Because we are “in the dark” and are ignorant of the abuser’s tactics, we are prone to take the word of the abuser…The wolf, in other words, tells us how saintly he is and explains that it was the sheep’s fault that it was eaten.(P.24)

“For Satan himself can transform himself into an Angel of Light.”

I cannot repeat often enough that successful sociopaths (and pedophiles, and abusers) are masters of camouflage. If they weren’t, they would have been exposed and caught long ago. We only hear about the ones who slipped up.

I don’t understand why so many pastors don’t get it when it comes to domestic violence. I remember a number of years ago when I encountered more conservative/fundamentalist types because of various family interactions, just a few years after finishing seminary, one of them asked me if I thought physical abuse was grounds for divorce. I said yes immediately, and I would again, for one simple reason: A person who abuses their spouse has already broken the marriage vow and shattered the covenantal relationship at the most fundamental level. It’s an utter betrayal, and for a believer I think it’s blasphemous to at once claim to have a good standing in the faith and continue to abuse one’s spouse.

John wrote:

It’s an utter betrayal, and for a believer I think it’s blasphemous to at once claim to have a good standing in the faith and continue to abuse one’s spouse.

But when “good standing in the faith” becomes a matter of Acceptable Public Moral Behavior and/or Correct Doctrine/Perfectly-Parsed Theology…

How appropriate, considering that fundamentalist churches are a lot like the Borg.

Thank you for continuing to raise the awareness about this abuse issue and showing how much the church needs to be informed in order to take appropriate action!

We watched Jackson Katz, on a terrific TED Talk, who declared that domestic violence is not a women’s issue but is very much a man’s issue.

This is a ‘must listen’ and share with others talk. Follow the link.

Jackson Katz asks a very important question that gets at the root of why sexual abuse, rape, and domestic abuse remain a problem: What’s going on with men?!

http://www.ted.com/talks/jackson_katz_violence_against_women_it_s_a_men_s_issue.html

@ JustSomeGuy: Did you like the Picard quote at the top? I was really proud of that one!

@ numo: You have superb taste in sy fy guys!

I have gone with a dear friend of mine who was abused emotionally as well as her child, to her house while she gathered things in a moving truck to leave her husband. I stood and dared him to hit her or me while we moved her. Funny, no response from him at all. He got in his car and left, we finished moving her.

The phrase “‘ just’ abuse” says it all. I’m sorry…WTF??

Jeff S wrote:

Of course, those “encouraging me” would say the problem was I was “trying” in my own strength. I needed to “let go” and trust God. Really, what does that mean?

Me too.

I’ve never understood that rhetoric from other Christians, and it comes up not just in context of domestic abuse, but other subjects, such as grieving, depression, anxiety, or about any problem.

They’re rather vague, religious- sounding platitudes that don’t actually help anyone but I suppose make the speaker feel like he or she is meaningfully contributing something.

J Miller wrote:

How appropriate, considering that fundamentalist churches are a lot like the Borg.

Which is a real kicker when you consider on the macro level these same “fellowships(TM)” are completely-independent, with no denomination or connection to any other church. (“Us Four, No More, Amen.”) Total anarchy on the macro level, Borg-level conformity on the one-to-one human level.

Barb Orlowski wrote:

Jackson Katz asks a very important question that gets at the root of why sexual abuse, rape, and domestic abuse remain a problem: What’s going on with men?!
http://www.ted.com/talks/jackson_katz_violence_against_women_it_s_a_men_s_issue.html

Also a good illustration of active vs passive voice in English. In Active voice, the subject (in his illustration, the abuser) comes first in the sentence; in Passive voice, the object (the abused) comes first. And since Subject-Verb-Object (Active voice) is the default in English sentence structure, the emphasis and importance is on the first-mentioned.

Incidentally, business, law, and politics is FULL of Passive Voice. “Mistakes were made…”

I’ve been e-mailing back and forth with Voddie Baucham over the past few days (topic started out on spanking due to my blog post, but has since ventured into Homeschool Movement and now abuse in marriage). I asked for his position on abuse in marriage and instead of responding directly, he referred me to a link in which he says there is no allowance for divorce, period. I haven’t responded yet, but I’m about to ask him what happened to those pages in his Bible that refer to divorce.

@ Dee: Why, thank you!

As for the most recent crop of actors who’ve played the title role in Doctor Who, I’ll go with Matt smith, then David Tennant. (As both attractive and also as actors in Nu-Who.) Tom Baker is my fave from the original series, though I never carried a torch for him, and I think Matt Smith has taken his place in my overall rankings.

Julie Anne wrote:

I’ve been e-mailing back and forth with Voddie Baucham over the past few days (topic started out on spanking due to my blog post, but has since ventured into Homeschool Movement and now abuse in marriage). I asked for his position on abuse in marriage and instead of responding directly, he referred me to a link in which he says there is no allowance for divorce, period. I haven’t responded yet, but I’m about to ask him what happened to those pages in his Bible that refer to divorce.

Julie Anne — if you need more biblical firepower, download this excellent free PDF that goes into a biblical defense of divorce in cases of brutality. Look at pages 6-12. Excellent material.

web001.rbc.org/pdf/discovery-series/gods-protection-of-women.pdf

@ Hester: Michelangelo’s David: yes, but you have to balance that out with an understanding of the revival of classical Greek and Roman artistic subjects (including nudes, especially male nudes) in Renaissance italy.

However, I’d say there’s a *much* stronger case for Donatello’s “David” being intentionally and overtly homoerotic, which has much to do with Donatello himself. (Michelangelo would probably qualify as “gay” by today’s standards, but his personality was very different from Donatello’s!)

If you feel like doing some further reading, you can try Giorgio Vasari’s “Lives of the Artists” (which should be available as a free e-book at manybooks.net and other sites) along with Rudolf and Margot Wittkower’s Born Under Saturn, which is THE classic study of “temperament,” personality (etc.) and more regarding artists of the Renaissance. I think it’s fun reading, but then, I am an art/art history geek of sorts.

@ Numo:

“am guessing you’re probably reading something by a VF type who thinks M’s David is the epitome of homoeroticism”

Yes. Doug said it was homoerotic, claimed that Michelangelo was a “moral pervert,” and blasted him for embracing Greek thought. Thing is, Doug goes on and on about how great math is…so I’m not sure how Michelangelo is a sinner for embracing Greek thought, but Doug loving a discipline founded on the writings of Euclid is okay. Not to mention most of Western music is founded on Greek thought too.

Thanks for the tips. I doubt I’ll have to get into that much detail, I just wanted to check to see if Doug was hearing voices again… 🙂

Addendum @ Numo:

Also, I’m not clear why it’s okay for Doug to put 19th century paintings all over his CDs, when those paintings were ultimately derived from (Greek-derived) artistic principles laid down in the Renaissance…

Hester wrote:

Yes. Doug said it was homoerotic, claimed that Michelangelo was a “moral pervert,” and blasted him for embracing Greek thought.

