Reflections on Theology, Victim Blaming, Misogyny and the Church of England

Four decades and still no progress or change – so what is next?

When it comes to sexual violence, particularly against women, victim blaming occurs when blame is shifted from the perpetrator to the victim. This happens across society and culture, media, religion, justice, and public health.  Victim blaming often focuses on the woman’s behaviour, character, or situation, which minimises the offender’s responsibility.

Recent media reported examples include the Rochdale grooming gangs where the Deputy Mayor said that “victim blaming led to failings” and that “an attitude of victim blaming’ meant authorities failed to protect young girls from sexual abuse”.[1] In addition, in 2022 the BBC highlighted that the Past Cases Review published in 2010 did not highlight the seriousness of the sexual abuse which had occurred in the Church of England.  The news report stated, “Some of the most damning parts detail issues surrounding the culture within the Church of England relating to abuse. The reviewers mention victim-blaming, deference to those in power, inertia and inaction in dealing with allegations of abuse”.[2] This ongoing disregard for safeguarding and the safety of abuse survivors within the Church of England will be discussed later in the blog.

According to Dr Jess Taylor[3], there are several theories explaining why people engage in victim blaming.  People want to believe that the world is fair, leading them to think that victims must have done something to deserve their fate. Biases in how people think can cause people to incorrectly attribute the causes of negative events. People can blame victims who are different from themselves to distance themselves from the possibility of similar harm. In the case of rape or sexual assault belief in false stereotypes about rape leads to blaming victims. Prejudices, sexism and misogyny against women result in blaming them for traits or behaviours seen as inherently female. Blaming the victim or oneself provides an illusion of control over the situation and our safety.

Overall, victim blaming shifts the focus away from the perpetrator’s responsibility, undermining justice and perpetuating harm. Victim blaming, misogyny, and dehumanisation are prevalent within the Bible, Theology, and the institution of the Church. We can’t ignore this.

I’ve never been able to ignore this. I remember presenting a seminar on theodicy, the problem of evil, as a theology undergraduate, aged 19 years old, and saying that if God can be active in the world but chooses not to be in cases of child abuse or sexual assault, is a God not worthy of worship. I was not a practising Christian at the time and was unaware of the acute misogyny and dehumanisation of women in the Church.

Fast forward 31 years and my lived experience of boundary violations, shaming, coercion, inappropriate sexual behaviour, and grooming at the hands of priests, alongside blatant sexism and misogynistic treatment and questioning during the Church of England priesthood ordination process, means I am in no doubt about the position paternalistic attitudes and patriarchal theology, still steeped in the doctrine of original sin and the fall, within this denomination,  with regards to blaming victims, pathologising their trauma responses, protecting perpetrators, and therefore, perpetuating abuse.  During the early stages of the Church of England ordination discernment process I was asked if my teenage daughter had boyfriends (there were no questions about my teenage sons).

Post MA Theology graduation and the ordination process discernment debacle, I distanced myself for several years from Theology and the Church.  During that time, I studied spiritual abuse, trauma and what supports recovery and actively engaged with practices and practitioners to support my healing. I decided last December that 2024 would be the year that I would reevaluate to see if any progress was happening within the Church of England towards restorative justice for abuse survivors and to address the misogyny embedded within its structures, practices and doctrine. 

Following Synod live online and seeing the lack of full acknowledgement, accountability and reparations by the institution around safeguarding failures served to validate my decision to cut my ties with the institution. I was also shocked by the coercive, victim-blaming, and spiritually abusive posts and attitudes on social media (the public face, which made me wonder what was going on behind closed doors) by the Church of England and members, spotlighted in February in one specific post (which has since been removed following my and others’ complaints), where a Bible passage, Isaiah 11:6, ‘the wolf shall dwell with the lamb,’ was used to endorse an abusive dynamic.

