This month will mark 10 years since I left a marriage to an emotionally abusive and controlling woman. As I told you last year, not long after I left her, I was horrified to discover that she had hidden a past history of abusing her own kids–to the point that she could only see them on supervised visits. According to filings from her first divorce, her first husband had seen her hitting her oldest son in the head out of anger–an accusation to which she never responded. Incredibly, as soon as he was 18 he insisted on coming east to live with my then-wife and me, even though his family warned him of the damage her abuse had done to him.
The emotional damage I suffered from discovering that I’d shared a bed with a child abuser for three years is at a level that even now, it’s difficult to adequately express. If I had even the slightest inkling that this woman was a child abuser, I never would have married her. And if I’d learned this at any point while we were married, I would have thrown her out first and asked questions later. Even without my personal revulsion and disgust for child abuse, legally and morally there would have been no way I could have allowed her to remain in that house. As far as I’m concerned, my ex was abusing me from the minute I met her–and in a way that did several times more damage than all her screaming and cursing did.
For this reason, I’ve found it particularly hard to comprehend why so many evangelical Christians rallied behind Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar this past spring. There is overwhelming evidence that they intentionally slow-walked reporting Josh’s molestation of five girls during his teen years, even after he fondled someone not related to them. Even in the face of this evidence, whenever people at this and other outlets have demanded accountability, we’ve been accused of persecuting them.
Excuse me? How are we persecuting Jim Bob and Michelle by demanding that they answer for their actions? After all, at the very least, their actions violated every standard of decency that is known. At worst, it amounted to child endangerment. I know that the evangelical world has been way behind in adequately realizing how much damage child abuse can do to victims. But this isn’t just ridiculous, it’s disgraceful. And I’d say that even if I hadn’t seen the damage this can do first-hand.
Recently, I was perusing Christian Mingle when I happened on the profile of a woman I’ll call “Marla,” who seemed to be a perfect match. On the face of it, the only substantial difference between us was that our alma maters were bitter archrivals. One Saturday, Marla told me out of nowhere that based on her perusal of my rantings here, she didn’t think we were a match. Later, she told me that she felt we here at Liberal America were “not only not building the kingdom of God,” but were “actively working to tear it down.” She specifically mentioned our coverage of the Duggars.
When I expressed hope that we could at least be friends in spite of this, Marla replied with James 1:6-8 (King James Version):
“For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
I didn’t really comprehend what she was saying until several Christian leftie friends of mine told me that this is a very common spiritual kick in the groin that right-wingers like to use. Riddle me this, Marla–and anyone else who continues to stand by the Duggars. How does it damage the kingdom of God to call out parents who not only failed their son, but failed their daughters by dragging their feet in the way they did? And how is it a sign of being double-minded? I haven’t heard an adequate answer to that yet.
You would think that covering up this behavior does several times more damage than demanding that those who engage in it be held to account. So does trying to silence those who demand such accountability. I’ll probably carry the scars from being made an unwitting accomplice to my ex-wife’s snow job to my grave. Perhaps if Marla and others realized this, they would be a little more understanding of the damage both child abuse and covering it up can do.
