Who's The "True Victim?"

Hint: It's Not The Sexually Abused Children

It's pretty appalling to have children sexually abused within a community. It's a mockery to have that community then consider themselves to be the "true victim." But that's exactly what Homestead Heritage said in a comment on The Wartburg Watch when the blog covered the story of multiple instances of sexual abuse of children, one of which went unreported for a year. 

(Source)

Why wouldn't someone consider the sexually abused children to be the "true victims?" Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that children are at the bottom of the "order" at Homestead. In their book Common Guidelines for Our Children it states

All children must accord respect to all adults. This means that children must obey all adults in the fellowship. (p. 27)

This teaching assumes that all adults in the fellowship can be trusted to not sexually abuse these children which is certainly not the case.  Children should be taught healthy boundaries. Instead, Homestead teaches in their book Building Christian Character that

. . . if a parent should fail in some particular action, the child still has no grounds for dishonor, for his honor should remain founded in the parents' place in God's order. A submission on this basis will perfect the child even if the parents' obedience to God might lack in some respect. (p. 20)

So, even if a parent is sexually abusing his child he is to be honored by the child as well as obeyed. Members were taught in a child training class to never take the word of a child over that of an adult. This resulted in one child not being believed when she spoke of her abuse.

Another reason sexually abused children might not be considered the "true victim" is Homestead's perspective on psychology. God forbid that a sexually abused child at Homestead should  have trauma to work through. In their book The Order of Perfection, Book One: God's Restored Order they write about their view of psychology in the section on the function of Pastors.

In the modern mind, the scriptural calling of a pastor simply does not accredit or certify him to deal with more than trivial matters, beyond which he appears incompetent. Into the now diminished and truncated place of the pastor has come the social workers, licensed counselors, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists, in short, those now accredited and licensed not by God but by academia and the State. . . (p. 123)

Study after study not only discounts their effectiveness but even indicts psychotherapy as harmful. . . (p. 124)

In coming to God, then, people must decide whether to accept the authority of these "physicians of no value" or to submit to God's order of pastoral discipleship. To make this decision means first deciding whether or not to accept the seductive psychological excuses of "sickness," and therefore irresponsibility, for all attitudes and behavior or reject these excuses and instead submit to the confronting light of God's Word that convicts people as sinners, fully responsible for their actions. (p. 126)

. . .A person who remains enslaved to sin, still maintaining his own autonomy, determined to do something his way rather than God's, suffers from a moral problem, not a medical illness. Today's psychotherapist will attempt to blame such a person's environment--he was raised "dysfunctionally"--rather than convict the person of his own culpability. Yet God has no interest in such a person's excuses about how his selfish behavior is the fault of people who have hurt or even abused him in the past, or any other such excuses.  (pp. 128-129, emphasis added)

So God isn't interested in how "people . . . have hurt or even abused [the children] in the past." They will still be expected to "show respect to all adults" and honor even those who have abused them, because God isn't interested in "such excuses" as sexual abuse.

In their statement to WFAA Homestead states:

Jesus said that it's not the well who need a physician, so we've always made it our goal to try to help those who need it most. At the same time, we've wanted to protect our children from the social ills so prevalent in today's world. Given the realities of human nature, it is admittedly sometimes more than difficult to do both, and we are very aware that this calling to reach out to dysfunctional individuals and families makes us vulnerable to their personal failings, and, consequently, we're also vulnerable to malicious attempts to smear our whole community's reputation with the personal failures of those we're trying to help.

This "help" they offer hasn't prevented children in the community from being sexually abused, One has to ask "how's that working for them?" Perhaps some individuals might have benefited from help from licensed professionals instead of a pastor who is uneducated and unlicensed to properly deal with such situations.  Certainly, the sexually abused children would benefit from professional help which they won't be receiving if they remain in Homestead. Some of these abused children have left Homestead, which calls into question Homestead's ability to properly care for and support them.

Their ability "to protect [their] children from the social ills so prevalent in today's world" is also questionable since they had absolutely no policies in place to protect children from predators in nurseries, babysitting situations, classes, or workshops. They not only do not educate members on how to spot possible sexual predation, they don't even tell members when there has been a predator until the media picks up the story. (See this video for basic information on what a church should know to prevent sexual abuse of its most vulnerable members. "Sexual abusers go to where the barriers of protection are the lowest. Where is the protection barrier the lowest? Church. Always has been.") I consider this lack of information to be negligent and irresponsible. Their "reputation" seems to be far more important to them than taking the necessary steps to protect children from sexual abuse and then treat those who are so victimized.

And, yes, it's these violated children who are the "true victims," and not the church who sees the damage as "excuses" that "God has no interest in." Jesus was so interested in the harm done to children that he prescribed a "large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea" for those who caused such harm.



Quoted material from:
Adams, Blair. Building Christian Character: A Guidebook through the Elements of Christian Character. Waco: Truth Forum, 1992,
Adams, Blair. Common Guidelines for Our Children. Elm Mott: Colloquium Press, 2011.
Adams, Blair. The Order of Perfection: Authority and Submission in the Living Order of Relationships in the Body of Christ. Book One: God's Restored Order. 1992.