Tina's blogging about her second trial

In case you've missed it.

Tina is blogging about the trial that sent her mother's husband, Daniel Leaf, to prison, again.

Be sure to check out her blog at Glimpses of Hope.

Going to trial is not easy. Knowing it affects your mother, makes it worse.

Justice was served but not without a lot of emotional consequences.

Read about her journey.

I hope it inspires you.

G.R.A.C.E. is a wonderful resource for churches!

I've mentioned G.R.A.C.E. on the blog before, but they deserve another mention tonight. Led by Boz Tchividjian and a great team of professionals, G.R.A.C.E. provides all kinds of resources for churches, from prevention of child abuse training, to response assistance when something happens, to all kinds of articles and even consultations if a church wants to contact them.

Not too long ago, a church in West Virginia found themselves in a very difficult situation. Boz blogged about it here. 

"A former church youth volunteer in Bluefield, West Virginia, was recently arrested on charges of child sexual abuse.  The arrest was a culmination of the actions by an amazing church that actually took the right steps when learning that one of its members was suspected of abusing a child.  As a result, at least 12 individuals have stepped forward to report being sexually abused as a child by this individual." (read the rest here)

Please read the whole blog entry. It's encouraging and well worth the read. 

I can't help but be encouraged to read this story. It brought tears to my eyes to think of the difference the way this church handled things will make in the lives of the victims as they journey to become survivors. 

It was my great pleasure to meet Boz Tchividjian in person at a conference in which he participated in Greenville, SC in September 2013. The host of the conference, North Hills Community Church, has posted all of the conference videos and power point files online. 

Tina Anderson came to visit during September so she could attend the conference as well. I remember sitting in the conference room at one point while we were taking a break and watching Tina hug and interact with some of the attendees at the conference. I couldn't help but smile and think about the good things God has done. So many survivors have been encouraged by Tina's willingness to tell what happened to her. More people than I can count have shared how her courage has inspired them. 

As Boz likes to say, "Aslan is on the move." Even in the dark and difficult days, God's grace is apparent. 

Thank you, Boz, for your faithfulness to assist churches so they know what to do. Your experience as a prosecutor of crimes against children has to have left you with some heavy heart burdens, but your willingness to use that to help others is making a difference!! 

Posting with a thankful heart,

Laurie Moody

ABUSE: People just don’t “Get It”

People who have never been abused will never understand. If you’ve never been in a highly authoritative religious environment, you’ll never understand what it means to be spiritually abused. If you’ve never lived in a home where your father and/or mother physically abused you, you’ll never understand what it is to be a child in that environment and how that abuse will affect you the rest of your life. If you’ve never been raped or physically violated, you’ll never understand the trauma, emotions, conflicts, reactions, etc. that happen before, during and after an assault. 

I’m one of those people. The closest one that I understand is spiritual abuse because I have been in some spiritually abusive churches and organizations but my experiences are extremely mild compared to some I’ve seen and others I’ve heard about. My parents didn’t beat me. Although I’m sure some of my punishments were excessive and I did get spanked, I would never consider myself abused. I do know numerous people who have been raped and even though I live with someone who has, I’ll never truly understand what she’s gone through and what she’ll deal with the rest of her life because I’ve never experienced it.

Here are some other things that I don’t “get.”

#1 Parents…

a.       Who abuse

b.      Who marry a known abuser

c.       Who don’t protect their children from an abuser

d.      Who chose an abusive spouse over their own abused child

e.      Who reject a child that’s been abused

I just don’t understand anybody who abuses another person but even more, a parent who abuses their own children. How can a parent kick, punch, hit, slap, push or use any form of physical violence against their children? I do understand spanking but even then there are other forms of effective discipline that don’t require you to hit a child.

I understand even less raping your own children. How can a parent do this? It’s so disgusting and revolting that I just don’t understand how any person can do that to another person, let alone a child. 

How can a person turn their back on their children? Why would a parent stand up for the abuser and turn their back on their child who has been abused? I’ve heard too many stories of parent(s) turning against their child because the child finally had the courage to speak up. The mom doesn’t want to send her husband to jail but would prefer he keep abusing. The parents blame their daughter or son for being molested by a relative, friend, sitter, or church member. 

I’m just disgusted and I don’t understand the mentality of parents not supporting their abused children.

#2 Church leaders and Religious Organizations who…

a.       Abuse by leaders and church members

b.      Cover up abuse

1.       “You don’t want to break up a family, do you?”

