Abuse in the Church is Everyone's Problem
Christians have a necessary but difficult responsibility to educate themselves on issues pervasive in church.
This piece first appeared in The Wheaton Record on February 10, 2022 and is published here with permission. You can access the original piece here.
On a crisp fall evening in 2004, I found myself sitting in Father Stewart Ruch’s house, eating pizza alongside a small group of Wheaton students. At that time, the number of Wheaton students who attended the Anglican Church of the Resurrection could fit into the Ruchs’ cozy living room. The ranks of Wheaton students attending Ruch’s church grew exponentially over the next four years. When we graduated, we went on to join — and often lead — other Anglican churches across the United States.
Anglican theologians from C.S. Lewis to N.T. Wright have served as influential guides for Wheaton students’ spiritual pilgrimages. For many of us, Anglicanism offered a more generous expression of Christianity than the faith of our childhood, and we embraced it eagerly. It is no surprise that Wheaton has generated a host of Anglican leaders since the publication of Robert Webber’s “Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail” in 1985.
Studying historical theology at Wheaton helped me to understand that the Church faces specific challenges in every generation. Today, the Church is reckoning with the sin of abuse. In the summer of 2021, it became clear that trouble was brewing in my diocese of 17 years. Ruch—now a bishop—went on administrative leave following a series of devastating allegations implicating the Anglican Diocese of the Upper Midwest (ACNA) and its cathedral, Church of the Resurrection. I started reading accounts of sexual abuse within the Diocese and learned about the subsequent mishandling by church leadership. I found the extensive documentation convincing, but I had to prove it to myself.
I’m an archivist, which means my default mode is to dig into the primary sources. For two months, I methodically went through 20 years of website crawls. I analyzed years of Vimeo and Issuu caches. I went back through blog posts and social media profiles. I searched for 501(c)(3) filings and data. I even ran background checks. If the information was public and online, I probably looked at it. I saw enough to confirm what I hoped would not be true.
When Wheaton is at its best, it empowers students to unflinchingly seek the truth. I will not lie to you: looking directly and honestly at abuse in the church is incredibly difficult. It will shake your faith to its core. But it must be done and done by everyone. It is not another person’s problem.
I joined ACNAtoo because I believe wholeheartedly in the work that they are doing. The goal of this organization is to advocate for survivors of abuse in the ACNA, hold the ACNA leadership accountable to adopt survivor-centered policies and educate people about spiritual and sexual abuse so we can better prevent and respond to abuse in the church.
At first, I saw it as my duty to help rectify the heartbreaking mishandling of abuse in my own diocese. Now I realize that the rot of sin has spread far beyond the confines of one diocese to the Anglican Church as a whole. The Anglican Church in North America had years to watch the #metoo and #churchtoo social movements and learn how to address abuse in their own denomination. Instead, they employed what theologian Wade Mullen terms “organizational impression management strategies” designed to influence the public’s perception of the ACNA. ACNA leaders profess care for abuse survivors while protecting their power with ingratiation, excuses, justifications, intimidation and apologies.
Over the past six months, I’ve amassed evidence indicating that ACNA leaders have broken numerous promises, ignored serious conflicts of interest and dishonestly represented survivors’ concerns about the process. Even now, they continue to withhold critical information regarding an investigation into abuse and its mishandling in the Diocese of the Upper Midwest.
Though I am calling out the ACNA specifically, what we are seeing is not unique to Anglicans. The last few years have featured a parade of church and ministry abuse scandals: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, Southern Baptist Convention, Sovereign Grace, Mars Hill, Willow Creek — the list goes on. Abuse happens everywhere and most churches respond by protecting themselves instead of the victims. Our prophetic call? To refuse to accept abuse as normal.
Every single Christian — Anglican or not — has a responsibility to understand how abuse pervades our churches. We all have the ability to educate ourselves on abuse in the church, which includes spiritual abuse. This type of abuse twists the authority of God and of scripture to coerce and control the congregation. Because it preys on our longing for God and fear of separation from him, spiritual abuse is particularly insidious; for too many of us, spiritual abuse is indistinguishable from the only form of Christianity we know. Understanding how spiritual abuse functions and how it enables other types of abuse — sexual, physical and emotional — is critical for every Christian.
This work is not for the faint of heart. There have been many times over the past months where I have been wrecked by grief over the terrible acts committed by people I loved and respected. But do not lose hope. As St. Silouan the Athonite says, “Keep your mind in hell and don’t despair.” Christ has been there and can bring us out of it.
Abbi Nye ‘08 is an archivist in Milwaukee. She holds a degree in biblical and theological studies and enjoys studying the influence of liberation theology on Roman Catholic priests in Milwaukee’s civil rights movement. When she’s not teaching about primary source literacy, you’ll find her watching the latest K-drama or baking macarons with odd flavor combinations for her husband and son.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Wheaton Record.