SOLA Network had the privilege of speaking to Joanna Wong, a deacon and lay counselor at Center Church in Irvine, CA. She is also a supervising family law attorney at a pro bono law firm and a Certified Domestic Violence Victim Advocate.
Joanna Wong talked to Hannah Chao, editor at SOLA Network, about addressing abuse in the church, particularly the Asian American Church. We hope you are challenged by this important interview in which they discuss:
- Ways in which churches are ignorant of potential abuses that their members are experiencing at church, work, or home
- First steps that church leadership should take to better care for its members
- The difference between forgiveness and reconciliation
Watch the interview on YouTube, listen to the audio on Podcasts, or read the transcript below. Please note the transcript has only been lightly edited and may contain spelling or grammatical errors.
Hannah Chao: What are some ways in which churches are ignorant of potential abuses that their members are experiencing?
Joanna Wong: Well, I think the first thing is just pretending that abuse doesn’t exist. People treat abuse as a fringe issue, something that happens in other churches, other homes, other demographics, whether that socio economic status, race, or that only happens in another denomination. But it’s really across the board. People need to be really mindful of that, whether that means somebody might be an abuser, and have abusive practices, even if maybe they didn’t realize it or you know, they can be a loving person, and still abuse. And we need to stop making this dichotomy of it’s only for other people. So within the church, you know, that means training your leadership, starting with yourself, and making sure that you’re not abusing power, that you’re not using your position in order to have power and control over someone else. That’s what abuse is using position for power and control. That means the same thing in the home with spouses, husbands and wives, and parents and children.
Hannah Chao: What are some first steps that church leadership should take to better care for its members?
Joanna Wong: I think the first step is to listen. My kind of personal mantra so to speak, is that everyone has the Imago Dei and everyone deserves to be heard. A lot of times, especially in the church, we as church leaders, you know, we have a mission or a word or something that that we want to see happen. But, again, abuse is using a position to use power and control over someone else. But we that can’t be us, you know, we might want something we might desire something. But understand that the person in front of you is a human being, they are loved by God, they are. So it’s sacred. And to deny that is a very grave offense. So start off by listening and finding out what people need. Most often people need to be safe. You know, nobody is perfect. Everyone believes lies that you know, cause them to sin. But if someone is hurting, the first question shouldn’t be well, “what lie are you believing that caused you to sin?” The first question should be, you know, “what can I do to make you feel safe?” And from that place of safety, then we can talk about those other questions, and only the person that you’re speaking with, only they can tell you what they need to be safe. So that starts with listening and listening with a humble heart.
SOLA Network: Are there, as you experienced, like different churches, especially Asian American churches? Are there particular traditions or cultures that you feel lend to an abuse of power?
Joanna Wong: Yes, absolutely. And I think that’s where we need to be very careful within the church, because these different abuses can have a layering effect. So in the Asian American church, you know, we want to respect our elders, we want to honor them, the Bible tells us, you know, honor your parents honor, you know, the people who come before you, though, honor your teachers. And, you know, when the Bible also talks about, you know, the relationship between husbands and wives. And so, within our cultural, our racial culture, and our church culture, we have these tiers of power. And that’s where we need to be careful, because these tiers can layer on top of each other. So for example, a husband who is abusing his wife at home, might be using scripture to do it. And say, you need to do this because XYZ. An abusive pastor at our church might be, you know, using his religious authority to exert power and control over other people. And so, you know, we need to be aware of, you know, where our biases lie, and where we might already have different disparities between people and and make sure that, you know, we close those disparities and also that, that we protect the vulnerable.
Hannah Chao: What is your hope for a church, that is a safe place that is a space for people, you know, who can share or feel protected?
Joanna Wong: Well, at my church, I started a seminar series and a conference called the sanctuary church conference. And I gave it that name, because I believe churches should be sanctuaries. And what that means is, it’s somewhere that is sacred, and somewhere that’s safe. And what that means is providing training to their leaders to be trauma informed. What trauma informed means is that when people experience different forms of trauma, they will react in different ways and sometimes in surprising ways. Some people might be very fearful, but some people might be really angry. Sometimes you know, people might shy away from other people. And sometimes they might be hypersexual, and these different reactions to trauma need to be addressed as a result from the trauma and creating a safe place for that person first, before we address anything else, because if someone’s not safe, they’re not able to address these other things. They might not even be able to pray. And, you know, we need to take a holistic approach. So that training our leaders training ourselves, and reading more about these things. You know, I’m an attorney and I work with, I work with abuse survivors. And sometimes I kind of joke that, oh, I’m really fun at parties. Because this is not really something that people want to talk about. And but it’s there. One in four women, one in seven men have experienced domestic violence or will experienced domestic violence in their lifetimes. That’s not a fringe issue. That is in my church that is in your church. And just I just want to implore people to explore these topics, and reach out and learn from survivors from advocates in the field. Because it’s such an issue.
