Introduction

Enduring detriment effects from various forms of interpersonal trauma such as intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and war are widespread and have continued to contribute to contemporary global health issues (Byrant-Davis & Wong, 2013). Studies have repeatedly revealed that impacts from these deeply injurious modes of trauma affect individuals extensively in all areas of health, mental health, and mortality (Bowland et al., 2011; Byrant-Davis, 2005; Edwards et al., 2004; Felitti et al., 1998). In the case of victims of sexual violence trauma, not only are victims negatively predisposed to long-term risks in their physical, cognitive, behavioral, and social capacities and well-being, but they are additionally exposed to challenges related to their spiritual health due to their shattering experiences of injustice and suffering (Eytan & Ronel, 2023).

In an earlier study in which I examined the multifaceted phenomenology of Hong Kong Christian women survivors of sexual violence, I found that faith communities often fail to respond to the acute and complex needs of the victims in an effective and timely manner, which intensifies the gravity of the sustained primary trauma by causing “secondary traumatization” with victim blaming, minimization, and abuse of institutional power (Yih, under review). Collectively, their grievous experiences within their once trusted faith communities have left them more depleted and vulnerable as they navigate the onerous recovery journey. In this study, I focus on the spiritual aspects of victims’ recovery from the impacts caused by the responses of their faith communities. I seek to contribute to the growing research on the role of religiosity, understood as an individual’s commitment and relationship to the endorsed beliefs and practices of a sacred institution such as the church (Good & Willoughby, 2008), among sexual assault survivors and to further expand on this nuanced understanding in the development of a holistic, faithful, and trauma-informed pastoral care approach to support those in their most acute times of need.

Sexual violence trauma

Beyond the numerous psychosocial implications of the overwhelming consequences of sexual violence trauma, including but not limited to challenges from deep sentiments of powerlessness (Ronel, 2008), self-blame, and guilt (Peter-Hagene & Ullman, 2018), anger (Allen et al., 2017), loss of trust (Lahav et al., 2020), and the predisposition to post-traumatic stress disorder (Fayaz, 2023) and revictimization (Brenner et al., 2021) is the impact on the victim’s spiritual meaning-making process (Eytan & Ronel, 2023). Traumatic experiences of any form can disrupt individuals’ previously held assumptions about the world as well as shatter their meaning-making frameworks (Janoff-Bulman, 1989). However, when the traumatic events are caused by deliberate human actions, as in the case of sexual violence, the implications for recovery are made more complicated by the distinctive challenges associated with this form of violence, such as the feeling of shame and the perceived stigma due to the sexual nature of the assault (Fayaz, 2023). These additional struggles intensify the pathogenic outcomes mentioned above, with increased reports of suicidal attempts, substance abuse, sexual dysfunction, social isolation, and obsessive–compulsive behaviors (Catabay et al., 2019). As a result, the healing needs and processes following sexual violence trauma are significantly more complex than for other forms of trauma, necessitating focused efforts to address and reshape these shattered core beliefs and to rebuild survivors’ sense of trust and safety (Bromet et al., 2017; Goldmann & Galea, 2014).

Survivors with a religious orientation, including Christian women, often first turn to their faith by seeking pastoral care and support from their clergy or church communities in their healing process (Levy & Eckhaus, 2020; Park & Gutierrez, 2013; Young et al., 2003). Indeed, the evidence for the beneficial role of religion in addressing the spiritual and existential aspects of healing from trauma (Pargament, 2009), and its specific effectiveness in the treatment of sexual abuse, is well documented in ongoing research (Farrell, 2009; Rudolfsson & Tidefors, 2015). Religion has been defined as “the search for significance that occurs within the context of established institutions that are designed to facilitate spirituality” (Pargament et al., 2013, p. 15). Spirituality refers to the more personalized pursuit and relationship with what is considered sacred in the person’s life, which are often facilitated by a system of beliefs, values, and practices of religious institutions (Harper & Pargament, 2015; Pargament, 2007). The existential aspect of trauma healing describes “the sense of wellbeing that is experienced when people find purposes to which they commit themselves and that involve ultimate meaning of life” (Feinauer et al., 2003, p. 202). The different religious practices of prayer, meditation, and liturgical rituals offered in churches can serve to address and begin the rebuilding of their shattered identity and meaning-making capacities resulting from the trauma as well as fostering reconnection and a sense of safety from belonging to their faith communities (Oman & Thoresen, 2005).