Here’s a modern Puritan fellow who describes the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel as an “atrocity”: http://turretinfan.blogspot.com/2013/05/what-every-christian-needs-to-know.html

Hester wrote:

Thing is, Doug goes on and on about how great math is…

If Mr. Wilson thinks he’s going to conscript math in a proxy war against Godless liberals such as myself, he’s barking up the wrong tree:

…Mathematics is the queen of the sciences. She answers to no one but herself and toes no line but her own…

Julie Anne wrote:

I’ve been e-mailing back and forth with Voddie Baucham over the past few days (topic started out on spanking due to my blog post, but has since ventured into Homeschool Movement and now abuse in marriage). I asked for his position on abuse in marriage and instead of responding directly, he referred me to a link in which he says there is no allowance for divorce, period. I haven’t responded yet, but I’m about to ask him what happened to those pages in his Bible that refer to divorce.

Honestly, I wouldn’t bother. He’s firmly entrenched in the Permanence Camp (along with John Piper). Even if you are abandoned by a spouse you have to remain single until he or she dies. And they do not see Jesus as making a provision for Adultery, but rather allowing for divorce for infidelity during the betrothal period. This was the same view of my former church who pointed me to John Piper’s work, and my former best friend who pointed me to Baucham’s. If they aren’t going to listen to David Instone-Brewer (and John Piper called his view “tragic”), they aren’t going to listen to us. Neither Piper nor Baucham’s work comes anywhere close to the scholarship and thoroughness of Dabvid IB, but that doesn’t stop them. Oh, and John Piper’s church doesn’t even agree with him.

Jeff did a critique of Bacham’s message on Permanence (the same message my former best friend cited to me). Note- we are still friends and he accepts my divorce- says it is not a point worth dividing over. But I’ll never be able to be as close as I was to someone whose theology includes in being pleasing to God to see me destroyed.

Anyway- here’s Jeff’s critique if you are interested:

http://cryingoutforjustice.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/my-notes-on-voddie-bauchams-permanence-view-no-divorce-sermon-by-jeff-crippen/

Muff Potter wrote:

He purposely dumped the contents of her large craft basket all over the floor. He waited until she came into the room and turned on a recorder. She became upset, and raised her voice to him while crying.

I don’t see how it’s possible to ignore your own internal moral compass, engage in this kind of cruelty, and still think you’ll not reap what you’ve sown.

Abusers do not think like other people do. They do not have an “internal moral compass” the way most human beings do. There is no “figuring out how they think”. I’m sure you already know this, but I have to say it to remind myself.

Secular folks who have studied abuse have already figured this out and know we have to treat abusers differently. And guess what, there’s evidence that the NT Apostles knew this too. How else can Paul speak of winning your opponents with gentleness and then turn around and harshly come against Alexander the Coppersmith? Or John calling out Diotrophese? Either Paul was “do as I say, not as I do”, or he understood that there are some folks whose attitudes did not allow for the winning over with gentleness and required stiff judgment in order to protect the church.

All of that is taken from Jeff’s book- but it’s a hard lesson for me. I always want to give the benefit of the doubt. It’s hard for me to believe that abusers won’t just “get it” someday when they finally understand the real harm they’ve done. But that is not the reality. The reality is that an abuser thinks and reacts with a different set of rules- they are not to be empathized with or understood. They are to be protected against.

Jeff S wrote:

The reality is that an abuser thinks and reacts with a different set of rules- they are not to be empathized with or understood. They are to be protected against.

Jeff S — Well said. I tell people that abusers are not normal. A normal person wants a win-win relationship. An abuser wants a win-lose…and you are the loser.

Hester wrote:

Also, random question that has zero to do with the topic at hand, for the artists here: did anyone ever think that Michelangelo’s David was “homoerotic”? This is research for a blog post.

I never did.

Muff Potter wrote:

…Mathematics is the queen of the sciences. She answers to no one but herself and toes no line but her own…

😀 !

@ Jeff S:

Thank you very much for that link, Jeff. That is in fact the same sermon he referred to me and so it was great to read Jeff C.’s lengthy review. I was curious – did you ever show your friend Jeff C’s review of Baucham’s sermon?

It was pretty astounding to read that so much of his sermon did not even come from scripture, but instead from a book on marriage permanence – as Jeff C was following along with his copy of the book while listening to Baucham. I have a hunch there may be some unhappy and hopeless wives in his church.

@ Hester: he clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about!

@ Julie Anne:

No- when I’ve attempted to explain things in the past he’s always fallen back to “I respect you as a strong Christian and know that I can be wrong on this- we can agree to disagree, it’s a secondary issue”, so he’s not really that interested in getting to the bottom of it. And I DO appreciate that he doesn’t make divorce an unforgivable sin like many other relationships I’ve had. But what for him is a “different perspective” is my life.

And the thing is, he has two very close relationships with men who were in really, really bad marriages that both were able to miraculously save their relationships. Like in one case where both the husband and wife had both cheated on one another, repented, and managed not only to stay together, but thrive. After seeing examples like that, I think he expects God to do that in every case, instead of realizing just how miraculous that kind of thing is (and what an amazing testimony it is to God’s power and mercy). But in that case there were two repentant hearts- a very different situation from mine.

I’ve also seen this friend get more and more into VF type of teaching. He and his wife now have 5 children in a very small home and she homeschools. His salary is not great. I do think I’ve seen her discuss FV materials on FB. Now I know without a doubt that he is not an abuser and they are certainly not into the more extreme doctrines, but I fear they’ve been led astray by VF and Baucham type teaching, and it hurts my heart.

Jeannette Altes wrote:

I am working toward fully accepting that neither of my parents will ever ‘get it’ and letting go of that hope. It’s sad. It requires some grieving. But it is reality and frees me to move forward. But it still hurts like hell.

One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned is to not making my own healing dependent on my ex wife “getting it”. For the longest time I didn’t even realize I was doing it, and it caused me a lot of problems. I wrote a post about it that you might like:

http://cryingoutforjustice.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/the-fallacy-of-making-our-healing-dependent-on-those-who-hurt-us-by-jeffs/

It’s worth noting that the therapist I talk about in that post who told a bunch of emotionally hurting people not to wait for their abusers to take responsibility later became my own, personal therapist. I found out after the fact that he used to work with court ordered domestic violence perpetrators (men). So this was a therapist who really, REALLLY “gets it”.

I once asked him how many of those men he worked with ever changed, and his sad answer was that you could count it on one hand, that the religious ones were the worst, the “repentant” ones were the mildest of the bunch, and he couldn’t even really say if even those men truly turned from their abusive ways in the end.

Having a therapist who understood abuse was key for me and such a blessing. And he also helped me see that my ex WAS emotionally abusive. And yet, he also clearly showed me that the type of abuse that was perpetrated by the men he used to work with was one a whole different level that my ex didn’t approach. I think many men who clamor about getting equal treatment when it comes to DV maybe miss this. I know that there are women who can be as threatening to their husbands as some men, but my guess is that there are fewer cases. I think there may be a lot of cases like mine that go underreported because the cards are stacked against men admitting to not being able to emotionally handle things (but on forums I frequented dealing with living as a spouse of a depressed person, there were as many abused men as there were women), but at the end of the day, I can say that my experience as a male was different from a lot of our female commenters on ACFJ.

