Writer Sally Hope has been exposing the growing problem of online abuse in Christian spaces. As the UN’s 16 Days of Activism begins, her experiences show why this year’s theme, there is no excuse for online abuse, matters more than ever.
The UN 16 days of activism to end violence against women and girls runs from 25th November until human rights day on 10th December. This year’s theme is; “there is no excuse for online abuse.”
“Enjoy hell you witch”
“What a Jezebel witch she and her cohorts are”
“Weirdo atheist scumbag”
“You have a dark soul, I’ll pray for you”
These are some of the comments that have been made to me, online, on Christian social media pages, this year. The latest abusive comment I received compared me to Rose West, a serial killer who tortured and murdered children. My crime? Commenting that women who experience domestic abuse should be able to leave their husbands and divorce.
READ MORE: One of the ways the Church can combat abuse is by considering its traditionally male hierarchy
What I was not prepared for was a church leader taking exception to my article, posting it on his own page with the comment “more wokeness and biblical compromise” and then his followers making abusive comments, not about the content of the article, but about my hairstyle
At the beginning of this year I wrote an article for Woman Alive (link above) in which I made the argument that if there were more women in leadership in the church there would be less abuse. I didn’t expect everyone to agree with me, but I did expect Christians to engage with the topic in a loving, or at least polite, manner. What I was not prepared for was a church leader taking exception to my article, posting it on his own page with the comment “more wokeness and biblical compromise.” His followers then made abusive comments, not about the content of the article, but about my hairstyle in the thumbnail included with the article. Apparently, my “freakish hair modifications are a classic symptom of a wicked lesbianic spirit of degenerate feminist witchcraft”
READ MORE: Sixteen Days of Activism - how we as Christian women can challenge violence against women and girls
I got off lightly. The same church leader recently stumbled across a friend of mine in the comments section of the Church Times Facebook page. Taking exception to the fact that she is a female minister he scrolled through her personal facebook page, stole a photograph of her, and posted it to his own page, with an invitation for his followers to comment about how they would react if they saw her in church. From there his followers posted hundreds of comments ridiculing my friend’s appearance and making threats of violence towards her: one wanted to drag her from the church by her hair, another wanted to punch her in the face and yet another wanted to melt her face off. Like me, my friend has thick skin, but what if she hadn’t? What if she was already struggling with body image issues or mental health problems? What if she’d been going through something horrible in her personal life and these hurtful comments about how “ugly” she is, were the thing that pushed her over the edge?
READ MORE: Standing in faith: Making gender-based violence a national disaster in South Africa
Up until this point I’d mostly laughed at the abusive comments, but the man who instigated these posts lives and leads a church locally to me, I suddenly felt keenly aware of the very real possibility that this online violence could spill over into the real world, as it has for so many others.
Up until this point I’d mostly laughed at the abusive comments, but the man who instigated these posts lives and leads a church locally to me, I suddenly felt keenly aware of the very real possibility that this online violence could spill over into the real world, as it has for so many others. This hasn’t been the only incident, another man managed to find my email address online and sent me threatening emails last year, quite brazenly from his work email account, and despite promising to leave me alone after his employer became involved, Premier Christianity’s Facebook team still had to remove comments he made on an article I wrote recently, about my work to support victims of domestic abuse.
The UN reports that one in four female journalists have received death threats, and that 38% of women who are online have experienced online violence, whilst 85% have witnessed it. The abuse I have experienced is the tip of the iceberg compared to the online experiences of others; Bishop Budde received death threats after her sermon challenging Donald Trump in January 2025. Jess Phillips has received over 600 threats of rape. Emma Watson and Michelle Obama have had pornographic deep fakes made of them. Women are stalked, harassed and silenced. I worry about whether any of this is what comes next for me. I sometimes feel that by speaking up online about the reality of violence against women in the church I’m painting a target on my back for further abuse. It shouldn’t be like that, certainly not within the Christian community.
For each of the 16 Days of Activism I’m giving a voice to ordinary women’s stories of their everyday experiences with male violence, you can read them here.
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