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Document Details : Title: 'I was vulnerable and you sexually abused me' Subtitle: The Counterexample of Child Abuse Author(s): BOEVE, Lieven Journal: Louvain Studies Volume: 47 Issue: 2 Date: 2024 Pages: 95-117 DOI: 10.2143/LS.47.2.3295137 Abstract : In September 2023, a documentary series on Flemish television (Godvergeten, Godforsaken) harshly confronted Flanders once again with the crisis of sexual abuse in the church and the church’s inability to handle it credibly. In the first part of this contribution, I analyze the commotion caused by this series in society as well as its consequences for the place of church and faith. Afterwards, I situate the child abuse crisis in the church within a broader and worldwide perspective, and continuing with the German-Austrian theologian Hans-Joachim Sander, I shed light on the ecclesiastical and theological urgency of this crisis. Together with Sander, I discuss how the sexual abuse affected the church and the resulting internal and external loss of credibility. Inspired by Jean-François Lyotard, I then develop how this sexual abuse in and by the church can be regarded as the prime counterexample that both produces and attests to the implausibility of the grand Christian narrative. The testimony of the victims, as well as the shock of believers, pushes this narrative to its limits, and interrupt its hegemonic logic. Because of this, from now on, we are urged to speak differently about God, faith, and church: we can no longer adequately do so despite the abuse crisis and the church’s implausibility, but should do so in relation to this crisis and implausibility, starting from these. |
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