Clergy, who are trained to support those in times of need in addressing the spiritual and existential repercussions of life crises, have been identified as an essential mental health resource (Hendron et al., 2011). However, as was earlier alluded to, the needs associated with sexual trauma recovery extends beyond spiritual and existential challenges to encompass many enduring psychosocial, behavioral, and physical effects (Chen et al., 2010) requiring integrated psychological counselling knowledge that is outside the customary scope of clerical seminary training (Rudolfsson & Tidefors, 2015; Smith, 2004). As a result of this lack in training to enable clergy to become more trauma-competent in pastoral care, Christian victims of sexual violence who summon great courage to disclose their experiences and seek help from the church are often met with disappointing reactions from pastoral care providers (Ullman, 2003). These negative responses commonly encountered by survivors range from not feeling supported to having their experiences of trauma denied or minimized (Bowland et al., 2011; Nason-Clark, 1997). Many are met with general theological solutions such as prayers for dealing with their suffering (Rudolfsson & Tidefors, 2015), are pressured to embrace unconditional forgiveness for their offenders and to suffer in silence (Fortune, 1988; Nason-Clark, 1999), or feel rushed towards recovery (Tidefors & Drougge, 2006). Instead of attaining the hoped-for congregational and pastoral support and spiritual connectedness from religious beliefs and practices as first steps to move towards healing, survivors’ healing may be impeded if they are additionally overwhelmed with strong feelings of spiritual alienation, abandonment by, and anger towards God (Murray-Swank, 2004). In other words, turning towards religious resources as a way of co** with interpersonal trauma such as sexual violence does not always result in positive outcomes with enhanced mental health, stress-related growth, and lower levels of mortality and hostility (Bowland et al., 2011; Murray-Swank & Pargament, 2005). It is also possible that contradictory results may be generated, impeding healing with a worsening of their psychological symptoms with depression and anxiety (Exline et al., 2000) and an intensification of the challenges of spiritual struggles for trauma victims (McNulty & Wardle, 1994; Rudolfsson & Tidefors, 2015).

Specifically regarding instances of sexual assault recovery involving care by church communities to which the survivors had previously belonged, studies have revealed that one of the most important predictive indicators of the occurrence of spiritual trauma depends not only on the trauma itself but also on the responses by these faith communities (Prusak & Schab, 2022). As mentioned, victims frequently face much disappointment in their experience with pastoral or congregational support, which severely exacerbates the primary traumatic overwhelm with the additional wounding experience of feeling rejected and abandoned by the church (Doyle, 2011). These negative responses hinder the victims’ healing, resulting in various faith-related challenges collectively known as spiritual struggles characterized by “a generalized, relatively stable tendency to experience tensions associated with matters of faith and relationship with God” (Zarzycka, 2017, p. 25).

Spiritual struggle

Spiritual struggle as a concept has also been known as “spiritual distress” (King et al., 2017) “moral injury” (**kerson, 2016), “religious crisis” (Piedmont, 2012), and “spiritual pain” (Delgado-Guay et al., 2011). It is not an uncommon occurrence in life, irrespective of age, ethnicity, gender, culture, and socioeconomic status (Exline & Grubbs, 2011; Exline et al., 2012), and can be defined as “experiences of tension, conflict, or strain that center on whatever people view as sacred” (Pargament & Exline, 2022, p. 5). Such occurrence can be found not only in Christian communities but also in people with other religious orientations, including Muslims (Abu-Raiya et al., 2015), Hindus (Tarakeshwar et al., 2003), Buddhists (Philips et al., 2009), Jews (Abu-Raiya et al., 2016), those who identify with “spiritual but not religious” (Mercadante, 2020), and even atheists (Sedlar et al., 2018). These experiences of distress and disorientation are pivotal in sha** an individual’s life trajectory, especially in vulnerable times when they need to recover from major life events such as sexual trauma.

