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AnonymousChad: Such an honest reflection – to see your part in the system. Full of grace…for all of us. Thank you. And for your harm? I’m so sorry.
AnonymousRonna and David said it best Chad. We have ALL made decisions we wish we could take back. At some point, you’ll have to learn to forgive yourself. As Maya Angelou once said “You did then what you knew how to do, And when you knew better, You did better.” Love and Light!
David, yes, I do understand, and yes, I feel taken advantage of! I am sorry for what has happened with you and I am so glad you have turned it around to something safe and positive. Thank you!
Ronna – thank you for understanding me!
Honeyglow – great message, and yes, I have moved forward, and I am not silent (much to the frustration of those who thought I was worthless.)
AnonymousChad – I agree that you should not be so hard on yourself. We have ALL done and said things when we were caught up in that toxic world. Now that we know better, we are all doing better in that regard. I think it is almost impossible to see what’s wrong with the church system until you’ve been completely out of it for at least several months – maybe even years.
Ronna – Thanks for the further explanation on where John Eldrege is coming from as far as his views on women. I was still very much involved at church when we went through that Captivating study and I thought what he and Stacy had written in that book was pretty good in light of the people I had read up to that point. Like you say, it is all so subtle and insidious – so much so that I didn’t even notice! But I do see exactly what you are saying and I agree!
Interesting discussion. I have mixed feeling about the Eldredges’ writings.
On the one hand, I totally agree with Ronna that their essentialist stance on gender is very harmful. At the core of this is the belief that we are made a certain way as ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ with strict guideline for what that means, even though their definitions of such are not found in the Bible.
What I struggle with though, is that some of Eldredge’s conclusions resonate strongly with people. These writings are wildly popular because some people see themselves very clearly in these books and they feel like their hidden desires are finally validated; whether it is a man’s secret wish to be wild and strong or for the woman who has never admitted her deep desire to be adored. So because they resonate so strongly, they buy into the the whole thing and don’t even realize what’s happening.
Subtle indeed.
This is, after all, the reason essentialist theory and stereotypes abound is that there is enough basis in people’s experience for them to paint broad strokes about everyone. I take great exception to people, like Eldredge, who stray away from simply stating their general observations to making bold declarations about how men and women are created to be….and then slap a God-stamp on it. This has brought more confusion and hurt to people’s sense of identity than anything else I can think of.
I think it shows maturity when we can eat the meat and spit out the bones, so to speak. We have a couple of the Eldridge books in our house. We read them. We appreciated the message attempting to be conveyed to restore passion in our lives. But we also detected the sexism. We also detected where the sexism and the intended message about passion were blended. We need to be able to see where the intended main message is dependent on the subtext. In other words, is a woman’s true passion only restored when she takes her proper place? Same with a man’s. True, pure passion is restored only if you’re a REAL man. I think that’s part of the subtext.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by
David Hayward.
AnonymousTotally resonate with the conversation, Jo, McBeth, and David.
And, to give credit where credit is due: John Eldredge (accompanied by Stacy) has offered some amazing stuff to be sure. The one thing for which I’d WANT to validate him is naming of harm and desire. This is good stuff, not unique or original to him, but no less potent, validating, or needed. He has a manner about him that has been wildly attractive to people – men and women. And, in many ways, offering some fresh air in the context of the church. With it, the subtleness of sexism.
And there’s where our combined brilliance serves! We can, indeed, as David says, “eat the meat and spit out the bones.”
AnonymousFacinating discussion – thanks everyone!
AnonymousJust one? I can’t…
How about being told as a 12 year old girl that I hadn’t been healed of cerebral palsy yet because of sin.
Church members ignoring me when I pleaded for help with someone who was sexually abusing me as a teenager.
Same ignoring pattern when this person began to physically assault me
Blaming me for my depression and constantly telling me it was because I sucked at spiritual warfare
Closing me off from many significant events like prom and dating and college
Ignoring me when I needed to talk after my mother’s funeral because they had a prayer meeting to get to
Arranging my marriage through a church run courtship to an abusive alcoholic
Ignoring me and turning away when I cried to them for help for me and my children
Blaming my husband’s abuse on me because I wasn’t submissive enough or because I sucked at spiritual warfare.
Shutting my autistic daughter out because she cannot conform to what they want church kids to be.
