Abuse in the Church and the Road to Jericho

The most harrowing part of last week's report on the SBC Executive Committee might be its summary of interviews with survivors of sexual abuse. Christa Brown speaks with excruciating eloquence on the consequences not only of abuse in the church but of the callous inhumanity that greeted the survivors' attempts to tell their stories. "For most people of faith," she says, "their faith is a source of solace," a reservoir of peace and resource for healing. For her, however, faith is "neurologically networked with a nightmare." She was raped repeatedly as a child by her pastor and endured a torrent of hostility when she told the truth. "It is not only physically, psychologically, and emotionally devastating," she says, "but it is spiritually annihilating. It is soul murder."