U.S. survivors of sexual assault in church settings and their advocates have been calling on churches for years to admit the extent of abuse in their midst and to implement reforms. In 2017 that movement acquired the hashtag #ChurchToo, derived from the wider #MeToo movement, which called out sexual predators in many sectors of society.
Books by Women Confront Churchesâ Misuse of Power By Ann Byle | Feb 19, 2021
Women’s issues, particularly those related to #ChurchToo and #MeToo, prompt religion publishers’ continuing interest in titles that address the silencing and abuse women face in the church and religious institutions.
With
#ChurchToo: How Purity Culture Upholds Abuse and How to
Find Healing (Broadleaf, Mar.), author Emily Joy Allison turns over the rocks of the institutional church’s sexual dysfunction. Allison, who launched the #ChurchToo movement when she outed the pastor who abused her, reveals how sexualized violence in religious contexts is ubiquitous and uniquely traumatizing. She also lays the groundwork for healing for the church and survivors of sexual shame. “The answers are not simple, or fun,” she writes, “and they will not allow the existing power structures to be maintained. They require radical deconstruction of closely held beliefs and the willi