This is from the guy that bought the Big Sandy Ambassador Campus and the person the Dugger family in 19 Kids and Counting are followers of.
Even more appalling are some of the comments in the link above. This just goes to show how sick fundamentalism is, in or out of Armstrongism.
This isn’t uncommon in the Fundy world. When I attended BJU my Freshman year, I had an Orientation class with the Dean of Students, Jim Berg.
I was allowing my mind to wander off one day, my daily routine, when something Berg said grabbed my attention. He was talking about his wife. He said if a man knocked on his door and announced that he was there to beat Berg’s wife because she was a Christian, Berg would step aside and let it happen. He said he wouldn’t stand in the way of the heavenly reward she would get for being persecuted for Jesus. I was shocked. I’m sitting there thinking about all of the levels this was messed up on. Obviously, it was straight crazy. Secondly, why wasn’t he pontificating about HIM getting beat up for HIS Christianity. Lastly, if it was legit on any level, which it can’t be, why would he share the story bragging about his supposed level of commitment to his faith?? I was 18 at the time, but all I could think about was how much I wanted to beat his ass.
I can’t imagine King David or Samson, or any other MAN in the Bible “stepping aside” to allow another man to physically attack their wife. David was the closest person to God’s heart, and he was a straight up warrior. Jim Berg is a straight up modern-day Pharisee.
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I knew a female married town student who went to Jim Berg for counseling because her husband was beating her.
Berg’s advice? “Duck and let GOD hit your husband.”
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This is also the same mentality that many Church of God ministers held.
Women who suffered horrible abuse were told to stay with their husbands
because their reward would be in heaven for following church
government. The man was in charge!
In Armstrongism this is the legacy of proper Church government. The belief and enforcement of proper church government introduced all kinds of abuse into the church.
God
Jesus
Herbert Armstrong
Evangelist
Minister
Elder
Deacon
Husband
wife
kids
The thing that stood out from this post was the denial of victimhood, and that means also the denial of the other side of the equation: abuse. I was never physically or sexually abused, thankfully, but still, this touches a nerve with me.
ReplyDelete"There is no 'victim' if we understand that we are called to suffer for righteousness."
So instead of "victim" which is now a forbidden word, you must use the perpetrator-neutral word, "suffering." Suddenly, there is no such thing as abuse, and no such thing as an abuser. Abuse becomes invisible. Now a new equation has been defined: suffering = righteousness.
There's plenty of support for this in the bible too. Instead of being abused and victimized, think of it as an opportunity to "lay up treasures in heaven" (Matthew 5:19). When you are abused, rejoice, as this is your opportunity to share in the suffering of christ (1 Peter 4:13). The sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us (Romans 8:18). And let us not forget Matthew 5:11 "Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." And this is by no means an exhaustive list.
Within the culturally constructed meaning of christianity, to be abused becomes virtuous. To be an abuser becomes no longer a sin, but an imperceptible reality that does not stand out against the backdrop of christian meanings, especially the comparison of your suffering with that of jesus' (à la "fish have no word for water"). One need look no further than the self-flagellation encouraged by middle-ages Catholicism to realize that christianity, at least for common, low-status folk has always been a culture of suffering, longsuffering, meekness, patience, and gentleness. The rest of the fruits of the spirit, like love and joy, not so much. The commoner was always supposed to "turn the other cheek" and "go the extra mile." Leave it to the high-status individuals (abusers) to go on the offensive (crusades). No turning the other cheek for them. They attain virtue through an entirely different set of scriptural references.
And this is the thing that I recall growing up in WCG: the church removed my defenses against the shame and humiliation of abuse. There was no culturally acceptable way to protect yourself from an abuser. To be righteous was to be emasculated. To stick up for yourself, to defend yourself was sinful and wrong. To shield yourself from abuse was rebellion against god. To refuse to be victimized was evil. To leave an abusive environment was to leave "the truth" which meant that god, who always judges righteously, was now going to abuse you even worse. One cannot simultaneously be a good christian and a valued member of the congregation (unless you were high-status - a minister!) The only way I was able to escape was to cease to believe in christianity, god, heaven, and hell, altogether, and the willingness to accept the consequences if I turned out to be wrong. I guess I realized that if heaven were anything like the church, I'd rather go to hell!