SOLA Network: So there’s a lot more awareness of these things coming out, right, with certain scandals. But there’s a lot of churches that do kind of have this, oh, it doesn’t happen here. How do you initiate that conversation with, like church leaders, and like elder boards to say, hey, we should have this conversation,
Joanna Wong: I think we can start by pointing to disparities that are already existing, and show that, you know, there’s already an imbalance here. And we all know, you know, the phrase absolute power corrupts absolutely. And so I think if we show the possibility for that, just by looking at the structure of our, again, our racial culture, our church culture, our family structures, if we look at that, and and say, you know, maybe there could, – because there is – a, there could be a vulnerability here, and and what is the church, if not, God’s hand on Earth to protect the vulnerable?
SOLA Network: One of the often things that’s used against this kind of talk is we should be reconciling, we should like, be forgiving, and we should be like “racism, we should stop talking about it.” Right? So how do you kind of explain what is gospel reconciliation look like? Right through this process of dealing with abuse.
Joanna Wong: So we are called to forgive, we are not called to reconcile. And when we think about the concept of forgiveness, it’s really three separate concepts. The first concept is forgiveness. And that means, you know, between me and God, I am not going to get vengeance for myself, I am going to trust God, that either at the end, God will enact justice and all of his righteous indignation against a perpetrator, or all of that wrath, all of that indignation comes on Jesus Christ Himself. And as a survivor of domestic violence myself, you know, I need to trust that and that is the process of forgiveness. I am letting go of my personal desire for revenge and justice. Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t seek justice in other ways. I’m an attorney. That’s literally my job. But that desire to get back at someone, you know that’s what forgiveness is. The other step is repentance. Somebody needs to repent. And so what does that mean? That means stopping and turning around, right? That’s what we that’s what we say, in Sunday school, you know, stop, acknowledge the wrong, don’t sweep it under the rug, don’t say, Oh, well, it was just one time, or try to explain it away, or blame the other person actually taking ownership of that action, and turning away. That’s repentance. And when there is forgiveness of the heart and soul, and repentance, there might be a pathway to reconciliation. And we know that God redeems all things and hallelujah for that. But forcing somebody to reconcile is spiritual abuse by saying that, you know, the Bible says you must reconcile. But that’s not that’s not in the Bible. And, and so, you know, we want to remember that, you know, what we call forgiveness is actually three completely separate things. And by the grace of God, some people are able to go the whole journey. Maybe not in this lifetime. And, you know, that is a sad, tragic thing. But it’s not on the victim to make that happen.
Hannah Chao: That’s great. I always ask before we end, is there anything that we didn’t mention or prompts that you want to share to the audience?
Joanna Wong: I think there can be certain red flags, especially in the Christian context. One major red flag that I see is using the Bible and saying that somebody needs to do a certain action or have a certain result. And that comes in one of two ways.
The first way that that might happen is say, Well, the Bible obviously says that you need to x. And yes, the Bible is good and useful for teaching rebuking and training in all righteousness. But, you know, aside from murder, adultery, don’t do those things. You know, there’s very few instances where the Bible actually says you must do a particular action. And by instructing someone in that way, someone is misusing the authority of the Bible and the authority of their church position, to use their position to exert power and control over someone else for a particular result.
The other way this happens is a little bit of the opposite, instead of jumping straight from the Bible to the action, it’ll say, Well, the Bible says this, which means this, which means this, which means this other thing, which means you have to have a particular action or result. But again, the same, the same thing applies, because you do all of those steps, you know, that does that track. And I think if we really examine it, it might not and it probably doesn’t, but you know, instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to work in the other person and to work in that conversation, and bring people where they need to go all you’re looking for if you’re using that kind of language, you’re just looking for a result you’re you’re looking for an end product. You’re not that’s but that’s not how what’s not how our continuing redemption works, right?
We’re saved, we sin, God forgives us we get better, and that that’s a continuing goal that’s that’s the Christian life. That’s what it means to have a spiritual walk with God. And yet, people in positions of power in the church might say, No, you need to do this. And that is that jump is is a simple one.
SOLA Network: So great. That’s so good. Awesome. Thank you so much.