I will write about this later today. I have been opening my life to the Washington Post for the last 9 months. It will be on the cover of the Sunday magazine as well.
The Crusading Bloggers Exposing Abuse in Protestant Churches
No one was paying attention — until these armchair investigators came along
Bravo ! Look forward to reading the article.
What better to mark the occasion than with an update on the
Cricket
Pakistan batted first at Trent Bridge having been put in by Eoin Morgan, and were unrecognisable from the team skittled for no runs at all by New Zealand a few days ago. They finished on 348-8, setting the host a World Cup record target to win. It’s finely poised at the moment, with England 193-4 off 31.
Just read it. Brava. Congratulations.
May you be spared the whirlwind that follows wider publicity. May more people who’ve been harmed in churches find help. May more churches change their ways to truly protect members of their congregations.
I knew it was just a question of time before you hit the big time.
What an incredible article!
The WaPolink at the top of the article should read:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/magazine/wp/2019/06/03/feature/the-crusading-bloggers-exposing-sexual-assault-in-protestant-churches/
but instead it reads:
http://The Crusading Bloggers Exposing Abuse in Protestant Churches No one was paying attention — until these armchair investigators came along
And may GBTC and the content filters be spared as well…
I am going to write the back story here. I am slowly emerging from under the kitchen table.
I fixed the broken link to the story. Sorry-my hands are a bit shaky today!
You used the feminine form — “Brava.” You must be an opera fan. 😀
Congratulations, Dee and Deb!
So glad they didn’t look under the kitchen table.
dee,
Hope I left it tidy for you.
Much hard work has paid off! Thank you, Dee for speaking out for victims! And for protecting the integrity of you work!
dee,
We are counting on that! This is excellent coverage on your difficult work. Thank you for your continued courage, integrity, wisdom, humor, and trustworthiness as survivors seek you as their advocate.
You mean the AMAZON Washington Post? Fake news?? Well, what can you expect??? 🙂
Congratulations, Deebs! Good to see Julie Anne there too.
btw, in the list of epithets they left out “Daughter of Stan.”
I love it!
If anyone wants to leave a copy on the doorstep of a certain Episcopal priest in Virginia, just let me know. I am confident the address will appear in your inbox!
Congrats. I’m sure it’s nice to read an article like this.
But I know that you actually get much more satisfaction from the actual work that you do.
God bless.
Great article….
Congratulations, Dee. I think you just got promoted to a bigger platform…. 😉
Now that TWW makes the WP, I am really curious how the “critics of the evil bloggers” will react…..
Well done, Dee.
The owners of this blog should immediately double your pay.
The recognition of your work is well deserved! An excellent article.
With winsome introspection and full vetting of their professed Christian church/denomination/parachurch/educational institution affiliations on multiple fronts. Or not.
Dee,
I’m sure it’s a great article because your a great woman, helping the abused.
WaPo wants me to pay to read it . . . not up for that.
The link worked for me without a subscription. (Maybe you have reached a max number of articles without subscribing?) As a workaround, you might try viewing it on a different device.
It is nice to see such positive coverage, after years of hearing about those evil discernment bloggers! Hopefully it doesn’t go to your head and you start talking membership contracts and financing ‘God’s work’. 😉
I’m guessing “The Evil Bloggers have now linked hands with the Unbelieving, Sinful World!”
Very proud to be a loyal WW reader since 2012! Well done!! Bringing light to darkness with a wider audience!!
No, that happened long ago…
My thoughts exactly. Scripture says that “promotion comes from the Lord” … who better to promote than believers who stand in the gap for other believers who are abused by church leaders wielding illegitimate authority to manipulate, intimidate, and dominate others?! Watchbloggers are doing what the organized church has largely ignored with their blind eyes and deaf ears … they inform and warn the Body of Christ. Thank you Deebs for responding to God’s call for this mission.
It was so gratifying to read the article this morning and see you get the recognition you deserve. Well done, Dee, Julie Ann and Amy, well done. Surely we will start seeing some positive changes with the broader attention.
__
Blogger’s Brilliant Beacon: “Gonna Make Um Sweat Now?”
hmmm…
Dee Parsons “and her fellow watchdog bloggers keep returning to their computers because the stories keep coming.
huh?
In the process, they lighten others’ loads by risking the same reproach, fear and self-doubt the survivors feel.
What?
And isn’t that the measure of a church anyway?
SKreeeeeeeeeetch!
Not thousands in pews, or secrets held in shame to protect the powerful — but a community of people, with shared faith, who care enough about one another to build sanctuary.” -Sarah Stankorb
Yo!
