Thread by @hlgriffin

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc Abusers are consummate image makers. They can sound sincere. They can sound convincing. They can do this for decades. When they slip, we empathize with them because we think what they reveal when they slip is "out of character."

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc Most of us never see beyond the performance, much of which is on stage.

They can say true & good things that we receive with a pure heart & that bless us.

They can play dress-up in the appearance of goodness.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc Consider Jean Vanier, who died at the age of 90 in 2019, beloved by people all over the world for his fifty year ministry as the founder of @larcheintl .

People spoke of him as a living saint.

christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/april-…

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl Vanier was not ordained, but he was a spiritual leader for thousands. Many came to faith or renewed their faith through the vision of ministry that he cast.

Many reordered their lives to move to L'Arche communities to live a life of service in community with disabled people.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl There is so much good that Jean Vanier did in the world because of the vision of ministry he painted in his books & articles & public speaking.

There is so much evil he did privately.

For 70 years, Jean Vanier sexually abused adult women using pseudo-Bridal Mysticism.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl The beloved public image of Vanier, which blessed so many, hid great evil.

Some women had tried to confront him before his death.

Some had sought help from leaders, but it went nowhere.

The public image of Vanier was unstained for decades.

web.archive.org/web/2023032410…

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl Unlike @IHOPKC, @LArche commissioned a competent, independent third-party investigation from a group that was not bound by attorney-client privilege to protect the interests of L'Arche as a client.

Survivors had good reasons to believe it was safe & seeking truth.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche This investigation produced a nearly 900 page report.

It was world-shattering for people who loved Vanier & L'Arche.
commissiondetude-jeanvanier.org/commissiondetu…

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche Supporters & members of L'Arche all over the world- many who had dedicated their lives to this ministry- have had to reckon with how much goodness they experienced.

They have to reckon with how God could allow that blessing when so much evil is happening.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche Thankfully, L'Arche's entire culture is built around honoring the image of God in those who are powerless, whom the culture sees as disposable & somehow less than fully human.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche I think that's important because when we face betrayal by leaders & institutions who have had a profound influence in our lives & identities-- who may have influenced irrevocable choices that changed the trajectory of who we might become, who represented connection with Jesus...

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche ...we are likely to experience Betrayal Blindness. "If we can believe we aren’t being betrayed, we think we can stay safe."

We will be ever looking, but never seeing. Ever hearing, but never listening. Ever thinking, but never understanding.

acnatoo.org/acnatoo-blog/w…

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche I have been deeply impressed with how many people who love & trusted Mike Bickle & who ordered their lives around @IHOPKC have been willing to not throw away women whose testimonies, if recieved as faithful, shatter the false realities that felt so safe & good & true.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche Because most people will throw those women out in a heartbeat rather than face the world-ending possibility that they have been betrayed by Mike & @IHOPKC leadership.

Let Mike Bickle be true, and every woman a liar... & an Accuser of the Brethren-- or a whore, or a Marxist.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche Let Mike Bickle be true & Allen Hood & Jono Hall & Dwayne Roberts & other leaders whose world has also ended when they found out about Mike also be liars.

Let it be a grand conspiracy on such a scale that it only highlights the status of Mike as central to the Great Story.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche Let emails be faked & a journalist be incapable of checking meta-data.

Shall they bring in forensic investigators to analyze the email? Every transaction, every IP address, every 0 & 1?

Shall those forensic investigators also be liars so Mike Bickle can be good?

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche Mike Bickle, performing thousands of hours for you on a stage, is not a man that you know, @natecdrums.

You know an image. You are attached to an image. You have given thousands of hours of your life to an image & would have to rethink your life if you were betrayed.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche And you will sacrifice those women for that idolatrous image of Mike Bickle & for the image of what you thought your life was.

They are not real people to you in the way that an image in a recording has been to you.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche I think that the woman who shared her testimony to protect others-- something she should have never had to do because @IHOPKC could have & should have commissioned an independent investigation-- is poor in spirit, as referenced in your bio, @natecdrums .

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche Imagine for a moment, @natecdrums , if she were a real person to you rather than a nameless, faceless Accuser whom you have not spent thousands of hours of your life listening to because she was not promoted to you as a great prophet.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche Imagine that she was your wife or your daughter or your sister or a woman that might be more real to you and precious to you than Mike Bickle, a man whose polished image you have been consuming for over twenty years for thousands of hours.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche Imagine what a woman whom you love & who is a real person to you would feel if she shared something that had been a heavy secret for her- say something that had consumed twenty years & thousands of hours- something that she thought for years was her fault b/c she was brainwashed.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche Imagine standing next to a woman who is a real person to you, whom you love more than Mike Bickle, who is an image in a recording that you have watched for thousands over hours for twenty years.

Imagine she shared her story to protect others.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche Imagine that you are standing behind this woman as she looks at a computer screen while the most soul-crushing, shame-inducing experiences of her life are shared publicly to save other people.

Imagine her reading comments like yours.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche Or imagine her reading worse, @natecdrums, because honestly I've seen much worse than the elaborate gymnastics that you are executing so Mike Bickle can be the man that has existed on stage in your imagination for twenty years & thousands of hours.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche I can have compassion on what it is like to be betrayed by a leader whom you believed was godly, sincere, & trustworthy.

I believed that about a leader who claimed to be helping my former denomination seek justice for abuse survivors.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche I didn't even have 20 years invested in him, & it still just about killed me because he represented my last thread of hope that the churches that had taught me who Jesus was could be faithful.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche I trusted him because people I trusted also trusted him. He seemed good & kind & patient & wise.

