Most weeks when I come to write the Praise & Prayer News I know what the topic should be several days before. It is therefore very encouraging to receive, so often, feedback telling me how apposite the contents proved. On this occasion I have been staring at a blank sheet for several days. Inspiration seemed to be absent. But more recently, I have begun to feel that the topic had been given me and that I was too reluctant to recognise it.
I am indeed reluctant to write on this occasion, but since slowly waking up to the idea, I have had a growing urge to put fingers to keyboard. So, here goes.
It is probable that you already know that several times a year I teach on a Safeguarding Course run by the Salvation Army. The Army has an excellent programme that covers all their officers, cadets in training, and employees. It’s a privilege to contribute to it. I have also provided content for the Baptist Union and the Congregational Federation My title for the Salvation Army sessions (taught through one day,) is how abuse can happen in a Christian context.
Sexual abuse has cast a direct shadow over my life on three occasion. The first occasion was when I was about ten and was accosted by a paedophile in a park. That led to a very embarrassing interview with a mice female police officer. The last experience was as a foster father of a teenage by with special needs. Back then, we were less conversant with the right way to handle these situations. I thought that confronting him and warning him would be adequate. It wasn’t, and one day Doreen and I had a phone call from an officer from the Metropolitan Police, informing us he and colleagues were on their way to interview our foster son. The man was part of a large paedophile ring and he had targeted a number of vulnerable children at a school for children with special needs.
In between these two occasions, I was a victim of sexual abuse within a Christian context, and my work with the Salvation Army, and others, is based on learning from that experience. Over recent years the topic of sexual abuse has hardly been out of the news as stories have emerged about pop stars, comedians, sports personalities, and more recently a film producer. Along the way there have been far too many church-related stories and some denominations have found themselves under the glare of the media.
Despite all of these stories, I find far too often, churches and Christian organisations that take a “It could never happen here” attitude. That is why I am glad, no matter how painful, to share my experience as a teaching tool. It can, and does happen where it should never happen. That includes churches and Christian organisations. I first began to understand the nature of abuse, how to provide appropriate pastoral support for past victims, and how to manage allegedly repentant abusers, when I was invited to research and help write a book. Time for Action remains probably the most helpful book on the topic. After that I was part of a team writing a report for the Anglican House of Bishops. Responding Well is now a useful tool in the Church of England’s campaign to make their churches safer places.
What happened to me took place over time during the late sixties and early seventies. For a long time I saw it as merely inappropriate behavior. After I blew the whistle and was interviewed by the police I was shocked to learn that it was criminal. The only reason I blew the whistle was that I had discovered that several others in the organisation also had ‘inappropriate’ experiences from the man who was the head of the evangelistic organisation I had joined as a teenager. In the research for Time for Action I had learned that committing sexual abuse is very often habitual, possibly addictive in nature. I wanted to protect others, and was not seeking any punishment for the offender when I reported it.
The fact that the abuser had managed to abuse several within the organisation was largely down to misunderstanding about forgiveness. Each abused person had declared that they forgave the man, who was never held to account. We gave out forgiveness cheaply and unbiblically. As a result the man continued to give in to his propensity unrestrained.
In teaching about this, I explain that there are three factors that can contribute to risk of sexual abuse. These are the nature of the abuser, the nature of the abused, and the weaknesses of the organisational context where abuse has or could take place. For any church or Christian organisation to be safe, all three need to be managed appropriately.
The man who abused me is a man who is obsessed with power. He presented himself within the organisation and beyond to be a man with a special anointing from God, and endowed with considerable ministry gifts. He certainly had a significant personality and was indeed a very gifted preacher and gospel singer. He preached holiness, and ran the organization to exacting standards based on passages of scripture. But behind the scenes, something dark was happening away from public gaze. He was a co-founder of the organisation, but presented himself as the founder/director. While the organisation initially had a managing committee and later a board of trustees, these were personally appointed by himself so he remained completely unaccountable.
After I had been in the organisation for perhaps a year, I and some of my peers (all in our teens) had discovered that in 1959 he had been disciplined within an Assemblies of God church for sexual misconduct. When we confronted him about his, he admitted that he had a homosexual nature and asserted that God had made him that way, but he had never committed a homosexual act. But he had his own definition of homosexual acts, that would not match the legal definition. At the time when we spoke with him, and what he later did to me and others, homosexuality was not only frowned upon within Christian circles, it was a criminal offence.
He claimed that because he was sexually frustrated, and was in a constant battle to stay holy, this was what gave him his bad temper and other negative behavioural traits. Further he claimed that God’s blessing on his ministry demonstrated that he was in a right relationship with God. He claimed the offence for which he had been disciplined had been put right before God and no one had a right to bring it up. We ended up feeling sorry for him. Now, it seemed that the many flaws we saw in his character and behaviour were excusable. With hindsight, he would be deemed to be an inappropriate person to lead an organisation and have charge of vulnerable people.
