Chapter 38 — When Religion Becomes Abuse

How governments, researchers and safeguarding systems have begun to recognise religious coercion, threats of damnation and related practices as potential forms of harm to children.

Belief Is Not the Same as Conduct

There is a distinction running through everything in this part of the book.

People are entitled to believe things with which I disagree.

A person can believe in God.

Hell.

Satan.

Possession.

Miracles.

Salvation.

Reincarnation.

Spirits.

Or no supernatural existence at all.

The existence of the belief is one question.

What somebody does to another human being because of that belief is another.

That distinction becomes especially important when the other person is a child.

The Conduct Still Has a Name

If an adult hits a child because of religion, the blow remains a blow.

If an adult sexually touches a child during something described as a religious act, the touching remains sexual conduct.

If an adult restrains a child because the adult believes the child is possessed, the restraint remains restraint.

If a child is deliberately frightened through threats of supernatural punishment, the fear remains real regardless of whether the supernatural claim can be established.

If necessary medical care is withheld for religious reasons, the child's medical need does not disappear.

Religion can explain why the adult acted.

It should not make the conduct invisible.

Japan Asked the Question Directly

That is why developments in Japan caught my attention.

In December 2022 the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare issued official guidance concerning child abuse related to religious belief and religious activity.

It was not a new law declaring religion unlawful.

It did not outlaw belief in Hell.

It did not attempt to decide whether any particular religion was true.

Instead, it did something much more practical.

It took existing categories of child abuse and asked how they should be applied when religion or supernatural belief forms part of the circumstances.

The Existing Categories

The Japanese guidance considers conduct through familiar child-protection categories.

Physical abuse.

Psychological abuse.

Sexual abuse.

Neglect.

Religion does not become a fifth category.

The religious explanation is part of the context in which ordinary forms of abuse may occur.

That makes considerable sense to me.

Fear Itself Matters

One of the most significant parts of the guidance concerns psychological abuse.

It recognises that words, images and other material can be used to intensify fear, threaten a child or interfere with the child's ability to make decisions freely.

That is an important change of emphasis.

The question is not merely:

“Was the child physically injured?”

It can also be:

“What was done to the child's mind?”

Knowing How to Use Fear Is Not Understanding Fear

Human beings have understood for a very long time that fear can be used to control other human beings.

That is not the same thing as understanding what fear does to them.

A person can learn how to frighten a child without understanding trauma.

An institution can discover that threats produce obedience without understanding what prolonged fear does to development.

An adult can notice that punishment makes a child quiet without asking what the child has actually learned.

That distinction matters.

Knowing how to wield fear is not the same as being informed about its consequences.

For generations, adults have had access to fear as an instrument of control.

What has developed much more slowly is an evidence-based understanding of the damage that fear, coercion, humiliation, unpredictability and inescapable authority can produce.

The ability to cause a psychological response came long before the ability, or willingness, to understand it.

Hell Appears in the Guidance

The example which particularly interested me was remarkably close to the question with which this block began.

The Japanese guidance includes circumstances in which religious threats about damnation or Hell are used to control significant choices in a young person's life.

Such conduct can fall within psychological abuse depending upon the circumstances.

That does not mean that every mention of Hell to every child is unlawful in Japan.

Context matters.

The purpose matters.

The effect upon the child matters.

The pattern of conduct matters.

But something which had once been almost impossible for me to describe now appeared in an official child-protection framework.

A supernatural threat could be examined as human conduct.

The Threat Is Human Even When the Claim Is Supernatural

That sentence deserves to be taken further.

The threat does not arrive by itself.

A human being speaks it.

A human being teaches it.

A human institution preserves it.

One generation can pass it to another.

Children can then pass into adulthood carrying the fear and eventually repeat the same warning to another generation.

Whether Hell exists is a theological proposition.

Telling a frightened child that they may suffer there forever is human conduct occurring here.

That conduct can be observed.

Its circumstances can be described.

Its effects can be studied.

We do not need to settle the supernatural proposition before examining what one human being did to another.

The Child's Side

There is another principle in the Japanese guidance which I consider just as important.