Spiritual struggle and sexual trauma

Studies have found a high reliance on religious co** strategies among sexual trauma survivors navigating the aftermath of an assault, such as turning to religious activities and people from their church for support and guidance and relying on their faith in God to redefine and find meaning from the event (Pargament et al., 2000). Pargament and his team have categorized these two types of religious co** into (1) a positive dimension describing the various ways which enable the person to gain intimacy with God and others as well as meaning in life and (2) a negative religious co** dimension referring to the opposite effects of spiritual discontent and disconnection ranging from questioning their beliefs to denouncing religion completely (Pargament et al., 2001; Ryan, 1998). These two dimensions of co** mechanisms each have a degree of difference in regard to their impacts on the overall psychological health of the sexual trauma survivors (Ahrens et al., 2010; Pargament et al., 2001), where outcomes can either lead to healing and growth or destruction and loss or sometimes even both (Pargament & Exline, 2022). Moreover, Pargament and colleagues have further identified three distinctive types of spiritual struggles: supernatural struggles describing tension regarding the understanding of God or demonic forces; intrapsychic struggles involving internal conflicts within oneself related to existential and moral issues such as the experience of doubt in religious beliefs; and interpersonal struggles, which are relational strains with faith communities over spiritual matters (Pargament & Exline, 2021).

Method

In this paper, I focus on the spiritual impacts on the lived experience of Christian women victims of sexual violence in their recovery journeys after disclosure and help-seeking efforts made to their faith communities. To do so, I have employed the qualitative research methodology of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) as a suitable methodological approach to fulfil this aim within the current investigation. As a methodology, IPA originated in clinical psychology in the mid-1990s, and its use has since expanded to other disciplines, including the human, health, and social sciences (Smith et al., 2009, p. 5). IPA, informed and guided by the philosophies of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and idiography, aims to understand the personal lived experience of a “person’s relatedness to, or involvement in, a particular event or process (phenomenon)” (Smith et al., 2009, p. 40). It aims to uncover fresh, implicit, previously concealed, insightful accounts of lived experience of a particular group in a particular context. This idiographic methodological approach is, therefore, particularly suitable to investigating the spiritual aspects within the complex phenomenology experienced by women as they navigate their healing journeys in the aftermath of sexual trauma and to interpreting how they make sense of their experiences. I also selected IPA as an appropriate methodology because it is an approach which has been deemed especially supportive for the exploration of topics on which little information is currently available (Al Omari et al., 2017, p. 36; Bonavita et al., 2018, p. 378), and which are under-researched (de Witt & Ploeg, 2006, p. 227), difficult (Turner, 2018, p. 452), or “complex, ambiguous and emotionally laden” (Smith & Osborn, 2015, p. 41). As demonstrated above, the focus on the “in-between phenomena” of spiritual challenges, which can be easily overlooked among the complex experience of trauma recovery (Pargament & Exline, 2021), is a topic which could be described in these ways.

After attaining approval from the Committee for Research Ethics & Governance at the University of Aberdeen, recruitment of participants commenced. Through an email letter, I invited eight participants who fulfilled the following criteria: self-identified Christian women (cis and trans) over 18 years of age who had sustained sexual harassment experiences within or outside the church context and had sought support from their faith communities. Due to the sensitivity of the topic’s focus, measures to protect the confidentiality and identity of the participants were carefully considered and communicated clearly, including the handling and storage of the data as well as the provision of counselling services should that be needed after the interviews. The small and homogeneous sample set is in kee** with IPA’s methodological emphasis on the depth and richness of analysis and its idiographic commitment (Smith et al., 2009, p. 49). Once a participant expressed an interest in taking part, I contacted her to arrange a time and date for a meeting where further questions could be raised and clarified, the signed consent form collected, and the interview conducted.

IPA’s primary concern is the elicitation of detailed first-person accounts of the experiences under investigation. To facilitate a rich sharing of the informants’ lived experiences, semistructured interviews were selected for qualitative data collection. The interviews were transcribed following IPA procedures (Smith et al., 2009, pp. 82–101).

As guided by IPA’s idiographic commitment, following the collection and transcription of the data from the interviews, fine-grained analysis of each case was performed before proceeding to the next case. This process was repeated until each set of data in the corpus of cases had been thoroughly examined, before moving on to the cross-case analysis. The individual analytical procedure began with the six steps recommended by Smith et al., (2009, pp. 82–101): reading and re-reading, initial noting, develo** emergent themes, creating tables with these themes, searching for connections across emergent themes, moving to the next case, and looking for patterns across cases. Throughout the process, I attentively engaged in epoche, a concept grounded in Husserl’s philosophy that involves “setting aside our prejudgments, biases, and preconceived ideas about things to maintain rigor in research” (Patton, 2020, p. 281). The conscious employment of epoche allowed me to approach the data gathering and initial stages of the analysis having “bracketed” (Smith et al., 2009, p. 100), that is, having set aside “the taken for granted world” (Smith et al., 2009, p. 13) of my own assumptions and preconceptions to focus on the perception of the participants with as much objectivity as possible. I also embraced epoche through routine reflexive journaling to bracket my habitual mode of seeing and to expose and suspend any “vested interests, personal experience, cultural factors, assumptions and hunches” (Fischer, 2009, p. 583). Intentional journaling allowed me to proceed “with fresh eyes” (Finlay, 2013, p. 175) and to better identify, explicate, and set aside any presumptions and biases which may have interfered with going beyond the confines of my established knowledge and professional experience.

