NEW YORK (NY)
Christian Science Monitor
September 14, 2018
By Harry Bruinius
WHY WE WROTE THIS
The question overlays every detailing of the sexual abuse of children by trusted spiritual figures: How can there be justice for such a crime? We asked several of those now-grown children what, exactly, ‘justice’ would mean for them.
There are crimes for which justice can seem like a remote concept.
There are crimes, like the sexual abuse of children, from which many turn away – using language like “unspeakable,” “unimaginable,” or even “inhuman.” Even survivors create their mental shields from the crimes they endured.
“This form of abuse is really completely and utterly spiritually annihilating,” says Christa Brown, a survivor of abuse at the hands of a Baptist minister decades ago, and an author who now lives in Colorado. “It’s been called ‘soul murder,’ and I think that’s a very apt word for it.”
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