The examples are not intended to be applied mechanically.

Authorities are expected to consider the child's circumstances, the parents' circumstances, the living environment and the overall situation.

The child's experience has to remain central to that assessment.

That matters to me.

Not simply:

“What did the adult believe?”

But:

“What happened to the child?”

Sincerity Is Not the Measurement

An adult may sincerely believe that a child is in spiritual danger.

The adult may sincerely believe that Hell exists.

The adult may sincerely believe that a demon exists.

The adult may sincerely believe that obedience will save the child's soul.

That sincerity can help us understand the adult.

It does not tell us whether the child was harmed.

The child's wellbeing requires its own examination.

Forcing Religion Through Fear

The Japanese guidance goes beyond the single example involving Hell.

It identifies fear and threatening language used to compel religious activity as potentially psychologically abusive.

It considers interference with a child's free decision-making.

It considers restrictions affecting ordinary relationships and important choices in the child's developing life.

It therefore recognises circumstances in which religious belief becomes an instrument through which control is exercised.

Calling Other People Satan

Another example was strikingly familiar.

The guidance considers circumstances in which relationships with people outside a religion are restricted while outsiders are represented in frightening supernatural terms.

Again, the concern is not the government's opinion about Satan.

The concern is what adults may do to the child through that language.

The supernatural claim does not have to be disproved before the fear can be recognised.

Declaring a Faith the Child Does Not Hold

The same material also raises questions about compelling children to profess or participate in religious belief which is not genuinely their own.

That seems to me an elementary question of personal integrity.

There is a profound difference between teaching a child about a religion and compelling the child to perform an identity.

The child should not have to misrepresent the contents of his or her own mind in order to satisfy an adult.

Freedom Inside the Mind

That takes the question somewhere important.

A child's behaviour can legitimately be constrained by adults in many ways.

Children have bedtimes.

School attendance.

Safety rules.

Limits appropriate to age.

But the contents of a child's mind are different.

An adult can teach.

Explain.

Persuade.

Model.

Answer questions.

The adult cannot actually force belief into existence.

The adult can force only the performance of belief.

That distinction deserves much more attention than it receives.

The Performance of Belief

A child can be made to kneel.

The child can be made to speak.

The child can be made to attend.

The child can be made to repeat a prayer.

The child can be made to declare belief.

The child can be made to participate in ritual.

None of those things proves what the child believes.

Compliance is observable.

Belief is not.

Fawning Again

The distinction becomes even more important when fear is present.

A child may become especially cooperative with an adult who frightens them.

The child may agree.

Smile.

Repeat the required words.

Apologise.

Reassure the adult.

Perform enthusiasm.

Try to become exactly what the adult appears to require.

That behaviour can be mistaken for consent.

It can also be fawning.

Appeasement is not the same as freely chosen belief.

When Fear Looks Like Successful Teaching

There is another problem with punishment which religious systems can easily misunderstand.

Punishment can work.

At least, it can appear to work.

The child becomes quiet.

The child obeys.

The forbidden behaviour stops in front of the adult.

The required words are repeated.

From the position of authority, the lesson may appear to have succeeded.

But compliance does not tell us what the child learned.

The child may have learned nothing about morality.

The child may simply have learned where the danger is.

Fear can produce obedience without understanding.

Punishment can produce concealment rather than insight.

Fawning can produce behaviour which looks like agreement.

Resentment can remain invisible while obedience remains visible.

That is why the effect matters more than the appearance of obedience.

The Apparent Success of Punishment

This may help explain why systems of punishment survive for so long.

They produce something adults can immediately see.

Compliance.

The child stops.

The adult experiences relief.

The authority appears to have worked.

The longer consequences are less visible.

Fear.

Avoidance.

Secrecy.

Anger.

Shame.

A developing ability to conceal rather than understand.

The method can therefore reproduce itself because each generation sees the immediate obedience and may never see the whole cost.

A tradition can become very skilled at producing submission without ever becoming skilled at producing understanding.

Education and Employment

I was also interested that the Japanese guidance extends beyond what might traditionally be imagined as abuse occurring inside the home.

