One Woman’s Story: Emotional Abuse In Marriage Is Not Cured by Church Leaders Telling the Wife to Have More Sex.

Posted on by November 29, 2024avatar

“Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Sheila Gregoire introduced me to Joyce Rohe and suggested I might be interested in her story. Given Sheila’s interests, I knew this would involve sex.

I’ve been writing and speaking about marriage and family since 2003, and specifically about sex since 2010. Over the years, I’ve been inundated with questions and comments from readers with the same problems popping up repeatedly.

After almost ten years of trying to help people fix common problems with sex in marriage, I started to wonder–what if the problem isn’t a lack of good advice, but rather an abundance of bad advice?

…We discovered which common evangelical teachings about marriage and sexuality may actually make things worse, not better, and in The Great Sex Rescue, we reported our findings and pointed couples towards the freedom that God intended.

And it does. It is a story of what happens to a woman when a husband becomes emotionally distant and abusive. It also points the finger at the church, which often seems to imply that a woman who is experiencing a difficult marriage and an overwhelming home situation must continue sexual relations with her husband, who will miraculously become a better husband because he is sexually satisfied. The simplistic approach, which ignores the emotional and spiritual health of the woman, will likely lead to divorce. Sadly, the church often blames the divorce on the woman for not meeting the husband’s needs while continuing to support the husband who has not “changed his spots.”

I am not an expert in this area like Sheila. I hope to convey Joyce’s story sensitively to provoke discussion.

Joyce’s story

In 2005, Joyce married her husband, whom I will call Joe. She was a Southern Baptist when they met. Joe had become a Calvinist in Bible school, so they began attending a Reformed Baptist Church. Bill Gothard heavily influenced this church. She said most people had at least four children, were homeschooled, were anti-vaccination, and blanket trained and spanked their children. The women wore long dresses and were not allowed to “deny” their husbands for any reason. She felt stifled.

Fortunately, her husband believed in baptizing infants, so they started attending a PCA church in Ft Lauderdale. She said it felt nondenominational and less rigid. Their first child was born and had profound special needs. Even today, he functions at a two-year-old level. They lived in their parents’ home and had financial needs, which the church helped with.

Joe began to have seizures in his sleep in 2009. These got under control by 2012. In the meantime, they joined the church. Joyce was on the worship team. When they finally got their own home, they hosted small group meetings. During this time, her husband seemed quite passive. He slept constantly and would not help around the house unless specifically asked. Joyce even had to maintain the car.

It was little wonder that sex seemed devoid of excitement to her. When she spoke with her husband about this, he said she had to have sex, and it was a “willful sin” if she did not. She continued to have sex, but she began to feel used. She went to a doctor, which was not helpful. By 2016, she knew she needed clarity and wanted to go to a therapist. Her husband would listen to advice from men like John Piper and told Joyce that he believed that therapists were biased against men. He appeared to have a patriarchal view of the role of men.

In the meantime, his ability to provide for the family waxed and waned. He was fired in 2013. He got a new job for the first 1 1/2 years, only paid @$300 a week. He was an exterminator and had the freedom to schedule his visits, but he often slept in his car. He blamed his job, not himself. They eventually had four children. At its most extreme, Joyce was working three part-time jobs from home. She was often exhausted, managing the house and the children with little help. So, it would not surprise the reader that she no longer wanted to have sex.

She did go to a therapist on her own. She started a journal to focus on when he stepped up to help her. The therapist suggested they stop having sex and attempt to build a new history. She told Joe about it, and they tried it for 9 months. He did little to change and continued to sleep, leaving most of the work to Joyce. They started to have sex again. Joyce found that sex was not intimate or reciprocal. During this time, he became more violent and even broke a mirror when she was present.

They got a male counselor, but Joe would not comply with suggestions while disavowing that he occasionally acted violently. The second therapist told her to shut off sex. He became frustrated and said to her that he felt “white, hot anger.” Yet he still had not made changes. She felt so physically removed from him that she didn’t even want to touch him. During this time, Joyce developed an autoimmune disease and had panic attacks. Her counselor suggested that she was being abused.

