men, have somehow failed, and that their beauty is a measure of their worth before God. Additionally, these messages carry on once a woman is married: if a man has an affair, it is suggested that it is the wife’s fault for not being alluring enough.^[5]

In Eve’s Revenge, Lilian Calles Barger talks about “the beauty cult”^[6]and how the church has bought into this, telling women that “our duty as women is to show we care about our looks and to demonstrate this virtue by pursuing physical beauty.”^[7]She states, “we’ve been so busy serving the demands of the beauty cult, we’ve muffled our more profound spiritual need,”^[8] and goes on to make the important point that “how we view our bodies will affect what type of spirituality we will embrace.”^[9]

It is striking, however, how the messages about beauty, and the methods of teaching on it, are at odds with most of the rest of Evangelical methodology. Generally, there is a high regard given to Scripture and to teaching being rooted within Scripture: to the importance of understanding it, explaining it, and applying it to our lives today. Yet this is not the case with messages regarding beauty.

When it comes to female appearance, messages and injunctions about beauty are laid down as prescriptive without the same rigorous searching in or justification from Scripture. Instead, it is taken, too often, as a self-evident truth, which God would obviously ask of a woman.

The problem with this is that there are no biblical injunctions that someone should aim to be beautiful, and indeed, the Bible is ambivalent about beauty. In Proverbs, there are comparisons between beauty, wisdom and industry, with the latter two being praised as far more worthwhile. Throughout the Old Testament, it can be seen that the consequences of possessing beauty are not unequivocally positive.

Consider Tamar (2 Samuel 13) who is raped by her brother, and Sarai (Genesis 12 and 20), whose husband Abram is so scared for his safety on account of her desirability that he repeatedly lies and gives her away. Joseph’s beauty attracts the attention of a woman whose lies see him imprisoned (Genesis 39). Beauty cannot save Absalom (2 Samuel 14:25 and 18:14). Even David’s beauty doesn’t get him a free pass, or happy ending (from 2 Samuel 12).

Aert de Gelder, ‘Judah and Tamar’ (c.1681), Creative Commons

The absence or presence of beauty in a person can lead to comparison, competition and division between women, rather than to building healthy relationships or community. With the story of Rachel and Leah (from Genesis 29), we see that the competition between two women, including on account of beauty, causes strife within a whole family, down the generations. The unbeautiful one is bundled off as worth less, needing to be married by trickery. Jacob cares less for Leah than he should, and shows favouritism and partiality towards Rachel, which leads to the women vying for Jacob’s attention, with more trickery and deceit, involving two more women, Bilhah and Zilpah, as slave-“wives”. The arrival of children brings more jostling for position, and the repetition of favouritism for a good-looking son, Joseph, creates yet more divisions.

In the New Testament, meanwhile, we see that Jesus makes it clear to the Pharisees that concentrating on the outer self without doing anything on the inside is like being a whitewashed tomb (Matthew 23:27), and Paul tells women to stop fussing about their outward adornment and concentrate on the inner self instead (1 Timothy 2:9-10).

Human beauty is not a virtue, it is a gift – and like other gifts, it can be used for good or ill, or result in good or ill consequences. It is not enough on its own and it is not the quality of greatest personal enrichment. Sometimes it is ephemeral; and, with its loss, all can be lost, if focus on beauty has been over-emphasized. There is nothing wrong with admiring or enjoying beauty – one’s own or that of others. But it should not be the reason for greater worth or privilege; it should not be regarded as a measure of inner qualities. Nor should its perceived lack become indicative of less worth, or of tardiness.

Such assessments, moreover, have no firm biblical basis at all. Beauty is acknowledged in the Bible as desirable and insufficient in and of itself.

The act of demanding that a woman aim to be beautiful to the exclusion or detriment of other qualities, constitutes an act of harm, even of violence, to her. Who is to decide whether any specific woman is beautiful, or beautiful enough? What are the consequences if she isn’t? What is neglected and lost when beauty becomes a preoccupation? If a woman’s social and spiritual standing, or her ethical goodness is judged by her appearance, she is set up to lose.

Because humans are embodied, and because we interact with God in, through, and with our bodies, what we believe we are supposed to do with our bodies is a key root to understanding how we are to live as people of God. If the messages about body are different for each gender, then we have different Christianities and differently embodied expectations. And this fragments the notion that all humans – irrespective of beauty – are in the image of God.

When the church decides that beauty is something to be considered as a goal, then extreme methods may be tried for achieving that goal, including such extreme methods as current technology will allow, without due consideration for the dangers and risks that might be involved.

Our worth before God is not dependent upon our genes, our gifts, or our looks. We are each equally worthwhile to God, and the church messages should reflect this, rather than gendering our teaching to make us do violence to ourselves, either physically or emotionally, to fit in with other people’s notions of what we are “supposed” to look like.

References

L. C. Barger. Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body. Brazos Press, 2003. ISBN 9781587430404.

J. Harris. Boy Meets Girl. Multnomah Publishers, 2005. ISBN 9781590521670.

K. Joyce. Quiverful: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement. Beacon Press, 2009. ISBN 9780807010709.

H. Peterson and D. McCormack, “Pat Robertson on cheating: Evangelist tells woman she should be grateful for husband.” Daily Mail Online, 2013. URL: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2325542/Pat-Robertson-cheating-Evangelist-tells-woman-grateful-husband.html (accessed 7 January 2021).

J. Piper and W. Grudem. RecoveringBiblical Manhood & Womanhood: A Response to EvangelicalFeminism.Crossway Books, [1991] 2006.

^[1] “Keep Young and Beautiful” is a catchy song with lyrics by Al Dubin and music by Harry Warren, which was performed in the 1933 film “Roman Scandals” by Eddie Cantor. It was repopularised in recent years by Annie Lennox.

^[2] Piper and Grudem, Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, p.22.

^[3] Harris, Boy Meets Girl, p. 121.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] Peterson and McCormack, “Pat Robertson on cheating.”

^[6] Barger, Eve’s Revenge, p.15.

^[7] Ibid., 18.

^[8] Ibid., 24.

^[9] Ibid., 95.

The Bible Doesn’t Tell Me So: Book Review

by Johanna Stiebert on December 6, 2020

Helen Paynter has written an important book, with the title The Bible Doesn’t Tell Me So: Why You Don’t Have to Submit to Domestic Abuse and Coercive Control (Abingdon: The Bible Reading Fellowship, 2020). Given the depressingly constant stream of findings of abuse in church-run settings (such as those published by IICSA, Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse) and the alarming reports of sharp increases in incidents of domestic violence during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, as addressed in urgent appeals by Women’s Aid and Jewish Women’s Aid (#AMaskWontProtectHer), this book is especially timely.

Helen is a biblical scholar, as well as director of the Bristol-based Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence. She is also a Baptist minister and a medical doctor. (The latter, while assigned to a past life, crops up in the book, including in some vivid analogies). She is, in short, very impressive and The Shiloh Project has been grateful for Helen’s support and participation over the past years.

This book is written with accessibility in mind. It is a slim volume, with fewer notes than Helen’s (also succinct – given its place in a Routledge Focus series) academic book on another violent theme: Telling Terror in Judges 19: Rape and Reparation for the Levite’s Wife (Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2020, see here). Evoking a dialogue, Helen uses the direct address (‘you’) widely in this book and brings in her own experiences and encounters, too. After a succinct and thorough discussion on why, to her, the Bible is a tool and solace for the abused, not for abusers, Helen segues into practical advice: she recommends further readings and blogs, helplines and support organisations, resources for churches and for perpetrators, and she details a safety plan.

