This was buried deep in Rachael's response to Sovereign Grace Ministries. I think it is critically applicable to how we hear victims of institutional abuse. We see this repeated over and over. From President Trump defending his wife-beating press secretary, Rob Porter, to Sovereign Grace Ministries circling the wagons trying to justify ignoring their statutory requirements as mandatory reporters to protect their own.
I think I've gotten the same response here - just because others have had a good experience in the RP church doesn't mean that the church isn't abusive. I'm sure many, many members in SGM had a great experience, but does that really justify ignoring and denying victims of sexual abuse because that wasn't their experience?
I believe the vast majority of RP members are willfully blind to the spiritual abuse that happens in her midst.
Wisdom from Rachel below:
The Evangelical Response
This is not a case of being asked to be “judge and jury”, anymore than any of us were, or ought to have been, “judge and jury” in other instances where similar allegations and concerns were raised against other institutions. What is being asked is that we apply the same level of intellectual honesty and scrutiny that we apply to groups outside our own community where such allegations are made. Given the standard set in Scripture for what a Christian ought to be and in particular a Christian leader, I would suggest this standard ought to be even higher than we require of, say, state universities.
Put simply, what we ought to have done is treat the concerns and allegations expressed as very serious. As potentially damaging to the Gospel. As potentially deeply damaging to God’s children. We ought to have truly listened and considered that those close to us could have fallen in serious ways or made serious mistakes. We ought to have to urged and required that serious matters like this be subject to a transparent, public, independent investigation that is conducted by a group the survivors also trust, just as we expect and require such accountability for secular institutions.
Penn State University is a byword for sexual assault scandals. Yet it took Penn State a mere six days to commission a truly independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding Jerry Sandusky. It took Michigan State University an excruciating seventeen months to finally request a similar investigation into the Larry Nassar case. Yet, it has been more than seven years and Sovereign Grace has steadfastly refused this sort of accountability in the face of multiple instances of abuse within the organization – even though they have been asked multiple times to clear the air.
Not only has there been no loving but firm pressure to submit to accountability and openness, the very dynamic I warned about in the Christianity Today article has been repeated. My gospel presentation and offer of forgiveness to my abuser was heralded nationally... until I applied those same principles to my own community of Reformed evangelicals.
The skill, precision, passion for truth and commitment to Christ that received wide acclaim was instantly denigrated as “zeal without knowledge”, “false accusations” and acting “without the facts”, damaging the gospel. Yet not a single person who levied or repeated this accusation asked, even once, what facts or research I had done, before making that judgment regarding me. As soon as I raised concerns about issues in my own community, it was immediately determined by some that none of the abilities and attention to detail I demonstrated to bring Nassar to justice had been utilized in raising concerns with Sovereign Grace. That I was carelessly and ignorantly damaging the gospel that I had been praised for articulating so well and courageously to Larry Nassar two days earlier.
This is institutional and community protectionism. Brothers and sisters, this is it. We need to realize that the reason we are gaining a reputation for handling these situations so poorly is not because people hate the gospel and make up lies about us, but because we have a real problem in how we think about sexual abuse and how we think about our leaders and institutions.
