Theology in the Raw - Is it Possible to Heal from the Trauma of Sexual Abuse? Dr. Dan Allender

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Check out the Theology in the Raw Patreon community for bonus content, extra episodes, and discounted event tickets!My guest today is Dr. Dan Allender. For over 30 years, his “Allender Theory” has brought healing and transformation to hundreds of thousands of lives by bridging the story of the gospel and the stories of trauma and abuse that mark so many. He’s written a bunch of life-changing books (e.g. The Wounded Heart, God Loves Sex) and is an incredible communicator. Most of all, he’s one of the most down to earth, Jesus-like, and delightful persons I’ve ever met. Dan will be speaking on healing from Sexual Trauma at Exiles in Babylon 2026! Part of our session titled Mental Health and the Gospel. Learn more here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Thealajara. I am beyond excited to have the one and only Dr. Dan Allender on Theology and Ra. This is long overdue. Dan Allender is, as I call him, I mean, the Master Yoda of Sexual Abuse and Recovery. And has just done so much amazing work in this field. And this conversation was beautiful, intense, and I think is going to be incredibly helpful for those of you out there who are dealing with, have dealt with, or need to deal with a past history of sexual abuse. So Dr. Dan Allender is a pioneer of a unique and innovative approach to trauma and abuse therapy. For over 30 years, the Allender theory has brought healing and transformation to hundreds of

thousands of lives by bridging the story of the gospel and the stories of trauma and abuse that mark so many people. He has an M. Div from Westminster Theological Seminary, PhD in Counseling Psychology from Michigan State University, and he is the author of many books, including The Wounded Heart, The Healing Path, To Be Told, and God Loves Sex. He's also co-authored several books with Trump or Longman

and other books with Kathy Lorzell, and also co-authored books with Steve Call. Dan also hosts the Allender Center's weekly podcast with Rachel Clinton Chen, which has more than three million downloads. So I am beyond excited to introduce this conversation to you. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only, Dr. Dan Allender. So Dan, welcome to Theology in Iraq. Thank you, Preston. And to be compared to Yoda, to think,

I'm a diminutive, odd creature whose syntax is disruptive. I can't think of a more accurate picture of me. Oh, my gosh. It's so funny. All right. We're off to a good start here. Dan, when, tell us just briefly about your background. You're, not everybody wakes up one day and says, hey, this is a field I want to go into.

When did this start in your life when you wanted to go into the work you're doing right now? That's a lovely question. And probably it's almost like asking, do you want the $250 tour? Do you want the $5? Or if you want the $10, it's a little scandalous. Let's do the $20. How about the $20 tour? Because I do want to spend the bulk of our time processing this really important topic.

But I do want to know a little bit of your background. Well, let me say, how did I get into the topic of abuse and then work backward? I was a newly minted Ph.D. from Michigan State. I was working with a woman in October, I would say around October 10, 1986. And we were in the fourth session. And out of nowhere, she asked the question, what do you know about sexual abuse? Now, I have a Master of Divinity from a Fine Seminary. I have a Master in Science in Community Counseling from a Fine School in Florida.

I have a PhD. I don't know. I don't add well, but that's like 11 or 12 years of graduate work. I didn't have a single minute on the topic of trauma or abuse or in particular sexual abuse. And I remember looking at her. And you know how you can make a decision in just a millisecond. But the process of putting words to it takes longer. I'm thinking I've got to lie because she won't work with me if I don't say that I know something.

But I knew I knew nothing. But I also knew her well enough after four sessions that if I said I did, she'd pursue what I know and I don't know. So I just told the truth and just said, I don't know anything. And she said, I know. And if you work with me, I'll teach you everything I know. So that was the, shall we say, the launch. But it actually captures something of the thematic of my own life. And that is, I didn't plan anything.

And I don't know how I got to where I am. But I am somewhere. And in that, I live with way more. sense of surprise than, in one sense, pride of intentionality. So I just, I don't know how I became a Christian other than I met my best friend, Tremper Longman III, after a period of significant abuse by a scoutmaster in a boys' camp. And in a music class, eighth grade, he tapped me on. the shoulder and asked if I had a comb.

It enraged me, and I almost drug him across the top of the desk and about to put a small tap on his face to let him know mistake. And he started laughing, literally in my face. And I had never encountered someone not mocking me, because many abusers had done that, but just genuinely laughing. And I didn't know what to do with him. So I put him back. We walked out of class that day.

