#ChurchToo by Emily Joy Allison

Author:Emily Joy Allison [Allison, Emily Joy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity, Christian Life, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science
ISBN: 9781506464824
Publisher: Broadleaf Books
Published: 2021-03-09T05:00:00+00:00

Kenny and Michael

“I think a lot about the toxic masculinity in the youth group,” Michael said over Skype, half to me and half to his childhood friend Kenny, whose face appeared in a little box on my computer screen next to Michael’s. “It wasn’t even just boys making jokes quietly to themselves. It was from the stage. They were always saying things like ‘Women, get back in the kitchen!’ and like . . .” Michael trailed off. “Kenny, what were some of the other ones?”

“‘Feminazi’ was the one I remember all the time,” Kenny said. “Do you remember what examples they gave of ‘feminazi’ stuff?” he asked Michael.

Michael exhaled sharply. “It was always just whenever a girl had an opinion,” he said.

Kenny rubbed his temples. “Yeah. You’re right, dude,” he said. “You’re absolutely right.”

Kenny and Michael were both sexually abused by the same man in the same Southern Baptist youth group in the 1990s, along with Michael’s brother Brooks. Kenny is straight, Michael is gay, and they each reacted differently to their abuse—particularly when it came to their fears.

Kenny told me that even though he was abused by a man, fear of church members or friends thinking he was gay or making assumptions about his sexuality never really entered his mind. But for Michael, it was a much different story: “I was a closeted teenager, and I didn’t want to be a part of the coming-forward process. I thought I would be outed. And being a member of a Southern Baptist Church in the ’90s wasn’t really a pleasant thing for a closeted gay kid. So I just avoided it.”

Kenny and Brooks pressed on and attempted to come forward about their abuse, but the church they were attending swept the abuse under the rug and never made a report. For his part, Kenny completely understood why Michael didn’t want to come forward: “He knew that because he was gay, people were going to say that he wanted it to happen. And his fears weren’t unfounded because that’s exactly what people said to me about him later.”

Kenny, Michael, and Brooks all came forward about their abuse again as adults—and this time, they went public. This time, they expressed anger not only at their abuser and the church but also at the broader Christian culture that created, enabled, and sustained their abuser.

“Think about the context and culture in which our abuse happened,” Michael said. “Especially for someone who’s closeted, it was a gut-punch. I freaked out. I didn’t want to be mocked. Othered.”

“Everything that our youth group did was directed toward men,” Kenny added. He told me a story about how during their time in youth group, the youth pastor would do a WWF wrestling-themed Wednesday-night service that was more of a performance than anything else. “The girls were just supposed to laugh. Everything was about dominance and maleness. And that was normal. That’s just the lane that we lived in.”

“During this whole period,” Michael said, “I was still hoping and praying that the god I still believed in would change me.

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