Shutting my neuro typical daughter out because she is bold, intelligent and outspoken.These are the ones that stand out and cause me the greatest pain
AnonymousJeb64–for each one of these traumatic experiences, I offer you a virtual hug. Wrong, wrong, wrong on so many levels!! The vulnerability you’ve shown by voicing your hurts is a stepping-stone towards empowerment. May you find some solace here in the forum knowing others TRULY give a damn about your experiences. *Hugs*
Way to say it honeyglow! Nicely said.
AnonymousJeb64: there just aren’t words – or at least enough of them or the right ones – to even begin to speak into these stories of harm. I feel completely incapable of offering even the slightest bit of solace – other than to say that I am so deeply sorry, so profoundly angry, and so profoundly hopeful that new and generous community awaits you and your daughters.
You are strong and amazing. This I know.
I’m with JEB64..I can’t pick just one.
Top 3 worst in no particular order.
I was 12 years old and my parents put me in the church school. I didn’t lie, but I was accused of lying, and no one believed me..not my parents, and of course not the pastor or the school staff who were all working with and for the church. I was punished by multiple methods. I was made to write sentences about what I had done and how bad it was hundreds of times, I was grounded and spanked (read beaten) by each of my parents at home, and I was spanked at school..upstairs in the pastor’s office by the pastor, accompanied by the assistant pastor and with no females present. I was made to remove my skirt down to my slip and underwear, and I was prayed over regarding my rebellion and lying like the devil and then struck 3 times ceremoniously with a 1.5 inch PVC pipe. Then I had to tell all my classmates what I had done, and how I was punished. Yeah..that happened not once but 3 times in only a few months of being in that school. I still to this day know I am innocent of wrong doing in any of the cases I was punished by the pastor there. In fact, I know I was a victim of the nepotism that was rampant in the pastor’s family.
Second, I was newlywed, and had been invited to lunch with my husband by someone in our church, only to have it be a trap to “Open god’s word and show us our sin” of holding hands in church and me laying my head on my husbands shoulder during the service on Sundays. We were causing them to “stumble” and needed to repent of our trespasses. I refused to go back to the church, much to my in laws chagrin. My husband wasn’t too happy about it either…but I was mortified that a very, very mild form of public affection was seen as SIN and a STUMBLING BLOCK. I was so upset that I almost vomited on the table right there.
Third, after I left a church pastored by the father of one of my only girlfriends at that time (this church had almost no structure to the service (time on the building said 11 o’clock and we often didn’t begin service until 2 p.m. and the pastor really didn’t have any sermons, just lots of rambling thoughts and contradictory ideas) I was informed that I was a deserter and would no longer be a part of the family. The pastor’s wife delivered this news, very cruelly. This only a few years after she had gathered my mother and I together to let her know that I was not living like I was taught to. I was publicly humiliated, and then taken home and punished. I’d been caught singing along to an Oldie “Pretty Woman” and was accused of being sexually perverted for that and other things that made and still make no sense.
I have so many more, and they all make me sick to my stomach. ugh…
And I am SO VERY SORRY that SO MANY have had to endure and some continue to endure these horrible, horrible things in the name of god!!
AnonymousJeb and Moxie – There are NO words to adequately express my absoloute horror that you were both exposed to such harmful and crazy-making spiritual, emotional, verbal, and physical abuse – especially by people who were supposed to represent God! I can assure you God had nothing to do with ANY of the things that church leaders did or said to you! I’m quite sure God is deeply hurt and totally pissed at people who do and say things “in His name” that are polar opposites of what He is really like.
I was sexually abused by a pastor who happened to be my own father, so I know just how much damage that does to one’s concepts of God. And when my dad molested my two nieces, the denominational leaders did NOTHING to ease our pain or rein in our father. All they were interested in was that it didn’t go public and that the church’s image would be protected! Nevermind about the VICTIMS and THEIR PAIN!
I have told these details here and there in some of these forums, so I don’t want to repeat myself. I should have written it all down under “community stories” instead of piecemealing it like I have.
Anyhow, just want to say how sorry I am for what happened to both of you! You are both courageous wome who are survivors!
AnonymousOh, those stories are so, so awful! I am so sorry anyone has had to go through those things. I will never, ever understand cruelty enacted in the name of religion.
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