At the next stage of the analytical process, once all the cases had been carefully examined, I conducted cross-case analysis by comparing the tables of themes for each participant for convergences and divergences. The identified emerging themes that shared connections and similarities between cases were then arranged to form clusters of themes, and patterns were sought across cases to generate superordinate and subordinate themes.

Findings

Spiritual struggle

Analysis of the interviews led to the identification of acute challenges to the spiritual relationships of the participants in the aftermath of sexual violence as well as of their experiences during their disclosure and help-seeking efforts among their faith communities. The various forms and expressions of spiritual challenges of the women survivors can be encapsulated under one superordinate theme: spiritual struggle. Within this superordinate theme, two prominent subordinate themes further capture two distinctive features within the participants’ experience: their spiritual struggles in relating to their church communities and their personal struggle in relating to God.

Participants’ struggles in relating to their church communities

One of the most visible (re)wounding impacts pervasive in the data was the pivotal rupture in the relationship of the women with their once trusted “spiritual home” (May, 39) of their church communities in the aftermath of the sexual trauma. The survivors all expressed their devastation and astonishment after the disappointing responses they received from the church after they had taken the costly risk of courageously disclosing their traumatic experience and seeking support in their most vulnerable and disoriented state. The deeply injurious shattering of these women’s trust and sense of safety due to the various responses was portrayed succinctly by one woman this way: the church leaders’ responses “made me feel that they had taken the knife which had stabbed me, and they turned it around and stabbed me again” (Serene, 81).

The different ways in which the participants experienced irreconcilable discontent and rupturing alienation from their church communities constitute the following subthemes.

Shattered trust

Upon learning of the traumatic experiences of the victims, churches frequently responded in ways that diminished the already fragmented trust and safety of the women from the primary wounding incident of the sexual trauma, including silencing, minimizing, denial, and victim-blaming. As mentioned, these detrimental treatments have been described in an earlier paper (Yih, under review) but in this paper I focus on the impact on the spiritual aspects of the lived experience of the women from these retraumatizing responses. One of the most pronounced and enduring effects on the participants’ spiritual relationship with the church is a loss of trust and a consequential reevaluation of their belonging and place within the community. The disappointment from the discrepancies between their expected and hoped-for support from the church leaders and the responses received led them to feel that they could no longer trust nor feel safe in the relationship. This severed confidence in their pastoral relationship was described by one informant as the church “pretending to care” (May, 38); “the church, the committee, the pastor... [are] just selfish and self-protective... [and] aim to do [the] minimal and get back to business as usual” (May, 27).

An overarching perception resulting from the various dismissive behaviors experienced by the victims from their church was the daunting and profound realization that the church was not willing or able to provide the space necessary for them to feel fully accepted permitted to process and heal from their trauma. This “lack of room for trauma” (Panda, 120), as evidenced by the persistent trivializing wounding responses received and their role in shattering trust, was expressed by one informant this way.

Her [a church leader’s] response to me made me realize that, wow, I now see so clearly that you are not to be trusted . . . you were never in my corner . . . not willing nor able to hold space for me. Yeah, I knew I was wrong about her. It is no longer a safe place for me. I ended up having to rely on myself . . . all by myself. (Serene, 2)

Serene’s revelatory awareness and the subsequent rupturing of her relationship with the church resonated through the data among the women survivors, with many regretting their previous reliance and investment in the church and their decision to turn to it for help with their trauma. For example, another participant, Athena, lamented her decision to confide in her trusted church leaders, whom she had regarded as her “spiritual daddies and mummies” (Athena, 67), and was caught off guard by their victim-blaming response suggesting she was somehow “at fault for being raped” and their pressure to “move on” (Athena, 68). As a result, Athena, like other participants, experienced the church and the relationship cultivated within it as superficial, one that “takes place [only] on Sundays,” and the church as unable to bear witness with issues in “real life. With real struggles. Real pain. Real questions... including silences and the lack of answers and neat solutions” (Athena, 123). Others’ faith in the relationship was fractured by the insufficient care and practical support received after disclosure:

I told them . . . [and] no one asked to offer help or to ask if I was okay. Or even if I was safe then. (Panda, 29)

I lost all trust in people . . . why did I even try to seek help from anyone here [in the church]? I won’t anymore . . . from the church. Not from others. I no longer believe anymore could help me. . . . How about just even pretend that you care? Just that? [tears up] (May, 38)

Unsurprisingly, these experiences which damaged the informants’ trust in their church communities have further complicated their recovery journeys, including the visible result in their shared sentiment of anger.

Anger towards the church

The informants all expressed deep anger in the recounting of their experiences, including anger towards the church and indirectly at themselves for what they perceived as mistakenly placing their trust and expectations onto the church which had since failed them.

I went to . . . my most trusted leader who basically parented me and saw me grow up since I was a teen. I called her mom, for crying out loud. Her response? “What’s the big deal? He only touched you. Not that he actually raped you.” . . . What the fuck, seriously? (Serene, 71)

I feel so angry, like why did I bother to expend all that costly energy and risked taking up the courage to seek help? (Athena, 55).

Another cause of the women’s irrepressible anger towards the church revolved around the issue of justice, particularly the sense of injustice revealed by and experienced in the responses of the church.

So angry, like where is justice? Is there even justice for real? I am still so angry because . . . he got away free. . . . . It all boils down to one thing. Power. . . . You tell me, where is justice? Where is mine? I would like some right now. (Panda, 53)

All that crap about we are a family. In reality, it is full of so much toxicity in the church. . . . The pastor [who abused her] took advantage of his position, his authority, his trust, and he harmed me . . . and what did they [the church committee having learnt of the abuse] do other than releasing him to another church? Nothing. (May, 26–27)

Behind the outrage expressed by the women was an envelo** sentiment of hurt and disappointment in being let down by their church whom they had “grown up in and so loyal to” and treated as “home” (May, 38). Many shared their shattered dreams related to their plans to attend seminary training so as to “return” (Jodie, Athena, May) and serve in pastoral leadership positions. Their experiences revealed to them the “searing realization” (Jodie, 31) of their tenuous ties to the church, resulting in the third prominent factor impacting their spiritual relationship with the church: alienation.

Alienation from the church

The third prominent feature which greatly shaped and impacted the informants’ spiritual struggle, according to the data, is the understandable and cumulative result of feeling estranged from the church due to the previously explored dynamics in the aftermath of sexual violence.

The shared sentiment of estrangement was instigated not only by the series of trust-shattering mishandlings encountered by the participants mentioned earlier. In addition, a deepened sense of “hopelessness” (Jodie, 8) and “aloneness” (Athena, 39; Panda, 110; Serene, 88) was especially reinforced by the church’s “dispensing of theological solutions” (May, 36) as part of its responses.

The leader who met with me just quoted a Bible verse . . . something about it is God who builds up and . . . God who tears down. I don’t remember, but I can tell you that in that exact moment, I knew I was all alone in this. (May, 37)

Not only did the participants express disappointment in the lack of “tangible support” (Athena, 2,77) and the “lack of training or experience in dealing with trauma” (Eva, 9) in their church’s responses, but they communicated deep regret in seeking help from the church as it brought on “extra harm from their stance... [which] brought so much more pain and... confusion and self-blame” (Serene, 81). The church’s lack of experience and knowledge related to handling the intricate needs and recovery trajectories of trauma led the church to offer help through theological solutions such as “seeking God” (Eva, 18), “turn to prayers” (Athena, 75), and “forgive and reconcile” (Athena,73), either prematurely, or in a manner which was perceived by the women as dismissive and “superficial” (May, 31). Cumulatively, the informants reported feeling “depleted” (Panda,100) and being reconciled to the realization that the church “will not and cannot help them” (Panda, 70) and that they were utterly “alone” (Eva, 81).

As a result of this cumulative woundedness from the rupture in their relationships with their faith communities due to severed trust, anger towards, and alienation from their church “homes” (May, 39), all the informants suffered worsened psychological and other health outcomes, including suicidality (Panda, Athena, May), PTSD (Panda, Athena), obsessive sexual behaviors (Athena), and self-harm (Panda, Eva, Jodie). Furthermore, the pervasive sentiments of discontent and anger in their experiences of spiritual struggle with the church led all the informants to make the difficult yet “inevitable” (Jodie, 19) decision to leave their faith communities.