It recognises that religious coercion can affect the child's future.

Education.

Further study.

Employment.

Relationships.

The child's developing independence.

That is important because control over a young person does not necessarily end when physical violence ends.

A belief system can also narrow the future.

Medical Care

The same guidance addresses circumstances in which religious belief contributes to neglect of necessary care.

That principle is important because children cannot always protect themselves from the consequences of an adult's belief.

An adult may make decisions about risks to the adult's own health.

The ethical and legal questions change when those risks are imposed upon a dependent child.

The Adult May Risk Himself

This distinction appears repeatedly when religion and children meet.

An adult can choose fasting.

An adult can choose pilgrimage.

An adult can choose celibacy.

An adult can refuse particular comforts.

An adult can organise life around prayer.

An adult may sometimes be legally entitled to refuse medical treatment for himself.

The adult is making decisions about the adult.

A child is another person.

The Child Is Not an Extension of the Adult

Parents necessarily make many decisions for children.

That is part of caring for a developing human being.

But parental authority does not turn a child into an extension of the parent's body or mind.

The child is becoming a separate person.

The capacity to choose develops.

The capacity to question develops.

The capacity to hold beliefs different from those of the parents develops.

Protection has to make room for that development.

For me, the longer-term test is important.

Has the child been raised in a way which allows that developing adult, upon reaching sufficient maturity, to examine the inherited religion and culture independently?

Can the person remain?

Can the person change?

And, if necessary, can the person walk away?

A freedom which permits inheritance but makes departure terrifying is a very limited kind of freedom.

Children Have Religious Freedom Too

International human-rights law makes that point more clearly than many ordinary discussions of religious freedom.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises the child's own right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Parents and guardians are recognised as having a role in providing direction.

But that direction is to be provided in a manner consistent with the child's evolving capacities.

The right belongs to the child.

That is an important distinction.

Direction Is Not Ownership

Parents can guide.

Teach.

Explain.

Introduce a child to a tradition.

Share values.

Take young children to religious activities.

But guidance and ownership are not the same thing.

The child's increasing capacity matters.

Eventually the child must be able to develop a view which is not the parent's view.

Evolving Capacity Should Expand Freedom

The idea of evolving capacity is important because it can be interpreted in two very different ways.

It can mean:

“The child is immature, therefore the adult may continue to control.”

Or it can mean:

“As the child's capacity grows, the child's ability to exercise personal rights grows with it.”

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has warned against using children's immaturity as an excuse for authoritarian practices which restrict autonomy and self-expression.

That seems to me exactly the distinction which matters.

Childhood guidance should lead toward personal agency.

Not permanent ownership.

Freedom From Coercion

The broader human-rights concept of religious freedom contains another principle which has interested me greatly.

Freedom of religion is not simply freedom to practise a religion.

It includes freedom of thought and conscience.

That matters because religious freedom is sometimes discussed only as the freedom of the believer to act.

There is another person in the equation.

The person upon whom the belief is being acted.

The Freedom of the Adult and the Freedom of the Child

An adult may say:

“My religion requires me to teach this.”

The child may eventually say:

“I do not believe it.”

Both human beings exist.

The adult's freedom cannot be the only freedom considered.

That is where religious liberty becomes more complicated than simply protecting institutions from interference.

England Named the Problem Too

Japan is not the only country to recognise that religion or supernatural belief can become part of child abuse.

In England, the government produced a national action plan in 2012 specifically addressing child abuse linked to faith or belief.

Much of its attention arose from severe cases involving accusations of witchcraft or spirit possession.

But the broader principle is familiar.

A supernatural explanation can be used to justify abuse of a child.

The Child Who Is Blamed

The English material describes situations in which children can be blamed for misfortune because adults believe they are possessed, influenced by spirits or involved in witchcraft.

The child becomes the explanation for problems around the child.

That is remarkably close to the pattern I have already described in this book.

Something goes wrong.

The adults do not ask first what happened to the child.

They ask what is wrong with the child.

Trying to Save the Child

The English material also recognises something uncomfortable.

People harming a child may believe they are saving the child.

