Beyond Grooming

Expanding Categories for Abuse

Photo by Alex Bracken on Unsplash

In recent years, the term “grooming” has entered the mainstream lexicon, and rightly so. The PCA Ad-Interim DASA committee defines grooming as “manipulative behaviors that the abuser uses to gain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse, and reduce the risk of getting caught.”¹

For example, a youth group leader befriends a child in a single-parent home. The youth group leader also builds rapport with the parent. Slowly but surely, the leader carves out exclusive access to the child alone. This could be through phone calls, car rides, private hikes at a campout, etc. The community sees a self-sacrificial and upstanding Christian who just wants to care for kids. The child sees a hero and a friend. Predators often use subtle crossings of boundaries to test the waters. This could be an R-rated movie, a cigarette, p0rn, or a “shirts on skins” football game. Once a child engages in “shameful” behavior, the predator has leverage of shame to hold over the child. Abuse has thus begun.² Both the child and the parent are now in boiling water - caught unaware that they had been frogs in the pot the whole time.

This tactic is vitally important for churches to understand and recognize. But grooming is just one tool in an abuser’s toolkit. There is a category more nefarious, if that were even possible. This category is one of structure and training.

If you are following along with Safe to Hope Season 6, you will have picked up on a tactic in Carya’s story. Her very life was brought into this world so it could be destroyed for her parents’ sick pleasure. She was intentionally trained with precision by her father to comply with his every wish. She was trained to perform particular acts. Trained to respond on cue. Her social reality and schedule were structured around the abuse from childhood. An abuser who trains and structures does not need to groom.

Do you feel like vomiting yet? Yeah - me too.

While abuse education has increased in recent years (which is great and should continue) there is really only so much general information that can be passed on in an hour or two. How many times have you taken the required training for church volunteering? I think I’m up to 6. This training is important, but it functions much like an “Intro to Abuse” Survey Course during your freshman year. The dangerous thing about such a course is that the freshman walks away thinking they know everything they need to know simply because they know more than the general population. But if that freshman went on to get a masters degree, he or she would recognize that the issues are far more complex and nuanced than the survey course made them out to be.

This concept of incorporating structure and training into abuse is part of the proverbial graduate curriculum. Why does this matter for church ministry? I am sure there are more reasons, but here are a few to get the conversation started.

First, if a survivor of ritualized abuse comes forward, you may be hesitant to believe them because the abuse sounds akin to insanity. What do you mean your father “cut your heart out?” (See episode 9). There are only two options here. Either a victim is making it all up or an abuser is using mind games to torture the victim and prevent detection. How can an abuser make sure no-one ever believes the victim? Create a scenario so outlandish that it is unbelievable. This is gas-lighting on steroids. Is your theology of evil big enough to encompass this? It should be.

Second, years of training takes time to undo. Actions that may be typically categorized as “sinful” may actually be involuntary trauma responses. Actions that are typically categorized (in biblical counseling circles) as “bitterness” are, in fact, symptoms of trauma. When small children are brought up to believe their deviated culture is “normal” (See episode 10), defining “abnormal,” let alone “sinful,” is going to take a lot of care-filled partnership with qualified individuals, and reframing without reharming. It definitely requires a cautionary approach that does not shame. In advocacy, we’ve come to the place where very few things surprise us (as it relates to a victim’s behavior), MUCH of that does NOT alarm us, and none of it prevents us from treating victims with dignity, love, encouragement for who they are, and acknowledgment of them as full –whole person– creations made precisely in His image.

Third, the survivor in the pews will need particular care. Oftentimes the body will respond in childhood to such trauma by splitting into parts (also known as personas or alters). This is known as Disassociative Identity Disorder (DID). Having a category for this is imperative. Right after college I worked for Christian group home for children in foster care. This was the first time I ever encountered DID and I did not have a category for it outside of demon possession. Knowing that this was not in fact demon possession, but a gift of God’s grace to a traumatized child would have made a world of difference for both our staff and the child. Our staff failed to give the child the care she needed because we did not understand what was happening. This is true for spiritual care as well. Pastors and leaders who approach those suffering from having been shattered at the hand of their abusers will help them thrive by simply walking alongside as fellow sufferers, building one another up in love. To approach these victims as naturally as you’d approach anyone else dignifies their humanity, even while that humanity has been so significantly diminished.

In episode 11 Carya states the pain of the challenge she faced when choosing whether or not to allow a fellow church member into her story and diagnosis:

“I’ve got personas, with names they chose, who talk to me; sometimes they take over and talk to other people without me knowing; sometimes they show me things from my own life that they’ve kept hidden up until now; and a few of them still don’t like Jesus. But, really, you should have no concerns about hanging out with me, or me teaching Bible study, or serving in ministry.”

If you are in ministry, this is one of the excruciating burdens survivors in the pews bear. Is your [present] theological training big enough for DID? What pre-conceived ideas are you bringing to the table that need to be re-evaluated? Are you able to dignify the survivor’s humanity and avoid accidentally affirming the abuser’s satanic narratives? How do you preach on this part of the human experience? These are questions that I am asking myself even as I write this.

During this episode, Ann Maree asks the question, “how can we be people who invite others’ stories, and hold them safely?” Folks, we need to encourage one another as servants of the Living God to respond well.

Finally, there is a temptation to look at such abuse and ask, “Why did you stay so long?” We covered this recently in another post. But Carya, instead, helpfully re-frames that question - “With such training and structure, how [do] you ever get out?” Walking alongside survivors in our churches allows us to see the God who delivered the Israelites from Egypt work mighty miracles in our own generation. It also allows us to look in awe upon our fellow believers for their faith that has endured unspeakable evil in the name of God but still show up to the extent they can. They are our encouragement to stay in the good fight, following after Jesus Our Captain.

1. See Attachment 1, “Definitions” of the DASA Committee Report.

2. This is a generalized example developed from a composite.