Why I Still Talk to Jesus -- In Spite of Everything
Institutions known for sexual assault (including child rape and spousal abuse) are mostly organizations closed to supervision that do not have checks because they answer only to a supreme leader of some sort, usually a man. In other words they are mighty like churches or as their critics might describe them dictatorships. This characterization fits Fox News, the Trump business method of operation — it’s all about one omnipotent white guy — and most churches of the fundamentalist white evangelical type.
The white evangelical Trump-voting churches have a social hierarchy that creates the perfect climate for abuse. First the Bible teaches that men are the “head” of the home. Second they cultivate a climate of silence in order to “protect the Work.” I should know. I grew up in one.
My evangelist father’s word was law. When Mom had bruises on her arm after a fight it always turned out that the “fight” was no fight all. A fight takes two. In a beating one person administers the “discipline” while the other cowers. Did anyone do anything? No.
For my grown sisters or other workers in my parent’s ministry to speak up would have “damaged the Lord’s work.” When Mom got her leg stitched up one day when I was 10, after Dad threw a brass vase at her, he was sorry. He knew that I knew what he’d done and told me he’d asked for God’s forgiveness. Mom told me not to tell anyone “For the sake of the Work.”
Scandals at Bob Jones University, Sovereign Grace Church and Bill Gothard’s family ministry, all follow this pattern of saving the Lord’s work, not the victim…. READ THE REST HERE
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In