While I'm quoting bible verses, here's the most applicable one I can think of for this situation:
Isaiah 5:20 "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
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ReplyDeleteHead Usher said:
ReplyDeleteAnd this is the thing that I recall growing up in WCG: the church removed my defenses against the shame and humiliation of abuse. There was no culturally acceptable way to protect yourself from an abuser. To be righteous was to be emasculated. To stick up for yourself, to defend yourself was sinful and wrong. To shield yourself from abuse was rebellion against god. To refuse to be victimized was evil. To leave an abusive environment was to leave "the truth" which meant that god, who always judges righteously, was now going to abuse you even worse.z'
Oh man....you win the insight award of the year! I think I just grew a few more notches in undestanding how that worked for me. Thank you!
This is something that infuriates me to no end.
ReplyDeleteModern Christians, living in a society where persecution is minimal, who feel as though they have to invent persecution instead of utilizing their freedom to promote the greater good.
The Christians of the Bible had to create some kind of coping mechanism for dealing with being threatened by death or injury by those more powerful because their choices were to suffer or recant. Today we have legal and support systems to assist with protecting people from these things.
When they tell the victim to "suffer for righteousness sake", they align themselves with the abusers and participate in the abuse.
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ReplyDeleteA glaring gap here ... that when a wife is asked to "suffer" the hostility of her husband for the sake of her faith, it is a presumption on the individuals who are not able to make a choice ... the children who arguably suffer a greater harm because of the abuse of their mother. Did they choose to suffer for Christ? Can that choice be made for them? The profound ignorance and disconnect from reality that this idea represents is vile and criminal.
ReplyDeleteAnd kudos also to, I think it was Leonardo, who posted the link to "Flight from Death" a few days back. I had not come across that or Ernest Becker's work before, so that really put a lot of things together for me that I had not really understood before. Really powerful, man. Thank you so much for that.
ReplyDelete"This is from the guy that bought the Big Sandy Ambassador Campus and the person the Dugger family in 19 Kids and Counting are followers of."
ReplyDelete"In Armstrongism this is the legacy of proper Church government."
One of these things is not like the other. Were there abusive marriages in the Church? Absolutely! Are there abusive marriages in this guy's church? Absolutely!
Do any of them have anything to do with the teachings of said churches? Maybe. But in my opinion, these men would likely have used anything they could find, as an excuse to do what they wanted to do, anyway.
"A glaring gap here ... that when a wife is asked to "suffer" the hostility of her husband for the sake of her faith, it is a presumption on the individuals who are not able to make a choice ... the children who arguably suffer a greater harm because of the abuse of their mother. Did they choose to suffer for Christ? Can that choice be made for them?"
ReplyDeleteAnd this is where I think the Church failed. The splinter groups continue to fail spectacularly in this area, especially when they get around to preaching those "difficult scriptures" in Ephesians. I haven't heard a sensible sermon on those passages in my life!
Sound the alarm! Velvet admitted her precious church failed in something!
ReplyDeleteVelvet wrote: "Were there abusive marriages in the Church? Absolutely! Are there abusive marriages in this guy's church? Absolutely! Do any of them have anything to do with the teachings of said churches? Maybe. But in my opinion, these men would likely have used anything they could find, as an excuse to do what they wanted to do, anyway."
ReplyDeleteYou definitely have a point there, Velvet, though I don't think there's any question whatsoever that the TEACHINGS of fundamentalist Christianity as practiced by these groups only magnify pre-existing or latent problems, making them FAR WORSE by an order of magnitude. The fact that divorce statistics are just as high or even higher in Christian communities than in the general public, especially in the southern Bible Belt areas of America, bears this out.
I personally knew of MANY cases of this kind of abuse in the WCG because "God's Government" had to be righteously enforced in the home, and the husband/father was responsible for doing it. And fanatics like Rod Meredith often lead the charge in this crusade to “bring God back into our marriages and families” with his characteristic unbalanced zeal. It was constantly reinforced in sermons, articles in the literature, and in Spokesman Clubs for many years, really until the rotten fruit of all this lunacy started becoming more and more apparent. Then they somewhat backed off on the overemphasis of it for a while.
However, as a result many church marriages ended in divorce, and many kids raised in such environments ended up going down the path of delinquency – with no sense of self-worth or self-confidence, totally unequipped to face life in the real world, purposeless lives, drugs, alcohol, suicide, etc. Many men were made to feel that if they didn't practice such craziness in their homes, then they were utter failures as husbands/fathers. And behind all of this was always the threat of being thrown into the lake of fire, which the WCG constantly used with devastating effect.
