Janet Heimlich's Blog, page 2

A closer look at the Adrian Peterson case: What does it say about children being raised by African Americans who are also conservative Christians?

Photo by guardianlv.com

While the media seems largely focused on the fact that the Minnesota Vikings finally decided to bench its star running back, a darker, and more important, question is being overlooked:

To what extent did Adrian Peterson’s religious beliefs and cultural background as an African American contribute to him beating and severely injuring his son?

Many details about the case have been well publicized and have not been denied by Peterson: Last spring, he “disciplined” his four-year-old son at his Houston home by stuffing leaves in his mouth and hitting him repeatedly with the branch of a tree or “switch.” The “whooping” resulted in the boy sustaining lacerations on his legs, arms, buttocks, and genitals. The injuries were reported by a doctor after the boy’s mother took him for a previously scheduled appointment. Upon questioning, the child told his mother that Peterson “likes belts and switches and has a whooping room.”

After intense public pressure, the cancelation of a major NFL sponsor, apparent threats by other companies to cancel sponsorship, and the news that Peterson had been accused of abusing another son in 2013 (Peterson was not charged in that case), the NFL changed course. Instead of simply suspending Peterson from two games, which they had decided to do when the indictment was made public, officials barred him from all team activities. Some surmise that he will never again wear a Vikings jersey.

It probably was not helpful to Peterson’s cause that after the initial slap on the wrist, he sent out this tweet, indicating that God was on his side.

If you could only see how God views you! Just understand that you are a Mighty Vessel that God Chose to do Great things… You were built to go through and leave the state of a Rock and become a Diamond… Don’t allow any Distractions to knock you off Course! Pray and Keep Moving! God Bless!

There’s no doubt that the 29-year-old Peterson considers himself a Christian. His Twitter feed is peppered with religious proclamations and snapshots of Bible verses. He seems to wholeheartedly believe that children should be disciplined using physical punishment. What’s more, it’s likely that his religious beliefs—and his African American background—have fueled his intense ideology about the need to control children’s behavior in this way.

Corporal punishment among conservative Christians

Americans overall have been spanking less and less. The percentage of parents who favor corporal punishment has dropped from 84 percent in 1986 to about 70 percent in 2012. Many Christians choose not to spank their kids. In fact, those who opt for more peaceful parenting approaches are quick to point out that, according to the Bible, Jesus never advocated that children should be taught respect through hitting. On the other hand, conservative Christians tend to believe that their religion requires them to spank. Many justify this choice by referencing numerous passages in the Book of Proverbs that condone using “the rod” to discipline children.

For example, Proverbs 23:13—14 states: “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish them with the rod, they will not die. Punish them with the rod and save them from death.”

Some Christians also see the need to use corporal punishment to correct children’s inherent “sinfulness.” Days after Peterson was indicted on child abuse charges, a psychologist and minister of the conservative Christian organization Focus on the Family wrote an op-ed in Time magazine declaring,

Unfortunately, each of us enters this world with desires that are selfish, unkind, and harmful to others and ourselves. Spanking, then, can be one effective discipline option among several in a parents’ tool chest as they seek to steer their children away from negative behaviors and guide them toward ultimately becoming responsible, healthy, happy adults.

Does this mean that conservative Christians are more likely to abuse their children than other parents? No. However, a vast majority of child abuse is delivered in the midst of adults using corporal punishment. And children are more likely to be injured when parents use corporal punishment frequently or use implements to spank children.[1] Then there is the dangerous potential that exists in some households where parents are ardent followers of Christian leaders who promote spanking. Tragically, three children have died at the hands of adoptive parents who followed the advice of controversial Tenneesse preacher Michael Pearl. (All parents and Pearl are white.)

Corporal punishment among African Americans

Similarly, African Americans in the US also tend to rely heavily on the use of corporal punishment. One  that looked at the childrearing of kindergartners shows that 89 percent of black parents spanked compared to 79 percent of white parents. According to a New York Times op-ed written by Georgetown University Sociology Professor and author Michael E. Dyson, the belief among African Americans that they must discipline their children using physical punishment is inherited from the days of slavery.

The lash of the plantation overseer fell heavily on children to whip them into fear of white authority. Terror in the field often gave way to parents beating black children in the shack, or at times in the presence of the slave owner in forced cooperation to break a rebellious child’s spirit. Black parents beat their children to keep them from misbehaving in the eyes of whites who had the power to send black youth to their deaths for the slightest offense.

Dyson goes on to say, “If beating children began, paradoxically, as a violent preventive of even greater violence, it was enthusiastically embraced in black culture, especially when God was recruited. As an ordained Baptist minister with a doctorate in religion, I have heard all sorts of religious excuses for whippings.”

Defending Peterson

This association might explain why a number of black athletes have come to Peterson’s defense, often stating that the kind of beating Peterson gave his son is not all that uncommon among blacks. NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley has said corporal punishment is a way of life among the black, southern culture. “Whipping, we do that all the time. Every black parent in the South is going to be in jail under [Peterson’s] circumstances,” Barkley stated in an interview on NFL Today.

On a New York radio broadcast, Lions running back Reggie Bush said he and many of his friends were punished in the same way as Peterson chose to do with his son and that he would “harshly” punish his one-year-old daughter if need be. “I definitely will try to—will obviously not leave bruises or anything like that on her,” Bush said. “But I definitely will discipline her harshly depending on what the situation is.” Initially Bush said he’d consider using a switch but then said he misspoke. “I said spanking,” he said. “Spanking is different than a branch or a stick.”

Peterson’s tweets of passages from the Bible seem to indicate that this type of discipline is the norm in his household and the community of his upbringing and implies that God himself has given Peterson the authority to abuse his children. Although Peterson has since shown remorse for his actions, he has also repeatedly defended his decision to “discipline” his child, calling it an act of love. On the day of his indictment, he told investigators, “I feel very confident with my actions because I know my intent.”

It’s safe to say the conversation about the morality of corporal punishment is not over. Unfortunately, it took a high-profile case of severe child abuse to begin a meaningful public discussion on this topic. But in addition to debating the pros and cons of physical punishment, we should also examine the religious and cultural roots of spanking among conservative Christians and in the African American community. Only then do we have a chance to protect children such as the son of Adrian Peterson.

Janet Heimlich is the author of “Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment” (Prometheus Books) and Executive Director of the Child-Friendly Faith Project.

[1] Janet Heimlich, Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment (Prometheus Books, 2011) p. 76, 78.

What does a victim of child sexual abuse look like? Don’t ask Christianity Today.

An embarrassing apology published by Christianity Today shows that leaders in the faith community still have a lot to learn about child sexual abuse.

The readers of Christianity Today have taught the magazine a lesson—they know more about child sexual abuse then its editors do.

Last Monday, CT published an article on its Leadership Journal website written by an unnamed pastor who is serving time in prison on sexual abuse charges. The article, entitled “From Youth Minister to Felon: My spiral of sin destroyed my life and ministry,” was intended to prevent abuse. Instead, however, it showed that CT editors can be just as insensitive to victims of abuse as many religious leaders have been.

