In recent years a flood of information has been published on the subject of incest. Both in terms of scope and consequences, it proves to be a serious and dire problem. One in seven women is said to have such experiences, which in many cases causes serious to extremely serious personal harm to the victims.¹

The fact that people have come to realize its seriousness does not mean that they also know how to deal with it in practical situations. That is why there is reason to equip those who may be confronted with incest.

This article is a type of conversation guide for office-bearers. It provides an overview of the consequences of incest for the spiritual life in a Christian environment. These can serve as points of discussion for the pastoral care for the victims. It also provides guidelines and directions for starting the conversation from a pastoral perspective.²

Incest within a Christian Family⤒🔗

Janet (18) has been sexually abused by her father for years on end. He managed to silence her by threatening her with God’s retribution (“God will punish you if you tell others! You cannot disgrace your parents!”).

 In the mean time her father attended the Lord’s Supper and enjoyed great respect within the congregation. After the incest became known, he denied his involvement vehemently, and in the consistory the story about Janet was received with disbelief.

 She no longer wanted to have anything to do with the church. The idea of praying and reading the Bible made her rebellious. When she thinks about God, she feels abandoned by him (“I always prayed that it should stop, but God was never listening”), anxious (“That God has the same stabbing eyes as my father”), and guilty (“Sometimes everything comes at me at once. Then I think: what did I do? It is my fault that our family is in a mess now”). At other times her anger flares up and she detests anything that has to do with religion.

This story shows something of the spiritual havoc that incest may cause. What effects can incest have on a person’s spiritual development? To answer that question, we first need to understand the possible implications of incest within a Christian family.

Damage to a Person’s Self‑Image←⤒🔗

Sexual abuse causes the victim’s personality to be misunderstood and abused. The signals of fear, disgust, and pain are being ignored. The victim is humiliated into an object of satisfying other people’s lusts and filling his emptiness and deficiency. In this way someone cannot develop healthy self‑confidence or trust in others.

Spiritually this leads to the feeling that before God’s presence one is too wicked and too stained by sin, or that one is being punished by God for obscure reasons with this abuse. As one victim describes it: “God considers my life to be worthless. He would rather wish that I did not exist.”

Dividing Doctrine and Life←⤒🔗

Incest within a Christian family: how is it possible? Only when God’s Word is rendered powerless within the situation in which incest takes place. A separation is created between doctrine and life. We hear this in statements by victims about the religious climate in their family. They speak of it as “purely external,” or about Christian customs as “that’s just the way things ought to be.”

The result is that one starts to experience Christianity as something that is unrealistic and unreliable. To the extent that it functions, it often serves as a cover for bad practices. In this way the fifth commandment can be used in a perverse way to prevent a victim from revealing her misery: “God does not want you to say such things about your parents!”

An Entanglement of the Abuse with a Distorted Image of God←⤒🔗

Parents are to be examples for their children to follow. Without going into further detail, it may be pointed out that the Bible explicitly acknowledges this and also points out to parents the great responsibility that comes with it. God indeed commonly uses people as his means within his covenant in the line of the generations. Not just in reproduction, but especially also through the upbringing, showing by example what it means to live according to God’s Word.

Incest in a Christian family means that a distorted and mutilated image of God is transmitted instead. The God to whom the family is praying at mealtimes and whose Word is listened to is apparently to be reconciled with sexual abuse. Considering the powerful and destructive effect of this; such an image has the potential to seriously disfigure someone’s spiritual development. We find this reflected, for instance, in the fact that victims who have been abused by their father also will confuse God with their own father. They indicate that they do not expect much from God, because their own father did not care for them either. Someone said, “God’s eyes hurt me just like my father’s.”

Consequences for the Spiritual Development←⤒🔗

This has a dire influence on the spiritual development of victims. We mention a few commonly occurring consequences that are characteristic of the confused spiritual life of many victims.