The post read:

Isaiah’s vision of the peaceable kingdom is perhaps one of the most hopeful parts of the Bible. Swipe to see the predator and prey lie down together in peace … regardless of the harsh conditions in life, union and communion have the last word. Peace and healing lie deeper than the pain and suffering. There will be a reconciliation of all things, and all time, in God.

I reached out to some fellow theologians for their views on the content, and their responses varied from silence, minimising (i.e. ‘the Church of England is notoriously bad on social media’), to acknowledging my objections and ‘bad theology’. Shocked by undeterred by their lack of empathy (and outrage) I persisted in deconstructing and appraising the inhumane and victim-blaming impact of this social media post. 

The predator is a serial abuser. If peace means the victim must submit to the abuser for outward peace, it normalises abuse and forces the victim to appease. When combined with coercive theology and biblical texts, this constitutes spiritual abuse. Posting about this on social media demonstrates the institutional condoning of such abuse and a complete disregard for safeguarding.

In March, I attended Prof. Lisa Oakley’s excellent Inaugural Lecture: “Silence isn’t golden” – changing the narrative of seeing no evil and speaking no good: Addressing abuse in religious contexts through partnership working[4]. Change is clearly needed – and fast.  She suggested that it is up to theologians to formulate theologies which are non-spiritually abusive and free from victim blaming and misogyny. This future requires a full assessment of the purpose and agenda of theology, appraisal of existing theologies, biblical texts, and the institution of the Church, its set-up, safeguarding procedures, and culture, to see if this is even possible. 

I used to think it was possible, but age, and lived personal, professional and academic experience suggests otherwise, and that the Bible, theology, and the Church endorse and perpetuate victim blaming, misogyny and abuse.  I see no major progress being made in over four decades and no willingness to engage with research and survivor’s lived experience.  For me this is a ‘closed system’ and culture and that’s enough evidence there is no intent to evolve, take ownership and responsibility, say sorry to victims, accept wrongdoing, and make reparation.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results (a saying attributed to Einstein).  Insanity in the context of the Church of England is looking to an inherently abusive and misogynistic system and institution to protect, safeguard and validate its victims and value women.  It’s time to move on. I did this by separating meeting my spiritual needs from religion.

I believe it’s time for theologians to open a discussion and consider the purpose and impact of the Church of England. I also advocate for a collective, interdisciplinary effort to rethink how we meet spiritual needs in society. I support the idea of normalising spirituality, improving its accessibility in day-to-day life, and acknowledging that spiritual needs are universal. It’s natural for us to seek meaning, purpose, connection, and belonging. I aim to help individuals, organisations, and institutions reimagine how we can meet spiritual needs in ways that are trauma-informed, neuro-inclusive, and beyond religious dogma and capitalism. My commitment lies in embedding non-patriarchal, non-abusive, and non-coercive approaches and resources to support spiritual well-being in educational, health, and community settings, as well as in new structures of moral and spiritual leadership in society.

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References

[1] News taken from BBC UK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-67992617#:~:text=An%20%22attitude%20of%20victim%20blaming,town%20between%202003%20and%202012 (accessed in 26.9.2024)

[2] News taken from BBC UK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63144354#:~:text=Some%20of%20the%20most%20damning,dealing%20with%20allegations%20of%20abuse (accessed in 26.9.2024)

[3] For Jess Taylor’s full arguments, see: https://irp.cdn-website.com/4700d0ac/files/uploaded/Victim%20Blaming%20and%20Self%20Blame%20-%20%C2%A9VictimFocus.pdf (accessed in 26.9.2024)

[4] News regarding Prof. Lisa Oakley’s inaugural lecture on the subject: https://shoutout.chester.ac.uk/events/professor-lisa-oakley-inaugural-lecture-silence-isnt-golden-changing-the-narrative-of-seeing-no-evil-and-speaking-no-good-addressing-abuse-in-religious-contexts/ (accessed in 26.9.2024)

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© Kay Aldred, 2024.

This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Cover Image: Provided by the author. Sculpture from the Himalayan Garden near Masham, in North Yorkshire.