In the extreme cases where you have heads being crushed into bathroom sinks or babies lost due to their husbands beating them, this is certainly far worse than what I experienced. But even the milder cases where the abuse was more like “neglect” and emotional/financial, even then my experience was a lot different. For one I had a good job and financial resources- a lot of women leaving abuse situations have to do it without a net. It wasn’t easy on me financially and I still had to get help, so I shudder to think how it would have been if I didn’t have a job. Another thing is that I think I was believed by my church- I don’t know if it would have been different if I was a female. Now, because of their permanence views their belief didn’t help much: they told me it was my job to suffer for the glory of God. But at the least I didn’t have to spend time trying to prove that my ex was the problem. I can’t say for certain how their attitude would have been toward me if I was female, but I can’t discount that my experience was different from many female commenters we get on the blog.

However, there are surprising similarities. While women are told to “submit” in order to change their husbands, I was told to “love sacrificially” in order to change my wife. Really this amounted to the same thing with different language. I was told that “love never fails” and that if I’d loved my wife with “agape love” then she would have changed. I was not loving her correctly, so it was my fault. This is very similar to the teaching many women get that they are the problem for not being submissive enough. It all comes down to blaming the victim.

Anyway, I’m rambling a bit, so probably a good time to stop and go back to sleep!

Jeff S wrote:

I’m confused- isn’t “Classical Education” ENTIRELY “Greek” to the core?

Jeff – sorry to quote you out of context there; I know you’re not actually confused!

But you make an important point. Many ultra calvinismists (deliberate spelling) and others who believe the Bible is a discrete set of propositionally true statements about god, rather than a many-dimensional picture of a Person that must be engaged with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, have no idea just how deeply their religion is rooted in ancient Greek secular culture.

Not that I have anything against Greek culture as against anybody else’s culture. (For the record, I was supporting Leonidas in the film “300”.)

I really feel that if we are obedient to the word of God in that kind of a situation, God would give us the grace to endure a lot more severe things than we think.

One more question.

“We”?

@ Nicholas:

Just read the Turretin posts. That guy really has it in for the Sistine Chapel. 🙂 Of course what he’s not saying is that the traditional Reformed view of “images of God” also forbids Christian from making an image of God in their minds – i.e., actually picturing Jesus while reading the Bible:

“The sins forbidden in the second commandment are…the making of any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly or in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature whatsoever…” LC 109

In other words, the Larger Catechism condemns the God-designed human way of processing language as “idolatrous.” It could also be read as prohibiting symbolism. Thus why old Calvinist churches are so stark and bare.

@ Hester: IMO, since Michelangelo is a celebration of the male form:

1. if one had “gay” eyes, one might or might not be influenced that way, in the same way that a hetero might or might not be influenced that way with paintings of female nudes (of which there are thousands, an interesting phenomenon, yes? lol).

2. If one saw sex everywhere, then it is there, too.

3. If one were deeply into the idea that the body is a corruption, one would find corruption in David. (I think these Christian-types are a combo of 2 and 3.)

4. If one saw the human form as a marvelous creatioin, one would see David as a meditation of such.

5. I am of #3 #4 but also see Michelangelo’s David as an idealization and that puts me off a bit, since I’m more inclined to viva la difference!

[[MOD: Edit per request]]

Jeff S wrote:

I was told that “love never fails” and that if I’d loved my wife with “agape love” then she would have changed. I was not loving her correctly, so it was my fault.

Such a weird perspective, isn’t it? It is God’s perfect love that they are pointing to, yet He doesn’t blame Himself when we don’t change. He allows us tremendous space to mess up and uses the normal consequences of loneliness/estrangement to coax us back to Him/Herself.

And even God, when we finally repent, doesn’t just welcome us back as if our destructiveness never happened. How could He? Barring the rare miracle, the destructiveness has affected everything inside of us. We then slowly process all the issues with Him, “working out our salvation in awe and trembling” and it can take the rest of our lives.

And for those of us who are the abused spouses, it is best for us to go out and find life and love elsewhere. We hand the work of relationship with abuser over to God because it is beyond us and is no longer our affair.

Thanks for your “rambling”. Helpful to see the abused male perspective.

Nicholas wrote:

MacArthur is very much a part of Independent Baptist fundamentalism, and always has been. Many are not aware of this. MacArthur and his followers (the Pyro team, Fred Butler, et al) still self-identify as “fundamentalist.”

MacArthur is a member of the Independent Fundamental Churches of America (though that decision was fought by some members who were against it because MacArthur did not agree with their doctrinal statement on several points), but he isn’t so hot on the Baptist part. When he took over the GARB seminary Los Angeles Baptist College and Seminary, he renamed it Master’s College and Seminary and removed the congregational polity teaching, replacing it with Elder rule teaching.

As someone struggling to recover from serious mental illness (BPD), I am sure that some of my behaviors were seen as abusive, and I’ve been called a bully. I always felt bad because I never intentionally set out to hurt anyone, but the biology/neuroscience is now showing that BPD sufferers have overactive emotional centers and impaired imulse control. Once the I’m emotions are triggered, my brakes are faulty to stop the train.

I spent years in SGM trying to memeorize all the right verses and putting anger to death, but all that happened was replacing angry outbursts with addiction. I never found real help unti I left SGM and started in therapy.

The first three years post SGM have been hard, and I was very angry when I put to death the addiction. My husband was advised to leave me early in the process because I had frequent rages, but I thank God he listened to what the Spirit was telling him — to stay and help me. I want to get well, and the outbursts are only an occaissional occurence now.

I think if someone like me recognizes my brokeness and I want to get well, the church should welocome me and come along side to help, but that’s not been my experience.

Sometimes I feel like anyone that appears to be narcicist is condemned here. Can we differentiate between those that recognize their struggle and those that deny their brokeness. Those that recognize their brokeness should be welcomed and helped. Let compassion be our default response.

Quote:

“Abuse is fundamentally a mentality. It is a mindset of entitlement. The abuser sees himself as entitled. He is the center of the world, and he demands that his victim make him the center of her world. His goal is power and control over others. For him, power and control are his natural right, and he feels quite justified in using whatever means are necessary to obtain that power and control. The abuser is not hampered in these efforts by the pangs of a healthy conscience and indeed often lacks a conscience.”

Interesting. Make “victim” plural and replace “her” with “their” (referring to the people in the church) and this paragraph describes a former “pastor” (in title only, not definition) who recently graduated from The Master’s Seminary (TMS).

As for divorce…

Maybe others at Grace and TMS differ with Dr. MacArthur. I’m confused on the TMS position on divorce. The TMS guy referenced above was recommended to and then hired by our former church and both the guys from Grace and this “pastor” hid information that he had recently married a divorced woman. If it was a divorce with biblical justification, why hide the information?

There is also another TMS guy in the area who was divorced, but prior to salvation. Additionally, one of his elders was divorced (back story is unknown).

So what really is the TMS/Grace Community/Dr. MacArthur position on divorce?

@ Mrs Stretch:
BPD is not the same thing as narcissism or anti-social personality. The latter two rarely admit they even have problems, beyond a superficial Oops! There are also those with BPD who never face themselves, but some do, as you beautifully show.

I have a friend with BPD who has courageously kept at it, and now, in her later 60s, is mostly calm and centered in herself and has learned methods to moderate emotional outbursts. She hasn’t been able to stay married but has people around her who continue to support her because she keeps coming back to try again. The path is hard! She is a hero.