The book is both inspired by and for Christian women who have suffered, or who are suffering, domestic violence and coercive control, particularly at the hands of Christian abusers, such as their husbands, who use the Bible to justify or legitimate their actions (p.18). As Helen points out, ‘rates of abuse perpetration within church are about the same as rates in the general population’ (p.15).

Space is given up to (sometimes lengthy) quotations from the Bible; these quotations make the case against abusers. Again and again, Helen illustrates that the Bible depicts God and Jesus as abhorring injustice and standing with the oppressed and the vulnerable. This is taken to mean that God and Jesus side with victims and survivors of abuse and abhor domestic violence and coercive control. Presumably, therefore, the primary audience is not just Christian women¹ who have suffered domestic abuse but who also wish to remain in the church, or wish to reclaim the Bible that has been used against them. This book is for survivors who stay – if not in an abusive domestic sphere, or marriage – then in their faith. It is not so much for those survivors who reject and and leave their faith. When leaving their faith, they may well reject along with it the Bible, which they have come to associate with violence, coercion, humiliation and denigration.

Helen acknowledges the church’s and some church leaders’ part both in active systemic abuse and in inaction in addressing abuse effectively (pp.88-96). She, too, remains committed to her faith, the Bible and the church, giving clear directives on how the church must change (pp.152-59). Like Ruth Everhart (whose book I have reviewed and extolled in an earlier post) Helen is determined to work with the Bible and from within the church to bring about justice.

I admire what both Ruth Everhart and Helen are doing. It is – no doubt about it – much harder to remain inside the church and make it better than to walk away. Both, moreover, don’t countenance the option of easy forgiveness. Helen makes it very clear that forgiveness, while it may be freely given, has its price (p.77-87). Also like Everhart, Helen refers to the impact of MeToo (p.142) and to church complicity in abuse and covering up abuse (pp.88-96); she, too, weaves in the words and experiences of those who have confided in her with considerable respectfulness, and she also addresses several audiences: women subjected to abuse and coercive control, people supporting them, church leaders, and perpetrators (pp.18-21, 150-162).

At various points, reading this book, I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with and admiring Helen. Foremost: her intention is, of course, entirely laudable. I can believe that this book will bring healing and comfort to many Christian women who have suffered spiritual abuse on top of other kinds of coercion, harm and violence at the hands of husbands or church leaders, weaponizing the Bible. That already makes the book worthwhile. Also, Helen’s point that atrocities described in the Bible are not ipso facto prescribed is an important one. Helen’s other book published this year, Telling Terror in Judges 19, makes this point very compellingly. With Telling Terror Helen has chosen to focus on one of the most horrifying stories in all of the Hebrew Bible. Her argument is that both the viciousness of events recounted and the outraged response to these events indicate that this brutal story is not condoning, let alone recommending, the abusiveness it depicts. In this book, too, Helen has no qualms about saying that even revered figures in the Bible sometimes do wrong – like Abraham, when he pimps out his wife (p.48). She also raises the probability that the violence done to Jesus included sexual assault (p.118). Given her audience, that’s gutsy.

Other things piqued my admiration, too. I very much like the comparison of Hagar and Ishmael with Abraham and Isaac (pp.109-112): I had never picked up on the evident parallels. And Helen also convinced me on the point of why Jesus is persisting on writing on the ground in John 4, where the woman caught in adultery is brought before him: he is averting his gaze, so as not to shame the woman further (p.122)! Helen’s careful reading and imaginative engagement with the story world can transpire in illuminating and persuasive interpretations.

But I wasn’t persuaded by all of the book. Admittedly, this will be due in part to the book not being ‘my cup of tea’: because I’m not in the church and because I do not feel a need to redeem the Bible. I am not someone who feels that ‘Jesus understands’ (hurt, betrayal, suffering, etc pp.113-118). Don’t get me wrong: I’d rather have the Bible be used in Helen’s vein, to defend the vulnerable, than to procure abusers. But I do actually see the Bible as part of the problem. I am not certain at all, as Helen is, that ‘The Bible does not belong to abusers. And though you may hear echoes of their voices there occasionally, they are only found there to be contradicted, subverted and humbled’ (p.11). When I read John 8:31-47, I hear echoes of antisemitism, not righteous anger. To me, these words of Jesus are not ‘refreshing’ (p.98). When I read the metaphors of the early chapters in Hosea or of Ezekiel 16 and 23 (which Helen knows well, of course, but which do not feature in this book), I find God to appear very much like an abuser – as has been discussed fully by other biblical scholars.²And when I read Numbers 5, where a woman suspected of adultery without any evidence, is subjected to a gruelling ritual at the Temple and where a jealous husband is explicitly exonerated of all guilt (5:31), I see an abuser who is legitimated by both God and Moses. I don’t see here that ‘women matter to God’ (p.109).

For Helen ‘The Bible can be made to say just about anything, if it is taken out of context’ (p.17). She attributes harmful readings to misinterpretation and misapplication of the Bible (p.26) and goes on to describe and detoxify widely applied texts from Paul in the light of their original setting (p.34). I consider the original context irretrievable and worry about the Bible’s impact in the present. I find the sheer range of the Bible’s contents and its possibilities for both healing and harm particularly disturbing and at the heart and centre of its enduring power and influence. I am wary of deeming this or that interpretation either ‘valid’ or ‘misapplied’: who is to say?

Helen does admit to the interpretation of the Bible being difficult. When she discusses passages of the New Testament, I have to confess to being out of my depth. Helen, too, however, who has studied these texts carefully, says, of 1 Corinthians 11:3-16, for instance, that there are ‘many opinions’ on this passage (p.44) and of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 that she ‘can’t give you a definite answer… there is enough ambiguity about the interpretation of these verses that it is frankly dangerous to pin a whole theology of gender roles on to them’ (p.64). Ambiguity is also admitted elsewhere (p.66), including of the passage on divorce in Malachi (p.72). I think it is great that Helen admits to the difficulty and ambiguity of the Bible and I, again, much prefer this to the interpretations of those who make strong claims and then apply these to exerting dominance and control. But an ambiguous passage does leave a door open for multiple interpretations, including harmful ones. That, I think, is why the Bible can be so harmful.

Helen argues of Ephesians 5:22 (‘wives, submit to your own husbands…’) that this applies only to husbands who are like the Lord – who is elsewhere characterised as gentle, kind to women, ‘non-toxic’ (p.113) – and of Malachi, that ‘God does appear to hate divorce, because he cares about the protection of vulnerable women and their children’ (p.70). Sometimes that just sounds too casuistic to me, while the biblical text sounds far less benign.

I suppose, what I’d like to have seen more in this book is a cry of ‘So What If the Bible Tells Me So?!’ – a cry of outrage and protest. Instead of just admitting to ambiguity, I’d like to have seen more of ‘if people use the text in this way, they are wrong – because abuse and exploitation are wrong.’ Helen says, ‘I take the responsibility of the interpretation of the Bible very seriously. I do not believe that we can twist it and bend it to suit our purpose. Nor can we throw out the bits we don’t like’ (p.23). I disagree. First, I think we probably all – consciously or not – twist and bend the Bible. And secondly, I would say some bits of the Bible ought to be thrown out. Passages where rapists are compelled to marry the women they have raped (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), or the ‘clobber texts’ (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13) used against any man who in any circumstance has sexual relations with another male and – by extension – against all homosexuals and anyone genderqueer are passages I have no hesitation in calling wrong. I am not chopping them out of the Bible but if and when I teach about them, I do point to their harmful ideologies and the consequences on real lives. I guess I prefer the Jesus Helen describes who also rejects Scripture when it is harmful (pp.120-21), the Jesus depicted as sympathetic to the woman who breaks the law of Leviticus and touches him while suffering a discharge.

