Dear Jane: Why We Do What We Do
A number of weeks ago our team received a very thoughtful, charitable, yet concerned email. It came from an ACNA member who, while deeply committed to supporting victims of abuse in the church, expressed concern about the methods our team has utilized in our advocacy work. Specifically, they took issue with our practice of publicly naming perpetrators of abuse, and in some cases, enablers of abuse. If it brings shame to the family and friends of the abuser and it’s possible to achieve our stated goals without doing so, then why would we not avoid naming names publicly? Rather than hang our dirty laundry in the modern public square (social media), why don’t we use vague identifying information or only publish their initials?
It’s hard to capture just how thoughtful the email was. When we all read it, many of us saw our own previous concerns reflected in this email. It prompted good discussion amongst our team and we thought that perhaps it would be helpful for many to hear the justification for publicly naming abusers and their enablers. The piece below is an adaptation of our response to this email we received. We hope that it elucidates our practice of publicly naming people in the stories we share, and why, we argue, it is often unfortunately necessary.
Dear Jane,
Thank you for your thoughtful email. As we read your letter, many of us could see our past concerns reflected in the argument that you laid out. To most of us on the team, the initial revelation by Bp. Stewart Ruch in his May 4th, 2021 diocesan letter about Mark Rivera’s abuse was shocking. While we were devastated, we initially trusted that leadership had responded quickly, handled the allegations seriously, and made the victims’ care their top priority.
Piece by piece, that trust was dismantled. As more evidence came to light – that the response had not only been slow, but that the victims themselves had been ignored, disbelieved, and even shunned – we began to comprehend that the diocese we had loved was very broken. It had not protected the vulnerable, and it would not take the hard steps toward justice and accountability on its own.
Many of us have individually brought our questions and concerns to the leadership within Church of the Resurrection, the Diocese of the Upper Midwest, as well as Provincial leadership. We have largely received silence in response. It has only been through public exposure that any action has been taken, and that mostly by external means and public pressure. We have come to believe that our current methods are not only an effective way of advocating for survivors, but the only way that can bring some measure of accountability and protect the vulnerable. Our different journeys to this point came through experiencing the total breakdown of the official channels for ourselves.
First, though, a clarification about our priorities. While our stated goals are advocacy, education, and accountability, our emphasis is always on survivors first. While we advocate for accountability within the ACNA and seek to educate people as part of our survivor advocacy, that is secondary to our main work of caring for survivors. Centering survivors means that our approach is different than if we were just trying to educate churches or push for policy reform.
Many of us brought questions and concerns to the leadership within Church of the Resurrection, the Diocese of the Upper Midwest, as well as Provincial leadership. We have largely received silence in response.
Some suggest that our goals can be reasonably met without naming people publicly. Unfortunately, we have not found this to be the case. What we (and many other advocates) have found is that nothing happens if people aren’t named publicly. Things get swept under the rug, victims who have been abused stay silent, and the abusers continue to prey on victims. Often, victims continue to blame themselves for the abuse and think they’re the only victim. The silence perpetuates that. Members of our team spent months trying to work behind the scenes before they finally spurred action by going public with names and stories.
In nearly every church story of sexual or spiritual abuse, the tide has only been turned by gathering enough people with the same experience that the truth is undeniable. A single story is powerful, but it did nothing to bring accountability and justice to Bill Hybels, to James MacDonald, to Doug Wilson, or to Ravi Zacharias. More stories containing identifiable patterns had to be brought to light and those stories had to be told repeatedly outside of the official channels. It was not until it was shown that many people were resisting and covering up those stories that the congregations or ministry partners started to realize that there was a problem.
There are multiple survivors who have come forward and shared stories with us precisely because people were named explicitly. They thought their experience with a particular leader was isolated, but once an abuser or enabler was named by others, they found that their experience was far from unique. What most people outside of the advocacy space do not understand is that the dynamics of abuse and enabling are incredibly complicated, and there are multitudes of survivors left in a sort of hazy limbo until there is some kind of public acknowledgment that their abuse was really abuse and that other people were also harmed.
For every victim who is willing and able to come forward first, there are 10 or 100 more out there (think of Larry Nassar) who will trickle in once the public word overcomes the abuser’s gaslighting in their head telling them maybe they’re mistaken, maybe they’re crazy, maybe they should just stay silent. For the few stories that see the public light, there are generally many, many more in the darkness. We know this first-hand.
Several of us struggled deeply with the practice of naming abusers publicly because we knew doing so could bring long-term shame and anguish to their spouses and children. The crucial truth to remember is that when someone comes forward and tells the truth about the abuse, they are not the one causing harm to the abuser’s family.