At this point, Joe said he would give her one year to want to have sex with him, or he would divorce her. Her therapist asked her if she would consider divorce.

Natalie Hoffman and Sheila Gregoire enter the picture.

In 2021, she decided to get the church involved. She first spoke to the pastors’s wives, who said she could not deny sex according to Scripture. She said that they gave her husband no responsibility. A friend pointed her to the writings of Sheila Gregoire and Natalie Hoffman. Through them, she learned that she was being abused by those insisting that she have sex with her husband. Natalie Hoffman, writing on Sheila Gregoire’s Bare Marriage website, posted How Do I Know If I Am Being Abused? Understanding the Signs of Emotional Abuse.

Emotional abuse is particularly rampant because it flies under the radar and is hard to prove. Women in emotionally abusive relationships can be significantly affected by a simple glance, gesture, or slight change in the tone of voice of her abuser—things that would never be noticed by anyone standing near. Even if you did point it out, others wouldn’t believe it was abusive, not knowing the inside, chronic history of the couple.

This is why, when Christian women do come forward to disclose emotional abuse, they are most often not understood or believed. All their husband has to do is present his “innocent” side of the story (which discounts the woman’s experiences and feelings), and church leaders and others all too often dismiss her story as a hysterical, ungrateful wife’s dripping, complaining spirit. Surely it is she who is the real problem in such a marriage.

…So the hidden abuse continues, unchecked, until the woman finally gets to the place where she is falling apart physically. Emotional abuse targets, if not treated, will eventually present with physical ailments including heart palpitations, panic attacks, gastrointestinal issues, anxiety disorders, depression, self-harming behaviors, migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome, auto-immune disorders, thyroid disease, and other hormone imbalances.

In the above article, Hoffman has a chart that helps one determine if a relationship is emotionally abusive. Here are just a few examples from the chart.

Does your partner refuse to take responsibility for their actions and attitudes in your relationship by blame-shifting, denying, justifying, and minimizing their behaviors?

Does your partner use deception to control you? This would include gaslighting (saying things didn’t happen when they did), withholding information, mixing truth with a little lie, and creating doubt and confusion in you.

Does your partner use verbal bully tactics to shame, intimidate, and destroy your self-worth?

I liked this Instagram post by Sheila.

Here is a link to read the rest of this post.

The PCA church weighs in.

  • A newly educated Joyce told her husband that she was being abused in the marriage. He told her she was having a midlife crisis.
  • The pastors at church said they would send her to a therapist of their choosing and see if the counselor would say she should divorce. She refused. (ed. note: Dee says this was a good move.)
  • Her husband filed a complaint and asked the session to weigh in.
  • The session did not agree to allow her to divorce.
  • The impending divorce went to outside mediation, which became problematic when Joe refused to leave the house. She found a family lawyer who was a family to help her get the divorce since she had little money.
  • The church put Joyce under church discipline. She was barred from the Lord’s Supper and the worship team for 6 months. Oddly, then, she could return to those activities if she wished.
  • She could not get the leaders to tell her what sin she committed.
  • Her husband was not under church discipline.
  • Her situation was kept hush-hush and decided in a private executive session.
  • The pastor stayed out of it but told her that the marriage was “gross.”

In the end, Joyce stayed at the church until her 6-month censure ended. Then she left and did not return.

Final thoughts for discussion.

  • Would more sex have solved the situation? Why is this the default solution for many churches and pastors?
  • What was the real problem in this marriage?
  • If she was in sin for considering a divorce, why would her discipline last 6 months, and then it was back to square one?
  • Why did Joe avoid discipline?

Now, onwards to the Advent season.

Comments

One Woman’s Story: Emotional Abuse In Marriage Is Not Cured by Church Leaders Telling the Wife to Have More Sex. — 72 Comments

  2. To answer the third bullet-point above, they may have been hoping that by givng her only a small “suspension” (as opposed to being totally kicked out), she would “realize the error of her ways” and reunite with her husband.