I like this book and I will readily recommend it and recommend it widely. I accept that it is not really aimed at me. It is aimed particularly at women in urgent situations. And in such urgent situations, women don’t need biblical scholarship and textual quibbling: they need support and help. Helen’s book provides spiritual support and gives practical advice for finding help. It also offers clear-cut suggestions for making church communities safer, better informed and more hospitable places.

This book is part of a growing body of resources targeting reform of churches from within. I hope it is widely read and widely used. Much good will come of it if it is.

You can order your copy here.

Helen is well aware that women can be abusers and that victims can be of multiple genders. She herself draws attention to her use of gendered language and follows this up with a justification: ‘In the UK, cis and trans men and women are subjected to domestic abuse. Abuse is perpetrated in heterosexual and gay and lesbian relationships. I understand this. Nonetheless, the vast majority of abusers are male, and the vast majority of people who report abuse are female’ (p.21).
There has been a full debate about the ‘pornoprophetics’ of these passages. Their violent potential, including for actual women, has been explored by, among others, T. D. Setel, ‘Prophets and Pornography: Female Sexual Imagery in Hosea’ (in L. M. Russell, Feminist Interpretation of the Bible,Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985, 86-95) and Renita Weems, in Battered Love: Marriage, Sex, and Violence in the Hebrew Prophets (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1995).

Clergy Abuse and Women’s Vocations

by Miryam Clough on October 8, 2020

Miryam Clough’s doctoral thesis and first monograph (Shame, the Church and the Regulation of Female Sexuality, Routledge 2017) focussed on Ireland’s Magdalen laundries to examine the way Christian churches have used shame to control women, to displace men’s ambivalence about sex, and to excuse men for abuse. Her second book will address the effects of clergy sexual misconduct on women’s vocations in the church.

What led you to do this work?

In 2019, I was the recipient of a visiting scholarship at St John’s Theological College in New Zealand, where I had trained as a young ordinand in the 1980s. My project was to research women’s experiences in the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand since 1960. In part this was a personal quest, sparked by a conversation a few months before with a friend I had studied with when I began my first theology degree. As he and I reconnected after three decades and each of us related the key events of those intervening years, I was struck by the differences in our journeys – despite their shared starting point. He has had a long and fruitful ministry in the church; I have had a life-long vocation to ministry that I have yet to fulfil.

This conversation had taken place around the time I was invited to contribute a chapter to Letters to a Broken Church (Fife and Gilo 2019), a response to the clergy abuse crisis in the Church of England. As I pondered the events that led to me leaving New Zealand in 1988 at the end of my ordination training, and eventually putting the idea of ordination to one side, I began to reconsider the impact of clergy sexual misconduct on my life and vocation. This time however, I looked at it through two different lenses: 1) the lens of a registered health professional and educator working within strict ethical guidelines and 2) that of the mother of young women in their twenties who have bumped up against sexual harassment at university and in their jobs and careers.

As I imagined my daughters in the situations I had found myself in at their respective ages, I began to identify more fully the impact that the exploitative behaviour of much older male clergy had on my life and my vocation in the church. Imagining my daughters – whose wellbeing, happiness and fulfilment are absolute priorities for me – having to cope with the things that I encountered at their ages left me angry. Angry at the behaviour of those men and at the church which should have offered a safe environment for me as a young person and as an ordinand. Angry that the very clergy who claimed to support me in my vocation had actually grossly undermined and sabotaged it.

Having either directly encountered or been aware of a number of clergy abusers, I was suspicious of the context that produced such behaviour, and which appeared to facilitate it, or at least did nothing to address or prevent it.

On the one hand, I was incredulous that Christian priests, including fathers of daughters, would act to undermine the vocation of any young person. On the other, I was very aware that I, and many other women, had lacked the support and mentoring that most young men received from the experienced clergy responsible for their pastoral welfare and training. Given the wider hostility to women seeking leadership roles in the church at the time, this was perhaps unsurprising.

Next, I endeavoured to put myself into the shoes of the offending priests and to wonder what motivated them. I tried to imagine the sense of entitlement that would lead them to violate pastoral and sexual boundaries. Then, I mapped the code of conduct I work under as a health professional onto their actions. As I did so, my perspective – long one of self-blame and failure – shifted. I began to see that at the very least, those clergy had acted in ways that were deeply unprofessional. I also began to consider the broader structural context of those scenarios, and this is what I determined to research. Having either directly encountered or been aware of a number of clergy abusers, I was suspicious of the context that produced such behaviour, and which appeared to facilitate it, or at least did nothing to address or prevent it.

At this point, I had not come across the body of literature on clergy sexual abuse of adult women and had no idea of its extent, assuming (despite my own experience) that most victims of clergy abuse were children and that most clergy abusers were Roman Catholic priests. I was shocked to learn that an estimated 90-95% of victims of clergy sexual abuse are female congregants (Boobal Batchelor 2013, xv). Moreover, as Richard Sipe (2007, xv) notes, the Roman Catholic Church does not have a monopoly on clergy abuse, it is just further down the track in terms of exposure.

I began my project with a broad research outline, looking at a number of issues that have affected women in the Anglican church in Aotearoa New Zealand in my lifetime. Clergy sexual abuse was not my main focus, however it kept jumping out at me. I was directed to Louise Deans’ book Whistleblower (2001) at the outset of my scholarship. Here Deans describes her experiences as an ordinand training for ministry with serial abuser Canon Rob McCullough, and outlines the protracted and traumatic process she and other clergywomen went through to seek support and redress from the church hierarchy for the abuse they experienced.[i]

Deans first made the abuse by McCullough public after it was revealed in the media that a conference of ordained Anglican women in New Zealand in 1989 had felt it necessary to offer a workshop on sexual harassment. I had left New Zealand less than a year earlier, in part in an effort to remove myself from a situation with a much older priest that I could see no other way out of. There is much in Deans’ book that resonates with my experience, both in New Zealand and more particularly later in the UK, with a priest who seemed remarkably like McCullough in character. Diana Garland (2013, 122 citing Friberg and Laaser 1998) suggests that ‘the most common offender is a man who is reasonably successful and has a combination of narcissism, sexual compulsion, and need for affirmation’.

What have you learned since beginning this research?

That I am not alone. #MeToo’s sister movement #ChurchToo demonstrates that women are all too familiar with sexual harassment from male church leaders. This is not to deny that some abusers are women or that some victims of clergy sexual abuse are adult men or children, simply that the majority of clergy abusers in reported cases are heterosexual males and the majority of victims are heterosexual females (Fortune 2013, 15).

That it was not my fault. Until this point, I had taken responsibility for what had occurred and had not considered my own experiences in the church against the concept of fiduciary duty – that is, the legal or ethical obligation of a person with a duty of care or in a professional relationship of trust to act in the best interest of their client, congregant or counselee. Nor was I aware of the now established view among experts in the field that within the implicit relationship of power that exists between a priest and a congregant, meaningful consent to a sexual relationship is not possible. A sexual relationship between a priest and a congregant is not an ‘affair’ and cannot be regarded as consensual (Fortune 2013, 15, 19).

That breaches of professional boundaries by clergy create unhealthy precedents, increase the vulnerability of victims, and pave the way for further or more serious harm (Stephens 2013, 28). I now realise that my early experiences of clergy misconduct had predisposed me to further exploitation. Furthermore, over the years I had seen and heard of a number of clergy breaching professional and sexual boundaries, while those with greater authority looked on and failed to act, effectively normalising such behaviour.

That, in the grip of clergy abuse, victims can lose their moral compass. Caught up in the dynamic of wrongdoing and shame, we do what we need to do to survive and get through. This is not what we would choose to do at healthier times in our lives. Additionally, because congregants are conditioned to respect clergy and to see them as authority figures in spiritual and moral matters, they can be easily influenced by them (Fortune 1999, xii).