The child is supposedly possessed.

Something evil must be removed.

The adult may believe violence, restraint or another harmful act has a benevolent purpose.

That does not make the conduct safe.

It demonstrates why intention alone cannot be the measure.

Fear as a Tool

The English material also records the use of supernatural fear to make children compliant in other forms of exploitation.

That is significant.

The supernatural threat does not have to be the final purpose.

It can be a tool.

Fear can make a child easier to control.

Easier to silence.

Easier to isolate.

Easier to exploit.

Once that is understood, religious fear has to be considered alongside other methods of coercion.

Faith Can Also Protect

There is another side which should not disappear.

Religion can be a source of comfort.

Community.

Identity.

Meaning.

Support.

Many religious people protect children.

Many religious communities condemn abuse.

People have sometimes drawn strength from faith while surviving terrible circumstances.

Recognising religious abuse does not require describing religion itself as abuse.

The Tool Can Be Used Either Way

A belief can motivate somebody to feed a hungry person.

Or punish a child.

A religious institution can provide refuge.

Or conceal an offender.

A priest can listen to a frightened person.

Or frighten one.

A parent can teach belief gently.

Or enforce it through terror.

The label religion does not tell us which occurred.

We still have to examine the conduct.

Australia Already Has a Language of Harm

This brings the question home.

Australian child-protection systems do not require a supernatural category before harm can be recognised.

In Queensland, the Child Protection Act defines harm broadly.

It describes harm as a detrimental effect of a significant nature upon a child's physical, psychological or emotional wellbeing.

It recognises physical, psychological and emotional abuse or neglect, together with sexual abuse or exploitation.

It also says something which catches my attention.

It is immaterial how the harm is caused.

Religion Does Not Need a Special Exemption

If significant psychological harm is caused through a religious threat, it remains psychological harm.

If significant emotional harm is caused through religious coercion, it remains emotional harm.

If a child is physically injured during a religious procedure, the injury does not become something else because somebody calls the procedure spiritual.

The existing language of harm is capable of looking at the consequence.

Words in an Act Are Not Outcomes

But this raises another question which legislation alone cannot answer.

How often is religiously mediated psychological or emotional harm actually recognised by the child-protection system?

How often does it result in a substantiated finding?

How often does it contribute to a protection order?

How often is conduct referred to police because it may involve a criminal offence?

And how often does the system record the religious mechanism clearly enough for anybody later to count the cases?

Those are different questions from asking whether the statute contains protective words.

The Child Protection Act is principally part of a protective system.

Its definition of harm is not itself a criminal offence under which somebody is simply prosecuted.

Criminal proceedings involve other laws and additional legal requirements.

So counting prosecutions alone would not tell us whether the child protection provision is working.

But neither should the existence of the provision be treated as proof that the harm is being consistently recognised.

The important question is what happens in practice.

Can We Count What We Have Not Named?

That creates a research problem.

If an official record says only:

“psychological harm,”

we may never know that Hell was the threat.

If it says:

“family conflict,”

we may not know that leaving a religion was the conflict.

If an exorcism is recorded only as physical assault, we may correctly identify the offence but lose the mechanism which caused adults to believe the conduct was justified.

Both levels matter.

The ordinary category identifies the harm.

Naming the mechanism may help prevent its repetition.

If Australian systems do not consistently record religious coercion as a factor, then it may be extremely difficult to establish how often these cases occur.

That is something worth investigating rather than assuming.

But Naming the Mechanism Matters

People recognise what they have been trained to see.

A child-protection worker may immediately recognise a bruise.

Would the same worker recognise a sustained pattern of supernatural threats?

Would a teacher recognise forced religious declaration?

Would a doctor recognise fear of Hell being used to control a child?

Would police recognise an exorcism as a context in which ordinary criminal conduct might occur?

Would an investigator understand that apparent cooperation under intense fear may not tell us very much about consent?

Sometimes the law already has the category but the system has not clearly named the mechanism.

That Is What Japan Added

This is what I find particularly valuable about the Japanese guidance.

It did not need to invent psychological abuse.