    Of course, it backfired when she followed the terms and conditions they imposed and then left.

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  4. This is what happens when you have one gender getting to make all the decisions. In this case, as in most, men. And, it seems, very emotionally immature men, at that.

    Why is church culture producing so many immature and emotionally stunted men (and also some women, I suppose)?

    And why is a culture talking so much about repentance so bad at teaching self-awareness and reflection?

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  5. Gus: Why is church culture producing so many immature and emotionally stunted men (and also some women, I suppose)?

    I propose that the interpretation of scripture into practice reflects the wisdom of the interpreters more than it does any wisdom inherent (or, God forbid, inerrant) in the words themselves. In prior eras of Christianity at its best, the interpretation was ruled by the best and brightest. Being a Man of God was the highest calling and it attracted and shaped some of the best. Now that quasi-meritocracy has been flipped and our finest people shun careers in religion. Our worst bottom feeders have filled those vocations. Scripture has become a mere prop for self-serving memetics.

    Perhaps the purpose of Scripture is not to dictate truths. Perhaps the purpose is to provide a stimulus to guide thought and action into certain channels. Thus the deeper wisdom lies in the hearts of mankind, where God also has taken up residence, not (only) in the books themselves.

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  6. Sandy: Perhaps the purpose of Scripture is not to dictate truths. Perhaps the purpose is to provide a stimulus to guide thought and action into certain channels. Thus the deeper wisdom lies in the hearts of mankind, where God also has taken up residence, not (only) in the books themselves.

    I think you’re right.
    The Bible (my opinion) suffers from two great ills.
    Not giving it the credence it deserves at one extreme.
    And making way too much of it at the other extreme.

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  8. Gus:

    Why is church culture producing so many immature and emotionally stunted men

    Because most churches are led and controlled by immature and emotionally stunted men….. and then there are the immature and emotionally stunted men who write the books, and run and control the religious “think tanks”, counseling services, educational programs…..

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  10. Gus,

    “Why is church culture producing so many immature and emotionally stunted men (and also some women, I suppose)?”
    ++++++++++++++++++++

    seems to me the current iteration of christianity runs on checklists and formulas to copy by rote.

    biblical, they call it.

    the product is card board doll-people. (1/16″ deep)

    Like Colorforms (anyone else who grew up in the 70s remember? i had raggedy ann)

    cardboard dolls that stand upright (with another cardboard crosspiece that they stand on) and you can dress with plastic clothes and accessories.

    emulating behavior as the method towards the goal of who can emulate best… sort of like middle school, i guess.

    circa 12 years old.

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  13. I am not excusing the husband, BUT as a Physician I can’t help but wonder if he was on the wrong seizure medicine (or too high of doses), as some can have a lot of side effects, including sleepiness. Or perhaps had other undisclosed medical issues including Depression? Maybe it was just laziness, but medical issues should be ruled-out as well.
    Church’s response obviously biased and erroneous as well.
    She will hopefully be much happier w/o him…

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  14. Observant Outsider: 1 Cor 7 (and Eph 5) are so often applied as a one-way command to women, but in reality these verses go both ways: husbands to wives and wives to husbands. Patriarchal values make every excuse for men and demand women tow the line.

    That’s exactly true. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Ephesians 5:22 quoted or referenced (Wives, submit to your husbands…), without including 5:21 or 5:25, which say to submit yourselves one to another; and for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church. And the people quoting this, in a bible study or Sunday school, are often not even aware of vss 21 and 25.

    On a related note, have any of you noticed a disproportionate amount of teaching from First Timothy in recent years (this would be for the reformed baptist types, whether Southern Baptist, independent, or megachurch). Have you noticed sermon series, Sunday school lessons, small groups in homes, that teach 1 Timothy far more often than, say, Luke’s gospel, or John’s gospel, or, like, Jesus? My wife still attends First Baptist occasionally, and this has gotten to be a parody for us. Well, first, it was used to remove women from church government and install male-only elders, but they haven’t let up in 10 years. Anyone else?

