Healing the Wounds of Sexual Abuse: Reading the Bible with Survivors

By Elaine A. Heath

This accessibly written book illuminates the good news of healing and liberation the Bible offers survivors of sexual abuse. As an expert in pastoral ministry and a survivor of abuse herself, Elaine Heath handles this sensitive topic with compassion and grace. The book is illustrated with stories and insights from survivors, and each chapter ends with reflection questions and recommended activities. Previously published as We Were the Least of These, this repackaged edition includes a new contextualized introduction that explores how the book speaks into a vital cultural conversation (#MeToo).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781493418343

Elaine A. Heath

Elaine A. Heath is a theologian whose work is interdisciplinary, integrating pastoral, biblical, and spiritual theology in ways that bridge the gap between academy, church, and world. Her current research interests focus on community as a means of healing trauma, emergent forms of Christianity, and alternative forms of theological education for the church in rapidly changing contexts. Heath is the author of numerous books and articles, the most recent of which is Healing the Wounds of Sexual Abuse: Reading the Bible with Survivors (2019), a republication with updates of a previous volume: We Were the Least of These: Reading the Bible with Survivors of Sexual Abuse (2011). She also recently served as general editor of the Holy Living series.

Book preview

Elaine Heath draws deeply from Scripture and her own experience as a Christ follower, friend, pastor, and teacher, gifting us with this remarkable resource for healing the wounds of sexual abuse. She is a courageous companion into texts familiar and loved as well as texts avoided and ignored. The result is persistent and surprising good news: in every hard place in life, darkness is overcome by God’s light and love.

—Bishop Hope Morgan Ward, North Carolina Conference, United Methodist Church

"The journey of recovery from sexual abuse is both scarred and sacred. Elaine Heath boldly covers theological terrain ‘that is perilous, beautiful, wild, unutterably holy.’ Her development of atonement theory understands Jesus (Emmanuel) as ‘the least of these.’ Heath asserts that Jesus was a victim of sexual abuse as he was publicly stripped naked, humiliated, bound, violated, penetrated, and torn. She proceeds fearlessly into topics of toxic shame, original wounding, vulnerability, spiritual eros, and healing. As a survivor of sexual assault, Heath goes with the reader into this difficult reality. Joining with the vast numbers of women, men, girls, and boys who are survivors of sexual abuse, Elaine Heath offers her unique contribution to the #MeToo movement."

—Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University

What an important and helpful book this is! We couldn’t ask for a better pastoral guide than Elaine Heath to probe deeply into the issue of sexual abuse and the healing so desperately needed by the abused and all of us. She helps us listen carefully to the Bible and see it as a path toward divine healing instead of as a weapon of oppression, bringing to bear the riches of our theological tradition along with a tender pastoral love. I thank God for this gift of a book.

—James Howell, Myers Park United Methodist Church, Charlotte, North Carolina

Written from the powerful perspective of ‘we, the survivors’ by a person who is deeply contemplative and able to ‘be angry but sin not’ regarding the evil of patriarchy and sexual abuse, this book educates, encourages, and empowers individuals and communities. Heath shows us how Jesus, the Bible, and Christian community can (and do) serve as sources of healing and wholeness for survivors (even those abused by people in the church). This book is for everyone—churches, seminaries, small groups, and individuals. It is for survivors themselves and those who journey with survivors. It should be required reading for every seminary, and it will be on my syllabus. Far from an exercise in theoretical possibilities or wishful thinking, it is an invitation into the sure reality of healing that awaits survivors and those who companion them.

—Jaime Clark-Soles, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University

This book should not need to be written, much less deserve another edition. That it is still needed is painfully evident when public leaders condone and even revel in abuse. This book is gracefully written by a teacher, pastor, and survivor. These are not simply academic issues to Heath but reflect the lived experiences of her and others, whose stories are boldly shared. Through biblical narratives from both the Old and New Testaments, our eyes are opened to the prevalence of abuse among us—survivors sit in every church, school, or business of any size. Heath shows through these scriptural stories and contemporary cultural artifacts, including films and books, how hurt can grow to hope and healing in the broken lives of survivors. Everyone needs to read and discuss this book, which opens our eyes to the needs of those sitting right beside us.

