Abuse in Religious Contexts

Experiences and Responses
Erscheinungsjahr 2027
ISBN: 978-0-19-893227-7
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 336 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

Over the past forty years, there has been significant growth in public attention and academic research on issues of abuse in religious contexts. Whilst much of this work has focused initially on Christian churches and organisations, this has more recently broadened to discussion of abuse in a wider range of faith communities. Abuse in Religious Contexts: Experiences and Responses contributes to this still-expanding field by presenting findings from a major study based in the United Kingdom that is one of the first to explore personal, organisational, and policy dimensions of abuse across a range of faith traditions and settings. Drawing together a project team with long experience in this work, including victim-survivors, the book explores a range of issues including the role and practice of sensitive, ethical, and inclusive research with victim-survivors; victim-survivors' experiences and reflections on disclosing abuse in religious contexts; victim-survivors' insights on what helps in processing the longer-term effects of abuse in faith settings; social and cultural factors associated with higher risks of abuse in religious contexts; constructive and harmful uses of sacred texts in relation to issues and experiences of abuse; and current policy and legal approaches to addressing abuse in religious contexts around the world, with particular reference to mandatory reporting.

In addition to findings from its individual studies, the book provides an integrated analysis of how personal, organisational, and policy issues of abuse in religious contexts are intertwined and discusses how abuse can be bound up more generally with unhealthy organisational cultures and structures. Written for a range of different readers, Abuse in Religious Contexts presents material that may be helpful to those reflecting on their own experiences of abuse in a faith setting, raises questions for faith communities and policy-makers, and provides insights to inform future research in this field.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Lynch, Gordon

Parker, Eve

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Preface: Introducing the Abuse in Religious Contexts Project and Different Ways of Reading This Book

- Introduction: The Context and Contribution of this Book to Understanding Abuse in Religious Contexts

- 1: Eve Parker and Lisa Oakley: Methodology and Epistemic Injustice in Research into Abuse in Religious Contexts

- 2: Lisa Oakley and Jenny Hardy: “It was a feeling of handing over the keys to my house”: Understanding Experiences of Disclosing Abuse

- 3: Jo Kind and Linda Woodhead: Surviving Abuse in Religious Contexts: Insights From Survivors

- 4: Sarah Harvey and Gordon Lynch: A Socio-Cultural Model for Risk Factors for Abuse in Religious Contexts

- 5: Johanna Stiebert: Texts of Terror and Recovery

- 6: Richard Scorer: Law, Public Policy and Abuse in Religious Contexts: The Case of Mandatory Reporting

- Conclusion: Overarching Insights and Future Issues

Über Autor(innen)

Gordon Lynch is Professor of Religion, Society and Ethics in the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh. Alongside his wider work on the role of moral meanings in social life, he has undertaken extensive work in relation to historic child abuse which has led to a series of academic publications, expert witness work with national child abuse inquiries and wider public engagement activities. His books include The Sacred in the Modern World (2012) and Remembering Child Migration: Faith, Nation- Building and the Wounds of Charity (2015).

Eve Parker is a Lecturer in Modern Christian Theology at the University of Manchester. She is the author of 6iTrust in Theological Education: Deconstructing 'Trustworthiness' for a Pedagogy of Liberation (2022) and 6iTheologising with the Sacred 'Prostitutes' of South India: Towards an Indecent Dalit Theology (2021).