Church Sexual Abuse Victims Open Up About Harassment Using #ChurchToo

Victims of sexual abuse in religious communities opened up about their experiences on Twitter by using the hashtag #ChurchToo.

The hashtag campaign is mainly being used to urge Christians to come forward and talk about sexual assault and harassment at the hands of someone working within the ambit of their local church, a Vox report stated.

Supported by the campaign, the report said a woman came forward with her experience, wherein which revealed getting raped during a youth group prayer section, and being later asked if she’d repented it.

Another woman revealed that after running away from her abusive husband, a pastor told her to go back and submit to her husband’s “will.”

The report also stated that one woman had to get an abortion because she felt that if her church community found out, she would be looked upon as impure.

The #ChurchToo hashtag can be perceived as a religious version of #MeToo campaign, which trended on Twitter and Facebook in October, and under which victims of sexual assault detailed their experiences. #ChurchToo was started by Emily Joy, a spoken word poet and yoga teacher; and Hannah Paasch,a writer, housing advocate and trauma researcher.

Recently, many famous personalities who wear their religion on their sleeves found themselves at the center of attention due to revelations of sex abuse.

Leading the pack is Christian Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore, who has been accused of assaulting and harassing minors. In another case, Islamic scholar at Oxford University, Tariq Ramadan, was accused of rape, assault and harassment which led him to take a leave of absence by mutual agreement with the university.

Twitter has been in a frenzy since the #ChurchToo hastag was introduced. While many openly critiqued sexism and other forms of oppression within Christian communities, others stated their experiences.

However, it should be noted, that although Joy and Paasch are encouraging people to come forward and expose crimes within their religious communities, they are not stressing them to leave their faith, said the Vox report.

This is not the first time that a social media is being used to report injustices in Christian communities. Under the hashtag #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear, many exposed some of the fallacies of church communities.

Many took to Twitter using this hashtag to tell of their experiences.

Another was Stanford PhD student Christopher Stroop’s #EmptyThePews which also trended on Twitter. However, Stroop’s hashtag took more of a political tone as it called for exposing the hypocrisy of evangelicals who supported Donald Trump even after knowing about his sexual assault and harassment allegations, and his support towards white supremacy.

Here also, there were many who took to Twitter using the hashtag to air their opinions.