Hope and Healing for Victims of Sexual Abuse

Q&A with Pastor Justin Holcomb

Justin Holcomb is a pastor at Mars Hill Church and executive director of the Resurgence. He is also an adjunct professor of theology at Reformed Theological Seminary and holds two master’s degrees from the Reformed Theological Seminary and a Ph.D from Emory University.
Justin and his wife, Lindsey, wrote Rid of My Disgrace, a book on gospel hope and healing for sexual assault victims.

How does the gospel of Jesus offer such a hope and healing for victims of sexual abuse?  
JH: God’s grace dismantles the beliefs that give disgrace life. Grace recreates what violence destroyed.
Victims of sexual assault experience many devastating physical, psychological, and emotional effects. The most prevalent responses include denial, distorted self-image, shame, guilt, anger, and despair. If this is you (or someone you love), you need to understand that the gospel of Jesus applies to each of these.
Denial — Sexual assault makes you feel alone, unimportant, and unworthy of sympathy. It tempts you to deny and minimize what happened to you to cope with the pain and trauma. It might initially help to create a buffer while you start dealing with the difficult emotions, but eventually denial and minimization will actually increase the pain, because it keeps you from dealing with the psychological destruction and trauma of the assault.
God does not deny, minimize, or ignore what happened to you. Through Jesus he identifies with you, and he has compassion. He knows your suffering. He does not want you to stay silent or deny, but to feel and express your emotions, to grieve the destruction you experienced. The cross shows that God understands pain and does not judge you for feeling grief. The resurrection shows that God conquered sin—that he is reversing sin’s destruction and restoring peace.
Because of Jesus, you have the privilege to confidently go to God and receive grace and mercy. Your need and your cries don’t make God shun you. He has compassion on you (Hebrew 4:14-16).
Identity — Sexual assault attacks your sense of identity and tells you that you are filthy, foolish, defiled, and worthless. It makes you feel that you are nothing.
The gospel gives you a new identity through the redemptive work of Jesus. Through faith in Christ, you are adopted into God’s family. You are given the most amazing identity: child of God (1 John 3:1–2). God adopted you and accepted you because he loves you. You didn’t do anything to deserve his love. He loved you when you were unlovable.
The gospel also tells you that through faith in Christ, his righteousness, blamelessness, and holiness is attributed to you (2 Cor. 5:21). If you are in Christ, your identity is deeper than any of your wounds. You can be secure in this new identity because it was achieved for you by God—you are his, and he cannot disown himself.
Shame — Sexual assault is shameful and burdens you with feelings of nakedness, rejection, and dirtiness. Shame is a painfully confusing experience—it makes you acutely aware of inadequacy, shortcoming, and failure.
Jesus reveals God’s love for his people by covering their nakedness, identifying with those who are rejected, cleansing their defilement, and conquering their enemy who shames them. God extends his compassion and his mighty, rescuing arm to take away your shame. Jesus both experienced shame and took your shame on himself. Jesus, of all people, did not deserve to be shamed. Yet he took on your shame, so it no longer defines you nor has power over you.
Because of the cross, we can be fully exposed, because God no longer identifies us by what we have done or by what has been done to us. In Jesus, you are made completely new.
Guilt — Sexual assault attacks you with guilt that leads to feelings of condemnation, judgment, and self-blame.
You are not guilty for the sin that was committed against you—and this realization alone can bring great freedom. Yet the reality is that your sense of guilt goes deeper than what was done to you. You know that you have sinned against God and others—both before your assault and in response to what happened to you.
The shocking message of grace is that Jesus was forsaken for us so we could be forgiven. God turned his wrath away from you and toward Christ on the cross. If you trust in Christ, all your sins—past, present, and future—are forgiven. All of them. All threat of punishment, or sense of judgment, is canceled. Through faith in Christ you are loved, accepted, and declared innocent.
Anger — Sexual assault creates anger at what has been done to you. While anger can be a natural and healthy response to the unquestionable evil of sexual assault, most victims express it poorly or feel they have to suppress it. You have probably been discouraged from expressing your anger, but suppressed anger holds you hostage and leaves you vindictive, addicted, embittered, immoral, and unbelieving.
God is angrier over the sin committed against you than you are. He is angry because what happened to you was evil and it harmed you. Godly anger is participating in God’s anger against injustice and sin, crying out to him to do what he promised: destroy evil and demolish everything that harms others and defames God’s name.
Anger expressed to God is the cry of the weak one who trusts the strong One, the hurting person who trusts the One who will make it all better. Because vengeance is God’s, you can be free from the exhaustive cycle of vindictive anger.
Despair — Sexual assault can fill you with despair. Feeling that you’ve lost something, whether it’s your innocence, youth, health, trust, confidence, or security, can deepen into hopelessness and despair. And then depression can add seemingly inescapable weight to the experience of despair.
The gospel gives you hope. Biblical hope is sure because God is behind his promise of a future for you. The hope you need right now is grounded in God’s faithfulness in the past and anticipation of it in the future.
Because of Jesus’ resurrection, all threats against you are tamed if you trust in Christ. Jesus conquered death and evil, so evil done to you is not the end of the story and you can have hope. Because Jesus rose from the dead, he ascended to heaven and is “making all things new.” Your God is strong, and he, not the evil done to you, will have the final say about you. That hope animates the “groanings” within ourselves that everything will someday be renewed. We will be delivered from all sin and misery. Every tear will be wiped away when evil is no more.

