Christianity has been a weapon used by systems of oppression to call that which is harmful and abusive; good and God’s will. It has been a weapon to normalize hegemonic power, and keep people from questioning it or challenging it because “it comes from God.”
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Gender “norms,” harmful ideas about sexuality, social hierarchy, the construct of race, notions of nuclear family, toxic ideologies of work, bodies, finances, government, relationships, parenting, or criminal justice; are all rooted in Christianity and...
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backed up by verses of the Christian Bible taken out of context, to assert that this isn’t just normal, but what God desires. And who dares challenge God?
Christianity has allowed for people w/power to use the idea of god, and *his* “word,” to pass their ideas as God ideas.
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This is one of the reasons why people react so violently when we say the Bible is not the word of God, they can’t accept that everything they’ve been given as normal, good, ideal, God’s will... may just not be so.
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Their nervous systems tells them it is better to maintain the certainty of what is in their hands; even though it causes harm; than to give into the uncertainty of imagining a different world where equity is possible.
And then their ego gets involved, and admitting they’ve
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been wrong all along, and their normal is anything but; it’s too bitter a drink and not one their ego can handle.
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That’s why most of us who deconstruct do so after abuse that becomes unbearable;
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because our nervous system and our ego kept us in long enough too, but the pain of the system has to be greater than the bitterness of walking away and admitting “defeat.” And in walking away we found freedom, and got to challenge “norms” that kept us restrained...
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and unable to exist, and stretch, and take space, and belong to ourselves and others.
If Christianity is supposed to be anything for anybody; then it is only acceptable as a tool of liberation, which is what many marginalized people have found in it.
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An invitation to be unbound and unconfined, to see ourselves as the image of God, with access to divine wisdom, able to be the true embodiment of love, and Shalom. Any Christianity worth examining is the one that speaks of heaven on earth for all, here and now;
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an end to oppression and abuse for the marginalized and therefore an equitable world where we all get to be free and safe to be us. And that Christianity, will never come from the powerful, from power only the weapon can be produced; the tool comes from the margins.
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At the darkest days of the abuse I was being subjected to I decided to attend a conference for women in Los Angeles. I convinced my mother in law to pay for it because I couldn’t afford it. @ChristineCaine was preaching. I was desperate... 1/
I wanted to die, I didn’t see a way out and I had tried everything. I imagined many ways to die daily. The most recurring one was throwing my car down a bridge I had to drive over every day. I never did it because my kids were in the car and I was afraid one of them would...
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survive or I’d kill someone on the way down.
Christine spoke about honoring your pastors even when they weren’t great, she spoke of us expecting too much of pastors and how wrong that was. She said God would use our testimony if we submitted to our pastors.
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Teaching people not to trust their intuition and convincing them emotions are “from the flesh” and shouldn’t be trusted.
Equating submission to church leaders to submission to God.
Convincing people they are but “filthy rags”.
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Equating forgiveness with impunity, and telling people those who don’t forgive won’t be forgiven by God.
Demonizing non-Christians.
Telling people they’ll be in danger of spiritual attacks if they leave the church or the faith.
Demonizing those who leave the church.
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Asserting that honoring authority figures pleases God.
Teaching women that “do not make your brother stumble” makes us responsible for men’s behavior if we wear, say or do anything that could be taken as flirting.
Asserting volunteer work at a church is God’s will.
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When you say I am biblical Christian, I hear “I have an inability or unwillingness to appropriately read and interpret and ancient literary work, so I use it to bend it into my liking to fit my own narrative”.
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When you say “that’s just what the Bible says” to justify harm, I hear “I care more about my interpretation of an ancient literary work than I do about the human beings right in front of me”
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When you say “the Bible is how I know how to love people,” I hear “I have not developed critical thinking skills, emotional intelligence or the humility to listen to those in front of me, telling me I am causing harm and my behavior isn’t love.”
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Policies in regards to church abuse are often set to protect the church from liability, rarely to protect people or any current victims and survivors. They are the appearance of change, a way to look like something is being done, but not a commitment to protecting people.
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If churches refuse to address the theology that fuels the abuse then no amount of policies, trainings or events will actually ensure they are safe spaces for people or result in true needed change.
Want to do better?
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Let’s talk about some of the theology, structures and beliefs that are abusive in nature and enable abusers:
Purity culture is rape culture, not to mention psychological sexual abuse.
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“Don’t leave the church because of the people who hurt you. Nobody is perfect, only God”
I’ll explain why this comment is not only not helpful at all, but also very harmful.
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The comment assumes we can’t tell the difference between people and toxic theology, it assumes our issues are with a few people who are outliers and misrepresented God, and we just seem to think that’s the totality of divinity. Which makes us appear unintelligent and petty.
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But, that’s not the case at all. I didn’t leave because a few people hurt me in the name of God, in fact I stayed long enough to get hurt again, and again, and again, and again. Because it’s not a few bad apples hurting people in the name of God what we are dealing with.
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The Bible is filled with all kids of both healthy and unhealthy sex. Mostly unhealthy. At the very least it has institutionalized r*ape, sexual assault, men practicing polygamy, sex with enslaved women,
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incest, and also sex between a married hetero couple, sex with sex workers, and maybe even sex between two men.
❌Less “emotional baggage.”
“Emotional baggage” doesn’t come from having ser before or after marriage. It also doesn’t come from having multiple sexual partners.
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Emotional trauma related to sex comes from not having adequate information and education in regards to sex and sexually, as well as from sexual assault and sexual abuse (purity culture is sexual psychological abuse).
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