‘For our Daughters’ addresses #churchtoo
Documentary from Kristin Kobes Du Mez highlights abuse in evangelical churches.
There are only two times I’ve had an altercation with someone that almost turned physical, and both involved Christians. The first was a screaming match I entered into with a street preacher one Saturday evening in Ann Arbor; he wasn’t from Westboro Baptist Church, but his signs and rhetoric were decidedly Westboro-ish. I tried to talk to him, he screamed in my face, I raised my voice and flipped him the bird, and no one won that argument.
The other time was more personal. It was in my late teens or early twenties. A man I considered one of my best friends, who was also the youth pastor at our church, confessed to me that he was in love with a girl in his youth group. They had been spending a lot of time together and she was “really mature” for her age (he was about 25; she was about 10 years his junior). I told him that, under no circumstances, this had to end. He had to cut off any alone time with her, tell the pastor what happened, and possibly consider quitting his job. Two weeks later, he told me he was still in love and going to just see what God’s will was with this relationship. I pushed back, and we got into a screaming match outside a coffee shop that I feared would come to blows.
I went to the pastor and told him about the relationship. I was assured that the pastor would talk to my friend and to the girl’s mother, and that “this relationship can never happen.” A few years later, still employed at the church, the two were married (full disclosure: that pastor did not officiate, and I do not know whether the pastor knew the relationship was continuing under his nose or if my friend hid it from him until the girl was 18; he was let go from the church shortly after, but I had left by then and am unsure of the reason given).
I don’t pat myself on the back for confronting my friend or going to see our pastor. After all, I was at the wedding. My friend came to me several months before and asked if I would attend. I was eager to bury the hatchet. The girl was now 18. Shouldn’t I acknowledge that God made something of what began as a bad situation? Shouldn’t I let go of any resentment and celebrate that God had led them to true love? Today, he’s the pastor of a church. He’s still married to her, and they have several kids. Shouldn’t I be happy for them?
And yet, I can’t shake that this is a relationship that began when this girl was an impressionable teenager, coming to him for counsel during a time of struggling with deep trauma and personal issues. He was a trusted authority figure, nursing his own recent relationship woes. Evangelical culture stressed that men were leaders and women’s goal was to grow up, get married and pump out babies, and at the time I believed this could be a picture of a God-honoring marriage. Maybe it is – I trust God very well could have worked the best out of this circumstance – but even if nothing sexually untoward happened during that time, I can’t escape that this was still grooming. And while I wish my friend had carried a little more self-awareness and maturity, I also can’t deny he was aided by a church that either didn’t pay attention to what was happening or looked the other way, and emboldened by a wider Christian culture that too often says trust men and be suspicious of women.
This was not an isolated incident. When I was in high school, a friend confided in me that one of our pastor’s sons had groped her; I said it must have been inadvertent or unintentional because he was a “good Christian guy.” When I was in my twenties, the pastor at our church addressed the congregation during a “family meeting” and revealed that our music minister had been caught in adultery with a woman from the choir. To his credit, the pastor immediately fired the music minister, who was never heard from in our church again. The woman? In the name of “church discipline,” she had to stand in front of the entire congregation and tearfully confess intimate details of her life alongside her husband, while the minister never had to look us in the eye. At the time, I thought this was an example of our church doing the right thing. After all, hadn’t she sinned, too? Doesn’t it take two to tango? It was never addressed that this woman had been preyed on by a man who abused his position of authority; he might not have raped her, he might not have forced himself upon her. It was consensual. But the power dynamics were never addressed.
I thought a lot about these stories and the ways they were dealt with, swept under the rug or repositioned as illustrations of redemption during the new documentary short For Our Daughters, presented by Jesus and John Wayne author Kristen Kobes Du Mez (also featured in this year’s God and Country). Building off that book’s concluding chapters, it presents harrowing and gut-wrenching stories of abuse in evangelical churches and the ways that men in power both preyed on women and, all too often, were emboldened by the congregations in which they served. This newsletter entry is written less as a review and more as a reaction. The documentary is available for free on YouTube as well as at forourdaughters.com.
Toxic Christianity
The short but powerful film focuses on several stories of abuse inside the church at the hands of leaders who were often either restored immediately – to the applause of congregants – or protected by higher-ups, who often went on to shame the victims and leave them powerless. It’s similar to the abuse of children in the Catholic church, much of which is concealed so not to risk damaging the larger institution. As in the stories I described from my own life, they result from both a culture that elevates men above women and positions pastors as infallible celebrities and authorities who must be protected at all costs.
