Jewish Zionism is a response to hundreds of years of oppression and persecution. For many Jews it’s the only response. Jewish Zionism didn’t come out of privilege but out of marginalization.

A few caveats before I keep sharing what I’ve been learning in the last few years:

1/ Christian Zionism is anti-semitism full stop.

The actions of the Israeli government against Palestinians citizens are despicable, we can oppose governments without hating the people those governments claim to represent. For US citizens, that’s life every day.

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People raised by high control adults grow up unaware of the most authentic version of themselves, our personality and life choices are often a response to trauma.

The journey to ourselves is a reparenting that requires tools we’ve never had and support we may have not seen.

1/ One things is for sure, we won’t find this version of ourselves within high control spaces/relationships, they activate our childhood trauma and the version that responds is the survivor who had to so whatever was needed in order to survive the abuse of high control.

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Christian friends I say this with all the love in my heart. Antisemitism is embedded in Christian theology. I have said and believed horrifically antisemitic things. It’s taken me years of intentionally listening and learning from Jewish folks to see what I didn’t know.

1/ Antisemitism has existed for several millennia, Christianity has been at the center of it for the last two of those millennia. Our Jewish siblings have suffered pogroms, displacement, abuse, mistreatment and genocide over and over and over again, at the hands of Christianity.

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Observing Independence Day.

While Independence Day commemorates the founding of the United States and the ideals of freedom and liberty, it is essential to acknowledge the stark contrasts between these ideals and the experiences of Black people and Indigenous communities.

1/ Capitalism played a significant role in the oppression and marginalization of both Black people and Indigenous peoples throughout US history. The institution of slavery, driven by economic interests, dehumanized and exploited Black individuals for centuries.

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Hey friends,

I was strapped by feet and wrists to a bed, against my will, and given haldol even though I was just grieving loss.

The cops and medical professionals at the hospital were so unprofessional an abusive that I’ve been in a panic for over 48 hrs.

1/ Please scroll down at your own discretion.

TW: medical abuse.

I am having a rough year, we all know that. And I currently live in my sister’s basement because we had to flee CA to ensure the protection of our kids.

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I want to share something tender with you.

I don’t want to be a Christian anymore. I am not anti-Christianity. This is my journey, and I want to share it with you all. I am not, at all, trying to prescribe it, it’s just my journey.

1/ I’ve tried, I really have, I’ve tried to hold on but Christian spaces; progressive, conservative and everything in between, are just too harmful for me. They keep on harming me and I got to a place where I don’t understand what the point of holding on is.

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Human trafficking is modern day slavery.

The wording is a way to minimize severity, as it’s always been done with slavery; minimize, pretend it isn’t as bad as it is, people keep enabling it.

AND there is plenty of evidence, you’d have to be looking away to not see it.

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https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1608913993221144579

The issue with slavery today and in the past, is that our economy is dependent on the labor of enslaved people, so most people look away to not deal with how we ALL participate, and how the most favorite folks out there are the ones behind most of it.

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TW: Suicide.
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I haven’t shared much of this publicly, but this year I’ve dealt with a lot of suicidal ideation. Not only did I lose community time and time again, I also have dealt with loss of safety and significant financial hits that have left me in crippling debt*.

1/ Suicidal ideation isn’t something new to me, the first time I experienced it I was probably 10 years old, but this last year is the year I took more steps toward ending my life because I honestly found myself against a wall and without hope or a way out of it.

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Some of what I have learned about the Reticular Activating System (RAS), Christian indoctrination, systemic oppression, and healing.

A thread: Inside of toxic Christian spaces fear and shame are tools used to control and exert power.

Fear of losing belonging if you don’t fit into expectations set for you, fear of rejection if you don’t live according to the rules. Shame upon you and your family if you don’t belong.

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Someone posted👇🏽 on IG and I was reminded of some replies and comments and how little we know about accountability. When people hear it is our responsibility to hold our own communities accountable they often just think “punishment,” and refuse to or enable harm.

A thread:

https://twitter.com/joluehmann/status/1515792816806408193

Accountability is a matter of integrity not punishment.

Accountability is hard community work that requires a lot of support, a lot of education, a lot of patience, a lot of modeling boundaries, a lot of divesting from privilege, a lot of losing comfort, a lot of love.

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I was a green room and hospitality leader in a mega church, they hosted several pastors’ conferences. I wasn’t allowed to speak to them, my job was to say yes to anything they needed.

