Thank you for joining us on this edition of Desiring God Live. We are coming here to you live from the Desiring God offices in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My name is David Mathis and I’m an elder at Bethlehem Baptist, and the Executive Pastoral Assistant to Pastor John Piper. And we’re privileged to have with us here today, Justin Holcomb.

Thank you for having me here and letting me do this, because this is huge. Most Christian ministries wouldn’t want to talk about something like the horror and trauma of sexual assault. So taking the risk of just putting it out there is hugely appreciated, and so thank you for doing this and inviting us.

Justin and his wife Lindsey are the authors of the book Rid of My Disgrace: Hope and Healing for Victims of Sexual Assault. We understand that this topic may be more significant and weighty and personally impactful for many who are tuning in here today.

Justin, this is a pastorally relevant topic, as well as academically relevant and personally relevant for you. Can you explain some of your background as well as your wife Lindsey’s background that led you into this area of study and ministry?

Sure. Those three are the big ones. First, just personally, when I was a boy, I was assaulted by an older family member. So this isn’t just something I’ve studied or that my wife studied. And in the book we actually said that personally, practically and ministerially everyone assumed it was my wife because we didn’t say who, which is one of the myths that’s problematic. People think this is a women’s issue. It’s not just a women’s issue. Personally, I can relate by just knowing the effects of sin and what a victim would be thinking and feeling and the questions they would have. But also academically, I taught at the University of Virginia in the Women’s Studies Department and the Sociology Department. My wife has a Masters in International Public Health, and her focus was on violence against women and sexual violence in particular. So from an academic research teaching standpoint, I also teach, and you were one of my students at Reformed Theological Seminary. I still serve there as an Adjunct Professor. And still in the academic world, this fits in.

Then practically, my wife and I both serve at Mars Hill Church in caring for specific victims and those who care for the victims. But also my wife’s background is that she was a case manager at a sexual assault crisis center, and she was a counselor. She worked at a domestic violence shelter where many women who have been battered have also been sexually assaulted by their husband or boyfriend. So this has been something practically significant in the places she’s worked and served where this has been the topic. When we started dating, I started reading her books and she started reading a bunch more theology, because I’m a nerd. So this book emerged from our personal, practical, and academic stuff all together. So that’s what we wanted to bring to bear, and we wrote the book so those three things would bubble up to the surface.

You write that the message of this book is that “the gospel applies grace to disgraced and redeems what is destroyed.” That’s so significant and helpful and huge, what more would you say about the big idea of the book?

Great question. The big idea and the reason we have grace and disgrace in the title is related to the disgrace and the effects of sexual assault, the damage it does to an individual, to the family, to the community, and how it’s a sin against God. It’s the whole mess of the effects and the destruction and damage of sexual assault and the disgrace that comes form it. Countering that you have this amazing good news of the gospel of who Jesus is and what he has done, and we wanted to connect the dots. And as my wife and I were thinking through this book, our whole thing was, how do we connect the dots between the gospel of Jesus for sinners and people who are suffering? How do we connect the dots to this thing over here? So the whole book is really about that. It’s about making a direct connection between a specific effect and what the cross and resurrection have to say about it.

And before we go too far into the topic, defining what sexual assault is important. And you and Lindsey go there right away in the book. You feel that same way about providing a definition. How do you guys define sexual assault?

It’s any kind of sexual contact or behavior where consent is not freely given or obtained, and that contact or behavior is accomplished through force, coercion, manipulation, or threat. There are these three big components. It’s any sexual contact or behavior. Sexual assault can happen without physical contact. You can use a threat over a child, or a threat of violence. I’ve heard stories of husbands commanding, demanding, and threatening their wives to do certain things with someone else, which means the perpetrator didn’t even physically do anything. But that counts as a sexual assault. So it’s any kind of sexual contact or behavior where there’s no consent.

We have a whole section on consent. What is consent? There has to be some form of consent. If that behavior has been accomplished through any means — it doesn’t just involve a weapon or the pounding of fists, though that does happen sometimes. It could be coercion or abuse of authority. There are stories of doctors misusing the patient-doctor trust. There are stories about coaches, professors, and doctors — the relationships that people have — misusing and abusing and threatening and using coercion. There are tons of ways that sexual assaults can be done. The importance of that definition is that most people have a very narrow definition. Most people, when you say sexual assault, think it’s a stranger in the bushes while someone is walking home. Stranger assaults are about 20 percent of all assaults. Most assaults are done by people that the victim knows, and 80 percent are done by people that the victim knows.

I don’t want to be too graphic. Most people think that only rape is sexual assault, but the scope of behavior of what counts as sexual assault is wider. So we wanted to expand the definition. What we started finding was that there were people we were counseling who would start talking about what they were going through, and I’d ask at some point, “Is there any history of abuse?” And they’d say, “Oh, no, no, no. There was no sexual abuse or anything like that.” And then I’d start going through the definition and they’d go, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.” Victims would have that narrow definition, and so what they do is they leave themselves out of the scope of calling a thing what it is. It was a sin against them, as opposed to an unfortunate sexual thing that happened. So it’s helpful for the victim, but it’s also helpful for churches and people who are serving them to realize that the broader definition needs to be in place.

We don’t want to make it so broad that everything’s sexual assault, because if everything’s sexual assault, nothing is. We wanted to expand it a little bit. Our definition is expanding the narrow definition, but it’s not as broad as many others who would have a very large definition. So we didn’t want to go too far. But we wanted to make sure that people could draw a circle and say, “If that’s sexual assault, then that is what happened to me.” And it’s amazing when someone has that moment where they realize, “Okay, I’m not crazy. What happened, that wasn’t just some inappropriate touching.” It was inappropriate touching, but the intent of that and the damage that it did and the scope of the damage needs to map the scope of the definition, and that’s what we were shooting for.

That relates to the realities of under-reporting and over-reporting. You talk about that in the book. Could you summarize those situations?

Some people have a fear where they think, “Can I really trust when the victim says that? Are they making this up?” Sexual assault is the least falsely reported crime. About 2 percent of all crimes are false reports. Sexual assault is lower than that, because it’s hard to get people to actually report it because of the shame and the sense of guilt. They might think, “Did I ask for this? Did I deserve this?” There are so many questions going through a victim’s mind, that this is one of the most under-reported crimes, but it’s the least falsely reported because of the shame. Very rarely is someone going to actually make up this whole shameful, painful story just for lying about it.

