TIVI

Collection: Faith

Est. Read Time: 8 Minutes

I think it’s safe to say that most of the subjects I write about are things I’ve struggled with in the past or things I’m still struggling with today. This question is no different.

I never wanted to sue anyone. Even when I first entertained the possibility of filing a civil lawsuit, there was a deep sense of guilt attached to the idea. Maybe even shame. It wasn’t simply the thought of taking legal action. It was who I would be taking legal action against.

The church I grew up in was an important part of my childhood. So was my school. I have incredibly happy memories of both. I adored many of my teachers. I developed friendships that helped shape me. These weren’t anonymous institutions I suddenly decided to attack. They were communities I loved.

I’ve written before about the sadness I still feel over losing those connections. I don’t believe any child imagines that one day he will become estranged from the very places that helped raise him. I certainly didn’t.

Even disclosing sexual abuse can create an undeserved feeling of antagonism. You know telling the truth is the right thing to do, yet somehow you can still feel as though you’re the person creating the problem. Filing a lawsuit magnified that feeling for me.

And because one of those institutions was a church, another question followed closely behind it:

If I sue the church, will God be mad at me?

The Passage I Couldn’t Ignore

Before I filed my civil complaint, I had long conversations with my attorney about the implications from a faith perspective. He is a committed Christian and has spent much of his professional life working with survivors of sexual abuse and institutional betrayal, particularly within religious communities.

One of the first things he reminded me was that God cares deeply about justice and vulnerable people. A church doesn’t become exempt from accountability simply because it bears the name of Christ.

I understood that argument.

But there was a passage of Scripture I couldn’t get around.

In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul confronts believers in Corinth for taking disputes with one another before secular courts rather than resolving them within the Christian community. He asks why believers who should possess the wisdom to judge matters among themselves are instead suing one another in front of unbelievers. He even asks why they wouldn’t rather accept being wronged than take these disputes to court.

If I was going to pursue civil action against a church while claiming to take Scripture seriously, I couldn’t simply pretend those verses weren’t there. So I started trying to understand what Paul was actually addressing. I am assuming that if you have the same question as I did, then you also care what scripture says. 

The more I studied the passage, the more important its context became. Paul describes the disputes as relatively ordinary matters among believers—what several translations call “trivial cases” or “ordinary” matters. Commentators have similarly understood the passage as addressing private disputes that a healthy Christian community should have possessed enough wisdom to resolve internally.

That is very different from saying Christians should never use civil authorities when serious wrongdoing occurs.

In fact, some Christian commentators explicitly distinguish the disputes Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 6 from crimes and serious wrongdoing, including child abuse. Their reasoning is straightforward: the church has spiritual authority, but it has not been given the government’s responsibility to administer public justice.

That distinction mattered to me.

I wasn’t asking a judge to resolve a petty disagreement between two Christians. I was dealing with childhood sexual abuse and questions about whether institutions entrusted with children had fulfilled their responsibilities before and after that abuse was disclosed.

Those aren’t small matters.

My attorney also brought up this as a clear point to resolve this conflict in my heart.

What If the Church Cannot Resolve It?

There was another part of Paul’s argument that I had overlooked.

His criticism assumes something important: the Christian community should be capable of resolving disputes wisely and justly. He actually shames the Corinthians for apparently not having someone among them wise enough to do so.

That caused me to think differently about my own experience.

I hadn’t begun with a lawsuit.

When I disclosed the abuse at seventeen, my mother immediately notified the church and the school. Years later, after learning there were additional victims, I returned to those institutions and asked them to help identify and care for anyone else who may have been harmed. I asked for conversations. I asked for cooperation. I asked for truth. I wanted them to help. Those opportunities came long before I filed civil action.

That history became important to me because I do believe reconciliation matters. I believe Christians should seek peaceful resolution when it is possible. I believe grace matters. Forgiveness matters. I believe institutions should be given an opportunity to act with integrity when someone brings wrongdoing to their attention.

But reconciliation requires willing participants.