Anger and resentment are frequently noted. These are a natural response to the humiliation and offense that are characteristic of abuse. Victims from Christian families can come into conflict with values ​​such as honouring their parents and the demand to be forgiving. Some victims are angry with God: “Why did he allow this; where was God?”

Feelings of guilt are almost always present as a result of anger that has not been dealt with. It is because people consider themselves responsible for the misery that arises when the abuse is made public. When a perpetrator suggests complicity (“She challenged me”; “She also liked it”), or the victim is “rewarded” (through extra attention or gifts), it also gives rise to feelings of guilt.        

When anger and feelings of guilt occur in combination with each other, it is in almost all cases a sign of great spiritual and psychological stress that requires attention from experts in addition to pastoral care!

As a third emotional reaction, I mention being afraid of God. It is often entangled with feelings of guilt; people are afraid of being punished for what happened.

Often the inner conflicts grow into despair. Signs of hopelessness can become apparent in various areas. Hopelessness about themselves (“I am much too evil, too dirty in order to be able to change”), about others (“No one will want to have anything to do with me. If they really knew me, they would spit me out”), about the future (“This life no longer has anything to offer me”) and God (“God has let go of me, otherwise all this would not have happened; I am lost”).

This despair can easily lead to self‑damaging behaviour. (There is a strong link between sexual abuse and suicidal behaviour.) Believing means trusting, and that is something they did not learn from the perpetrator. Could the Almighty be trusted then?

All this shows that many victims have a strongly distorted view of God. Against that background it is understandable that any prayer life comes under great pressure. Many feel that they can no longer pray. Someone who could no longer feel any love for her parents said, “I can no longer pray because God only accepts me if I do what my parents want.” And where the environment does not point the way to God, where the victim considers the way of personal contact with the Word and prayer to be impassable, spiritual malnutrition will naturally arise.

And finally, leaving the church is not uncommon. In the processing of the abuse, one can no longer hold on to the church community, which has also become interwoven with the abuse of the character of the family, as it were no longer held fast. Or — and here we look at it from a different perspective — people are insufficiently held fast.

In terms of pastoral care for victims of incest, one needs to be aware of signs of these potential aspects of mental trauma. Only then is someone able to talk about these things and guide the victim in the processing of it.

There is, of course, more to say about this concrete guidance. We will limit ourselves here to one central issue.

A Cry for Security: Why?←⤒🔗

 “I believe that I can have more fun in life after I have worked through it. But things will never work out between me and God. And that is why it no longer makes sense.” In this quote from a victim, the spiritual core issue can be heard; profoundly, this is what it is all about. All the aspects we mentioned above — the doubt about the truthfulness of the Christian faith, the entanglement of the image of God with the experience of abuse, the crisis in prayer, etc. — come down to this focus question: how can things work out between me and God? The “why” question is an important sign of this mental crisis. The nature and depth of it need to be measured. Is it a lament (then there is mainly pain) or is it a complaint (where the pain is mixed with anger and protest)? And how deep is the crisis? Is there hope for a relationship with the Lord, is the person doubting it, is all hope given up, or is the person about to turn from him completely? With these differences in the depth of the crisis, there is one common factor. To a greater or lesser degree the person has lost the true and experienced connection with God. The “why” question is ultimately a cry for spiritual security.

Anyone who loses sight of this can only understand the “why” question as an accusation or as a challenge. The pastor can respond with justifying God (or his own approach). The pastoral conversation, which essentially is aimed to guide the person to the Lord, then easily turns into a cold philosophical debate, or a controversy that only knows losers.

Instead of directly addressing the “why” question, it is more appropriate to first listen carefully to it and to gauge the depth and background of it (see above). Following this, you need to let them see that you have heard and understood them. This shows that you really pay attention and want to be there for them. In this way receptivity can grow, so that they can consequently listen to what God has to say about it.