The youth minister writes that he was hired by his church to oversee a dwindling youth group and brags that, under his leadership, the youth group grew significantly. As the church began making plans to expand its facilities and build a gym, the man thought, “I had no doubt that God had called me to the position and that he had even greater things in store for the ministry and for me.”

The pastor goes on to explain that he began an inappropriate relationship with someone whom he later identifies as a female student in his youth group:

The “friendship” continued to develop. Talking and texting turned flirtatious. Flirting led to a physical relationship. It was all very slow and gradual, but it was constantly escalating. We were both riddled with guilt and tried to end things, but the allure of sin was strong. We had given the devil far more than a foothold and had quenched the Holy Spirit’s prodding so many times, there was little-to-no willpower left. We tried to end our involvement with each other many times, but it never lasted. How many smokers have quit smoking only to cave in at the next opportunity for a cigarette? We quit so many times, but the temptation of “one more time” proved too strong. Like David, my selfishness led to infidelity.

The pastor never uses the word rape or victim or groom. Instead, he refers to their relationship as an “extra-marital affair” and describes her as being just as culpable as he was. In fact, he doesn’t once question his responsibility as an authority figure or the role that power played in the “affair.” Instead, he blames the devil for his actions, as well as his wife and children, as “the realities of parenthood and marriage were sinking in, and I felt unappreciated at home.”

Now that he is behind bars, the man bemoans the fact that his life is ruined. After he was found out, his wife left him and took their two children. He lost his job and had to drop out of seminary, and he will be a registered sex offender “for the rest of my life,” he wails.

None of this is surprising. A hallmark trait of child sexual abusers is to blame others for their actions, most often their victims. They typically fail to take responsibility for committing abuse. On the contrary, they see themselves as victims. What is surprising, however, is that the editors of CT, in publishing the article, seemed clueless in not recognizing these telltale signs.

Readers, however, knew exactly what had been going on and spotted Christianity Today‘s failure to see it. In one of the few critical comments the magazine has allowed to remain on the site, a female pastor writes:

I’m shocked and horrified to read this author’s assertion that he had an “extramarital affair” with a teen. It is not an “affair” when he is in a position of power and authority over her – it is abuse. It is sexual abuse, and it is abuse of power and authority. I see nothing in this that is brave or courageous – he hides behind the shield of anonymity and avoids direct responsibility for taking advantage of a young woman. . . . When will the church stop spilling ink on the abusers and give time and energy to hearing the stories of those they abused?

“Stop publishing pieces that use the excuse ‘the devil made me do it.’ This is a triggering piece that focuses on the losses of the abuser, not the harm perpetuated by his horrible abuse. NOT OKAY,” commented another reader.

“You know what’s interesting?” wrote Libby Anne, in a Patheos blog that was picked up by Time, “Tim [her pseudonym for the pastor] doesn’t even bother discussing how this ‘extra-marital affair’ affected his young victim. He talks about how his life came crashing down, but he doesn’t spare another word for his ‘friend.’ Literally—not a single word. He left his victim with a shattered life and only seems to care about the fact that he lost his ministry.”

Samantha Field, a blogger and rape survivor who notes that her rapist is now a youth pastor, described her visceral reaction to reading the Leadership Journal post: “I have tried many times over the past few days to make my way all the way through it, but I can’t. It . . . it sound like him. My rapist. It is exactly what my rapist will say when he rapes one of the girls in his care, if he is successfully convicted as so very few rapists are.”

Critics demanded that the magazine issue an apology; many circulated the Twitter hashtags “#TakeDownThatPost” and “#TakeDownThisPost.” But rather than removing the article, CT simply posted an author’s note at the end of the piece:

In response to readers’ concerns, the author of this piece has offered the following clarification: “I recognize that what I initially considered a consensual relationship was actually preying on a minor. Youth pastors who do the same are not ‘in relationship’ but are indeed sexual predators. I take 100 percent of the responsibility for what happened.”

It seemed as though the editors at CT were moved to only request that the now-prisoner make a couple corrections. Or perhaps they wrote the “clarification” themselves and then asked the inmate if they could publish it. Either way, critics were less than impressed that the magazine’s response was to give the pastor-rapist yet more page space. “A ‘clarifying’ author’s footnote hardly cancels out five still-standing pages suggesting and flat-out asserting the polar opposite,” blogged Suzannah Paul. “Also alarmingly, the article is tagged for these ‘related topics’: accountability, adultery, character, failure, mistakes, self-examination, sex, and temptation.”

Finally, five days after the post first appeared, editor Marshall Shelley and CT president and CEO Harold B. Smith published this apology:

We should not have published this post, and we deeply regret the decision to do so.

The post, told from the perspective of a sex offender, withheld from readers until the very end a crucial piece of information: that the sexual misconduct being described involved a minor under the youth pastor’s care. Among other failings, this post used language that implied consent and mutuality when in fact there can be no quesiton [sic] that in situations of such disproportionate power there is no such thing as consent or mutuality.

The post, intended to dissuade future perpetrators, dwelt at length on the losses this criminal sin caused the author, while displaying little or no empathic engagement with the far greater losses caused to the victim of the crime and the wider community around the author. The post adopted a tone that was not appropriate given its failure to document complete repentance and restoration.

There is no way to remove the piece altogether from the Internet, and we do not want to make it seem that we are trying to make it disappear. That is not journalistically honest. The fact that we published it; its deficiencies; and the way its deficiencies illuminate our own lack of insight and foresight, is a matter of record at The Internet Archive (https://web.archive.org/web/201406131...).

Any advertising revenues derived from hits to this post will be donated to Christian organizations that work with survivors of sexual abuse. We will be working to regain our readers’ trust and to give greater voice to victims of abuse.

We apologize unreservedly for the hurt we clearly have caused.

Perhaps some victims of abuse will appreciate the fact that CT won’t keep any of the money it made from publishing the post and its vow to give them “greater voice.” But I imagine many are doubtful that the magazine truly “gets” it. What the editors should do is clear: become educated about child sexual abuse.

Religious organizations have repeatedly failed victims by refusing to report such crimes. Faith leaders have claimed ignorance about being able to recognize abuse or even know that it’s illegal. As I point out in Breaking Their Will, Vatican documents that discuss clergy-perpetrated abuse refer to the act as sinning “with” a minor not “against” a minor, indicating a presumption that victims are not really victims, but accomplices. And now we have the country’s foremost Christian publication unable to see a victim in a story they chose to publish, even as the abuse is being described in textbook fashion.

 If they truly want to “dissuade future perpetrators” of child sexual abuse, the editors of Christianity Today must first learn how to recognize it.

A very cool way to give

Want to donate to a worthy cause and ensure that your funds won’t be used to further the agenda of a religious organization? Looking for an easy way to give money to groups that are hand-selected by a team of intelligent, caring humanists? Would you like to go to just one place to check out a different set of charities to donate to each quarter?

Dale McGowan

If so, then look no further than Foundation Beyond Belief. The organization was founded by Dale McGowan who has edited and authored books on nonreligious parenting and other subjects. In 2008, he was named Harvard Humanist of the Year by the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University. Two of his books are Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers.

