Tag Archives: Salvation

June 21, 2015 · 1:00 am

Abuse and Our View of God

“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4: 16).

The image we have of God is greatly influenced by the childhood experience with our own fathers, and the men who – willingly or not – filled that role in our lives. We view God as possessing all their faults while, at the same time, blaming Him for those faults.

Abuse necessarily darkens the lens through which we see God.

If our fathers were absent, chances are we will see God as absent and unconcerned for our welfare. If the men with whom we had relationships as children were hard and critical of us, we are likely to see God as harsh and judgmental.

If our fathers were cruel and sadistic, or molested us under the guise of “love”, we may see God as cruel or deceptive, and turn our backs on Him entirely. After all, He turned His on us first. Didn’t He?

Incest survivors may be threatened by the very concept of God as a “father” [1]. It speaks to us not of love and protection, but of violation. The Bible though uses many different images for God. These include our Shield (Ps. 3: 3), our Rock (Ps. 18: 2), our Shepherd (Ps. 23: 1), our Healer (Ps. 30: 2), and our Protector (Ps. 78: 23-29).

The Gospel is transformative for abuse victims, in this regard. The lens is wiped clean. We can for the first time see God clearly.

And we can see ourselves in a new light. Our true value, long clouded by abuse, is suddenly clear. For many of us, the impact of this is akin to forgiveness and equally powerful. Continue reading →

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December 21, 2014 · 1:00 am

The Book of Job

For years, I was an atheist, unwilling to believe in or do homage to a God who would allow suffering by the innocent.

My view was a direct result of the abuse I had endured, and the suffering of all kinds I saw around me. I could not reconcile a good and just God with the many injustices in the world.  Faith was a fool’s game.

The Bible’s Book of Job, in particular, revealed the merciless nature of God. So I thought. A devout man is caused to lose his property, his children, and his health. All to demonstrate that his faith in God is not a response to good fortune alone.

I saw the God who would allow this as sadistic. I viewed the Book of Job as an obscenity, and rejected the propositions it put forward. For a long while, I preferred to rage.

When I found the law as a profession, it felt as if a sword had been placed into my hand.

But the Book of Job is a profound study in suffering. It makes the point that God is God. We are merely His creation, dearly though He loves us.

In the end, I came to recognize that we cannot substitute our sense of justice for God’s. We do not have His perspective. We cannot see the end from the beginning.

Christians do not always know why suffering takes place. Ours is a broken world, not the paradise we might wish.

Christians do, however, know the true character of God. He truly is holy, good, just, and merciful. He and only He is the God who suffered as we suffer, even dying for our sakes. Amid the severest of trials, He somehow sustains us. And we have His promise that He will use all things somehow for good.

That promise cannot be applied simplistically. No Christian would contend that good can come to a child from sexual molestation, torture, or neglect. Continue reading →

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March 16, 2014 · 1:00 am

Overcoming the World, Part 1 – Fame and Systemic Abuse

What a world it has become.  Headlines scream off the page at us:

Parents Arrested After Allegedly Forcing Girl, 5, to OD on Soda [1].

Doctor convicted of endangering stepdaughter in “waterboarding” Trial[2].

Couple Arrested for Enslaving Teen Girl[3].

FAME

Certainly, fame and affluence do not assure the safety of children.  Melvin Morse – the doctor mentioned above – had appeared on “Oprah” and “Good Morning America”. Fame may, in fact, foster a sense of entitlement on the part of some predators. They come to believe the prohibition against abuse is for lesser mortals.

And fame seems to provide an exemption of sorts from basic standards of morality.

Woody Allen’s adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, continues to maintain that the filmmaker sexually assaulted her, some two decades ago [4]. Allen was never prosecuted [5A] [5B].

Woody Allen, you may remember, was, also, involved sexually with Soon-Yi Previn, 35 years his junior. Soon-Yi (whom Allen later married) was another adopted daughter of Mia Farrow, a woman with whom Allen had a longterm relationship. Allen has been quoted as saying, “What was the scandal?…There was no scandal…” [6].

Overseas, BBC star Jimmy Savile was repeatedly investigated, but never prosecuted either. Only after his death was it revealed that Savile had abused a staggering 400 children or more, often while they were hospital patients [7].  The possibility of a wider British pedophile ring with influential members protected from prosecution is still being explored.

The California trial of ex-football player Darren Sharper for rape should be instructive. Sharper is under investigation for a total of seven rapes in four states [8]. Assuming the allegations against him to be true, Sharper felt no compunction about drugging women in order to have sex with them.

SYSTEMIC ABUSE

Systemic abuse may be even more appalling. The public is by now familiar with the Catholic Church sex scandal. In “Secrets of the Vatican,” the investigative program, Frontline, recently exposed the culture of corruption which allowed sexual perversion to flourish [9]. But the Catholic Church is not alone in this.

Continue reading →

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