That clergy abuse is isolating for victims and prevents them accessing meaningful sources of support. Lured into a ‘counselling’ relationship as an ordinand, for example, I failed to get the support I needed.

That clergy abuse often follows predictable patterns of behaviour. Clergy may groom their victims over a period of time, singling them out for special treatment, sometimes on the pretext of mentoring them in their vocation, gradually breaking down any resistance and isolating them through insisting on secrecy (Cooper-White 2013, 73-74; Fortune 1999, xi). Such coercive behaviour is ultimately as damaging as more overt forms of abuse.

Guido Reni, *Susanna and the Elders*, Image courtesy of Jean Louise Mazieres on Flickr (https://flic.kr/p/2eGnXfG)

What do you hope readers will take away from your research when it is published?

My own perspective shifted significantly when I began to consider my experiences through older and more objective eyes. This, together with the broader understanding of clergy sexual abuse I’ve gained during the course of my research and the support I have received for this work, has done much to heal the shame of my own experiences and the grief attached to the loss of my vocation.

It is over fifteen years since I began my doctoral research on shame. One conclusion I reached early on in that work was that having our shame stories heard with empathy can lead to healing. I have had several opportunities to share my work and to tell my story. These have been overwhelmingly positive experiences, with people affirming the importance and value of the work and listening to my personal narrative in non-judging, empathic and thoughtful ways.

The discourses of purity culture, complementarianism and male headship facilitate clergy abuse, which is a systemic issue.

Having said that, I have been somewhat selective about my audiences and my experience to date is that resistance comes from those (including women) who operate within more hierarchical and masculinist frameworks. Indeed, the evidence is strong that these are the structures which facilitate abuse in the first place. The discourses of purity culture, complementarianism and male headship facilitate clergy abuse, which is a systemic issue. This will not change without a significant degree of honest conversation, and a willingness to engage with the voices of survivors and to address the structural inequities within the churches – including those perpetuated by masculinist and misogynist interpretations of scripture and tradition.

As with any situation that is propelled or sustained by shame and secrecy, clergy sexual abuse will only stop if those affected by it speak out. For this reason, I work with autoethnographic and narrative research methods. Autoethnography situates the researcher in their research context as an active participant rather than a so-called ‘objective’ observer, resists theoretical abstractions and places value on the way individuals and groups find meaning. It is an apt methodological approach to challenging social and interpersonal phenomena where more conventional methods may serve to reinscribe oppression.

My hope in contributing to the increasing body of literature on clergy abuse through telling my own story and creating a space for other women to tell theirs, is that churches will achieve a greater understanding of the dynamics of abuse, and of the impact it has on women’s vocations in the church. In turn, engagement with this issue may lead to churches and seminaries finding healthier ways to speak about sex and power, to more effective screening of prospective clergy, and to more compassionate, honest, thoughtful, and effective ways of managing clergy abuse when it arises.

Feature image “Can You Hear Me Now? #MeToo” by alecperkins on Flickr (https://flic.kr/p/23BStNh)

References:

Boobal Batchelor, Valli ed. ‘Editor’s Introduction’ in When Pastors Prey. Geneva. World Council of Churches Publishing. Xv-xix.

Cooper-White, Pamela. 2013. ‘Clergy Sexual Abuse of Adults’ in Valli Boobal Batchelor ed. When Pastors Prey. Geneva. World Council of Churches Publishing. 58-81.

Deans, Louise. 2001. Whistleblower. Abuse of Power in the Church, A New Zealand Story. Auckland. Tandem Press.

Fife, Janet and Gilo, eds. 2019. Letters to a Broken Church. London. Ekklesia.

Fortune, Marie. 2013. ‘Sexual Abuse by Religious Leaders’ in Valli Boobal Batchelor ed. When Pastors Prey. Geneva. World Council of Churches Publishing. 14-21.

Fortune, Marie. 1999. ‘Foreword’ in Nancy Werking Poling ed. Victim to Survivor. Women Recovering from Clergy Sexual Abuse. Cleveland, Ohio. United Church Press. ix-xvi.

Garland, Diana. 2013. ‘Don’t Call it an Affair: Understanding and Preventing Clergy Sexual Misconduct with Adults’ in Claire M. Renzetti and Sandra Yocum eds. Clergy Sexual Abuse: Social Science Perspectives. Boston. Northeastern University Press. 118-143.

Sipe, A. W. Richard. 2007. ‘Introduction’ in A. Shupe, Spoils of the Kingdom. Clergy Misconduct and Religious Community. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Xv-xxvii.

[i] Deans does not name McCullough in her book, however he was subsequently identified in legal proceedings. TVNZ. 2003. ‘Church to pay out for sex abuse’. Thursday March 06. http://tvnz.co.nz/content/173269/4202557/article.html, accessed 24.09.2020

Leaving a high-control faith behind – an auto-ethnographic account

by Heather Ransom on August 21, 2020

by Heather Ransom

Heather Ransom is a PhD student at Edge Hill University. She is currently researching the effects of religious ostracism when leaving the Jehovah’s Witness religion. Specifically, she is exploring the impact on identity, self-esteem and belonging, as well as wider detriments to mental health and wellbeing.

Leaving a high-control faith behind – An auto-ethnographic account

Note: All scriptures quoted are from the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, as used by Jehovah’s Witnesses (the JW version of the Bible)

My relationship with the Bible started in infancy. My mother, a perfect example of Jehovah’s Witness (JWs) recruitment, was a doorstep convert when she was 22 years old. Consequently, myself and my siblings were raised in a strict, Bible-based religious environment, with ‘the meetings’ (church) three times a week. We also had an active preaching schedule every Saturday morning (door knocking). My father did not convert, despite my mother’s dominant personality, which meant we came from what was described as a ‘divided household’.

My early life of ‘inculcation’ (Deuteronomy 6:6,7) into the JW faith included a plethora of images of paradise (Psalms 37:10,11), interspersed with those of death and destruction as described in the Bible. Zechariah 14:12 remains dominant in my mind. Here, the destruction of the ungodly is described:

their flesh will rot away while they stand on their feet, their eyes will rot away in their sockets, and their tongues will rot away in their mouths.

Scriptures such as this one, and the powerful imagery used in the literature to convey Armageddon, had a significant impact on my young mind, and kept me in fear for many years. Interestingly, the only mention of Armageddon in the Bible is in Revelation 16:16, yet it forms one of the main tenets of the JW faith. Believing that the world was full of wickedness, and that the JWs are the one true faith, I was taught that soon ‘Jehovah’ (the vocalisation of the Hebrew tetragrammaton YHWH together with the vowels of the Hebrew word for ‘LORD’ that is pronounced) would annihilate all those who do not believe, and as long as I stayed faithful, I would live forever in paradise.

After decades of devout membership, and for many reasons, I decided to leave the JWs. The maltreatment I experienced from the elders (church leaders), which felt both spiritually and psychologically abusive, made me start to question the love that is supposed to mark true Christians (John 13:34,35). I started to analyse critically, the shunning doctrine, and could not align this with the tenets of scripture regarding love (Love never fails – 1 Corinthians 13:8), judging (Stop judging, that you may not be judged – Matthew 7:1-5), forgiveness (If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you – Matthew 6: 14,15) and imperfection (We all stumble many times – James 3:2). It seemed to me that when a ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ is at their lowest ebb, disfellowshipping them (being forced to leave – similar to excommunication) for their ‘sins’ and, in doing so, depriving them of the assistance they need is akin to depriving a sick person of their medication

Described as a loving arrangement, JWs are required to shun those who have been disfellowshipped. This has a two-fold purpose: (1) to protect the congregation from the influence of the defector, and (2) to motivate the ex-member to return to the fold. However, more recently, former JWs who had left voluntarily (as I did), have also reported experiencing shunning from their family and friends.