Having grown up in evangelical circles, particularly some stringent Baptist churches, I recognized this culture. I’ve heard sermons and Bible studies where women were told only men had authority and that women should not speak in churches; I once organized a camping trip for our singles group and was chastised for asking my female best friend to share a devotional and lead us in prayer. I’ve talked with female friends who looked me in the eyes and said they never needed to get a career or go to college because their job was just to be a “help mate,” which meant sit home, make dinner and have kids. Shortly after one of my friends was married, his wife told us that her day just consisted of making sure laundry was done, getting dinner ready and making sure that, after a hard day at the office, there was a bowl of ice cream ready if her husband wanted it.
And I’m not denigrating people who strongly feel called to forgo a career so they can stay home and raise kids. We’re a double-income family by necessity, and there have been many times my wife and I have said “it would just be so much easier if one of us were home all day.” It’s a viable and smart choice for families who feel strongly about it and can make it happen. But what was behind the stories above – and what was hammered home to the women in this documentary – is that they only had one role: to serve men. And if you’ve sat in many evangelical churches long enough, you’ve heard the other side of this: a wife’s role is to sexually satisfy her husband, and she’ll be blamed if he cheats. Hell, a single woman will be blamed for causing a man to lust. And while I’ve seen consequences for men who have affairs, there is also an undercurrent of “oh, boys will be boys.” This isn’t helped, as For our Daughters points out, when evangelical culture supports and champions a presidential candidate who is infamous for his affairs, has openly bragged about assaulting women and been found liable for sexual abuse.
But it’s not just that there’s a curdled theology that holds women back from autonomy and authority and relegates them to positions where they have no financial or educational recourse or career support should their husband leave. Evangelical culture also elevates pastors to a role just under Jesus (who, in many churches, is considered just under Paul, but that’s a discussion for another day). We haven’t come far from the days of “I follow Paul, and you follow Apollos”; these days, it’s just, “I follow MacArthur and you follow Driscoll.” Pastors carry a weight of authority that, in the days of social media platform, can now be global in scale.
I love the church I attended in my twenties, and while some of my beliefs and views have changed to the point where I no longer feel it’s the right place for me, I’m thankful for the foundation they laid, and I have a great deal of respect for the pastor who taught me and co-officiated our wedding. But I remember the “Senior Sunday” services where graduating teens stood before the church and were recognized. When their area of study was announced, the church sat in respectful silence, holding their applause until the end. Unless, that was, they announced they were going into the ministry; then the church erupted into cheers (this also happened if they were going into military service). The subtext, intended or not, was clear: every other profession was just a job, but becoming a pastor was the highest honor and worthy of more respect.
And when pastors are treated with that amount of respect, what’s the result? It allows them to manipulate their position as a healer and authority figure to take advantage of people. It gives them an unearned authority in areas outside of faith, allowing them to provide unwise counsel that has disastrous results – such as the pastors who have sent wives back to abusing husbands with directions to submit. And because pastors have such authority and celebrity – and are often seen as crucial to the growth and success of large churches – when they’re caught in sin, the decision is often made to contain the story and protect the leader so the larger institution doesn’t stumble. Offenses are concealed or showcased as opportunities for redemption – and while I’m all for redemption, repentance and healing, the lack of consequences in many of these cases, including the ones showcased in For our Daughters, is disturbing. This is not, of course, isolated to evangelicalism, as we’ve seen in politics and showbusiness. But the spiritual authority granted to these men often puts them on a God-like level, and opposing them and holding them to account is sometimes seen as causing division in the church.
A way forward
Are things getting better? I’d like to think that the fact that more of these cases are being exposed is proof. I know that there seems to be a shift away from these hyper-complementarian denominations and clusters (or maybe the ones who still hold to it are keeping quiet). People are more apt to ask questions. I’m very thankful that my parents were engaged in our church but also unafraid to ask questions and push back on authority when they disagreed; it taught me to have a healthy dose of skepticism toward those in authority and to ask questions when things felt off.
And many churches and denominations are taking steps to prevent abuse and encourage people to report it when it occurs. Our family began attending a new church last year and my wife and I recently volunteered to help with the youth. We’re currently in the middle of a fairly involved process that involves interviews and background checks – and I’m so thankful for that. I’m glad there are protections in place for my children, and I’m glad our leadership has shown themselves humble, trustworthy and open to discussing these difficult issues.
Because thinking back to the title of this short film, I realize that I’m a different person now than I was in my twenties. I’m married and I now have a daughter. I want my wife to be able to serve, thrive and, where she feels called, lead in church, and not have to worry about men abusing positions of power. I want my daughter to grow up learning she’s not a second-class citizen in the eyes of God and that she has authority and autonomy, and the right to scream it from the rooftops if anyone oversteps their bounds. And I want to remember that I am responsible for treating women as the equals they are and, if I observe any offenses, to not delay in addressing and revealing it. I need to be better than I was. So does the church. And I’m thankful this short documentary brought it into the public.