He tapped me on the shoulder again and said, Would you like to come over to my home? And I looked at him and I said, who are you? And he said, Tremper Longman, the third. I have never in my life heard anyone call themselves the third. And I'm like, there are three others of you? Yeah, my grandfather and my father. So I ended up over his home that day.

And literally, it was the entry into a taste of what a really kind, dysfunctional, but loving family could be. And that was such a contrast to the craziness of my family. So the open door to the gospel came in the context of this tap on the shoulder. And that tap from Tremper, and in some sense the tap on the shoulder from this client, is how it got to be where I am. We were talking offline. That's how I first heard about your name, was from Tremper when I first, I think it was the first time I met him. I obviously knew who he was, but he came and taught a class at the Bible College that was teaching that. And I remember, you know, it was a tiny Bible college, 150 people.

And I was like telling everybody, like, Trenper's coming to teach. he said yes and he showed up and he taught a class on the song of songs and you you know how he approaches that book um it was hilarious it was eye opening and hilarious because he does he doesn't have much of a filter in a good way like he's like here's what these images are talking about and he talks about what those images are talking about but in such a raw yet tasteful beautiful way And I saw my class squirm and get uncomfortable and turned red, but then they saw the beauty of the heart of God in that book through its images, its sexual images, and it was masterful. So, yeah, we've kept up over the years. And as I told you offline, he's just kind of a model Bible scholar for me.

And it's so fascinating to you guys have been best friends since you're 13 years old. So going to that moment when you admitted you didn't know anything about sexual abuse. and then now this has been kind of the, seems like, the main focus of your work. What have you, maybe just start 30,000 foot. Like, help us get our arms around this topic. Where are the main things you've learned about sexual abuse and trauma? I know it's a big open-ended question. You can walk down that journey, however you want.

Well, let me take that to say that once I began to address the reality of abuse in this client's life, I did what I think any academic does, and that is, I started teaching on it. I thought you're going to say read books. Okay, I started teaching on it. Well, and I read books, and I started asking other people, and yet I think one of the things about teaching, and again, it's an immense privilege. I don't take it lightly that I have the privilege of trying to form ideas. in the context of a collaborative environment where people get to ask, push back, challenge, threaten, sometimes. And in that, I began to hone some of the core categories.

But I want to underscore, you know, in 1986, when I began teaching this, It wasn't exactly on the forefront of culture, let alone, certainly in the Christian community. So there wasn't a lot of support, but there were people that began to literally weep in my classes who would come to my office and share stories. And all of a sudden, the reality that I was beginning to hear from others what I was unwilling to face in my own life. So I began teaching a couple conferences and a dear friend. Psychologist came, sat with me, asked the question, have you ever been abused? And I answered, no. And asked again, have you ever been abused?

And again, the point is, asked two or three times, and each time I answered more irritatedly, no. And he finally said, just let me ask it again. have you ever felt sexually used by another human being? Have you ever felt sexual shame? And my response was, yeah. And he was like, like when? I gave him a couple stories. And literally, he's sitting in front of me, having gone through the conference that I just taught and said,

how could you say you're not been sexually abuse? And I said again, I haven't been. And he said, what if we use your definition? And I literally said to him, well, if you use that definition. And he began to weep. And he said this simple phrase, yeah, what if we use your definition? And I don't know why. But that moment, literally the veil splintered.

And I just, I mean, I couldn't have been more. shocked of just sort of looking, proverbially, in the mirror, and then saying, I have a history of abuse. So I think the first thing I'd want to underscore is, for many people hearing this, they've not been willing to name a reality that at some level they know to be true, because we often define abuse in such a way that it excludes our experience. In other words, there's so much heartache, so much shame regarding abuse, that it's imperative that we underscore that it's just not enough to have someone say to you, it's not your fault. It's a beautiful sentence.

It's a lovely gift. But it does not change any human's heart, other than perhaps create a momentary sense of relief. That's why I began to work with these categories of we've got to enter into betrayal, the experience of being used, set up called grooming. We've got to deal with the experience of powerlessness because in every regard, the abuser was bigger. and you did not have power. So whether the abuser was a year older or 30 years older, they had a sophistication, a control, a power that left you at significant levels unable to create any level of playing field that's level.

So betrayal alone is enough to do profound damage to the human heart. and the loss of trust, the loss of faith. But when we lose power, we lose a sense of hope. So you can see the trajectory. It took a long time for me to begin to see that the effects of betrayal and powerlessness were significant in terms of disruption of faith and hope. Wow.