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  15. Ted: Have you noticed sermon series, Sunday school lessons, small groups in homes, that teach 1 Timothy far more often than, say, Luke’s gospel, or John’s gospel, or, like, Jesus?

    Oh yeah! It’s a New Calvinist thing. The new reformers camp out in Paul’s epistles, with very little reference to the Gospels. They twist what Paul says to make it conform to reformed theology. When I have the opportunity, I caution these young pastors that if they read Paul first, they might read Jesus wrong … but if they read Jesus first, the writings of Paul come into perspective. The American church at large would do well to read the red and pray for power … we sure ain’t scaring the devil much in our current condition.

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  17. 1 ~ The church bosses don’t care about the husband’s disabilities and help him get support. They don’t promote any idea of him widening his imaginative range. He gets cross because things don’t work out the way the bosses told him they should. If they were believers themselves they wouldn’t treat a 15 y o like that. How many times do I have to repeat the so called “patriarchs” (not my name for them) hate men. They want us to be seven times worse than them to ensure we’ll not compete against them.

    2 ~ Sex denying in Bible times was a fad and the apostles aren’t forbidding it when there’s a reason to do so

    3 ~ Apostles would comment on marriage topics because they were part of living. Jesus was against divorces by a husband on a whim.

    4 ~ I assume those church authorities are among those who pervert Gen 3:16

    5 ~ This was never a sufficient basis for churches muscling in on marriages. At one time a parish vicar was the only person in a vicinity to recognise witnesses and keep a register. It should have been left at that. It is a personal “sacrament”, not one for religious organisations.

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  18. I found the part about seizures during his sleep super interesting! My ex did the same saying it was violent dreams. He REFUSED to go to the doctor. In the end, I moved into the guest room to stay safe. I have wondered if it wasn’t psychologically abuse or something more sinister. If you create a history of violent dreams and then you accidentally ”smother” your wife, you get off without jail time.

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  19. Gus: This is what happens when you have one gender getting to make all the decisions.

    “Theology” that elevates a gender knows what follows. Elevating men welcomes misogyny. Hand and glove. Ham and eggs. PB & J. Horse and carriage.

    Gus: Why is [some] church culture [so skillful at] producing so many immature and emotionally stunted men (and also some women, I suppose)?

    Duh … ya think?

    [In brackets are my own POV additions to the very insightful quote.] And yes, women, too. Little boy men enjoy infantalizing their princess women girls. The two go together like ham and eggs, etc., see above.

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  20. Max: Oh yeah!It’s a New Calvinist thing.The new reformers camp out in Paul’s epistles, with very little reference to the Gospels.They twist what Paul says to make it conform to reformed theology.When I have the opportunity, I caution these young pastors that if they read Paul first, they might read Jesus wrong … but if they read Jesus first, the writings of Paul come into perspective.The American church at large would do well to read the red and pray for power … we sure ain’t scaring the devil much in our current condition.

    Calvinists misinterpret Romans 9. I believe I Timothy 2:4 is enough to disprove Calvinism. God’s desire is for everyone to believe the gospel (I Corinthians 15:1-4, Romans 4:24, 25 and 5:8,9) and be saved and does not pick and choose who will be saved.

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  22. Troy: I believe I Timothy 2:4 is enough to disprove Calvinism.

    Yeah, about that! First Timothy 2:4, or their treatment of it, gives me another peeve. They tend to interpret it as God desiring “all [the elect] to be saved” rather than simply “all” or at least the literal “pantas anthropous” (all men), to be saved. They would never say that women cannot be saved, so the “men” is translated generically, as in “all” or “all people.” But they do insist from their theology that, because God chooses only the elect (from the foundation of the earth), that “all” must mean “all the elect.” It’s no wonder the SBC is sabotaging its own mission effort.

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  24. Ted: They tend to interpret it as God desiring “all [the elect] to be saved” rather than simply “all”

    The first time I heard this interpretation, I was stunned. This is not the Savior I knew-the God “who so loved the world” not the God who so loved the elect. And I won’t buy that He loved the world but only would save those He predetermined prior to conception.

