A Response to the Southern Baptist Convention Report

The investigation report on the Southern Baptist Convention's handling of sexual assault allegations was released this week. As a therapist who works primarily with religious trauma and sexual assault survivors, it was absolutely devastating to read. 

To make a horrifically long story short, leaders in the SBC were proven to have repeatedly ignored, blamed, discredited, and shamed victims of sexual violence who have made outcries over the past decades. They even had a list of known offenders who were still active in church leadership. The Guidepost report's conclusion is that the SBC's executive committee was more concerned with protecting the reputation of the SBC than they were with the actual crimes being committed and hidden. This has left untold numbers of victims invalidated and ostracized by their own religious leaders.

I'm heartbroken for a number of reasons but this doesn't just impact me professionally. It's personal. For over 18 years of my life, the Southern Baptist Convention was like my family. My parents were career missionaries, sent by the International Mission Board, an extension of the SBC, to bring the gospel to the people of the Philippines. For my whole childhood, every meal I ate and every house I lived in was paid for by donations from Southern Baptist churches. When we would visit the states every few years, my family made the rounds to dozens of Southern Baptist congregations asking for their continued generosity.

I wish I could say that I'm shocked to discover that the SBC's leadership is so corrupt, but I'm not. I lived through it myself. I doubt that my name is on their list of victims of unreported sexual assault but it should be. In my case, though, no one else silenced me. I did that myself, believing that it was what God wanted.

At eight years old I had already internalized a very profound belief: I didn't matter to God. How could I? He'd "called" my parents to a remote area of the world to spend their lives saving the lost from eternal damnation and my job was to stay out of the way. That's why, when I was molested by a stranger at 8, I didn't even consider telling my parents. I was sure that speaking up would get me in trouble for interfering with God's calling. That is the culture that the Southern Baptist Convention has been cultivating.

Over the years I've shifted the blame for my trauma a thousand times. Was it my fault somehow? Was it my parent's neglect? Was it the mission board's careless policies? Or Christianity in general? Possibly several of the above. But there's one thing I know for sure: No human being should ever, EVER feel the need to silently bear the burden of being sexually assaulted for the sake of the gospel. 

It devastates me that I ever believed I was worth so little to God, much less to my church and family. It breaks my heart to know that I wasn't the only one who had to bear that unspeakable trauma in silence. It outrages me that so many people have had their lives destroyed by an organization that claims to be doing God's work.

As people of my generation flee American evangelicalism in droves, it's infuriating to hear shock and confusion from those who are still devout. If you want to know why we're leaving, here it is: The evangelical "good news" is a slap in the face to those who have been traumatized and then silenced in the name of a loving God. I no longer attend church or profess to be a Christian, but if a good God does exist, he is undoubtedly disgusted by what this version of Christianity has become.

As we digest the news of the SBC report (only the latest in an exhausting list of similar scandals) we're bound to look for someone to blame. I pray with all of the faith that I have left that we won't let this horror be dismissed by placating statements about "some individuals" who "are not true representations" of Christian beliefs. When enough high-ranking "individuals" in an organization follow the same horrific path, it's time to stop deflecting or feigning shock. It's time to start showing compassion to those who have been silenced by tearing the offending organization down. 

If God is indeed great, he will applaud the fall of corrupt systems; even those that were in his name.

In case you're wondering, yes, I did eventually come forward about what happened. Nearly 20 years after the assault, I finally realized the implications of continuing to hide in shame. I filed an official report but too much time had gone by for any charges to be brought. What matters the most is that I'm no longer holding an innocent eight-year-old girl responsible to sacrifice her safety and emotional wellbeing for the sake of her religion. 

I deeply, truly hope that other survivors of sexual assault in religious settings will find the healing and real freedom that I have found. I hope we will finally hold the perpetrators accountable and stop letting this tragedy play out again and again.

