When Faith Fails Us: Individual and Institutional Restorative Practices and Healing

We are academics, restorative justice practitioners, and women of faith. Two of us have spent the last six years immersed in restorative justice (RJ) processes in faith-based spaces and communities. One of us has advocated for and educated communities about using restorative justice. The accountability projects we have worked on have integrated trauma-informed RJ practices that promote healing for individuals, communal leaders, and communities. Our processes have varied from private conversations to public, community-wide outreach and education. Every project includes a tailor-made RJ curriculum that engages all parties to better understand survivor needs, gaps in knowledge about trauma, institutional betrayal (i.e. the institutional structures that allow abuse to take place), and courage, and accountability measures. Additionally, focusing on the role of faith in the harm survivors endured and the impact that harm had on their faith can inform how RJ is engaged. This allows for culturally relevant and survivor-centered approaches to engaging entire communities, including those who were harmed, those who caused harm, and those who have witnessed or enabled the harm and its fallout. This paper discusses the literature on RJ in faith-based institutions and the effectiveness of RJ in cases of sexual harm. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the five-phase process we use in institutional RJ, with specific attention given to the tensions and common challenges we grapple with within each phase of institutional RJ work and how we have addressed them.