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User Reviews about Dinah Project: A Handbook for Congregational Response to Sexual Violence

This book is a how-to manual for congregations who want to address the real problem of sexual violence in an accessible way in a culture that learns best from experience, personal or vicarious. It's not a self-help book, although there's powerful testimony about the author's recovery from sexual violence. It's not a theological treatise, although it quickly covers some of the least helpful theological responses to victims of violence and offers sensible alternatives. It's not a prescription or a treatment program, although it offers good-sense approaches for congregations who want to connect with and support treatment programs in their communities. It's not a devotional, although faith and devotion permeate the story behind it and the many resources for prayer, liturgy, theodrama, and other opportunities for a congregation's spiritual response.
For all these reasons, it's not a fully satisfying book to anyone who is looking for any thing other than how-to manual for congregations addressing sexual violence. That said, I've used it with sophomore college students in a God, Evil, and Suffering class and they found it eye-opening-- with regards to what sexual violence is and with regards to what churches and theology can do in response. They were delighted because unlike so much theological literature, they could read it and understand it the first time. I appreciated that it got the basic issues about how we talk about suffering on the table in a nontechnical way. I plan to use it again. -- Helpful, Practical, Useful and Modest

The Ministry of the Church is broadened by this text. Grounded in a real life experience, the redemptive ministry of healing and recreation is a necessary componment of ministry in the 21st Century. Read this book with an open mind and a convicted heart. You too either know someone that needs this ministy, shall need this ministry, if in fact that someone is not you!!!! Excellent, thoughtful, spiritual, and redemptive. Again this material affirms the words of our ebony prophet, Martin Luther King, Jr, Ph.D.; "Unearned suffering is redemptive." -- Needed Ministry Arena For The 21st Century Church

In a comprehensive, instructional, direct yet compassionate manner, this book gives voice to a form of violence which is hidden, silent, and ignored, threatening the integrity of the Church and our communities. Dr. Coleman speaks about sexual violence. The author defines the problem as a failure of the Church to fulfill its purpose. The author defines the solution as the fulfillment of the Church's purpose. She clearly explains how sexual violence is a spiritual issue to which the Church must respond.

To me, this book is a news story,reporting, or should I say revealing, the stories of two women of God who were victims of rape by "men of the cloth". To me, this book is a program manual: it outlines steps and provides tools for a structured, compassionate, truly healing response by the Church to sexual violence. To me, reading this book was a worship experience: the tone was prayerful, the approach was instructional; the text was God's Word; the conclusion was a praise party - celebrating God's grace. To me, this book was empowering: The book helped me to: tell the truth to myself; to understand the pain/mine and that of other victims who I dearly love; and, even in the face of unanswered questions, to find peace.










-- Revealing, Healing, Celebrating, Empowering