My First Protest

(and other lessons in advocacy)

“Hi, Abigail! How are you doing?”

My dad’s faux-cheerful greeting cut through the quiet chatter of reporters along our protest line.

We faced each other on the rainy sidewalk outside CFC Potsdam. Another protester recognized him and placed a hand on my back, murmuring, “I’m here.” I locked eyes with my dad and refused to break the silent protest. The audio recording from the phone strapped to my thigh is faint, but I can still make out my father’s performance.

“You won’t talk to me?” he said. 

I stared at him in silence under my umbrella. 

“I’m so sorry.”

“Will you forgive me?”

“You won’t forgive me?”

Forgive you for which sins? I thought. This is the first apology you’ve ever attempted and it took a public protest to get you here. 

His eyes teared up and he whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

And then he turned around and walked back into the church. He could tell the church friends that he tried to ask my forgiveness and I wouldn’t even talk to him. Everyone on the protest line felt the release of tension and one of the reporters asked me, “Who was that?”

“That,” I responded, “was my dad.”

***

Never one to let inexperience stop me, the first protest I joined was the one I organized.

On May 22, 2022, shock waves rippled through the survivor community from Christian Fellowship Center, my childhood church. The CFC pastors learned in 2017 that a church member had molested his toddlers and they decided not to report it. For five years, they withheld that information from the congregation and the community, letting the man mingle with unsuspecting children. Worse, one of the pastors’ wives solicited parents to send their vulnerable teenage daughters to the man’s house to assist his wife.

It turned out that New York didn’t classify pastors or other religious leaders as mandated reporters. It was essentially legal to cover up child abuse, and our former pastors had taken full advantage of that loophole. 

Outrage propelled us into action. A week after the arrest was published in the local newspaper, a small team of survivors created a website and social media channels. We took a deep breath and published an open letter, calling ourselves CFCtoo.  

That summer, we published story after story of physical, sexual, emotional, and spiritual abuse. We called for New York state to change its laws on mandated reporters. Since I couldn’t help with on-the-ground efforts, I wrangled press coverage with my connections in the advocacy community.

And then in September, I flew to New York for the first time in almost ten years to join a silent demonstration in front of the church’s most visible location. We brought signs that read “Make Clergy Mandated Reporters” and “Report Child Sexual Abuse” and people honked in approval as they drove by. 

I spent years thinking that no one would believe me if I spoke about the abuse I’d experienced. I thought the community would rally behind my parents, not me. As reporters interviewed our protesters and people honked in support, I started to realize that I was mistaken. 

Perhaps the community knew that my childhood church was a cult. Perhaps they believed our stories.

It takes courage for survivors to come forward with their stories of abuse. As strange as it may sound, they offer a gift to the community when they do so. It is a gift when survivors expose abuse and warn us about the predators hiding in our midst. It’s deeply uncomfortable to acknowledge that our churches are not safe places and we often shun courageous survivors instead of accepting their gift.

Abusive churches rarely repent; they generally double down when survivors speak up. Our goal with CFCtoo has never been to extract an apology from the church but to support people who leave and warn people who might enter. It’s weary labor, but it’s worth it every time someone sends a Facebook message that they almost enrolled their kids in the church homeschool ministry before finding our website. It’s worth it every time someone thanks us for giving them words to describe their experience growing up in the church.

It’s also worth it to record yourself during a protest. You never know who might show up.