What are a few practical ways that family and friends can help care for their loved ones that have been victimized?
JH: If you are a loved one, friend, or pastor serving a victim of sexual assault, here are some suggestions on how to best care for that person:
1. Don’t minimize or deny what happened to the victim.
2. Listen. Don’t judge or blame the victim for the assault. Research has proven that victims tend to have an easier adjustment after abuse or an assault when they are believed and listened to by others.
3. Do not to ask probing questions about the assault. Questions like this can cause revictimization. Follow the victim’s lead and listen.
4. Let the victim know the assault(s) was not his or her fault.
5. Reassure the victim that he or she is cared for and loved.
6. Let the victim know that he or she does not have to manage this crisis alone.
7. Be patient. Remember, it takes time to deal with the crime.
8. Remember that each sexual assault victim has different needs. What may have been beneficial for one person might not work for another.
9. Empower the victim. Refrain from telling him or her what should be done and from making decisions on the victim’s behalf. Present the victim with options and help him or her think through them.
10. Encourage the sexual assault victim to seek medical attention.
11. Encourage the victim to talk about the assault(s) with an advocate, pastor, mental health professional, law enforcement officer, another victim, or a trusted friend.
12. Fight on behalf of the victim against the lies and challenge the myths and misconceptions about sexual assault.
13. Take care of yourself. As a support person, you need to be healthy in your caregiving role.
14. Learn what to say and what not to say.
15. Avoid placating statements as an attempt to make the victim feel better.
16. Take time to notice where the victim is in the healing process and do not rush him or her through it. Help the victim keep moving through it at a pace comfortable to him or her rather than trying to force progression to a different stage immediately.
17. If you are a husband or a wife who is supporting your spouse through the effects of sexual assault, here are two specific suggestions:
(a) Encourage him or her to tell a trusted friend or friends. It is a good idea for the victim to have a broad support base, as it can be exhausting if the supporting spouse is the only one involved. You won’t always be available to talk, and at times it can be easier for a victim to talk to someone of the same sex about certain dimensions of an assault.
(b) Don’t ever press or whine for sex or intimacy.
18. If you are a parent or guardian who is supporting a child through the effects of sexual assault, here are two specific suggestions:
(a) Advocate for your child. This means pursuing justice by calling the police and finding a good counselor who knows how to deal with the sexual abuse of children.
(b) If the assault occurred because of your negligence, apologize to your child and ask your child to forgive you.

Arguing with Insulting Squirrels

I admit it. Sometimes, I latch onto a topic and it can really consume my thoughts. I research it and try to fully understand it and then... I get into arguments.

I don't mean to start out arguing with people, but I'm sure you've been in the same situation. You know something to be true, and then some wisenheimer comes up and challenges you with a circular argument. You add new information supporting your side, yet this person keeps repeating, ad nauseum, the same diatribe over and over. Only, with each counter, they get more and more insulting.

I seem to attract the snide and self righteous. They like to call me "sweetie" or "honey" like I'm some bubble headed twit in Junior High who isn't nearly as well read as them. I hate that. It raises the hackles and makes me wish I could get away with shaking them until their marbles fall out.... that is, if they had any.

