PhD | Author of "Something's Not Right: Decoding the Hidden Tactics of Abuse and Freeing Yourself from Its Power." | Writing at https://t.co/RdaQxiieu6
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Jun 14, 2021 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
Guidepost Solutions has been hired by The Summit Church, RZIM, and most recently, the SBC Executive Committee, to help these churches and ministries respond to allegations. Here is why this concerns me:
They have historically served wealthy individuals and corporations. Here's an interview where one of their leaders discusses how they address "delicate matters" like abuse allegations.
2. Excuses - “I didn’t mean it.” “It was out of my control.” “Someone else is to blame.”
3. Justifications - “No real harm was done.” “It was consensual.”
4. Comparisons - “We’re all human.”
I’ve found these defenses are raised like the walls surrounding a fortress. When denials fail, excuses are used, when excuses don’t work, justifications are made, and when there are no more justifications, comparisons are drawn.
It is difficult to get through these defenses.
Jun 4, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This is an example of a tactic of justification I've seen time and time again in response to a crime: denying that the victim is a "real victim."
It's used when it is undeniable a crime has occurred and irrefutable that the offender was wrong.
The goal of the "victim scale" is to manage the impressions others are forming of the victim by presenting only their shortcomings so others conclude the victim is partly to blame, deserved it, isn't innocent in the matter, should have done something to prevent, etc.
May 2, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
High praises and underlying fears often coexist in a coercive environment.
This can be a confusing experience as you struggle to reconcile the flattery you hear with the fear you feel.
That fear is telling you something important about the flattery: it’s meant to ensnare you.
It can be hard to tell the difference between flattery and sincerity.
Flattery mixes exaggerations and untruths with compliments and always has selfish motives.
Flattery is given to get something from you - like compliance - so it might feel like nets are being laid around you.
Jan 14, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
We risk giving harmful advice when we view abuse through the framework of conflict between parties in need of reconciliation.
The predator objectifies, targets, isolates, traps, abuses, and discards.
There is nothing to reconcile if the “relationship” was a prison all along.
When the “relationship” is defined by the predator who intends to harm, pushing reconciliation is like asking the victim to walk back into a trap to see if it will close on them again.
Jan 9, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
When you present a difficult truth to others, you hope the focus will remain on what you presented. You might expect straight-forward denials like “I don’t believe you” or “That could not have happened” or outright lies. But comparisons introduce what I call “complex deception.”
Comparisons take various forms:
You might hear a comparison to a past event: “This is a witch hunt!”
Or a comparison to others: “Nobody is perfect.”
Or a comparison to a supposed greater trauma or wrong: “It’s not as bad as...”
Each comparison adds complexity to deception.
Jan 2, 2020 • 25 tweets • 10 min read
Focus on the Family received approval from the IRS to be reclassified as a church in 2016.
Here is a link to the correspondence they exchanged with the IRS at the time.
I'll highlight some of the basic arguments they made to the IRS in this thread:
According to FoF, their personnel make up their 594-member congregation overseen by the elders (aka Board of Directors) and deacons/deaconesses (aka Executive Cabinet). Radio listeners are their mission field.
Nov 15, 2019 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Some thoughts on intimidation:
Intimidation creates a climate of fear by giving others the impression that the intimidator is powerful and able to inflict harm on those who do not comply.
It is a common behavior within systems governed by deception and corruption.
Intimidation carries risk for the manipulator because it is easier to spot than other forms of coercion.
So threats are intentionally vague, falling just short of specific references to harm, while still leaving the target with a clear feeling of fear.
Oct 18, 2019 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Paula White has a history of soliciting money for other people. She's part of a Christian celebrity culture rife with exchanging favors, endorsements, and power.
Her message is not unique - it is a con that exploits fear, uncertainty, and turmoil so people want to give.
The con artist sets people up to want to give away their money away by convincing them of a problem that can only be solved by accepting the con's solution.
The most outrageous display I’ve seen is in this video taken at TD Jakes’ The Potter House.
Oct 16, 2019 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Abusers engage in a process of dismantling a victim's sense of trust in their external and internal worlds, often in subtle and undetected ways operating behind the scenes of more familiar grooming behaviors like gift-giving.
Here's a thread on this lesser known set of tactics:
Prior relationships, perspectives, hopes, and values are carried by the victim into the sphere of the abuser. These serve as important anchors to people and beliefs the abuser has had no hand in creating or controlling. So the abuser gets to work at dismantling these worlds.
Oct 4, 2019 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
People can be quick to question the motivations of abuse survivors who choose to tell their story. Why now? Is it for revenge? Money? Attention?
Questions like these come quickly and easily in a culture that has long demonstrated a tendency to shun such stories.
