When Forgiveness Protects Abusers | Support for People New to Deconstructing
This week’s live started with songs, stories and then turned to the difficult questions that keep showing up as we deconstruct. We talked about grief after leaving religion, the ways forgiveness was taught to protect institutions instead of survivors, and the pattern of silence that keeps predators in place. Below are the topics we discussed, while holding space for someone who is in the beginning stages of deconstructing.
“What if I Can’t Live in a World Without God and Jesus?”
Early in the live someone new to deconstructing asked the question that stops people cold, “What happens if I can’t live without God and Jesus?” Panic and grief aren’t failures. They’re the leftover wiring of a system that taught you to look away instead of asking questions. Deconstruction is not a test you must pass. It’s permission. To hold the doubt, to ask the hard questions, and to protect yourself while you do the work. You don’t have to have answers yet. Keep asking. Keep your boundaries.
Forgiveness has Been Weaponized
We discussed what many of you already feel. In too many churches forgiveness was taught as the only acceptable response, a demand that restores the institution while erasing the person who was harmed. That version of “forgive and forget” protects perpetrators, shelters reputations, and is not justice. Patriarchy trains us to revere leaders, treat questions as betrayal, and protect institutional stability over vulnerable lives. You see that pattern in pulpits, denominational politics, and in networks that quietly move harm out of sight. This isn’t accidental and it’s been protected for too long. If we want real healing we must refuse the lie that restoration without accountability counts as justice.
We closed the live with a blessing. A quiet charge to protect your heart, trust your discernment, and keep walking even when the path is messy.
Rev. Karla, you are so right! Most of us have been taught first of all, not to even ask questions. Then the so called forgiveness, meant really only as you said, to protect the abusers. This seems to happen in every religion. White “Christian” supremacists are guilty of this as much or more than others. Probably anywhere that men are in charge. I will get shit for that comment. Find exceptions.
Some people may begin to frame at first deconstructing with anger, others sad, and probally more emotions then I could even put a name to. Then there those who feel all of that at the same time. Somewhere in the journey though comes the joy of freedom and the sense of awe that comes with curiosity when discoverig the edges of new frontier. My two favorite Yoga positions helps deal with these emotions the Mountain pose because it symbolies and physcially requires us to be rooted and grounded we are with our feet and then we rise up with body and arms to stand firm and greet the momment. Then there is the warrior pose reaching forward, and reaching backward holding the both and the or while connecting to the ground and finding the balance between the future and the past. Welcome to the new frontier. Peace and Love