Thanks everyone who's messaged me last few days. I really appreciate some people want to learn what the right response to abuse is. ATM I'm sure you can understand I need to prioritise responding to survivors who are massively hurting. So I might not be able to get back to you..
...but pls read the books I recommended: 1stly, for this week, pls read @wademullen - it will totally explain so much about responses this week. 2ndly read @DianeLangberg's power book which I reviewed below...
Lastly, pls pray for survivors & advocates of whom many are obviously exhausted, and hurting. Feel free to tell them you're listening - but please also do the work of reading, so that you don't totally & unecessarily wear them out.
Lastly, and above all - be like Christ to them. Christ was appropriately harsh with the pharisee's, but gentle with the oppressed. Pls don't get that order mixed up.
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1/ I appreciate I have many friends on here wondering why us survivors are not happy with some of the things well known UK leaders have said in response to the Fletcher & Smyth abuse. What has sounded as appropriate to you, has been hurtful to us... #FletcherCulture
2/ I'd ask you to pls do the work of researching and understanding abuse better. Remember the time when you needed to understand exegesis & Biblical theology better - similarly you may now need to understand abuse & its dynamics better...
3/ Listen to survivors' voices. It's disingenuous to say you care about the survivors - but then ignore what they are saying. It's unkind to pontificate on what needs to happen, if you're not listening to what the survivors who have had an inside view for years, have to say.
'God may in his infinite wisdom want to finish my story of spiritual abuse with your voice to tear down the strongholds that allowed my spiritual abuse.' 1) So true. We're a body, we shouldn't have to deal with abuse as individuals - come on Church, where you at? 2) We ...
2) We usually don't tell our stories till we've already gone through tremendous pain. When we speak up publicly, we want other people to be spared. We're amazed we managed to get through it, we're concerned others won't - we don't want to see anyone else go through that pain...
3) We also speak because one of the ways we get healing is by speaking our stories of abuse, by no longer being silenced. Discouraging people from speaking, harms their personhood (see Langberg 'Counselling Survivors of Sexual Abuse).