I wish you the best.

@ Deb:

Goodness! I’m sure there is no discrimination going on at that reputable organization 🙄

Jeff S wrote:

And I DO appreciate that he doesn’t make divorce an unforgivable sin like many other relationships I’ve had

I find it so interesting that Christians who are dead-set against some particular action or behavior as being a heinous sin (say, divorce in this example), turn out to be very, very understanding and delicate when it happens to them personally. 😆

Preacher Charles Stanley of a Baptist church in Atlanta said from the pulpit years ago that he thinks divorce disqualifies a preacher, and if he ever divorced, he would step down as preacher.

Then his wife divorced him, but he refused to step down as preacher. He has now changed his tune on divorce and is a heck of a lot more sensitive about it.

As I was saying on the mental health blog post the other day, I had depression for many years, and a lot of Christians are very insensitive and condemning of depression in and of itself, or of using medication or therapy to treat it, until they themselves come down with depression.

TV Preacher John Hagee of San Antonio sometimes rails loudly against divorce in his sermons, but he himself has been divorced.

According to online news stories, Hagee dumped his first wife for the mistress in his church (who is now his current wife), but he never mentions any of these details when he is screaming (literally screaming) against divorce in his sermons.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

well, it’s possible; abusers can be women, abusers certainly use manipulative provocation; and if said elders actually have objectively verifiable evidence that has not been filtered by the husband…

At least in the USA, based on reports I’ve read over the years, men make up the majority of the abusers.

I’m hesitant to go over-board with the “let’s be really, really fair and equitable, and not be hasty to arrive at a definitive conclusion” type position regarding some subjects.

I don’t think most children lie about being sexually abused. I’ve seen a lot of these SGM supporters say ‘innocent until proven guilty’ and ‘let’s wait to see what happens’ before any of them are willing to support the victims, and so on.

I understand not wanting to condemn someone without having all the facts or on the small chance they are truly innocent, but….

I think more often than not, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. I don’t think most kids or women are going to lie about being abused, so I’m not as apt to say, “now hold your horses, maybe she is making this stuff up, or maybe she is the guilty party since women can abuse too.”

One of the books I was reading about codependency says this sort of “I gotta be super fair to everyone, all the time” thinking is a trait a lot of American women have (I know I was that way for a long time), and being overly-fair blinds people to when others are taking advantage of them, or are lying.

People who are liars and abusers will take a woman’s tendency to “want to be really fair” and use that to manipulate them and get their way.

@ numo:

re: Doctor Whos

I thought Christopher Eccleston had a nice & dark edgy appeal.

Patrice wrote:

since Michelangelo is a celebration of the male form:

I just left you a post about this, right above this one, that is sitting in moderation queue, but I also wanted to say your comment there reminds me of a joke photo that went around a few years ago, about how Michelangelo’s David would have looked today, if they were living in American culture, which loves McDonald’s and potato chips.

Here is the photo:
photo: If Michelangelo’s David was eating a contemporary American diet all the time

anonymous wrote:

Yes yes!! This exactly!! They want a win-lose and define winning by their victim losing.

That is also similar to workplace bullies.

In one book I read about workplace bulllying, the author said that a lot of workplace bullies have that mindset of “win / lose,” where-as most of the types of people they target for harassment and bullying tend to be genuinely nice people who seek a “win / win” scenario for both parties, where compromise is desirable and nobody has to lose.

The author said bullies don’t want to make peace. They don’t want to compromise. They don’t want a 50-50, fair outcome. It’s an “all or nothing” mindset with them. They want to totally control, dominate and/or annihilate their targets.

Further (according to the book), some of this variety of bully put on a nice face around others – they are skilled at “kissing up” and acting pleasant to people higher up the ladder at the job, so when the victim finally complains about being mistreated, nobody believes him/her.

@ Daisy:

Yep. My husband works with a bully like that. I’ve met the guy and he is a colossal first class jerk.

Daisy wrote:

There are many parallels among bullying and abuse.

I meant among marriage/ school/ adult workplace settings/scenarios

@ Patrice:
I guess I am saying that those who are genuinely suffering from mental illnesses such as (some) BPD and Bi-polar people are different from those who are narcissistic/anti-social PD. The psychology field hasn’t grasped this yet, because they’ve not come to terms with the idea of ethical-absence and the concept of evil. Unfortunately the church is out in the left field of deliberate ignorance.

Borderline has been a dumping ground for the apparently intractably manipulative. IMO, some of them are narcissists/anti-socials with explosive temperaments. But others are as my friend, just plain mentally ill.

It is important to understand this, particularly with domestic abuse because sometimes a spouse is ill and sometimes he/she has an abyss where the moral compass should be. The difference doesn’t matter for the abused, but for those abusers who are genuinely ill, treatment will be different than for the narciss/anti-soc.

And Christians should know this and set up treatment for abusers with this in mind.

Former Macstudent wrote:

what really is the TMS/Grace Community/Dr. MacArthur position on divorce?

I would guess it is ‘we allow remarriage after divorce in some circumstances, but we don’t let it be publicly known what our criteria are. That way, we avoid coming under attack for our doctrine/policy, and we can make the rules a bit elastic when we want to… of course, we do not show partiality. . .

Daisy wrote:

Putting the “lovey lovey, Christians should always make peace and be forgiving” principles in to play really depends on the person and the particular situation – and for some, it may not be wise. There are some people who will only respond to negative consequences.

Some are predators, and “lovey lovey make peace and be forgiving” is seen as PREY behavior. Like those who counsel running away from an assailant and/or being nicey-nicey-nice.

Whenever I hear that oh-so-sweet advice (always from some sheeple who’ve never ever encountered a predator), I think of a Jurassic Park velociraptor, screaming: “PREY IS RUNNING! CHASE AND KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!”

@ Patrice:

Yes, that is the situation I am.

I hope my post to the BPD person did not come across as mean or insensitive. I think it’s great she knows she has a problem and is taking responsibility for it and is working on it.

I was just saying that over a lifetime, I’ve been on the opposite side of it and have taken on a lot of damage as a result.

As someone whose natural personality was to be quiet, shy, and afraid of people, and then my Mom made those traits intensify by teaching me as I grew older that girls are always supposed to be doormats no matter what, left me wide open to being treated poorly by other people, including my sister.

(I also learned from reading books the past couple years that people who are shy, quiet, passive and really, really nice are magnets for bullies and abusers. Which is something I had wondered about growing up – I seemed to attract jerks or people with anger problems, which I couldn’t figure out, since I was so darn nice.)

I love my sister, and I wish her the best.

However, after a lifetime of being bullied and treated rudely and harassed by peers, friends, bosses, siblings (and I have no idea what their motives/reasons were, if all or some had medical or psyhcologial problems), I’ve had it with sitting back and just allowing people to walk all over me.

(Being told one has to be a doormat in life, I now realize, is one big reason my clinical depression started when I was a kid, and in the face of lots of school bullying, too. My mom started conditioning me to be a doormat sometime when I was around 8, 9, or 10 years of age.)