But as Scripture says very clearly, and the greatest of these is love. Well, the most diabolic consequence of abuse is shame. And again, it's very painful for people to hear this. If it's the first time, they've actually begun to ponder this. But if I can put it this bluntly, with the abuser touched you or even visually used you or even verbally engaged you in a way that was solicitous and violating. There was something in your body that felt, even if I use this dangerous word, that felt some degree of arousal.

You can't touch a human face. You cannot touch primary or secondary sexual body parts where there are more nerve endings than any other part of your body except your taste buds. and think that you won't feel some degree of pleasure. Now, you know, in most occasions, this is bound to fear, to horror, to disgust. But when you combine arousal pleasure with some degree of horror and shame, you've got a volatile cocktail that is almost impossible to drink without having a sense that something has soiled you, fouled you. And that's where I do see the ultimate, shall we say, perpetrator, is the kingdom of Satan, evil, kingdom of darkness. because what does it want most fundamentally to do in the ruination of the glory of God

in the human dignity of a human being? And that's to destroy faith, hope, and love. Gosh, it's so helpful. Your experience of already teaching on it, knowing about it, yet not realizing that you were a victim, is that, I guess two questions. Is that very common? and why is that among people who have been abused? Well, I don't claim not to be obdurate and somewhat hard-headed and, you know,

I'm not the brightest bulb in the pack. But I also want to say, I don't think it's that rare for people to linguistically find a way to escape the horror of what they suffered. I work with a woman who was a sexual crimes detective. And as she told me her story, she kept using the word molestation. My uncle molested me. And I just stopped at one point, and I said, are you using the word molestation similar to the word sexual abuse? And she goes, oh, absolutely not.

Oh, wow. And it went, okay, how so? How, well, he only touched my breasts, my face. He never penetrated me. And I'm like, oh, so sexual abuse is only when there has been penile or manual insertion. And she was like, well, no. I'm not trying to catch her in a contradiction. I'm simply saying for most of us, one of the means by which we have survived.

without having to address the reality of what comes when betrayal comes, hypervigilance. When we feel betrayed, we get really hypervigilant making sure no one has access to fool us again. What happens with powerlessness? Well, eventually you find a means to deaden what you experienced. and that's why almost all of us have some degree of addiction. And then with regard to shame, well, we hide. Look, we've cut Genesis 3, and it should be clear that the role of shame will cause us to hide and to cover and then assault someone, ultimately God, with the woman you made, she gave me the fruit.

and then the almost silence of, yeah, I ate it. So those realities are playing out in the way we operate in the world, let alone the way we address the reality of our own internal world. So I want folks to be able to hear. There is such defensiveness, such opposition, such a reluctance, to name the reality of where we've been victimized. Hey, friends, you know on Theology Nirold that we're always trying to get beneath the surface of the text and really wrestle with what the Bible is saying.

One of the best ways to do that is by learning the languages that the Bible was written in Greek and Hebrew. That's why I am so stoked to tell you about Biblingo. This is a well-produced and effective app that makes learning biblical languages possible. for everyone. Okay, so what I studied Greek and Hebrew in seminary, you know, we memorized a lot. But if I'm honest, we didn't learn to read the biblical texts fluently. I truly wish I had Biblingo back then because if I did, I would have become a fluent reader in biblical Greek and Hebrew from the beginning. Now, let's be honest, most of us don't have time to grind through a seminary textbook. That's what I love what Biblingo is doing. They've created a way to actually learn,

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use the code T-I-T-R-10 for 10% off your first year. That's T-R-T-R-10 for 10% off at biblingo.com. Check it out. I think I know the answer to this, but just to confirm, is the first step toward a healthy healing process? Is this the first step? Like naming, like verbally naming, I have been a victim of sexual abuse. Is that the first step? I really think so.

Just owning what my uncle did when he opened the bathroom door, watch me shower, and ogled my body. I've always just said, oh, he was weird. Icky. Language that's really young, but doesn't really get to the reality that, no, even though he never touched me, that was sexually abusive. And it has consequences. You know, it's, you know, the metaphor of you can break your arm and not have a cast, will the body, in some sense, heal? Yeah, but not as the creator, lover of your body and soul desires. And that's part of the hard labor of in the admittance of I've been abused to be able to then say, and what elements of truth.

