This is a must-read, about a set of issues that are usually buried and for which massive resistance is too often raised against those who have the courage to speak the truth. I am starting to suspect that the theology is designed as a ticket to power, privilege, and, yes, for men, instead of being a license to serve those without that power as Christ did. If Churchianity actually believed and worked out the myriad of details supporting a world where everyone is created in the Image of God, with neither more of that divine light or less than anyone else, things I think would feel very different. I too went to Wheaton and am so grieved to see the coverup and lack of accountability. The growing exposure and call for accountability is more than encouraging.
I went to seminary after Wheaton before med school in an effort to understand and heal from a childhood where Christianity was used to conceal and justify physical, emotional and sexual abuse, including being beaten with 2x2 inch clubs of lumber. Though the extreme atrocity of what was going on was concealed, I know some adults in the church turned a blind eye.
In my upcoming book, Relationsick: Why Putting Yourself Last is Destroying Your Health - and How to Heal, we discuss among other things a study that I found to be revealing. In an effort to understand the differences between the very small group of people who hid Jews during WWII at great risk to themselves and their families (< 0.1 percent) and the vast majority of those who aided the Nazis, they discovered something striking: one of the main things separating these two groups of people was whether they had been raised with corporal punishment. Those who were raised with empathy and taught to reason about what's right and wrong later, as adults, had more empathy for others who were being mistreated. Those who were raised with indoctrination that the "one with the biggest stick wins" were more likely to aid and abet the Nazis. This is really important to consider as a reflection point, I believe, and is helping me deconstruct really bad theology, teaching, and practices.
The points about anger being a gift from God as a warning sign that a boundary may have been crossed is also critical. A massive topic. In my experience bad teachings were used to anesthetize the spidey senses on the back of my neck so that I wouldn't out the abusers. One problem with this is that one then comes to think of this as love. It feels familiar. In so doing, one comes to believe that safe people are unsafe and safe people are unsafe.
I am so sorry for what you experienced, Jeffrey. Such a profound betrayal!
And YES I have heard this discussion of authoritarian parenting practices and its correlation with the inability to resist fascism. It's a really important piece. Philip Greven touches on this in his book "Spare the Child" and so does Alice Miller in her book "For Your Own Good".
And also, yes, the combination of spanking rituals that groom children and faith contexts that tell children their emotions are sins or suspect, and intuition and God-given instinct are suppressed. It's such a dangerous recipe.
Thank you for the book recommendations, Marissa. I will check them out. I called Dobson's institute years ago while treating a patient who had been harmed by his teachings about corporal punishment; the teachings had been taken as license for harsh beatings. I was told that even Dobson believed that spanking any child at 5 years of age or above was child abuse.
The link between corporal punishment, its deeper messages and how it can become a license for abuse, and the vulnerability to fascist beliefs is unfortunately deep and pervasive.
I believe you’re right, Caroline, that fundamentalism often creates a developmental moratorium, leaving people dependent and vulnerable to being told they need to obey the next charismatic and narcissistic leader who, they are told, has the authority of God.
I thought I had only imagined my experience in one of Wheaton’s fellow Christian universities where the “student life guide” handbook and leaders treated us like children; even one time there was a resident assistant who low-key slapped my hand when I had acknowledged a rule I had broken! I think that fundamentalism can create time-warped adults, not given responsibility to live their God-given right to make their own experiences and decisions…not to mention building bridges with fascism and myriads of abuses as this piece points out!
Thank you for this, Marissa. I always appreciate your insights. I, too, have moved away from believing penal substitutionary atonement, but I need to study more about atonement theories. I have spent most of my life in the PCA, so was steeped in that, but now that we are in the Episcopal church I find myself being able to think more about theology. Which is truly crazy having left a denomination that prides itself on having all of the "right" theology. Wonder and curiosity in faith are truly a gift.
Thank you for writing this. And as a fellow ACNA member I really resonate with your frustrations. I'll just raise my hand here as some who agrees completely with your critique but also holds PSA. I think we'd agree that you can have some unhealthy conclusions drawn out of PSA, but the theology itself does not require me to spank my kids or act like a vengeful God. Looks like I have another book to buy, too!