Reading in books I do not have to subject myself to that treatment in the name of being a “good person” or a “loving Christian,” and that it is healthy to have boundaries, I defend myself now, and it makes no difference to me why a person is mistreating me.

If I’m being mistreated now, I either confront the person (politely at first), or I cut down contact with them if they won’t change.

I have to do it as a form of self-protection, and I am just tired of having spent decades being a verbal punching bag for other people’s angry out bursts and put downs.

So I don’t mean to paint it as I’m out and out against people who have BPD or something like that.

I have listened to several of the audio sermon series/ lectures on divorce and remarriage at the ‘Crying Out for Justice’ blog, and while they are quite good, I may disagree a tad with one view in one program.

In the “Divorce & Remarriage” audio by David Dykstra, he gets into this thing about how unless someone is “called to singleness” or “has the gifts or means necessary for living single [read: refraining from having sex forever until they die],” that it is mean-spirited for churches to bar anyone from ever getting re-married, because living alone and single forever and ever ’til you die means loneliness, no sex, and no companionship for that person.

I don’t think it is wrong for a divorced person to get re-married.

But… well… I didn’t ask to be single as long as I am. I am in my early 40s and have never married but really believed since childhood God would send me a spouse by the time I was mid 30s, but it did not happen.

I abstained from sex this whole time. I used to seriously believe sex was for marriage only.

God did not “call me” to be single, nor did God “gift me” with celibacy or singleness, but this is the view Dykstra depicts in his lecture.

Dykstra, in his audio, keeps using phrases like that (“gifted” “called to” etc), where he says (paraphrase), unless God has “called someone to singleness,” they can’t, or won’t, be able to stay chaste, etc. (Yes, they can.)

If you get divorced and are unable to find a new marital partner afterwards, you’re still called to be chaste – just like never-married people like me are called to remain sexually pure.

There just seems to be this odd understanding of singlehood and celibacy in Dykstra’s views.

God does not bestow chastity/celibacy and singleness on people like signing out eye color, height, or musical talent.

I’m still single at my age, and not by my choice- and God has not wiped away all sexual desire from me. I get lonely. I’d like companionship.

God did not give me some kind of “Celibate and Singleness Superpowers,” where I wear a Blue body suit with a Red cape and fly around with a big “S” for “Single” on my chest. -But this is often how adult celibacy is depicted by Christians.

A lot of Christians, including this Dykstra guy, seem to feel that God grants “special grace” (super powers) or “gifts” to people like me. God does not.

Being a virgin into my 40s, despite having opportunity (I was engaged once), and having a normal sex drive, has been a choice of mine to this point; I was trying to be faithful to what the Bible said about sex/marriage.

It is a matter of self control, self discipline, and personal decision.

God does not grant the unmarried person an imperviousness to being sexually tempted. God doesn’t remove your libido or desire for marriage if you are single into your 30s and older.

You’re not devoid of sexuality, a sexual nature, or sexual desire just because you are single or divorced at whatever age.

I’m listening to another audio of that Dykstra guy who is quoting favorably from “It’s important who you Marry,” which is a page by a Christian lady who tells Christian women not to marry a Non-Christian.

I know there is a “be not yoked to an unbeliever” Bible passage, but there is an absolute dearth of older, single Christian men to marry.

If the “don’t marry a Non Christian” is the view one is going with, my choice as a 40ish woman, never married, who is minimally Christian now, who’d like to be married, is to either
(1) stay single forever or
(2) marry a Non Christian.

As I’d like to get married, (1) is not an option anymore. I waited and waited for Christian Prince Charming to enter my life, and that did not happen.

That lady on her page also tells Christians to marry a guy who is not just a Christian, but one who is spiritually mature (‘will he lead you in Bible reading’ etc)

It is funny she would insist on that as a criteria for a Christian spouse because a male Christian writer I saw last week just said Christians need to drop that as a criteria.

He said it’s a fact that single Christian females vastly outnumber the males, and if you further erode down their pool of marital candidates by insisting that a mature Christian gal can only marry a spiritually mature guy of her equal, Christian gals will never, ever, ever marry because a lot of them are ten years ahead of guys the same age in the religious maturity department.

I agree with him. Christians have erected too many of these qualifications, and it’s limiting to singles who want to marry.

Daisy wrote:

I don’t believe adultery is the only “biblical” grounds for divorce myself, but even though a lot of Christians apparently still do…
Where in the Bible does Christ or Paul ever say that divorce is the greatest sin ever, and it is the unpardo

I think the ‘unforgivable sin” would be allowing your child to be abused or to continue you being abused.

@ Daisy:

I take your point about not wanting to be so “fair” that we don’t do anything constructive – I’m not sure I support “fairness” either because (as I’d use the words) it is subtly different from justice. The number of false allegations is almost certainly lower than the number of unreported cases, after all. IMHO, one miscarriage of justice is one too many, whereas one case of abuse is also one too many. The only way you can guarantee no miscarriages of justice is never to prosecute anybody. And the only way you can guarantee no woman or child will be abused by a man is to shoot every boy in the head once he reaches 16.

What is truly disgusting – and this does, of course, often happen – is to tell a person reporting abuse that they shouldn’t report it because “it’ll ruin his [or the church’s] reputation” without ever actually giving a monkey’s whether “he” is guilty or innocent. That has nothing to do with fairness or justice, of course; it is inexcusable.

It shouldn’t be beyond the wit of the community, though, to have measures in place that protect someone who is at risk of abuse without the putative abuser(s) being (in any sense) lynched without trial, and whose wheels don’t grind so slowly that abusers continue to harm their victims (or worse, escalate) as they wait for protection.

@ numo:
Yeah, it’s awful when you see that going on. It can affect people for the rest of their lives, badly. It is hard to be married to someone so emotionally battered, & you live with no confidence that your relationship will make it.

@ Amy: Amy, those are probably just people with B & D fetishes who need a “Christian” gloss on it.

@ anonymous:

MacArthur is a flaming Baptist! He rants against the Baptism of infants, and even holds to some form of Baptist successionism: http://justandsinner.blogspot.com/2013/06/response-to-john-macarthur-on-infant.html

Elder rule is also one of many different types of Baptist church polity.

A pastor that councils a wife to remain in an abusive marriage is complicent in the violence.

 “A Cry for Justice : A Study In Criminal  Behavior, Perhaps?”

hmmm…

     Jeff,

Hey, 

Your book,  “A Cry for Justice”, is it actually a study in criminal behavior, in a domestic setting? Is this right? (Amazon only says so much in its description, and didn’t find anything on your site) Also, your book, I believe, talks of domestic abuse awareness, and identification; does it also provide a possible “solution”, and a remedy for the hopelessness victims feel as well? 

Thanks for being here.

If you could come here to TWW and talk about your book (in a formal Post) , and talk about the favorable feedback you have received, the kind of folks you have helped, …well that would be somethin’ 🙂

I am sure your book and online material must be having some impact….

http://cryingoutforjustice.wordpress.com/recommended-resources/

hmmm…

…for the first time maybe, because of your group’s efforts, abusers are having ta get collision insurance…  

(grin)

Now we’re cookin’ wit gas!

ATB

Sopy

—

@ BeakerJ: In the case I mentioned, it didn’t, but I don’t know what happened or who got the kids after they split.