Foundation Beyond Belief is a 501(c)(3) charitable foundation created to focus, encourage, and demonstrate humanist generosity and compassion. Each quarter, FBB offers its members five organizations to which they can donate funds that cover five causes: education, poverty and health, human rights, the “natural world,” and “challenge the gap.” Watch this video to learn more. This last category, “challenge the gap,” offers humanists a way to give to progressive, faith organizations that promise positive change without proselytizing.

I am pleased to say that this quarter, my nonprofit the Child-Friendly Faith Project was selected for this category. The mission of the CFFP is to end child abuse and neglect that is enabled by religious belief and other ideologies. We do this by educating clergy, religious administrators, and professionals who affect children’s lives, such as social workers, law enforcement, and teachers.

Last year, we held our first conference where audiences heard from some of the country’s foremost experts on children’s issues. Currently, we are developing a unique program that supports faith communities in their efforts to not only improve abuse prevention policies but examine the “child-friendliness” of the ways they teach faith to children and childrearing to parents.

Please consider becoming a member of the Foundation Beyond Belief and donating to the Child-Friendly Faith Project and its other great beneficiary organizations.

Janet Heimlich is a former freelance reporter for National Public Radio, the author of Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Childmaltreatment, and the founder and president of the Child-Friendly Faith Project.

Proving Richard Dawkins wrong

Dr. Richard Dawkins

I am a fan of Richard Dawkins. I admire him as a biologist, as a straight-talking atheist, and as an advocate for victims of religious child maltreatment. He devotes a chapter in The God Delusion to the religious abuse of children. In June, I had the honor to be introduced by him at the American Humanist Association conference in San Diego where I spoke on a panel that he moderated on the subject of religious fundamentalism and child abuse. Dr. Dawkins praised my book, Breaking Their Will, and stressed how important it is that we recognize that religious belief can be a risk factor in cases of abuse and neglect. I also applaud Dr. Dawkins for personally donating £10,000 toward a fund to build a legal case to prosecute Pope Benedict XVI for his part in the Catholic church covering up cases of child sexual abuse committed by priests.

But I do take issue with a comment he made about child abuse. Actually, it concerns how we should view those who abused children in previous generations. Dr. Dawkins made the comment after he was asked about having been fondled by a  teacher when he was attending boarding school in Salisbury, England, an incident he describes in his memoir An Appetite for Wonder. Calling the molestation “mild pedophilia,” Dr. Dawkins has said that he didn’t think he, nor other boys who experienced the same degree of molestation by the teacher, suffered “lasting harm.” Then he said,

I am very conscious that you can’t condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don’t look back at the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can’t find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today.

This statement leaves me with many questions…Mainly, why on earth can’t we condemn people who have committed despicable acts against children, just because the abuses happened in the past? And if we can’t condemn them by our standards, then just how to are we to judge their actions? To my knowledge, Dr. Dawkins has yet to criticize his abuser for acting immorally. Are we to not judge abusers of the past at all?

The Bible talks about such crimes against children as mass killings, cannibalism, incest, starvation, rape, and sacrifice with little condemnation of those actions. Are we to look back on those abuses and not condemn them, simply because they happened a long time ago? Can we not even say that what happened to those children, as well as what happened to Dr. Dawkins, was wrong?

Ethically speaking, we are a more “evolved” people than those who came before us. That is why we no longer allow racism, caning, and sexual abuse to the same degree that we permitted it years ago.  The way I see it, it would be a travesty not to apply the standards of today in judging abuses of the past. Sure, we can give all kinds of reasons why abuses have occurred before our time. ”My parents did the best they could,” is often what survivors will say. “They didn’t know any better.”

I certainly don’t want to dredge up an issue that Dr. Dawkins would, understandably, like to remain in the past. But then again, he has chosen to talk about the abusive incidents and then justify his perspective by giving a blanket statement about how he thinks we all should assess child abuse that was perpetrated years ago. And that concerns me, for it’s statements like his that make victims feel unsure about reporting abuse. After all, how many victims have talked themselves out of reporting  abuse based on the rationale, “It’s in the past. I don’t have a right to press charges or file a lawsuit.” How many religious organizations have fought changes in statute of limitations laws based on this premise?

Dr. Nicholas Humphrey

When I first read Dr. Dawkins’ position, I so wanted him to budge on the issue, and I hoped to get him to do so by pointing to a lecture given by a man he greatly admires. At one point, the lecturer takes a view that is contradictory to Dawkins’. The lecture—given originally in 1997 in Oxford and as a Pufendorf Prize Lecture at the University of Lund in 2011—is entitled, “What Shall We Tell the Children?” and was delivered by Dr. Nicholas Humphrey. Dr. Humphrey is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the London School of Economics, a visiting professor of philosophy at the New College of the Humanities, and a Senior Member at Darwin College in Cambridge. The talk deals with the immorality of indoctrinating children with religious teachings and failing to criticize cultures that abuse children. (A transcript can be found here.)

To illustrate this last point, Dr. Humphrey refers to an American television program that featured the discovery of the body of a young Inca girl who had been sacrificed about 500 years ago. Dr. Humphrey was infuriated by the way the individuals interviewed on the program discussed the ritualistic killing:

No one expressed any reservation, whatsoever. Instead, viewers were simply invited to marvel at the spiritual commitment of the Inca priests and to share with the girl on her last journey her pride and excitement at having been selected for the signal honour of being sacrificed. The message of the TV programme was, in effect, that the practice of human sacrifice was in its own way a glorious cultural invention—another jewel  in the crown of multiculturalism, if you like.

Dr. Humphrey found the program’s glorification of the sacrifice of the Inca girl to be unconscionable, even though the killing took place hundreds of years ago: “How dare they invite us—in our sitting rooms, watching television—to feel uplifted by contemplating an act of ritual murder?” said Dr. Humphrey. “How dare they invite us to find good for ourselves in contemplating an immoral action against someone else?”

And to top off his point, Dr. Humphrey added,

Immoral? By Inca standards? No, that not what matters. Immoral by ours.

I thought, if I point out to Dr. Dawkins (via the Internet) what Dr. Humphrey concludes, he might then see things differently. As I have said, Dr. Dawkins holds Dr. Humphrey in high regard. He has posted on his own website videos of him interviewing Dr. Humphrey. But then I learned that Dr. Dawkins discusses Dr. Humphrey’s lecture in The God Delusion. In fact, he specifically writes about the comments concerning the sacrificed Inca girl. Excitedly, I pulled out my copy of his book and found the mention in the chapter, “Childhood, Abuse and the Escape from Religion.”

But I was in for a disappointment. Dr. Dawkins omits Dr. Humphrey’s quote about “what matters” and does not comment on his point about using today’s ethical standards to assess morality of those who came before us. Instead, Dr. Dawkins remains consistent with what he would note years later: He includes Dr. Humphrey’s comment criticizing the TV program for glorifying human sacrifice and then writes:

The decent liberal reader may feel a twinge of unease. Immoral by our standards, certainly, and stupid, but what about Inca standards? . . . . The Inca priests cannot be blamed for their ignorance, and it could perhaps be thought harsh to judge them stupid and puffed up.