Regarding PSA. I accept it along with all the other understandings. For me they are complimentary. But what interests me is when people say PSA is "just one of many interpretations" but then go on the make it the ONLY one that is to be thrown out. I vividly remember attending a lecture, at Doane University in Nebraska, where John Dominic Crossan was speaking about it. In his anxiety (apparent) to avoid the doctrine he twisted himself into glaring contradiction. First, he stated that we do not need to believe in the Substitutionary Atonement idea because "it is not taught in the New Testament." (That's precisely what he said). Then not three minutes later he said "when Paul writes about substitutionary atonement he's just doing bad theology." If this is what we get from a leading scholar like that, regarding PSA, I tend to think there's some other agenda in the denial beyond biblical exegesis.
Yeah, I can't speak for all the people who find fault with PSA, but if you want a thoughtful and compelling biblical case against it, I recommend Andrew Rillera's book "Lamb of the Free." He examines the levitical system and argues that we have missed the point entirely.
Really appreciate your comments on PSA here, as well as in your book! The more I learn about the evangelical world the more I realize how much harm has also been done in the Catholic Church by things like PSA and other fundamentalist motifs
How absolutely lousy of a teacher would a person have to be to believe that the only way to develop a musician is via humiliation and violence? I guess the saying is true… When the only tool in your box is a hammer, all of your problems start to look like nails.
Absolutely heartbreaking. I do not rejoice in the downfall of these men.As the pastor in a church with a lot of people recovering from spiritual and physical abuse in their prior evangelical homes my heart breaks. I have seen the damage this can do.
Clergy is 1 of 10 professions most self-selected by people with psychopathy. These are professions with dominance over others. ‘Selection’ & ‘Facilitation’ are concepts of ‘Psychopathic Organizations’, groups of psychopaths in the hierarchy of organizations with declining psychopathology down to the entry level jobs. Middle managers are disordered but less disordered than the high leadership. Selection means that individuals with psychopathy choose membership in organizations or professions where their psychopathic abilities are desirable & rewarded. Of note, the brain in psychopathy has an overactive reward center. Facilitation means that exposure to other psychopathic behaviors facilitates or reinforces the disordered behaviors and promotes learning of new psychopathic behaviors, manipulation/grooming, deception and concealment.
We need to stop expecting psychopathic organizations including clergy to self monitor. It like asking the hospitalized mental health patient to run & oversee the facilities or incarcerated prisoners to run & oversee the facilities. We need open up our awareness to the intentional malicious chosen behaviors of hierarchy of certain organizations well known to be much higher in psychopathy than in the general public…as high as 1 in 4 to 1 in 5 individuals in psychopathy high professions/organizations.
We are have a mental health crisis in many of our professions & organizations. We are failing to recognize psychopathy in our clergy. Our problems in our churches stem from psychopathology denial in us.
I'm extremely troubled there are nineteen year olds who, instead of yelling or running or fighting in order to physically resist a wicked demand like "disrobe and get down on your knees", will instead go along and submit to being harmed. We (the church, evangelicals, whoever) are doing something terribly wrong. Is this the fruit of teaching children they can never say NO to an adult?
I hope you don’t mean to blame the victim here. The fault is entirely with Paul Jones and the way he abused his position of authority and this young person’s body.
Also: yes, this is the fruit of eva spanking practices which quite literally groom children into this. Part of why I talk about it so much. Eva parents adopt these practices when children are small because they are told it’s godly & it makes things logistically easier.
As I researched for my book, I heard from a number of adults who described being “spanked” all through their childhood and into adulthood. When you pair the way children are trained to obey “right away, all the way, with a happy heart” you have functionally trained them to say yes to anyone in authority. When you train them to believe their emotions are sins, you train them to ignore or suppress their God given instincts that might protect them.
There are also power dynamics like a celebrated music minister who clearly was grooming him “don’t tell anyone, I want to help, etc” and spiritual authority.
Since your brought it up, no, I do not blame victims. As the parent of a child who was trespassed against in the context of a church community, by an ordained person, no, blaming a victim is not something I would do.
You seem to assume a great deal of malign use of authority on the part of parents in evangelical circles. I hope you do not hold that all children who are generally obedient to their parents are therefore "functionally trained" to be victimized. The insecurity and resulting vulnerability of children whose parents set no boundaries, cannot earn respect and are not authoritative seems self-evident to me.
This is a must-read, about a set of issues that are usually buried and for which massive resistance is too often raised against those who have the courage to speak the truth. I am starting to suspect that the theology is designed as a ticket to power, privilege, and, yes, for men, instead of being a license to serve those without that power as Christ did. If Churchianity actually believed and worked out the myriad of details supporting a world where everyone is created in the Image of God, with neither more of that divine light or less than anyone else, things I think would feel very different. I too went to Wheaton and am so grieved to see the coverup and lack of accountability. The growing exposure and call for accountability is more than encouraging.
