If deconstruction is a necessary stage of faith formation 🔗⬇️, why is it that Christian parents (& pastors in faith families) speak so negatively about it?

Probably many reasons, but b/c I've been reading so many Christian parenting resources, I want to talk about one 🧵

https://twitter.com/MBurtwrites/status/1820972205024670126

Many frameworks give little space for questions/differentiation. Parents cultivate & expect right-away-all-the-way-compliance. This may “work” when children are small but leaves parents uniquely ill-equipped to navigate relationships w/teens & adults. 2/

https://x.com/MBurtwrites/status/1707777657138708810

A 🧵on the necessity of deconstruction:

As I analyze various Christian resources, I often think about the ppl who lived them. What was it like to parent according to the suggested principles? To be a child “trained up” by them? A family spiritually formed by them? Recently finished chpt-by-chpt examination of Don’t Make Me Count to Three, a practical application of Shepherding A Child’s Heart. Both offer a nouthetic/ACBC approach to parenting—spiritual micromanagement of thoughts, behaviors, & hearts. 2/youtube.com/playlist?list=…

I am finishing my reread of Martha Peace’s “The Excellent Wife” today, and as I was describing it to a friend she sent me the song that could’ve been written for it.

Try hard. And then harder. This book is peppered with “should” and “responsibility” and “sinfulness.” 1/5 If it works, your efforts were by grace alone. If it doesn’t work, be satisfied that you were righteous while you suffer needlessly. If you don’t like it, you have a sin issue.

On pg. 150 describes churches teaching “older women how & what to teach the younger women…” 2/5

Imagine expecting ppl who have been waiting for responses re:@ACNAtoo for 3+yrs to give any ACNA leader the benefit of the doubt at this point.

Stating what a bishop has chosen to do≠malice. 🧵/6

https://twitter.com/GroyperFriend/status/1803756923767967969

If @The_ACNA leaders don't want ppl to assume an ACNA bishop is silencing survivors & muffling a clergyperson...they should not take actions that silence survivors & muffle clergy. 2/6

@GroyperFriend Imagine expecting ppl who have been waiting for responses re: #acnatoo for 3+yrs to give ACNA leaders the benefit of the doubt at this point.

Walls of silence cut both ways. Not issuing public statements leave ppl filling in the blanks. 1/2 @GroyperFriend If ACNA leaders don’t want ppl to assume an @The_ACNA bishop is silencing survivors & muffling clergy ppl, they should not take actions that silence survivors & muffle clergy.+

My feed: "women can't be at seminaries" + megachurch knew a pastor molested a girl & "restored" him to ministry.

Christians telling women their femaleness forever disqualifies them while we cannot find the will to tell a man his behavior has permanently disqualified him.

🤔🧐🧵 Among other things, both of these stances are *unbiblical*. First: excluding women.

Guess who didn't have a problem w/women learning & fully participating in the church?

Early church as seen in the New Testament.

Perhaps these Christians had watched the example of Jesus. 2/

Lack of HR procedures & communication is a problem at every level of @The_ACNA

Several yrs ago a bishop (not mine) berated me over the phone for writing about @ACNAtoo on socials.

Stunningly inappropriate from anyone let alone bishop to layperson. What was I to do?🧵

https://twitter.com/abbinye/status/1801601579566448812

Well, nothing, really, b/c there aren't processes.

I could reach out to my own bishop & others who thankfully took me seriously.

It's a luxury many don't have. My privileged position as clergy spouse w/20 yrs of connections bought me credibility. 2/12

https://x.com/MBurtwrites/status/1582459185286983680

Thinking about this🧵all day today.

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

https://twitter.com/esaumccaulley/status/1793304772868546917

Reminds me of Helen’s observations 2 yrs ago. ⬇️

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…

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

https://twitter.com/ACNAtoo/status/1791460501383475435

Bishops in @The_ACNA are given shepherd's rods to symbolize how they are entrusted with Christ's flock.

