The abusers we have not seen
My first attempt to expose the abusers and abusive systems that hide in plain sight.
My first attempt to expose the abusers and abusive systems that hide in plain sight.
What if the ways the Southern Baptist Convention has handled clergy sexual abuse in its midst reflect the ways a narcissistic abuser handles getting caught out?
Knowing our Lord by name has nothing to do with calling him by a certain word. It has everything to do with knowing in our inmost being the One to whom that word points.
It’s a story from the distant past, with profound implications today. A story of glory on the mountain – mutiny in the valley. Reading it, we can see how the Lord responded when a people who had just committed themselves to be his people reveled in breaking their vows. As we open ourselves to the Word and the Spirit, may we see much more.
Cliques are by nature, exclusive. Wherever they occur in the church landscape, they fragment the church. They prevent the people of God from becoming one.
Jesus taught us to pray for God. He taught us: In order to pray powerfully and effectively for people, pray first for the Father to rise up in his own behalf.
When the "threat alarm" goes off in an abusive church system, the response is orchestrated and brutal. But it's church: Appearances must be kept up. People loyal to the system confuse while pretending to clarify, cover-up while pretending to address, attack while seeming to answer, put-down while pretending to help.
Behind the scenes at Living Proof Live, I'd found a celebrity culture - not the "one anothering" of the church of the living God. So with all my heart, I cried out for change.
This is what happened when I served as onsite leader for a Beth Moore Living Proof Live event. It’s a peek into celebrity culture, the exploitation and manipulation of women and abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention.
All my life, I had been deceived by Good Christian appearances. Then, when pummeled and guilted to choose loyalty to a church system above all else, I saw.