2.      “We’ll deal with it internally.”

3.       “If this gets out, it will hurt our ministry.”

4.      “You shouldn’t take another Christian to court.”

5.   "Let's not dig up the past. He's changed. He's not the person he used to be." 

c.       Give Platitudes

1.       “forgive and forget”

2.      “just get over it”

3.       “let God deal with it”

4.      “you need to give it to God”

5.      “don’t become bitter”

d.      Disregarding

1.       "Our church is not like that."

2.      "We’re autonomous." or "We're not responsible for what that church does."

3.    "Those bloggers, advocates, and victims are just bitter."

4.   "Your PTSD, nightmares, and other problems are not real. It's all in your head. You're just dwelling in the past."

5.   "You're just being vindictive."

It really bothers me that some churches don’t “get it.” They just don’t understand and what’s worse, they don’t seem to want to understand. They’re more concerned about image than justice. They’d rather enforce rules than practice grace. They’d rather be on the defense for religious leaders and organizations than on the offensive for the abused.

 I don't understand why church leaders and organizations will condemn another church over music, clothing, and other standards but they won't address that same church or organization when there is a known issue that the pastor or leader who is abusing, has abused, or has covered up an abuse.

Those of us who don’t experientially understand are not excused from understanding the people that are involved. We love and support. When we don't, we're not much better than the abuser. We don't have to understand what it is to be abused to do what is right.

We need to understand that helping a victim is what God wants us to do. We need to worry about our heart being right with God, not protecting an "image." Let's have character and let God worry about His image. Let us worry about doing the right thing. When we do that, we show the world how God loves.

God’s love is what I want to understand. His love is what I have experienced and that is what I want to demonstrate to those who’ve been abused.

Reactions to Abuse

I’ve been thinking about the different reactions that people have when it comes to abuse. The idea of abuse just boggles my mind. I don’t understand the mentality that goes into harming another person. I know we’ve all done it to one extent or another but to purposefully set out to abuse another person physically, sexually, spiritually, and/or mentally, is something I have a hard time understanding. I sure we can boil a lot of it down to one person wanting to control another.

Most people struggle with the idea that a pastor can be spiritually abusive or that a relative might be sexually abusing children, especially when it comes to their children. It’s hard to imagine that your neighbor or co-worker physically abuses their spouse or children. It’s hard for us to recognize in ourselves that we might be abusive in our words and actions to those around us. 

Some of the reactions that we might have when it comes to abuse in any form is….

QUESTIONING GOD

“Why?” and “Where were you, God?” are always big questions when bad things happen but it seems to be a bigger question when you’re raised believing that God loves you and has your best interest at heart. It’s also harder because you might think that you’re sinning if you’re questioning God but there are many examples in Scripture that shows that asking God “why?” is a valid option and there’s no reason to feel guilty about it. We all want answers. Who better to ask than our Heavenly Father.

Some even go so far as to wonder if there is a God. If you’re taught that God is good and loving and in control of everything but then you’re abused by the people (parents, family, pastors, leaders, etc.) who are telling you this, is it any wonder people start to doubt? Is it any wonder that a lot of formerly religious people stopped going to church and some have become agnostic or atheist.

I like what Wade Burleson said regarding …Our Mistake About God on his blog. The entire article is good but I’ll quote a couple things. Wade says,

“Since evil is not part of God's nature, His allowance of evil to occur simply means He has a greater good in store, a greater good that would not exist were the evil to be prohibited. This is why God can hold the wicked accountable and responsible for their evil, but overcome their evil for good.”

“But God works ultimate good out of all things, including evil. For God to do this, he MUST know the end from the beginning.”

“But God works ultimate good out of all things, including evil….We can't comprehend how evil can be present for a greater good to occur. We can't fathom how One is outside of time and independent of time and has no need of time, but uses time for His glory and our ultimate good.”

QUESTIONING SELF

I have noticed that a lot of victims start wondering what’s wrong with them or what they did that made someone hurt them. Some start questioning their value as a person and some start questioning their sexual orientation. The abuse a person received from others sometimes turns inward to where they start to abuse themselves.

This questioning only gets worse if a victim does not get the support he/she needs from their family, friends, and spiritual leaders. There a many reasons why a person is not supportive but when it’s to protect someone other than the one who has been abused, it’s just despicable. For some, it’s just ignorance. We don’t understand what someone has gone through or we don’t understand how something that is said or done causes someone to question themselves.

