Abuse and forgiveness — How gender imbalances sometimes protect LDS predators | Episode 323

Mormon Land

Chelsea Goodrich was a returned missionary pursuing a graduate degree in California when she came forward with allegations that her father, John Goodrich, had molested her throughout her childhood. (In a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune, John Goodrich has denied the accusations of sexual assault.) The alleged abuse, the subject of a recent Associated Press investigation, is not the reason, however, that Chelsea, now a 38-year-old licensed counselor, no longer identifies as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She attributes that shift to the response she received when she tried to protect children. Friends and family, many from the tightknit Latter-day Saint community of Mountain Home, Idaho, where she grew up, discouraged her from continuing to press the matter, urging her instead to forgive her father. In this week’s episode, she joins Deidre Nicole Green, a Latter-day Saint and theologian at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif., to discuss how church leaders, members and others sometimes “weaponize” forgiveness, silencing survivors and preventing justice.