by

Laura Brignone Bhagwat is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley where she studies technology and domestic violence. Her dissertation tracks a public health intervention in hospital emergency rooms meant to prevent intimate partner homicide.

Abuse is the neglect or mistreatment of others (such as a child or spouse, the elderly, the disabled, or anyone else) in such a way that causes physical, emotional, or sexual harm. It goes against the teachings of the Savior. The Lord condemns abusive behavior in any form. ‘The Church’s position is that abuse cannot be tolerated in any form’ (Handbook 1: Stake Presidents and Bishops [2010], 17.3.2). Abuse violates the laws of God and may also be a violation of the laws of society. The Lord expects us to do all we can to prevent abuse and to protect and help those who have been victims of abuse. No one is expected to endure abusive behavior.

At 12:05 yesterday, I was driving to lunch when a message from a friend popped up on my phone. It consisted of six exclamation points (“!!!!!!”) and the text “abuse.lds.org.” Within 15 seconds I’d pulled over and clicked on the link.

This is arguably the most comprehensive resource made public by the Church to members dealing with abuse. It has an expansive mission. It attempts to address physical, sexual, emotional and other types of abuse. It attempts to address abuse against children, intimate partners, the elderly, and the disabled. It attempts to do so as a resource for victims, non-abusive loved ones, caring bystanders, and leaders.

The most remarkable thing about it is how beautifully it succeeds.

Old Material

The website is broken into five categories:

“I Have Been or Am Being Abused,”

“Stories of Hope,”

“How Can I Help Victims of Abuse?”

“Prevention and Protection,” and

“Resources for Church Leaders.”

Each category contains a set of four to nine articles or vignettes that answer specific questions. For example, “How Can I Help Victims of Abuse” contains articles entitled “What are signs that someone is being abused?” “What should I do if I know or suspect someone is being abused?” “How can I support someone who has been abused?” and “What should I do if my child has been abused?”

Footnotes and in-text citations on these articles collocate and incorporate the most victim-sensitive, abuse-specific material published by the Church or stated by Church leaders in recent years. Talks such as Elder Scott’s “To Heal the Shattering Consequences of Abuse,” and “To Be Free From Heavy Burdens” and Sister Carole M. Stephens’ “The Master Healer” are linked as footnotes in relevant articles. Dr. Ben Ogles’ BYU devotional “Agency, Accountability and the Atonement” related to sexual assault is discussed at length.

Common scriptures used to support and comfort victims in reference to this topic are referenced and linked in-text, such as Doctrine & Covenants 18:10 and Alma 7:11-14. In addition, a Mormon Newsroom statement on abuse and the Gospel Topics essay on abuse are included as independent articles under “Resources for Leaders.”

New Material

Within the category “I am or have been abused,” the article “In Crisis” contains this statement (similar examples are replete within the site):

If you or someone you know has been abused…you may also seek help from a victim advocate or medical or counseling professional. These services can help protect you and prevent further abuse. In addition, the help lines listed below are free and are staffed by people who are trained to help. These resources are not created, maintained, or controlled by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This statement is followed by twelve links to twelve preeminent crisis hotlines for different types of abuse (primarily U.S. but also U.K.).

Twelve links! Specific to abuse! To outside advocates! Offered directly to victims/survivors!

Excuse me for a moment while I try to stop crying.

Until yesterday, Church support and guidance for victims of abuse consisted in talking to their bishop. While a bishop’s spiritual guidance can be welcome and helpful and healing for victims/survivors on their spiritual journeys, there are many trauma- and abuse-specific aspects of violence that are hard for a bishop to address. This blog has discussed why talking with a bishop can be challenging and even harmful for both victims/survivors and bishops.

Now, the LDS website includes bishops as resources after external crisis interventions. This recognizes formally — for the first time — the individual’s need to deal with acute trauma before spiritual healing can begin.

Until yesterday, the Church’s interventions were not abuse-specific. Previous resources ranged from the helpful (as described in “Old Materials” above) to the actively harmful – suggesting, for example, that victims may be responsible for the abuse or able to stop abuse. While well-intentioned, these demonstrated a lack of connection with the actual dynamics of abusive behavior and have caused incalculable pain to already-suffering victims and survivors. While helpful, transcendent recommendations such as advice to pray and seek healing through the Atonement apply broadly to life’s problems; until yesterday, these were not paired with additional support specific to abuse.

Today, the resources in abuse.lds.org are specific to abuse. The site’s language is replete with the language of professional advocacy and victim-sensitive support and reads like a warm embrace. Further, the authors show a clear awareness of abusive dynamics and appropriate interventions. The presence of articles such as “What if I think the abuse is my fault” expose a clear awareness of the mind games in play in abusive relationships. Their content is clearly informed by expertise that works to empower and free victims/survivors from the abuser’s manipulation.

Until yesterday, the Church did not offer or promote specific abuse helplines, advocacy, and other resources. I caveat this, because the Church did suggest to bishops that victims might be well served by counseling or other outside resources. But victims were hardly recommended to look outside the Church structure for help dealing with abuse – and in some cases have been actively discouraged from doing so.

The new abuse.lds.org site doesn’t just clearly advocate that it is often appropriate for victims to seek help outside the Church structure. It names and links to high-quality resources (and these are high-quality resources) that are specific to abuse. I rarely see links to non-Church resources and social services on any topic. But this is offering relevant, actionable, victim-sensitive, victim-responsive, deeply knowledgeable help to highly vulnerable children of God.