I really feel for both you and your husband, and what he’s gone through.

BeakerJ wrote:

It is hard to be married to someone so emotionally battered, & you live with no confidence that your relationship will make it.

BeakerJ, I pray for you this morn, that genuine love will be discovered to be nourishing and healing.

Pearcing  The Darkness:  “Is Eternal Vigilance The Price We Must Pay For Our Religious Liberty?”

hmmm…

Q:  What is the price that we must pay to ensure our own religious liberty?

Q: Do we just blindly trust members of the local religious establishment just because they possess a bonafide academia sheepskin and a $9, 8×11 parchment ordination certificate?

Huh?

Dee (@ TWW) quoted a Star Trek episode in the post above, let’s continue, shall we?  :

Partial script: (* Star Trek : The Next Generation, Episode 95 : “The Drumhead”) : 

JEAN-LUC PICARD : We think we’ve come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, is all ancient history. Then, before you can blink an eye, suddenly, it threatens to start all over again.

 WORF :I believed her. I… helped her. I did not see her for what she was.

JEAN-LUC PICARD : Mr. Worf, villains who twirl their moustaches are easy to spot. Those who clothe themselves in good deeds are well-camouflaged.

 WORF : I think… after yesterday people will not be so ready to trust her.

JEAN-LUC PICARD : Maybe. But she, or someone like her, will always be with us. Waiting for the right climate in which to flourish, spreading fear in the name of righteousness. […] Vigilance, Mr. Worf. That is the price we must continually pay. * [1]

hmmm…

[1] ‘Vigilance’ quote – earliest known source:

“It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude
 is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.” – John Philpot Curran,

….in a speech upon the Right of Election in 1790 ; (published in a book titled “Speeches on the late very interesting State trials” in 1808). 
___
* Star Trek : The Next Generation, Episode 95 : “The Drumhead”
http://www.trektoday.com/reviews/tng/the_drumhead.shtml

*
I posted this comment (found below) in an earlier Post: (thought it of suitable note again here) :

The Rest Of The Story: “The Power Of Pastors Are Circumscribed By Calvin, Within Certain Limits?”

John Calvin is speaking: 

“It is not ours, Sadolet to rob the Church of any right which the goodness of God not only has conceded to her, but strictly guarded for her by numerous prohibition. 

For, as pastors are not sent forth by Him to rule the Church with a licentious and lawless authority, but are astricted to a certain rule of duty which they must not exceed, so the Church is ordered (1 Thessalonians 5:21; 1 John 4:1) to see that those who are appointed over her on these terms faithfully accord with their vocation. 

But we must either hold the testimony of Christ of little moment, or must hold it impious to infringe in the least degree on the authority of those whom he has invested with such splendid titles! 

Nay, it is you who are mistaken in supposing that the Lord set tyrants over his people to rule them at pleasure, when he bestowed so much authority on those whom he sent to promulgate the gospel. 

Your error lies here, viz., in not reflecting that their power, before they were furnished with it, was circumscribed within certain limits. 

We admit therefore, that ecclesiastical pastors are to be heard just like Christ himself, but they MUST BE pastors who execute the office entrusted to them.

And this office, we maintain, is not presumptuously to introduce whatever their own pleasure has rashly devised, but religiously and in good faith to deliver the oracles which they have received at the mouth of the Lord. 

For within these boundaries Christ confined the reverence which he required to be paid to the Apostles; nor does Peter (1 Peter 4:11) either claim for himself or allow to others anything more than that, as often as they speak among the faithful, they speak as from the mouth of the Lord. 

Paul, indeed, justly extols (2 Corinthians 12:10) the spiritual power with which he was invested, but with this proviso, that it was to avail only for edification, was to wear no semblance of domination, was not to be employed in subjugating faith.”

-John Calvin

[extraction from a letter – To James Sadolet, A Cardinal of the RCC; written from Basle, September 1, 
1539. ( a reply to his (Sadolet’s) letter, to the Genovese; Carpentras, XV. Cal Apr. ; 18th March, 1539.] 

*

Hope this helps.

…Those who’s delight is the word of God, do meditate upon it from daybreak, to the setting of the sun; the results are quite evidenced : a  tree they shall be, planted by the rivers of living water, who should bring forth their fruit in their season; their leaf also does not wither; and what they do finds prosperity.

huh?

The righteous plant, and none make them afraid, the Lord doth fill their cup.

Yahoooooooo!

ATB

Sopy

—

Mara wrote:

It is because, somehow, the work to build good strong marriages that started in the 60s or 70s have morphed into making marriage into a ‘gospel’ issue or a necessity in the salvation plan which has morphed marriage into “marriage now saves you” and must be protected and upheld at all costs.

It’s called “Salvation by Marriage Alone.”

And it has a natural corollary of Damnation for all Singles.

Jeff Crippen wrote:

Many thanks again to TWW folks for highlighting this subject. I wanted to share something that I have learned in the last few months since our book was published (A Cry for Justice). Namely, that abusers hate it. I can document numerous cases of abuse victims who have contacted me and told me that their abuser saw the book in the house, read some of it, then railed against me and what we are saying by way of exposing evil.

Jeff, I find it interesting (and a commentary on Christianese culture) that all your official author profiles re A Cry for Justice stress your “thirty years as a pastor” while never mentioning your twelve years in-country as a cop.

When it was those twelve years in the secular(TM) world that gave you the experience and insight to recognize and speak out re the abusers. Not the thirty years in the pulpit — we’ve seen in TWW and other spiritual-abuse blogs how “thirty years as a pastor” types can royally screw up in this department, to the point of becoming accessories and enablers to abuse. (But their theology is perfectly-parsed…)

Daisy wrote:

Books I’ve read by therapists who talk to aggressors and victims have said that the aggressors will admit they view niceness as permission to keep on abusing the nice person, and that passive, nice people with no boundaries are attractive targets.

Remember that pack predators have a social hierarchy determined by aggressiveness and hashed out in dominance fights between them. Alphas at the top, Betas next trying to become Alphas, and Omegas as the passive, nice punching bags at the bottom. I was the Omega of my high school; even other Omegas will attack THE Omega to prove to themselves they are REALLY Betas and the Omega is always the easiest and less risky target. To quote the Velociraptors from Jurassic Park once more:

“PREY! KILL AND EAT! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!!!”

Daisy wrote:

Dykstra, in his audio, keeps using phrases like that (“gifted” “called to” etc), where he says (paraphrase), unless God has “called someone to singleness,” they can’t, or won’t, be able to stay chaste, etc. (Yes, they can.)

Let me guess — this Dykstra guy married at 18?

Sopy –

Some honest questions {in () } and concerns about this quote because I am a Berean as Paul admonished 🙂

John Calvin is speaking:

“It is not ours, Sadolet to rob the Church of any right which the goodness of God not only has conceded to her, but strictly guarded for her by numerous prohibition. (No problem here.)

For, as pastors are not sent forth by Him to rule the Church with a licentious and lawless authority, but are astricted to a certain rule of duty which they must not exceed, so the Church is ordered (1 Thessalonians 5:21; 1 John 4:1) to see that those who are appointed over her on these terms faithfully accord with their vocation. (Who does the appointing – the Church or other pastors?)