So those are important to have in place. Just knowing the numbers, when you hear a story from someone, you can pretty much just assume that it’s true and they’re not exaggerating. Assume that there’s a whole lot more that you haven’t heard. And that’s been very helpful for me, because someone comes in and they say, “I need to talk about this.” Instead of wondering and being suspicious, I’m assuming there’s more, as opposed to going into caring for them with some type of suspicion. I’ve never had anyone tell me an episode of something, an assault that happened to them, and then found out that it was false. My wife had one and she’s been serving in this field for almost a decade. She has one that she knows of. So between the two of us and the hundreds of people, one false report is great.

You mentioned the shame and the disgrace. That’s a barrier to reporting and seeking help, and there we were talking about the effects of sexual assault. What are some of those effects?

We highlighted six, so I’ll hit those six. But there are a whole bunch of other ones: denial, distorted self-image, shame, guilt, anger, and despair. Those are the big ones. Those are the emotional, psychological, and spiritual ones. The physical effects involve the fact that physical violence is taking place, so there’s sometimes broken bones, there’s bleeding, there’s bruising, there’s physical pain, there’s sexually transmitted diseases, and there’s nausea. There are things that happen physically to the body. And then psychologically and emotionally, some people are not able to sleep, not being able to eat, hypervigilance, hyper arousal in the sense of just always being startled, and sexual dysfunctions. It just goes deep. There’s nothing we can do about the physical. We do know that sometimes the physical and spiritual and emotional are connected, but we’re not doctors. So we wanted to leave that part out and just say, “Go to the doctor.”

But we did want to look at the emotional, psychological, and spiritual dimensions. And those six came out anecdotally from talking to victims and realizing that denial comes up a lot, and so does despair. So we got some of those. We made a big list of the ones that we thought were there. Then we went and looked at research on this about caring for victims and describing what victims are going through. And those six were some of the top ones that research has shown are the effects. Denial, self-image, shame, guilt, anger, and despair are the bullseye that we’re going for. That’s the root cause of some of the other effects. You start dealing with those and then you might start seeing something changing with the lack of sleep, or the inability to eat, or sexual dysfunction, or any of the other symptoms of that root cause.

Now, one thing that you and Lindsey highlight on several occasions is the surprising prevalence of the issue. I was shocked by how prevalent this is. Could you speak about the nature of the prevalence?

The baseline number is one in four women and one in six men have or will be victims of sexual assault. There is some research that says it’s one in three, and some says it’s one in five. We just wanted to go for a fairly conservative statistic. The one in four and one in six ratios are shocking to a lot of people, but we wanted to make sure we didn’t just give the shocking number and say there’s an epidemic and freak people out and just sensationalize it. We scaled it back a little bit. One in four women, one in six men, and about 10 percent of children have experienced incest, not just sexual assault. Sexual assault is in about 10 to 14 percent of marriages. And then the sweet spot of horror is 16 to 19 year old girls. They’re four times more likely than the general population to experience sexual assault. Other stats that are just mind-blowing. About 80 percent of sexual assault victims are under 30, and the number of children under 12 I think are about 15 to 20 percent of victims. So it’s just staggering.

And victims can be from the worst demographics. The youngest I heard about from my wife was a three-month-old, and then you also hear about 90, 95, and 100 year old men and women in assisted living, and everywhere in between. So while the numbers point to 12 to 17 years old being where a lot of victims are, the scope is from right after birth to right before death and everywhere in between. That’s the scope of the numbers. I want people to get the numbers so that you can literally look out into your church or your classroom or where you work and think, “Okay, about one out of five of those people have experienced this.” And that’s right. We did a survey a few years ago at Mars Hill Church regarding just the pastor’s wives. One out of three of the pastor’s wives were victims of sexual assault.

Knowing that it’s one out five, it means this is something that we need to actually be talking about. If we don’t bring this up in ministries and sermons in any way to get the awareness out there, we’re doing a disservice to the people. I don’t want there to be a whole series on sexual assault. I just want pastors and those who are doing ministry and caring for people, including all Christians, to be thinking, “How can I be accessible to those who would want to talk about this? Can I mention it in a sermon?” Maybe you mention the pain in people’s lives and talk about the addiction, or the broken relationship, or the sexual assault. Just mentioning it is a huge thing because they’re out there, and you can count on the fact that they’re out there.

I’ve had people who’ve read it talk to me and say, “Yeah, I didn’t believe the numbers. And then I started talking about it and I was shocked by how many people in my church came forward to talk to me about it.” The numbers have been proven by research, but also by just anecdotally by people on the ground.

Given the prevalence, why is sexual assault an issue that so few talk about? What are the factors that conspire in that?

It’s not talked about by victims because it’s embarrassing. There’s a sense of shame that they feel personally. You have the personal and the cultural aspects, and then you have the church. Personally, a victim would just feel shame. They feel dirty, filthy, and defiled, so why would they want to talk about the thing that they want to hide? So that makes sense. Culturally, our society likes to blame victims. I also think hearing about the darkness bothers people. American culture has this assumption that we’re basically good. So when you look at the numbers and the devastation from sexual assault, it challenges some of the baseline assumptions that we have culturally about humanity. Christians say that we’re sinful and we shouldn’t be shocked by this. But at large our society would say, “Really? I thought we were basically good. It’s not that bad. There’s a few weirdos who do this horrible thing, but I’m not like them.” So there’s a cultural, societal victim blaming.

The church and leaders and also the people — I don’t want to just pin it on pastors — don’t know. They’re ignorant. I don’t mean ignorant in a demeaning way, I just mean they just don’t know. If you don’t know, you don’t know. They don’t know about the numbers, and they don’t know why they should care. They also don’t know what to do, because there’s not a quick fix. There’s an easy answer. That’s the whole point. Victims need to hear about the gospel of Jesus Christ and apply it to the devastation that happened. You can say that, but unpacking that and going through the conversations and listening is needed. They don’t know what to do.

You can say, “You should just forgive and move on.” But then you start getting into platitudes and bad theology. Too many Christians have platitudes and bad theology and they just don’t know what to do. And I get that. I’m not trying to blame people for not knowing what to say. If you don’t know what to say, you don’t know. I haven’t always known. I was a youth minister and I remember being 18 or 19 years old and hearing a story and thinking, “Well, I guess they’ll talk to someone else.” And I just didn’t come back to it. That poor kid was probably crying out and probably trusted me. I didn’t know what to do or say, so I didn’t do anything. So that’s where we are.