It showed professionals how psychological abuse could occur in a religious context.

It did not invent neglect.

It showed how religious conduct could contribute to neglect.

It did not create a crime of believing in Hell.

It recognised circumstances in which Hell could be used as a threat.

That is clarification.

And clarification can help protect children.

What Would That Have Changed for Me?

I cannot take a Japanese document written in 2022 and pretend it governed Victoria in the 1950s.

It did not.

I cannot retrospectively apply modern administrative guidance as though it were the law of my childhood.

But I can ask a different question.

What would have changed if the adults around me had possessed that way of looking at the situation?

What if somebody had been trained to ask:

Is this child being frightened through religious language?

Is somebody interfering with his freedom through threats?

Is an adult using Satan or Hell to control him?

Is the child being harmed while adults believe they are helping?

Is religious authority preventing anybody from asking ordinary child-protection questions?

The Question Might Have Turned Around

Perhaps the question would no longer have been:

“What is wrong inside this child?”

It might have become:

“What are these adults doing to him?”

That is a profound change.

Exorcism Without Theology

The same approach can be applied to the experiences I associate with exorcism.

A child-protection authority does not need to decide whether demons exist.

It can ask:

Was the child restrained?

Was the child frightened?

Was the child struck?

Was the child prevented from leaving?

Was anything forced into the child's body?

Was the child sexually touched?

Was medical treatment withheld?

Was the child told that resistance demonstrated evil?

Was the conduct likely to cause physical, psychological or emotional harm?

Those questions require no theology.

Theology Can Remain Outside the Door

Perhaps that is one of the most useful principles in this whole block.

The child-protection worker does not need to enter the theological argument.

The police officer does not need to disprove Satan.

The doctor does not need to settle the existence of Hell.

The court does not need to decide whether a prayer works.

They can examine human conduct.

The theology can remain outside the door while the child is protected inside it.

Belief Is Not a Defence Against Observation

This is different from saying that religious belief never matters in law.

Context can matter.

Intention can matter.

The precise legal question can matter.

The circumstances can matter.

But belief should not prevent observation.

What happened?

Who did it?

What effect did it have?

What risk remains?

What protection does the child need?

Those questions remain available.

The Label “Religious Abuse”

I also understand why the term itself can make people uncomfortable.

Some may hear “religious abuse” as an accusation that religion is abuse.

That is not how I use it.

Sexual abuse does not mean sexuality is abuse.

Financial abuse does not mean money is abuse.

Emotional abuse does not mean emotion is abuse.

Religious abuse describes circumstances in which religion, religious authority, religious belief or religious language becomes part of the mechanism through which a person is harmed or controlled.

The Mechanism Matters

Why name the mechanism?

Because without a name it can remain invisible.

If a child says:

“They told me I would burn forever,”

an adult unfamiliar with religious coercion may hear theology.

The child may be describing terror.

If the child says:

“They said Satan was inside me,”

somebody may hear unusual belief.

The child may be describing the justification for restraint or violence.

If the child says:

“I said yes,”

somebody may hear consent.

The child may be describing appeasement.

Language determines what we look for next.

Spiritual Authority Magnifies Ordinary Power

Religious abuse can also contain a particular amplification of ordinary authority.

A parent says:

“Do what I say.”

That is one level of authority.

A parent says:

“God requires you to do what I say.”

The command has changed.

The child is no longer merely disobeying a parent.

The child is supposedly disobeying the creator of the universe.

That is why supernatural threats can carry such disproportionate power.

An Infinite Threat Changes the Bargain

A human threat has limits.

An adult may threaten punishment tomorrow.

A supernatural threat can extend forever.

The child is therefore being asked to make an ordinary decision beneath an infinite consequence.

That imbalance has to matter when we talk about consent.

A choice made beneath terror is not transformed into a free choice merely because the child eventually complies.

Not Every Frightening Idea Is Abuse

There is also a boundary worth preserving.

Children learn frightening things.

Death exists.

War exists.

Disease exists.

Natural disasters exist.

Religious traditions also contain frightening stories and beliefs.

The fact that a child is unsettled by an idea does not automatically make the teaching abusive.

