Sisters, who exposed cruelty hiding in plain sight
Decades ago, sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké spoke out with compassion and courage. Their insights into a past culture show how cruelty hides in plain sight.
Decades ago, sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké spoke out with compassion and courage. Their insights into a past culture show how cruelty hides in plain sight.
“Religion almost killed me,” she said, then paused, waiting for my response. I had no words. But I believed her – and I could identify. She saw it in my eyes.
I was a “good Christian girl” until well into middle age. Then, God led me where I did not want to go, to show me what I desperately needed to see.
Lord Jesus, show me when the church is not the church, but instead, the world in church clothing. Show me when a system is competing with you for my heart.
“I’m Leah!” I cried. I had given myself to a church culture that had used me and used me, while profoundly rejecting my personhood, my adulthood, my worth, me.
Some illusionists fool us to amuse us. Abusers and abusive systems fool us to control us. Freedom and life hinge on seeing the illusionists we have not seen.
Maybe the church has become bewildering to you. Leaders you trusted and people you respected are acting in ways that do not reflect who Jesus is, nor what they profess to believe. They have turned on anyone among them who appears to threaten the status quo. What is going on?
Any number of motives can prompt leaders in our church systems to create an illusion that refuge for the abused exists, where it does not. “They say, ‘All is well, all is well,’ when it is not.” So how can we know?
In the church, those obsessed with manipulating, intimidating and dominating can pose as those serving God. And we can be very fooled for a very long time.
Any group that shuns is withholding your deepest needs in order to control you. That’s the opposite of loving you. It’s people you trusted, trying to erase you.