After receiving tremendous criticism for his failure to denounce the molestation of his youth, Dr. Dawkins put out a statement making clear that he cares about victims of sexual abuse and that it would have been insulting to those who suffered more severe abuse than he did to speak negatively about “my own thirty seconds of nastiness back in the 1950s.” But he did not reflect on his feelings about condemning people who are not our contemporaries.

I’m glad that Dr. Dawkins did not suffer great psychological harm by having been molested. Yet, regardless of the fact that, back in the 1950s, sexual abuse was not discussed as a violation of children’s rights, I have no problem saying that even “mild pedophilia” perpetrated back then was no less wrong than when it occurs today.

Regardless of how abusers and those around them view their actions, victims suffer. They always have, and they always will.

Perhaps if Dr. Dawkins were to reread the words of his colleague and friend Professor Humphrey, he might take a different position. I hope that he does. For if we are not to condemn those who abused children before our time, what hope do we have toward protecting the children of tomorrow?

 

 

 

 

 

Proving Richard Dawkins wrong about religious child abuse of the past

Dr. Richard Dawkins

I am a fan of Richard Dawkins. I admire him as a biologist, as a straight-talking atheist, and as an advocate for victims of religious child maltreatment. On June 1 of this year, I had the honor to meet Dr. Dawkins and be introduced by him at the American Humanist Association conference in San Diego where I spoke on a panel that he moderated. Dr. Dawkins spoke passionately about the crimes raised in my book, Breaking Their Will. Furthermore, he has personally donated £10,000 toward a fund to build a legal case for prosecuting Pope Benedict XVI for his part in covering up cases of child sexual abuse committed by priests.

But I have to call him on a comment he made about child abuse and how we should view the actions of abusers who grew in a different time than we did. In making this statement, Dr. Dawkins was not simply incorrect, he was terribly wrong, as in irresponsible. That is, I feel his statement could have a deleterious affect on how many see victims of religious child maltreatment now and for years to come.

Others have criticized Dr. Dawkins for making this comment, yet he has not admitted that he made a mistake. I aim to get Dr. Dawkins to admit that he did make a mistake by pointing to a lecture delivered by a man Dr. Dawkins holds in high regard. In the lecture, the speaker states a viewpoint that starkly contradicts that of Dr. Dawkins.

The comment made by Dr. Dawkins arose after he was asked about his downplaying of the sexual molestation of his youth as “mild pedophilia” that did not do him or other victims “lasting harm.” Dr. Dawkins stated,

I am very conscious that you can’t condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don’t look back at the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can’t find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today.

I am flabbergasted that such a statement comes from a man who rebukes religious people for being nonsensical, irrational, and sometimes, unethical. We can’t condemn people who were raised at a different time for committing actions against children that would today be considered illegal? Of course we can. We are a more evolved people than those who came before us. The Bible talks about such crimes against children that include mass killings, cannibalism, incest, starvation, rape, and sacrifice. And we are not to judge those who speak about or treat children so abominably? Ridiculous.

Dr. Nicholas Humphrey

But I don’t expect Dr. Dawkins to change his viewpoint based on what I say. Instead, I would like him to consider the words of a Nicholas Humphrey, a man Dr. Dawkins greatly admires. Dr. Humphrey is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the London School of Economics and a visiting professor of philosophy at the New College of the Humanities, as well as a Senior Member at Darwin College in Cambridge. Dr. Dawkins has posted on his website videos of him interviewing Humphrey. Add to that, Dawkins praises a lecture Humphrey gave—one that concerns religious child maltreatment. (A transcript of that lecture can be found here.)

The lecture—delivered by Dr. Humphrey originally in 1997 in Oxford which then was given as a Pufendorf Prize Lecture at the University of Lund in 2011—is entitled, “What Shall We Tell the Children?” The lecture deals with the immorality of indoctrinating children with religious teachings and defending cultures that abuse children for fear that stopping such practices would jeopardize the purity of those cultures. To illustrate his point, Dr. Humphrey talks about a American television program that featured the discovery of a young Inca girl who had been sacrificed about 500 years ago.

Dr. Humphrey is infuriated by the way the individuals interviewed on the program discussed the ritualistic killing:

No one expressed any reservation, whatsoever. Instead, viewers were simply invited to marvel at the spiritual commitment of the Inca priests and to share with the girl on her last journey her pride and excitement at having been selected for the signal honor of being sacrificed. The message of the TV program was, in effect, that the practice of human sacrifice was in its own way a glorious cultural invention—another jewel  in the crown of multiculturalism, if you like.

Despite the fact that the killing of the Inca girl took place hundreds of years ago, Dr. Humphrey finds the program’s glorification of sacrifice to be unconscionable: “How dare they invite us—in our sitting rooms, watching television—to feel uplifted by contemplating an act of ritual murder?” said Dr. Humphrey. “How dare they invite us to find good for ourselves in contemplating an immoral action against someone else?”

And then he adds:

Immoral? By Inca standards? No, that not what matters. Immoral by ours.

After being widely criticized for remarks he made about his own and others’ child abuse, Dr. Dawkins put out a statement making clear that he cares about victims and that it would have been insulting to those who suffered more severe abuse than he did to denounce “my own thirty seconds of nastiness back in the 1950s.” But he did not provide further explanation of, or a correction to, his statement about refusing to condemn abusers who are not our contemporaries.

Perhaps if Dr. Dawkins were to read the words of his colleague and friend Professor Humphrey in his “What Will We Tell the Children?” lecture, he might reconsider his position. I hope that he does. For if we are not to condemn those before us for abusing children, what hope do we have for protecting the children of tomorrow?

 

 

 

 

 

What Can Atheists Do about Religious Child Maltreatment?

I’ve been talking about religious child maltreatment for a while now. Our closed Facebook group has grown to more than 350 members and has become a supportive and safe place for survivors and others to share ideas and feelings. My book Breaking Their Will is still selling. All good stuff, right?

That question deserves to be met with a shrug. No, it’s not enough, because there is so much else we can do to save a child’s psyche, body, and life. But I’m not going to provide an overwhelming list of ways to stop these abuses, because the way I see it, there’s truly only one way to really get at the problem: Atheists and faith leaders need to talk.

Wait, don’t click away yet, non-believers. Let me explain why this partnership has to take place and why you are a big part of solution.

As I said before, I’ve been speaking on the subject of religious child maltreatment for some time, and a glance at my speaking schedule shows what groups have been most eager to have me come talk about this topic. While some religious organizations have extended invitations, I have been welcomed by atheist groups more than any other by far. I can think of all kinds of reasons why this would be, but the fact remains, atheists are willing to learn about religious child maltreatment more than any other group. And that’s commendable. I live with these cases of psychological and physical torture and death every day, and it’s not for the faint of heart. So, thank you, atheists, for taking the time and paying the money and whatever else you do to learn about this god-awful and hellish subject.

Still, though, it’s not enough, and the reason is clear: In speaking to atheist groups, I’ve been preaching to the choir. Instead, activists must preach to the preachers.

What I mean is, atheists should put aside their theological differences, focus on common goals, and sit down with faith leaders and teach them about religious child maltreatment. Why faith leaders? Because they can have a direct impact on perpetrators, the ones who need to learn about healthy alternatives to raising kids. After all, isn’t this how these problems get started in the first place, with pastors, rabbis, imams and cult leaders telling parents how to treat their children?

