This recent series of events with Josh Harris illustrates some crucial and often unrecognized dynamics of spiritual abuse: specifically, the unwillingness or inability of perpetrators and onlookers to even see, much less consider, the victims and their experience.
For those who may not know, Josh Harris wrote a book decades ago which significantly contributed to and made him a major figure in a culture known as “Purity Culture.”
That idea and culture did great harm to the thought processes and self-image of a generation.
Like every other popular book, the book also generated study guides, DVDs, and a range of products to maximize sales. Josh profited from the machine regardless of the long-term harm being done.
Fast forward to the present. As the harm of purity culture is being evidenced and processed outwardly by a mass movement of believers deconstructing their faith, Josh steps forward as one who also is deconstructing.
Those harmed by the weight of purity culture feel a brief sense of relief that this icon of the harmful ideology renounces his stance and seems to recognize the harm done. Until...
Just this last week Josh comes out with a fairly expensive and slick package offering a starter pack and coaching for those who are deconstructing.
A slick and profitable package to help others whom he himself contributed to harming. It is time again to profit from his influence.
What is wrong with this? It is the exact same thing that goes wrong and unnoticed by abusive leaders and those who support them.
The one who does harm shows an absolute disregard for the personhood and experience of those they have harmed. It is wired into the abuse dynamic.
The pastor or leader who “fell,” I hate that word, did not just fall. He or she callously damaged the lives of those they were supposed to care for and protect.
Victims, congregations, and followers are devastated and reeling.
Then the idea takes hold: God is a God of forgiveness and they should be restored.
This, another term I hate, means they should be placed back in a public position of caring for people.
The problem is that to do so is 100 percent about the abuser and 100 percent ignores the wounded.
This is the context that allowed for the abuse in the first place. The experience of the abuser is important. The victims are not even seen or considered as people with value and valid experience.
Restoring this leader is a slap in the face of every victim.
“But they have changed” is the rallying cry. No. They have not.
The issue was absolutely selfish choices that depersonalized others. If they have changed, they would absolutely stand for the value and experience of their victims far more than for their own experience.
“People are so unforgiving,” others will say. Forgiveness is for past behavior. Present harmful behavior does not call for forgiveness. It calls for boundaries.
The absolute lack of care or even perception of the victim’s experience is itself evidence that they have not changed.
Josh Harris may not have directly abused people, but his ideas were, and he acknowledged this, incredibly harmful to generations of followers.
The best offer of help would have been for him to join the crowd and just learn and grow.
The abusive leader who is deplatformed should not seek a new platform as a leader of the abused. Rather, he or she should find a place to quietly make a living that does not expect others to come under him or her as a leader again. That would demonstrate real change.