now require me to take the next step. No one will just jump into the deep end and then learn to swim, not where sharks are as well. But there has to be that sense of I put my feet in the water and as terrifying as it is, even if I have to take them back out, I intend to put them back in. I think that's the first step. I want to get to the next step, but before we do, Can you explain, elaborate on what does constitute sexual abuse and maybe be helpful

to name some things like this. It doesn't constitute sexual abuse. He even said, like, it doesn't have to be touch. An uncle staring at you in the shower is a non-touch, touch, what's the non-tactile? It's not physical touching, but that would be categorized as sexual abuse. I'm sure some people listening have maybe in the last five minutes come to grips. with, oh, so I have been sexually abused. What are some other areas that maybe people listening that they're wondering, have

I been sexually abused or not? Brilliant question. So whenever someone has brought into your body touch or into your visual experience, pornography, or whenever has spoken words auditory, in other words, when there has been a sensual violation of your dignity as an image bearer for their sexual pleasure, you have the reality of sexual abuse. So that eight-year-old boy who's just been longing to be accepted by the 12-year-olds who have a tree fort, and he finally gets the offer to come up. And then they show him magazines. Again, that's sort of an old image of pornography, but what's happening, for example,

on school buses regularly with your seatmate who opens up his iPhone and compels you to look at scenes that are deeply violating. And you don't turn away. It feels like your fault. But you've literally are being betrayed, you are powerless, and there will be the experience of ambivalence, that is, how could you not feel some degree of intrigue and arousal, whilst also a sense of this is not right? I know this is not right. Something's really wrong. All that gets metabolized in our body with the proclivity to see ourselves as the one who is dangerous, who is dark, and who in some sense is foul. That's what I mean by shame.

So abuse is the tool of evil to create a sense of curse with regard to your own identity, your own body, and certainly your own arousal. Golly, that's helpful. That's super helpful. I guess another related question. What are some common characteristics of a groomer, whether it's steps they're taking personality traits? Because I know we have some maybe parents listening. I deal a lot with parents.

Our mutual friend, Lori Krieg, you know, is knee-deep in this conversation with helping parents, parents, parents, or kids at an early age. through developing a healthy sexuality and one of the areas that we've dealt with. As you know, you're a part of a resource we recently produced on helping parents to identify, like, potentially unsafe, usually close, maybe relatives or whatever. Like, what are some common characteristics that parents should be on to look out for? Again, great question. I'll just say, as an aside, what a profound honor to have been part of that. documentary and that labor. You all have Lori in particular, but you all have created a really beautiful gift to the kingdom of God. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think it launches today,

actually. So I am, parents are chomping at the bit, which is really encouraging. It shows that parents are desperately wanting to disciple their kids in this area in a healthy way. And you contributed significantly to it. I mean, your contribution to that was absolutely incredible. Thank you. But so back to, let's just say what I said in one of the videos. There is no way under what it means to love. There's no way you can keep your children from being sexually harmed. So as egregious of a statement as that is and heartbreaking,

The reality is that, indeed, you can talk about abuse, you can talk about grooming, you can talk about how groomers go about doing what they do. But one of the things that you're going to have to help children engage sounds counterintuitive, and that is you don't believe all authorities. And therefore, you're setting sometimes children up to have a greater difficulty because there are a lot of authorities to trust. But generally speaking, about 26% of abuse occurs in the family, what we call incest. about 67% of abuse occurs outside of the family, but someone whom the child knows. Could be a neighbor, could be a youth pastor, could be a policeman. Again, the point being, it's anybody. So your assumption that, well, this family's safe because they go to our church.

Oh, give that up. They're safe because they went to seminary. Sorry. So I'm not trying to create paranoia and hypervigilance. I just want you to address the reality that in a world like ours, my dear friend John Eldridge, will put it this way, it's a great love story set in a tragic and horrible war. So if you think you can keep your choice,

children from the effects of living in a fallen world, then you're already living with a level of self-righteousness and false power. However, yes, we can engage the things that you, Lori, and others have done brilliantly to invite us to have good, hard conversations. But with my children, when they were going to youth group, we talked about what do abuse? groomers do. And part of the answer is they treat you in a very special way in order to segment you, to separate you from others. So when there's somebody who wants to spend time with you and nobody else,

somebody who has something special to tell you and nobody else, That interplay of they attune well to what the heart of a child desires while simultaneously creating a kind of isolation and secrecy. A lot of groomers will spend a year or more creating that level of connection to then begin to bring touch that appears to be appropriate, but still is arousing, having somebody touch your shoulder. Again, I don't want to create paranoia so anybody who touches a child is clearly grooming. That's just not true. But on the other hand, an adult needs to be aware. The power of touch creates a deepened connection. And when that person is grooming, they will then

attempt to take that touch a little further, a little further, a little further, a little further. So words like this, when you're uncomfortable with an adult, you tell me. When you feel something feels weird, that's language a child would use. Icky. Oh, honey, you tell me. And if you fear, you're causing trouble. We'll work that out. We'll handle that.

