Silence Takes Sides

Trigger Warning: This post deals with sexual assault, which is part of my story. It also references ‘church’ – this is not a reference to my church (I have a beautiful community that, while we can all grow in lots of areas, we lean into pain and carry the burdens of others) The ‘church’ I am referencing is the church at large, especially in America, and in general, those who call themselves Christ-followers but do not walk in the ways of Christ. I write this in a week that I have been gutted daily watching the news of women and children who were victimized by the wealthy and famous, but also those abused by church leaders, and are now being dismissed and vilified for wanting justice. For me, in this arena, silence is untenable, and my emotions are raw. I don’t ever want us to become numb to what seems to be the weekly unveiling of yet another pastor, youth pastor, or non-profit director who has taken advantage of another precious image bearer of God. I refuse.

Silence takes sides. And in the face of sexual violence, silence almost always sides with power.

I want the Church to become the kind of place that doesn’t just talk about healing, it enters in. Not a quaint Bible study where we nod at pain from a comfortable distance. Not a program that “addresses victims” while the rest of the body stays clean. I mean a Church that actually becomes a place of protection, advocacy, and holy courage for the violated: the kind of community that doesn’t flinch at the messy parts of someone’s story.

Because if I’m honest right now, in this time and place in our nation, I’m tired. And I’m angry. I don’t say that as someone removed from horrid circumstances. I say that as a rape survivor – someone who has faced the very things that I’m writing about.

It’s too easy to keep victims at arm’s length. We create spaces where survivors mostly end up helping other survivors because the rest of the community doesn’t want to get close enough to feel it. We’ll build an entire ministry around serving the homeless, supporting the foster system, filling food pantries, and feeding the hungry; and yes, those are good and necessary things, but we seem to pause and hesitate to build a culture where victims are truly safe, truly believed, truly protected.

The church is supposed to be both/and.

We can serve our city and become a refuge for those who have been harmed.
We can care for the vulnerable “out there” and protect the vulnerable in here.
We can call our people to mission and to stand beside survivors, speaking truth when they can’t find their voice because it’s been taken from them.

I don’t know exactly what this is supposed to look like in every church, but I know what it cannot be.

It cannot be the passivity we’ve normalized.

It cannot be the reflexive distancing that disguises itself as wisdom: “We need to wait.” “We don’t know enough.” “Where’s the evidence?”

I am so sick of that sentence.

Because survivors don’t hear “Where’s the evidence?” as neutral.  We hear the undercurrent of “what did you do/say to him? Or “Were you wearing something that set him off?” We hear it as a warning: Be quiet. Prove it. Don’t make us uncomfortable.

And I feel it in my body every single time. It’s not theoretical for us. It lands like a threat and a dismissal in the same breath. It drags us back into places we’ve fought hard to survive. Sexual assault is heinous. There’s a way it’s like murder…only you don’t die.

Just part of you does. And when someone questions you, minimizes you, or doubts another victim in front of you, it’s like they find the weapon again and kill that part all over again.

Because it isn’t just “a memory.” It’s a full-body recall. The sounds. The smells. The textures. The way your stomach drops. The way your skin doesn’t feel like yours. The way your voice disappears. The way the YOU that you were before that moment just disappears, and you not only have to reckon with what has been done to your body, but also what has been robbed from your mind and your soul. And when someone, in person or on the news, questions another survivor, it is as if they picked up the murder weapon and committed the crime all over again.

Ask me how I know.

Even when you have clawed and scratched and screamed and begged and worked and processed all the trauma, over years, and there has been real healing—heart, mind, body—there’s still this truth: our bodies know when something is unsafe. We know when someone is subtly against us. We know when people are protecting the powerful and call it discernment. We know when a room is more committed to comfort than compassion.

It sucks.

And maybe that’s why so many survivors become advocates for those who don’t have a voice: because we were told, explicitly or implicitly, to keep ours quiet.

Don’t bring it up.
It happened a long time ago.
You’ve dealt with it this long; why get upset now?
If you were really healed, you wouldn’t still feel this.
If you really forgave, you wouldn’t still talk about it.

No. That’s not proof that we aren’t healed.

That’s proof that healing is a process - and violence leaves a lingering cost.

Sometimes what people are really saying is: I don’t want to be part of reconciling that cost with someone who is still carrying it.

Here’s what I am not saying: I’m not saying every sermon needs to rage about sexual violence. I’m not saying every Sunday becomes a news recap. I’m not asking the church to become obsessed.

I am saying we cannot never pause.

We cannot never acknowledge how many people in our congregations have been assaulted, abused, or silenced.
We cannot never pray for them.
We cannot never teach our people to stop using reckless words that minimize, interrogate, or protect perpetrators.
We cannot never address the way silence functions as cover, especially when the accused is “one of ours.”

Because silence is not neutral. Silence takes sides.

And I’m tired: I am bone tired: of having to keep reminding my own heart that God restores, that every tear will be redeemed, that there is blessing even in the brokenhearted. Some days I feel like the father in Mark 9, standing in the gap between faith and exhaustion:

“I believe; help my unbelief.”

I’m not struggling to believe that God is good. I’m struggling to believe that people who claim His name will actually reflect His heart when it costs them something.

So let me say what I need to say, again, for me, and for anyone who needs it:

I am not broken because I was raped.
I am not responsible for other people’s discomfort about my story.
I am worthy. I am beautiful. I am wanted. I am loved.
And none of what happened was my fault.

And it wasn’t their fault either. Every survivor deserves to be believed, fought for, seen, and heard.

And this is where I want to end; with tenderness, but also with a clear insistence:

We don’t need the church to be perfect. We need it to be brave. We need it to be the one place that refuses to look away. Because when the culture of the world provides nothing safe, the church should be the epitome of safe: where survivors are not managed, not minimized, not doubted into silence, but held, protected, and honored.

Not “safe” as in sanitized. Safe as in you will not be punished for telling the truth.
Safe as in you will not be cross-examined for bleeding.
Safe as in we will stand with you, not manage you.
Safe as in we will not protect reputations at the expense of the wounded.
Safe as in we will choose light over loyalty, truth over comfort, courage over silence.

If the world is cold, the church should be warmth.
If the world is unsafe, the church should be refuge.
If the world doubts and devours the vulnerable, the church should be the place where the vulnerable finally exhale and realize…I am not alone here.

If the church wants to be the hands and feet of Jesus, we cannot keep walking past people lying on the side of the road, especially when they are the ones who have already been told to stay quiet.

Not here. Not anymore.

Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash