Welcome to Res Ipsa, where we are going to explore the intersection of the law, faith, and abuse.
If you've watched the news any time in the last 20 years, you've seen a number of different scandals related to the church and abuse, starting with the Catholic church. And then in more recent years related to the Southern Baptist convention, allegations and cases and convictions in other denominations, including the PCA, the fundamental Baptist church, as well as non denominational churches and other faith based organizations.
Abuse is a really complex topic in some ways, and in some ways it's simple.
We're going to cover lots of topics and we're going to take some deep dives. We're going to look at some cases in the news. What I want to have is a learning experience for everybody here.
Who are you?
My name is Melissa J. Hogan, and you might say, why the J? One of the things we're going to talk about in Res Ipsa is what we keep and what we let go of, and being conscious about that.
My middle name is named after my mom. And that's something you want to keep. If you know me, you will know that I also kept my married name after my 2019 divorce. That's for lots of reasons. I have a book in that name. I have many research articles in that name and we'll deal with the other reasons at another time.
Why is this topic important to you?
I'm an attorney, advocate, and an author. I have a book called Afraid of the Doctor: Every Parent's Guide to Preventing and Managing Medical Trauma (affiliate link). That book came out of a personal experience with my youngest son who has a rare genetic disorder and had severe medical trauma, which is a form of PTSD.
I did a lot of research for that book related to different kinds of trauma and that has served me well in the work that I do as an attorney in the space of trauma and abuse.
I represent survivors in different capacities, and I also serve on multidisciplinary teams that do investigations into allegations of abuse in faith communities, whether that's churches, faith based organizations, ministries, and in other contexts.
Once upon a time I had a blog. I had another blog and I wrote about things that were really important to me and tried to take my experiences and translate them in a way that was helpful to other people. I would often get emails that said, you took what I was thinking and what I was feeling and put it into words and it was really meaningful to me.
So that's what I hope to do some of in Res Ipsa, but I also hope to generate a discussion and learn from you and from your experiences as well.
What is Res Ipsa?
The title Res Ipsa comes from the Latin phrase res ipsa loquitur, which means the thing speaks for itself. It's a phrase that means that what's happened, you don't need any other evidence. It speaks for itself. Things like leaving a medical instrument inside a body after a surgery, that speaks for itself that something very bad happened there. Or say an elevator dropping 20 stories, res ipsa loquitur comes into play there. The thing that happened speaks for itself.
I chose to use Res Ipsa to just talk about the thing. Sometimes the thing is there and nothing speaks. And in many cases of abuse, no one speaks about it for years and even decades.
The average age for a (childhood) sexual abuse survivor to speak about their abuse is past 50 years old. That doesn't mean they forgot. There are lots of reasons for not speaking and that's one of the things that we're going to talk about on Res Ipsa.
Sometimes that silence is because we don't understand what's happening to us or it can also be because we've been silenced by someone with power. Whatever the reason, my hope is that in res ipsing, we can loquiter.
I'm not the ultimate expert on this topic. There are many people who came before me that have their own experiences and their own expertise. People (other attorneys) specifically that I would name are Boz Tchividjian, Christa Brown, Rachael Denhollander. They are great resources and there are a multitude of books that I'm also going to cover in Res Ipsa to learn more about this topic.
But the reason I'm speaking personally is that I have my own experiences related to interpersonal abuse, institutional abuse. I try to bring that experience to bear in the work that I do as an attorney and an independent investigator.
One thing I've tried to do all my life is take my own experience, take my education and put them together in a way that hopefully helps just even one person not feel alone, feel heard, feel like someone else has had a similar experience and to learn more about their own experiences.
What can I expect if I subscribe?
Here's what you can look forward to in Res Ipsa.
Fridays
Fridays are Free Fridays. Everything is free on Fridays. All the content that will actually be the core of the discussions that we talk about related to abuse, the law, and faith. Fridays may not cover all three of those topics all the time, but they will probably at least cover two of them and the intersection of them, sometimes all three.
We'll deep dive into some of these topics, starting with what is abuse and what isn't abuse and different kinds of abuse. Then topics that come into play like non-disclosure agreements, no fault divorce, holding institutions accountable for abuse and ethical leadership.
Behind the paywall, there will be other content such as video chats on these topics and more justice focused pieces related to current media stories.
Mondays
On Mondays, we're going to build on that topic from Friday in a piece that I call Chicken and Bones. It's a phrase I like to use that means, you keep the chicken and you throw out the bones.
So we'll be looking at the topic that we discussed on Friday and say what do we need to keep here? What is helpful? What is not helpful? How do we learn from this topic or this situation? So that's Monday's Chicken and Bones.
Wednesdays
Then on Wednesdays, we will have Res Ipsa Nota. And what that translates to is “the thing itself is known” and Wednesdays will be the more personal day where I'll talk about my own experiences from my life, what I've seen in the field of abuse, whether it's in cases or in domestic abuse support groups.
This will build on the topic from Friday and then Monday to personalize this and I hope this will be a space where people will feel safe to share some of their own experiences so we can really talk through them and learn and heal together.
I'll share stories about my own experiences with silencing, accountability, what forgiveness looks like, as well as reflections like when you read in public filings that a very wealthy and mildly famous “Christian” guru has repeatedly called you a world class bitch.
(Yes, that happened.)
The first season
Res Ipsa will be released in seasons over 10 weeks with a break in between those seasons in order to have some additional deeper discussions over video and chat. I really want to hear from you and your experiences and hopefully this can be a place that we can learn from one another.
I want to end with a quote that I've used to close a lot of the articles I've written and it's by the late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.
Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.
My goal with Res Ipsa is to bring sunlight, sunshine, to this topic of the intersection of the law, faith, and abuse, and to abuse generally.
as well as learning how to operate in that space. How do we balance grace and compassion for people who have harmed us with also having accountability?
My hope is to foster a community of people who are interested in the work of bringing light to this topic and transparency to things that are not talked about enough, or purposefully kept in the dark. and in many ways not healed.
I look forward to meeting you here next Friday for the first issue of Res Ipsa as we talk about what is abuse, what's not abuse, and what that looks like in reality.
Please subscribe. Please share Res Ipsa with your friends that might be interested in this topic, and I'll see you next Friday.
Sunshiners Unite.
Warmly,
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