—David W. Baker, Ashland Theological Seminary

© 2011, 2019 by Elaine A. Heath

Published by Brazos Press

a division of Baker Publishing Group

PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.brazospress.com

Repackaged edition published 2019

Previously published in 2011 as We Were the Least of These: Reading the Bible with Survivors of Sexual Abuse

Ebook edition created 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-1834-3

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

For Morven

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Contents

Cover    i

Endorsements    ii

Half Title Page    iv

Title Page    v

Copyright Page    vi

Dedication    vii

Acknowledgments    xi

Introduction    xiii

1. We Were the Least of These    1

2. Fig Leaves    13

3. Through the Wilderness    25

4. The Terrible Secret    39

5. Beauty Pageants    51

6. Prayers of Lament and Mercy    65

7. Are You My Mother?    75

8. Eunuchs    87

9. We Are Clean    101

10. About Judas and Mary    113

11. Emmanuel    123

12. In Remembrance of Me    137

13. Letting Go    151

14. Final Thoughts    165

Appendix A:  The Healing Cloud    169

Appendix B:  A Definition of Sexual Violence    185

Recommended Resources    187

Notes    193

Index    201

Back Cover    206

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the many women and men who have trusted me with their stories and with whom I have journeyed in healing for the past twenty years. We have laughed, cried, and urged one another on through thick and thin. I especially want to thank my friend Dr. Morven Baker. Morven was the first person I ever heard speak about sexual abuse in a church. She has been God’s vessel of healing for countless survivors of sexual abuse and domestic violence. She is also a strong advocate for the LGBTQ community, especially adolescents and young adults who have been rejected by their families because of their sexuality.

I would also like to thank my sisters, Jeanine and Julie; my husband, Randy; and my colleagues Rebekah Miles, Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner, and Karen Baker-Fletcher for their continual support and wisdom as conversation partners during the writing of this book. I am indebted to my friends for their tireless intercessory prayer, especially Sherry.

Finally, I am grateful to my editors at Brazos Press, who are kind, patient, insightful, and always encouraging.

Introduction

Me too. Coined in 2006 by Tarana Burke, this phrase designated the vast community of women and girls who are survivors of sexual assault.1 On October 5, 2017, celebrity Ashley Judd accused media giant Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment in a New York Times piece that launched what became the #MeToo movement.2 One by one, famous actors, industry leaders, and megachurch leaders fell as women told their stories of harassment and rape. Thousands of women posted me too on their Facebook pages. In a way no one could have predicted, an avalanche of women (and men) told their stories on social media. The suffocating silence of shame had been broken.

I am one of the women who posted me too on social media. While I did not want to go into detail about the harmful events of my life, like so many others who posted, I wanted to declare publicly that shame, silence, and violence will not have the last word. Healing is possible. A beautiful future is possible for people like us. Moreover, many of us have wisdom and discernment that emerge from our wounds as they heal. We have God-given, powerful insight that the church needs.

My healing from abuse has been deeply embedded in my vocational journey as a theologian, pastor, and spiritual companion to others. Because I had the privilege of studying in diverse theological streams—evangelical, mainline Protestant, and Catholic—I gradually discovered many treasures from all these traditions that helped to open the Bible’s wealth of healing wisdom to me. Over the years as I have served in ministry with other survivors, I have witnessed the healing power of the Bible in their lives too.

This book is really grounded in two commitments: first, that the Bible can be a powerful source of healing for survivors of abuse, and second, that survivors who are healing have essential theological wisdom that the whole church needs in order to be the people God has called us to be in this world.

The process of healing from abuse is different for every survivor. While there are thresholds of healing that are common to survivors, every path to wholeness is unique. In this book we will consider several passages from the Bible that have proven to be profoundly healing for myself and other survivors with whom I have journeyed. Often in the chapters ahead I refer to us survivors and how we read a particular text. In doing so, I am referring to the actual survivors with whom I have experienced healing through that text. I do not presume to speak for every survivor everywhere or to think that my own experience or what I have written is the only way people can heal.

To protect the privacy of persons involved, I have changed names and identifying details of the stories and individuals in this book, while preserving the issues, theological insights, and healing that took place.

While I am deeply grateful for the healing power of the Bible in my life and the lives of many others, for some survivors the Bible will never be accessible. In some cases it is virtually impossible for survivors to participate in religious practices, go to church, or read the Bible because of the residual effects of their trauma. The barriers to meaningful interaction with the text are even higher if they have experienced ritual abuse that uses religious objects in the abuse, or if the offender was a pastor, priest, youth leader, or Sunday school teacher. In these situations survivors’ spiritual care involves the same respect, compassion, and encouragement any survivor needs. It is never appropriate to try to force someone to heal by using the Bible, prayer, church attendance, or other aspects of religion. We can be sure that in such cases the love of God is mediated with power as pastors, friends, and other caring persons incarnate the message of the gospel for the survivors, becoming the living text of love that survivors need. Love will heal many wounds that written words cannot. Indeed, without love the words of the Bible become noisy gongs and clanging cymbals (1 Cor. 13:1).