I propose we use that powerful force for good, so, atheists, I ask you to have a heart-to-heart with members of the clergy. You, atheists, who rarely need it to be explained that religious child maltreatment is a serious problem; who know we can’t accomplish much with just a lot of hand-wringing; and who want to see change happen to stop child abuse and neglect enabled by ideology and ignorance. I ask you to encourage faith leaders to teach parents about compassionate childrearing and to use healthy disciplinary techniques in ways that would bring a smile to the face of any child development expert.

A few more specific ideas:

1) Register for my nonprofit’s conference. This is a first of its kind event where clergy, lawyers, social workers, pediatricians, teachers, and anyone else who cares about kids will come together and talk about child maltreatment that occurs in faith communities and cultural groups. There will be a great party the night before!

2) Contact religious leaders, any religious leaders, and see if they want to learn what child-friendly faith is all about. Give them a copy of my book or pass on their names to me and I’ll send them a copy. Tell them I’ll speak at their place of worship for free in person or over Skype.

3) Forward this email to others you think might want to take part in this educational movement.

I, myself, have been reaching out to faith leaders. Next week, I’ll be meeting with clergy groups to see if they’ll partner with my nonprofit organization. And you know, I think some of them will rise up and agree to be part of the solution, whether that means leading workshops, speaking at our conferences, reaching out to problematic faith communities, or just agreeing to learn more about the issue.

The conversation about religious child maltreatment has begun, largely in part to the atheist community. Now it’s time to get the message to those who can instruct the pious on how to treat their children with compassion and understanding.

Justice for Hana and Immanuel

Hana Williams

I usually don’t follow criminal trials very closely, but I did in the case of Hana and Immanuel Williams. In 2008, the two had been adopted from Ethiopia by Larry and Carri Williams. The couple brought the girl and boy to live with them and their seven biological children in their gated-community home in Sedro-Woolley, Washington. Hana was estimated to have been ten years of age when she was adopted. Immanuel was seven.

Three years later, Hana was dead due to hypothermia that was aggravated by malnutrition. Immanuel also suffered abuse but survived.

When the jury returned to the standing-room-only courtroom last night, I set my Twitter page to search for “#Williamstrial” and refreshed the page every minute. And I wasn’t alone. I had joined a 4700-member Facebook group set up to memorialize Hana. Here, members were also glued to Twitter, posting information as it came in.

“Courtroom benches are PACKED. Row of people standing in the back. Still just waiting,” tweeted Gina Cole, a reporter with the Skagit Valley Herald. Also: “Larry and Carri just locked eyes. Depending on verdicts and sentences, it could be one of their last looks for a long time.”

I first learned about the case when Larry and Carri Williams were arrested on murder charges in September of 2011. I happened to be in Seattle at the time giving talks about religious child maltreatment. Seattle is about an hour away from where the family lived. The details of the case were startling: Hana died in the backyard of the family’s home. She was grossly underweight and had been left outside on a very cold night for hours. The eight surviving children had been removed by Child Protective Services.

After reading  witness accounts and news reports, I began picking up on some familiar-sounding details: Larry and Carri Williams expected complete obedience of their children, especially of Hana and Immanuel. The parents were devout Christians who home schooled their children. They played audio recordings of Bible verses and Christian music during punishments, and there was talk in the household of Hana being possessed by demons. Also, investigators found in the home To Train Up a Child.

I know that book well. It’s a parenting guide written by Tennessee preacher Michael Pearl who operates a website called No Greater Joy. To Train Up a Child has been harshly criticized for its reliance on physical punishment of children. I had written about Pearl in my book, Breaking Their Will. While I was in Seattle, a local TV station interviewed me about the Pearl angle of the Williams case. Later, I would blog about Pearl and appear with him in a video debate on a Christian website.

Hana was not the first child to die in a home run by followers of Michael Pearl. Both 4-year-old Sean Paddock and 7-year-old Lydia Schatz had been killed by adoptive parents who had had a copy of To Train Up a Child in their homes and had used similar techniques advocated by Pearl. Those techniques included being whipped with 1/4-inch-wide plumbing line, a form of torture that both Hana and Immanuel Williams also suffered.

According to witness statements and court testimony, Carri and Larry Williams were obsessed with child obedience. When investigators interviewed their biological children, they noted that they appeared to be strangely cheery and were often looking at their parents, as if to be sure they answered questions the way their parents wanted them to. All children risked punishment if they disobeyed their parents’ orders. One sibling told investigators that if Immanuel was not doing a chore as instructed, he would “get the switch on his hands.” If Hana would get “switched” if she did not stand within twelve inches of a designated spot.

The children suffered other punishments, as well, according to witness accounts and news report. Immanuel has a medical condition that made it difficult for him to control his bladder, and when he wet his pants, he was rebuked and made to clean himself outside with a garden hose as punishment. He and Hana were made to sleep in a locked shower room when they were perceived to be rebellious. Hana was forced to stay in a locked closet with a light switch on the outside. Sometimes, she had to sleep in a barn, even in cold temperatures. She and her brother were denied food or fed food that was inedible, such as wet sandwiches or frozen food. Sometimes, the emaciated Hana was punished for stealing food.

Larry and Carri Williams claimed they were innocent due to ignorance. They testified that they didn’t know that their adoptive daughter had dropped thirty pounds. Each said that the other was responsible for disciplining the children. Carri Williams called Hana “oppositional,” that she was repeatedly disobedient and out of control. Larry, who was at work on the evening that Hana died, said that he had objected to beating the children because he could see that it didn’t change Hana’s behavior. At one point, he admitted to hitting his adopted son on the bottom of his feet at Carri’s urging. “I couldn’t do it again,” said Larry. “Just the one time, because I didn’t think it was appropriate.”

In the end, both parents were found guilty of manslaughter and child abuse. In addition, Carri was found guilty of the more serious crime of homicide by abuse. The judge will decide the sentencing. Both the Williams’s could be sentenced to life in prison.

Like many others, I breathed a sigh of relief when I learned of the verdicts. I wanted these parents to never have physical contact with their children while they were minors. I wanted this man and woman to experience what it was like to be kept confined in a place where the rules are strict and danger is always lurking. I wanted their children to have a chance to be cared for by people who allowed them to be who they were, to express their own, true feelings, and feel safe. Those children now have that chance. Members of the Facebook group to honor Hana are talking about starting a trust fund for Immanuel and paying for a special tombstone for Hana’s grave.

But Hana is dead, leaving us all to wonder what could have been done to prevent these crimes. Advocates for thoughtful adoption are blogging about what went wrong. Family members and friends saw signs that there were problems. One family notified Child Protective Services, letting them know that the parents were not bonding with their adopted children and the Williams’s were “rigid and structured in raising their family.” According to the police records that contained the family’s statements, “At no time did this family ever hear Carri or Larry Williams praise these children in their presence.” Others were mum even when told of disturbing information.

Could CPS have stopped the abuses? Were family members and friends who failed to make reports convinced that a parents who were so religiously devout were not capable of torture and killing their adopted children?