But we must either hold the testimony of Christ of little moment, or must hold it impious to infringe in the least degree on the authority of those whom he has invested with such splendid titles! (Who are those with splendid titles? I don’t know to whom Calvin refers.)

Nay, it is you who are mistaken in supposing that the Lord set tyrants over his people to rule them at pleasure, when he bestowed so much authority on those whom he sent to promulgate the gospel. (Who has this “so much authority?” pastors or the Church?)

Your error lies here, viz., in not reflecting that their power, before they were furnished with it, was circumscribed within certain limits. (Yes, for pastors.)

We admit therefore, that ecclesiastical pastors are to be heard just like Christ himself, but they MUST BE pastors who execute the office entrusted to them. (Where does Scripture say that “pastors are to be heard just like Christ himself?” Paul even said to be like the Bereans and weigh what be himself delivers to you.)

And this office, we maintain, is not presumptuously to introduce whatever their own pleasure has rashly devised, but religiously and in good faith to deliver the oracles which they have received at the mouth of the Lord. (True, and weigh it, especially the interpretation of the “oracles” which should not be different than what we find in scripture.)

For within these boundaries Christ confined the reverence which he required to be paid to the Apostles; nor does Peter (1 Peter 4:11) either claim for himself or allow to others anything more than that, as often as they speak among the faithful, they speak as from the mouth of the Lord. (But weigh it. They are more than capable of error — look around us now!)

Paul, indeed, justly extols (2 Corinthians 12:10) the spiritual power with which he was invested, but with this proviso, that it was to avail only for edification, was to wear no semblance of domination, was not to be employed in subjugating faith.” (Yet, history shows that Calvin, himself, overstepped these boundaries in Geneva??)
– John Calvin

Tap Dance: “Follow The Yellow Brick Calvinesta  Road,  Perhaps ?”

What?!?

     Bridget,  

– Referencing your comment…Bridget 

Hey,

I follow your words with continued interest.  🙂

You know JohnnyC, in his sovereign zeal, tends to stretch things. (sad) Should he not have rather said, follow a pastor, as he follows Christ?

Sure.

Granted, he would have been on safer ground.

Yet he would have the reader understand (in the context of his words) conveying that pastors, i.e. shepherds of the flock, although to be esteemed highly, don’t get a free pass. That is the main point I wished to convey here. (Calvin’s words taken in their context.)

I am no Calvin fanboy, per say… You know that. But to blatantly disregard the totality of his words, is shear nonsense.

However, 

For me to live is Christ, to proverbially bash a few nefarious faux sheep-clad wolves, well…

“Be happy in your work…?”

(grin)

Our Lord said: My house is to be a house of prayer, yet you have made it a den of thieves?

(sadface)

The zeal of the Lord’s house has eaten me up?

could b.

Sopy
___
P.S. As you are well aware, we have a individual who has apparently come to Wartburg recently pressing a type of religion church system contra to Luther’s words, and more so,  apparently his (this commenter) cause not about the Christ who came to save. My initial address (in posts past) was in reference to his earnestness to apparently gardner supporters to his cause.  His argument (noted by the blog owners) slightly out of place, this present medium. [Hope this helps clarify my comment above .@ Sopwith]

FYI: For further understandng, although quite lengthy, please read the full letters: The complete (letters) Sadolet/Calvin correspondence, again, can be found archived here: 

http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/calvin_sadolet.html

—

@ Patrice:

Thank you 🙂

I’m still not totally out of the woods with my sister, but I have made progress.

I used to think being a supportive, loving sister meant having to listen to the verbal abuse directed at me from her (she’s the type of person who, if she gets angry at someone else, she will phone you and scream insults about you to you – not the person she’s angry at, but at you – my brother is the same way).

But even when she wasn’t yelling at me about me, and just complaining intensely on how much she hated her life or boyfriend, or whatever, the unrelenting negativity took a toll. (A phone call from her where she complains in a very angry fashion, can last from two to six hours in a row.)

My sister was wanting to use me as her sounding board to gripe even in the two, three years after our mother died, and I was not mentally equipped to handle my grief in addition to the negative calls.

When I began getting more firm with her and telling her to limit complaining to only ten minutes, or slamming the phone down on her if she began insulting me (and I gave her warning I’d do this), her phone calls got a little easier to take – she started to tone down the rants and angry outbursts.

See, submitting to my sister and putting up with the behavior would have only enabled it to continue, like these ignorant preachers telling abused women to submit to their husbands even more. Some people cannot be “loved” out of their anger or misbehavior, they have to be pushed back.

Mara wrote:

Marriage has become and idol that is worshiped in some circles.

Oh yeah, definitely. If you’ve still not married by your mid 30s, it becomes even more apparent that the church has really elevated marriage beyond what God intended.

@ Jeff Crippen:

Keep up the good work. If you’re making the abusers mad, you’re probably doing something right.

Personally I wonder how people can be so clueless about this stuff. I was once talking about Mark Driscoll and assorted patriarchy topics with my (male) 20-something friend, and his only response was that he couldn’t understand why I care so much about “this stuff” because it’s “not as important as gay marriage.” What makes this super ironic is that this friend’s mom divorced his (NPD) dad because he was addicted to porn and carrying on an erotic letter relationship with a 13yo girl in their apartment complex. I’m convinced his mom chose not to tell my friend about this (he was only 12 or so at the time). If he knows and he still made the above comment, then I’d be doubly disturbed.

Because ya know, scoring political points against gay Democrats in Washington, is more important than helping women and children who are being beaten and molested in your own church.

@ Mrs Stretch:

I appreciate this aspect and the content of your comment. I actually saw this aspect first hand with my ex because the church, while disallowing my divorce, also pushed against the efforts we made toward getting my her help. Her diagnoses was depression/anxiety, but they mostly rejected any secular way of dealing with this and wanted her to be in Nouthetic counseling. In a sense, I was fighting a battle on two fronts: one was her and her behavior toward me and our son, and the other was against the church who didn’t approve of the measures I was supporting to help her heal.

I really tried very hard to attribute her behavior to her sickness (as she demanded) and thus “overlook” it, but in the end I found the relationship was not a safe or healthy one for either me or our son. This was not a light decision- I agonized over it for a long time. In the end, though, I saw that some people with her same diagnosis took responsibility for their healing and making their behavior as safe as possible around their loved ones. They might not have been perfect, but they took intentional steps toward addressing what was unsafe. In my wife’s case, I did not see that. She continually did not go to meetings or admit responsibility for her behavior. She had not concrete plan except for getting me to “understand” so I wouldn’t be hurt by her behavior.

It still pains me- but I ultimately had to take the view that the relationship was not safe and I had to protect myself and my son. I still do not know how much was the sickness and how much was her underlying nature, but I did the best I could. Really, the only thing I could. I wish I could have saved her- but in the end I did not have that power (and no one except Jesus does).

But I do believe there are genuine people who suffer from conditions that can hurt others, but this is not their underlying nature but rather an affliction from which they suffer. The underlying attitude is the key: is there an attitude of entitlement, or a genuine desire to love and respect others? The church NEEDS to be able to recognize the latter while still protecting those who have been hurt. But one mark of a person who genuinely lovers and respects others is the understanding that sometimes measures might have to be taken to protect them.

