On Friday 9th May,
a report on the questioning
of The Vatican before the United Nations Torture Committee was released into the public domain at the
same time that calls from within other Christian denominations emerged, from
within The
Protestant Churches and Evangelical Churches, to address their known issues
with reporting and prevention of pedophilia and other acts of mistreatment,
cruelty and serious abuse of children occurring in all settings they were and are
responsible for.
The call was to not do as the Vatican has done, and seek to attempt to manage
or control the ‘crisis’ so as to protect their ‘image’ and ‘status’ which inevitably causes even more
trauma for all survivors.
With regard to the torture
matter, it is really crystal clear to me that every form of indoctrination to which children are subjected that comes with with sanction, punishment, chastisement and reward is a form of psychological torture.
"If you are driven by the threat of eternal torture to be a good
person, you're a frightened person.
To instil, indoctrinate, inculcate or impose upon a
small child's body, mind or psyche the feeling or sensation or thought frame associated with fear of existential punishment, as a psycho-social
structure or some 'moral code', as coercive and violent as it is, is torture.”
This means that the person using such a coercive process upon
a child is frightening the child and a frightened child, quite obviously, will not
see sense in the instruction and the matter will thus require coercion, to
ensure compliance. All for 'the child’s own good', of course. And for the good of
Society.
This is based on a dreadful misperception of the child, which
has been a foundational meme of Christian European culture and indeed Abrahamic cultures for a long, long time, (the
fear of Satan/The Wild in the child that must be tamed at all costs) and it
mirrors all sorts of adverse power relationships that are institutionalised into
our mainstream Societal structures even to this day.
This dynamic mirrors the relationship between Power, Law, the
State, and the Citizen. The power issue is the core of the problem, from the
personal to the Institutional. It is because this Christian-post Christian social
thought map strikes at the heart of one’s sense of self as a vulnerable child
that it has so much power over the adult, especially if the adult has ‘adapted
to fit in’ and is less than fully aware…… with generation after generation ‘adapting to
fit in’ it is easy to see how over time those PTSD patterns become ‘normal
behaviour’.
I will address this aspect a bit further down this piece.
Last week, Democracy
Now reported on these issues, and there was a specific report on the Evangelical
Churches in the USA
which I found very interesting.
The news team interviewed Kathryn Joyce, a reported and researcher, who had
some really interesting comments to make, one of which I wish to point out,
whilst at the same time I recommend listening to the whole Democracy Now report
on
this
link.
JUAN
GONZÁLEZ (newsteam): We turn now to a new
exposé
that asks if the Protestant world is teetering on the edge of a sex-abuse
scandal similar to the one that has rocked the Catholic Church. The person
trying to address the problem may surprise you. As sex-abuse allegations
multiply, it is Reverend Billy Graham’s grandson who is on a mission to
persuade Protestant churches to come clean. Kathryn Joyce’s cover story in
The
American Prospect profiles Boz Tchividjian, a law professor at Liberty University, a school founded by Reverend
Jerry Falwell, and former prosecutor who has worked on many sex-abuse cases. He
used his experience to found an organization called
GRACE:
Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment.
AMY GOODMAN (newsteam): GRACE
made headlines in February when the famous evangelical school, Bob Jones
University, hired it to
interview faculty and students about their experiences with sexual assault,
then fired it before it had a chance to report the results, only to hire it
back after a public outcry. Well, reporter Kathryn Joyce joins us now to
discuss this major exposé, "By Grace Alone: As Sex-Abuse Allegations
Multiply, Billy Graham’s Grandson is on a Mission
to Persuade Protestant Churches to Come Clean." Kathryn Joyce is also the
author of The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of
Adoption and Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement.
and then the interview starts:
Joyce outlines the Grace
case with regard to the Bob
Jones University
and other details she has researched. This part is at 43 minutes on the play
timer. She makes a very point about Authoritarian settings and predatory
behaviour.
AMY GOODMAN:
And the missionary kids?
KATHRYN JOYCE:
And for the missionary kids, these were the subject of GRACE’s two first
investigation, two different very large international missionary groups, where
the children of the missionaries being stationed in foreign countries, known in
Christian culture as MKs, missionary kids, they were enduring just kind of
epidemic levels of sexual abuse in a number of different countries. GRACE’s
reports focused on two in particular, on the New Tribes Mission and their
boarding school in Fanda, Senegal, and also ABWE,
another missionary organization, and what happened on the mission field they
had in the 1980s in Bangladesh.
And two different situations, but a lot of similarities, in some ways, in that
these were both kind of very authoritarian atmospheres where children were
expected to do what any adult kind of in their world was telling them to do,
and this made them, sadly, kind of very vulnerable to abusers who came by.
AMY GOODMAN:
And you’re talking about the missionary kids. What about the people in the
communities they come to, for example, in Senegal
or in Bangladesh?
What happens to them?
KATHRYN JOYCE:
I’m sure that there are stories there, as well. GRACE’s two reports in these
situations focused on what happened to the children of missionaries, but I’m
sure there are even more untold stories in terms of the children already living
there who were, in many ways, much more vulnerable
.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: In some of your
writings, you’ve dealt with the issue of patriarchy and its relationship to
religious thinking. Any sense on your part whether there are structural or
philosophical directions in the churches that allow this kind of stuff to be
covered up?
KATHRYN JOYCE:
Well, I think, absolutely. And obviously, not all very conservative Christians
or all members of the self-described patriarchy movement are going to be
abusive. But reading all of these reports and looking at all of this and
speaking to dozens of people, it kind of does become clear—and GRACE’s
assertion—that a main factor contributing to abuse and the silencing of abuse,
of victims, is authoritarian structures that focus much more on rigid rule
following, on hierarchies within a church or within a community, on the
subordinate role of women and children. And when you have all of these things
coming together alongside a culture that sees it as imperative to cover up mistakes
so that you can still promote the cause of Christ, that you are being a good
evangelical witness, a lot of these things conspire to make abuse not just more
common, but much more invisible.