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  25. Ted: First Timothy 2:4 … “all” must mean “all the elect.” It’s no wonder the SBC is sabotaging its own mission effort.

    Genuine evangelism and Great Commission will diminish within SBC as time goes on. The New Calvinists preach another gospel which is not ‘the’ Gospel for ALL people. The once-great evangelistic denomination no longer exists.

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  31. “Just like ‘Getting Laid Fixes Everything’, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
    With overtones of “the Man PENETRATES! COLONIZES! CONQUERS! PLANTS! – the female lies back and Accepts”.

    Sounds like a darker version of Grinning Ed Young and his Seven-Day CHRISTIAN Sex Challenge.

    Which Grinning Ed delivered the exact same Sunday when us Romish Papists celebrated the Feast of Christ the King, end of the Western-rite Liturgical Year.

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  33. Ted: They tend to interpret it as God desiring “all [the elect] to be saved” rather than simply “all” or at least the literal “pantas anthropous” (all men), to be saved.

    And guess who ARE the Elect.
    “Always MEEEEEE, Never Thee.”
    (And Evanescent Grace does NOT apply to The Predestined Elect.)

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  34. readingalong,

    Thank you! I am not a physician, but one of my kids lived in very much the same situation. Husband behaved and thought very much the same way. He is bipolar and had been placed on a seizure medication before he started behaving in this manner.

    Sounds to me like a lot of ball dropping: assuming it is a spiritual problem, or the wife’s problem, or that the husband is lazy or emotionally abusive is huge problem.

    The whole problem may have been quite medical.

    Of course, with people who refuse vaccinations, refuse neuropsychiatric disorders as being real, etc, you get a lot of suffering needlessly.

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  35. Max: They misinterpret a lot of the New Testament!During the past 500 years, 90+% of Christendom worldwide have rejected the tenets of reformed theology.

    Which in their Truly Reformed Elect little heads means THEY are RIGHT, the RIGHTEOUS Remnant who alone hath not bowed the knee to Baal.

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  36. Sandy: This speaks wisdom.
    The latter is sometimes called bibliolatry.
    I think bibliolatry is a potential dark side to any text based religion.

    Islam is a type example of a fully Text Based Religion.
    “Cold Equations Effect” – The more Text Based and Literal you get, the more things go sour.

    The Word is God.

    NOT to these guys…
    The Word is SCRIPTURE(TM).

    Example – One of the splinter churches that gave me brain salad surgery in the Seventies (can’t remember which one, the attitudes had plenty of overlap) had this trick question to use against Lukewarms:
    They’d hold up a Bible and ask you “What is this?”
    Normal answer would be “A Bible”.
    WRONG. ANSWER.
    They would then get in your face shaking the Bible in front of you and going “This Is THE!!! WORD!!! OF!!! GOD!!!!!!!”

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  44. Ted: Well, first, it was used to remove women from church government and install male-only elders, but they haven’t let up in 10 years.

    “Can’t change their mind and won’t change the subject.”
    In my experience (gamer, comics, anime, Furry), this is a sure sign of an obsessive Fanboy.

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  46. I’m struck by the thought that we’ve heard this story shouted more loudly, from the other side, in the infamous Real [sic] Marriage. In which, AWWBA, the author proclaimed from the highest platform he could buy (not, as it turned out, with his own money) that his bad behaviour was the fault of his wife.

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  47. Max,

    Muff Potter: Why don’t they just call it ‘Paulianity’?

    Muff Potter,

    Cuz they’re clueless, they don’t care, and they are control freaks.
    I’ve been reading up on/comparing Paul’s teachings, Roman law, and Aristotle’s Politics.
    Ha! Paul was preaching the written words of Aristotle! (Written some 3 1\2 centuries before Christ was born.)
    …. So, I guess that would make his teachings on marriage and families ‘Aristotle-anity’.