I went to seminary after Wheaton before med school in an effort to understand and heal from a childhood where Christianity was used to conceal and justify physical, emotional and sexual abuse, including being beaten with 2x2 inch clubs of lumber. Though the extreme atrocity of what was going on was concealed, I know some adults in the church turned a blind eye.
In my upcoming book, Relationsick: Why Putting Yourself Last is Destroying Your Health - and How to Heal, we discuss among other things a study that I found to be revealing. In an effort to understand the differences between the very small group of people who hid Jews during WWII at great risk to themselves and their families (< 0.1 percent) and the vast majority of those who aided the Nazis, they discovered something striking: one of the main things separating these two groups of people was whether they had been raised with corporal punishment. Those who were raised with empathy and taught to reason about what's right and wrong later, as adults, had more empathy for others who were being mistreated. Those who were raised with indoctrination that the "one with the biggest stick wins" were more likely to aid and abet the Nazis. This is really important to consider as a reflection point, I believe, and is helping me deconstruct really bad theology, teaching, and practices.
The points about anger being a gift from God as a warning sign that a boundary may have been crossed is also critical. A massive topic. In my experience bad teachings were used to anesthetize the spidey senses on the back of my neck so that I wouldn't out the abusers. One problem with this is that one then comes to think of this as love. It feels familiar. In so doing, one comes to believe that safe people are unsafe and safe people are unsafe.
Great writing.
I am so sorry for what you experienced, Jeffrey. Such a profound betrayal!
And YES I have heard this discussion of authoritarian parenting practices and its correlation with the inability to resist fascism. It's a really important piece. Philip Greven touches on this in his book "Spare the Child" and so does Alice Miller in her book "For Your Own Good".
And also, yes, the combination of spanking rituals that groom children and faith contexts that tell children their emotions are sins or suspect, and intuition and God-given instinct are suppressed. It's such a dangerous recipe.
Thank you for the book recommendations, Marissa. I will check them out. I called Dobson's institute years ago while treating a patient who had been harmed by his teachings about corporal punishment; the teachings had been taken as license for harsh beatings. I was told that even Dobson believed that spanking any child at 5 years of age or above was child abuse.
The link between corporal punishment, its deeper messages and how it can become a license for abuse, and the vulnerability to fascist beliefs is unfortunately deep and pervasive.
I believe you’re right, Caroline, that fundamentalism often creates a developmental moratorium, leaving people dependent and vulnerable to being told they need to obey the next charismatic and narcissistic leader who, they are told, has the authority of God.
I thought I had only imagined my experience in one of Wheaton’s fellow Christian universities where the “student life guide” handbook and leaders treated us like children; even one time there was a resident assistant who low-key slapped my hand when I had acknowledged a rule I had broken! I think that fundamentalism can create time-warped adults, not given responsibility to live their God-given right to make their own experiences and decisions…not to mention building bridges with fascism and myriads of abuses as this piece points out!
This is an absolute must-read. I hope you’re trying to get published in the NYT because you belong there.
!!! Thank you for reading and for this kind comment.
Thank you for this, Marissa. I always appreciate your insights. I, too, have moved away from believing penal substitutionary atonement, but I need to study more about atonement theories. I have spent most of my life in the PCA, so was steeped in that, but now that we are in the Episcopal church I find myself being able to think more about theology. Which is truly crazy having left a denomination that prides itself on having all of the "right" theology. Wonder and curiosity in faith are truly a gift.
Thank you for reading! Fleming Rutledge's book The Crucifixion is my favorite for examining all the biblical motifs of the atonement.
Thank you for writing this. And as a fellow ACNA member I really resonate with your frustrations. I'll just raise my hand here as some who agrees completely with your critique but also holds PSA. I think we'd agree that you can have some unhealthy conclusions drawn out of PSA, but the theology itself does not require me to spank my kids or act like a vengeful God. Looks like I have another book to buy, too!
For sure. Thank you for reading!