In Head Usher's comment above he briefly mentioned the role of denial. As I see it denial plays a massive part in all this nonsense. Denial of reality, manifest in many different ways, is so much a part of Christianity as practiced by such fervent true believers because they live in their own imagined alternative universe of invisible gods and devils battling it out on planet earth for control of people’s minds. This bizarre understanding of reality can really produce some horrendous lifestyle practices.
Ephesians is not an authentic Pauline epistle. It does not read like Paul and is far far too advanced in Church topics for Paul's time. It was written in Paul's names by later Church father's seeking control and laying down church rules for congregations. DD
ReplyDeleteMost of you guys believe in a blind purposeless universe, where does victimhood fit into that universe?
ReplyDeleteIf you've found yourself in a culture in which when someone else steps on your toes it's unacceptable to push them off or even say ouch, and the only acceptable thing to do is let them walk all over you, there is something deeply unhealthy about that culture.
ReplyDeleteWhere the "universe" comes in is when the guy who stepped on your toes uses god to justify himself for doing it.
Let me flip the question around. Where does a victimizer who justifies himself with christian rhetoric fit into a christian universe?
Aww, Velvet.
ReplyDelete"Do any of them have anything to do with the teachings of said churches? Maybe."
Stop it. My sides hurt.
Anon, I think if you would more CAREFULLY and THOUGHTFULLY read through the comments, especially the more serious and articulate ones, you'd find very few of us hold to the nihilistic, purposeless view of the universe you wrongly accuse us of believing in. Just because folks don't buy into the idea of the supernatural concept of invisible gods and devils, doesn't necessarily suggest they believe in blind purposelessness. I don’t. I was a supernatural fundamentalist for 38 years, but now I see this was a crock of absolute philosophical feces. But you never seem to have a sense of curiosity that would lead you to humbly ask what exactly I or others DO believe. Perhaps if you were willing to intelligently enter into the dialogue, you might be surprised.
ReplyDeleteBut if you are currently a passionate True Believer, then you probably won’t. Why? Because you feel you already have most of the answers by means of faith. And if you’re truly happy there, then stay there.
Do consider this, however, because you seem to be trapped in a continuous cycle of either/or thinking: it's EITHER the deity of the Bible, OR else a totally random, blind, nihilistic, purposeless universe – there being no other options available. But this only shows how fundamentalist religion has blinded you and very severely limited your imagination, and your willingness to expand it.
Yes, I will occasionally make mention in my comments of Richard Dawkins, or Sam Harris, or Christopher Hitchens, or Daniel Dennet, or any number of the so-called “new atheists” – but that doesn’t mean I agree with everything they say. Though you just carelessly seem to assume this. I’d love to have a nice, civil, respectful one-on-one dialogue with Dawkins. And perhaps I may one day, who knows? I think he’s wrong in a number of areas, and believe I could show him precisely how and why. He’s taught me many things through the years, perhaps he could learn from someone like me as well.
But folks like you who always want to shallowly ridicule those who don’t hold to your current religious views of reality I’ve found by experience to be among the most uninformed, unteachable and most arrogant fools in the world, because you think you have nothing further to learn outside the realm of the crevice-sized world you’ve been taught to believe in by religion. But I’ve been there before, for decades, and compared to the real objective world, the limited universe of religion is like being stuffed inside a small, smelly, dark custodial closet.
In a way, being Christian is like owning a pitbull. You really need to be wise as part of the success quotient.
ReplyDeleteThere is all manner of superstition, extrabiblical teaching, constructs built upon precepts removed from proper context, and just plain silliness taught, and then used as a test of the depth of conversion.
Would this idiot step aside and allow his wife to be raped? And, then praise God for her opportunity, and consider it a blessing? If so, then someone is missing out on the whole sound-mindedness thingie that is part and parcel of daily Christian living.
I guess my biggest problem with teachers such as this is that their distorted application of scriptural principle makes all Christians look clueless, when plainly that was not Jesus intention. The Pharisees in the Sanhedrin actually recognized uneducated fishermen and craftsmen as being wise from Jesus' teaching.
