Why we do what we do
At CFCtoo, our first priority is abuse survivors. While we seek to educate people as part of our advocacy, that is secondary to our main work of caring for survivors. Centering on survivors means that our approach is different than if we were just trying to educate churches or push for policy reform.
With this clear focus, we will:
Be a safe place for all survivors to heal. We will reach survivors scattered around the world through our online community.
Help people who are leaving CFC and who need urgent care. Our team members based in the North Country will provide tangible support.
Educate survivors and North Country residents about the complexities of abuse: how to prevent it, how to respond to it, and how to pursue healing.
On the other hand, we will not:
Provide an illusion of objectivity by telling “both sides.” We won’t perpetuate the unequal power dynamics inherent in treating survivors and abusers as equals.
Expend energy trying to convince CFC members of our point of view. We want to focus on supporting survivors, not running a debate club.
We come alongside survivors as they take the brave step from silence into the light. In nearly every church story of sexual or spiritual abuse, the tide has only been turned by gathering enough people with the same experience that the truth is undeniable. A single story is powerful, but it did nothing to bring accountability and justice to Bill Hybels, to James MacDonald, to Doug Wilson, or to Ravi Zacharias. More stories containing identifiable patterns had to be brought to light and those stories had to be told repeatedly outside of the official channels. It was not until it was shown that people were covering up those stories that the congregations and ministry partners started to believe that there was a problem.
For every survivor who is willing to be the first to come forward, there are 10 or 100 more out there (think of Larry Nassar) who will trickle in once the public narrative overcomes the abuser’s gaslighting in their head telling them maybe they’re mistaken, maybe they’re crazy, maybe they should just stay silent. For the few stories that see the public light, there are generally many, many more in the darkness. We know this first-hand.
Abusers create complex circles of protection around themselves. They groom communities to act as their supporters. They present their victims with a seemingly impossible choice of conflicting values: remain quiet and deny their experience, or speak up and create “damage” to those in the abuser’s circle, always with the understood risk that that very circle (and those who are connected to it) will try to discredit and silence them. That is the survivor’s choice: silent suffering or being publicly discredited by the abuser and their circle.
But it is only through public exposure that this web of coercion and control can begin to be dismantled.
This is why we do what we do.
