So.
Hi!
This is a story. It is not necessarily a story with a happy ending, but it is a story with a hopeful ending, I think, or, at least, a hopeful middle-ish part?
That doesn't sound as good. No, that doesn't read as well.
But I'm not to the end of the story yet, so I don't really know.
I'm not even sure that I'm at the middle.
I kind of hope this isn't the middle.
Anyway, this story that may or may not be in the middle is about fear and faith and hope and abuse.
It's a story about the Churches of Christ and the evil that they perpetuate, whilst assuming that they are the holiest of God's Own Children.
You know what they say about assumptions: assume makes you an asshat psycho abuse monger.
Maybe that's not what they say about assumptions.
I don't really have time to google it right now.
This blog wasn't my first resort.
It wasn't even my second, or third, or twelfth resort.
But it does seem to be my last.
It should have palm trees.
I sought help multiple times from multiple elders, you know, the people who are charged with protecting the flock?
They seem to care less about protecting the innocent than protecting asshat psycho abuse mongers.
One might wonder if they had participated in abuse mongering themselves from they way they draw ranks, quickly and tightly around any "leader" that accusations are laid upon.
There are many different ways of drawing ranks.
One can gossip about the person laying the complaint, mocking her for being abused perhaps? Or saying that a child who fails to report an abusive parent is the equivalent, morally, of an adult in a position of authority who fails to report abuse that was reported to them by minors?
Or one can refuse to speak to the person laying the complaint, and then bar her from attending church and threaten her with a restraining order if she contacts anyone from your congregation.
Or one can refuse to disassociate with abusive, hurtful leaders, or to say that what they are doing is wrong, publicly, or to provide any public support for the victims of abuse?
Truly, there are a variety of ways for leaders to not protect their flocks.
But surely they would care more about the current and future safety of their flocks than protecting the reputations of unsavory and abusive church leaders!
No, no they wouldn't.
I guess what I'm saying is all of my earlier training in the Churches of Christ has taught me to my bones that my opinion, words, thoughts, and concerns are less because they are mine, and I am a woman. And theirs are much, much, worthier, because they are men, and leaders.
So of course I expected everything would be Handled and Settled by Reasonable Men.
Because if a man is in a position of authority, he must be reasonable, right?
Well, that's what I had been taught anyway.
In the days, weeks, months, and years that followed, as I waited for someone to say or do anything that was reasonable, a thought began to form.
That thought was: They are wrong. They aren't being reasonable, they are being gutless, now who will do anything about this?
The answer: Nobody.
Nobody who is currently part of the church structure is going to take a stand against church abuse. They may commiserate with me in private, assure me that they think what is going on is wrong, but they sure aren't going to stand up for the people being victimized.
But why?
Maybe because the victims are women. Single women. And the abusers are men, men with power in the churches.
And everything fell into place after that realization.
The way I had been treated my whole life in the church, the way my friends had been treated, a thousand injustices that I witness, but could never explain, suddenly were clear.
The reason that none of these men care about what has happened, or what is happening, is because it all happened to women, and they don't care at all about women.
In fact, they hate women.
Not in anger (most of them) but with true apathy.
They saw women being abused and closed their eyes, they heard about girls being raped and closed their ears, they were given many opportunities to speak out against evil, and they shut their mouths.
I'm done trying to show them their folly.
I'm trying to prevent innocents from attending their churches.
Maybe I'm trying to break the grasp they have on the flock.
But these so called shepherds took their path a long time ago, and there is no turning back from it, wide and well paved it is.
I'm speaking because I finally found the voice that they took from me, that they told me I didn't have, that they told me I shouldn't use.
I'm speaking, because I'm not going to do nothing while they fiddle in the ruins of other people's souls.
I'm speaking because they don't want me to.
I'm speaking because I'm free.
I left their cult, and I found freedom.
This is my story.
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