Instinct & Reason (Why Competition Sucks)

As we continue down our path of intentional empathy, the inner caveman will inevitably have some complaints. He’s also great at getting us to listen to our basic instincts without stopping to ask reasonable questions. We don’t want to just shut him up, though. He still occasionally has some valuable input related to our survival, after all. So I think it's worth asking the question: What's wrong with relying on our instincts? That's part of what evolution is supposed to be improving right? 

As our prefrontal cortexes have evolved, our understanding of how our choices impact others has too (ie. our empathy). It's getting harder and harder to pretend that our actions don't affect the other people we share our planet with. We've begun to recognize the uncomfortable fact that instinct and reason don't always align. In fact, our most unempathetic, and ultimately self-sabotaging choices usually originate from the inner caveman’s tribalistic “us versus them” mentality.

To our instincts-driven friend, people are divided into two easy categories: those who are with "us” and those who are "others". Whenever he faces a complex problem, he's learned that he can gain a sense of control by first simplifying the matter as much as possible. First objective: Quickly determine who is the ally and who's the enemy. Objective number two: Dominate or destroy the enemy. End of plan.

This oversimplified strategy, though often gratifying, backfires any time the inner caveman's perception of who the enemy is isn’t 100% accurate. Since we can only ever see the world through our own narrow perspectives, the domination strategy ends up backfiring quite a lot. At the end of the day, adaptive and empathetic decisions will almost always require us to push beyond the inner caveman’s gut feelings.

That's why one of the greatest parts of being human is our ability to combine both instinct and reason. That's how we make adaptive decisions; how we keep evolving. Without either of these two vital components, our choices will eventually become dysfunctional. Too much reliance on our instincts leads to chaos, hoarding, and violence. Too much reliance on our cognitive reasoning leads to ambivalence, anxiety, and emotional repression. 

Our best chance at collaboration (and ultimately, survival as a species) is through finding a balance between instinct and reason to inform our decisions. Michael Karlberg articulated this well in his 2012 TEDx about the problem with having a society built on competition. He says, “the culture of contest undermines our efforts to solve the increasingly complex problems we’re facing on this planet. Solving these problems requires the highest degrees of cooperation among people with diverse insights, experiences, talents, and capacities. The culture of contest sets such people against one another. In the process, it confounds our ability to solve complex problems together. So the culture of contest, for both of these reasons, is inherently unjust and unsustainable.”

Racism, nationalism, sexism, and really any of our major societal issues, clearly demonstrate our "culture of contest". Although loving and protecting one's own group can be admirable, the inner caveman’s obsession with drawing “us versus them” lines in the sand takes protection to a frightening extreme. By fixating on archaic notions of supremacy, our inner caveman doesn't see other people groups as equals, but as rivals.

Despite mounting evidence that cooperation is essential to our collective survival (see climate change, world wars, water insecurity, etc), many of us are still clinging to the inner cavemen’s outdated dog-eat-dog mindset. Peaceful coexistence seems laughable when we're stuck in our brutal, hunger games-esque competitions to see who will come out on top. Annoyingly, we keep doubling down on rivalry when any reasonable person could see that competition and hierarchy is exactly what's tearing us apart.

Humanity’s collective origin story is all about us having to fight for our survival. That self-empathy can help us understand why the inner caveman is so obsessed with establishing dominance. His competitive urges are explainable, true, but they're no longer adaptive. As we collectively keep pretending like we're competing to be the ultimate ninja warrior, we’re missing out on the next evolutionary step that our species could be taking.

Fortunately, we are not slaves to our instincts or to our inner caveman. Our gift of reasoning has given us the ability to evolve. Listening to our instincts AND our reasoning is the only way to push beyond these maladaptive habits and finally find out what might be possible. So when are we going to quit acting like cavemen?

The Lonely Bachelor: A Story About Vulnerability

I've noticed an interesting trend among my clients; particularly those who come to therapy because of a maladaptive behavior that's getting in their way. Often even if they've identified the problem and are motivated to change, they feel powerless. After experiencing disappointment over and over, they mostly believe that change is impossible. Clients with this mindset usually come to their first session looking defeated, skeptical, and often having already predicted that I won’t be able to help them. One of the first interventions I use with these clients is the Empathy Equation. Here's an example.

