High-profile cases such as the child sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church and “faith healing” child death cases in some fundamentalist congregations have drawn attention to a serious yet misunderstood problem: religious child maltreatment or RCM. What can we do to protect children from harmful religious influences and ensure that faith is a source of comfort, strength, and inspiration, and not a justification for abuse and neglect? In this enlightening and provocative talk, award-winning journalist Janet Heimlich discusses how to identify RCM and its risk factors, and, most importantly, how we can stop it.