Regarding PSA. I accept it along with all the other understandings. For me they are complimentary. But what interests me is when people say PSA is "just one of many interpretations" but then go on the make it the ONLY one that is to be thrown out. I vividly remember attending a lecture, at Doane University in Nebraska, where John Dominic Crossan was speaking about it. In his anxiety (apparent) to avoid the doctrine he twisted himself into glaring contradiction. First, he stated that we do not need to believe in the Substitutionary Atonement idea because "it is not taught in the New Testament." (That's precisely what he said). Then not three minutes later he said "when Paul writes about substitutionary atonement he's just doing bad theology." If this is what we get from a leading scholar like that, regarding PSA, I tend to think there's some other agenda in the denial beyond biblical exegesis.
Yeah, I can't speak for all the people who find fault with PSA, but if you want a thoughtful and compelling biblical case against it, I recommend Andrew Rillera's book "Lamb of the Free." He examines the levitical system and argues that we have missed the point entirely.
Really appreciate your comments on PSA here, as well as in your book! The more I learn about the evangelical world the more I realize how much harm has also been done in the Catholic Church by things like PSA and other fundamentalist motifs
Thank you! I tend to think of PSA as something not in alignment with Catholic teaching, so I'm very curious to know more about how it shows up there.
How absolutely lousy of a teacher would a person have to be to believe that the only way to develop a musician is via humiliation and violence? I guess the saying is true… When the only tool in your box is a hammer, all of your problems start to look like nails.
Absolutely heartbreaking. I do not rejoice in the downfall of these men.As the pastor in a church with a lot of people recovering from spiritual and physical abuse in their prior evangelical homes my heart breaks. I have seen the damage this can do.
ILYSM 😔❤️🩹
🫶❤️🩹
Clergy is 1 of 10 professions most self-selected by people with psychopathy. These are professions with dominance over others. ‘Selection’ & ‘Facilitation’ are concepts of ‘Psychopathic Organizations’, groups of psychopaths in the hierarchy of organizations with declining psychopathology down to the entry level jobs. Middle managers are disordered but less disordered than the high leadership. Selection means that individuals with psychopathy choose membership in organizations or professions where their psychopathic abilities are desirable & rewarded. Of note, the brain in psychopathy has an overactive reward center. Facilitation means that exposure to other psychopathic behaviors facilitates or reinforces the disordered behaviors and promotes learning of new psychopathic behaviors, manipulation/grooming, deception and concealment.
We need to stop expecting psychopathic organizations including clergy to self monitor. It like asking the hospitalized mental health patient to run & oversee the facilities or incarcerated prisoners to run & oversee the facilities. We need open up our awareness to the intentional malicious chosen behaviors of hierarchy of certain organizations well known to be much higher in psychopathy than in the general public…as high as 1 in 4 to 1 in 5 individuals in psychopathy high professions/organizations.
We are have a mental health crisis in many of our professions & organizations. We are failing to recognize psychopathy in our clergy. Our problems in our churches stem from psychopathology denial in us.
I'm extremely troubled there are nineteen year olds who, instead of yelling or running or fighting in order to physically resist a wicked demand like "disrobe and get down on your knees", will instead go along and submit to being harmed. We (the church, evangelicals, whoever) are doing something terribly wrong. Is this the fruit of teaching children they can never say NO to an adult?
I hope you don’t mean to blame the victim here. The fault is entirely with Paul Jones and the way he abused his position of authority and this young person’s body.
Also: yes, this is the fruit of eva spanking practices which quite literally groom children into this. Part of why I talk about it so much. Eva parents adopt these practices when children are small because they are told it’s godly & it makes things logistically easier.
As I researched for my book, I heard from a number of adults who described being “spanked” all through their childhood and into adulthood. When you pair the way children are trained to obey “right away, all the way, with a happy heart” you have functionally trained them to say yes to anyone in authority. When you train them to believe their emotions are sins, you train them to ignore or suppress their God given instincts that might protect them.
There are also power dynamics like a celebrated music minister who clearly was grooming him “don’t tell anyone, I want to help, etc” and spiritual authority.
Since your brought it up, no, I do not blame victims. As the parent of a child who was trespassed against in the context of a church community, by an ordained person, no, blaming a victim is not something I would do.
You seem to assume a great deal of malign use of authority on the part of parents in evangelical circles. I hope you do not hold that all children who are generally obedient to their parents are therefore "functionally trained" to be victimized. The insecurity and resulting vulnerability of children whose parents set no boundaries, cannot earn respect and are not authoritative seems self-evident to me.
Seems like we’ve both misunderstood each other’s comment. Perhaps we can start fresh?
Absolutely! I think I ought to read your book, you've obviously thought long and hard on this subject and done research.