Let’s zero our focus on the victims for a few minutes. You and Lindsey talk about how important it is for the victims to acknowledge the sexual assault. Could you tell us more about that?

That’s in the denial chapter, and it’s if someone is denying the reality of what happened. It can be as strong as complete denial, where they literally forgot, suppress it, or whatever. We’re not talking just about that, though it includes that. We’re talking about actually acknowledging the facts of what happened and the effects of what happened. Humans are amazing in the sense of what we can do or what our brains do where we put information, and how we keep it at arm’s length. There’s a certain self-preservation thing that kicks in, a good thing, where we might not be able to feel the full force of the memories, of the pain emotionally and physically of what happened, so we process it slowly. So there’s a good self-preservation thing that happens with denial, keeping it at arm’s length. But you can’t do that for too long. You’ll start feeling isolated and alienated and alone.

So we gently encourage people to start thinking through it, and call it what it was. It was a sin, it was a sexual assault. We tell them to be honest about how it has affected them. And that’s where a lot of people get hung up because they realize, “Because that happened to me, I’ve responded in this way and I’ve done so much damage. I’ve made so many bad decisions.” And they feel guilt about that, so it’s mixed with a lot of reasons why someone wouldn’t go there. But it’s not just acknowledging for acknowledging sake. It’s saying, “This is what’s happened. This is the need. This is where I’m desperate and weak. This is where I’ve sinned, this is where I’ve suffered, and this is where the gospel needs to be applied.” So it’s really trying to find out for the person to where they need God’s promises enforced by him and made true in a very personal, very real way in their hearts and minds and lives.

It’s not just, “Here’s a list of horrible things that I will overcome.” Rather, they say, “This is what has happened. Now what?” And then that’s the launching pad because God cares about this more than they do. We looked in that section on denial for God’s people in Exodus and it says that they cried out and the text was describing God. It says that he knew, he heard, he saw, he cared, and he acted. So we want victims and survivors — whatever language people want to use — to realize that their acknowledging isn’t the first and last voice. Their acknowledging means he already saw and he already cares. You’re participating in God’s concern and grief for you, and you acknowledge that so that you can actually start grieving and so you can participate in God’s grief over what happened also. He’s already been grieving. He’s grieving more than you are. So acknowledge so you can actually grieve the loss of whatever that loss was.

You and Lindsey begin chapter one in a very powerful way. I’m reading this paragraph here from page 15. It says:

What happened to you was not your fault. You are not to blame. You did not deserve it. You did not ask for this. You should not be silenced. You are not worthless. You do not have to pretend like nothing happened. Nobody had the right to violate you. You are not responsible for what happened to you. You are not damaged goods. You were supposed to be treated with dignity and respect. You were the victim of assault and it was wrong. You were sinned against. Despite all the pain, healing can happen and there is hope.

What prompted you to begin the book in that way?

We wanted to make sure that the message to a victim was read clearly. I love that you picked that paragraph out. That was the paragraph that we wanted to make sure every victim would read, that they would see that and they would get that message and go, “Okay, I want to read more about this.” Because that encapsulates everything we were thinking about it. That paragraph actually came out of some sermons that had in mind victims and other people. I wasn’t just preaching a sermon series on sexual assault, but having them in mind, those were things that I would say knowing victims would be there. So it’s an encapsulation of the entire message of the book.

That’s good. Clearly, you guys have benefited from a lot of Christian research as well as experience, as well as non-Christian research. What key findings and frustrations did you encounter in some of the non-Christian research?

The research that’s not particularly Christian or non-Christian was so well done. And the numbers, the research, the statistics, the prevalence, was amazing just to see the scope of it. The research also was asking questions that I wouldn’t have even thought of about self-blame and what works. And one in particular was self-blame. When someone is dealing with self-blame, which almost every victim does, they ask, “What’s the most important thing that someone who’s caring for a victim can do?” And the answer was to listen. And it was just shocking because I thought, “Well, that’s true anecdotally. That’s true from counseling. That’s true from reality. That’s just true from what we know.” But to actually have something like that, proving that believing and listening to the victim had a huge impact, was eye-opening. Self-help techniques don’t do anything. There are other things that just don’t work as well as listening and believing.

One of the findings was realizing that our experiences personally but also professionally map reality on other things. Because when you’re in it, and all you do is talk to victims, you start thinking, “Well, I just see it everywhere. Is everyone a victim? There are so many victims.” So it was helpful to have it confirmed by the research. Some of the frustrations were that the descriptions of the situation were magnificent, and we started thinking, “What do you do? How do you care for a victim beyond listening and believing?” And then it just started getting into a mess where it was heartbreaking, where you’re thinking, “Really? You are an expert in sexual assault?” They were also experts on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is one of the huge effects of sexual assault. Sexual assault victims are the second-largest population after war vets who experience PTSD.

So there were numerous experts on PTSD. The advice they would give people was horrible. Can I tell you one of them? Looking at the sense of distorted identity someone would have who’s a victim, who probably feels filthy, dirty, ugly, unwanted, and unlovable. So what you should do is go stand in front of a mirror and get a post-it note and write on it the words that you want to be associated with. So if you feel dirty, write “clean” and put it up there and do it around your silhouette. Don’t cover yourself. Do it around your silhouette and then write “lovely”, “smart”, “accomplished”, “worth it”, and “deserving” — all of those words that are not negative that you want to have associated with yourself. And what I want you to do for a few minutes every day is to stare at yourself and have those words around you, and hopefully the association of those words with the image of yourself in the mirror will start to sink in. And that was it.

I guess that’s fine. There’s good news that we have from Jesus and the gospel that we’re who we are in Christ. I’m not at all challenging that. We can come back to that. But making up your mirror like that is like a homemade ritual. And what happens is victims, they realize, “Wait, that doesn’t make it true. I can create an association between the word ‘lovely’ and my feeling of filthiness, but that doesn’t make the feeling go away.” There was one woman who had done that and relied on this self-help only type of stuff, and she realized not only was it not true, but that she was probably more filthy and disgusting than she originally thought. So it actually plummeted her even deeper into her self-hate and self-blame. She started cutting herself after all the superficial shallow self-help techniques. That caused me to see what they were offering and say, “You’ve diagnosed the pain powerfully, but you can’t do much on the pathway to healing and help for them.”

