My previous post presented information on the presence and prevalence of sexual abuse in churches. It is well documented factual information is not very effective in countering opposing views. I am confident that most readers, like myself, have a positive bias for the church. Information contrary to any bias is most often rejected and perhaps that happened when you read the post. One intuitive defense when hearing factual negative information is : “That may be true, but I have never known of or witnessed anything like that in our church.”
In 1991 a controversy erupted over accusations of sexual abuse in fundamentalist churches reported in the Nashville Tennessean .
Predictably, the article created a firestorm of reactions. Serving as an elder and aware of the presence of sexual abuse in my own church, I was encouraged that someone was speaking out. My optimism was quickly extinguished when I read a guest editorial in “The Gospel Advocate” written by a prominent and respected evangelist in the Church of Christ. Rather than considering any possibility of misconduct he wrote:
Guy N Woods in his guest editorial, responding to: “The more conservative the church, the more more incest you have in families”. wrote:
The Gospel Advocate – 1991
“I have preached, I think, in more places and for more congregations than any man living in the churches of Christ today. .. In no instance— not one— in all the meetings I have heard so much as a rumor of any active member of the church being accused of incest. The “family life minister’s” statements though distasteful and offensive, are so ludicrous and patently false that most thoughtful people on reading them will smile, shake their heads and dismiss the matter as unworthy of further consideration.”
Numerous others echoed Wood’s sentiments. Participants cited in the article were excoriated, receiving personal and professional scorn. I was angry. What an idiot, did Woods think his casual interactions would reveal incest? How could an, otherwise, intelligent person be so blind? Time and experience have tempered me. I have come to better understand how Woods and others, including myself can be blind to the “obvious”.
Which brings me to “The Dancing Gorilla”. a famous study from 1975.
It will be helpful if you take the test HERE. Follow the instructions carefully.
…the Invisible Gorilla Test, This study, a revised version of earlier studies conducted by Neisser and Becklen in 1975, asked subjects to watch a short video of two groups of people (wearing black and white T-shirts) passing a basketball around. The subjects are told either to count the passes made by one of the teams or to keep count of bounce passes vs. aerial passes. In different versions of the video a person walks through the scene carrying an umbrella (as discussed above) or wearing a full gorilla suit. After watching the video, the subjects are asked whether they noticed anything out of the ordinary taking place. In most groups, 50% of the subjects did not report seeing the gorilla (or the person with the umbrella). Failure to perceive the anomalies is attributed to failure to attend to it while engaged in the difficult task of counting passes of the ball. These results indicate that the relationship between what is in one’s visual field and perception is based much more on attention than was previously thought. –Wikipedia
Attention Blindness – where we can become so focused on an individual task that we become blinded to other important variables in our midst.
Bias, prejudice and other factors can mask the presence of sexual abuse, but I am suggesting that attention blindness is a significant reason for rejecting any suggestion of sexual abuse in the church. Watching the Invisible Gorilla video multiple times, I found that the gorilla was always invisible when I strictly adhered to instructions to count passes by the white shirted participants; otherwise the gorilla was always visible.
The opposite side of the attention blindness coin is inattention blindness.
I see the challenge of recognizing the presence and prevalence sexual abuse in the church as two-fold : 1) attention blindness and 2) inattention blindness.
Research on a phenomenon known as inattentional blindness suggests that unless we pay close attention, we can miss even the most conspicuous events.
This post primarily addresses inattention blindness, pointing out a reality to which attention needs to be drawn. My hope is that attention to the subject will produce conversations and concerns resulting in meaningful actions. Attention blindness is its own “stain” and will be the subject of subsequent posts.
In churches across this nation, children have said, “Someone touched me,” not even understanding what was done to them, and in response, law-abiding citizens of heaven have said, “This doesn’t happen in our church. It cannot be true because the accused person is so nice, and teaches Sunday school, and would never do anything like that.” Instead of facing the truth, they discredit and ignore. Why? Because acknowledging the truth will completely disrupt the system.
Diane Langberg – Redeeming Power – Understanding Power and Abuse in the Church
We often confuse the system of Christianity (Christendom) with Christ. But no so-called Christian system is truly God’s work unless it is full of truth and love. To tolerate sin, pretense, disease, crookedness, or deviation from the truth is to do something other than the work of God, no matter the words used to describe it.So how should we respond to systemic abuse? It begins with facing the truth. Consider what a healthy response to a physical symptom looks like. A person discovers a lump on their body; they can choose to ignore the lump or to take action to protect their physical system. When a response is driven by fear of what the lump might indicate and how disruptive or painful treatment might be, the person may hide the facts from themselves, denying the presence of the lump even though it could cost them their health or even their life. But if they face the truth and do what is necessary to address the symptoms, they can bring healing to their body.
STILL ON THE JOURNEY