At the end of each chapter, I have included two sets of reflection questions, one set for survivors and another for companions of survivors, as well as a list of recommended activities. It is my hope and prayer that this book will help therapists, pastors, and survivors’ loved ones to understand how the Bible can help to heal the wounds of sexual abuse. Most of all I pray that this book will bring hope, healing, and freedom to my sisters and brothers, the least of these.

1

We Were the Least of These

It was the middle of summer and I was preaching through a series titled Men, Women, and God. While the congregation was accepting of me as their pastor, they still tended to have patriarchal views about gender. Our church was in the Ohio River Valley, a region with unusually high rates of sexual abuse and domestic violence.1 My goal in the sermon series was to introduce the congregation to deeper levels of the healing and liberating power of the gospel. As part of the larger goal, I wanted them to experience a reading of several biblical texts that could help to prevent and heal the sexual abuse and domestic violence in our city.

On this Sunday, several weeks into the series and after I had established a biblical foundation for gender equality, I preached about the sin of childhood sexual abuse. I talked about its presence even among Christians, its relationship to patriarchy, and how the church could help to prevent and heal this form of violence. My biblical text was the story of the woman at the well in John 4. The congregation was unusually quiet, listening intently as I preached about the woman’s worth in God’s eyes and how her series of rejections as an adult could very well have been the outcome of the wounds of sexual abuse. Certain aspects of her adult life, I said, are consistent with what we see in survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Instead of looking at her story as just one more example of an immoral woman, what if we thought about the kinds of childhood experiences that can move a person toward this much chaos as an adult? This familiar story from the Gospels was a way to ease into a very difficult subject as we considered some of the consequences of childhood sexual abuse for adult survivors. As I spoke of the struggle survivors sometimes have with perfectionism and anxiety, and other consequences of sexual abuse, I noticed several people had tears in their eyes.

Bringing the message to a close, I briefly mentioned the systemic layers of oppression that faced this woman and further isolated her from her own people and religious community. In short, I was linking the sin of childhood sexual abuse to the larger systemic issue of patriarchy. The good news, I said, is that this unnamed woman became the first evangelist. Jesus saw beyond the surface of her dysfunctional relationships to the misery of her life. More than that, he saw the person she could become. Jesus trusted her, wanted to drink from her cup, was willing to be seen talking with her. Jesus did not shame her. When Jesus met her, he saw someone who wanted to be a true worshiper. This woman was not doomed to live in the shadow of her abuse forever. Because of Jesus, she found her own voice and with it led others to the one who set her free.

After the benediction, I followed custom and greeted people as they were leaving the church. An older woman, Laura, lingered at the edge of the sanctuary. Her husband, Marty, had already gone out to the car. They were usually there on Sundays but kept to themselves and rarely came to fellowship events. I always thought their reticence was because they were new in town, having moved there just a year before I did. When we passed the peace, Laura stood still instead of moving into the aisle. She stared ahead and greeted others only if they first spoke to her. Marty was a little more outgoing, but not much. They were both tall and dignified. Nearly eighty, Laura was still strikingly beautiful, with her shoulder-length white hair and stylish clothing.

When the last person had left the sanctuary, Laura approached. Taking my hand, she looked into my eyes and was silent, searching for the right words. Finally she spoke. Pastor, what you preached about really touched me. For the first time in my life—and I have been going to church my entire life—I actually understood every word of the sermon.

Thank you, Laura! I said, surprised by her comments because she had been listening to my sermons for nearly two years. Why would she understand this sermon and not the others? There was something more that she seemed to want to say, so I waited.

With no change in facial expression or tone of voice, Laura matter-of-factly continued, My neighbor and his friend raped me. Two of them, together, one after the other. They were in high school. I was seven years old. The words came out with no more emotion than if she were telling me what she had for dinner the night before. I hadn’t thought of it in a long time. Your sermon made me remember it. The faintest glimmer of pain began to show in her eyes. I’ve never told anyone before, she whispered. That sermon marked the beginning of Laura’s healing.

Today Laura experiences the love of God, laughs freely, and participates in Bible studies and outings with friends. She and Marty have become favorites of many of the younger adults at the church, who are often dinner guests at the couple’s home. Although she is still reserved by nature, Laura has definitely found her voice, and she is a blessing to everyone around her. She is compassionate, a deep thinker, a joy to her friends.

Why Survivors Disconnect from the Church

As Laura explained in one of our many conversations after the disclosure of her abuse, prior to the advent of her healing, she had never been able to experience prayer or