Struggles in relating with God

Even though all the informants reported having left the church as part of their lived experience of spiritual struggle, these women’s faith and relationship with God remained intact, despite varying degrees of struggle, which I turn to in this section.

Struggle with concepts of God

One common experience when the informants were asked about their current relationship with faith since the trauma was their shared difficulty in reconciling their experience with the foundational beliefs and teachings regarding the nature of God. One participant expressed that the incident of sexual violence had created for her “a big question mark about God now” (Serene, 111). Her struggle with concepts and beliefs which had been securely held without any issues prior to the trauma has now become a source of contention, and this is the case for all the participants. “We always have been told that God is our ever-present help, right? But where was he in the midst of all this? I don’t know” (Serene, 111). This destabilizing struggle with the re-examination and questioning of Christian traditional belief vis-à-vis their acutely dissonant experience of traumatic overwhelm is a prominent facet of their spiritual struggle, visible in the data. “If God is in fact just, then why would he let this happen to me? And repeatedly, too. If he was truly just and real, then what was this?” (Panda, 37).

Besides the concept of God as “ever-present help”, another source of contention is revealed in their experiences revolving around the issue of justice, especially the Christian understanding of God as just.

People in the church . . . they all know of my experience but all I have heard was ‘turn to God’, and here’s a popular one, ‘God will heal you’. I know! I know! But if God is real, then God is supposed to be just? Where is justice in all this, though?” (Panda, 71)

In the absence of timely and experienced support and accessible resources available to these survivors, compounded by the additional harm and confusion encountered in their church communities, many participants were left “utterly depleted” (Panda, 100), “alone” (Eva, 17), and “without hope” (Panda, 90), having left the church and facing the new reality of being estranged from God.

Estranged relationship with God

It was interesting that although many of the survivors expressed doubts and even anger towards God, all of them kept what one participant described as a “residual relationship” (Panda, 116) with God. This new place on these Christian women’s faith journey offers a possible glimpse into the enduring impact and outcome in their spiritual experience within their recovery. Despite the presence of having doubts and an ongoing wrestling with their faith in the aftermath of sexual violence, the acknowledgement of God was visible in the sharing of these women, especially in their times of need.

I wanted to kill myself. I have tried many times since . . . and somehow God would pick up these bloody severed pieces of me which were strewn along the way and somehow managed to put me back together. (May, 88)

In other words, there remained a spiritual tie which, though having been placed under tremendous strain and challenge through the various modes of spiritual struggle mentioned above, was unsevered and continued to sustain the participants in the “residual relationship” (Panda, 116).

Discussion

In the context of the complex recovery processes of Christian women survivors of sexual violence trauma, I have critically examined the spiritual impact caused by the responses of the victims’ faith communities to their disclosure of their trauma. Despite the powerful healing potential of religiosity for trauma survivors with a faith orientation, such as Christian women, contradictory results which impair healing due to an exacerbation of psychological symptoms and an amplification of spiritual challenges have also been observed to be a common outcome for victims (McNulty & Wardle, 1994; Rudolfsson & Tidefors, 2015; Yih, under review). Specifically, in the cases involving aftercare by church communities to which the survivors previously belonged, the responses made by these faith communities are among the most pivotal indicators of the occurrence of spiritual trauma (Prusak & Schab, 2022). Victims frequently experience much disappointment with pastoral or congregational support which critically exacerbates the primary traumatic overwhelm, causing various faith-related challenges collectively known as spiritual struggle (Doyle, 2011). Among the range of responses made by the churches to the help-seeking efforts of survivors in the current study were patterns of controlling and coercive practices motivated to conceal and silence, which I have presented elsewhere (Yih, under review). These practices can be described as forms of spiritual abuse (Oakley & Kinmond, 2013) and include elements of exploitative manipulation with the misuse of Scripture as well as the demand for and expectation of submission to authority (Yih, under review). Collectively, the responses not only exacerbated the psychological and emotional impacts from the trauma but inevitably brought additional harm to the spiritual well-being of the survivors (Oakley & Humphreys, 2019; Yih, under review).