But I don't want you ever to be in the presence of somebody who is really kind and good and sweet. And yet something in your body says something's wrong. So helping a child learn to distinguish when their body feels well and when it doesn't. Again, I've gone into businesses where it's a very legitimate good business. And I walked into the room or into the office and just internally went, I don't like this place. Well, I'm not going to say I'm right, but I need to learn how to honor my body in those contexts. And that's part of the work of a parent, is to help them a child learn how to engage and read their body and read the face and the language of another person. I used to sit with them and watch an advertisement.

And then instead of going on to the rest of the show, just for a minute, say, what are they trying to accomplish? What are they trying to hook you with? What are they promising you? Because our advertising structure is really a form of grooming. I'm not saying it's evil, but it's a form of grooming. So helping a child learn, there are people who are attempting to manipulate you to do things. How do we learn to read that? Well, that's a significant gift.

Thank you. Oh, my gosh. Okay, let's get back to the second step. The first step toward the path of healing is naming it, is coming to grips with, I have been abused and being able to say that out loud. What would be the next step? Well, let's just say, I don't mind. And I like the category of steps, but I want to be cautious and to say it's more liquid.

You know, a step has a clearer. Here's where you put your first step, then you step second and then third. And that's how we organize our thinking. As long as you hear, for example, telling the truth will be. a process that goes through the whole experience of engaging the drama and the trauma of past abuse. Because none of us take the truth in and have the truth. We take truth in, that we take more truth in, and we take more truth in that sense of there is a kind of revelation that occurs through the process.

But I would say a major second step is the simple point from Romans chapter. 2, verse 4. It is the kindness of God that leads to repentance. And then Paul adds this phrase, why do you treat the kindness of God with contempt? So kindness for your young heart. If you were 8, you were 12, you were 22 when you were abused. I've worked with women who are in their 50s, who were abused by physicians. So don't think sexual abuse is an experience solely of the young, but it's the primary category. But those young parts of you that felt seduced, that felt bound to an abuser who tenderly engaged you, how will you deal with that eight-year-old who felt a love?

live in the presence of that youth pastor, how will you deal with the fact that you lost some degree of power and control? We are not kind to the parts of ourselves that feel ashamed, powerless, and betrayed. So it's not a simple, like one-time shot here, but I know that you have a proclivity to contempt. So as we endage your story, I'm aware that contempt rises. I can see it in your eyes. I can see it in your voice. I can see it in your vocabulary. I can see it through your body. We've got to disrupt contempt because contempt is language of the kingdom of darkness. And that's the form of accusation. Until we undermine the accusations, that you have utilized to make yourself pay as a form of curse for what your body experienced,

then all the knowledge, all your awareness, does not actually become somatic. It doesn't become something that you can be and live in. So in that sense, kindness disrupts contempt. Contempt is the war against your soul. And in this regard, what are you repenting? of. Damn it, never having been abused, that you don't repent of that, but you repent of the violence you have perpetrated against yourself in the contempt you've held. In that sense, you're giving up power, because contempt has power, for how you've managed your own way of

making it through the heartache of your own life. So in that sense, you've got language like this. You have broken cisterns that you are attempting to get water from. You've got Isaiah 30, the first five verses, that talk about Egypt is your place of refuge, and the prophet is crying out, saying it is in repentance and rest that will be your salvation. So we've got to step into your story, not at 30,000 feet, but in the particularity of the story of the grooming, of the violation, and the aftermath. So in that sense, it's not a step, it's a series of steps. Step into the particularity of the story with kindness to disrupt contempt and a promise, though, this will.

sound maybe outlandish, you will see the goodness of God and the land of the living. I have a good friend of mine, one of my best friends, Joel, I just had him on the podcast, and he was a victim of a very, was it grooming, almost like a seduced into an abusive relationship without feeling like he was being violated. It was years later, years later after going through the Allender Center where he was able to name this years later. He's a Bible scholar. I mean, you know, and he said, he remember, I don't know if it was you or somebody at the center said something like the, you might need to clean this up.

