We live in a society that misunderstands boundaries and consent. Most people think the former is about just saying no, and the latter is about sex. And while that’s a part of it, they are about agency, autonomy, respect and interpersonal relationships.

1/
Unsolicited advice without consent is crossing a person’s boundaries. Even if the advice is good advice, even if the person giving the advice is a pastor or a parent, even if the advice is important. Most people aren’t talking about their life so that we may solve it.

2/
It is an honor to be trusted with someone’s life story*, with their thoughts and their challenges, with their struggles and their musings. But it is not an open invitation to try and solve their problems, control their behavior, tell them what to do.

3/
For a group of people that speak often of free will and claim to follow Jesus, Christians are some of the worst at boundaries and consent in general, and advice giving in particular. Think about how many sermons are not sharing spiritual truths, but just giving advice.

4/
Think about how much pastoral counseling is just advice giving. Think about the many books that tell you how to parent, how to be a good wife, how to be a good Christian, how to... and how much of it is general advice as though our lives were interchangeable?

5/
This too is tied to white supremacy culture. This is another reason deconstruction without dismantling/decolonizing doesn’t guarantee you stop causing harm. Because in some level giving advice we weren’t asked for, without consent,

6/
is done out of the belief that we know better for another person. Otherwise we could listen, ask questions, and ask if our advice is wanted/needed. White supremacy culture tells us we have the right answers, we can fix others, we are needed for others to be well.

7/
Unsolicited advice and proselytizing are similar to me in some aspects. Those offering them see the other as less than, as lacking, as needing something they have. This may not be explicit or even conscious. But they subconsciously don’t see the other as a full adult...

8/
able to make decisions on their own, find solutions themselves, or ask for help when they need it. It presupposes people are sharing not because they trust you, but because they need you to help them. It presupposes a lot about the other, and our biases are at play.

9/
How often are you more inclined to offer unsolicited advice to women than you are to offer it to men? Rich people over poor people? BIPOC over white people? Disabled people over abled bodied people? Fat people over skinny people? Non-religious people over religious people?

10/
Being conscious is part of healing, why do I feel the need to share unsolicited advice? Because let’s be honest, the initial response that it is to help the other person is just a shallow reason, the hidden motivation underneath the behavior is rarely care for the other.

11/
it is often discomfort with another person’s pain, feelings of superiority, feelings of inferiority, insecurities, or emotional immaturity.

Safe people/organizations respect people’s agency. They understand consent and boundaries and uphold them for themselves and others.

12/
*Sharing traumatic experiences, difficult situations, or problems you are having also requires consent. Asking people if they have the emotional bandwidth to listen to things we are going through or processing is important, it communicates loudly care/respect/love.

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More from @JoLuehmann

21 Feb
One of the saddest and most harmful things that is taken from privileged identities due to their experiences is curiosity.

Privileged identities have been conditioned to believe their experience is universal, their behavior is “normal,” and their opinion is truth.

1/
They have been conditioned to protect their privilege by being convinced those who don’t have what they have are too lazy, too dense, too broken, too depraved, too ignorant; to get privilege like them. They think we all need what they have, they are the pinnacle of existence.

2/
This causes them to meet others with answers, as gods, with superiority, knowing it all. Which means they don’t ever consider they could learn something from those they meet who aren’t like them. Read the colonizers’ journals, they believed native people saw them as gods.

3/
Read 9 tweets
19 Feb
I am going to say uncomfortable things. Christians you will probably be activated. Your nervous system is going to tell you it’s dangerous and you have to defend your faith. Take a min, google the Backfire effect and be mindful of that.

On psychological abuse:
Psychological abuse comes from constant and calculated use of words and non-physical behavior to manipulate, coerce, shame, guilt or frighten a person. It results in influencing thoughts and behavior, distorts people’s reality and affects their sense of self and wellbeing.

1/
Indoctrinating children into a religion, and teaching them implicitly or explicitly that their belonging to their family and/or God hinges on their compliance and agreement to this religion; is psychological abuse.

2/
Read 17 tweets
18 Feb
Me - The Bible isn’t the word of God.

Christians - The Bible is true.

Me - literature being true ≠ literature being the word of God.

1/
Me - Churches please stop abusing people.

Christians - You’ll never find a perfect church.

Me - Churches not abusing ≠ churches being perfect.

2/
Me - Christianity has been used to harm too many people.

Christians - So has Islam!

Me - Christianity being used to abuse ≠ Christianity is the only thing used to abuse.

2/
Read 7 tweets
17 Feb
“we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.”

Rush Limbaugh
1/
“You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray. We miss you, James. Godspeed.”

“They’re 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?”

Rush Limbaugh
2/
“Holocaust 90 million Indians? Only four million left? They all have casinos, what's to complain about?"

“‘No’ means ‘yes’ if you know how to spot it.”

"Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society."

Rush Limbaugh
3/
Read 8 tweets
17 Feb
Spirituality and faith having been meaningful tools of liberation for BIPOC and other marginalized people. Our ancestors resisted white supremacist/empire theology with their brilliance and relationship with the divine within and around them. We follow in their steps.

1/
Our words, our theology, and our spiritual beliefs scare white supremacy and demand it back off. Our spiritual practices provide liberation. We have been silenced because our spirituality leads to the dismantling of oppression and that doesn’t serve empire theology.

2/
Nobody has to reclaim Christianity, or theology at all; and nobody gets to ask marginalized folks not to reclaim that which saved us. Christianity isn’t just the weapon of white supremacy used against all of us. It has always been a tool for the marginalized too. Both.

3/
Read 5 tweets
16 Feb
I am going to say something very uncomfortable. Read before you react please.

Purity culture encourages pedophilia, a thread:
Purity culture encourages pedophilia.

Some of the standards of purity culture are innocence (pretty much ignorance about sex), submission (for women), virginity as the ultimate standard, and “modesty” (for women that is wearing clothes that don’t reveal their adult curves)*
1/
Purity culture makes the desirable standard a child. It makes child likeness desirable in regards to sexuality. It makes virginity, and innocence, and submission; what the male brain should want most in a partner. And your brain doesn’t rewire just because you get married.
2/
Read 12 tweets

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