♪♩♪♩hum, hum, hum…“Everybody Dance Now!”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LaTGrV58wec
;~)§
– –
1. Congratulations Dee 🙂
2. If Wartburg’s a German castle, would dachshunds be a better mascot than pugs? 🙂
3. The Pennsylvania pastor who stepped down from his pulpit, was it the Church of Brethren pastor posted about a few months ago?
Max,
I agree
Thank you Dee and Deb. And Julie Anne and Amy. Your faithfulness in exposing sin and darkness has shown much fruit so far. Now, with a wider audience more evil will be exposed to the light. Well done good and faithful servants.
Brian,
No, mascot should be a Rottweiler, doberman, or G. Shepard!
The recognition is well deserved.
A well-written and informative article! I stumbled on you accidentally when I was researching a pastoral scandal, and I’ve been an active reader ever since. I appreciate your concern for the wronged and your commitment to the truth.
An excellent article, sympathetic, appreciative, and truthful. Your good work will be amplified and spread as more victims feel empowered to speak up and denounce evil.
Praise God for your obedience and excellent energy!!
Thank you Dee for letting God shine his light through you! Thanks for being brave, compassionate, truthful and strong. I’ve been following you since I got woke in the summer of 2013! I’ve learned a lot, and have been encouraged by the community here at TWW.
Great well written article. Glad to see Amy Smith and Julie Ann highlighted as well. You all work so hard to shine a light on some dark areas of the church. A little extra light from national press helps. Congrats Dee.
I’m praying for you, Dee. You have been courageous and articulate. Thank you for helping to bring a voice to the voiceless in all of these issues.
JDV,
Their “winsome, winsomey response will be all the more winsome” when the Washington Post contacts them for comment.
Kudos to you, Dee, Julie Ann, Amy and others who bravely take up the cause for abused victims in the evangelical world. It’s about time the silence has been exposed. Don’t get weary in well doing as we all need watch bloggers if we are ever to change culture. I remain a committed reader.
Robert Morris has called watchblogs “Satan’s Hit List.” I hope he read TWP today, so he can see how the Lord is using watchbloggers for good – to expose evil. Instead of criticizing this part of the Body of Christ, he needs to embrace it. We’re on the same team, we’ve got the same enemy – unfortunately that old serpent manifests himself in the pulpit sometimes.
Congrats! It is good to see your hard (and important) work recognized.
Someone in whom many of us here have placed a lot of hope is recorded as saying this:
Nick, I love the stuff you post. Dare I say you make some of the most faith filled comments around? Yeah, Ill say it. You do.
and you make me laugh a lot too which we need when confronted with so much evidence of abuse.
Well Dee (and by extension Wartburgers -which incidentally sounds like a new kind of sandwich special) get ready for an onslaught of new readers and commenters- I suspect this WaPo article will draw both trolls and wounded alike. Keep standing firm for the wounded. We stand with you.
Congratulations Dee!
I think that the Washington Post consistantly produces the best coverage of religion stories nationally. Followed by the NYTimes and now the Houston Chronicle.
Be ware of the critics of bloggers and newspapers because they have something to hide.
I hope that you are seriously considering a book?!
Or a movie?
The pugs will be stars!!!
Morris and his fellow big name fundagelical grifters aint’t seen nothin’ yet.
Wait till the non-profit financial transparency laws are changed so that religious outfits have to follow the sames rules as everybody else.
Good article. I am glad to read the backstory behind this blog and some of its sisters. God is still with the little Davids of this world against the Goliaths. God uses the foolish things like those who are not professional journalists against those who are so very rich and powerful that buy buckets full of corrupt lawyers and PR men. He does this because then only He can get the glory for what is done.
Never forget that the meek are those who will inherit the earth. And while you are getting some recognition for the good that you have done, the only recognition that really matters in the end is hearing these words directed at you come out of Jesus’ mouth “well done good and faithful servant…”
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Not really an opera fan, but somewhere I picked up on the norm that when shouting or writing sending kudos to a person whose pronouns are she/her/hers, one says BravA. If kudos for a he/him/his person, bravO. Been using the respective word endings long enough that it just flows (tho autocorrect tried to argue me into the he/him/his form, but I caught autocorrect and manually corrected it back.)
Back to your regularly scheduled celebration of an important recognition for the writers of this website.
So proud of you. Just think of all the kids whose stories finally got told & taken seriously, & all those who didn’t get abused because you guys did this. Just magical.
Does anyone in their right mind think Bill Hybels, James MacDonald, and assorted other mega-pastors were not profiting from ministry?! They were non-prophet organizations, for sure, but non-profit?
Dee and Deb, This is an absolutely wonderful article! I loved that it focused on humble beginnings of women who were compelled to stand up for righteousness and the fear of what could happen if they didn’t. I know this work has come with tangible personal cost…emotional, physical and financial. As a long-time follower (occasional commenter), I’m really intrigued by the Lewis quote. Could you do a post on it? It sounds so compelling, yet easy to get unbalanced. Could you extrapolate on “the burden ?” Lastly, thank you so much for the work you do. Our daughters and granddaughters will reap the fruit of this calling.