I drove all over the city once looking for a specific brand of water for one of them. Fun times

https://twitter.com/kaylajohnsonatl/status/1582939509175463937

One time I had a 4 degree burn all down my right arm (long story). My arm was covered w/gauze. One of the pastors came and scolded me for getting a sleeve. I didn’t understand what a sleeve was (foreigner), I asked him what he meant and he just started praying for humility for me

Not all men but:

The boys who decided it would be funny to grab my butt when I was 11 years old and walking home from school.

The boyfriend that told me that if I didn’t have sex with him he’d be in too much testicular pain and I’d be hurting him. I didn’t, he broke up w/me.
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https://twitter.com/se_ransdell/status/1582567941886734336

The friend I hadn’t seen since high school who invited me to dinner and had to be told NO! Sternly several times before I could leave his house and then said “why did you accept the dinner invitation then?”

The college teacher who said he could “tutor me” at his house.

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Emotions are neutral. They aren’t good or bad. Emotions are instinctive responses our brains create in our brain and send to our body. There are unpleasant emotions, not bad ones.

Emotional fitness is the work of developing healthy responses to all our emotions.

1/ Suppressing emotions that we have been told are bad or negative is not emotional fitness or maturity; it’s avoidance.

Avoidance is a coping mechanism, it doesn’t make things better, it simply delays, and can often magnify, unpleasant emotions.

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The rapture doctrine developed from dispensationalism, a belief that biblical history is divided into periods called dispensations that build on each other giving us more revelation about god. The whole idea was developed in the 19th century;

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https://twitter.com/justnbullington/status/1573390951082590209

and according to it the rapture is an event that will take place at the end times where true Christians who are alive, along with resurrected Christians who have died, will be taken up to a heaven to meet Jesus.

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Things I had to learn upon leaving evangelicalism:

- How to disappoint people I am supposed to get approval from.
- How to know what I really want.
- How to set boundaries.
- How to quit without shame.
- How to change my mind.
- How to apologize properly.

1/ - How not to betray myself.
- How to be accountable.
- How to regulate and process my emotions and not spiritually bypass them.
- How to be motivated by love.
- How to not let fear and shame rule me.
- How to be assertive.
- How to be proud of myself.
- How to demand respect.

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For those who aren’t acquainted with @arcchurches, let me share some fun information with you. And yes I’ll add my opinion too, because they are some of my abusers.

A thread:

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https://twitter.com/noedenelsewhere/status/1554978282189344769

I want to give some context to show that the behavior inside all these churches is systemic, it is never isolated events of misjudgment.

We start with:

• @JimmyLSwaggart

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Visited the Inquisition museum in Cartagena. Christians used several different contraptions to cause “heretics,” Jews, witches, and anybody who wasn’t Christian to make them “repent.” They’ve never apologized.

Somehow Christians keep pretending they are the ones not tolerated 🤦🏽‍♀️

https://twitter.com/joluehmann/status/1549016057616252930

Also for fun, here are some of the books that were banned in Colombia by the Catholic Church. That’s without mentioning all the Indigenous writings and all the wisdom from the enslaved Black African peoples that were brought to Colombia against their will by Christian colonizers.

I am not an expert on witch trials but I am somewhat an expert on Christian theology as a weapon of oppression.

So let me try to explain why human suffering, especially human suffering of those marginalized, doesn’t matter to many Christians.

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https://twitter.com/drjengunter/status/1541590921854062592

Christian theology to justify oppression and as a weapon of control has existed since Theodosius I in the 4th century.

While Constantine legitimized Christianity, Theodosius I was the first to issue an edict that made Roman law to define what religious orthodoxy is.

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Abortion will never stop existing. The data is there. Abortion is a medical procedure that saves lives. People trying to make it illegal know abortion will never stop existing, they’ll make it inaccesible and they don’t care since they’ll always have access anyway.

1/ From what I’ve seen they are interested in two things:

1- Unifying the right over a single voter issue they can be outraged about without the voices of the ones they are “saving” telling them this isn’t needed. Fetuses can’t speak.

2- Controlling people with uteruses.

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Until we learn to see accountability as a gift and not punishment, we won’t have abolition and therefore we won’t have liberation.

What’s sad is not accountability and consequences, instead it would be tragic for people to never be held accountable for harm caused.

1/ Love is showing people the bruises they cause so that they never do it again (hopefully), love is telling them so we can set appropriate boundaries with them (“if you do that again we can’t be in relationship”), love is caring enough to point them toward their blind spots.

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Hating the Bible because of the white supremacist theology and history you are exclusively acquainted with, is racist.

Reducing all of the Bible to the white perspective you were given and believing that’s the only way to view it, is racist.

1/ Demanding all people reject the Bible without having studied Jewish theology, Black theology, womanist theology, and other theologies from the margins, is bigotry.

Ignoring the histories of how the Bible has played a role in the liberation of many people, is pitiful.

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