In light of the convictions, many of Hana’s supporters are only glad that justice was served. Last night, a member of the Facebook group asked for a moment of silence “wherever we are, for sweet Hana…Child, you are loved and will never be forgotten.”

 

More than she could bear

Nina Koistinen

By now you’ve probably heard about the case of Nina Koistinen. She’s the 36-year-old mother from Phoenix who has been charged with first-degree murder after she confessed to suffocating her newborn baby, Maya. Koistinen reportedly told authorities that she killed Maya six days after giving birth to her, because she “had too many kids already” and was jealous of the attention her husband was giving the baby.

It was her husband, Bradley Koistinen, who found the lifeless infant and alerted authorities. At his wife’s initial court appearance, he explained that his wife was suffering from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and depression. “We have tried for years and years to manage it,” he said. He also noted that his wife of fifteen years “has been the greatest mother” who “has never hurt any of our kids.”

It might then seem appropriate to blame the murder on mental illness. Some might blame Child Protective Services, since they had known about Koistenin’s unstable mental state for some time. In interviews with social workers, Koistinen said she had thought about smothering her children and wanted them “to go to heaven in a vehicle accident that appeared intentional.”

But there is much more to the story. I oversee a closed Facebook group, called “Child-Friendly Faith.” Its members are committed to raising awareness of, and eradicating, religious child maltreatment. As it turns out, a couple of our members know quite a bit about the Koistinens, because the members came from the same Laestadianistic church the couple belongs to.

I had never heard of Laestadianism. It’s a conservative Lutheran revival movement that started around the 1850s in Nordic countries. Today, it is estimated to have 144,000 and 219,000 members worldwide. One of the hallmarks of the fundamentalist branch of the Laestadianist faith—one which the Koistenins’ church is a part of—is that members are encouraged to have large families and even told they will go to hell if they use birth control. Maya was the Koistinen’s ninth child.

Andrea Yates

The case is a tragic reminder of another high-profile case. In 2001, a Houston housewife with a known history of mental illness named Andrea Yates drowned all five of her young children. Yates and her husband were devout, conservative Christians who vowed on their wedding day not to use birth control and bear as many children “as God would provide.” Yates’ religious fears greatly propelled her to murder her children. While in prison, Andrea told a psychiatrist that she had considered killing her children for two years out of intense fear and guilt. “It was the seventh deadly sin. My children weren’t righteous. They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them, they could never be saved. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell,” she said.

Like the Yates’s, the Koistenins continued to have one child after the other, despite the mother’s deteriorating mental state. Why? If you listen to former members of the couple’s church, it seems likely that church leaders and congregants put subtle but influential pressure on the couple to have as many children as they physically could.

As one former Laestadian blogger writes, “This tragedy was entirely preventable. Those of us with Laestadian backgrounds know why a mother with mental illness continues to have children, and why a father aware of his wife’s mental illness would not use birth control.” The blogger’s post includes an audio clip of a sermon given in the church the Koistenins attended. During the sermon, the pastor acknowledges that women who have many children can become “very tired.” But, he adds, the duties of raising many children are “all part of the life of a believing family,” and he intimates that mothers who question whether they can do what the church wants them to do may not be pious enough. Furthermore, he appears to rebuke women who sneak birth control.

[17:58] There are questions that come and doubts come as well that, how can I raise these children when it feels like there is so little time in the day? . . . . Even the enemy may raise doubts in our minds. And he may even then, during those busy times of life, come with this kind of sermon that you know there are ways that you can not have children, that there are ways that you control the number of children you have. There have been these kinds of occasions where the enemy has tempted some with practicing birth control. It is not according to God’s word, it is not according to the teaching of God’s kingdom.

Comments written after a news report on the Koistenin case by former members of their church (a number of which have since been removed) also reveal the trappings of an unhealthy, authoritarian community that is not only harmful to families in which a parent is mentally ill, but all families.

“I too was raised in that wacky church!!  It IS a very scary place yet subtle in a strange sort of way. It is absolutely a CULT,” one person writes. “The ONLY way that church grows is mostly through the lack of birth control. They mostly get married in their teens and start-a-breeding.  Then once the kids are born, the indoctrination begins !!!!”

Another individual writes, “Families are not allowed to stop having children even if you feel you have enough & cannot take care of them.” Someone else notes that children in the church are often taken care of by other children.

Another comment is written by a woman who was a member of the church for more than twenty years and knew Koistenin since she was a child. The writer explains that using birth control is considered to be a sin in the church. “Whether you like sex, don’t like sex, want kids, or don’t want kids, it’s just one of their beliefs. And they know if you are cheating and using birth control. If you don’t have kids, you would be suspect, absolutely,” she writes. The woman goes on to say that Koistenin “was a beautiful little girl,” but because of the fear-based teachings of the church, “This girl was trapped. I feel she was in a prison of her own, internally, and she basically couldn’t take it anymore, and she snapped like a twig.”

When asked about such accusations, church pastor Eric Jumu defended his teachings: “God created Nina with her mental illness. He gave her all the children she could bear. And if she couldn’t handle more kids, God would’ve closed her womb.”

The cases of Nina Koistenin, Andrea Yates, and others reveal some important lessons. First, the mentally ill are particularly susceptible to fear tactics employed by religious authorities. Also, due to the perceived need to grow the flock, religious authoritarian cultures often pressure parents to have, and adopt, many children, while showing little regard for how such teachings affect families.

We have to do a better job of taking care of the mentally ill, and we need to better fund Child Protective Services so that social workers can better protect children from abuse. But we also have to examine just what is going on in authoritarian faith communities that try to convince parents that their eternal salvation depends on them giving birth to, and taking in, more children than they can handle.

A survivor of religious child maltreatment becomes an advocate for children who suffer today

Liz Heywood grew up in the Christian Science Church outside of Boston, the church’s headquarters. When she was a teenager, she developed a serious bone infection in her knee. Her family, all members of the Christian Science Church, arranged for her to receive faith healing. No one took her to see a doctor, even as she suffered intense pain and was unable to walk. After being bedridden for a year, her leg was deformed and, eventually, had to be amputated above the knee. This article is the first of a series that features survivors of religious child maltreatment who have not only pursued their own psychological healing, but have also chosen to speak out to protect children who currently suffer abuse and neglect in the name of religion. Liz’s blog and website can be found here.

I imagine that when you were growing up in the Christian Science Church, everything seemed normal, including the faith healing rituals and the peculiar way the church perceives illness. That is, that illness is not real but, rather, an illusion of the mind. Did you believe its teachings as a child and perhaps worship Mary Baker Eddy?

I was very thoroughly indoctrinated as a kid. I was born at home and only had the minimum school vaccinations required under the religious exemption. My parents each had a sister who had a so-called “miraculous healing” in childhood after their mothers converted to Christian Science. We lived within twenty miles of the Christian Science “Mother Church” in Boston. In the 1970s, the church had lobbied to make it legal in Massachusetts and other states to pray for children rather than seek medical attention. This was all normal to me. I never considered it peculiar to view sickness or injury as a “mortal belief” as we did. I was terrified by the idea of having medical treatment, because that implied giving up on God and prayer, which meant choosing to suffer, choosing to be wrong, ignorant, and mortal. I never had the sense of worshipping Mary Baker Eddy, but we honored her far beyond what was reasonable. We swallowed all the contradictions of her teachings, including the idea that getting eyeglasses and dental work were acceptable, while being treated for other medical conditions was not.