You’ve written that much of the literature on sexual assault employs self-help approaches, and then you and Lindsey addressed that and showed how there’s even research saying that the self-help approaches don’t help. Can you explain more about that?

They do the opposite of help. There was a journal that came out in about 2008 or 2009. I think it was Psychology Quarterly, and it was just some academic journal on counseling. We didn’t grab some obscure Christian counseling article somewhere. It was just out there and it said, “Self-help techniques help certain people who are really proud and they do devastation to people who have low self-esteem or distorted self-image.” So someone who’s really into themselves thinks it’s good, and it actually increases their self-esteem, their view of themselves.

What it does to someone who has a distorted self-image or low self-esteem is that, first they’ll start applying these terms — “I am lovely, I am this . . .” — and then they’ll start describing themselves in that way and applying it to themselves and giving positive self statements. It has traction for a little bit. It might be a day, it might be a week, it might be a month, or it might be a year. It has some traction. But then what it does is that when they realize it’s just not true and they’re just telling themselves this story, they can see themselves chasing their own tail. What it does is that it makes them feel like they are actually unlovely. It increases the pain that someone who has low self-esteem is already feeling. So it’s actually really cruel.

It’s not that it’s just not helpful, it’s cruel to give someone false hope. It’s like saying, “Okay, you have a broken leg? Walk on it.” That’s what they’re doing to people. They’re not helping them at all and they’re causing more pain and more damage and they’re rubbing their nose in the way they’re already feeling. It just embarrasses them. And these peer-reviewed articles were saying, “People with high self-esteem, it increases, and those with low self-esteem, it decreases.” So we’re realizing that we’ve seen that happen with victims, and that it just causes more damage and more disgrace.

I have one more question related to victims in particular and then we’ll take a brief break and be back to talk about leaders, pastors, ministers, friends, spouses, and parents, and how they relate to victims. But here’s the last question related to victims. For those who have been sexually assaulted and have not yet told anyone, what would be your advice to them?

Tell someone if you can. They don’t because people don’t feel like they actually trust people to tell them something. And so the first thing I would want to say is, look around where you are and see if God has placed someone that you could take the risk with. And they don’t have to say everything. They can just get it going a little bit. The first thing I would encourage them to do is to take the risk with one of the church leaders. If anything, they should know about it or they would’ve heard it already. They shouldn’t be shocked by it. Or tell a spouse or a friend, someone close to you who you know. It may be their parents depending on who they are. And then talk to the authorities. It’s not about going to get justice and vengeance. The authorities are there for a reason. It’s not inappropriate to do that. I encourage all victims to go for justice for numerous reasons. It’s for them, but also it’s because perpetrators frequently don’t just have one victim.

And then get some type of resource. If it’s this book or just another book about the gospel that’s good. This one is deep and gospel-specific to sexual assault, but any book about the gospel that tells you who you are, what Christ has done for you, and what healing actually can look like would be good. This isn’t the only book. There’s other great ones out there. So start thinking through that. But talking to someone who will walk through it with you and bear your burden is enormous. There’s a reason why all the journals, all the articles said that listening and being believed is the number one thing that gets someone on the pathway of healing. Avail yourself of it. It requires some bravery and courage. I’m not saying, “Come on, get on it and go talk to someone.” I’m saying please think through it, pray about it, and ask, “Is there someone I could share this with?” And then pray for the courage to do it. It’s not fun. It’s not enjoyable, but neither is the alienation and isolation and the swirl of disgrace, and being encumbered with shame and defilement and a filthy feeling. It doesn’t need to be there. That’s not permanent and there’s hope.

Then also going to God is needed. Telling other people and telling authorities is practically helpful, reading books is helpful, but we have to bring that stuff to God. This is Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted . . .” He’s there. He’s not shocked. He’s not distant, thinking, “Oh you’re bringing your filth.” He sees, he knows, and he cares. You’re safe to go to him. And we’ll get to this, but there may be some barriers. Someone might think, “Why did God let this happen?” I get that. I get it. But you can’t leave God out of this. He is gracious, compassionate, abounding in love and mercy. Go to God and see what happens. Throw yourself at his mercy and see what happens.

Let’s transition to talking about how pastors, ministers, friends, and spouses can help. But first, I have one follow-up question on the victims. Is there a connection between victims becoming perpetrators? And how would you characterize that relationship?

There is. It’s not uncommon for someone who is a victim to then become a perpetrator. And one of the reasons is because sex is the tool or weapon used against a victim. Sexual assault isn’t primarily about sex, it’s about power, domination, and control. So what happens is that if someone has been oppressed or dominated or controlled, frequently they will use the weapon used against them against someone else. Especially if it’s a child, they learn how to do that from what happened to them, and especially if it’s multiple times. Most people who are assaulted when they are children are assaulted multiple times. It’s not just one-offs. Usually they’re groomed, and it’s someone who knows them. So they learn how to distort sex and sexuality early.

But also, because they’ve been dominated, the sinful response is to then dominate and control other people in the ways that they’ve been sinned against. It does make sense. Frequently people sin in the way they’ve been sinned against. So one way to actually stop the prevalence is to care for the victims well, because they need pastoral care and support, but also because the practical side is that you’ll actually start limiting the numbers of potential perpetrators.

Well, let’s turn now to that pastoral care element. How do you hope that the book will help pastors, ministers, and leaders?

We want to inform them. We want the book to give them practical, compassionate, and biblical responses. We want to give them language. So the book was written to victims and we said that upfront. We say that it is first for victims and we want those who are there to support them to listen in to what we’re saying. And that’s one of the best ways to teach. Fishbowling in counseling is something that they do where you’ll actually have the counseling group going on and then you have a second group either sitting behind them or watching on video, and they’re just watching the interaction. You learn so much by watching the interaction. We wanted pastors and parents and spouses and friends to overhear how we’re talking to victims. We wanted to show them that this is how they can connect the dots. It’s not easy just to say, “Here’s the horror and here’s the great news; go ahead, connect those dots.”

