Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #spiritualabuse
Most recents (5)
When I wanted to go public with my story of #spiritualabuse & #psychologicalabuse at the hands of Andy Wood & Filipe Santos at Echo church in San Jose, CA, I knew immediately I wanted to speak to @reachjulieroys first. I had 4 major newspaper reporters reaching out. Julie 🧵
is well-versed in the patterns of the evangelical industrial complex’s darkness well-hidden behind the curtain with good people who are silent while Good Old Boys scratch each others’ backs at the expense of abuse survivors being discredited and silenced. Julie says, “you have 🧵
publishing, you have broadcasting, you have the megachurches, you have the conferences, you have these huge celebrities who are making a lot of money…And so whenever you have money involved, whenever you have power involved, unfortunately there’s protection, there’s sin, 🧵
What happens when you speak up about abuse in a church… a 🧵:
When the spiritual & emotional abuse happened to me at an ACNA church, I didn’t share anything about it for a long time. Who would believe me? /1
When the spiritual & emotional abuse happened to me at an ACNA church, I didn’t share anything about it for a long time. Who would believe me? /1
When I finally did share (because what had happened had torn me apart and it was impossible to continue to pretend nothing had happened), the responses and reactions made things so much worse. /2
I was disbelieved; the abuse was minimized; I was blamed for the abuse; a so-called friend held an intervention because I “had a mental illness” because of how I was reacting; close friends in the church turned against me and chose to align themselves with the abusers. /3
Public sin needs public repentance and restitution for the sin in particular.
No one in the church has authority in and of themselves:
Spiritual Abuse and #Racism at the @WhiteHorseInn @Core_Christ @MichaelHorton_ and the URCNA.
I wanted to share part of my story and the #spiritualabuse that I experienced in seminary @wscal, in a confessional Reformed church, and in working for a Reformed non-profit.
I wanted to share part of my story and the #spiritualabuse that I experienced in seminary @wscal, in a confessional Reformed church, and in working for a Reformed non-profit.
Between listening to the podcast on the fall of Mars Hill, seeing the abuse around John Piper and his school, the doubling down of institutional support in many corners of Reformed Evangelicalism, and the continued retrenchment of white
supremacy in Christian culture, I’m so quickly reminded of the spiritual abuse and racism that I saw in my time in the URCNA (United Reformed Churches in North America) and at WSCAL and the White Horse Inn with Michael Horton.
In Christian evangelical circles toxic hierarchy is VERY prevalent, and leads to “no talk” rules and other such isolating damaging tactics. You don’t know you’ve broken the rules until they are broke and you’re left hanging out to dry #exvangelical #SpiritualAbuse
*OR* you do already know the rules and you are terrified to speak up, speak out, and call for accountability because you *KNOW* the consequences. Which is usually oppressive isolation, shunning, and spiritual character assassination #exvangelical #SpiritualAbuse
AND if you DO speak out, claims that you are just being used by the devil to hold back the body of Christ and their “effectiveness” are spread. and then othering you/isolating you is easy #exvangelical #SpiritualAbuse
