Here's the thing, though, & it should be 🚩🚨. Rez & presumably other churches w/in UMD *do* require members agree to obey clergy in their extraordinarily unconventional "New Member Covenant."
It opens with a commitment to obey and support those in spiritual authority, particularly the bishop and clergy.
Nowhere in this document does it discuss informed methods of issuing a complaint about clergy, only a members responsibility to comply.
Concerns with leaders are to be kept private, not even to be discussed with friends or other leaders in the church.
Instead, the concerned layperson is to attempt to privately confront the leader, something that disregards power dynamics & safeguarding best practices.
Note this entire subsection about honoring leaders including:
-obedience & submission to their authority
-idea that obedience prevents conflicts (!!!)
-preemptive dismissal of *common & dangerous* allegations against leaders.
This is highly irregular & controlling.
Again, people who have concerns or issues are directed to privately go to someone in leadership, presumably so they can persuade them to stay.
I don't know what kind of church discipline was going on at the parish level, but the way it is addressed here is foreboding.
The signature page includes agreeing to the extensive rules on conflict (the focus itself a 🚩) and again a reminder to honor leaders.
I don't know if all UMD churches sign this membership covenant but to my knowledge they are required to include the Unity Pledge.
If you are wondering why people in UMD/Rez are not speaking about these matters directly, well, this is why.
Members have been taught this from when they joined the church, and the church culture supports it.
This is wrong & weirdly controlling.
It's also unbiblical, despite the fact that the entire document is prooftexted with Scriptures to bolster these points.
There are many NT examples of Christians confronting problematic teaching & much of it involves public discussion.
If you are in @MidwestAnglican or another @The_ACNA diocese that attempts to muffle your concerns or funnels all information through the clergy, please know this is a mark of unhealth.
I wonder if this dynamic also relates to way (at the risk of overgeneralization) Christian male leaders may expect to walk into a room & be heard, can expect their words to result in action - that is diff from what many women experience. 🧵/9
Perhaps a reason women show up more as advocates is b/c we know what it is to be unheard. 2/9 acnatoo.org/acna-witnesses…
It’s not that everyone can or should care/act about everything, but there’s a certain luxury to leaders not prioritizing & acting about something b/c it hasn’t happened to them or b/c they are confident that *if* it happened to them, they would be heard.
3/9
Survivors continue to wait for responses & basic updates on processes as @The_ACNA procedures drag on
Many reasons why continued silence has always been unacceptable, but I will always be stunned by the *pastoral negligence* & passivity of it, esp in light of ordinal vows. 🧵/8
Throughout history & across culture, women are often the ones washing dead bodies, keeping watch before burials, feeding the mourning, ministering in the wake of death.
So too Jesus’ women have, in the hours before dawn, prepared age-old recipes of grief-scented spices. 🧵
They didn’t know how they were going to roll away that heavy stone, but they leave w/the sunrise anyway.
I wonder if, as they hurried through the quiet, ephemeral beauty of early dawn, anticipation threaded their weeping or if they dragged their steps to make time slow down. 2/
This was it. The final moment. They would get to see His body once last time.
I wonder if in later years the aroma of those same spices that once fragranced their oil infused hands would bring it all back to mind, the way scents can instantly transport us to a poignant memory. 3/
"Dedicate the youth according to his way.
Even when he grows old he will not depart from it."
⬆️ is how Dr. Bruce Waltke breaks this down in his commentary on the Proverbs.
Note: phrase "he should go" is not in Waltke's rendering. The reason for this: it's not in the text.🧵
Let's take a closer look.
I contend that this verse is primarily a sobering observation-intended-to-provoke-action about how the way the lessons received in childhood are formative, how they have long-lasting impact into adulthood & old age. 2/?
There is also an imperative. Waltke opts for "dedicate" to get at connotation of "inauguration and possibly consecration." (p.204)
Word is used elsewhere about dedication of houses/temples, so I think Brian's not wrong to see religious/moral training in it.
Final post in a series (linked at end) that uses story-telling/questions to argue against use of corporal punishment:
Part 1: perspective of 3YO child being spanked
Part 2: perspective of a sibling
Part 3: perspective of a parent
**Part 4: 20 yrs later**
🧵/?
These imagined scenarios are far from comprehensive, but I hope they spotlight ways corporal punishment contributes to the shame, inauthentic relationships, & painful estrangement many Christian families experience.
2/?
Some will read these scenarios & think they apply to other people—people parenting the Wrong Way, “spanking” the Wrong Way.
B/c Christian parents often insist there is a Right Way to spank & they are doing it.
I invite you to consider two critical flaws in that thinking:
3/?
This week I continue making a case against the use of corporal punishment by Christian parents.
I've already argued: it isn't biblical, it's not the way of Jesus, & decades of research show the harm (🔗at end)
This 🧵shows-not-tells a child's perspective of a "spanking" 🧵/13
It is not meant to be comprehensive or to speak for every child's experience, which is varied.
I wrote it for those who so easily claim there is a "right" way to spank young children.
Utilizing a scenario/formula Tripp offers, let's drag it out from behind closed doors: 2/13
CW: corporal punishment/abuse.
Tripp says: 1. Go to a private place. 2. Explain how child disobeyed. 3. Indicate spanking will happen. 4. Remind them about God/sin. 5. Tell #. 6. Take off child's underclothes & spank. 7. Hugs/prayers.