Consequently, JWs are considered a high-cost group (Scheitle & Adamczyk, 2010) as exiting, whether forced (disfellowshipped) or voluntary, typically has negative consequences. These might include, amongst others, loss of supportive ties, challenges to self-perceptions and psychological distress. The adverse effects of ostracism are well-established within the wider psychological literature (Case & Williams, 2004; Wesselmann & Williams, 2017; Williams, 2001; Williams, 2007). Although there has been diminutive research amongst former JWs, leaving religiously exclusive groups generally has been associated with diminished wellbeing; in addition, ostracism (religious shunning), amongst other things, has been identified as a barrier to exit (Scheitle & Adamczyk, 2010).

As I traversed my own journey upon leaving the JWs, it became apparent that leaving experiences and outcomes were not the same. I wanted to explore if there were differences in wellbeing between those who had been disfellowshipped compared to those who had left voluntarily. I also aimed to examine the impact of forming alternative social support following religious exit. For example, social media groups set up by former JWs may act as a buffer against the effects of shunning, by allowing former members to build new relationships. Finally, I wanted to assess whether earlier socialisation into the JWs (being born and raised JW), as opposed to adult conversion, may differentially affect the process of identity transition post-exit.

Leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses

The Bible retains a significant influence within Christian religions, and although modernity has meant that some Christian faiths have adopted modern concepts, such as female priests/vicars, more fundamentalist Christian religions have not. This is perhaps, in part, due to scriptures such as 1 Timothy 2:11, 12 where the apostle Paul states:

Let a woman learn in silence with full submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but she is to remain silent.

Similarly, other Bible verses paint the woman as inferior in intellect. For example, 1 Corinthians 14:34,35 states that if a woman wants to learn something, she must ask her husband at home, as it would be a disgraceful thing for a woman to speak in the congregation. Further, submission to the male is encouraged in passages which urge women to have deep respect, a quiet and mild spirit, and to be subject to their husbands. Indeed, the scriptures relate that Sarah referred to her husband Abraham as ‘Lord’ (1 Peter 3:6), and although there are some positive female references in the Bible (for example, the prophetess Deborah), derogatory figures are often portrayed as female. The great harlot of Revelation 18:1 for example, and the nation of Israel, referred to as an unfaithful wife in Ezekiel 16, with the entire chapter peppered with references to prostitution. Similarly, the book of Jeremiah chapters 2-5 describes Israel as a woman trained in wickedness, stained with the blood of the innocent (2:33, 34), and having the brazen look of a wife who commits prostitution (3:3).

In light of this less-than-positive view of women often portrayed in the Bible, it could be postulated that attitudes in some fundamentalist-style religions who adhere closely to the scriptures remain archaic in nature. Indeed, the qualitative data I have recorded as part of my doctoral thesis offers some support for the notion that fundamentalist organisations, such as the JWs, may mean women are not taken seriously when it comes to issues such as domestic violence and misogyny. For example, one participant was prevented from reporting domestic violence to the authorities, because of the ‘reproach it would bring upon Jehovah’s name, and to the congregation’. This respondent was ‘disfellowshipped’ from the congregation for talking about the abuse, rather than keeping silent, and thus cut off from all her social support.

Being disfellowshipped from the JWs is a serious matter. Congregants are not permitted to talk to disfellowshipped ones; therefore, anyone disfellowshipped is effectively silenced. There are many reasons for which a JW can be disfellowshipped, these include, but are not limited to: sex before marriage (fornication), sex outside of marriage (adultery), all forms of homosexuality, viewing pornography, smoking tobacco, drug taking and gambling. Other JWs leave the religion of their own free will because they find the way of life restrictive, or have experienced what they perceive as unjust treatment. Nevertheless, despite the method of exit, former JWs typically report religious ostracism from their family, friends and the congregation in general.

In conclusion, although ostracism is well-researched, religious ostracism remains a harmful phenomenon in contemporary society, the effects of which are under-explored. By studying religious ostracism, and recognising its harmful effects, including exploring the factors which may affect outcomes, attempts may be made to offer further support to those who transition out of high cost religions such as the JWs.

References

Case, T. I., & Williams, K. D. (2004). Ostracism : A metaphor for death. New York : Guilford Press.

Scheitle, C. P., & Adamczyk, A. (2010). High-cost religion, religious switching, and health. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications. doi:10.1177/0022146510378236

Wesselmann, E. D., & Williams, K. D. (2017). ‘Social life and social death: Inclusion, ostracism, and rejection in groups’. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 20(5), 693-706. doi:10.1177/1368430217708861

Williams, K. D. (2001a). Ostracism : The power of silence. New York: Guilford Press.

Williams, K. D. (2007). ‘Ostracism: The kiss of social death’. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 1(1), 236-247. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00004.x

Premiere of Kenyan, Christian, Queer

by Johanna Stiebert on July 26, 2020

This coming Friday (31 July 2020) is the world premiere of the film Kenyan, Christian, Queer: Struggle for Faith, Hope and Love, directed by Aiwan Obinyan.

You can see the trailer here.

For an earlier Shiloh post on the book of the name Kenyan, Christian, Queer, by Adriaan van Klinken, see here.

About this Event:

Is it possible to be African, Christian and queer? The members of the first LGBTQ church in Nairobi Kenya certainly believe so. The Cosmopolitan Affirming Community (CAC) seeks to promote an inclusive and progressive form of Christianity, in the midst of a rather conservative society.

The screening link will be live from 9am to 12midnight (Eastern Africa Time/Kenya Time) with a live Q&A at 2pm BST (= British Summer Time) / 4pm EAT (= Eastern Africa Time) / 9am EST (= Eastern Standard Time).

The Q&A will feature:

Aiwan Obinyan (Film Director)
Pastor David Ochar (CAC)
Bishop Joseph Tolton
Prophetess Jacinta Nzilani

Book your ticket now, to receive the link & password for the secure film screening and Q&A.

You can book your free tickets here https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kenyan-christian-queer-premiere-tickets-113871003236?aff=CACAdriaanTFAM

Privilege Beyond Bounds: A Response to the Conviction of Jan Joosten

by Johanna Stiebert on June 26, 2020

On Monday 22 June 2020 the news broke of the conviction of Jan Joosten for downloading thousands upon thousands of images and videos of child abuse and pornography. I first read about it in an article in The Guardian. There are numerous other reports in other papers, too: the Daily Mail , The Timesof Israel, and Euro Weekly. The images that accompany these articles show the protzy façade of Christ Church, Joosten smiling, Joosten mid-lecture. An older, white male scholar who has blended right into the various biblical studies conferences he’s attended over many years – Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), Society for Old Testament Study(SOTS), International Organisation for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT)… I’ve seen him there, talked to him, received his recommendation for a publication of his to read and for references to chase up.

As the newspaper articles report, Joosten is a former pastor, who taught for 20 years at the University of Strasbourg before, in 2014, taking up “the prestigious regiusprofessorship of Hebrew at Oxford.” Until his suspension, Joosten was based at Christ Church, renowned for its academic excellence, Old Master paintings, and for being home to Oxford’s cathedral. Until recently, Joosten was editor-in-chief of Vetus Testamentum, according to its site, “a leading journal … generally recognized to be indispensable for scholarly work on the Old Testament,” publishing articles in English, French and German, all languages in which Joosten is fluent.

