For Our Daughters: We Need to Know

Here at the RJ, we are eager to support the work of our colleagues, so a few of us will be writing about the newly released documentary short For Our Daughters, now available for free on YouTube. Directed by Carl Byker and produced by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, professor of history at Calvin University and author of Jesus and John Wayne, this 30-minute documentary is based on the last chapter of the book—the one about sexual abuse within the church. The film is not an easy watch. But it’s a necessary one. We all need to know the truth.

And the truth is horrifying. I remember reading Jesus and John Wayne when it first came out in 2020 (remember that terrible year?). I could only read a chapter at time, because the book made me so angry, so upset. Using her skills as an historian, Du Mez brought receipts and unmasked the ugliness infecting White conservative evangelicalism—the militant masculinity, the ego-obsessed authoritarianism, the ambition to dominate politically, the celebration of violence, and yes, the pervasive abuse of women.   

Watching For Our Daughters brought back all my anger. Early on, we see a quick montage of Christian nationalist evangelical influencers peddling their ideology. God wants Christians (well, their kind of Christians) to rule America; democracy is in the way. God made men to be powerful and rule with absolute authority. God made women to be pure and submissive, serve men, and provide them with sexual satisfaction and offspring. That may sound horrendous to you (it does to me), but that’s what it boils down to. People really say this stuff. It’s difficult for me to imagine anyone taking these guys seriously and following them—but they do. It’s not hard to demonstrate the influence these so-called leaders have. In fact, we’ve seen their kind of thinking bubbling up in this U.S election cycle–again. Thus, the timing of the film’s release is not accidental, its political resonance not dismissible.

Among the poisonous results of extreme conservative evangelical nationalist ideology, preached as the will of God in some Christian contexts: it produces the perfect conditions for sexual abuse of women. (Note: boys and men are sometimes abused in these contexts, too. I do not want to dismiss that, but the film focuses on women.) The film sets a larger context but then turns quickly to its real story: the testimony of survivors. These are women who have mustered the courage to go public with their stories. We do not dwell much on the actual incidents of assault the women experienced, always by youth pastors or other church leaders they were supposed to trust. Instead, we focus on the aftermath. We learn about how the men who run these churches and “ministries” respond when women tell their stories—and this is the part that really made me seethe.

We watch film of a tearful confession by a youth pastor who had raped a young girl years before, followed by the applause of the congregation. Applause? Yes. These guys win points by confessing. A “lapse” is perceived as a badge of honor—men, after all, have uncontrollable, God-given urges—and when the perpetrators “repent,” everyone gets the satisfaction of cheering about redemption and forgiveness. Their abuse costs them nothing. In fact, protected by a network of enablers, they often go on to further advancement in their pastoral careers. Rachael Denhollander, the incredible anti-abuse lawyer and activist, explains why people will cheer for the abuser: “It costs you nothing to side with the guy in power.”

Meanwhile, the women who tell their stories pay the price. One survivor, Christa Brown, explains that these communities are so obsessed with authority and image that any threat will be quickly extinguished. This takes the form of excoriating the survivors: If you go public, she says, “They will rain almighty hell on you.” The women (some of whom were only 15 when they were assaulted) are blamed, shamed, forced to apologize, and shunned as witchy temptresses. It’s a wonder to me that these women still care enough about the church to fight for reform. It’s a wonder they still want to claim Jesus—but they do.

Much of the film demonstrates how men in authority stick together and protect abusers. We see references to the famous database of abusers that SBC leaders kept secret for decades and were only forced to release after an intensive independent investigation revealed a long history of cover-ups by SBC officials. Cover-ups and enabling are typically seen as “necessary” because these people perceive themselves as “at war.” They are “fighting” to achieve a theocracy in America, and, as Du Mez reminds us, in their minds, “the ends justify the means.” Another survivor, Tiffany Thigpen, observes that because of this warrior mindset, there’s no need to protect women—even young teens—because women are just “casualties as part of war.”

As I watched, I tried to pay attention to my own responses. Yes, there was anger. But also bewilderment. How can people get caught up in these ideologies? It’s all so foreign to my experience of the faith. I started to reflect on my own upbringing in the church and on why I seem to have received an entirely different set of views on men and women, church authority, and what Jesus asks of us as Christians in a pluralist society.

After all, when I was a kid in the CRC, women were not allowed even to be deacons. So what was different for me? I could name a number of things: a Reformed church polity and ethos skeptical of investing too much authority in a pastor or individual leader; me aging out (barely) before “purity culture” became a thing; excellent religious education; a healthy growing-up church with a kind pastor and a lot of feisty, capable women; a mom who was hardly prone to “submission”; and my own temperament, I suppose, which tends to regard assumed authority with skepticism and even cynicism.

But who knows? I guess I’m just amazed at how lucky/providentially blessed I’ve been. After watching this film, my religious formation feels like some kind of narrow escape, and I am grateful. The distortions of the gospel thrust upon some people as truth seem so obviously wrong to me, so obviously a grievous misreading of scripture. Shout-out to Rev. Len Vander Zee, who is interviewed in the film, offering welcome intervals of counter-testimony about how Christianity actually calls us to behave. Vander Zee describes Jesus’ model in the gospels, Jesus’ respect for women and eschewing of dominating power. Vander Zee refers in particular to the story of Jesus’ temptation and his refusal to accept the kind of earthly power the Tempter offers him.

Does abuse happen only in extreme Christian nationalist evangelical contexts? Alas, it’s everywhere, including in Reformed contexts. (Betsy DeVries wrote about this recently on this blog.) So I am left with deep admiration for all women who speak up, especially those like the women featured in the film who were socialized in toxic religious subcultures and somehow still figured out that what they experienced was not an exception, but rather a natural result of the distortions on which their whole subculture is founded and which it fiercely guards. These women spoke up against enormous odds and despite everything it has cost them.

I commend Du Mez, too. Her scholarship has her swimming all the time in so much ugliness. This costs her, too, in the backlash she endures, in the emotional weight of dealing with this stuff all the time, and in the time and effort it takes to get the truth out. May this work expose the truth and bring healing to survivors and hope for reforming the church.

As mentioned, the film is available for free on YouTube, along with discussion guides and other resources. If you have experienced abuse, there are resources for you on the film’s website.