AMY GOODMAN:
Finally, what most surprised you, Kathryn Joyce, in your investigation?
KATHRYN JOYCE:
Well, I think what surprised me the most was watching in real time this pattern
happen of GRACE going and starting and doing this
investigation, getting a year into it, having spoken to dozens, a hundred of
people, and then having the institution back out. This had happened once before
with the mission group ABWE, and then it happened again
with Bob Jones. And it was very interesting to see that. And it raised this
interesting question about whether or not there is a catch-22 at the heart of
GRACE’s incredibly admirable mission, that they are being hired by the groups
that they’re investigating. And I think that that’s a really interesting
question to ponder, but I think we also have to look at their work and say that
this is very well—very much needed.
----------------
“a main factor contributing to abuse and
the silencing of abuse, of victims, is authoritarian structures that focus much
more on rigid rule following, on hierarchies within a church or within a
community, on the subordinate role of women and children.”
Comparison of Social
Behavioural Characteristics of Low and High Nurturant Societies
It provides a peer reviewed anthropological narrative that accurately describes a variety of emergent social or cultural structures over time and distance, ranging from Egalitarian Nurturing
Communities to Hierarchically Violent Controlling Communities.
And the same
pattern persists as Kathryn Joyce describes : that within this range of cultures
the predictor of violence as an emerging trait, or sustained pattern of
behaviour of any given culture was always the degree of disruption to the child
mother bond, and or the degree of control or inhibition imposed on emergent adolescent sexuality and the presence and enforcement of rigid gender power roles.
These are resonant with post
trauma behavioural patterns, where the trauma remains unresolved, where the pain remains, coping with internal pressure or conflict drives much behaviour. From the individual to the collective,
aspects of the coping mechanism or strategies are internalised as within the
range of ‘normal’ or expected behaviour. 'Boys don't cry'. 'Women are more empathetic'. 'Boys will be boys'. 'Girls seek out powerful men'.
The
reality is of course that everyone caught up in trauma related social
structures is to some degree affected by the situation, and most will have
internalised aspects of it, it’s negative values and prejudices as part of that
affect, and this makes for some confusion when boundaries are broken what ought
to remain explicit. The roles played out in that dynamic are hardly markers of optimally healthy human behaviour.
Kathryn
Joyce's last point, about what can happen when Survivors groups get too close to
the Institutions whose intent to remain and retain their power, and is less
than honourable, is also very interesting, because there is a fairly well
documented history of Institutions who are liable for harms caused offering an
apparent ‘olive branch’ to survivors, where it becomes clear that the intended primary
beneficiaries of that ‘olive branch’ is those proffering it.
That there is a
pattern of powerful institutions manipulating Survivors groups, individual
survivors and NGOs through offering forms of ‘support’ favoured by the
Hierarchy of that Institution.
I think
that Survivors groups need and deserve more support - and respect!- from the wider
Society in confronting this situation, a necessary confrontation which has been
in full flow in the public domain for nearly 30 years of public reporting of
allegations, on matters than have been harmfully adverse for many hundreds
of thousands of children … it’s narrative of Power and abuse matters for
all of us, and how we deal with it will be part of the estate we pass on
through inheritance. We intend to give this the focus, energy and commitment it
demands.
Kathryn
Joyce (And Democracy Now as ever) also bringing a much needed clarity and calm,
a de-hyping of the story, a humanisation of the narrative, which is maturing
the discourse and is therefore incredibly
valuable.
The main
element I wish my readers to take up in why I wrote this piece, is to look at
the Kathryn Joyce’s description of how an Authoritarian situation is that much
more vulnerable because it has within it many of those compliance behaviour
dynamics that suit predatory activity, where there is fear of The Hierarchy as
much as there is respect. That fear permeates the entire issue. And it is all
too often a fear and respect of distal power, a power one cannot touch or see
or even influence, a power that holds life or death power over all.
That fear, that the power of life and death might be exercised upon The
Vatican, drives the irrational behaviour of The Vatican, and for them that fear
is so intense that it makes it rational in their mind-set to do what they are
doing.
That fear
is the largest part of what really drives the ‘support’ The Vatican et al
receive from their adherents, the Faithful. Who would want to lose that careful
illusory safety net that blind faith, in any are of life, creates? Let alone
walk right up to it and say “No! I will not stand for this!”
And it
would be so easy to criticise those people for their compliance with the
Institution, yet the Survivor in me has to go beyond that distaste and anger,
and not to lose either sense, but to integrate them into a larger narrative, of
my own life, and that of the Society into which I was born and into which I
brought my own child, and it is for her and all her contemporaries and their
children and grand children that I must address my actions.
The
psychology, behaviour and outcomes of the activity of the Institutionalised
Authoritarian Culture of Power and how these affect the majority of people
alive to day have to be recognised, observed and understood.
This
psychology and behaviour needs to be observed where it occurs in all hierarchical
behavioural structures, from the personal to the largest collectives.
Transparency must exist in order to prevent such abuse occurring in the future,
starting now. This is the ultimate precondition.
Transparency.
Authoritarianism
breeds the fear that drives secrecy.
Transparency removes it.
Privacy
is not to be conflated with secrecy.
Healthy
boundaries are essential attributes in all living organisms.
Transparency
is not arrived at in an invasive environment of surveillance; it is a choice
that permeates relationships, interactions and outcomes.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe
