You are where you need to be

October 15, 2018October 15, 2018

By Katherine B. Wiens M.Ed, LP, Chair of Into Account Board of Directors

Wherever you are on the journey is exactly where you need to be.

This is my new mantra about sexual violence and survivors.

I believe this statement honors each survivor and where they are on their journey. If we truly wish to help someone who has experienced sexual violence, then we need to come into their circle, not expect them to come into ours. Listening, believing, caring, and honoring is a big part of coming into that circle. It is important to resist our own human nature in wanting to fix things for another person. Our own ego wants to have all the answers to help people. But to enter into a survivor’s space is to sit with them where they are and to listen to their experiences. Telling them what we think they need or where we believe they need to be on the journey is asking the survivor to come into our space. This is not helpful.

When a safe space is created for survivors, then perhaps they can open up and let you in. This is a risk for them and too often those they thought were trustworthy have betrayed them. So, answers are not yours to give. Your listening, caring, honoring and valuing presence is what is needed.

If a survivor is ready and able to let go of the pain, trauma and betrayal they have experienced, then honor that decision. If they are angry as hell about what happened to them, then listen, care and honor that space. If they are overwhelmed and numb and cannot talk about sexual violence, honor that decision. This is what it means to be in their space. To honor that space as holy ground and sit with them just as God sits with them.

Each survivor’s journey is different, but many of the losses are similar. The loss of trust, loss of confidence in who they are, loss of feeling safe anywhere, and many other losses. When a person experiences sexual violence, they may also feel guilt and shame. These are two small words, but they have a massive impact on the life of a survivor. When we try to push the survivor to be okay, because we are uncomfortable with their anger and pain, we pile on more guilt and shame. Telling survivors to let go, forgive, forget, and move on is saying to them where they are at is not okay. That often gets interpreted as they are not okay. And rather than helping we may be increasing the massive impact of the guilt and shame they are already experiencing. This is definitely not what God is calling us to do for those who have experienced sexual violence.

So, honor the space on the survivor’s journey as exactly where they need to be. Listen with care and compassion. Let them know you believe them. If you are honored enough to be let into a survivor’s life and trusted enough for them to open up to you, the best thing to do is listen and to say, not only with your words, but also with your actions, “I see you, I believe you, I care about and you are important to me.”

I write this as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and as a victim of betrayal trauma in a Mennonite church. I use survivor of CSA because I have had many years of therapy, trusting relationships and education to work through that part of my life. I say victim of betrayal trauma because that wound is very fresh and I’m in the grief process where I’m experiencing anger, sadness, depression and the tremendous loss of my faith community. I know in time this grief process will pass, but for now this is where I’m at, and it is exactly where I need to be.

#BelieveSurvivors means what, again?

October 11, 2018October 10, 2018

by Hilary Jerome Scarsella, Director of Theological Integrity

A lot of this angst in the news these days around believing women could be sorted, I think, with some focused attention on what belief actually is in day-to-day human experience. In current popular resistance to the idea of believing women and survivors of sexual assault, folks are treating belief as if it is a magical state entirely unwarranted by reason, like a child’s belief in Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny. But even these examples suggest that belief is more than that. Children who believe that these holiday characters are real actually do have good reason: the adults who they trust to help them learn about the world have, in most cases, told them so.

Belief, as in a child’s reasonable belief in Santa Claus, can be inaccurate. But let’s remind ourselves that thoughts and judicial rulings and data sets and scientific studies can be inaccurate too. The goal cannot be to reach a kind of certainty that is absolutely impervious to error, because that kind of certainty does not exist anywhere, with regard to any subject. Imposing it as the bar survivors have to meet in order to win your support is really just a disguised strategy for avoiding the reality of sexual violence. The goal, rather, is to have ***good reason*** to say we know or think or believe one thing as opposed to another. Belief is always accompanied by reason, and it is always accompanied by a way of being in the world that is shaped by that reason. You cannot get to belief separate from knowledge and action.

So when folks say “believe women” or “believe survivors,” it’s flat out wrong to interpret this statement as a prompt to give your cognitive assent to a position that is not warranted. It is, to the contrary, shorthand for making the argument that there ARE justified warrants for, in general, 1) considering testimonies of sexual assault truthful instead of untruthful, and 2) organizing relationships and politics and law accordingly.

It’s also a plea for folks to live out this belief day-to-day. Here is an incomplete list of what it means #BelieveWomen and #BelieveSurvivors in action:

Know what sexual violence is and how it works on systemic and interpersonal levels.
Know enough that you have the ability, in general, to recognize authentic survivor testimony when you hear it.
Speak & act up on behalf of survivors and others vulnerable to sexual violence.
Support survivors interpersonally, socially, and politically.
Respond to disclosures of sexual violence in ways that empower the survivor and hold those responsible accountable.

These are verbs, friends: know, recognize, speak, act, support, empower, respond. This is what it means to believe survivors.

And here’s a final tidbit to consider:

‘Belief’ is one of the most rich and complex actions (yes, actions) that human bodies and minds can take. Centuries of religious and political history insist on this. Belief or refusal of belief in God or capitalism, for example, is informed by the convergence of countless kinds of knowledge (experiential, economic, social, historical, spiritual) and can influence everything from decisions individuals make about how to raise their kids to global levels of poverty and prosperity in a given era. Belief is powerful. It is an action that structures the world.

Christian folks, particularly those of conservative and evangelical persuasions, tend to hold religious belief in high regard. I’m not here to take issue with that, but I do want to suggest that we take a moment to observe that these same folks who hold religious belief supreme (and, here, I mean specifically those national political figures who cast themselves as conservative or evangelical Christians) are now, in the face of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, simultaneously flattening the concept of belief on the political stage in order to discredit it as an appropriate response to testimonies of sexual violence. Belief in Christian testimony to Jesus as Lord and Savior is defended as admirable sans objective evidence, while believing survivors’ testimonies to their own bodily experiences is cast as unreasonable in the absence of forensic corroboration. No doubt, the issue is more complicated than this single paragraph can address, but the double standard is clear. Either belief in the face of uncertainty has the potential to be rich and textured and warranted, or it must, as a rule, be naive. Folks can’t have it both ways.

I am in favor of preserving the notion of belief as having the capacity to be powerfully nuanced and transformative. Belief is not the same as certainty. But it is always accompanied by reason and it is always lived in action. To believe survivors is to accept the well-reasoned, thoroughly researched, evidence-based argument that survivor testimonies tend to be truthful. (Not familiar with the research? Time for you to whip out Google.) It means understanding sexual violence well enough to judge the evidence and recognize authentic survivor testimony when you encounter it. It means understanding the systemic dynamics that exacerbate sexual violence and tempt folks to distrust survivors. It means interrupting those dynamics and acting in solidarity and care with survivors and those vulnerable to sexual violence in the future. It means organizing family and society and the workplace and Congress and the Supreme Court in ways that structurally resist sexual violence and heed the truthfulness of survivors’ testimonies.

Who defines celibacy?: Why Mennonite Central Committee’s “Lifestyle” policy enables sexual harassment

by Stephanie Krehbiel, Executive Director
featuring letters by Wendi Moore-O’Neal, New Orleans, LA
and Addie Liechty, Oakland, CA

We’re featuring two letters on our blog today. Both are written to the leadership of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), confronting them about the injustice of their “lifestyle” policy. That policy requires sexual celibacy for all MCC employees “outside of a heterosexual marriage relationship.”

We share these letters in light of MCC’s recent initiatives intended for sexualized violence prevention. As much as Into Account’s staff respects the work of some of the individuals at the center of these initiatives, we’re sounding an alarm on MCC and its attitudes towards sexual harassment and abuse. That “sexuality and celibacy” requirement is at the center of the problem, and it undermines the goals of those within the organization who are courageously standing up for an end to sexualized violence.

For those of our readers who grew up in historical peace church traditions, Mennonite Central Committee is likely familiar as a relief and development organization with a reputation for social justice roots. Whether that reputation is earned or not really depends on whom you ask. MCC has a wide reach; it has done wonderful things, and terrible things too.

Likewise, most of us who grew up in church cultures and institutions are familiar with “lifestyle” policies related to sex and sexuality. In addition to shaping the social world of an organization, these policies tend to operate as political signals to constituencies. A policy’s relative strictness tells potential donors whether or not the organization in question aligns with their values.

With that in mind, let’s look at the MCC policy in question:

MCC requires sexual celibacy for personnel outside of a heterosexual marriage relationship during their terms of service with MCC. Persons of homosexual orientation who meet MCC personnel criteria as noted above will be considered for MCC service if they are willing to abide by MCC’s requirement of celibacy for all outside of a heterosexual marriage and if they will not use MCC as a platform from which to advocate for same-sex sexual relationships.

This policy is unacceptable, and the overriding reason why is that it’s immoral and cruel. It is causing active harm.

I’ll start with the grossness of the last sentence. What on earth does “use MCC as a platform from which to advocate for same-sex relationships” even mean, within the context of enforcing a policy? This could be anything, depending on the whims and prejudices of the interpreter. If you participate in LGBTQ justice movements, are you “advocat[ing] for same-sex relationships?” Will MCC management feel empowered to assess and comment on your same-gender friendships? Can you be fired if someone decides that you’re acting too gay for their taste?

This is a situation in which we have to read the historical subtext, which is this: the homosexuals recruit. Watch out for them. Associating queer sexuality with sexual predation is an old, nasty trick, and a staple of homophobic discourse. This isn’t a policy; it’s a dog whistle.

Furthermore, the “sexuality and celibacy” requirements renders MCC’s own anti-harassment policy functionally ridiculous. Now let’s look at that policy:

MCC strives to provide a professional working environment, including management training, inter-cultural training for workers being sent on overseas assignments, and information to all staff that promotes equal employment opportunities and prohibits discriminatory practices, including sexual harassment and harassment based on race, color, gender, national origin, marital status, age, disability or other protected characteristic. MCC will not tolerate harassment on the basis of color, national or ethnic origin, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, age, marital or family statues [sic] or disability. MCC will screen candidates on occupational requirements (such as faith screens), as well as requiring life style [sic] expectations.

Here is something I wish all church organizations could really take in: If you forbid harassment of people from marginalized groups, but at the same time embrace policies and practices that perpetuate the injustices that marginalized those groups in the first place, then all you’re really doing is giving a big “just kidding” wink to people who harass and abuse. You’re letting them know–officially, no less–who is most vulnerable, most expendable, to your organization. You can’t forbid harassment on the basis of sexual orientation at the same time that you’re promoting a policy that renders LGBTQ people subordinate and vulnerable. It doesn’t just make you look like hypocrites. It makes you hypocrites. You know who will exploit that hypocrisy, to the detriment of those vulnerable employees as well as any other LGBTQ people who come into contact with MCC through its relief and development services? Perpetrators. Abusers. Bigots. Jerks. You are taking a population that is already at a higher risk for experiencing harassment and sexual violence, and saddling them with additional vulnerability within your organization.

Furthermore, policies like this are always fraught with ambiguity over what in fact constitutes sexual activity, and what in fact constitutes celibacy, and within that ambiguity is a rich field for victim-blaming. If sex is defined as heterosexual penetrative intercourse (and really, my sympathies to anyone who defines it that narrowly), then everything else is up for interpretation. Is consensual, non-penetrative making out worse if it’s between a man and man than if it’s between a man and woman who aren’t in a marriage relationship? Do they both “count”? Are they both punishable? Does it depend on who you are and how much perceived value you bring to the organization? Does it depend on how many other not-straight-white-male “things” you already are? If an encounter starts out as consensual and one party stops consenting, can the victim be punished within the organization for whatever came before they stopped consenting? Do the genders of the respective parties matter in that situation?

Do trans and non-binary people have a place here? Are they allowed to get married and have sex? Are they allowed to exist? How much gender non-conformity is too much?

The definition of sexual harassment, under U.S. federal civil rights guidelines, includes unwelcome questioning and rumor-spreading about a person’s sexual and social life. If you’re outed as queer without your consent–which is, in fact, a form of sexual harassment–can you then be interrogated and subsequently punished for your queerness? (If MCC’s history of involuntary outings is any indication, then yes, you can.)

These inconsistent, ambiguous, and coded rules are made to be broken. And so really, the question is, who gets away with breaking them, and who doesn’t?

Which brings me to our first letter. Its author, Wendi Moore-O’Neal, is a New Orleans native who came on board with MCC after Hurricane Katrina. Wendi was a social justice activist who was already well-respected within communities that were devastated by Katrina. When Wendi was fired for being, in her words, a “Black, butch, dyke,” she took her case to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Her recent letter to MCC, published below, details how that complaint went.

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to say that Policy #152 is not good policy for MCC as an employer subject to comply with the constitutional rights of its workers.

In October of 2014 I lost my livelihood when I was fired from MCC via email with these words:

“MCC has become aware of actions by you that violate MCC’s Sexuality and Celibacy Policy; specifically, co-habitation with your same-sex partner and subsequent marriage. MCC views these actions as being in direct violation of MCC’s requirement of sexual celibacy for personnel outside of heterosexual marriage.”

I was fired in spite of recognition of my good work as a Community Organizer with this Peace and justice organization for over 3 years. I was fired without a clearly articulated process, where I was faced with an accusation and not allowed to defend myself before l was terminated. I was fired based on assumptions that I was not celibate even though celibacy was never defined. I was fired after I stated that I am a Black, butch, dyke who was getting married. I was fired after I challenged the white male Executive Director of MCC US and the white Director of Programs on their internalized racial superiority and how it manifest in the organization. I was fired without consideration to the impact that would have on the people and work of MCC’s New Orleans Program.

I have always tried to work out conflicts in a transparent and amicable way that advances justice. Shortly after being fired, MCC left me little choice to address this injustice internally, so I filed an EEOC claim addressing the discrimination I experienced. MCC hired Fisher & Phillips law firm, a national pro-management law firm, with over 350 lawyers, to oppose working this out with the EEOC.

I recently received this in a Right to Sue Letter addressed to me:

The EEOC found reasonable cause to believe that violations of the statute(s) occurred with respect to some or all of the matters alleged in the charge but could not obtain a settlement with the Respondent that would provide relief for you. In addition, the EEOC has decided that it will not bring suit against the Respondent at this time based on this charge and will close its file in this case. This does not mean that the EEOC is certifying that the Respondent is in compliance with the law, or that the EEOC will not sue the Respondent later or intervene later in your lawsuit if you decide to sue on your own behalf.

I would prefer to resolve this outside of court, eliminating Policy #152 could help.

Sincerely,

Wendi Moore-O’Neal,
Fired MCC Community Organizer,
New Orleans Program, Central States

(The EEOC’s decision to close their case against MCC on Wendi’s behalf has to be understood in the context of the Trump Administration’s systemic attack on civil rights. We’ll have more on that to come.)

Our second letter comes from Addie Liechty, a therapist and singer-songwriter living in Oakland, California. Addie’s commitment to MCC’s relief efforts with Syrian and Iraqi refugees led them to collaborate with other musicians on a successful MCC fundraising project, The Midnight Hymn Sing, which brought thousands of dollars to MCC’s relief programs. They write:

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to express my discontent with Policy #152 that requires sexual celibacy for MCC personnel outside of heterosexual marriage. On March 16-17th, your organization affirmed this statute for all those in leadership positions, workers with significant interactions with MCC’s constituency and service workers on international assignments. You went on to state that some exceptions will be made, though it is incredibly vague around what and who those exceptions will be.

I have been following this story, but felt somewhat disconnected to any feelings around it. So much so that my partner commented to me, “You don’t even seem upset about this. Your friends are more upset than you are.” I told her that at this point, I am just used to it. However, this morning I felt something again when I read the letter written to you by Wendi Moore-O’Neal. MCC fired O’Neal, by email, in 2014, after “becoming aware of actions that violate MCC’s requirement of sexual celibacy for personnel outside of heterosexual marriage.”

This caused me to feel something. O’Neal writes in her letter “I identify as a Black, butch, dyke.” These are desperately missing identities in all places of work, particularly Mennonite institutions. Because of this, we/you miss out on people who are able to see things that you/I do not see, from our/your positions of privilege and majority. When I think about how many people are placed on MCC assignments, who are from small, mostly white, North American towns, who have only attended Mennonite schools and are deemed ready after some orientations and an assured heterosexual identity, I have to laugh. Of course, many of these people have done good work and some of them are my friends, but making sexuality the determining factor for ability to serve is negligent for an organization doing cross-cultural work.

The negligence of polices like this one, rise to a deadly level when you consider the ongoing safety risks for LGBTQ people. We are still the most targeted group for hate crimes. Trans and gender non-conforming people have a 25 percent chance of facing violent assault. Furthermore, 80% of those victims are people of color. Currently, many LGBTQ people are fleeing terrible violence in other countries. Are these not people whom MCC should be serving? Might these people benefit from seeing someone like them, in an aid organization, such as MCC? My guess (and hope) is that nobody would contest that rhetoric and discriminatory policies contributed to the genocide of Jewish people, in Nazi Germany. So why do we pretend that church policies such as 152 do not have the same impact on the violence that so many LGBTQ people continue to face?

As I sit here feeling my anger on behalf of O’Neal, I also become aware of my own feelings. Indeed the numbness that I initially felt is an ongoing symptom of trauma. I recently said to my therapist, “Sometimes I feel like my symptoms fit those of a sexual abuse survivor.” To my surprise, she said, “Well, your church sexually abused you.” I do not wish to equate my experience with survivors who have been physically violated, but I immediately understood what my therapist meant.

The ongoing messages about the unholiness of my sexuality, from Church institutions took and continues to take a toll on my psyche. These tolls include shame, anxiety and bodily triggers to touch. As a child, I would perform mental rituals to quell the anxiety about my sexuality. In adulthood, this has erupted into full blown OCD during stressful times, requiring medication and therapy.

Despite this, many parts of me are thriving. I have talents for writing, music and spiritual/theological discourse that I love sharing. This summer, I decided to share one of these gifts with your institution, by creating (with many other talented musicians) “The Midnight Hymn Sing.” The proceeds went entirely to MCC aid for Syrian and Iraqi refugees. I believe this project raised thousands of dollars and I do not regret this one bit. The last thing I want to do is advocate for stopping donations to MCC. Placing my pain over the pain of those fleeing war is absurd, but MCC, you place me in such an odd position.

In an effort to build empathy consider this: What would it be like to sit down with all current employees, particularly those who are white, with those recognizable Mennonite names, and require that they disclose every sexual experience that they have ever had? Imagine for a moment the impact of a process such as this one…describing all sexual acts that ever occurred outside of heterosexual marriage while someone judges if those acts were holy or unholy; judges if something crossed a line and puts their employment and livelihood at risk. Aside from how awkward and traumatizing this sounds, you may find that more employees than you would like to know, are or have been out of compliance with your lifestyle guidelines.

Sincerely,

Addie Liechty (They/them)

Big thanks to Wendi and Addie, for letting us share these letters, and for your willingness to speak your truth to power in the face of the dehumanizing dismissals that you’ve both received.

This is not the end of this story. It’s time to put some more heat on MCC. Next week we will have more information on how to support Wendi, Addie, and the MCC employees who are currently organizing for a safer and more just workplace.

Responding to reports of abuse: Who’s getting it right? And where does theology come in?

January 26, 2018January 26, 2018

by Hilary Jerome Scarsella, Director of Theological Integrity

The other day, my colleagues and I were reflecting on the sense of angst we have when folks in communities of faith ask us for examples of people getting it right when it comes to responding to abuse.