    Paul was a Roman citizen and he preached in Roman territory…. sent his epistles to churches in territory under Roman rule.
    Some believe that Paul taught/supported the Roman household codes to protect new Christians……. to keep them in line with Roman law and codes…. to keep them from being imprisoned, tortured, and killed.

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  48. Joyce Rohe: In answer to your question, the sleeping predated the seizures/medication, but I do think depression may be a factor. Still, if someone repeatedly refuses therapy, what is a submissive wife to do?

    There is no way to force an adult into therapy (or medical treatment) unless they are homicidal or suicidal (and therefore get involuntarily hospitalized); very frustrating for those (like you) trying to help!
    Some Christians don’t believe in mental health treatment, either, as Dee has highlighted here before; I’ve had someone tell me, “Anxiety is just sin!” As if it were that simple.

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  49. Sandy,

    This. I read on another blog site a person commenting they slept with their physical Bible because it kept them safe from harm. I gently reminded them it was a physical object not a magical one and reminded them the Holy Spirit dwells in all believers to comfort and protect.

    Oh my word the push back I received from other readers! Telling me it was THE WORD and therefore the closest thing we’d get to God on earth. This is where the veneration of the Bible can lead, to Bible idolatry.

    The Bible testifies to Jesus who is the Word made flesh but that book isn’t God and never will be.

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  50. Max: Genuine evangelism and Great Commission will diminish within SBC as time goes on. The New Calvinists preach another gospel which is not ‘the’ Gospel for ALL people.

    This is because they have placed culture wars and theological purity ahead of the ridiculously simple command of Jesus to be a disciple and make disciples.

    A disciple is someone who loves Jesus and follows Him in everyday life. Not someone who ticks all the right knowledge of theology boxes. Nor someone who controls what others do. Not someone who wins culture wars. Just a person who loves God and loves their neighbor. The SBC and a whole lot of other evangelical churches have lost their way.

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  52. Fisher: I read on another blog site a person commenting they slept with their physical Bible because it kept them safe from harm. I gently reminded them it was a physical object not a magical one and reminded them the Holy Spirit dwells in all believers to comfort and protect.

    Christianity is a spiritual existence. While we live it in the physical, we experience it in the spiritual.

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  53. Joyce Rohe,

    I just want to say (and I do know more about this situation that you’ve shared with me), depression and bipolar disorder do NOT turn people into entitled abusers. They do not make people incredibly selfish, especially in the bedroom. They do not make people ignore their children. They do not make people think it’s okay to “have sex” with someone who is obviously upset (that’s called rape).

    I know mental illnesses cause a lot of debilitating problems, but they do not make people cruel. Often it’s the opposite. The theology that has been taught makes people entitled and cruel, and that theology, when paired with these other problems, can cause bad stuff. But we can’t blame abusive behaviors and rape on mental illnesses.

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  55. Max: Christianity is a spiritual existence.While we live it in the physical, we experience it in the spiritual.

    I have run into too many Christians who are so SPIRITUAL they have ceased to be Physical OR human.
    The ones that stick in my mind were from CHRISTIAN dating service profiles back in the Nineties, and since then things have only gotten worse.

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  56. Fisher: This. I read on another blog site a person commenting they slept with their physical Bible because it kept them safe from harm.

    Now THAT’s Magic Book-ism.
    I’d heard of it in fiction and knew it probably happened for real (sounds like a folk religion thing), but it’s still a kick in the head when you come across an example.

    For instance, my mother knew that women had one less rib than men (See Genesis 2). I figured it was a folk belief she’d grown up with in Depression-era Boston’s Little Italy.) My Spiritual Warfare sister-in-law has relatives who carry around blessed wax candles and grapes soaking in holy water to survive the Coming Three Days of Darkness (fringe Catholic End Times checklist — and they’re Assyrian Nestorians from Kurdistan!).

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  59. Muff Potter: When you (generic you) have a mechanistic god who only operates with a strict determinism, there can only be one possible outcome.

    In Arabic this is called “Your Fate is written on your forehead before you were born”.

    And there was a Father Brown Mystery – “Doom of the Darnaways” – where such Determenism is a major plot point.