The lashings of respectability, status and privilege that have until recently enveloped Joosten – “pastor”, “Regius Professorof Hebrew” (founded in 1546 by Henry VIII), “Christ Church”, “University of Oxford”, “Princeton Theological Seminary”, “Hebrew University, Jerusalem”, “father of four”, “married”, “one of the most distinguished biblical scholars of his generation” – add force to the shock and outrage that havemet the revelations of Joosten’s conviction. Shocking, too, is the sheer volume of images (27,000) and videos (1000) depicting abuse, including rape of children, which Joosten downloaded. The brilliant man falling from his high pedestal: as a German, I think right away of the legend of Faust. Such hubris and such hypocrisy. Did Joosten think a different law applied to him? Did he believe he was too clever ever to get caught?

Joosten did get caught and his reputation is shot. His sentence, however, is paltry: one year in prison, placement on the sex offender register in France, a three-year programme of treatment, and a ban on any activity bringing him into contact with minors. Furthermore, Joosten has not gone to prison (yet?): his sentence will be “supervised” and “may be amended.” The Guardian reports that “Joosten was yet to decide whether to appeal on Friday” (he gets to decide that?!). His family “were aware of his offences” and argued Joostenshould not be imprisoned, “because he was a first time offender” (hardly: he was caught for the first time – he is now known to have been offending thousands of times for six years), “presented little risk of reoffending” (how so?), and “had sought psychiatric help voluntarily” (albeit only following arrest). In court, so it is reported, Joosten declaredthat he was relieved to be arrested. He described his addiction as “a secret garden, in contradiction with myself.” To many ears, including those of biblical scholars, this expression is particularly jarring and repugnant. It conjures up imagery from Song of Songs, of eroticism and lovemaking (e.g. “You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride…” Song of Songs 4:12). But this is brutal child pornography that is at issue! And watching such is not a victimless crime. Child pornography is no “virtual reality”; it depicts suffering, severe and profound damage; the demand for it proliferates this; in some casesconsumption of violent pornography leads on to committing sexual abuse.

As would be expected, the general public and the scholarly community to which Joosten belonged have been vocal in their outrage and repulsion. Twitter is abuzz. People are “reeling”, “shocked and horrified”. A terse comment on the SBL website, stating that the Society had requested Joosten’s resignation, evoked protest on account of being woefully inadequate – rather like the Christ Church statement that “Our thoughts are with anyone affected by this news” (reminiscent of the “thoughts and prayers” routinely following school shootings in the US – in lieu of doing anything). A petition led promptly to a fuller statement sent to all present and past members of SBL. SOTS followed with their statement soon after, resolving to build “a more inclusive and ethical Society” and expressing concern “for the unknown children who are the ultimate victims of such crimes” as well as for Joosten’s family, colleagues and supervisees. One of Joosten’s co-authors has expressed feeling “shocked, shattered and disgusted” – he is donating all royalties of the book, past and future, to the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. Another scholar has set up a GoFundMe page “Biblical Scholars Against Child Abuse”. There is a powerful piece out deploring “himpathy” for Joosten (that is, excessive sympathy that is directed at perpetrators of sexual violence and abuse) and there are many expressions of contempt for a situation where “*reputations* of men are more important to keep safe than the *bodies* of women, children.”

When I read of Joosten’s conviction I, too, was reeling, shocked and horrified. I probably shouldn’t have been. Sadly, I know many people who are survivors of child abuse and of rape. The statistics of The Office for National Statistics do not strike me as exaggerated. And when you know there are so many survivors, you know there are very, very many perpetrators, too – the numbers have to add up. Even taking into account that perpetrators tend to abuse multiple victims, the numbers of perpetrators must still be very high. The same goes for the abuse that is consumption of child pornography. The amount of child abuse material is staggering – so, really it isn’t surprising that I know people who are revealed to be abusers. I also know that – for all the stereotypes and rape myths about rapists and pornography users (“creepy men in raincoats” we used to jest) – there is no “type” – so a depraved person can be an Oxford don (clearly). Having worked in universities for over 20 years, I’ve twice known of cases where a member of the university community was charged with child pornography. Two people I have encountered in my community have been charged with possession of child pornography (one committed suicide). I had already reeled a few years back at the conviction of Holt Parker, who received a four-year prison sentence for offences not dissimilar to Joosten’s. I had admired Holt’s work and wrestled then with the question of “do you cite scholars who have done appalling things?” (I still wrestle with that question – as compelling as I find Stephen Young’s article, I also see some of the complexity so well articulated by Sarah Scullin. Do I read a biography of every author before I cite their work?)

Fact is, in my earlier work I have cited Joosten. I met Joosten in 2011 in South Africa. We were both attending a meeting of the Old Testament Society of South Africa (OTSSA) (my first far-flung work trip since my younger child was born). I had not met Joosten before and I was mostly preoccupied with dear friends from my years in southern Africa. But on some bus trip or other we sat together and had one of “those conversations” about research that you have at these kinds of conferences. He was friendly but quite intimidating. One of those scholars who can quote in multiple languages and recall titles and years of publication of articles on any topic that arises in conversation. I was working on my book on fathers and daughters in the Hebrew Bible at the time and told Joosten so when he asked me. He told me he had published an article on the missing daughter in the laws of Leviticus 18 – but it was in French: did I read French? I admitted that my French is pretty lousy. Not much more was said, as I recall it.

Shortly after I returned home, there was an email from Joosten. (I have been re-reading the short exchanges he and Ihad in 2011 and 2013 and they make me uncomfortable now.) It said, “It was nice to meet you at the conference. While browsing through my computer I came across an English translation of my paper on the missing daughter. I attach it herewith.” I was touched. It was a nice thing to do. I thanked him. I read the article and found it helpful for my research. In the book I published I thank Joosten. That’s what you do.

Two years later I received another email: “While searching for something else on the internet I came across your recent book on Fathers and Daughters. Congratulations! And thank you for the generous reception of my article on Lev 18.” (Two short emails, in each a mention of a computer or the internet. Of course, I thought nothing of it at the time – it only reads as sinister in retrospect.) After 2013 I did not communicate with Joosten again. I did cite his work in my next book.

When I read about Joosten in the paper, I felt deeply troubled. I couldn’t shake it. I searched for and found the emails from years before and eventually decided to write to him.

I wrote of the revulsion I felt and of wondering how manyhands of “respectable men” I had shaken without fathoming what they were capable of, of being repelled at the “secret garden” obfuscating, even romanticising and eroticising the brutal abuse of frightened and utterly vulnerable and helpless children. I wrote that I cannot comprehend why, if he acknowledged the harm he had done, he would not willingly go to prison, “Why should you not go? What will you do now, I wonder?”

To my astonishment, Joosten wrote back very soon after. He said my words hurt but that he deserved them. That he had always known his “doings” were not victimless, that they were “sordid and destructive”. He wrote that he “came across” the images and videos looking for pornography and that they were “freely available and easily accessible”. He describes how this became an addiction from which he could not break free, that he did not want to make excuses but did want to heal, with the help of a psychiatrist. He spoke of the support of his family who accepted him with his defects, characterizing them as an ugly “stain” on a beautiful painting. Ever the linguist, Joosten explained the expression “jardinsecret” as “a mental and emotional space one doesn’t wish to share with anyone” but that he had not intended to evoke anything positive but rather that “the world of those images and videos and the real world” in which he lived his life were “completely separate”. He closed by saying he felt deep regret for what he had done, could not undo it and had to look to the future. The closing words were, “I hope one day you will be able to forgive me.”

The email troubled me. (A part of me was very surprised that Joosten clearly had access to a computer and to his University email address.) The sheer eloquence troubled me – but of course he is eloquent: he is a linguist, scholar and prolific writer. I was troubled that he wrote of “coming across” horrendous child pornography (is it that easy and happenstance?), and of the addiction and harm that he acknowledged as a “stain” and something to “heal” from, as if it were somehow separable from him, a “secret garden” apart from his “real life”. There is nothing “unreal” about the violence depicted in child pornography – enacted on real children whose lives, psyches, futures, potential, are deeply harmed.