It’s a perfectly fantastic question. Who is not making a mess of sexual violence reports, and how can we hold up these instances of success as models for others to follow?

The problem is, we don’t know of many success stories to tell. Partly, that’s because they’re shockingly uncommon. In my years of talking and hanging out and working with survivors of sexual violence, I can count on one hand the number who have been satisfied with the way their reports of violence were handled.

Just kidding! I can count them on no hands, because zero is the number of sexual violence survivors who have ever said to me anything remotely close to that.

Even so, one would think it has got to be true that some survivor somewhere has had a good experience reporting abuse to the appropriate religious institution. If such a person exists, it would be unlikely for their story to reach our or anyone else’s ears, because people tend to call us or speak publicly as a last resort when all other options for addressing the problem within their community have failed. Survivors whose communities step successfully up to the task of confronting abuse do not need advocates or the news media because they have an army of support in their own friends and family and in their communities of faith.

For these reasons – because success stories are precious few, and because those few are unlikely to be told publicly – I tend to become wide-eyed and awkwardly speechless when asked by sincere inquirers for models of success to study and follow.

But, not today. This week, we have all been witness to a powerful example of what it can look like for an institution to get it right in at least one smallish, gigantic way. I’m talking about the way Judge Aquilina and her courtroom handled the testimony of survivors at Larry Nassar’s sentencing hearing.

Judge Aquilina opened her courtroom to any and all who called in and reported to have been abused by Nassar. To every person who came forward as a victim, she offered an opportunity to speak. She invited secondarily impacted family members of survivors to speak as well.

Did the court definitively investigate each survivors’ claim to be a victim before welcoming her to the podium?

It did not.

Those who spoke were not asked to run the words they planned to say by a committee first. As far as we know, they were not cautioned or discouraged or reminded to keep the feelings of Nassar and his family in mind as they prepared to speak. Judge Aquilina invited them to bring all of the pain they wished to speak into the courtroom, to speak it boldly, and to leave it there for Nassar and the public to hold.

When Nassar protested that listening to the testimony of the people he harmed would be too taxing for him, Aquilina decided he ought to do it anyway. When the survivors spoke, Aquilina affirmed every one of them. When Nassar apologized, Aquilina called his bluff.

Because Judge Aquilina created an environment of respect that affirmed survivors’ speech as truthful and warranted, the testimony of 88 survivors brought over 62 more out of silence in the course of just one week.

This ought to serve as a model for religious communities and institutions wanting to prioritize right relationships when confronting abuse.

Believe victims.
Do not be manipulated by perpetrators of abuse.
Do not use concern for a perpetrator’s feelings or the feelings of his family to manipulate or silence victims.
Create space for victims to speak without trying to control what or how they speak.
Listen.
Listen again.
Respect and affirm.
Learn from what you’ve heard.
Require accountability for the perpetrator.

Repeat as necessary.

It’s time that Christian theology and practice declare that Christians who might be called upon to respond to survivors reporting abuse have an ethical responsibility not to allow themselves to be manipulated by perpetrators of abuse. We need theologies that make it a priority of Christian discipleship to develop the ability to detect and resist manipulation by people who are using Christian tendencies toward enemy love, forgiveness, and reconciliation to get away with hurting others.

By now, we could fill an auditorium in a megachurch with the number of studies and books and articles that have been written on the manipulative tactics that perpetrators of sexual violence use to blame victims and avoid accountability. Analyses of the ways that Christian thought and practice are particularly vulnerable to exploitation by these tactics abound. In 2018, the church has no excuse for failing to understand and actively resist this vulnerability.