BB
Byker Bob, I realize that not all who claim Christianity as their worldview are clueless. John Lennox, for example, a Christian mathematician and philosopher of science professor at Oxford, immediately comes to mind. I profit greatly from listening to this man talk in lectures, debates and interviews, as there are many videos of him out on Youtube. I’d love to meet him in person. However, he's a rare exception these days in religious circles. As you point out, very unfortunately many modern-day representatives of the Christian faith are largely fundamentalist/evangelical in nature, and come across as absolute loonies, terribly misinformed and uneducated, and cause far more evil in the world than good.
ReplyDeleteLike that old bumper sticker says “I don’t have a problem with God, it’s His ardent supporters that I dread!”
And Bob, it's not always a matter of "their distorted application of scriptural principle" that makes them so weird or dangerous. Much of the time they very accurately DO understand and practice what the Bible says. And you might want to seriously consider that.
ReplyDeleteYears ago when I was in WCG, a friend's husband was beating her. They did actually go to the ministry but were declined help. Then he threatened to kill her, she got out and divorced. Sad thing is, when she found another chap to marry, my husband refused to meet him and to go to their wedding because he believes that the only reason for divorce is adultery. I see it that the ex broke his covenant with God to treat his wife as Christ treats the church. Good news though ... see new post.
ReplyDeleteAnother friend, married in WCG, ended up leaving her husband and taking the kids. He had an affair. She stayed for the childrens' sake but then her hubby lost his job and just sat around and became verbally abusive to one child in particular. My husband actually sees her point now! 1 Tim. 5:8 comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteAnon, about 25 years ago I knew of a recently married church couple who, after being married for only a few weeks, the guy started threatening his wife with murder. Can you imagine that? And this guy was a church member, or at least claimed to be! If it were my daughter that was in this situation, I'll tell you quite honestly, her husband would get a little talk from me, and if he continued, this guy would wish he'd have politely complied. I truly sympathize with folks who've endured or are currently going through such an unimaginable situation. But I will say it's my view that the vast majority of COG ministers these days would advise a woman to immediately leave such a relationship.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand my minister advised me to get out of Dodge and even placed much needed monetary help into my hands in order to get me away from my abuser.
ReplyDeleteWhen I arrived in a new state the church protected me actively and third tithe assistance kept me and my kids going.
At one point when my abuser showed up at church he was thrown out literally by the ministry.
One rather large deacon confronted the coward and told him he had better leave us alone.
If it were not for the church in those days I would have been completely alone. I will never forget what was done to help me and my children.
I know the WCG/COG's did (and do) help out many folks in situations like this. And that's to their credit. And it's nice to see when someone is grateful for such help as well.
ReplyDeleteThat is a good story, church lady. I wish WCG had been like that at headquarters. Sadly, it was not.
ReplyDeleteIn Pasadena, the church would extend help to women who were newly coming into the church from bad marriages in the world. That fit the cultural milieu, namely that "the world" was a bad place, and what else would one who knew "the truth" reasonably expect from "the world," and you're new, and before you didn't know any better, but now "god has led you to the truth." For someone in that situation, the ministry had a vested interest in wanting them to see the church as being rather like Disneyland, the happiest place on earth, and a wonderland of potential and opportunity, and a safe haven besides.
However, if you were a nice Pasadena church girl and you married who you (and everyone else) thought was a nice Pasadena church guy, and he turned out to be a total creep IRL, you were not likely to get anything but an admonition to submit, and how this whole problem was in your head, and you didn't have any rights in this situation, and then you would be shown how it was you who was being unreasonable or even abusive toward your husband. The reason why is, in Disneyland all the marriages are perfect, so you had better stop rocking the boat and stop providing evidence that did not support that cultural imperatives.
I see cultures as being very theatrical. They take real life situations and turn them into plays which are scripted to support and reinforce the values and beliefs of the culture, and deny all evidence that any of those things might not be true. So, the church's theater was always staging "Father Knows Best," and "The Wonderful World of Disney." And within the church, members would always be told that the world was always staging "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "Scarface," "Body Snachers," and anything else that suggested "the world" was a place where no one was likely to survive for long.
As one who knows the culture, if you were considering coming to the ministry with a situation in your life, you could prettymuch know if you were going to receive help or merely receive flak, simply by figuring out if there was a way for the church to act out an episode of "Leave It to Beaver" while it was helping you. If the minister wasn't going to be able to tell himself (and you) a good story that supported the institution, then you were just going to get flak, so best look for help elsewhere.
"But I will say it's my view that the vast majority of COG ministers these days would advise a woman to immediately leave such a relationship."
