the default assumption

Giles Fraser:

Of all the people I could imagine to be an abuser, Vanier was the least likely. He was exactly what I imagined a good person to look like. And so, I am going to have to learn to go forward with a great deal more scepticism about my heroes. Darkness also lurks where one least expects it.

The trick will be to learn how to combine trust with … well, what’s the word? Suspicion? Though that way of presenting the problem already indicates how impossible the task seems. For if someone like Vanier was untrustworthy, then I no longer know who is worthy of trust. Must I from now on look at people who do great good in the world and wonder to myself whether maybe, just maybe, they too are something different to how they seem? Cynics will think that I have seen the light. They think this sort of suspicion is the basis of a more worldly wisdom.

But this isn’t the light. This is darkness. 

It is indeed darkness, but it is the darkness in which we live. The Vanier story has been a kind of breaking point for me. I would like to propose the following response: 

Every Christian man in any authority of any kind over any persons — and that includes me, as a teacher  — should be assumed to be exploiting that authority to control others, especially women, for sexual gratification or simply in order to satisfy the libido dominandi. 

That should be the position we all take going forward. No exceptions. None of us should be trusted, none of us should be believed. You all should watch us like hawks and expect the very worst at every moment. Only by taking such apparently drastic steps do we have a chance of breaking the demonic hold of religious authority invested in men or in institutions controlled by men. 

UPDATE: I’m already getting angry emails about this! I wish to assert that I am right and the people writing the angry emails are wrong. Here’s why: 

My correspondents remind me of a certain type of character in mystery stories: the close relative or associate of the murdered person who says, in response to the inquiries of police, “You can’t possibly suspect me?!” They seem to think that the legal presumption of innocence should extend to immunity from suspicion. But most people who are murdered are murdered by people whom they know well; the suspicion is rational. 

It is equally rational, given the many abuses of power by prominent Christian men that have come to light in recent years, for other Christian men — even those who truly believe that they have done nothing wrong — to accept increased levels of suspicion, indeed to welcome it as I do above. We should acknowledge that the old rule that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” is true, and that — this is the key thing — it applies to us as well as to people we don’t like. We should realize that men’s sexual (though not only sexual) exploitation of women (though not only women) is not an anomalous but a to-be-expected development among fallen people in a broken world, unless it is guarded against in a thousand ways, many of which have not been developed yet. If people suspect the worst of us, they have good reason. 

More deeply: we need to reflect on the ways that exploitation and domination are built into the structure of authority itself, in this vale of tears, and accept that some kinds of counter-structures must be devised to address the pervasiveness of this dark tendency. Those counter-structures will arise from a deep suspicion, a suspicion that I and people like me have earned. (Lauren Winner’s book The Dangers of Christian Practice: On Wayward Gifts, Characteristic Damage, and Sin might be helpful to those of us attempting to think through these matters.) 

To those who think that it’s wrong for me to single out men rather than women, I have two responses: first, there aren’t enough women holding explicit authority in the Christian world for us to know much about how they characteristically handle it; and second, I believe the kind of domination of women exhibited by Jean Vanier and many other Christian men is a profound perversion of the instinct to protect that men express in distinctive ways. (We could have an argument some other time about whether that instinct is cultural or hard-wired, though for the record I think it’s the latter.) I have no doubt that Vanier’s exploitation of the women in his life started with a genuine and commendable desire to protect them from spiritual harm, and that this is often true in other similarly exploitative relationships. There are narcissists and sociopaths to whom this generous explanation does not apply. 

What’s ironic about the anger coming my way is that much of comes from men who, I bet, think the Billy Graham Rule is a wise one. But the Billy Graham Rule is just a small instance, focused on a very particular kind of situation, of what I am counseling above. The substance of that Rule is: You don’t trust me? I get it. I don’t even trust myself. Whether or not that Rule is a good one, it’s a small one: it deals with just one kind of situation, a private meeting between one man and one woman. And as I said above, we need more comprehensive counter-structures. If I have to undergo some painful scrutiny as those counter-structures are being developed, that seems to me a small price to pay to reduce the number of lives that are ruined or severely damaged. All of the women who were abused by Jean Vanier testify to the lasting psychological and spiritual harm he inflicted on them; and this is a common story. 

One last thing. I have some questions for Christian men who, like me, exercise some authority. Some of us are teachers, some pastors, some counselors — there are a hundred such callings. Do you like being admired? Do you like being looked up to? Do you like being trusted? Do these experiences make you feel good about yourself? Do you think that they could feel good enough that you’d seek them out more and more, and place particular value on those relationships that give you that kind of feeling, and maneuver yourself into situations where you get to be The Wise One who receives boundless gratitude from those you have blessed with your wisdom? Do you believe that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick”? And finally: Are there structures in your life and in your workplace to prevent you from pursuing those warm feelings beyond the point of safety, propriety, and spiritual health — for yourself and for those who are under your authority?