Daisy wrote:

The female author of this one book, who has been a psychiatrist for about 15 – 20 years now, said out of all the married couples she’s counseled, the only males who ever bring up Ephesians 5:22-33, and ask her to tell their wife to submit more, are the abusive ones.

How interesting… and unsurprising. Only self-righteousness can be obtained by Law.

changes in the structure of the brain following abuse.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130601133735.htm#.UceA3749EjH.twitter

@ Oasis:

Oasis, you are noy alone and I am glad my story brings hope.
If you ever want to email, ask Dee or Deb and they can give it to you, or you can click on my name and that will take to my blog (haven’t posted anything for a long time, but its still up).bClick on ‘my profile’ and the ’email’….if you want. No pressure if you don’t. 😉

@ Barbara Roberts:

Thank you for the reply 🙂 I hope I didn’t come across as snipey or snarky against Mr (or Rev?) Dykstra. I did enjoy several of his sermons/lectures.

I will consider contacting him to share my experience in this area with him. Is his contact information on one of those sermon pages?

I just find it a common misconception among many Christians that if someone is still celibate/ not married by their 40s, that it is assumed such as person must have been destined by God to remain single forever and “gifted with singleness,” which entails (in their thinking) God removing any and all desire for sex and/or a spouse, which is not the case for a lot of singles.

It can be a hurtful view, but it’s also frustrating because it is inaccurate.

I feel I’ve gotten this far on sheer will power and personal conviction. I still have desire for marriage/sex – God did not remove that, and I don’t feel any special, supernatural strength that keeps me from having sex outside of marriage.

I can see how if you’ve been through an abusive marriage or two you’d feel relief and joy at being single once more, and I do respect that, and that you have arrived at a place where you feel okay being single, or prefer it.

What makes it even more acceptable to me is that you are respectful to a single who isn’t thrilled all the time with singleness herself.

Often, other singles (and married Christians), will lecture someone like me to totally accept the singleness, sermonize to me that “Jesus is all you need,” or make you feel bad that you’re not okay with it.

I find it a roller coaster experience. Sometimes I am okay and content with being single, but at other times, it bothers me.

“Maybe you have the gift of singleness” is one of the most unhelpful suggestions that you can ever give someone, especially when given by a happily married person.

Seriously, it’s like you are setup to fail because who EVER responds to that suggestion with great joy and happiness?

Next Big Box post is finally up:

http://scarletlettersblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/23/the-spotless-bride-tbb/

@ Sopwith:

Thanks for the response, Sopy. I will attempt to read the article you linked to. I have to admit, though, Calvin never keeps things simple. His response to the Bishop is 3-4 times longer than the letter from said Bishop. I think his lawyerness is showing at times 😉

Jeff S wrote:

“Maybe you have the gift of singleness” is one of the most unhelpful suggestions that you can ever give someone, especially when given by a happily married person.

And it’s ALWAYS given by someone who married at 18 and has been regaling you with how GREAT their marriage has been…

Just like porn culture: “If you’re not doing somebody, YOU’RE A NOBODY!”

@ Bridget:

. . . that we “heard” about in Scripture.

Sorry…off topic.

Bridget, wanted to say that your comment on my blog was awesome. I posted it and my response as a new post. Thanks!

@ Nick Bulbeck: ‘Tis #1, surprisingly.

but even the best players have their off days.

@ Daisy:
I used to work for such a boss. Someone I know described him to my wife as follows:
He is the kind of person who as a child used to pull the wings off of flies. And if you worked for him you looked like a fly.

Mike wrote:

Exactly, though the doctrine was formulated due to the claims of the Stone-Campbell restoration movement (ex. Church of Christ) that they were the restored New Testament church.

Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses also teach that THEY are the Restored New Testament Church. So do a lot of “splinter churches.”

@ Sopwith:

No need for sad faces Sopy 🙂 Any truth that was brought to the forefront during the Reformation was not new truth. It was simply uncovered from being buried. I didn’t say that the Reformation brought nothing good to the table. I just don’t believe that they reformed enough. They still clung to some traditions and replaced some belonging to the RCC with their own Protestant versions. I consider myself a Christian because of the saving grace of Christ. I don’t see the need to be a Protestant, Baptist, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian, etc., etc., etc. I’d rather call myself after Christ 😉

“Bridget,”

On da solid rock Iza stand’in, all else is sinkin’ sand.

4Sure.

Glad your here.

Quack, Quack!

S“㋡”py
___

P.S. The Reformation? Go far enough? John Knox saved all of Scotland, Wesley, his dear England from a revolution which France experienced…

Is America next?

hmmm…

Q: Where are the Lord’s today’s champions?  Lõõk, the fields ever white with harvest!?!

—

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

When it was those twelve years in the secular(TM) world that gave you the experience and insight to recognize and speak out re the abusers.

Actually, it was not in police work that the lights really came on for me. Those 12 years were valuable so that later on when I did start to see, I could look back and learn from my past experiences. But in fact what really awoke me to the nature and mentality and tactics of abuse was indeed my 30 years as a pastor, culminating in the realization about 5 years ago that for all of those years I had also been the victim of these sociopaths parading as Christians. I started to read Scott Allen Johnsons’ book Physical Abusers and Sexual Offenders in order to try to learn more about the signs I could look for to protect our church against these pervs/psychos/sociopaths. And Johnson’s description of how abusers of all kinds think and operate just started leaping off the pages at me because I KNEW these things. I had been living in the middle of them for 25 years before. And yes, IN THE CHURCH! Amazing, huh?

Jeff S wrote:

Of course, those “encouraging me” would say the problem was I was “trying” in my own strength. I needed to “let go” and trust God.

That line of thinking is horribly frustrating to someone who struggles with any type of addiction.

Muff Potter wrote:

I don’t see how it’s possible to ignore your own internal moral compass, engage in this kind of cruelty, and still think you’ll not reap what you’ve sown.

Predestined Elect? Amazing what a Perfect Get-Out-of-Hell-Free Card can do in the arrogance department.

Hester wrote:

Also, random question that has zero to do with the topic at hand, for the artists here: did anyone ever think that Michelangelo’s David was “homoerotic”? This is research for a blog post.

I actually had a woman I was babysitting for when I was in college become unhinged because I had a book on Michelangelo out, and her sons might have seen David. I have to admit, it blew me away. Sheer goofiness.

gimpi1 wrote:

I actually had a woman I was babysitting for when I was in college become unhinged because I had a book on Michelangelo out, and her sons might have seen David.

BECOME unhinged? Sounds like she was unhinged from way back.

John wrote:

I don’t understand why so many pastors don’t get it when it comes to domestic violence. I remember a number of years ago when I encountered more conservative/fundamentalist types because of various family interactions, just a few years after finishing seminary, one of them asked me if I thought physical abuse was grounds for divorce. I said yes immediately, and I would again, for one simple reason: A person who abuses their spouse has already broken the marriage vow and shattered the covenantal relationship at the most fundamental level. It’s an utter betrayal, and for a believer I think it’s blasphemous to at once claim to have a good standing in the faith and continue to abuse one’s spouse.