We wanted to connect the dots and say, “Go ahead and just trace over that line that we’ve drawn from gospel to the pain.” But also we wanted to give them the information. We wanted to build the need for them and say, “This is a need. Please pay attention to it. You have people in your scope of ministry that are suffering in this way, please care for them.” We want to inform them. But if you just give information to someone and they don’t know how to respond with compassion and the gospel, you actually might cause more damage. So for us, the leading thing was the compassionate, gospel-saturated response.

What we didn’t want was for someone to think, “Okay, it’s a huge issue. Everyone, come talk.” And then people start showing up and a person just gives them poison and not good news, and starts giving them advice on all kinds of things like, “Okay, you need to forgive. Get forgiving. And God is sovereign, so he did this to you. Learn to like it and worship him for it.” There are stupid things that people have said to victims. We didn’t want to set victims up for more pain. We wanted to lead, not just with practical stuff, but with saying, “This is the good news, and this is how it applies to this particular pain and sin.”

The book seems to assume that there’s not a canned gospel presentation that you deliver every time, but rather that the gospel is this rich reality which you apply specifically to different needs. Can you give us a summary approach of how you would do that, and maybe just give an example case? How would you begin to speak the hope and good news of the Christian gospel into a difficult situation of sexual assault?

One of the things I like saying to victims is that their emotions, like sadness — not like wrath and vengeance, because I can’t say this on vengeance and wrath — are not as much as God’s. So I’ll say, “God is more sad than you on this.” And it’s not a competition. We say, “Go for it. You can be more sad than that.” Or if they’re angry, we say, “You can be angry without sinning.” So I love being able to tell a victim, “God is more angry than you are. He cares about this more than you do. He wants justice more than you do.” What we’re inviting victims to do is participate in what God is already doing, how he is already responding, and how he already did respond in the cross and resurrection. We want this macro sense of this sin being a sin against them, but also recognize that it’s a sin against God.

He created the world so people would love him and love their neighbor. And sin is idolatry and hatred against God and violence toward our neighbor. It’s not loving God and not loving neighbor. It’s idolatry and exploitation. And sexual violence is a particular one because it strikes at the heart of who we are, because God created us as sexual beings also in addition to rational and communal beings, and all these other dimensions. It’s important to be able to say, “If sex was created to be union and peace between man and woman in the garden, then to distort the union of God’s image bearers and use that very thing that’s supposed to be an expression of unity, union, harmony, and peace for something else, would be to flip it on its head.”

It’s important to be able to tell a victim that and not minimize what happened to them. We can say, “In one sense, you are collateral damage from Satan’s attack on God. That sin is against God and you.” I’m not minimizing what happened to them, but I’m actually saying it’s not just some event that happened. It was a sin. And it wasn’t just a sin against them, it was also a sin against God. It’s elevating things and it’s adding gravitas to their experience and saying, “Do you realize that this isn’t just some pervert who sinned against you? This is the work of the enemy against you, who is trying to destroy you and God?” Then it’s cosmic, and suddenly they think, “Okay, so this fits into something bigger. I get this because what this does is that it pulls me further from God. I have questions about God, and it causes more pain.” So what happens is that they start seeing the viral effects of sin and its devastation. That’s what the cross is answering. That’s what Jesus is doing.

And he says, “I’m taking on the wrath, the sin, and I’m restoring everything to the original.” Redemption is more Shalom and peace. So we say, “There will be peace and he will wipe away every tear. It will all be well. And he breaks into right now with some of that foretaste, that future goodness, that healing. You can actually have healing here. And the cross and resurrection fits particularly to your experience.” If they have a question about God’s compassion, the cross is a great picture of his compassion. If they have a question about their guilt, they’re not guilty for being a victim, but they have sinned and can be forgiven for their sins. There is no more shame because he took all of the shame, and your identity is that you — if you believe in Jesus — are called blameless and without spot, wrinkle, or blemish. You’re called “the righteousness of God,” and you’re called a child of God, one of the people of God, and the Bride of Christ.

What they’re called if they trust in Christ is amazing and it’s so much more than some self-help statement they could make up. And then in their despair, he is making all things new. The resurrection is proof that he is restoring everything. It starts with the resurrection; it doesn’t end with the resurrection. That’s the firstfruits. He’s restoring everything. It’s not a platitude. We get to tell people, “Hold on until we get there. Hold on and hope that he is making all things new. He does see you. You are his child and he will get you there.” It’s about giving people hope in the midst of that despair. Those are a few examples, but there are more. As you can tell, I get all riled up.

You say, “The wounds inflicted by sexual assault are among the wounds the cross was designed to heal.” The section was so powerful where you ran through a litany of biblical texts showing the violence and sexual assault as sin and showing the culmination of that history of violence in the Bible and the cross and the healing brought to bear by the gospel. Something very helpful for me, as someone trying to get oriented in a pastoral way on this issue, is that you talk about some things that pastors, leaders, friends, and others should and should not say to victims. Can you rehearse some of those for us?

Yes, actually I wrote some of those down hoping that you would ask that question. Let me go over some of what not to say. These are just one sentence. It’s not a paragraph each. Some say, “I know how you feel.” You’re going for empathy, but what you’re doing is you’re sizing up and again, saying, “I know how you’re feeling.” That’s just not helpful. It minimizes the robustness of their pain and the different textures of what they’re going through. Another statement is, “You’re lucky that . . . didn’t happen.” Again, the people who say this are trying to help. People don’t say this because they’re trying to be mean. But it’s brutal. It’s like saying, “Well, you’re lucky that this other things didn’t happen.” It just completely minimizes the thing that they just worked up the courage to say and they were afraid to say, and it feels like you’re responding with, “Oh, that’s no big deal. You’re lucky it wasn’t worse.” And that just sends someone reeling.

Another statement is, “It’ll take some time, but you’ll get over it.” Or some might say, “Tell me more details about what happened.” That’s almost a voyeuristic one. It’s almost like the train wreck thing. People say, “Really? Your dad did that? What else happened?” They don’t say it like that, but there’s a way where it’s misusing the very person who’s coming to you with trust and asking for help. It’s probing for details in that way. Instead, let them offer up their story. There might be part two and part three months down the road, but they might not trust you yet to say everything.

