Abusing Religion: Literary Persecution, Sex Scandals, and American Minority Religions

by Megan Goodwin

Sex abuse happens in all communities, but American minority religions often face disproportionate allegations of sexual abuse. Why, in a country that consistently fails to acknowledge—much less address—the sexual abuse of women and children, do American religious outsiders so often face allegations of sexual misconduct?  Why does the American public presume to know “what’s really going on” in minority religious communities?  Why are sex abuse allegations such an effective way to discredit people on America’s religious margins? What makes Americans so willing, so eager to identify religion as the cause of sex abuse? Abusing Religion argues that sex abuse in minority religious communities is an American problem, not (merely) a religious one.
 

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, History

238 pages, Paperback

Published July 17, 2020

Reviews

[Audrey Farley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating book about how American society makes a spectacular display of fighting sex abuse involving "outsiders" or minority religious communities, while totally ignoring (and thereby giving cover to) the abuse in mainstream institutions. I grew up Catholic when the clergy scandal broke. Of course, this scandal was swiftly blamed on gays who'd "infiltrated" the church. It couldn't possibly be that the Church's theology, tradition, and hierarchical structure gave rise to such abuse. But when it came to stories of abuse in Arab/Muslim communities, well, these stories *were* representative of the religion at large because that's “who they are.” Goodwin considers the commercial success of Not Without My Daughter, suggesting that the book and film resonated with Americans precisely because they gelled with Americans' pre-existing views of Islam as inherently violent, barbaric, etc.

In the beginning of the book, Goodwin discusses the "catholicization" of America, by which she means the mainstreaming of Catholic thought in post-Roe public life. Catholics, she says, influenced evangelicals and right-wing politicians by giving them the concepts of "the family" and "contraceptive nationalism," whereby sexual purity and so-called traditional family values become the means to protect America from literal and figurative insemination by dark-skinned others. Going back to Not Without My Daughter, the white woman played by Sally Field is innocent, vulnerable--a stand-in for the nation. She must be saved from the beast-like Muslim, who, more metaphorically, is trying to rape America. (This plot is also a reformulation of anti-Black propaganda like Birth of a Nation.)

I wish there'd been more on Catholicism's influence on the modern right, as there isn't a lot of scholarship on this topic compared to white evangelicalism’s influence. I do wonder, though, if it's really Catholics who gave the modern right the concept of the family or if it's secular eugenicists. Eugenicists like Paul Popenoe had a major influence on folks like James Dobson, and blatanlty eugenicist books like The Birth Dearth shaped the rhetoric of high-profile Catholics like Pat Buchanan in the '90s. I recently wrote about this here: https://religionandpolitics.org/2021/...

Highly recommend this book or at least listening to Goodwin on SWAJ podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...

Goodwin is brilliant, sarcastic, and witty, and I'll definitely look forward to more of her work.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, I found this a super interesting analysis, bringing race and gender theories to nationalism and religion. Thought-provoking from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, as well as mainline Protestantism.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Focuses in on her coined term contraceptive nationalism to explain the demonization of minority religions when sexual scandal occurs. I'm convinced people use sexual scandal to characterize religions they don't understand but I think this also applies just as much to Christianity anywhere where it isn't the dominate religion. In the first few century bisophs were killed for canabalism and have love orgies. News flash they were simple partaking in the lords supper or the Eucharist. Being a minority religion that wasn't understood Christianity was demonized by Rome. So I don't find her point profound or helpful in bettering the world. Protestant Christian values happens to be the majority in the USA (whatever that means because protestantism is just build your own Christianity.) This book finds instances of the majority reacting poorly and painting minority religions with the stroke of their worst members but that always happens and will always happen. I would suggest that books exaggerate the problem by not looking at the larger dynamics of history. Alot of her analysis is very good, just not helpful or novel. I enjoyed this book but I would have liked to see it linked revelantly to a larger conclusion or solution.