God Himself Is the Answer←⤒🔗

We know of the pained, but also of the rebellious “why” questions of people such as Job and Asaph. It is remarkable that God did not give them direct answers to these questions. However, he did show them his works and in these something about himself. Precisely in this God showed that he had understood the spiritual need in their complaint. Instead of a substantive and ultimately useless explanation, they were given God himself! “Whom have I in heaven but you?” sings Asaph (Ps. 73). And Job puts it this way: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (Job 42).

Their difficulties as such were not resolved. But their deeper need — their sense of God‑forsakenness — turned into trust of God. Only in that sense of security can God’s children experience that all things work together for good (Rom. 8). That security is found in the way of faithful surrender to the Lord. Only God’s Spirit can accomplish this.

The Basic Attitude←⤒🔗

Instances of incest confront an office-bearer with many difficult issues. Think of the crisis in the parental authority, the questions about the fifth commandment, dealing with anger and resentment, feelings of guilt, the interaction with the perpetrator and possibly other victims, the questions of forgiveness and reconciliation. We cannot discuss these topics in greater detail here.³

In pastoral counselling, it is not primarily about loosely related subjects, but about the person in the complexity of his or her life. That certainly needs to be kept in mind, because otherwise the guidance will take on a fragmentary character. That is why the basic attitude is so important. This gives unity and coherence to the guidance that is provided. In line with what has been written above, a number of principles can be given for the pastoral basic attitude:

1. We mentioned the interwoven character of a distorted image of God with the incest experience as an important aspect of the spiritual trauma. In the opening and the application of the Word lies the means to untangle those knots. The most essential aspect of biblical pastoral care is that we first listen to the Word of God so that afterwards we are able to apply it to the special circumstances of people. It cannot be otherwise than constantly seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit and listening purposefully to the other. How else could the Word be applied appropriately?
2.  Although one should watch out for selective use of the Bible, there are sections that are particularly suitable for this. One can think of the history of Joseph, who was sold by his brothers with whom he later reconciled (in this regard he typified Christ). There is also the account of the abuse of the people of Israel in Egypt, various psalms (10, 31, 39, 55, 88, 91, 120, 129), and Christ’s suffering. Ultimately, only the latter remains as the basis on which our human suffering can meaningfully be referenced.
3. Just as the perpetrator set the wrong example, so the office-bearer needs to provide the right one. This first of all requires that he himself is living in communion with his LORD. The strength and the true character of faith should, so to speak, be able to be experienced in him. The “authenticity” of the office-bearer is of great importance. In this way the division of doctrine and life can be lifted and healing can be found in an encounter with God.
4. We discussed some of the consequences of incest in a Christian family. They can be characterized as marks of spiritual malnutrition and traumatization. Love is the means par excellence to achieve recovery in this misery. It is true that the word “love” is problematic in our sceptical and eroticized world. In the context of our subject, it may even sound cynical.
   Yet the Bible points to love (agapé) as the way of excellence (1 Cor. 12:31). In 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 Paul presents keywords that characterize this love. We merely point out that in being focused on the other, forbearance and kindness play a very important role.
   It is striking that this section is encompassed by one and the same characteristic. “Love is patient” — that is how verse 4 starts, and verse 7 says essentially the same in different words: it “endures all things.” Those qualities are certainly needed here, because the guidance and support for victims (and perpetrators) demands a great deal: a lot of patience, care, and attention.

The Tension in Pastoral Counselling ←⤒🔗

There is no other way than particularly that of biblical pastoral care by which real fruit may be expected. Yet this is not an easy way. Often the office-bearer finds himself in a field of tension. On the one hand there is the broken, sometimes despondent reality. It cannot be remedied through some program. On the other hand, there is the radical demand of the gospel for a holy and perfect walk of life, which, however, cannot and should not be enforced.

Only love can last can stand in that tension. It strives for perfection and believes all things. And even when the facts disappoint us, it still persists in hope — for love abides forever.