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  61. To be clear: yes, bipolar and depression CAN cause all sorts of behavior problems including being nasty and abusive to the people around you.

    But in the case with my kid’s spouse, the abusive behavior was the result of a seizure med that is often used for folks with severe bipolar. And medication bad reactions definitely can lead to very abusive behavior.

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  63. readingalong: There is no way to force an adult into therapy (or medical treatment) unless they are homicidal or suicidal (and therefore get involuntarily hospitalized); very frustrating for those (like you) trying to help!
    Some Christians don’t believe in mental health treatment, either, as Dee has highlighted here before; I’ve had someone tell me, “Anxiety is just sin!” As if it were that simple.

    Yes, what I was trying to illustrate with my “what’s a submissive wife to do?” comment is that if someone has mental health or medical issues, they have a responsibility to their spouse to seek treatment and to do what they must to be a partner. If they won’t take these steps, we can’t just shrug our shoulders and say, “Too bad for their spouse!” Mental health issues and medical issues don’t make someone abusive.

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  65. Joyce Rohe,

    That’s a depressive religion in the first place. As is so much “jovial” and even “moderate” religion of exactly the same slant, because it starves mentally.

    p.s someone mentioned wrong medicines. They can cause some people hypomania which may not seem cheerful. This shows those people do NOT believe God is provident otherwise they would have earnestly asked God to get him more suitable meds.

    As for sleeping that’s probably a milder form of the same illness as the seizures.

    Yes their religion harms directly, all round. Those church authorities aren’t looking after anyone’s brains and that includes their own.

    Cruelty is the shape given by their ideology in the light of lack of thoughtfulness also derived from their ideology (causes) to the discomfort in the illness and / or wrong meds (law of Nature) (to put it in C S Lewis terms).

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  66. Ted,

    Revelations says something about taking away from This Book – oh but God didn’t mean them to think there is going to be an eschaton because we are Dominion Now, or ought to be, if we strain our personalities at it a bit more (this is standard churches now)

    (the real eschaton began when they came down the Mountain of Ascension)

    The Old Testament says don’t ration truth from those smaller than you – oh but we don’t do OT moral law, only the erastianism (theocracy)

    Jesus says the same – oh but Jesus was not there to be listened to but to be done away with, His Father hated Him so much

    (all that really happened was the world’s system destroyed Him like it often typically does the innocent, and He didn’t pull rank)

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  68. To quote our family member who had the bad reaction to the meds (nasty when awake, oversleeping, lack of initiative, etc) the thing is when you have lost your marbles you don’t know you lost your marbles.

    Which means family, medical doctors, shrinks, spiritual advisors, etc, have to continue to push the person to get adequate treatment.

    Too often, sadly, the spiritual advisors say the problems are spiritual, the shrinks blame family dynamics or say the person has “bad thinking” issues, and docs can’t admit the med they prescribed is bad for this particular patient.

    Thankfully our ex inlaw realized he was not in a good place to be a family member and left. Got treatment from a whole new system in a different part of the state. Off the seizure meds and onto other psych meds. Took some time but he got much more stable and is able to function again.

    This in no way says his ex spouse or kids should have had to just “put up with” his bad behavior, or be blamed for it. Not at all.

    But it does preclude judging him for behaviors he was physically unable to change. His behaviors were evil. He was not evil, he was sick. And wrongly medicated.

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  69. linda: To quote our family member who had the bad reaction to the meds (nasty when awake, oversleeping, lack of initiative, etc) the thing is when you have lost your marbles you don’t know you lost your marbles.

    Because everybody else are the ones with the problems, YOU Are Perfectly Healthy and Perfectly Normal, the only Stable Genius amid all the Marching Morons.

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  72. Tim LeCroy,

    No. I disagree.
    The ‘gross error’ was that the church censured the wrong person.
    If you read the story, it should be obvious that the deranged bum of a husband was the one that deserved a kick in the rear.
    If he was so gung ho about having sex, then I think he was perfectly capable of helping out with the kids and the house work, at the very least.

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