In line with findings from previous studies revealing the intensification of detrimental effects, including long-term struggles impacting victims’ physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, and spiritual capacities and well-being (Eytan & Ronel, 2023), Hong Kong Christian women survivors experienced comparable complications from the responses offered by their faith communities. Concerning spiritual struggles, all the participants expressed much discontent and even anger towards their once trusted faith communities after experiencing a loss of trust and sense of safety because of the aftercare received within the church. This resonates with the negative religious co** outcomes of spiritual disconnection categorized by Pargament and his team (Pargament et al., 2001; Ryan, 1998). In the absence of timely and trauma-informed pastoral support available to them, the women, “utterly depleted” (Panda, 100) and having exhausted all their efforts to seek help, were finally led to the difficult yet inevitable decision to leave their “spiritual home” (May, 39). Not only were they faced with the onerous task of healing from the devastating harm from the primary trauma of sexual violence, but they were also further “retraumatized” by being made more vulnerable in feeling “all alone” (May, 37) and alienated from their once-trusted faith communities.

Interestingly, the decisive rupture in the participants’ relationship with the church did not result in a similar rift in their personal relationship with God. For these Hong Kong Christian survivors, despite the strain, need for reassessment, and even doubts regarding their concepts of God, there remained an intact “residual relationship” (Panda, 116) in which the women viewed God as present and active in their lives. This reflects the positive dimension of religious co** because the individuals were able to gain great intimacy with God and rediscover new meaning in life in their recovery from trauma (Pargament et al., 2001; Ryan, 1998). In other words, both positive and negative outcomes as well as experiences encompassing both loss and healing were observed among the Hong Kong Christian survivors (Pargament & Exline, 2021). However, notwithstanding the tenacity of their personal belief and relationship with God and the comparable absence of supernatural or intrapsychic spiritual struggles (Pargament & Exline, 2021) identified in the data, the survivors nonetheless suffered greatly with interpersonal spiritual struggles from their relational strains and ruptures with their churches.

As stated earlier, this research was designed to contribute to the growing research on the role of religiosity for sexual trauma recovery through a deepened understanding of the nuanced and intricate needs and related impacts on spiritual aspects of Christian women survivors in the aftermath of sexual violence. This study has revealed that there exists an imperative urgency for clergy, pastoral care workers, and clinical practitioners to be aware of this critical gap in the current accessibility of effective and timely care available to Christian survivors, as well as the grave harm this lack is causing those affected. As religiosity is such a key resource (Farrell, 2009; Pargament, 2009; Rudolfsson & Tidefors, 2015) and a common mode of co** embraced by Christian sexual trauma survivors (Levy & Eckhaus, 2020; Park & Gutierrez, 2013; Young et al., 2003), it is vital for faith communities to be better equipped to provide holistic, faithful, and trauma-informed pastoral care to support those in their most acute times of need when their sense of identity and meaning-making abilities have been shattered by the trauma they have sustained (Pargament et al., 2000). For example, churches can work towards implementing existing resources and practices of Christian traditions such as prayer, meditations, and other liturgical rituals widely familiar to the community to create a safe, welcoming, and hospitable space for survivors to find meaning from the event in the aftermath (Oman & Thoresen, 2005; Pargament et al., 2000).

While trauma training at the formational level within seminary preparation would be an ideal way to develop a sustaining and integrated system of support which can be extended to the broader faith community, the critical and pressing needs of survivors, as shown in the recent literature including the current study, require faith communities to take up this urgent invitation to become a hospitable space where victims can take their first steps towards post-traumatic re-making. In addition to the ongoing commitment to foster raised awareness of these urgent needs through enhancing communities’ understanding of and training on trauma-informed responses, it is equally imperative that churches in the meantime re-examine their current practices, especially in light of the evidence from ongoing research, to cease inflicting further harm on those under their care.

While this paper is a small step in moving towards this goal, some limitations need to be acknowledged. For example, due to the sensitive nature of the topic under examination and the vital need to not cause further harm, some of the victims who had expressed interest and had fulfilled the recruitment criteria but were assessed to be in a critically vulnerable stage of their recovery were not selected for participation, which thus limited the scope and depth of the data. Further research is needed to develop a deeper understanding of the needs and experiences of all those living in the aftermath of sexual violence. For example, a longitudinal study to explore the evolving needs and experiences of spiritual struggle among survivors would enrich the current understanding to encompass victims at different stages in the healing trajectory and to guide the implementation of a more trauma-informed practice going forward.