Foreword
Debra Hirsch
This book is a courageous gift, arriving at just the right time.
Our entire culture, including our churches, is only beginning to come to grips with the vast and insidious topic of sexual abuse. The sheer scale of the issue is hard to fathom.
But we must. No Christian leader can answer the call of ministry today and not be informed about this issue. Despite the complexity, we must engage. Similarly, survivors also deserve answers that go to the heart of their pain, naming the issues, engaging their hard questions, offering full and frank information, and carefully proclaiming the vastness of Gods love to empower them for the road toward recovery.
This powerful book meets both these needs. It is a book every survivor deserves, and that every Christian leader needs to read.
Tim Hein has been a friend for over fifteen years, but I dont need to be biased to affirm the power and beauty of this book. Rather, knowing Tim and observing his life and ministry only confirms my confidence in the integrity of this story. It is no surprise that he has written such an eloquent and moving resource, filled with precise explanations and rich insight.
Tim is a person after my own heart, passionate about seeing the church as a radical community of people walking toward wholeness and welcoming broken peoplea place where the radical gospel of Jesus Christ is announced as good news, even in the darkest places and in the face of the most difficult issues in our world. We follow a God who is also a trauma survivor, a God who endured the cross. Tim captures this rugged truth about our God, and offers a genuine, eloquent explanation of what it means to walk unafraid through the storm of trauma.
Drawing courageously from his own experiences as both a survivor and a Christian leader, Tims careful research is complemented by an empathy drawn from the ache of his own experience. It is deeply sensitive, and yet never gets bogged down in sentiment. It is a constructive book, navigating the issue with clarity. It is a strong book, courageously unpacking the various elements of complex trauma, and then delving into the big questions of suffering. And, despite the difficult subject, it is a safe bookan essential pastoral resource.
I must mention the beautiful Priscilla too, because her experiences of pain and recovery are included, a testimony to her courage. Tim and Priscilla live with a passion for Gods redemption of our world, and this book is sure to be a genuine contribution to the recovery of many.
Tim has given us a readable, useful, and passionate guide to this most intimidating of topics. It is a gift of a book, essential reading for survivors, no matter their stage of recovery. Its also essential for every Christian leader, not only to read themselves but to keep close at hand to give to others when the pastoral moment arrives.
Introduction
It is said that the true test of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members.
In our society today, it is estimated that up to one in four girls and one in six boys experience sexual abuse during childhood. Experts also estimate that as many as half of the incidents are not reported. Millions of people, both children and adults, face each day with this hidden, complex pain. Leaders and loved ones struggle to understand their experience.
I have experienced this personally; I was sexually abused as a child. Ive written this book to inform fellow victims and to help them become survivors. But Im also an ordained minister, and I want to inform other leaders about this issue. Therefore, what I share is drawn not only from research but also from my experience as a survivor of sexual abuse and as a Christian leader who has assisted others on this journey. Christian leaders live on the front line of ministry with hurting people. It is crucial that we are informed and equipped to respond to the complexity of this issue. I hope this book can be a useful guide to the nature and trauma of child sexual abuse for both survivors and ministry leaders.
I also know this journey from the perspective of being the partner of a survivor. My wife, Priscilla, suffered the abuse of her father. She generously shares portions of her story in this book, as well as insights from her knowledge and experience. She is also now an ordained minister.
To be clear, this is not a book about how to prevent abuse or how to deal with perpetrators. I write as a survivor and as a Christian leader, not as a psychologist or a therapist. Its a book geared for church and ministry leaders, to prepare them to support survivors of sexual abuse, and it also includes content specifically geared for survivors. It can be read by both kinds of readers. You will see that often I write as we throughout the book. By that I mean you and mewe the survivors, and we the Christian leaders. Those two perspectives, as well as careful research, have informed the insights that follow.
Defining Sexual Abuse
The term sexual abuse can cover a range of acts, but it most specifically refers to undesired sexual behavior of one person upon another. In this book, were exploring the subject of childsexual abuse, and in that case there is really no need for the word undesired in the definition. Any sexual behavior by a person toward a child, that is, a person under the legal age of consent, is abusive. Pedophilia is an abnormal or perverted attraction to children. The legal term is molestation, which technically means to disturb or interfere with. It is the use of a child, directly or indirectly, as a sexual object. None of the terms feel quite adequate, and of course unwanted sexual behavior is traumatic at any age. So while this book focuses specifically on child sexual abuse, many of the principles in these pages may apply to a variety of sexual assaults.
But let me be clear: If you have experienced abuse, I cant pretend to completely know you. People respond to abuse and trauma in different ways. You may resonate with some things in this book, and not others. Thats okay.