Shepherds are to take action: "hold up the weak, heal the sick, bind up the broken, bring back the lapsed, and seek the lost."

Ignoring people is not a pastoral option. 2/8

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/

"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/?

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/?

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

It can be difficult to evaluate the impact of corporal punishment (exploration of this & linked studies in this 🧵).

That does not mean we cannot make robust conclusions about the harm.

IMO @janetheimlich's thorough work is essential reading: 🧵 a.co/d/1kxVK4l
Any research attempting to evaluate CP (either as "working" or "turned out fine" or "harming" or "trauma") must consider the limitations of self-disclosure, the only data source for things happening behind closed doors.

Loyalty, shame, & memory recall all are relevant. 2/?

Many Christians ardently defending "spanking" again today

Bolstered by (IMO) eisegetical claims & doctrinal interpretations, they insist that God requires adults to hit young children & claim that is what God does for us.

I find this to be profoundly unChristian. 🧵/10 Jesus did not force compliance. He invited ppl & instructed His followers to…follow His example.

He sent them out to do His healing and liberating work, saying, “Freely you have received; freely give.”

Neither did the apostles punish ppl into behaving. 2/10

The Bible nowhere commands parents to "spank"/hit young children. Nowhere.

Neither does it tell parents that God gives them authority to hit young children.

Direct instruction given to Christian parents (repeated 2X)? *Fathers, do not embitter/provoke your children.* 🧵/4

https://twitter.com/Vorrex7/status/1762503988526657910

Before someone proof-texts the Proverbs (a book intended to cultivate wisdom), consider:
✔️Applying "the rod" verses literally=beating young men w/stout rods
✔️We do not apply most Proverbs as imperatives

So ask yourself why those & why in that way? 2/4

“Christian parents who wish to sell their concept of God to their children must first sell themselves,” Dobson writes.

“If they are not worthy of respect, then neither is their religion or their morals, or their government, or their country, or any of their values." 🧵/? In a moment of reckoning for American evangelicalism, Dobson’s words take on a different tenor.
After I read Fea's article for @theatlantic, I read "Dare to Discipline." Published in 1970, it sold over 2 million copies & launched a parenting empire. 2/?

https://x.com/MBurtwrites/status/1755759784228458929?s=20

When I saw the priest swipe the Ash Wednesday cross on my baby’s forehead, I cried.
“Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return,” the priest said, and I looked at my round-cheeked, bobble-headed, newly-born gift, and I was terrified. 🧵/? He will die one day, I thought, and the simple truth of the human condition quickened inside me.

I spent one January in the hospital with that child when he was gravely ill, and, for a time, the doctors didn’t know how to diagnose him. 2/?

Another interesting (to me) thing.

In Shaping of A Christian Family, EE’s stories from her childhood, she quotes her paternal great-grandfather’s book (alongside a couple of more rigid resources) a couple of times but always passages on duty/order. 🧵/14

https://twitter.com/MBurtwrites/status/1757189412058996738

When I read @LizCharlotteG’ article last week, these books came to mind b/c my impression from reading them yrs ago had been a very strong sense of duty/submitting one’s will as an identifying marker in EE’s childhood.

So I reread them. 2/14therevealer.org/elisabeth-elli…

Fea’s article reads like a variation on: “It could’ve been worse.” “You don’t know how bad he/she had it” or “Remember the good times.”

Fragility & defensiveness plague evangelicalism. 🧵/12
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… Parental fragility robs individual families of authentic connection.

Its systemic counterpart in church family subcultures like evangelicalism prevents powerholders from listening to the pain of the betrayed.

Fragility/defensiveness sets trajectory of future engagement 2/12

Let's talk about "slander."
If we equate public critiques of books or sermons w/ cancel-culture & mob attack, or name thoughtful objections to be sinful slander, we platform unchallengeable people. 🧵/? I was offline for many yrs before joining modern Areopagus of Twitter & have learned here's how it goes: provocative/inflammatory content (often markedly intended to stir up controversy & buzz in order to sell books or other resources) quakes through the conversation. 🧵/?