Another thing people say is, “Don’t worry, it’s going to be alright,” or, “Out of tragedies, good things happen,” or, “Time heals all wounds.” That myth is amazing. There’s nothing powerful about the passage of time. Memory doesn’t know time. Some people might say, “It was God’s will,” or, “You need to forgive and move on,” or, “Try to calm down and relax.” Now you can see some of those and you might be thinking, “They’re trying to apply theology and character of God and how all this works out.” Yes, they’re trying to apply it, but they do it as a platitude, as a bumper sticker. And sexual assault victims don’t need bumper-sticker theology. They need it teased out and repeated and explained. It’s not because they don’t remember and they just need to hear it again. They need to recognize, “I’m not what I just called myself. I keep on calling myself this, but I am the righteousness of God, I am child of God, I am son of God, and I am all the things in the gospel.” It’s not that they forgot and they just need to hear it again. I get why people say those things, but stop saying them.

Here are the things that should be said. The things I just shared are all things that I’ve heard said or I’ve heard victims report what has been said to them. I’m not making these up. Those are all things that have actually been said. But we talk to victims and say, “What actually helps?” And it’s in the sense of a helpful response. And these have been tried. They’re not just things we think would be helpful. One thing you might say would be, “I believe you. Thank you for telling me. I’m glad you’re talking with me.” Or you might say, “I’m glad you’re safe,” or, “It wasn’t your fault,” or, “It’s understandable that you feel that way. You’re not going crazy.” That one sounds so normal, but I’ve had so many people that feel that way because the force of the emotion they have is strong, especially someone who experienced it as a child.

I don’t say this one quickly, because I want them to tell their story, but we might be able to say, “Can I tell you something? That’s similar to how I’ve felt. I’ve felt shame like that. I get it. It’s understandable and you’re not crazy.” Or you might say, “It’s okay to cry.” That one’s going for denial, but we’re not just trying to trigger tears, like tears are some magic potion of healing, though they are a picture of emotions expressed in grief. So either when they’re crying, or if you can tell they are, just encourage them by saying, “It’s okay. You can grieve about this.”

Another statement is, “I’m sorry this happened to you.” Why should we not say that? That one gets passed over so much. You’re not fixing anything, but what you’re saying is a huge theological statement. “I’m sorry this happened to you,” says, “That was horrible and wrong and shouldn’t have happened to you. And you don’t deserve it. That shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry that happened to you.” It just communicates compassion. There are fruits of the gospel wrapped up in some of these things that people should say.

You mentioned in the book that untrained leaders do not recognize the signs of sexual assault or know how to lovingly ask questions. What are some of the signs you could tip us toward? And how do you advise leaders about lovingly asking questions?

In the first segment we were talking about definitions. There have been numerous times when I’ve seen someone talking about shame, difficulty with attraction, relationships, and having a distorted self-image. Those are probably the three or four top ones. When I start hearing some of those, I think, “Okay, you don’t need to have the trauma of sexual assault to cause you to do that. Sin and bad parenting and other things can fit into that.” But there are certain things I notice when I start seeing self-harm, self-blame, self-hate types of language or activities, including addiction and depression. The numbers on sexual assault victims are that they are six times more likely to abuse alcohol. It increases. There is depression, self-hate, alcohol abuse, and drug abuse. For any of those, I start thinking, “Those are some of the signs of sexual assault.” So you have to gently ask somehow, “Can you tell me if there was any sexual assault in your background? Or is there any right now?” Those are some of the signs for sexual assault. And then what was the second part of the question?

Give some of the advice for leaders on how to ask loving questions when they notice signs.

You don’t want to assume it. First of all, there might not be sexual assault, so you want to just throw it out there. What I’ve done on a few occasions recently is that I’ve said, “You said a lot of things that sound like the effects of some type of abuse or violence, whether emotional or physical or sexual.” Just throw it in there, but you don’t need to say, “Were you a victim of sexual assault?” Because then you’re putting him on the spot and it shines the spotlight and they have to answer yes or no. They would feel like they were lying to a counselor, or pastor. Instead, you’re laying it out there and you’re making it so easy. It’s hospitable. You can say, “You’re saying a lot of things that make me think that you may have experienced some type of abuse or pain or violence. It could have been emotional, spiritual, physical, or sexual. Is there any of that you’d like to talk about?” You lay it out there and give them a bunch of options and then invite them, saying, “Would you like to talk about anything there? And if you don’t want to, we can always talk about it later.”

I’ve had a lot of people just take me up on it right there. Every once in a while they say, “Nope, there’s nothing I want to talk about.” Don’t make them lie to you. Because practically you just say, “Would you like to talk about it?” If they say, “No, there is nothing I’d like to talk about,” that’s an easy and gracious way out. And then they can come back and say, “I would like to talk about it now.” It’s better to do that as opposed to setting them up to say, “Well, I said no, but now I mean yes.” That just adds another layer of difficulty. So really thinking about hospitality, what does hospitality look like for the person who’s talking to you about these?

Other than noticing signs and asking loving questions, what are some specific ways family, friends, and pastors can help?

You’re asking awesome questions, thank you. I made some more lists, so let me just go over some of these, because I don’t want to leave some of them out. I know Desiring God, I know who listens, and I thought, “What would they need to hear?” The first one, as we talked about before, is to listen and not be judgmental. Just listen when they talk. Let them know the assault was not their fault. Communicate that clearly. I did college ministry for a while and numerous students would be at a frat party and then they’d be assaulted and then people would say, “Well, did you drink? Because you’re not old enough to drink. Did you drink?” Okay, if they did drink, that’s not why they got assaulted. They got assaulted because someone sinned against them. So not judging them and not doing the victim blaming thing is a huge piece. You should say, “You’re not at fault for being a victim of assault.”

Let them know that what they did was necessary to prevent further harm. A lot of times people feel guilty, because they feel like they went along with it. You hear some of the stories, and again, it’s people they knew who were around them. If you’re a 10-year-old kid and you have an older person pressuring you, you might feel like you’re going along with it. But that’s self-preservation because they realize, “I was feeling a sense of threat and I didn’t want to get choked or hurt or punched.” So that causes them to feel like they were going along with it. There was one person I was talking to who was in a dating relationship. She had some sense of the danger she was in. She was threatened by this guy, and she thought that if she didn’t make herself available (using her language), that she would die. And then she found out after she got beat up and assaulted that he actually had his gun in his bag. She didn’t want to get killed, so she went along with it. But they’re not going along with it, they’re protecting themselves.