As I read Joosten’s email I found myself recalling a correspondence I had over many years with a prisoner in the notorious Angola penitentiary in Louisiana. It started when a letter addressed in meticulous handwriting to “The Bible Department” landed in my office at the University of Tennessee. The writer, “E.”, had found Jesus in prison, where he was incarcerated for life. He had also taught himself Hebrew. He had questions about grammar and points of translation. It was enjoyable finding ways to explain features of Hebrew and reasons for translations that might not match the Hebrew text. E. was always eager to learn. Years passed. I moved to England. In time, we came to write about more than the language riddles that had brought us together. E. spent hours in the prison workshop and made my daughter a wooden box and some metal earrings with her (Hebrew). name engraved on them. I wrote about my children growing up, juggling work and family life, travelling; he wrote about his past, including (eventually) the crimes that transpired in his incarceration. What began to unfold was an early life of chaos, deprivation, struggle and petty crime. Next came an act of violence done to him by a sheriff, when he was put in a cell overnight for marijuana possession. E. was cagey about what took place but I was able to find newspaper articles, which reported that the sheriff was found guilty of sexually abusing young men in his custody. If that is what happened to E., he could never bring himself to say so, stressing instead how many girlfriends he’d had in his youth. He never used this as an excuse for the violent crimes he went on to commit. What struck me was how hard he tried to do something good – even from within prison where he spent most of his time in solitary confinement or labouring, with only one library book to read each week. He had written to all his victims; he was always worried about his mother and the pain he had caused her; he wrote to his son, who seldom replied; he worked hard at learning Hebrew; he tried hard to convert me to Christianity, earnestly believing that if he didn’t, I would not be saved.

Unlike E., Joosten has enjoyed enormous privileges. He still does. Life must feel frightening for him and his prestige and reputation will never recover. But he has his freedom, the support of his family, access to a psychiatrist, even access to a computer and his email account. He also has a first-class education and tremendous talent.

I feel the same anger as many of my colleagues on Twitter and Facebook. Condemnation is right; outrage at the light sentence is right; donating to organisations that support vulnerable children is right. But what more? The SOTS statement goes some way towards pointing out that more must be done within our discipline, too. A legitimizing patina of respectability has for too long shrouded a great deal of ignominy. What Scullin says of the discipline of Classics is true also of biblical studies: both have “a troubled history (that, unfortunately, continues to the present) of participation in various oppressions.” Just as the BLM protests have led to a flurry of statements and self-searching, that momentum must be harnessed and taken much further. The cracks in the patina have become very visible in recent days and weeks. It is no surprise at all actually that Joosten was able to persist in his “doings”. In large part, his respectability and his privilege have enabled it. They have also, I have no doubt, cushioned him from a harsher sentence. E. would have stood no such chance in the same court room.

It is one thing – in the case of Joosten – not to read or cite his scholarship, to evict him permanently from all societies he has belonged to, and to support his students. But what more? Even if Joosten receives a prison sentence that reflects the gravity of his offence, is that then adequate? Eventually, he would leave prison. It is not possible “to lock up all paedophiles and throw away the key.”

What I see in E. and find myself missing with Joosten is any attempt at restitution. I do hope that as Joosten looks to the future he will apply all his abilities – his mastery of languages, his research and writing skills, his experience and insight gained from therapy – for helping other addicts and for helping victims of sexual violence and human trafficking. If I can help with that, I will.

The forgiveness he says he hopes for from me is not mine to give. Vladimir Jankelevitch writes, “forgiveness is not for swine” and the first step towards forgiveness is full admission of wrong. Today Joosten may appeal. I hope he takes full responsibility and does not.

Tasia Scrutton’s research and publication on Christianity and Depression

by Tasia Scrutton on June 15, 2020

Christianity and Depression book cover by Tasia Scrutton.

Tasia Scrutton’s earlier post on the Shiloh Project blog (‘On Sex and Other Possibilities’) is one of our most widely read. Earlier this year Tasia’s new book Christianity and Depression was published by SCM. This book, on an important topic and written in an accessible style, is likely to be of interest to Shiloh Project audiences. Find out more!

Congratulations on your new book! (It has a very beautiful cover, too.)

Thank you!

Tell us about yourself, Tasia. How does your book relate to your work as a whole and how did this book come about?

I’ll start with how this book came about….

One of the first times I remember thinking about doing research on Christianity and mental illness was when a friend of mine, who had contended with serious health problems from an early age and who suffered from depression, was told by her church that her depression was the result of her having been sinful. Initially I thought that view must be extremely rare, but as I researched further, it became more apparent that it is quite common in some Christian traditions. At the same time, it also became apparent that something like this view is common outside of Christianity or any religious tradition as well: it’s quite frequent that people (religious or otherwise) try to provide moral reasons or quasi-moral reasons (such as not doing enough exercise) for why one person suffers from a mental illness while another does not.

It was around then that I started thinking consciously about the ways in which theology and philosophy could engage with these kinds of claims. Having said that, in retrospect, I can now see other things that also led up to it. For example, when I experienced depression myself, I wondered how the idea that salvation is not only an otherworldly affair could be squared with my inability to feel happy – or, more generally, how faith could so spectacularly fail to make one feel better. I didn’t experience ‘sin’ accounts like my friend, but I remember some clergy expressing the view that medications for depression were inadvisable because they would ‘block’ something that could lead to spiritual growth. So, all of those things had been fermenting for a long time.

The academic work I had done previously had also paved the way for me to write something on the topic. For example, I had already written on the problem of evil – one of the points I make in my book is that we might think that good things can come out of evil (for example, that depression has helped some people to become more insightful or compassionate) – but that doesn’t stop depression from being undesirable and so an evil. That sounds like a simple point but it becomes very important in practical contexts, for example in avoiding either the tendency to idealise suffering (just because good can come out of it), or else to write off a period of suffering as necessarily meaningless because suffering is an evil. (Unlike some philosophers of religion, I do think suffering is an evil.)

What are the key discussion points of your book?

The book is about different interpretations of depression (and, often, mental illness more generally), and how those interpretations affect people’s experience of mental illness. My aim is to help people navigate the different interpretations of depression that are often presented to them, and to help them separate the wheat from the chaff – or good interpretations from bad. I look at interpretations such as that depression is caused by individual sin, by demonic possession or oppression, by God (in order to bring about spiritual growth), by purely biological factors, or by a combination of biological, psychological and social factors. As well as explanatory interpretations, I also look at the idea that depression is potentially transformative – that is, that it can give rise to increased compassion, insight, and a heightened appreciation of beauty. And as well as evaluating existing accounts, I point to some promising emphases for a Christian understanding of depression: the importance of recognising our animality; a social (rather than individual) view of sin and the demonic; hope and the resurrection; and affirming God’s solidarity with those who suffer.

For a more detailed precis of the book, see here: – but don’t forget to come back and read more on the Shiloh blog ?

What do you hope your readers will take from this book?

A therapist friend said people may well get out of the book whatever they want to get out of it at the time – whether or not I think I put it there. So, I’m aware that what I see the important points as being may not be the important points for others.

That said, a recurring theme when I’ve given talks on the book topic is that people tell me they’ve experienced sin interpretations of mental illness themselves (often coupled with other forms of spiritual abuse, such as homophobia), and thank me for taking these interpretations down. (I don’t think that’s too much of a spoiler!) I hope this book will come as a relief to those people who have experienced or are experiencing those interpretations, and closely associated interpretations (such as some demonic accounts). I also hope it will make religious leaders and peers think twice before putting forward damaging interpretations to vulnerable people.

