The Nature of Abuse

One of the things I appreciate most about the deconstruction movement is the fact that there’s no one set doctrinal statement.  In general, people tend to be reasonable about most things, and if they are genuinely seeking, many times they arrive at reasonable conclusions. This is different than my past experiences, inside American Evangelicalism, where our doctrinal statements was very fixed and we were extremely convinced that we were absolutely right.  We probably also assumed since we were right, that God was on our side.

In my opinion, this leads to the following problem:

The more a group is convinced that they are right and that God is on their side, the more apt they are to abuse people.  

In local settings, this may look like siding with an abusive husband because they adamantly believe in the hierarchical organization of the family. Churches may ignore the feelings of individuals to accomplish the goals of the organization.  Abuse is usually not intentional, but because the organization comes first, individual concerns are minimized.  On a larger scale, this could look like going to war, or enslaving Africans, or wiping out indigenous people. The more right a group thinks it is and when it believes God is on its side, the more it is willing do damage to the “other,” even when that enemy is an internal enemy.

A sexual abuse victim could become the enemy when admitting that the abuse happened hurts the organization. Victim shaming and denial that abuse happens are all too common in large organizations, especially when they believe they are right, and that God is on their side.  Even people that ask too many questions or challenge the core beliefs of the organization can be seen as not worth the trouble and suffer the abuse of being rejected within their own group.

I’m not saying that nothing good happens inside some of these organizations. I’m sure that almost all of them were formed with good intentions and that some good is able to be accomplished through them. I’m also not saying that all of the people within those organizations are trying to hurt people. But the nature of an organization that is convinced that it is right and that God is on their side will most likely abuse people naturally because of the nature of the situation.

Therefore, let me propose a giant step forward in this problem might simply be to admit that we might be wrong. That was my core concern years ago when I began my deconstruction. I simply opened up to the possibility that’s everything I believed should be subject to question. If my belief was strong enough it would stand up to the inquiry, and it might make me more authentic in the process and less likely to abuse others.

This is really all I’m suggesting. If these organizations need to exist, they need to survive not on their dogma but on their willingness to stay open to new understanding. Genuine concern for the individual needs to take precedence over the survival of the larger organization. We’ve done two much damage in the past and traumatized too many people. It may be time to downsize organizations and start focusing more on the people we originally sought out to help.

Be where you are, be who you are,

Karl Forehand

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