Until yesterday, the Church provided coordinated resources only to bishops. I’ve spent the last ten years as an LDS domestic violence advocate looking for every piece of Church guidance and help for survivors/victims of abuse I could find. For victims, those were (at best) the then-scattered, piecemeal resources listed under “Old Materials.” Bishops were offered optional training videos and a hotline offering assistance with legal requirements and (sometimes? its unclear) advising on emotional responses and other interventions. Victims and survivors didn’t know what to expect because the Church’s requirements and resources for helping bishops were often opaque and confusing.

For the first time ever (to my knowledge), abuse.lds.org offers resources directly to victims. And, though not fully disclosed, the section on leaders’ responsibilities and resources are described in a more transparent way than I’ve ever seen them presented before. This empowers both leaders and victims / survivors that seek to offer and receive healing and care.

Today’s Church language empowers victims/survivors to regain control of their own lives. Not stuck in the relationship even if the abuser doesn’t change, not reliant only on the bishop as a conduit for support. This language suggests that as children of God, victims/survivors shouldn’t be forced to suffer. As children of God, they have individual worth. As children of God, they can have options. Their only dependence is on an omnipresent, empathetic, co-suffering, healing Christ as they find safety and wholeness after abuse.

More New Material

A few more quotes/themes to highlight from the new site:

The use of abuse.lds.org. The rhetorical power of this is unmatched. This single-handedly, vocally lends the Church’s institutional support to a deep and robust opposition to abuse in a way experienced by only a handful of other issues.

The pictures. The pictures throughout the site are racially inclusive, gender-proportionate (most victims/survivors pictured are women, some are men), and age-inclusive. Survivors of elder abuse, dating abuse, child abuse and domestic violence all appear to be depicted.

No one is expected to endure abusive behavior. This teaching has long been ambiguous. Bishops, who until yesterday were the only ecclesiastically endorsed support for abuse, were never to counsel divorce. Church statements around leaving the relationship mainly centered around dating. Earlier this year, Church requirements changed for bishops such that they were not to counsel abused individuals to remain in abusive relationships. This sentence, from the heading of the entire website, clarifies and ensconces the Church’s position: the victim is absolutely not required to stay.

Consider your words. Blaming the victim or making statements like “get over it” or “just forgive and forget” can lead the victim to increased secrecy and shame rather than healing and peace.

This is beautiful abuse-specific advocacy work at play, and a direct counterpoint to a lot of the Church’s prior messaging.

Children. Another step forward is regarding conversations with children. Children need to know that they can talk to you about anything, including… understanding their bodies, their anatomy, and their sexuality. When done without shame, not only is this spectacularly good practice in terms of abuse, it also paves the way for the child’s healthy relationship with their developing sexuality as an adolescent and adult.

Healing. I want to shout-out to Elder Holland’s most recent General Conference address. Gone are the honest, but footnoted, days of yore. Two weeks ago, when referencing the exception of abuse, Elder Holland taught: “[Christ] did not say, ‘you are not allowed to feel true pain or real sorrow from the shattering experiences you have had at the hand of another.’ Nor did He say, ‘in order to forgive fully, you have to reenter a toxic relationship or return to an abusive, destructive circumstance.’”

This is echoed and elaborated on in beautiful ways under the new abuse.lds.org article “Can I heal from this?”

What Next?

There are a few clear next steps for the website. First would be debunking specific perpetrator tactics and guidance related to the perpetrator and their actions. I welcome that framework because it allows the needs of those who have been harmed to take center stage. However, it means that Church doctrines and teachings commonly used by perpetrators to justify abuse (most notably “I hold the priesthood, so…”) are not directly addressed. Nor is the harm of victims/survivors seeing the perpetrators in continued Church fellowship (and sometimes leadership). These issues deeply affect LDS victims / survivors, and are unique to the Church and its members. While the site may hope that this is one of the many issues victims / survivors would be empowered to address through the provided links to advocacy, advocacy would not address this issue as well, with the same authority, or as thoroughly as a Church resource.

A future article could easily accomplish this through references and quotes like this one by President Hinckley: “Any man in this Church who abuses… exercises unrighteous dominion… [and] is unworthy to hold the priesthood.” Or the site could have cited scriptures such as Doctrine and Covenants 121:36-41 on unrighteous dominion, which I was surprised not to see referenced in the site. Few principles in advocacy are as declaratory toward the perpetrator – and none are as unique to the Church – as “amen to the Priesthood of that man.”

Another available avenue for future development relates to ecclesiastical abuse. While the Church does not really have precedent for acknowledging such abuse, the expansive mission of the site – to address all forms of abuse Church members may experience at the hands of unrighteous men (usually men) – suggests that ecclesiastical abuse should have a place.

However, while not explicitly mentioned or discussed, abuse.lds.org includes subtle acknowledgment of both of these concepts through the vignettes shared on the site. “One Day At A Time” discusses a spectacular misuse of the priesthood that had damaging and long-lasting effects on the victim. It also discusses a particularly sensitive – and complicated – interaction with a priesthood leader, as well as the long-term effects of that on the victim/survivor. “Finding My Worth” explores both positive and complicated aspects of relationships between bishops and women who have been abused.

All in all, with abuse.lds.org, the path to safety and healing from abuse for LDS victims and survivors just got a little bit wider.

My sincerest thanks to the Church for publishing this new resource during Domestic Violence Awareness month.