What do you have to say to modern-day apologists of the Christian Science Church who say what you experienced forty years ago was extreme and alien to the real intent of the church?

It simply isn’t true. I was a faithful member until the early 1990s, when I was in my early thirties, and even then there was this undercurrent of very devout belief that insisted only this specific form of prayer could heal and only if there was “no mixing” with medicine. I never questioned this until I had a child of my own. I think I clung to the church the way a young, extremely idealistic soldier will refuse to speak out against a war, even after suffering a major injury. The emotional hurricane that results of asking questions is tough to get through. I couldn’t bear to ask the hard questions until my whole life began to fall apart.

When you were laid up and suffering with osteomyelitis at the age of 14, did you feel conflicted by the fact that you weren’t getting better, or did you rationalize it in some way, or both?

Definitely both. I honestly expected to be healed. Every other physical concern until then seemed to improve after we prayed. We usually hired a Christian Science practitioner to pray for us. The bone disease appeared very suddenly. My knee swelled up while I was watching TV one night. It grew more swollen, stiff, and painful for about six weeks. I assumed that it would get better. (My practitioner said he’d been healed instantaneously of an infection in his feet bad enough to potentially require amputation.) Only the infection didn’t get better, and I couldn’t understand why. Then pus began to drain out of my knee. It was horrible and painful. And still, I thought, “Well, it’s an infection, and now it’ll heal.” But it only got worse, as more places drained pus. I was bedridden for almost a year, yet I believed Christian Science could heal me, rationalizing that I must be the weak link in the chain. (As a young adult Christian Scientist, I had been told that I was old enough to be responsible for my healing along with my parents and the practitioner who prayed for me.

Finally, I wished I would die just to end my suffering. Finally, after a year, the infection ended and I was strong enough to get in a wheelchair. But that was not the end of my suffering. Over the next eighteen months, my knee became fused, and my leg was scarred to the bone and disfigured.

Even though you suffered greatly from osteomyelitis and were left permanently disabled by the disease, did Christian Scientists around you praise the faith for “miraculously” saving your life, while failing to acknowledge the harm?

After being bedridden for a year, showing up at church on my crutches was impressive, but my fellow churchgoers never called it a miracle, because Christian Scientists don’t believe in miracles. Still, we were all immersed in such heavy and consistent indoctrination that I think it would have been difficult for anyone to speak up and question why, after so much faith healing, my condition got as bad as it did. We were invested in this form of treatment. To doubt was to undermine the effect. Everyone was trying to be supportive. They encouraged me on my excellent progress and hard “work” (meaning spiritual work, prayer and studying Christian Science). Of course, no one mentioned the crutches I needed for more than a year, my auto-fused leg, or my limp. I think this particular mindset is powerful enough to affect what you truly believe you see, or it just doesn’t allow you to see what is true. It borders on psychotic. It’s as though the emperor has no clothes and not only do his people refuse to say so, they can’t see it in the first place.

Fifteen years ago, before my leg was amputated, I wore shorts to a family reunion. I had left Christian Science and done a lot of psychotherapeutic work and gotten comfortable with my scars. Some of my relatives were still serious Christian Scientists and had never seen my leg. Let me tell you, I stop traffic when I wore shorts, yet no one said a word all weekend.

Did you have any support system?

In high school, I had a Sunday school teacher who told me my eventual complete, perfect healing would cause me to become a practitioner. I think he really believed all of it. This was while I was depressed to the point of being suicidal, struggling with panic attacks and loathing my body. I’d missed two years of school and lost almost all my close friendships.

How did you cope with what the disease had done to your leg?

I still blamed myself and prayed desperately. But as bad as the physical disease and pain were, my emotional hell was far worse. The bone infection appeared literally overnight and instantly stopped my very active eighth-grade life including riding my horse, running, and biking. I spent almost all of the year I was fourteen bedridden. I had to rely on my mother to clean my leg, bring me clothes, food, a wash basin, and a toothbrush. She had to help me sit up, lie down, and use a bedpan.

Once I got better and started walking, I didn’t recognize my body. I got my first period in bed, just before I was well enough to get into a wheelchair. I had gained weight. I couldn’t walk, let alone run, I’d missed school and all the social development that goes along with it. I was self-conscious about my limp, let alone my terrible scars, which I hid. I didn’t know my knee was fused, so I walked around compulsively to try force my knee to bend. I fasted and binged for a year to try to force my body to look the way I remembered. My mood swings were hair-trigger. Just the wrong word could send me spiraling into near-suicidal depression. I was positive I’d failed to demonstrate a reliable religious system, one I’d been raised to regard as infallible. I felt completely inadequate, incompetent and undeserving of good. Even after I started riding horses again and discovered I could be very active, I saw myself as a failure. My limp was the first thing anyone ever noticed about me, and to me, it represented all my inadequacies.

How did you manage as you got older? Did having been forced to suffer this disease cause you problems later in life?

Yes. I quit high school. I married too young and into another very controlling family. Since then, I’ve been divorced twice. I’ve never been able to hold a steady job, although I always did best working outdoors. By the time I was in my mid-twenties, I was convinced that I was crazy and began seeing a therapist, who diagnosed me as suffering with severe post-traumatic stress disorder. With therapy and meds, I’ve learned to manage it, but I still have bad days. Trauma can change brain chemistry to the point where the damage shows up on scans, and like any other injured body part, the brain’s function changes too. But most of the time, I feel much better than ever before. I’ve fought hard to get to this place in my head. But at the same time, after what I went through, I now have a scary level of tolerance for pain. It made me tough and hard, and I worry that I’m not as sympathetic and empathetic towards my kids as I should be.

How would you explain what a child goes through who is suffering from religious medical neglect?

I think the biggest danger is the day to day emotional damage of being told you have the ability to pray your pain away. Then you pray, and your headache doesn’t end. The implication is that you haven’t done your part correctly, because, obviously, God isn’t at fault. I don’t think it matters what church you follow or if the illness or injury is minor. Pain is pain. Suffering is suffering, and enduring it only teaches dissociation. You zone out and stop feeling. I’ve seen a lot of this behavior in Christian Scientists. It’s not only physically dangerous—especially when they deny their own kids’ suffering—it also rips apart families. In my family, the Christian Science standard of perfection compounded the pressure to present only a happy appearance. Both my grandmothers were single parents who attributed their successes to God and prayer. Most of my relatives were church members. My father’s sister was a practitioner and “treated” me for several months. She became our family matriarch and religious standard bearer, and though she seemed like the kindest person possible, several family members, including her own son, disappeared and cut almost all contact with her. I think family dynamics are hard enough when you’re allowed to be human, but they don’t stand a chance when everyone is expected to be perfect.

What has it been like for you to recently become an advocate for religiously abused and neglected children? What made you decide to go public with your story?

