This Month's Issue

Graphic by Kelly Coe

RuthAnn Thompson by Simon YaoStory by Michele Joseph

Driving on a Sabbath afternoon to escape the house she’d been in all week, Ruth-Ann Thompson had a moment of inspiration. The Columbus, Ohio, resident realized she wasn’t far from the home of fellow church members. She pulled over and sent them a text.

“I’m going to be pulling up in your driveway in about two minutes,” she texted. “I’m going to pray for you and your family, and be gone.”

When she pulled into the driveway, the family turned on their porch light, acknowledging her arrival.

Image by istock

Story by Elizabeth Anderson

One of the ways Liliana, a mother who was abused at church when she was young, bolsters her children so they don’t become prey “is to give them agency, confidence…that they are in charge of their bodies.”  She has explained to her three daughters that they don’t have to hug anyone at church if they don’t want. “When they are toddlers and little children, hugging brother so-and-so is not an issue, right? But once they become 12 and 14, those hugs can become very uncomfortable…maybe not because brother so-and-so is a predator but because I am 14 and I don’t want to smash my breasts against this old man,” Liliana says.