Just one question: Who is “sensible bob”?
Just so long as The Righteous pinch themselves off behind their Righteous Event Horizon, seal themselves off from the Cosmos, and leave the rest of us be. (Like Screwtape’s “Our Father Below” Righteously walking out of “The Enemy”s court, setting up Hell, and Righteously locking the gates behind him.)
Bah. There’s no sensible bob here.
You’re all rubbish.
And yet…
Yours,
Roger Bombast
What an honor! I wish I could read it without having to pay…argh (totally not your fault, of course). God bless you.
Last night I watched the first part of a docu-series on herbalism and natural healing modalities. Seems unrelated, but I was astonished at the many parallels to what has and is happening in the religious world.
One of the interesting points made was how women have traditionally passed down the ‘secrets’ of health and nutrition, which, until a hundred years or so ago, always came through food/herbs. When they pointed out the threat this knowledge was to a patriarchal society, and how female healers were persecuted and burned as witches, etc., I could not help but think of similar issues within the church.
Initially, when allopathic medicine began its monolithic hold on healthcare, women and people of color were not allowed to practice medicine. While much has changed, it is still women who are the first and most numerous to demand the right to pursue and practice natural, non-toxic, centuries old health practices for the well-being of their families, usually after not finding the answers they needed elsewhere. Note: most of the herbalists freely acknowledged the value of some of the beneficial aspects of allopathic medicine, but reject the right of anyone or any institution to declare the one, true, ‘orthodox’ way to live. Again, mirrors so much of what I believe about spiritual issues as well.
Marie,
Wonder why some hit a pay wall, and others of us did not?
Righteousness as defined in the original language.
In Hebrew, the word translated as “Righteousness” always has a meaning that includes bringing Justice for the downtrodden and victimized.
It’s only in translation that “Righteousness” means Holier-than-Thou Virtue Signalling and not much else. Eh, My Dear Wormwood?
Thank you for all that you do.
You mean secular media applauded the work of bloggers writing about evil ministers and the failure of the church?
Wow! Isn’t that a shock! Unbelievable!
Great news. People will flock to the churches and love Jesus more now.
Extraordinary. Who would have thought secular journalists would praise a site full of bad news of the sins of ministers.
Saints be praised!
Bridget,
It might take a few days before it shows up, but most public libraries have the WaPo on their databases.
Chief Ohara,
Well bless your heart. Chief loves the pedophiles in the pulpit. I’m sure your perspective will cause people to love Jesus more.
Chief Ohara,
Actually, some of my secular colleagues friends are turned off by the church BECAUSE it is not policing itself ( i.e. covering up for perverts and bad actors). My colleagues will applaude and begin to have respect for the church when we PUBICLY deal with these bad actors….
Chief Ohara,
I believe that you have violated the prime directive here. Do you have any sympathy for the victims of these crimes? At all?
It’s easy to criticize the messengers who are doing the difficult work of not only wading through all of the trash to get the story out, but have abuse heaped on them by people like you.
What are you doing to support the victims? How many souls have you saved today?
People value authenticity and even the watching world can see that these guys are not authentic Christians. If someone is turned off by these reports, then there is something wrong with them in that they have no heart for the victims.
Excellent article!
Dee,
Congratulations! You know, I don’t remember ever seeing a picture of you before, so I’m glad I saw the article with your natural face before clicking on Julie Anne’s site. LOL
Steve Scott
I just read the Washington Post article. Thank you for all you do. Faith is meant to support people, give them hope. Your work gives a voice to victims of abuse–it gives them a path to restore themselves. My own worldview is secular, but I respect the support all faiths can give.
The victims have stepped forward at some risk and they have spoken in humility and authenticity. Betrayal of trust is a debt that must be paid to society as a whole.Removal from a position of trust is a just response.
I was raised in the Catholic tradition and was fortunate that I and my cohort of kids never were exposed to any such abuse. I still see the beauty in the liturgy despite the crude jokes that have become popular lately. There is nothing funny about abuse and it has no affiliation with any faith– but is abuse by an authority figure.
All our institutions need a Wartburg Watch.
Chief Ohara,
Golly, Chief. Did it ever occur to you that speaking their truth and being heard would give the victims of abuse a path to return to their faith? That it would open a door for others to do the same?
These are real people who have spoken at some risk.
Grab some humanity. Oh and your comment? Jesus wept.
Bridget,
If you have an adblock you can exclude the WaPo. That works. The suggestion about another device is good too.
Chief Ohara,
If those darn women would just “keep silent” then we could all continue to live in Never Never Land….
Thank you for your courage and your voice.