A client, let's call him Andrew, was a 40-year-old bachelor who was fed up with his long history of failed relationships. At our first session, Andrew said his goal was to learn how to be "less picky" about the women he chose to date. According to his assessment, the problem with his love life was that his standards were too high. He thought if he could learn how to settle for less attractive, successful, and confident women, he might finally find a long term partner. 

Naturally, I was struck by his automatic l assumption that the only thing he had the power to change were his expectations. While I agreed that he had unrealistic expectations, his pickiness didn’t seem to be the heart of the matter. After building trust, I gently encouraged him to tell me his story. Together, we discovered several traumatic events and abandonments early in his life that he had never validated or processed. He was forced to be the "man of the house" and the breadwinner in a rough city at a very young age. It had trained him to project confidence, hyper-masculinity, and perfection at all times to keep from getting stabbed in the back. The business he got involved in just to keep food on the table had required constant bravado and intimidation. Unfortunately, this habit had continued in his dating life. 

Andrew was baffled by the rejections that kept happening despite his best efforts. It would go like this: He'd meet a woman, hoping she'd finally be "the one". He'd spend their first couple dates trying desperately to impress her. He'd show off his spotless, chic apartment and wear clothes carefully chosen to flatter his body. He would brag about his career success, portray himself as fun and carefree, and tell his date about how many people relied on his wisdom and support.

His strategy of projecting absolute perfection inevitably backfired, though. Shocking, I know. If he didn't alienate the woman he was wooing with false arrogance, he would spiral as soon as any vulnerability was required. If she asked him about something he perceived to be a weakness, he would instantly feel humiliated and inadequate. To make the pain more bearable, he'd quickly pivot and identify a flaw in his date. He'd then fixate on it until he'd convinced himself that SHE wasn't good enough for HIM. Thus emerged his theory that his standards were simply too high. 

Andrew's denial about his shame had completely blinded him to the true cause of his relationship troubles. Even after identifying the true issue, several more weeks went by, the cycle playing out again and again. I suspect that deep down, Andrew was still holding out hope that his perfection gambit might work if he just tried hard enough. Finally, however, he was ready to accept the truth: His outdated defense mechanisms were pushing him to withhold empathy from others, and more importantly, from himself.

As the insight grew, he quietly told me a deeper version of his story. He said he'd only survived his traumatic childhood by using bravado to bluff his way out of danger. He had to pretend that he wasn’t wounded. There was no room for mistakes or weakness. As an adult, he’d just continued bragging, competing, and posturing to prove himself. Considering how much professional success it had brought him, the idea of intentionally letting down his guard felt completely counterintuitive. His inner caveman was driving the train. Cognitively, Andrew understood the problem, but when he had opportunities to show vulnerability, he would revert to his old habit and put up a front. 

The first few times he tried to go against his instincts, he had panic attacks, but he kept trying. Slowly but surely, the facade came down, revealing a much more relatable human underneath. By the end of our time working together he was in the longest relationship he’d ever been in. Not only had his love life improved, but the symptoms of depression and anxiety he'd felt for most of his life were significantly reduced.

So what exactly happened? Andrew had started out by noticing the feelings, beliefs and behaviors that were getting in his way. He'd been listening to the inner caveman for so long, he'd confused his behaviors with his identity. But as he started to investigate how his origin story had impacted him, the puzzle pieces fell together. Suddenly his frustrating feelings and habits made sense. Once he understood himself (aka learned self-empathy), he realized he wasn't trapped reacting the old way.

As he learned to have compassion on himself, he gained confidence that the true version of him could be known and loved. By detaching his unhelpful behaviors from his identity, he had the power to choose a different strategy than the one that had been sabotaging him for so long. Much like in my experience with the Bieber Incident, the Empathy Equation helped Andrew reach a deeper understanding of what he was feeling (shame, judgment), believing (survival requires perfection), and behaving (sabotage of intimacy). Once he had accessed self empathy, he gained control of himself.