 I never, ever thought I could bring myself to write and speak about what happened. I’ve always written but I only started writing about my life growing up in the Christian Science Church about eight years ago. Later, I contacted Rita Swan of Children’s Healthcare Is A Legal Duty, which fights legislation that harms children through religious and cultural practices. She’s a hero of mine, as well as a powerful, wonderful writer. She put me in touch with Sean Faircloth when he was Executive Director for the Secular Coalition of America. As a result of that connection, my statement was read at the White House at the SCA’s meeting with Obama aides in 2010. A year ago, Sean interviewed me in a video for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Sean is another terrific advocate for religiously neglected kids. He zeroed right in on the fact that repeatedly telling a child her pain will stop if the right concept is understood and repeated amounts to torture.

I’m glad to have become an advocate, but it took a long time for me to feel ready. You’re looking at sixteen years of intense psychotherapy here! My indoctrination made it almost impossible for me to know that what I’d gone through was wrong, at least until I was well into my thirties. And when I left that mindset, I went through hell trying to learn to think and function as a human, a woman, and amother. Now that I speak freely about the abuse, it’s still difficult to understand how others see it. Most people focus on my leg and amputation when the emotional trauma is so much worse. And it affects so many kids and adults who don’t have shocking physical scars. I’m grateful to be able to join this cause. I’ll do whatever I can to make it difficult for parents to subject a child to even a fraction of what I experienced.

Could you give an idea of what it’s like for children growing up in the church now compared to when you were a girl?

I don’t claim to know what the norm is for children growing up in Christian Science households these days, but I believe that there has been a widespread growing awareness among the members that dead kids aren’t good for the movement. It actually takes a lot to bring such self-awareness to hardcore believers. More tolerant members choose medical care for their kids. Hopefully the hard-core devotees will die out. That’s been the case in my family, and I’m glad about that.

Is there anything else you’d like to say about the Christian Science Church or religious medical neglect?

Christian Science has been allowed to cultivate an image of sobriety, intelligence, and viability. The Monitor newspaper and radio network helped foster that image, as well as the church’s intense lobbying of states to pass pro-faith healing exemptions. Now members try to persuade the public that they are some New Age-y system and that it’s okay if members go to doctors. But the church is an anachronistic cult based on the ravings of an unstable woman a hundred and fifty years ago. So-called “evidence” of healing is anecdotal, and members continue to deny that pain is real. It may take a perfect storm for a case like mine to surface. But it could potentially happen to any child in that church whose parents take the fundamental ideas seriously. We have to remember that this church claims that mortal bodies, pain, or life on this earth are not real. They put the laws in place to  “shield” their fanatical beliefs from outside scrutiny—laws that have allowed other faith-healing religions to ride on Christian Science’s coattails. So now we see kids in other churches dying because of the lobbying efforts of the Christian Science Church. We’ve got to hold this topic in public view as long as it takes, until zealous faith healing becomes as socially unacceptable and outdated as leeches or blood-letting.

Reading between the lines of a bishop’s “apology”

Yesterday, one of the country’s most prominent Catholic bishops apologized for his role in clergy sexual abuse cases dating back to the 1980s.

Except that his statement is not really an apology at all. Here’s what Bishop Thomas J. Curry of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles said:

“I wish to acknowledge and apologize for those instances when I made decisions regarding the treatment and disposition of clergy accused of sexual abuse that in retrospect appear inadequate or mistaken.” Curry added, “Like many others, I have come to a clearer understanding over the years of the causes and treatment of sexual abuse, and I have fully implemented in my pastoral region the archdiocese’s policies and procedures for reporting abuse, screening those who supervise children and abuse prevention training for adults and children.”

Bishop Thomas J. Curry

Let’s be clear: Anyone raised in the Catholic Church—much less a 70-year-old bishop—knows full well what it means to be contrite. In fact, deeply felt and expressed contrition is a requirement for Catholics who wish to seek God’s forgiveness for sinning.

No, Curry’s statement is not an apology, but a defense, one that he is putting forth now, as he faces a landmark clergy abuse lawsuit involving more than 500 victims. The suit has already led to the release of documents plaintiffs say prove that church officials covered up cases of abuse. More documents are expected to be released soon. All told, the evidence could point to abuses committed by nearly 90 priests.

When you strip away the attorney-approved language from Curry’s statement, what the bishop really said was, “I didn’t know any better.” And despite his powerful position as advisor to a cardinal of the largest archdiocese in the nation, Curry indicated that he was simply “like many others.” In other words, anyone else in his situation would have done the same thing. I am not guilty.

The statement is disgraceful and disrespects victims of sexual abuse. The documents that have been released reveal communications between Curry and Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who is also Archbishop Emeritus of Los Angeles, in which they discussed ways to conceal cases of molestation from law enforcement. (Mahoney issued a more heartfelt apology to victims on January 21.) One particular case involves a priest who admitted to sexu­ally ab­us­ing 13 boys dur­ing his 36 years in the Los Angeles arch­diocese. Yet, rather than reporting the man to police, Curry said he should be sent to “a lawyer who is also a psychiatrist,” thereby putting “the reports under the protection of privilege.”

It is doubtful Curry or Mahoney will face criminal charges, as the 2007 lawsuit was filed decades past the three-year statute of limitations for felonies that would apply here, so Curry is most likely concerned with how his statements might affect the lawsuit.

But I venture that Curry’s failure to issue a genuine apology to victims and others reveals something else: As a devout Catholic, the bishop may feel he has nothing to apologize for.

We can’t know just how badly Curry feels about his mistakes, but I’m willing to bank on the fact that he doesn’t believe he committed mortal sins. (A mortal sin is a violation so egregious that the sinner is believed to have broken with God; to redeem himself, the sinner must confess, act contrite, and pay penance before death.) That’s because one criterion that defines “mortal sin” is the individual’s full knowledge of the sin at the time of the act. If the sinner didn’t think he did anything wrong, or was lacking “a clear understanding,” as Curry put it, he is not a mortal sinner in the eyes of the church. Of course, Curry could look upon his acts as venial (“less grave”) sins, in which case he would have avoided going to hell by confessing to a priest, acting contrite, and paying penance, according to church doctrine. Still, all of this would have taken place within the church.

What about the rules of ethics, you may ask? Or secular law? Prior to this point in time—perhaps as Curry was gaining that “clearer understanding”—why couldn’t he have felt the need to “confess” to a prosecutor, or to victims?

Because the Catholic Church primarily looks to its own leaders to determine when congregants must make amends. To illustrate this belief, look no further than a letter sent to all bishops in 2001. It was cowritten by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. At the time, Ratzinger headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, the office that decides many of the church’s clergy sexual abuse cases. “The functions of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these [child sexual abuse] cases only by priests,” wrote Ratzinger.

Let’s hope that the light being shown on cases, such as those scandalizing the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, will make it harder for church officials to come up with excuses as to why they protected perpetrators of child sexual abuse, instead of the victims.

 

ADDENDUM: On January 31, 2013, Bishop Thomas Curry stepped down from his post at the Los Angeles Archdiocese. The next day, Cardinal Roger Mahony was stripped of his duties by his successor, Archbishop Jose Gomez.