Forgiveness-Part Seven, Cover Up

Cancel Culture and Cover Up Culture

In my article titled Forgiveness-Part Five, Cancel Culture I talked about how forgiveness can be used to cancel those who have been victims of abuse, especially of sexual abuse. That podcast could have also been titled Forgiveness Cover-Up Culture. Because they are very similar. One of the purposes of Cancel Culture can be to Cover Up. Cover-Up Culture hopes to silence the victim(s) to cover up the abuse of the perpetrator to protect them and the organization they are a part of. Its goal is to prevent consequences for the behavior of those have been abusive and consequences coming upon the organization at the detriment of the victim(s).

It is the whole concept of the end justifies the means. The means is we do whatever we need to do. The end is to protect the organization, the leader(s), the “man of God” by covering up what has taken place. What does this have to do with forgiveness? Because many times the tactic that is used is to say the victim(s) should have just forgiven and moved on because we all fall short, or because it was such a long time ago when the abuse took place, or because…

Cover-Up Culture Everywhere

When speaking of Cancel and Cover-Up Culture I am using the phrases in the context of canceling the voice of victims and covering up the abusers. I am mainly focusing on sexual abuse because it is being exposed everywhere and is extremely damaging to the victim. It happens within businesses and in any other type of organization, and in families. How many children have been abused by parents or relatives and it’s covered up. It is happening within Christian ministries. As Christians we must stand against the whole mindset of cover-up culture because it is evil. It needs to be exposed and dealt with. The name of God is being tainted by those who are the guilty parties of sin in the ‘camp’.

Cover-Up Culture and Forgiveness

Cover-Up uses the concept of forgiveness for the purpose of covering up the wrong done. Victims are told just forgive and move on. Let it go if you are true Christian, it is in God’s hands. By you being public about the abuse you are trying to take revenge. How dare you touch God’s anointed. All of this while the abuser has not repented and many times lying to make the victim the guilty party, pure evil. It is abusing the victim all over again.

We have covered many times in this Forgiveness Series that we as Christ Followers are to forgive. Forgive rather there is repentance or not. That does not mean there are no consequences. That does not mean that there should not be justice. It certainly, does not mean not holding the guilty party accountable, especially when pure evil has been done. Especially when the guilty party does not repent and is trying to cover up their evil.

We forgive, but we also hold individuals accountable for the actions behavior that they have done. The goal is to try and help prevents ongoing abuse.

Ongoing Abuse

Cancel and Cover-Up Culture is ongoing abuse of the victim It’s abusive to lessen the behavior of the perpetrator and victimize the victim. There’s a great difference between somebody who has done something wrong, repents, does retribution, and seeks reconciliation and somebody who has done something wrong and covers up and uses the concept of forgiveness to silence the victim. With that type of behavior there are normally more victims. When there is true repentance, the behavior stops. The evil stops. Sometimes there can be reconciliation but not restoration because of the damage done, and trust has been lost, but praise God many times there can be true healing among all and restoration.

Forgiveness-Why Bring Up Years Later?

It would take an entire article to address this question of why if a person has forgiven someone why they would wait until years later to make the abuse public. This will be a shorter answer in the context of sexual abuse. It is with the assumption that forgiveness has taken place.

A. Many sexual abuse victims become convinced by the perpetrator that it is their fault. They are the guilty party. Years later they realize it was a lie to cover up the abuse. They become concerned there are other victims, or there will become other victims.

B. The victim becomes emotionally whole enough to finally confront the abuser and the abuser starts the Cancel Culture and Cover-up Culture routine-trying to silence the victim and make them the guilty party. The perpetrator goes public first to damage the reputation of the victim.

C. Sadly many times those of sexual abuse do not experience true healing for decades or ever. This is how evil cancel culture, cover up culture can be, it ruins the lives of innocent victims. To encourage these victims to get help the victim that speaks out publicly has as their goal to victims healed by giving them boldness to come out of the closet, get healing, and get closure.

D. To seek justice, not revenge.

The Danger of Confronting Cancel Culture, Cover-Up Culture

The danger for victims seeking exposure and accountability can be that the abuser is not held accountable, that the cover-up works, and the abuser still stays in a position of leadership. The one who has forgiven the abuser needs to keep their heart pure, ultimately vengeance is in God’s hands  not theirs. Ultimately it is God that issues justice, no one is getting away with anything.  We can never ever let someone who is “getting away with something” to lead us down a path of bitterness, unforgiveness hatred. It only makes it so that the perpetrator wins.

#forgiveness #coverupculture #thereishope #thereishoperadio #PreacherRichD

Forgiveness-Part Seven, Cover-Up Podcast

Forgiveness Podcast Series
Forgiveness-Introduction
Forgiveness-Part One, Bible Verses
Forgiveness-Part Two, Freedom and Peace
Forgiveness-Part Three, Testimonies
Forgiveness-Part Four, What is True Forgiveness?
Forgiveness-Part Five, Cancel Culture
Forgiveness-Part Six, Application
Forgiveness-Part Seven, Cover-Up Culture

Moving Beyond the Past Series-Forgiveness Videos
Moving Beyond the Past-Lesson 6, Forgiveness: Part One
Moving Beyond the Past-Lesson 6, Forgiveness: Part Two
Moving Beyond the Past-Lesson 6, Forgiveness: Part Three
Moving Beyond the Past-Lesson 6, Forgiveness: Part Four
Moving Beyond the Past-Lesson 6, Forgiveness: Part Five