We can make headway by constructing theologies that interpret each of the ten points in the process above as mandates of Christian living. For example, starting with numbers 1, 2, and 3:

1. We need theologies that describe the process of attuning ourselves to the truth proclaimed in sexual violence survivors’ speech as a process of attuning ourselves to the presence of the Spirit. We need a concept of Christian living that values making ourselves into a people who expect truth in survivors’ speech, who look for that truth, recognize it, and affirm it in word and action.
2. In the same way that Christians must not allow themselves to be manipulated by the false promises of dominating wealth and power, we need theologies that insist Christians must not allow ourselves to be manipulated by lies told by perpetrators of abuse. We need theologies that require us to become wise to the false claims of every form of violence and oppression, including false claims spoken from the lips of people we know and care for who are revealed to have perpetrated or enabled sexual violence.
3. We must not allow concern for a perpetrator’s feelings or the feelings of their family to cause us to manipulate or deter the speech of victims. Especially in the moments of fear and confusion that are sure to come as we confront any particular instance of abuse, we need theologies and practiced habits that stop us from urging the injured to be quiet.

Here’s how I see it.

That podium where Nassar’s victims spoke in Aquilina’s courtroom was a communion table. Each one of the women who spoke gave and received the kind of sustenance that makes life livable. They gave truth and voice that gift other survivors and the rest of the nation with presence and knowledge that saves – literally saves other survivors from the commonly lethal threat of isolation and gives everyone the opportunity to learn something about what it takes to stop sexual violence and its repercussions. In turn, they received affirmation, gratitude, respect, and freedom to be themselves in full.

I’m not saying that what happened in Judge Aquilina’s courtroom was perfect. The courts themselves are, in a systemic sense, upholders of white supremacy and sexism and wider patterns of thought and action that regularly silence lower profile survivors of sexual violence all across the country. There are a few criticisms of Aquilina that warrant some reflection. But in a world that is hard pressed to deliver examples of success when it comes to responding to abuse transformatively and well, this is one to hold up for what it does get right.

If you’re uncomfortable, like I am, that this example comes from a courtroom and not a sanctuary or community of activists, that’s a good thing. Discomfort motivates change.

Communities and institutions of Christian faith, there is theological work to be done. With this model offered as inspiration, what can you find in your traditions of faith and care that will enable your response to sexual violence to be as nourishing and transformative as the one we witnessed this week in court? I want to hear from you.

Committing Sexual Violence No Impediment to EMU Social Work Degree

April 22, 2017July 10, 20172 Comments

“Launch Your Future,” EMU’s website shouts in bold capital letters, as they prepare to hand a social work degree to a student who has – by EMU’s own finding – committed sexual violence.

Continuing Eastern Mennonite University (EMU)’s culture of staggering mishandling of sexual violence, EMU student Joel Wheeler is days away from graduating with a social work degree, despite the fact that EMU determined he committed “non-consensual vaginal intercourse,” “on at least one occasion.”

From the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, here is the legal definition of the word “rape”: ““The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”

Continue reading →

To social justice Christians who think that sexualized violence in your church is a trivial thing to focus on because there are “more urgent issues right now”

February 10, 2017February 10, 2017

You’re wrong. Let’s talk about why.

by Stephanie Krehbiel

Continue reading →

Into Account

Support for survivors seeking justice, accountability, and recovery in Christian contexts

Tag: theology

You are where you need to be

By Katherine B. Wiens M.Ed, LP, Chair of Into Account Board of Directors

#BelieveSurvivors means what, again?

by Hilary Jerome Scarsella, Director of Theological Integrity

Responding to reports of abuse: Who’s getting it right? And where does theology come in?

By Katherine B. Wiens M.Ed, LP, Chair of Into Account Board of Directors

by Hilary Jerome Scarsella, Director of Theological Integrity

by Stephanie Krehbiel, Executive Director featuring letters by Wendi Moore-O’Neal, New Orleans, LA and Addie Liechty, Oakland, CA

“Launch Your Future,” EMU’s website shouts in bold capital letters, as they prepare to hand a social work degree to a student who has – by EMU’s own finding – committed sexual violence.

by Stephanie Krehbiel, Executive Director
featuring letters by Wendi Moore-O’Neal, New Orleans, LA
and Addie Liechty, Oakland, CA