It was something like the depth of your healing will be as deep as the depth of you naming the particularities. You need to be able to get to the really nitty, gritty roots. remember him even we're sitting at his house one night it was like 10 years ago and he he was like really describing what happened I was like wide eye like oh my word like I've never had anybody go beyond vague kind of terminology not that you know we're good friends so you can do that but um he said that was the most profound things he he learned the steps towards healing was being very as painful it is as it is as it is as it is as

opens up categories that have been hidden for years, those wounds that have been like, it's almost like an infected wound. It's been calloused over until you really open that up and clean it out. Full, well, healthy healing. I don't know if there's ever full healing, but healthy healing, it just can't happen until you really get down to the nitty-gritty. Is that, I'm sure I'm butchering some things, but can you expand on that if I'm on the right track? I love what you put words to. Think of metaphors. Do you want to just strafe something or do you want a smart bomb that hits within five meters of the target? Do you want radiation therapy that just sort of obliterates or do you want it to be precise? So step back to the reality that stories shape us,

not concepts particularly. I'm not saying concepts are unimportant, but what shapes us. Like, you know, I could tell you a lot about the last sermon I heard a couple days ago, but the power of the stories in Scripture and the power of the stories illustrating the stories stay with me far more than the three points that were the outline of the sermon. If you put a gun to my head, I couldn't tell you what the three points were. But I could take you into the text and into how this excellent pastor shaped. So back to the point of, I work with a woman who had been abused when she was 13 by her father on a business trip.

And she said something like, he abused me when I got out of the bathroom. And again, is it possible that he literally lurked outside the bathroom door and abused her that moment? Yeah, not likely. And so I said to her, he abused you the moment you got out of the bathroom. And she said, no, no, not the moment. Now, I'm not going to ask her, when did he abuse you? It's your story. You will tell me what you want to tell me.

I don't need to intrude in it. and she said, he abused me when I got into the bed with him. Well, is that more likely? Yes. But the second she got into the bed, again, not likely. And I said to her, the moment you got into the bed, he abused you, at this point, she became enraged. And she said, no, I won't say the words. No, no.

And she shut down. We probably had a minute and a half of just enraged silence on her part. And she looked at me and she said, do you want to know the details essentially saying you're a perverted man who is asking me to divulge something pernicious? And all I could say to her back was, it's your story, not mine. you share whatever you want. And it took another moment. And again, this is a story in which there are plenty of other stories that don't work out this way. She began to weep.

And I think she became more tender kind to that young 13-year-old girl. And she said, I was on the edge of the bed. and my father began to pat the bed next to him. Didn't say a word, just patted the bed. And I knew what he was demanding. And I moved my body from the edge of the bed to be next to him. It was that literal physical movement that was more shameful for her than the sexual violations that occurred.

So I don't know where shame resides, but it's a cancer. And we've got to address the particularity of where shame resides in your body and story if we're going to see the healing that indeed can occur. So much like radiation, I don't want to just obliterate that part of the body. I want to get to the particular moments where shame holds. And for many people, their first response to hearing that is not just a sense of horror, like, oh, good God, no. But I don't remember. How do I don't remember?

I just know that something awful happened when I was 14 years of age with an uncle. And that's part of the dilemma that you don't need to know. the Spirit of God, when you have a commitment to tell the truth with kindness, the Spirit of God will give you over time, whatever details, whatever particularity needs to be addressed. And so we don't have to go through. Many of us have countless experiences of violation. Thank God, you don't have to go through each and every one of them. But what has to be done is a disruption of the power of shame and the power and the presence of contempt that becomes the locked way we attempt to resolve that sense of being foul.

Dan, I feel like I'm fighting back tears of horror, sadness, and anger. How do you deal with that? I can't imagine living with these hundreds, thousands of stories and not feel enraged and almost nihilistic or just, and I know Jesus is the answer and there's hope and all that. I can affirm all that. I just, do you get angry? Do you get, what are you, what are you if I can ask? I know this is turned at a hard corner, but what, what feelings should we have?

towards others who have gone through, or towards ourselves, if somebody has gone through this, you know? Anger has to be a very natural, maybe even healthy response. Amen. Amen. Well, let me just say, well, Preston, you're a good man. You're a good man. I have three daughters. And that's what a good man would feel, enraged, tearful, grief, at some level confusion and even fear. So to let your body suffer in some sense, all that Jesus was willing to endure on our behalf is a framework. When Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, I think verse 10,

every day I live in my body, the death of Jesus, so that I might live in my body, the life of Jesus. That's what it means to be a good man, a good woman. Do you bear death every day and do you bear life every day? And does one cancel the other out? When death cancels out life, indeed you're a nihilist. When life cancels out death, you are a fabulous, you are, you're a cheery person who's not willing to enter the dark. realities of living in Psalm 23.