So, what has gotten me all irritated? Well there is this group called the Freedom From Religion Foundation that has made it their personal mission to obliterate the evidence of faith in our country. They claim it is a question of legality and constantly quote "separation of church and state" as their basis, as well as court cases they have won. They deny the faith of our founding fathers as well even though they quoted scripture liberally, and declared a national time of fasting and prayer during the Revolutionary War.

The beginning of my quest to more fully understand the 1st Amendment and Establishment Clause was due to a disturbing mass hysteria among the FFRF members, over a statue of Jesus that is at the top of Whitefish Mountain in Whitefish, Montana. It was a monument requested by returning WWII veterans, after time spent in Europe, where they saw many icons similar to it, in the mountains. The Knights of Columbus here in the Flathead Valley, requested to lease the land from the US Forest Service and have renewed the lease every 10 years without fail or objection. They maintain the statue and 25X25' ground it sits on. It is in essence, a war memorial.

It quickly became a favorite meeting spot for skiers on that particular run and many pictures have been taken of it. It's become a tourist stop, and even a place for reflection for some skiers. One skier, in an interview in a local paper, stated he stopped there from time to time to think about his mother who passed. No one goes and worships the statue. No religious ceremonies are officially held there. I know that ashes have been spread there, though that's unofficially, off the record. It has become part of the culture in our community and now, it is under attack.

What is infuriating, is that members of the FFRF like to claim this is just a legal matter, though their Facebook page is peppered with insulting quotes and cartoons that mock the Christian religion (only Christian). One member stated "I am giddy for the day the court rules in our favor and you are forced to tear that monstrosity down!" Nice. I thought they were above personal feelings and just out for justice? Guess not.

I found an interesting newsletter that is mostly about the teachings of ID, which I do not agree with, however they touched on the issue of "separation of church and state" since the government will not hear of metaphysical sciences being taught in school and give preference to Darwinism. This person claims, correctly as far as I can tell, that Darwinism is the state declared religion. But that argument is for another day. However, what caught my attention was a lengthy explanation that included citations from a well known court case and quotes from Jefferson, quoted within context, rather than out as the FFRF likes to do. Here is the summary:

In summary: The fiction of "separation of church and state" is a legal monstrosity. It is not the meaning of the clear simple words in the first amendment. It is counter to the intent of the easily ascertainable thoughts of the founders. It is based on the words of Thomas Jefferson written 14 years later in an incidental letter not specifically on the Constitution. Jefferson was not in the country at the time of the drafting of the first amendment. His meaning was the opposite of that interpreted by the Judge. He was referring to a sermon in which the "wall" protected the church from the state and not the state from the church. The first amendment had been properly understood for a century and a half. A former Klu Klux Klan member sat in judgment on the Supreme Court and passed a judgment that happened to coincide with the views of the Klan that his son said he supported. The judge wrote those words in direct and purposeful contradiction to the majority opinion that he was supposed to be expressing.

For further reading: Separation of Church and State Not In the Constitution


So, my conclusion is that either knowingly or unknowingly, they have taken up a grudge by a racist KKK member and run with it. They pervert the language of the Constitution and truly desire to scrub our history clean of all mentions of faith because they personally have a dislike for it. I can't tell you how many times I've been told that the founding father's were deists, as though that meant they had no intention of including God in our government. However, I submit the following as proof, straight from our government pages (Religion and the Founding of the American Republic)

• At its initial meeting in September 1774 Congress invited the Reverend Jacob Duché (1738-1798), rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia, to open its sessions with prayer. DuchéDuché.
•  On July 4, 1776, Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams "to bring in a device for a seal for the United States of America." Franklin's proposal adapted the biblical story of the parting of the Red Sea. Jefferson first recommended the "Children of Israel in the Wilderness, led by a Cloud by Day, and a Pillar of Fire by night. . . ." He then embraced Franklin's proposal and rewrote it. Jefferson's revision of Franklin's proposal was presented by the committee to Congress on August 20. Although not accepted these drafts reveal the religious temper of the Revolutionary period. Franklin and Jefferson were among the most theologically liberal of the Founders, yet they used biblical imagery for this important task.
• Congress proclaimed days of fasting and of thanksgiving annually throughout the Revolutionary War. This proclamation by Congress set May 17, 1776, as a "day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer" throughout the colonies. Congress urges its fellow citizens to "confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and by a sincere repentance and amendment of life, appease his [God's] righteous displeasure, and through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain his pardon and forgiveness." Massachusetts ordered a "suitable Number" of these proclamations be printed so "that each of the religious Assemblies in this Colony, may be furnished with a Copy of the same" and added the motto "God Save This People" as a substitute for "God Save the King."