When he seemed irritated or was making foolish decisions, I explained it away as a result of the stress he was undergoing.

I had empathy for him.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche Everything that I knew about how to gauge who was a trustworthy & decent person told me that this was a good man in a bad situation, & I reasoned about everything that happened from that first principle.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche And when he started to unravel, I still held onto his humanity. I still saw him as a basically good & decent person who was overwhelmed by a terrible situation & who was in a distorted mental space because he was facing betrayal by other leaders whom he loved.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche It took realizing that he lied to my face to cover from his own mistakes & shield himself from accountability for his mishandling of a national abuse response for me to accept that this was not a decent, but broken person in a tough situation.

This was a wicked man who lied.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche And part of what makes him so depraved is that he knows what goodness should look like. If people tell me that they've known him for decades & listened to his (admittedly much less interesting) teachings for thousands of ours & that they only saw goodness, I would believe them.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche I don't think I would have ever caught it unless I had been in a high-stakes situation & had enough access to multiple sides to be able to catch him, eventually, in a lie.

But the thing is, I could have caught it earlier, @Natecdrums.

I just explained it all away.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche I believed that God wanted to do something different in my denomination than what had happened in others that had faced a reckoning for abuse & mishandling abuse.

I believed our people loved Jesus enough to do better.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche I believed that God put me in a diocese with a Bishop in charge of the national abuse response so that I could be a bridge between survivors & people in the church who wanted to do well, even if they didn't know what they were doing.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche And that really is what it felt like at first. I believed that God was moving. I couldn't let myself see how much I had at stake-- that if this didn't go well, I would lose so much of my hope for the church. The more we have at stake, the more we are likely to suppress reality.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche And once the goodness & providence of God is attached to a leader or a ministry, the goodness of God & our sense of safety & trust in God can be threatened if that leader or ministry betrays us.

We feel betrayed by God, even if we "know" theologically that God does not betray.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche When someone you love & trust betrays you, especially if they represent safety & hope & belonging in the church, you don't just lose your trust in that person.

You lose trust in your ability to trust wisely.

You wonder who else in your life who seemed good was a predator.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche I felt stupid.

I felt like my autism made me vulnerable to being deceived by a manipulator.

I felt like I would never, ever be able to trust my judgement again.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche For about a year and a half, I didn't want to live anymore.

I wondered what else in my life was an elaborate illusion built so men like my spiritually abusive Bishop could LARP around as the Main Character for decades, being adored for their goodness & sincerity.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche My safety with God is still not rebuilt. I am still in the rubble, trying to find what can be salvaged.

Most of the people whom I trusted in church- who I was sure would do the right thing-- looked away, even when they knew their Bishop was a liar & a manipulator.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche I know that I will never be believed over the man who spent a year & twenty hours on the phone & multiple Zoom calls & hundreds of texts convincing me that he was trying to help while he was manipulating me & smear-campaigning abuse survivors.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche I know exactly what people will say about me as they rush to protect & caretake him because of how hard it is for him to be Accused by Those Women.

I know how he will explain in his best Compassionate Man voice that I am crazy-- he broke my mind, so that's plausible.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche I know that I am not a real person to them, and they think the Image of the man they have known for years is a real person whom they can trust, because this man radiates Trustiness and exhudes Sincerity & Goodness.

I am disposable to them.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche I know that I will not have an @allenshood or a Jono Hall or a Dwayne Roberts to stand with me.

I know that the men who believe me also want it to not be their problem to stand with me, because they don't want to face the consequences or for this to pull them away from ministry

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche @allenshood I know what men like you would say about me, @natecdrums , if the image of their leader was more precious to them than the humanity of a woman they don't know.

At least the abuse wasn't sexual.

At least I won't be called an Adulteress while I watch King David be Restored.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche @allenshood But Jane Doe probably will watch that happen.

She will watch as @IHOPKC leaders pivot to a tearful story of how Mike has Confessed Adultery.

She will watch them talk about How Hard This Is For Them, but how God still has Great Things for them.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche @allenshood She will watch as Stuart Greaves & Marci Sorge & Dave Sliker give updates on how sad Mike is- how he is spending time away as an intercessor, like David away with his flock writing psalms, how Mike is weeping over Psalm 51 & writing his own Psalms (to be sung Harp & Bowl style).

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche @allenshood She will watch as he is welcomed back-- probably a year or so later (because six months is just so SBC & tacky) as Mike is restored like King David.

@DrMichaelLBrown will be there with Rick Joyner & possibly Bill Johnson, all declaring that Mike is Truly Sorry & Fully Restored.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche @allenshood @DrMichaelLBrown She will know that there will be no restoration for her.

People will say "She needs to own her part. She should have gone about this differently. This Clergy Sexual Abuse brainwashing nonsense sounds Woke & Marxist."

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche @allenshood @DrMichaelLBrown Everyone in the audience who who watches from home, still believing that this was all just a temporary lapse in the judgement of an otherwise good man, will cry when Mike Bickle is restored.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche @allenshood @DrMichaelLBrown He will inherit the kingdom of heaven again as long as his performance of being poor in spirit is convincing, and you will be reminded of that verse in your bio, @Natecdrums, but will not think it applies to Jane Doe or the people who are risking everything to stand with her.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche Many of *whom,* rather.

I also didn't lift my pinky while I was sipping tea as I was typing this, which is probably why I messed up "whom."

"Whom" is such a fancy little word.

@natecdrums @Joel7Richardson @ericmetaxas @ihopkc @larcheintl @larche @allenshood @DrMichaelLBrown @threadreaderapp unroll