So all I can say is, I am one of the most, I'll just say it, I am a billionaire, not monetarily, I guarantee you. I have the privilege of holding thousands of stories of heartache and rage and tears, but I also have been privileged to see the rising of the resurrection and the power of that defiance to say, hell no, I will not participate in the language and the methods of the kingdom of darkness. But I get to be part of the growing beauty and glory of becoming who I was meant to be. And I get to be part of that. I'm a billionaire.

I cannot imagine if somebody were to say, we'll give you $10 billion if you give up those stories. And all I can say is, oh, I would like $10 billion to see what I could do with it. No. But no. So in that sense, yes, I'm enraged. Yes, there are days in which I can only fantasize murder, but I also am aware that I am.

am needing as much forgiveness as those who have done harm because I have done harm. So in that intersection of, I'm a victim, but I've also violated, not like X, well, all right, so what? You know, when Paul says of himself in First Timothy chapter one, here is a trustworthy statement worthy of your full acceptance. He doesn't save that phrase ever again. Not in the same way. And he says, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst. I am the worst.

Well, I can't claim canonically I'm the worst, but I would say I stand likely as the second. So in that sense, all I know is I get to participate in telling the truth and helping people become the truth. And therefore, I get to, in one sense, disturb my own need for forgiveness. Years ago, through a study of Scripture, I became committed to, scripturally committed to nonviolence on a theological level. But man, this topic is the one thing that can drive the pacifism out of anybody. Yes. Well, you've got language like this. It would be better for the man who has done harm to one of my little ones to hang a millstone around his neck and throw himself into the deepest part of the ocean.

But then in the same passage, he says, and with faith, as small as the so-called mustard seed, you can throw this mountain into the sea. You can plant trees. So it's like, yeah, hang yourself, but also, no, I hung myself. Yeah. Two more quick questions about individual healing. And then I have one more question about on a church level. What do we do with this seems to be rampant or just, I don't know, it almost feels sometimes like an incubator for abuse, churches, not dealing with it right and everything.

So I want to get to the ecclesiological question, but two questions on the individual path of healing. when and how does forgiveness play a role and is there hope of, let's just say, complete healing this side of the resurrection? With the forgiveness piece, it was actually my friend Joel, who I mentioned earlier, who told me just recently, it is counterproductive to demand forgiveness or even advocate for that early in the healing process. This is something that there's other things that need to happen way before true forgiveness can happen. Sure, forgiveness is part of that healing process, but too often people demand that way too early. So that's my first question. Could you expand on that? Yeah, to put it bluntly, it's part why following the book Wounded Heart, I wrote a book with Trimper Longman called Bold Love, which is essentially trying to grapple with that question of what does it mean to forgive?

And look, if a woman is under the threat of any form of domestic violence, what should she do? Call 9-1-1. Because that's a gift to the man who is threatening her body in life. But does calling 911 mean she doesn't have a heart to forgive? So when we ask to forgive and we're avoiding consequences, actually, we're indulging in the worst form of parenting. We're indulging in the worst form of violating human dignity. So to honor the reality that we're forgiven, but if you smoke through a lifetime, you're likely going to have debilitating consequences. God doesn't take those away. So in the reality of can we deal with what's true, any pastor who's aware of there's abuse but doesn't want to disrupt the church,

doesn't want, it requires the victim to forgive so we don't report. That man, from my standpoint, should not only lose his ministry, but go to jail. That would be a loving thing for that man. I'm not looking for vengeance for that man. I'm looking for consequences that would open the door to proper repair. So when we are aware that forgiveness is not the end, but is the process of movement to address the reality of our own need for forgiveness, but also our need to bring a redemptive process on behalf of the other. Gosh. As far as healing goes, should somebody, if they go through all the quote-unquote steps,

I don't love that language either, is only organizing category I had, but should they expect to be healed? or this side of the resurrection should they expect to always carry some wounds and heartache and difficulties in life, or is it person-to-person dependent? Oh, again, this is a brilliant question that would require much more. But let me say this. The nature of growing in Christ is you become more aware of what you need forgiveness for and healing for. So in some sense, American capitalism love it, but the notion of you get a lot and your money begins to make money for yourself, passive income.