• The war with Britain cut off the supply of Bibles to the United States with the result that on Sept. 11, 1777, Congress instructed its Committee of Commerce to import 20,000 Bibles from "Scotland, Holland or elsewhere." On January 21, 1781, Philadelphia printer Robert Aitken (1734-1802) petitioned Congress to officially sanction a publication of the Old and New Testament which he was preparing at his own expense. Congress "highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking of Mr. Aitken, as subservient to the interest of religion . . . in this country, and . . . they recommend this edition of the bible to the inhabitants of the United States." This resolution was a result of Aitken's successful accomplishment of his project.

Many would like to deny that our country was founded on Christian principals, and much of that information has been withheld in schools for a long time. Universities that employ leftist and atheists who are antagonistic towards Christianity are ripe with religious intolerance.

The reason this concerns me, is because I feel that if we as Christians, do not fight (peacefully) against this trend, that we hasten the time when we are openly persecuted with violence. Because we know, that this is what it all leads up to in the end. It is already happening all over the world. Now, there are many who are demanding our government be destroyed and rebuilt as socialist/communist. Do you know what they do with Christians in communist China? There are also many working very hard to put into place Sharia Law in our US courts. Do you know about the brutality that is suffered by Christians in Islamic run countries?

So, it begins with a statue of Jesus. A memorial to WWII veterans returned from war. This is what they want destroyed, now, after 58yrs with no complaints. A group, out of Wisconsin, is gunning for this historic, artistic memorial. Will you stand up and say, "No!" to government sanctioned oppression and persecution? Here is their counterpart's Facebook page: Save Jesus In Whitefish Montana and if you are interested, here is the Knights of Columbus website. Congressman Denny Rehberg has come to the rescue with a page (Mountain Jesus: Let Your Voice Be Heard) where you can have your comments sent to the Forest Service. I urge you to do so if you are in support.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;... " 

The so called "wall of separation between church and state" isn't Constitutional either. Rather, they are some incidental words written by Thomas Jefferson - obviously a founder - written in 1802 that spoke of this "wall" between church and state. A Baptist community in Danbury Connecticut had written a letter to Jefferson in 1802 congratulating him on his successful election to president. As part of his response Jefferson celebrated that the American people had passed the first amendment and that that amendment gave the protection to the Baptists that they desired. That is, the amendment protected the church from the state. Here is the snippet.

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

Ironically, Jefferson intended for his letter to the Danbury Baptists to reassure them that the new federal government would not endanger the free expression of their religion. This is widely known. But what is not well known is that Jefferson did not actually coin the phrase "separation of church and state." (The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian, p 56, 2005).

So now we have another mystery. Who was Jefferson quoting and what did that person mean? The answer is that they were words from a sermon written by Roger Williams, a prominent Baptist.

That sermon, rendered by Roger Williams (the founder of the Rhode Island Plantation colony, and a Baptist), depicted the church as a garden, the world as a wilderness, and the wall as a device of the Creator's invention that protected the garden from being overrun by the wilderness. Williams explained that, from time to time, for the purpose of disciplining sin in the church, "it hath pleased" the Almighty to break down the wall. Thomas Jefferson, ever the politician, knew when he communicated with the Baptists that "The Garden And The Wilderness" was well known and widely read nearly two generations later. He appealed to them in the terms of their own great man's idiom. (Jim Henderson, letter to the editor, *Whistleblower* magazine, December 2003, 43.)

So now you see, what a mess one man made of our judicial system by using phrases out of context and reinterpreting the 1st Amendment. Because our public school system derives it's textbooks via approval by the government, people in power who use their position freely to suit an agenda that is to destroy religion, it's historical context within our country's founding and the expression of it publicly, we have generations of people who don't know any better. I urge anyone who reads this to seek their own answers from unbiased sources. Do not just trust websites. Look for your answers in textbooks and also let your heart guide you. Pray about any information being received and for discernment to know what is truth and what are lies.

Snow Jesus: The Skiers Mascot