No Longer Quivering
by Cindy Kunsman cross posted from her blog Redeeming Dinah
All images by Cindy Kunsman from Redeeming Dinah and used with permission. This is a summary of some of the teachings of prominent Christian leaders on sexual abuse that Cindy has used in her presentations on abuse. It is a compilation more than an article.
GOTHARD’S TEACHING ON SEX ABUSE
- NEARLY COMPREHENSIVE DOCUMENTATION OF BILL GOTHARD’S MATERIAL CONCERNING SEX (AND DOMESTIC) ABUSE There are no victims. The post reviews pertinent teachings and materials that discuss sex abuse, magical ways of warding it off, and victim blaming excuses for why it occurs. Some of this is predicated on Gothard’s doctrine that Christians have no personal rights but are wholly dependent on God’s magical intervention to protect them.
- Gothard’s Power of Crying Out (book) 2001 The Biblical character, Dinah, would not have been raped if she had cried out and if she had remained at home and holy.
- Gothard “Crying Out” Doctrine and Simple Steps to Blaming the Victim, Samantha Field Aug 2015
- If you are holy and pure enough, and if you have suffered enough for righteousness, God will magically save you from harm. If you suffer? You missed following one of the steps. View photos from a Gothard ATI notebook.
(Gothard and the IFB Teach the Same Things)
- FURTHER BREAKING DOWN WILLIAMS’ DOCTRINE
- Shattered Faith episode of 20/20 documenting the typical responses to the sexual abuse of children within the IFB.
Link to specific segments on the ABC Website (full show in video above)
- The saga of Tina Anderson and her church’s tragic and complicated response to her rape by her step-father and another man in her church (who was eventually convicted for the assault). The conflict resulted in a student protest at Bob Jones University and a major investigation of the school’s practices in response to sex abuse because of BJU’s support of the pastor who governed the local church’s response to Tina’s mutliple sexual assaults and physical abuse.
- Jocelyn Zichterman (author of book, I Fired God) about her sexual assaults and corporal punishment. Includes video clips of Jack Schaap’s sermons about aggressive discipline (a megachurch pastor who is serving prison sentence for sex abuse of a sixteen year old he transported across State lines).
- Rachel Griffith’s account of sex abuse at the hands of her father and now convicted youth pastor at Marquette Manor Baptist Church
- Patti Williams’ Schizophrenic Women 1980
- Preschool aged children solicit sexual attention from men and are “strange women”
- Ron Williams on Strange Women
- A transcribed sermon of his beliefs that attractive women have poor character, and that any woman or child who is sexually assaulted has merited such because they have the soul of a prostitute. (the King James Version of the Bible transliterates “prostitute” as “strange woman”)
- audio on archive
- Bob Jones University Investigation, Kathryn Joyce in the American Prospect May 2014
- Jim Berg, a nouthetic counselor, and others at BJU counsel adult women molested as children and adult women raped on campus to confess their own sin that hides within the sin of their own assault. Highlights the GRACE Investigation at BJU
- Video interview with Joyce and transcript about the article, Democracy Now
- Samantha Field’s personal experience at Pensacola Christian College: required to repent for her own rape by a fellow student
- Samantha’s blog Feb 2014
- XOJane article Apr 2014
- Sexual Abuse Problem in Christian Colleges, Vice article Mar 2014
- Patrick Henry College in The New Republic Feb 2014
- “God’s Harvard” (a college “theologically Baptistic” specifically founded with homeschooled students in mind) uses their infrastructure to suppress reporting of sexual assault while shaming and vilifying the abused.
- John Piper’s advice and confusing “clarification” about statement when asked how women should respond to domestic violence
- Original Video (2009)
A wife should take a couple of beatings first and shouldn’t be sensitive to “verbal unkindness.” Seek pastoral counseling.- Critical Review at Are Women Human? Aug 2010
- Critical Review at UnderMuchGrace March 2011
- Piper’s obsession with sex, mentions “group sex” as comparison to domestic violence (???), and points out very different advice regarding abuse of a child at the hands of a parent
- Piper’s Clarification Statement (several years later) Dec 2012
- Piper appears to retract his statement several years after colleagues noticed all of the criticisms of his position. PLEASE take note that Piper makes a veiled threat that by reporting abuse to authorities, a wife and her children lose her meal ticket and their father because of the consequences the husband faces for committing violence.
- Critical Review at A Cry for Justice Dec 2012
- Piper appears to retract his statement several years after colleagues noticed all of the criticisms of his position. PLEASE take note that Piper makes a veiled threat that by reporting abuse to authorities, a wife and her children lose her meal ticket and their father because of the consequences the husband faces for committing violence.
- NOTE: John Piper does not affiliate with the IFB, but he grew up across the street from BJU where his father built a Southern Baptist church. His father was close friends with both Bob Jones and John R. Rice, and he carried many of their beliefs over into the tenets of the Southern Baptist concept of patriarchy called “Complementarianism.” He is listed here with the IFB because of the significant influences that I believe shaped his belief system.
- Original Video (2009)
- SWBTS Paige Patterson (Southern Baptist) on Domestic Abuse (2000)
- If you submit to a physical beating from your husband and pray, your submissiveness will magically convert your husband and cause him to repent and become a faithful churchgoer.
- audio on archive
Read more by Cindy Kunsman:
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Cynthia Mullen Kunsman is a nurse (BSN), naturopath (ND) and seminary graduate (MMin) with a wide variety of training and over 20 years of clinical experience. She has used her training in Complementary and Alternative Medicine as a lecturer and liaison to professional scientific and medical groups, in both academic and traditional clinical healthcare settings. She also completed additional studies in the field of thought reform, hypnotherapy for pain management, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that is often associated with cultic group involvement. Her nursing experience ranges from intensive care, the training of critical care nurses, hospice care, case management and quality management, though she currently limits her practice to forensic medical record review and evaluation. Most of her current professional efforts concern the study of manipulative and coercive evangelical Christian groups and the recovery process from both thought reform and PTSD.
She blogs at Under Much Grace and Redeeming Dinah.
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