Context matters.

Age matters.

Presentation matters.

Repetition matters.

Purpose matters.

Effect matters.

And above all, how the idea is used matters.

The Difference Is Often Control

There is a difference between:

“Our religion contains a belief about Hell,”

and:

“If you do not obey me, you will go there.”

There is a difference between:

“Some Christians believe in demonic possession,”

and:

“You are possessed and therefore I may restrain you.”

There is a difference between teaching a religious concept and using that concept to remove another person's freedom.

That is where the question moves from belief toward coercion.

Coercion Does Not Need Bruises

One of the difficulties with psychological abuse is that it may leave nothing to photograph.

No broken bone.

No cut.

No bruise.

The child may even appear extremely well behaved.

The child may be quiet because the threat has worked.

The absence of visible injury does not prove the absence of harm.

The Well-Behaved Child

That deserves emphasis.

A child controlled through fear may look like a successful child.

Polite.

Compliant.

Religious.

Quiet.

Obedient.

An adult looking only for disruptive behaviour may miss the problem entirely.

Sometimes the effectiveness of the control hides the control.

Why? Must Be Allowed

There is one small word which can threaten an authoritarian system.

Why?

Why is this true?

Why must I do this?

Why is this person allowed to command me?

Why should I be frightened?

Why is the child being blamed?

Why should this evidence be believed?

A system organised primarily around obedience can experience those questions as defiance.

But questions are one of the ways understanding develops.

If “why?” is repeatedly subordinated to obedience, the child may become better at following authority without becoming better at evaluating it.

That is the opposite of what I now understand education to require.

Abuse Can Be Organised

Religion can also introduce institutional layers around abuse.

There may be a leader.

A doctrine.

A community.

A shared interpretation.

Pressure not to criticise.

Fear of outsiders.

Fear of scandal.

A belief that the institution is doing God's work.

That can make disclosure more difficult.

When Everyone Around the Child Agrees

A child may be surrounded by adults who all accept the same explanation.

The priest agrees.

The parent agrees.

The teacher agrees.

The community agrees.

The child disagrees.

Numbers do not make the adults correct.

But numbers can make the child powerless.

The Outside Door Must Actually Lead Outside

That is why children need access to somebody outside the belief system.

But outside has to mean more than simply another adult.

If every available adult begins with the same religious explanation, the child may still be trapped inside the same closed loop.

A child frightened by religion needs the possibility of speaking with somebody who does not require the religious claim to be true before listening.

Somebody capable of saying:

“You do not have to prove that Satan does not exist before I ask whether someone hurt you.”

“You do not have to accept their God before I take your fear seriously.”

“You are allowed to question.”

“You are allowed not to know.”

“You are allowed to disagree.”

And eventually:

“You are allowed to become someone different from the people who raised you.”

That person might be a teacher.

A doctor.

A child-protection worker.

A police officer.

A relative.

A counsellor.

Or simply an adult who has themselves examined inherited belief and knows that a meaningful life can exist outside it.

The child needs somewhere to describe what is happening without first having to accept the religious explanation for it.

An outside door which leads only into another room controlled by the same belief system is not really an outside door.

The Closed Loop

That may be one of the most insidious features of a closed belief system.

The claim explains the fear.

The authority confirms the claim.

The community confirms the authority.

Questioning the claim is then treated as evidence that the person needs more instruction, more prayer, more discipline or greater obedience.

There may be no point inside the system from which the system itself can be examined.

For a child, that is especially powerful because the child may not yet know that other ways of understanding the world exist.

An outside perspective does not have to tell the child what to believe.

Its importance is that it demonstrates that thinking outside the closed loop is possible.

Child Protection Before Reputation

Institutions face another temptation.

Reputation.

A disclosure can threaten the standing of a church.

A school.

A religious leader.

A family.

A community.

But protecting the reputation of an institution cannot safely come before protecting the child.

The institution can recover from embarrassment.

The child may carry the consequences for a lifetime.

The Question Is Not Whether the Religion Is Good

Child protection should not require a verdict upon an entire religion.