We do not blame a doctor when they deliver a grim diagnosis, and survivors are not the ones to blame when they divulge their abuse. The perpetrators alone are responsible for that pain. The idea that we can shield innocent spouses and children from the consequences of abuse is wishful thinking. Abuse corrodes a household, whether it is spoken aloud or not. Naming the abuse, if anything, allows the spouses and children the opportunity to come to terms with the truth and begin the healing process. We cannot treat what we cannot name.
We do not blame a doctor when they deliver a grim diagnosis, and survivors are not the ones to blame when they divulge their abuse.
Furthermore, the circles of protection that abusers create around themselves are intricately composed. Abusers groom circles of people to act as their supporters. They present their victims with a seemingly impossible choice of conflicting values: remain quiet and deny their experience, or speak up and thus create “damage” to those in the abuser’s circle, always with the understood risk that that very circle (and those who are connected to it) will try to discredit and silence them. It is only through public exposure that this web of power and control can begin to be dismantled.
Naming enablers is especially complicated because most people (including us) have unknowingly enabled abuse at some point. While we have generally avoided naming enablers who are congregants, we draw the line at enablers in leadership positions. Because leaders exercise significant authority, they set an example for other people. If they enable or cover up abuse, others will follow suit. The power of their position means that they need to be held to a higher standard.
Grief over the collateral damage that happens when abusers and enablers are named publicly is absolutely valid. But there is no way around the destructiveness of abuse, and victims are the ones that end up holding the majority of the grief if abusers or enablers are granted immunity from public scrutiny. Not every survivor who publishes a story chooses to publicly name someone, but many have decided to.
Survivors have cited multiple reasons for naming those who abused them or chronically enabled their abusers, reasons that include reaching and supporting other survivors, long term accountability for abusers outside of the immediate situation (to prevent more victimization), and also just because relinquishing the duty of being the abuser’s secret holder brings them freedom. Yes, there is great hurt in that, but in supporting survivors we are trying to release them of the ways they alone have been asked to bear the cost of “the greater good."
The ramifications of naming someone are, indeed, real. Unfortunately, when it comes to sexual and spiritual abuse in the church, there often is no non-tragic option when seeking to handle it. It’s all a massively complex quagmire of brokenness. There’s no magic out here, no silver bullet decision that can rescue us.
Some suggest that there is no longer a need to publish names publicly now that the PRT exists. The PRT only exists because we published names publicly, as well as put public pressure on Bishop Stewart. Furthermore, we can’t recommend that survivors use the PRT as an investigative channel because the PRT has proven themselves to be incapable of handling even the Mark Rivera abuse case, let alone the abuse that we have seen in at least seven other dioceses. Multiple people have reached out to the PRT with their stories only to be met with silence. In short, the official channels are still broken.
Some suggest that there is no longer a need to publish names publicly now that the PRT exists. The PRT only exists because we published names publicly, as well as put public pressure on Bishop Stewart.
Concerns about publishing names without investigation are reasonable. We haven’t publicly detailed our process of publishing stories, so it may appear that we simply receive stories, check them against our guidelines, and publish them on our site. In actuality, team members have spent many hours over many months in communication with each survivor. We do this in order to make sure it seems appropriate and safe for the survivor to publish it, but also because we want to be absolutely confident that the allegations are highly credible and thoroughly considered.
Our conversations with survivors who publish stories take months. After a story is submitted to us, it is vetted by multiple members of our team, including two licensed professional counselors. While we have adjusted our process to better protect other survivors, we’re confident that the stories we publish are not malevolent or exaggerated, but truth-telling. In most cases, the published stories understate the severity of the survivor’s experience, as they cannot include all of the details and evidence without jeopardizing the anonymity of minors or enablers who are not in leadership.
What the public also doesn’t see are the messages we receive from survivors who are coming forward and thanking us precisely because someone speaking out about their abuser has empowered them, often for the first time, to get help and support, and even press charges. Not all of these survivors are ready or have a desire to share their stories publicly, but we understand the impact this has had for many of them.
Some would like to describe ACNAtoo as a vigilante group of dirt-diggers. If people only knew. Many of us have been faithful members of the ACNA for decades. Some of us counted the leaders we seek to hold accountable as our best friends. We grieve with the victims as each story is brought to us, yes, but we also grieve deeply as we often love the people they name as abusers and enablers. While we are certain that speaking truth must come before our own hearts’ cries, it is no less painful.
In the end, we are convinced that the Anglican Church should love the truth and be more concerned with it than with the ramifications of the disclosure of truth.
In the end, we are convinced that the Anglican Church should love the truth and be more concerned with it than with the ramifications of the disclosure of truth. Whatever comes from the truth coming to light is the fault of those perpetrators or enablers that kept it in the dark in the first place. We hope that our efforts will bring some kind of justice and healing to the ACNA. Most importantly, we hope that our efforts bring healing to survivors. There will be confession and repentance, naming our mistakes, self-reflection on methods, attitudes, and the like. We fully own that, but we do so as we move forward with this essential work.
With hope,
The ACNAtoo team