He was certainly a very gifted person. He ran the organisation in a dictatorial style. I was frequently called upon to sort out the crises he left in his wake. But I felt that working in this organisation was where God wanted me to be. Various prophetic utterances had confirmed this, and had warned that it was a difficult calling in which I would have to carry a back-bending burden. My vulnerability related to my young age, my sexual ignorance and naivety, that I was too easily impressed, and that my spiritual guiding themes were love and forgiveness. So I kept on loving what was often unlovely and forgiving what was wrong.
The primary organisational weakness was the lack of accountability for its leader. This was ironic as the leader held everyone else accountable 24x7, controlling all we did with our time and demanding absolute commitment and obedience. Much later, when maturity enabled me to have confidence to challenge what was unreasonable in his actions, this led to serious arguments, in which I was usually portrayed as the villain.
From the start, the nature of the organisation not only required of me total commitment and obedience, he also ensured that my church membership link was severed, and that my parents influence was reduced to almost nil. There was no other person providing teaching and counselling in my life. Worse still, I was treated as a man called by God to be his aid, somewhat like Timothy. I drove him everywhere he went, provided secretarial and financial administration, calmed him down after bouts of temper, and, until I married, hardly left his side. He told me that he was utterly dependent upon me. What he might have said about me to others may well have been different.
Sexual abusers groom their victims. They also groom other around and the situation to enable the abuse. His role provided opportunity, but also gave him cover to get away unchallenged. I do not see that you need to know details of the grooming process or the nature of the abuse committed. But it is important to add something about forgiving.
When I teach about how abuse can happen in a church, I explain how I found myself caught up in something I hated and wanted desperately to be free from. It was like a spiders web. If I failed to allow his conduct to continue, he threatened to abandon Christian values and go headlong into a public ungodly behaviour. When I eventually managed to break free, I confronted the founder and told him that I forgave him. He made no response . I also told him that I would blow the whistle if he ever did to another person what he had done to me. Seventeen years later I received a formal report of similar behaviour and took action.
By then I had left the organisation but had continued to share in ministry in a local church. Neither the trustees of the organisation nor the elders of the church were willing to take action to investigate what was then being denied by both the abuser and the abused. Consequently, nothing was done at that time, and it was several years later when I reported everything to the police. Meanwhile I had collected several other testimonies relating to sexual misconduct. On each occasion he had ‘been forgiven’.
He was arrested, charged, tried and sentenced to two years in prison. The irony was that on the charges relating to what he did to me he was found not guilty, but on similar charges relating to the more recent incidents he was found guilty. Throughout that process I received hate mail, and was accused of destroying God’s work.
Sexual abusers, not only fulfil their fantasies, they often exploit the normal sexuality of their victims. They are usually manipulative and will create a sense of dependency if they can. They leave people with scars that might never heal. I still offer forgiveness to him conditional upon true repentance, but have yet to hear my abuser admit his guilt or apologise to me or the several others he abused.
I have learned that anyone could become an abuser and that anyone could become a victim. It could happen in your church or a Christian organisation. The abuser might give every sign of being a good Christian but watch out for unusual close relationships with anyone with a weaker personality. Abusers like to have control. Ensure that everyone is kept as safe as possible. Watch out for those who might be particularly vulnerable. That’s not just the young or elderly. We all become vulnerable from time to time. Make sure that leaders are held to account and that good practise guidelines are being followed. All who are likely to exercise influence over others need a DBS check (used to be a CRB certificate).
So, I have struggled through sharing how abuse happened within a Christian organisation where the gospel was preached and holiness taught , and where there was much fruitfulness. It has been painful. I am left wondering whether anyone will say that this is apposite for them. Telling and hearing stories of sexual abuse is not easy. If I have offended anyone, I am sorry. I am surprised how often, in all kinds of situations, people who hear something of my story, afterwards share their own sad experiences. I hear these far too often and also often from surprising people.
If you have a story to share but do not feel you have anyone you can talk with, please feel that you can trust me, but tell me you have had an abusive experience before you share any details. I will listen carefully, but if you report what is essentially criminal - or even possibly criminal - the law may require me to report it. But what is done in darkness needs to come into the light. Ignoring what has been done does not bring healing. Giving forgiveness where there has been no admission of responsibility on the part of the abuser just makes others vulnerable. When abused people are able to find the courage to talk about what has happened it is making the world a safer place.
If the leaders/clergy of your church have never read Time for Action, it is published by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, endorsed by all the main denominations in the UK, and I am one of the distributors. Drop me a line.
I started this missive by stating that this was not going to be an easy thing to write. It hasn’t been. But I have a deep conviction that this is both right and the right time. May I ask that you pray for those who read this and who have suffered their own hurt.
Thank you.
Barry Osborne
28th October 2017.
From the Diary
Monday 30th - School Assembly, Lubenham
Tuesday 31st - Safeguarding Teaching, Salvation Army College, London
Sunday 5th November - Market Harborough Congregational Church
Throughout this time I will be busy with administration and writing.