A police officer does not need to decide whether Christianity is good.

A social worker does not need to decide whether Islam is true.

A doctor does not need to assess Buddhism.

A court does not need to approve or condemn atheism.

The question is narrower.

What happened to this child?

Australia Has the Broad Principle

In Queensland, the wording of child-protection law already provides an important starting point.

Harm can involve a significant detrimental effect upon physical, psychological or emotional wellbeing.

It may involve physical, psychological or emotional abuse or neglect.

It may involve sexual abuse or exploitation.

It can arise from a single act, omission or circumstance.

Or from a series or combination of them.

And the law says it is immaterial how the harm is caused.

That is broad enough to ask serious questions about harm caused through religious coercion.

What Australia Does Not Yet Say as Clearly

In the Australian material I have examined for this chapter, I have not yet found a national child-protection document as explicit as the Japanese guidance in setting out examples involving supernatural threats such as Hell and the use of religion to interfere with important choices in a child's developing life.

That does not mean such conduct is lawful in Australia.

It does not mean existing child-protection law cannot respond.

It means the mechanism appears to be less explicitly named in the material I have found so far.

That seems to me worth examining further.

The Advantage of Saying It Clearly

Explicit guidance can do something legislation alone may not do.

It can tell a frightened child:

“This kind of thing has been recognised before.”

It can tell a teacher what to notice.

It can tell a child-protection worker what questions to ask.

It can tell a religious organisation what boundaries exist.

It can tell parents that sincere belief does not make every method of enforcement acceptable.

And it can tell survivors that the harm does not cease to be harm merely because God was used to explain it.

When Religion Becomes Abuse

I do not think there is one sentence capable of defining every case.

But the boundary has become clearer to me.

Religion moves toward abuse when belief becomes a mechanism for harming, frightening, controlling, exploiting or neglecting another person.

It moves toward abuse when supernatural threats are used to overcome a child's ability to refuse.

When religious authority is used to prevent disclosure.

When a child is punished for thoughts.

When fear is mistaken for faith.

When compliance is mistaken for consent.

When obedience is mistaken for understanding.

When an adult's belief is given greater weight than the child's safety.

When a child is treated as evil rather than asked what happened.

When theology is allowed to conceal conduct which would be recognised as harmful without the theological label.

The Scale of the Failure

There is a larger historical question beneath all of this.

Threat, punishment and obedience have been available to human authority for thousands of years.

Religious institutions did not invent all of them.

Nor are they confined to religion.

But religious systems have sometimes been exceptionally capable of adding a supernatural dimension to them.

A human punishment ends.

A divine punishment can be described as eternal.

A human authority can observe behaviour.

A divine authority can be said to observe thoughts.

A parent can threaten rejection.

Religion can add rejection by God.

That multiplication of authority should have made understanding the effects of fear especially important.

Instead, the sophisticated understanding of trauma, child development, coercion and psychological responses upon which we now increasingly rely had to emerge through human observation, experience and research.

That larger omission belongs to another part of this book.

But its consequence belongs here.

Children can suffer greatly while adults remain convinced that the suffering is teaching them something good.

The Belief Can Stay

Nobody needs to outlaw belief in Hell to protect a child from being terrorised with it.

Nobody needs to outlaw belief in Satan to stop somebody hurting a child because they think the child is possessed.

Nobody needs to abolish religion to recognise coercion.

The believer may keep the belief.

What the believer may do to another human being remains a separate question.

The Child Has a Mind of Their Own

That separation takes me to the next question.

The adult has freedom of religion.

The parent has beliefs.

The church has beliefs.

The school may have a religious identity.

But the child also has a mind.

The child has developing autonomy.

The child can believe.

Doubt.

Question.

Change.

Reject.

Or simply say:

“I don't know.”

Freedom is therefore not merely a word attached to a law, a country or an institution.

For me it has to describe an active condition in which a person can think, question, refuse and change their mind without being terrorised for doing so.

If freedom of religion means anything, I increasingly think it must include that child as well.

The next question is therefore not only when religion becomes abuse.

It is what Australia means when it speaks about a child's freedom of thought.