An institution cannot insist that a survivor keep a matter inside the church while simultaneously refusing to provide a trustworthy process for truth and accountability. Nor do I believe Scripture requires survivors to submit serious allegations to a process controlled entirely by the institution whose conduct is being questioned. At some point I had to confront a distinction that seems obvious to me today but didn’t feel obvious at all then.

The church is not God.

A pastor is not God. An elder board is not God. A denomination is not God. An institution can sincerely proclaim God’s name and still make decisions that are fearful, defensive, negligent, or simply wrong.

Holding that institution accountable is not the same thing as holding God accountable.

That realization changed the question for me.

Justice and Grace Are Not Enemies

For a long time, I think I unconsciously believed grace and accountability existed on opposite ends of a spectrum. If I extended grace, perhaps I needed to stop asking for accountability. If I pursued accountability, perhaps that meant I hadn’t forgiven. If I sued the church, perhaps that proved there was anger or vengeance somewhere inside me that God wanted me to surrender.

I don’t believe that anymore.

Grace does not require pretending something didn’t happen. Forgiveness doesn’t require calling something acceptable that was wrong. And reconciliation isn’t created simply because the person who was harmed agrees to stop talking about the harm.

Likewise, accountability does not require hatred. That distinction has become incredibly important to me.

I can pursue truth without hating the people on the other side. I can ask an institution to accept responsibility without hoping the institution is destroyed. I can pursue justice while continuing to examine my own motives.

In fact, I believe I have a responsibility to do exactly that.

The Heart of the Matter

The more I’ve wrestled with this question, the more I’ve come to believe that the condition of the heart matters deeply.

And that applies to everyone involved.

A survivor pursuing civil action should be willing to ask difficult questions. What am I actually seeking? Truth? Accountability? Justice? Protection for others? Healing? Or has my pursuit become consumed by revenge?

Those aren’t questions an institution gets to answer for the survivor. They’re questions I have to answer before God.

But the institution has questions to answer too.

When a survivor comes forward, what is the church trying to protect? The person who was harmed? The truth? Other children? Or its reputation, finances, leadership, and institutional future?

Both sides can use righteous language while protecting something much less righteous underneath.

That’s why I don’t think the question is simply, Is it biblical to sue a church?

I think the better questions are: What happened? What efforts have been made to tell the truth and make it right? Is the institution acting justly? What is the survivor seeking? And what does faithfulness require now?

Sometimes the answer may be reconciliation without litigation.

Sometimes it may not.

I once worried that filing a lawsuit against the church meant I was standing against God.

What I Believe Today

I don’t believe that anymore.

A church can bear God’s name and still make decisions that require accountability. Seeking that accountability did not require me to abandon my faith. If anything, my faith required me to take truth and justice seriously.

I still believe grace matters. I believe reconciliation matters. I believe we should pursue peace whenever peace is genuinely possible.

But peace and silence are not the same thing.

If you reach the place where civil action becomes necessary, examine your heart. Seek wise counsel. Pray. Guard yourself against vengeance. Give reconciliation every opportunity you genuinely believe it should have. Listen carefully to people who have earned your trust.

And then be brave enough to tell the truth.

The decision belongs to you. Not to the people who may criticize you for making it. Not to an institution that has an interest in avoiding litigation. And certainly not to me.

I can only tell you what I eventually came to believe about my own decision.

I no longer carry the shame of believing that asking a church to answer for its actions means I’ve turned against God.

I believe God cares about what happened to me. I believe He cares about truth. I believe He cares about justice. I believe He cares about the church, too—enough to want it to become healthier when it fails.

And I believe He cares about my heart while I pursue that justice.

So I try to guard it.

Not by remaining silent.

By seeking justice without allowing hatred to become the reason I seek it.

Reflection: Seeking accountability from a church does not mean turning against God; sometimes faithfulness requires the courage to pursue truth and justice while guarding our hearts along the way.

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TIVI exists because no one should have to walk the road toward healing, accountability, and restoration alone.

Every story in this library was written to offer one or more of three things:

• Experience – So you know someone else has been there.
• Strength – So you can borrow courage when yours is running low.
• Hope – So you can believe healing and accountability are still possible.

If even one story helps you take the next right step, then it was worth writing.

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