Be patient with them. Empower them. Help them make decisions. That one is important because what happens is that people who get into the issue and start studying it have a sense of justice. Their will has been violated, so giving them a sense of agency is very helpful. You might suggest, “Would you like to go to the police? Would you like to talk to the police? I’ll go with you.” And say that frequently. It’s hilarious listening to my wife. I care about justice too, but she really cares, so she’s like, “I would love to go to the police officers with you. I hope you’ll go.” She doesn’t force them to, but she is a cheerleader. She’s like, “Let’s go. Let’s do this. Let’s get going on this.” And she can say with authority something like, “This isn’t bad for you. This could be really good for you. There’s no loss here if you go. It could be difficult. It will take some courage, because you have to tell the story again to a stranger, but I’ll be there with you.”

Encourage them to talk with an advocate, letting them know that they don’t have to manage their crisis alone. Just affirm them. You can say, “Just because you told me this doesn’t mean you’re alone. I’m here. Come back if we need to and we’ll get a community of people you trust around you to support you in this.” Don’t ask probing questions. And then remember that sexual assault victims have different needs. There isn’t one cookie cutter response where you say, “Here’s the gospel, so just apply it.” There are different dimensions that are in the robustness of the gospel. The needs of each victim are going to be different.

There are some major ones to pay attention to, but I’ve talked to some people where I keep on trying to go deeper, and I say, “I want to go to the identity one because that one’s really powerful.” And that’s just not their thing. They’re not worried about it. They’re like, “No, I know who I am in Christ. I have some questions about despair though.” So don’t try to lay out for them where you need to take them, but really listen to them and find out what they are saying. And ask good questions that aren’t inappropriately probing for details, but rather invite them to divulge where the pain is, where the disgrace is. Those are some of the practical ones.

And with kids, going to the authorities is very important. There’s one factor that’s very important for kids, especially with their parents. I want to make sure we say, yes, advocate for your child, and yes, go to the authorities. But if you need to, ask for forgiveness. I’ve seen a lot of people who are adults, who were assaulted as children because of their parents’ oversight. Mine wasn’t because of my parents’ oversight. My parents were super vigilant and loving and caring and invited me to talk all the time, so I’m not saying that my parents screwed up. Thankfully, my parents are awesome. They didn’t have to do this. But it would be really helpful for parents to ask their children’s forgiveness and say, “I’m sorry I was negligent.” Or they could say, “I didn’t do my due diligence in seeing where you were going for the sleepover.” That would be so fruitful down the road.

I’ve seen victims who are really angry at their parents for their negligence, and I’ve also seen the fruit of it. I asked an adult, “Have you talked to your parents about this?” and they said, “No.” I said, “Would you be willing to? Would you consider that?” And he did. And his parents apologized and there was amazing fruit of them reconciling. The parents and the kid reconciling was really awesome and it was freeing for that person. There was not as much bondage and there was trust, and that’s important.

As we get here close to the end, we want to talk about the perpetrators, and in particular, what does the gospel have to say not only to the victims, but to the perpetrators of sexual assault?

You can be forgiven. Again, when you study this and you see the damage, it’s easy to get angry. And because we sin also, it’s a self-righteous thing to think, “Oh, I’m glad I’m not like that person.” Well, if anyone has misused sex for power or control in any way, they’re more like that person than not like that person. This is what we know about lust and hate, that if we look at a person lustfully, we have committed adultery, and if we hate, we have committed murder. So we should say, “By the grace of God, I haven’t sinned in this way.” I love telling perpetrators two things. First, what they have done is a sin and a crime, and second, they can be forgiven of their sins and the effects of their sins. And sexual assault isn’t some special category of sin that somehow is beyond the grace of God.

If you look at the people that God has used — those that were his people, that were his leaders — you have murderers and adulterers and persecutors. So don’t go thinking that you’re outside of the scope. Please get beyond your guilt and shame as a perpetrator and trust in Jesus. Trust in his righteousness, that he was treated as a rapist, so you could be treated like you weren’t a rapist by God. He hung up there on the cross as a child sexual abuser. That’s what he died for. He died for all of those sins. But then you tell them, “You committed a crime and there are certain consequences. You will probably have to be registered as a sex offender. You need to go turn yourself in. It’s not a suggestion, it’s a command. If these are the consequences, see what happens. Apologize. Ask for forgiveness from the person or people you have sinned against.”

That needs to be done very carefully. The perpetrator asking for reconciliation isn’t something that needs to be done at the perpetrator’s schedule. They might think, “I want to get this over with really quickly.” It needs to be done at the victims’ timetable. But offering an apology and asking for forgiveness is important. And then if they’re married, they’ve forfeited the right to privacy in their marriage. They need to submit to authority and make sure that they’re not continuing to abuse their spouse in some way. So there is forgiveness of sins in the goodness of the gospel. Amen. And there are some consequences and we should walk through them in that. We’re not going to just say, “Yeah, there are consequences. Good luck.” Serve them and care for them in the middle of that.

But we have to make sure that we’re not somehow doing the Pharisee’s prayer, when he says, “Thank God that I’m not like that guy” (Luke 18:11). It’s easy to do that one. You can also stigmatize the perpetrator and the predator. I said that recently in a sermon, “You may have experienced amazing pain and guilt. Perhaps it was what your parents said to you, or perhaps it was being a victim of sexual assault. Maybe it was being the perpetrator of sexual assault.” At Mars Hill, we have a few thousand people there, so I’m thinking there are good chances that there are a few perpetrators right here, and they need to realize specifically that the good news applies to them in the sin they think could never be dealt with. The amazing thing about the gospel is that it’s not only for the idols of our heart, but it’s also for the horrible, real-life damage and sin that we have done to each other and do to each other.

Is there further advice you’d have for a forgiving victim and a repentant perpetrator that are mutually interested in reconciling?

Yes. Usually, that is husband and wife or a grandfather and an adult grandchild. I’ve seen this happen a few times. Frequently they go badly. I’m not a pessimist. I’m just a realist. But I’ve been seeing things just in the past few months. I’ve been hearing amazing stories where I’ve warned people and said, “Hey, don’t have enormous expectations, have gospel expectations.” And this is the fruit of the gospel. The gospel is so amazing because it can heal the victim, the sufferer, and it can deal with the sins of the perpetrator, and there can be forgiveness and reconciliation between the two. So the first thing I like to tell people who are pursuing this is that the desire for forgiveness and reconciliation is a miracle. For one sinner to forgive another sinner, it does not happen on its own. And that can only happen if the victim realizes, “Okay, I’ve committed cosmic treason against God and I’ve been forgiven. I’m not God, and this other person who assaulted me is not my creation and they’ve sinned against me.”