These questions divert attention away from what I believe is a more reasonable consideration: the number of motivations that exist for NEVER telling.
Here are 12 walls that I’ve observed in my own work and research that prevent abuse survivors from ever telling their story:
Aug 2, 2019 • 19 tweets • 6 min read
In 1981, @CTmagazine published an article titled "Short-cut Graduate Degrees Shortchange Everybody," citing the case of Toledo Bible College, a school "claiming to be something it wasn't."
The Ball & Puls book was based on a study conducted for that school's DMin program. THREAD
According to the @CTmagazine article, Toledo Bible College and Seminary was started in the 1960's by John D. Brooke, who "for all practical purposes...awarded himself the Th.D. from Toledo, since he received it not long after he started the school."
Jun 30, 2019 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
A common excuse bystanders give for inaction in response to abuses is to deny they possess any responsibility to act. In fact, they often convince themselves and others it would be irresponsible to get involved.
Some are conditioned to respond with this type of excuse. Abusive cultures control people by restricting their access to information while teaching them to trust leaders.
People are happy to mind their own business as long as new information doesn’t compel them to do otherwise.
Jun 15, 2019 • 19 tweets • 6 min read
In 2006, a couple joined the large Vineyard Columbus church, went to a newcomers class and signed up for membership not fully aware they had agreed to waive their 7th amendment right by agreeing to settle disputes according to the Rules of the Institute of Christian Conciliation.
The wife and mother of five, who had been sexually abused as a child by three male authority figures, started counseling with a senior level pastor. A lawsuit states he asked the woman to describe her sexual history to “see how the demonic could possibly be in play.”
Jun 13, 2019 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Survivors face great pressure from church members and leaders who not only teach that it is never appropriate to sue a church, even after the "courts" of the church have failed them, but also portray those who do pursue lawsuits as angry and motivated by greed.
For example, @MinistrySafe has a massive influence on how churches treat survivors. But I believe they recently framed those who seek litigation as "angry" and having a "monetary motivation" and framed those who represent survivors as greedy attorneys with billboards on highways.
Jun 11, 2019 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
One of the critical gaps I see in safety systems used by churches and other organizations working with children is a lack of current and accurate knowledge about how child predators are increasingly using phone apps and text messaging to lure, entice, and track victims.{THREAD}
The apps that have been used by pastors (mostly youth pastors aged 20-30) to groom, isolate, and abuse teens include:
Abusers and their enablers might try to invent various scales to justify:
1. The abuse
and/or
2. The abuser
These scales are typically used when it is undeniable abuse has occurred and irrefutable that the abuser is at fault.
The goal is to escape any consequences. 1/8
Two of the many attempts to justify abuse are made using scales I've named the "victim scale" and the "injury scale."
The victim scale weigh's the survivor's background, attire, personality, past relationships, motives, and any other factor that might be used against them.
May 18, 2019 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I’ve had a hard week of sitting and hearing multiple stories of the destruction caused by narcissistic and deceptive perpetrators who prey on others.
I’m reminded again of how much I want others to “get it”, yet I’m not sure that can really happen unless you’ve survived it.
To those who haven’t experienced the trauma of abuse and want to gain at least a partial understanding, I invite you to listen.
Listen to the thousands of survivors who have shared their story or have had their story reported by the media.
Listen, listen, listen, listen.
May 7, 2019 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
THREAD:
Abusers force secrecy upon their victims the moment boundaries are crossed. Whether explicitly stated or implied, the abuser asks the victim to become a co-keeper of at least two weighty secrets:
1. The truth about the abuse. 2. The truth about the abuser.
1/8
The disruptive power of the secrets oppresses the victim.
Like any weight, the secrets become harder to carry over time.
The victim feels trapped as a desire to be free from the burden of secrecy is repeatedly met with a fear of what will happen if the truth is revealed.
Apr 30, 2019 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Much of the unethical behavior we see in abusive organizations is similar to institutional abuses observed in the past.
Enron, for example, was one of the "most admired companies" in the USA, yet collapsed.
Researchers found the leaders at Enron were unethical in six areas:
1. Abuse of Power.
Speaking of their CEO's, Craig Johnson writes, "Both Lay and Skilling wielded power ruthlessly. Lay routinely demoted vice chairs who disagreed with him, and Skilling frequently intimidated subordinates."
Feb 10, 2019 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
THREAD:
Organizations that have successfully escaped taking responsibility for their own history of systemic sexual abuse have typically employed numerous tactics of impression management to control the ways in which people view them.
Here a few ways the system deceives:
One type of justification suggests sexual abuse is not just a problem within the organization but a problem that spans all organizations and is a human problem. This comparison with industry and societal norms leads us to believe the problem is not unique to the organization.
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