The questioning of self may never go away but maybe with the right support a person might be able to accept themselves more. When the people around a survivor accept them for who they are, it’s easier for them to accept themselves. I know I have tried and I know I have failed at times but I have noticed a few things that have helped. First, it has helped me when my wife lets me know when something’s been said or done that has been or could be a trigger. Second, and probably the biggest, was encouraging and supporting her to seek justice. Third was moving out of our comfort zone of fundamentalism and into the unknown. We found a new church, friends who love God and have been a part of exposing abuse in fundamentalism.

DENIAL

My biggest surprise is that religious leaders have not been supportive of victims. Many deny helping a victim in lieu of  "protecting" their churches by covering the abuse. Unfortunately, the leaders are sometimes the ones doing the abuse. All the "protecting" only puts more people in danger. There are numerous stories of abusers who were "forgiven" and allowed to continue in the church only to find out years down the road a trail of victims because leaders denied help to the abuser and are basically complicate in the abuse of others they should have been protecting.

And then we have people who deny the validity of a survivor's story. It doesn’t matter the reason why you may want to question their story. They shouldn’t have to provide you with DNA evidence or even their name if they want to remain anonymous. Listen to them. Offer support and if possible, help them get justice.

Don’t deny that there is a problem. Don’t deny the fact that it might be happening in your church or religious organization. Just because people and organizations call themselves “Christian” or “Christ-like,” it does not mean that they are behaving themselves as Christ would behave.

Don't Shoot the Messenger

A couple days ago I was talking with someone inside the IFB movement, who is very satisfied and comfortable with what they believe and made the statement that they aren’t going anywhere. While talking about it, they made at least two logical fallacies that I’m sure that most people in this person’s situation are making. The first was that we shouldn’t be talking about everybody’s abuse because we don’t know the whole story. It was stated that it was fine what we did and what was done to us was wrong and we could talk about it because we were there. The problem with talking about the other stories is that there are two sides to the story, and we don’t know all the details, we shouldn’t be saying anything about it. The reasoning is that these “victims” could be making it up to get attention and I was asked if I thought that was true. I said most people would not make up an abuse story. Even real victims don’t want to come forward because they don’t want the attention. I did say it highly unlikely and that we will always side with the abused. We will always speak up for them because they don’t always have a voice, especially in religious organizations and churches and we will always support the abused.

One of my biggest concerns is that the message of abuse in the churches is being dismissed because of the people trying to draw attention to the abuse. This was the other logical fallacy that was brought up. They stated that it looks like it’s just a vendetta against churches and that they’ll do anything for attention. They also said all the stuff they see on Facebook in reference to their lifestyle and everything else was making them not look credible and because of our association with them that we don’t look credible either. I tried to explain, briefly, that just because you don’t agree with how an advocate lives, does not lessen the importance or significance of what they are trying to say.

I’ve communicated with people from various religious, sexual, and political backgrounds with varying levels of interest from soft-spoken to overly-aggressive in stand against abuse. Every single one of the people has one goal in mind. Their goal is to stand up against the abusers. They have taken different methods and tactics but they want to see abuse end, no matter what the organization, whether church, college, children’s home, etc.

Another thing that keeps being mentioned is motives. I think we should worry more about what is being done than why it’s being done. Motives refers to the heart that we can’t see. Let God worry about that. We may assume or even be right about someone’s motives but don’t dismiss someone’s message because we think they have the wrong motives. It does not change the fact that abuse needs to be attacked. 

Mark 9: 38-40 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. For the one who is not against us is for us.

Philippians 1:15-15 Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice.

Can I make a suggestion?  DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER. In other words, don’t dismiss them because they don’t think like you.

ADVOCATES – Keep your voice loud and clear! Keep up the fight, no matter the obstacles. Don’t attack each other. You’re on the same team, with the same goal, just in a different part of the war.  

IFB MEMBERS – Just because you don’t like someone’s beliefs or lifestyle, don’t ignore the warnings. The problem is real even though you don’t like it. Listen to the message, even if you don’t like the messenger. It’s important.

IFB PASTORS – Become an advocate!! Quit being quiet about the problem. Stand up for the victim and stand against the abuser. You’re so vocal on so many things that don’t matter. Be vocal for God’s children. Remember Jesus cleaning out the Temple? Do that! Help clean God’s House and throw out those who claim to serve God but are only serving themselves.