That's not the view of sanctification. The more you get of maturity, the more you see of your own brokenness and need for forgiveness. So in that sense, the paradox is I'm crazier today than I was when I was really dangerous. I need grace more today than I needed it when I was involved in, I'll put it in a euphemism, you know, illicit pharmaceutical sales, I did great harm to myself and others. I need more forgiveness today than I need even then. So if we begin to look at the reality that becoming like Jesus always opens the door to new levels of call to new maturity and new healing. So when John says, when you see him, then you will become as he is. That means until the

day I stand in his presence, there will be new healing that will be potential. So from that standpoint, I'm excited about, I'm a 73-year-old troubled man. I love Jesus today more than I did a year ago. As I get closer to death, I'm actually kind of looking forward to being with him. But prior to that, if I've got a day of a year or decades, all I can say is I get to know him better. And that is the point that none of us are fully healed until we're with him. So good. All right. Lastly, let's talk about the church. I don't know where to start. It feels like there's a greater awareness in the church of abuse. And yet it also feels like there's a greater prevalence of abuse.

And maybe those go hand in hand. Maybe it's always been a big problem. And now we're just more exposed to it. How should, I don't know, some big picture pieces of advice? I think there is the reality of more abuse, but also we're more aware. And it's hard to know at one level, is it because we know more, we're seeing more, or is there a heightened degree of perpetration? Research indicates that actually abuse is more prominent, not just because it's more exposed. In other words, we're seeing a day in which the violence of our day is ultimately often taken out on innocence.

and beauty. And in that sense, we're looking at one of the motives for abusers is to have the power to degrade beauty and innocence. And why would we think that the church would be immune to the reality that because of how we have mishandled the category of forgiveness, how we've misunderstood the mercy of God, perpetrators, and more than just pedophiles, but perpetrators know there's a heightened degree of safety in certain settings. And the church happens to be one of those places where historically, you can see at the Roman Catholic Church, you can certainly see it in most Protestant churches, where there has been a reluctance to name abusers, a reluctance to seek consequences, and oftentimes heartbreaking blame on the victim.

So disrupting something that has been part of the modus operandi for, and again, this will sound dramatic, but I think it's an accurate phrase, for millennia, takes more than a few decades, frankly, more than a century. And we're in a disruptive period, culturally, politically, and many other ways, and often we're still often wanting to put the responsibility on the person who's been harmed. That's no longer the case in the church. And we hold pastors, elders, leaders, responsible for their failure to protect and engage, then I think we will see the church become what it's meant to be. And that's the safest place on Earth.

Yeah. That is scary that like the church can have, can be not just yet another social space where abuse happens like in the other social space, but can almost be a safe haven because people have, you know, in a sense, access to. kids. Especially if a church is not shown any signs of dealing with abuse, you can have access to the people and things can be tolerated. Just the last question, are there some things churches can do besides screening people and this, that, like, is there any proactive things churches can do to declare that if you're an abuser, this is not a good place? Like,

you will be dealt with. Is there any kind of deterrent churches can have for groomers so that they don't see church as a place where they can do what they do? Well, you didn't set me up for this. Let's just say that's a very strong statement on my part. But what you're doing through your center, what you're doing through Lori's book and the podcast that you've done and certainly the documentary. It's a profound gift because we need to talk about sex in a way that is not just condemnatory, don't do X.

No less than that, but way more than that. And therefore, when we have honest, broken hard discussions about sexuality, not just adults, but adolescents and children, because children are having encounters with pornography at despicably young ages. So all we can then be able to say is the more we tell the truth about the nature of our own reality and the reality of our bodies, it then requires us to be aware that there are those who are using. I mean, when we look at the fact that the highest amount of money being made off of pornography is child pornography. Then you have to begin to go, this isn't just a few handful of bad men.

This is a prominent reality. When we look at human trafficking and go, it's not just foreign countries. When we begin to go, evil is going to center its primary work against human dignity through violation of our bodies sexually. Let's tell the truth. The more we do that in the context of sermons, conferences, podcasts, et cetera, like what we're doing right now, the more people have then the freedom to be able to go, why would we be surprised? that abusers groom, that indeed this happens with a wide variety of people from lawyers, doctors, Indian chiefs, pastors, therapists, podcasters, it's not, don't trust anyone. It's enter into honest, hard discussions and let these categories filter into our understanding

of what evil's doing to destroy faith, hope, and love. The more we do that, the more hope I have that my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren will have a different future than what many of us have known so far. Dan, you're a gift to the church in the world and to me. So thank you so much for taking time to come on Theodontana Ra. Where can people find your work? Well, you know, they can call, you know, Amazon and get a book or two. You know, the Allender Center.org is a great entry place into some of the work that we're offering. Thanks, Dan, so much.

Appreciate you. Have a good day. Preston. Thank you. I don't know.