The Religion Sexual Abuse Project (R&SAP): an introduction By Amanda J. Lucia ++

https://www.academia.edu/144519097/The_Religion_Sexual_Abuse_Project_R_and_SAP_an_introduction?email_work_card=title This thematic issue marks the culmination of the Religion & Sexual Abuse Project (R&SAP) (2019-2025), which fosters the understanding and redress of sexual abuse across multiple religious traditions. Some R&SAP sponsored projects are critical of how religious organizations collude with abusers; others show how religious organizations can provide forums for empowerment, liberation, and healing in the wake of abuse. For some R&SAP scholars, religious theologies and institutional structures are a part of the problem, while for others they are part of the solution. Still, themes emerge in this thematic issue, such as the denial of the possibility of consent across power differentials between religious professionals and laity. R&SAP scholars also reveal how religious institutional structures enable 'grooming' and silencing, and institute firewalls against accountability, such as mandatory NDAs, counter-lawsuits, and bankruptcy; these tactics enable abuse to persist. R&SAP scholars argue that sexual abuse in religious contexts is religious, meaning that perpetrators use religious spaces to abuse, enact, interpret, and defend their actions through religious doctrine. This thematic issue places sexual abuse at the center (and not at the periphery) of scholarship on religion, and endeavors so that survivors' voices will resonate in the hallowed corridors of the academy. ... Imagined futures beyond the Religion & Sexual Abuse Project (R&SAP) By Amanda J. Lucia https://www.academia.edu/144519130/Imagined_futures_beyond_the_Religion_and_Sexual_Abuse_Project_R_and_SAP_?email_work_card=title This epilogue concludes this thematic issue on sexual abuse in religious contexts, highlighting the work of the Religion & Sexual Abuse Project (R&SAP). It provides reflections on the complexities, difficulties, and dangers for survivors and scholars engaging with this topic. Drawing on ideas that were presented at a scholarly roundtable, entitled 'Where Do We Go from Here?' at the American Academy of Religions (AAR) Annual Conference in 2023, this reflection encourages future research in microhistories, namely, further attention to small details that end up telling big stories. It also notes that while the focus of much of the research on sexual abuse in religious contexts engages on religious professionals who abuse, there are also widespread and everyday domestic abuses that are justified and supported by religious doctrine that are also deserving of attention. Combining these two factors-attention to the micro and to the domestic-this thematic issue concludes with a poem co-authored by Latina mothers and daughters and the Voces Valientes Project, which with the support of R&SAP, hosts workshops that aim to strengthen the bonds between mothers and daughters as a preventative measure against sexual abuse. It is in such everyday details that both catastrophe and hope reside. ...