Speaking Up

CW: Discussion of abuse, SA, and neglect

When are you allowed to speak up and call out harm in your community? Do you have to currently be a part of that community to call out harmful teachings, practices, and ideas? How harmful or abusive do the situations have to be to warrant calling out the abuse?

I recently made a post about homeschooling. With the intent of speaking about isolation and neglect that happened to me within the community I grew up in. And I was surprised to see the majority of people who interacted with me on that post were encouraging and offered sympathy in some way. Later that week I did get the responsive I was expecting from my old community in the form of a private DM.¹

This individual is related to my family by marriage. And she tried to tell me loudly that I was not abused or neglected. She also told me FB or Instagram are not for public discussion of family problems. I was told to take my problems directly to my parents and to leave it off social media at all. In her words, “You want a reason for going through difficult things and you want someone to blame.”

I’d like to interject that I have spoken many separate times with my mother about harmful behavior, my childhood, and my views on it. Every time it’s brought up my mom has deflected the blame elsewhere (onto my father or on the churches we’ve attended). There is never any personal responsibility of her own culpability in the harm that’s caused by these systems.

I’ll give a direct example of it. As teenagers we were encouraged to attend a college called New Tribes Missions or NTM (Now Ethnos 360).² My parents attended and met at this college. They then went on to also attend missions training at one of NTM’s Canadian campuses. I’ve since found out that this organization had a history of ignoring the abuse of missionary kids on the “missions field.”³

I pointed this out to my mom as she and my dad would (probably) have been placing us in these abusive situations had they been able to enter the missions field.⁴ My mother floored me with her dismissive response. She knew missionary kids from “Fanda”⁵ and had heard their stories before of their sexual abuse at the hands of the missions organization. But she discouraged any focus on the actions of the missions organization. And she pointed vaguely towards other non-Christian organizations that also have problems with sexual abuse. She eventually reached a point in the conversation where she told me that there would be no justice on this earth, and that god is the only way to true justice.

This was directly echoed by my (distant) family member that reached out to me about my homeschooling / abuse post. Her words are directly quoted below.

“The Lord is the great mover, and is our only hope ever for goodness and righteousness, and any type of positive changes.”

This relative also told me that I’m the problem because my siblings don’t seem to take issue with my parents and the way they raised us. That my parents only deserve gratitude for the sacrifices they had to take on to raise us. And as a final note that nothing I described in my post was abusive or neglectful.⁶

I think you can catch the theme here. Dismiss personal responsibility (or responsibility of the Christian organization) and point towards others or the person speaking up as the problem.⁷ Point toward faith and God as the only way to enact change; point towards the idea of eternal justice.⁸ Even if nothing happens towards justice in the here and now, God will enact justice someday in the afterlife.⁹

It’s extremely hard to try and work towards any type of change in the environment I was raised in. I’m already seen as an outsider, someone that hates their way of life.¹⁰ And I see so much deflection around true and serious problems¹¹ in the fundamental Baptist community I was raised in.

When even clear issues like educational and emotional neglect are ignored how can you claim it is a safe and healthy environment for kids? Much of the pull for families to be involved in fundamentalism is the lie that these are safe and structured environments for kids. Gothard, Dobson, Ezzo, and every other evangelical book I’ve read on raising kids all claim to have a way to raise up your kids right. And many people believe that if you find the perfect way to raise your kids then they will have a perfect Christian life. Many preachers love to claim, “When he is old, he will not depart from it.”¹² But these very “safe and controlled” environments¹³ are the very things harming these children.

When this dysfunction is so pervasive that it causes harm in your homes, colleges,¹⁴ and churches; perhaps now it is time to call out the system. Push back against the idea that eternal justice is the only way for change or justice to happen. And go call out harm in your communities in the areas and places that shaped you.

Ignoring harm and abuse that occur in your community and shifting the blame onto others will not help enact change. Own the harm that you’ve helped enable, and the harm that you are responsible for yourself.¹⁵ If others in your community aren’t listening to your warnings, then step away from communities that help enable abuse (by willful ignorance).¹⁶

I’ve seen so many people continue to support toxic churches that allow SA and abusers to exist comfortably in their faith community.¹⁷ Please move on and find a safe space for you and your family. Find a college that doesn’t allow a culture of SA and abuse. Find a church that supports SA victims, LGBTQIA people, and POC. Or you can take my route and find a place for yourself outside of the traditional Christian faith. I’m not trying to tell anyone how to live their life. However, you need to be checking to make sure that your communities and places of faith are safe for you and your family.

