Return to the M.B. Herald Vol. 35, No. 13
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I suspected from an early age that I might be a writer, but it was far from clear what precisely I would write about. I have some inclination to be a poet or a humorist or a columnist or a novelist. I would like to write historical, theological or devotional material--and in fact I have had the privilege of writing in some of these areas.
One area that I never wanted to research or write about was sexual abuse. And yet I have become known, among other things, as someone who writes about sexual abuse. There was a need, and I responded. And God has brought some good things out of what is a great evil.
Some of the cases that I have written about concern abuse which occurred years or decades ago and which has only recently come to light. One of the things that has surprised me is that the great stumbling block to bringing healing to the abuser in these cases does not seem to be the abuse itself, as evil as that is. The harder problem is the years of deception and dishonesty that have gone into covering up the abuse. The abuser's life has been built on a lie. After decades of lying to other people and to himself, it is not simply a case that the abuser must repent of his sin. The deeper problem is that he can no longer recognize his sin. After rationalizing and denying and blaming others, he cannot suddenly change his mental habits and understand what he has done. After having made a mockery of God's grace by pretending to be a repentant Christian, he cannot genuinely seek God's forgiveness; all of his efforts to do so are tainted by his ingrained habits of dishonesty; he cannot even know himself. Moreover, dishonesty in this one area has impaired his ability to be honest in all other areas. Truth has become a casualty of sin.
This process of corruption of the understanding is described well in Romans 1, which warns of God's wrath on those who "suppress the truth by their wickedness" (verse 18) and "exchange the truth of God for a lie" (verse 25) and as a result find that their thinking has become "futile and their foolish hearts . . . darkened" (verse 21).
Unfortunately, the effects of the dishonesty do not end with the abuser. Since an abuser's honest acceptance of guilt is the best first step to healing for his victim, his inability to recognize his abuse can impose further abuse on the victim.
In time and in God's amazing grace, some abusers do come to a place of honesty and repentance, but it isn't quick or easy. What I have become convinced of as a result of all this is the tremendously corrupting power of dishonesty. And here the issue ceases to be related only to abuse. Dishonesty, untruthfulness, deception and rationalization plague many aspects of our lives, even our church lives. We use these forms of dishonesty to win theological debates, to save our jobs or our agencies, and to get our way in church decision-making. Ironically, the first person we often deceive is ourselves.
Dishonesty not only corrupts those who practise it; it also has a way of dragging in and contaminating all who come in contact with it. With an abuser, dishonesty first of all corrupts his victims, whom he convinces to keep quiet about the abuse. In a more general sense, dishonesty corrupts many others: those who suspected abuse and kept quiet about it; those who are told by courts or church leaders or some other authority to not reveal what they know and who must find a way to answer honest questions from others; those who hear dishonest statements in the course of a church debate but do not challenge them; the secretary who records those statements in the minutes. A further difficulty is that hearers may also be corrupted by dishonesty to the point that they mistakenly hear dishonesty where there is none.
Dishonesty corrupts. Whenever we see it, we are faced with a decision: to take courage and oppose dishonesty (with all of the risks and negative consequences that can follow) or to allow it to stand, thus corrupting ourselves.
As an editor responsible for 25,000 written words every two weeks, I am aware of the subtlety of deception and the biases which blind us. All of us understand the truth imperfectly and communicate the truth even less perfectly. We all sin in what we say and write and communicate every day.
But that is not all I have learned. I have learned of the tremendous corrupting power of dishonesty, but I have also caught a glimpse of the tremendously freeing power of truth. I have been encouraged by the thought that God is truth, that He is One who knows perfectly and absolutely and completely. And I have been blessed many times by God's power and promise to lead us into all truth.
Truth and untruth lie before us. As we stand at the fork in the road, let us strive at all times to choose truth.
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