Again, this is not minimizing the sin, but being sinned against in sexual assault is different in magnitude from of our cosmic treason against the Creator of the universe. We’ve been forgiven for a mountain of debt. The relief of our forgiveness is the fuel for even considering forgiving someone who’s sinned against you, and that is straight from Jesus on that parable. It’s a miracle. So let’s acknowledge that we’re on miraculous ground already. And then make sure that others are involved, including a pastor, a community group, the community group leaders, and other family members in an appropriate way. Again, it’s not a show, but you want to have some form of accountability for that perpetrator to make sure that it’s not just reconciling on his terms.

So acknowledge this miracle, get others involved wisely, and go at the victim’s speed on the reconciliation. On forgiveness, we got flack for that topic in the book. We’ve encouraged victims because it’s true and we’re commanded to do it, but it’s also good to start pursuing forgiveness and what that looks like. We were very careful in the book. We didn’t just say it flippantly, “Just forgive them.” We went through and said, “Be angry, and in your anger, don’t sin. You can forgive because you were forgiven.” Reconciliation is that second step. Reconciliation needs to follow the victims. They’ve already had their will violated. They don’t need to have their will violated a second time in the reconciliation process.

Then check in and maybe bring other people in. I just heard one story where there was a grandfather who sinned against his granddaughter. She is now around 25 years old and married, and he met with his granddaughter and her husband and their pastor, and he brought his wife, the grandmother. So there were five or six people in the room. And they talked through it and she said, “I have forgiven you and I want you to hear that I’ve forgiven you. I want to reconcile, but it might go slowly, so bear with me.” And there was a lot of wisdom in that meeting. And then the husband said, “Are there other people?” And he said, “There have been.” So that started a trigger of conversations on where the sin had this viral effect and spread and did damage. But then you can see redemption, undoing and healing the brokenness where the good news came to him, and then it spreads to the rest of the people in the family. So get others involved wisely.

Regarding spouses in particular, recognize this as a miracle. It doesn’t mean you have to force the victim to interact on the perpetrator’s terms. Err on the side of caution. That was the last one I knew I was forgetting. You don’t go in with a hermeneutic of suspicion and you don’t want to be flippant at all, but just err on the side of caution, realizing that there might be some more pain that needs to be talked about. You might need to go at a different speed. This isn’t going to be a quick fix in one meeting and we’re done. This could be a start of a lot more redemption and reconciliation.

Here’s a final question for you. Do you think that what you guys have developed here in the book in relation to sexual assault is a gospel application paradigm that works on healing victims and those who are doing the victimizing, apart from just the sexual assault issue and other sins and victimizations?

Yes, absolutely. That’s exactly what we were hoping it would become, and that’s what we think it is. I’ve had people contact me and say, “Hey, my spouse or my friend was reading this because they were a victim. I started reading it to care for them and started realizing that I’m not a victim, and this applied to me in other dimensions with body image distortion, with addictive and sinful patterns, etc . . .” My mom read it. She’s my mom, so take it with a grain of salt because she thinks that my wife and I are amazing because that’s what Italian moms do. She said, “I read it and I was just thinking, well, every Christian should read this book because it applies the gospel. You can see how it’s applying the gospel to that issue, but it also applies to all the other issues that all Christians would deal with.”

It really is a model of how to apply the gospel, so you could use it for other things. I’m working on one for domestic violence, which is similar, but there are different issues involved. A lot of the good news will sound similar, but it’ll be applied in particular to domestic violence. If sexual assault is a sin among many, it’s not this other realm of sin and suffering. So it should sound similar, and I’m hoping that we’ll start seeing some good things come in relation to body image distortion, eating addictions, and things like that. And there’s already a bunch on that. I’m thinking of the CCEF book on addiction, and that’s what they did. We looked at the people who were doing it and said, “That’s the model. Let’s do that. Let’s apply the gospel in particular ways.”

Justin, thank you so much for being with us. Again, this is Justin Holcomb, and he and his wife Lindsey have written Rid of My Disgrace. The book is available on Amazon, of course. Justin, would you conclude us in prayer for those listening and hearing this for the first time on this issue or pastors, friends, victims, and perpetrators?

I’d love to. And before I do that, I want to share one last thank you as a friend, but also to someone who has read the book, along with the whole Desiring God crew who pulled this off. My wife and I really appreciate this, so thank you very much for the opportunity to get the word out on this issue and how the good news applies to it. Let’s pray.

God, thank you for saving us. Thank you that we deserved wrath and that we did not get it, that Jesus received it, so we are now forgiven of our sins and declared righteous. Thank you for that amazing news. Thank you for Jesus, who he is and what he has done in his conquering of sin, Satan, hell, death, and the grave, through the cross and resurrection. And thank you that he sent the Holy Spirit, and that you make us alive, and that you create life where there is death.

You don’t just give us helpful hints to move us along, but you actually raise from the dead. So thank you that we have seen and that we do know that in this particular issue, you create life where there is death; you heal where there’s brokenness; you give hope where there’s despair. So for the victims that are listening, I pray that you will, through your Holy Spirit, point them to Jesus in the good news, and that they would find rest and peace that passes all understanding, and that the peace of God would guard their hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of Jesus.

For those who have been perpetrators and are perpetrators, I pray that they would repent, that they would feel the weight of their sin against the people they’ve sinned against, but also against you. I pray that they would know that they’ve sinned against you, that they’re really attacking your glory and your majesty by using that person as a way to do it. And for the pastors, the community group leaders, the parents, the spouses, the grandparents, the children, the friends, and all of the people who are there for support, please give them wisdom and discernment. I pray that they would see that you have been gracious and patient with them. And help them see what they’ve experienced from you and what that can look like in caring for victims of sexual assault. Thank you very much for this opportunity in this ministry of Desiring God, and for the opportunity to talk about this to people who understand the gospel, who love the Gospel, and who need to hear the gospel and apply it to those around them. In Christ’s name. Amen.