1. I’m a pessimist at my core. One of the traits I definitely share with my mother. ↩︎
2. One of my sisters has attended this college. ↩︎
3. This org. worked with tribal missions (or “unreached” people groups); they were almost exclusively working in foreign countries. ↩︎
4. The abuse was happening at missionary boarding schools ran by New Tribes Missions. Parents would leave their children to be educated by the boarding schools while they were working elsewhere in the country. ↩︎
5. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion/ungodly-abuse-lasting-torment-new-tribes-missionary-kids-n967191 ↩︎
6. If you are reading this – Neglect is still abuse. Neglect can also include emotional neglect – it does not just mean you don’t feed your kids. Neglect also includes educational neglect. Neglect can also include medical neglect. Harmful or unsafe living conditions are signs of neglect. Physical abuse can mean a lot more than just broken bones and bodies. ↩︎
7. Not saying it’s DARVO, but the behavior is very similar. ↩︎
8. Many people believe that god will push everyone according to their sins in the afterlife. What Christianity fails to recognize is that by their own doctrine; Christians immediately bypass god’s judgment. As it is believed that god is judging their beliefs and not their actions. If you are Christian and you believe the correct things then you will have immediate access to heaven after your death. Your actions on the earth are not relevant to your access to a good afterlife (heaven). ↩︎
9. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/justice-is-coming John Piper. See the last section of the post for an example of this exact idea. “In the end, we marvel at the glory of Christ, our brother, the God-man, ‘the righteous judge’ (2 Timothy 4:8), in the wisdom, purity, and power he has, as God, in glorified human flesh, to judge all nations and all history and each and every person. … It is good news, in a world of evil like ours, that Justice, full and final, perfect and complete, is coming. His name is Jesus.” ↩︎
10. I’ve argued many times with people and often I’m just told. “You just hate your family, your college, and god.” This just leaves room for people to dismiss and ignore any problems pointed out by the “outsider.” I use quotation marks because I lived and breathing in fundamentalism for 25+ yrs of my life. I wasn’t just an outsider this was my life. ↩︎
11. See my last post and the discussion there around dismissing mental health problems. ↩︎
12. Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” This verse was quoted at me all the time. In fact, an embordered picture with a train and this verse hung above my childhood bed. ↩︎
13. The Safety of Christian Colleges ↩︎
14. https://newrepublic.com/article/116623/sexual-assault-patrick-henry-college-gods-harvard, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2014/03/11/guest-post-god-is-done-with-you-pensacola-christian-college-and-sexual-violence/, and https://www.brnow.org/news/Bob-Jones-University-president-apologizes-to-victi/ (There are so many more, but these were the “premiere” fundie colleges that were presented to me throughout my childhood). ↩︎
15. I’ve had to do this in my own life. And I still struggle with the misogynistic and racist views I was raised to believe. I know I’ve harmed my spouse and children, and I’ve acted in racist and harmful ways towards POC with my past actions and beliefs. This isn’t even engaging with half of it, but I feel like this is a good example of what I’m talking about. ↩︎
16. Especially with churches and evangelical organizations. There is a lot of pressure to stay and not make a fuss about the harm. And I understand not everyone has the energy to be loud about the abuse happening. But please do not stay a part of organizations and churches that continue to harm you and other people. ↩︎
17. My own family is a perfect example of this. They continue to support organizations that have caused harm and, in some cases, cause SA to their family. (My mom supports the same church that wanted her to publicly apologize for bringing up a sexual abuser within the church. She was told to apologize for bringing up strife in the church, and for lack of forgiveness towards the abuser. I had a whole post on it but deleted it out of respect to my family.) My mother admits PCC is probably cult like and harmful, but she continues to support Abeka (the curriculum they publish and profit off of.) They can see the past abuse of NTM, but fail to see how the culture that enabled that abuse to occur could affect their children in the future. ↩︎