As a corrective to sin interpretations, some people now emphasise the idea that mental illness is purely biological. While I think this is an improvement, another hope is that people will take the biopsychosocial model more seriously as a result of reading my book. That’s important because it’s truer to the evidence we have about the causes of mental illness and how to treat it, and because if we deflect attention from the social causes of mental illness – poverty, economic instability, forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, and homophobia – then we have less reason to do something about them. The Christian tradition has a distinctive voice when it comes to talking and doing something about social injustice, and (I argue) there are other (theological) reasons for why Christians should prefer a biopsychosocial model.

I can think of lots of other things I’d like people to take away with them from my book. I’ll mention just one further one though. I hope the book helps people bring together faith, understanding of mental illness, and conversations about the way we understand and treat non-human animals a bit more closely. Some of the causes of mental illness, and/or the collective failure to treat it appropriately, come from a denial of our own animality, and relate to our abuse of other animals. So, for example, we are often encouraged to deny our social needs, and our interdependence with others, in favour of an emphasis on individual competition that is ultimately extremely damaging to us. Christianity has been seen as part of the problem here, as it has been interpreted as a fundamentally dualistic worldview, with humans on the ‘spiritual’ (and only accidentally ‘physical’) side of the spiritual/physical divide. But I think this is a misunderstanding of the Christian tradition – and one that attention to doctrines such as the resurrection of the dead can help us with.

Can you clarify what is meant by both ‘mental illness’ and ‘depression’?

When I talk about ‘mental illness’ and ‘depression’, I mean anything that might reasonably be diagnosed as a mental illness or depression by a doctor (whether or not these have been diagnosed as such). In the case of depression, these include symptoms such as anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure), decreased motivation and concentration, or changes in sleep, guilt and hopelessness. Other common characteristics of depression not discussed in medical manuals can include, for example, a sense of one’s body being heavy and tired, and/or a decreased sense of free will or of possibility (see Ratcliffe, 2015).

‘Mental illness’ is a contested term because there is so much that is mental about (what we call) physical illness, and so much that is physical in (what we call) mental illness. In depression, for instance, people often experience tiredness, and report that their body feels heavy or leaden. Conversely, we usually feel pretty miserable when we have ‘flu. In addition to this, critics claim, ‘mental illness’ buys into mind/body dualism – something that’s increasingly recognised as a mistake, and a damaging one. I’m sympathetic to those concerns, but I don’t think changing the terms is the answer – it’s better to check our understanding of them instead. For the most part, we know how to use terms like ‘mental illness’ well – for example, to ask about a friend’s emotions if she says she is worried about her mental health. And while the boundaries are vague, there seem to be some things that make many ‘mental illnesses’ differ from many ‘physical illnesses’: mental illness is usually diagnosed on the basis of symptoms, for example, and the symptoms are often identical with the illness itself.^[1]

How does your book engage with the Bible?

As you might expect, there’s a lot of ‘proof-texting’ in sin interpretations of mental illness. Here’s one example, from a bestselling Christian self-help book written by two psychiatrists, about anxiety disorders:

Worrying is a choice, since the apostle Paul commands us to ‘be anxious for nothing’ (Minirth and Meier, p. 174).

Likewise, demonic interpretations of mental illness often take as their starting-point the perception that the exorcisms performed by Jesus that are reported in the Synoptic Gospels are about (what we would now call) mental illness.

In order to respond to these, I try to attend more closely to the detail of the texts (it turns out only one exorcism account really seems to relate to mental illness, for example), and consider texts taking into account their original context. Among other things, I think this leads to a less individualistic and more political and social understanding of language of sin and the demonic. It also helps to drive a wedge between being demonically afflicted (possessed or oppressed), on the one hand, and having sinned on the other. There’s pretty much nothing in the Bible to suggest that being demonically afflicted is the result of having oneself sinned as some proponents of demonic interpretations suggest – if anything, the opposite is the case.

In addition to this, I’m also interested in what texts are used or not used in worship. For example, many people with depression report finding the Psalms, and especially the Psalms of Lament, particularly helpful. Perhaps that isn’t surprising, since we know from everyday experience that people sometimes find sad music more comforting than happy music when they themselves are feeling sad – so perhaps there is something consoling about it being ok to have certain feelings, and not being alone when having them.

Some Christian traditions regard happiness as normative, and there’s little space within some forms of worship for feeling anything but joy. People with depression often report that kind of worship making them feel worse, because they can’t participate in the feelings of joy that others have (see e.g. Hilfiker, 2002). I think there’s something important about having biblical texts such as the Psalms of Lament within the context of worship or liturgy, and so making space for a range of different feelings within communal and sacred contexts.

What do you see as the points of connection between gender-based and sexual violence, Christianity, and mental health?

I talk about this quite a bit in chapter 7 of my book. Many Christian traditions are generally good about talking about suffering – but not so good at talking about certain kinds of suffering. In particular, some kinds of suffering seem to be stigmatized. For example, in the Catholic tradition, all the patron saints of rape victims are figures who managed to avoid rape (perhaps by choosing to die instead). That doesn’t send out a very hopeful message to people who didn’t manage to avoid rape. Relatedly, Christians are very happy with the fact that Christ suffered at the crucifixion, but the suggestion that Christ’s suffering involved sexual humiliation has been rejected by some as ‘feminizing’ Christ (see Tombs, 2018). In other words, there are still some kinds of suffering it’s seen as shameful to experience, and where those who experience them are left out in the cold.

That’s important because of course depression and other forms of mental illness are frequently triggered by trauma, including the trauma of rape and sexual abuse. The Christian tradition can be good at offering support and especially a sense of God’s solidarity with those who suffer, whether through belief that God suffers in Godself, or through an emphasis on the suffering of Christ and the saints. However, in excluding certain stigmatized forms of suffering from the life of Christ and the saints, there is a failure to provide solidarity to people who have had certain experiences – and of course that is also a failure to support people who might suffer from mental illness. In other words, churches can be good at providing solidarity with people in the face of some kinds of suffering but not others, and that is relevant to mental illness.

Whether churches have parallel issues about mental illness as they do to sexual violence isn’t clear. There are fewer patron saints of people with mental illness than victims of rape, and so it is harder to say. Some of the saints and holy figures who are patrons – for example, Matt Talbot – had stigmatized problems such as alcoholism. However, perhaps the most famous patron saint of mental illness, St Dymphna, did not herself have a mental illness – her father did. So perhaps there are similar issues: it is harder for people to identify with a figure within the Christian tradition who is a ‘fellow sufferer who understands’ (in A. N. Whitehead’s words), if the kind of suffering you are experiencing is of a stigmatized kind, because there are fewer people held up as ideals who went through that kind of stuff. That means people experiencing depression and people who have experienced sexual violence might not get forms of support from the Christian tradition that would be available to them if they had experienced poverty or a physical illness instead.

References

Hilfiker, David, 2002, ‘When Mental Illness Blocks The Spirit’, available at http://www.davidhilfiker.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=33:when-mental-illness-blocks-the-spirit&catid=14:spirituality-essays&Itemid=24

Minirth, Frank, and Meier, Paul, 1994, Happiness is a Choice: The Symptoms, Causes and Cures of Depression (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker)

Ratcliffe, Matthew, 2015, Experiences of Depression: A Study in Phenomenology (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

Tombs, David, 2018, ‘#HimToo – Why Jesus Should Be Recognised As A Victim Of Sexual Violence’ is available on the Shiloh Project.

^[1] I’m indebted to Simon Hewitt for this thought.

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About this Event:

The Q&A will feature:

Privilege Beyond Bounds: A Response to the Conviction of Jan Joosten

Tasia Scrutton’s research and publication on Christianity and Depression