ReplyDeleteI disagree; see Malm, Meredith, Pack, Flurry, et al. In fact, there's only one Evangelical in the Church I HAVE heard advise this, with the caveat that it would be the only situation; there were divorced and remarried members in the Church when I was growing up who had no issues, but under the Evangelicals, the culture seems to have swung back towards a pre-D&R judgementalism, at least for the members; during the whole "Promise Keepers" scare of the mid-90s, apparently quite a few of the ministers dumped their longsuffering wives of many years for younger, more Evangelical models (at least, this is the hearsay I was told).
I really can't see any of the splinter groups doing anything to stop such abusive marriages, though; the evidence and many many incidents recounted on these websites suggests just the opposite.
I remember hearing about the church in Big Sandy giving sanctuary and protection to a woman and her large family of children who were being tracked and stalked by an angry, abusive ex back in the early '60s. The entire congregation was on the alert. That seemed to be pretty much as it was supposed to be, both in the eyes of Christians, and compassionate secular people. However, things were often handled differently when both spouses were church members, and the husband had some small amount of church related responsibility or authority, unless the whole situation became totally explosive.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, if you start by looking the other way when violence is inflicted on young children and teenagers, it's not too much of a leap to include the woman of the family in that victimization syndrome. This is certainly an area where the church could have learned much from the grace related childrearing in mainstream Christian homes. The proper understanding of grace would have totally eradicated so many of these horrid situations that are an integral part of the history of Armstrongism!
BB
In the first post in this thread, Head Ushers said, "I guess I realized that if heaven were anything like the church, I'd rather go to hell!"
ReplyDeleteAmen.
Hey, Bob, you're conveniently side-stepping the fact that the Baptists Gary quotes in the original post ARE "grace-related Christians" -- the only problem is, they are "grace ALONE" Christians --- which they think gives them a free pass to act as evilly as they want to, and because they say "Jebus saves me!" at proper intervals, they can get away with any and every evil thing that crosses their minds to do.
ReplyDeleteThough I will say it's nice to read of local congregations supporting the women in a few cases, at least. Signs that this website is making progress towards seeing the Church in a more realistic light, perhaps?
Velvet,
ReplyDeleteI believe you may be looking at the grace topic from the standpoint of an unfair stereotype.
I don't know, or haven't met, any mainstream Christians who believe in grace only, at least as you are applying it. What we occasionally hear in our church is cautionary messages about "cheap grace". The example we set in our daily lives is supposed to exemplify Jesus Christ living His life through us. We're also encouraged to have accountability partners, which is something I have not done because of my trust issues, but apparently even the pastor has a mature, Spirit-filled friend who holds him accountable to Christian standards of conduct.
Have you ever considered a little "church hopping" activity? Front line exposure is about the only way to help with some of those old inaccurate stereotypes that were laid on all of us regarding non-ACOG Christians. I was astonished at the depth of the lying slander which we were taught, and am now both embarrassed and ashamed at how I used to regard other Christians. But, it's best for me to just touch on this lightly, though, as it's perfectly understandable if you would feel uncomfortable attending other Christian worship services.
BB
Now Bob, stop ruining Velvet's fantasy world! She's perfectly comfortable in it, and who are you to suggest that "other Christians" may not all be "grace alone" Christians (to repeat her phrase, which I've never heard before), but might actually be better and more moral in their everyday lives than she is?
ReplyDelete"I don't know, or haven't met, any mainstream Christians who believe in grace only, at least as you are applying it."
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, all the ones I've met, have stated they believe this, and they apply it in the same fashion; as an excuse for bad behvaiour, instead of trying to better themselves, and not behave badly in the first place.
Velvet,
ReplyDeleteOne logic construct, in fact, a very powerful rhetorical tool, is to take a bad examplar of anything, and imply that this is the norm for that particular field.
Of course there are "Christians" who live together out of wedlock, smoke a little weed now and then, and cheat on their taxes. However, they are living outside of the standards of Christianity, they do not exemplify them. If HWA had been honest in his comparisons of his followers to mainstream Christians, he would have made apples-to-apples comparisons. How many times did we hear about drunken Christmas orgies, (cited as one of the proofs that Christmas was one of Satan's holidays) when the reality was the same type of behavior was taking place at the Feast of Tabernacles?
The Indians had an old saying about taking a walk in the other guy's mocassins, but sadly, that was one of the enlightening exercises which was largely forbidden to the followers of HWA.
Had we done that, we would have come to greater understanding, and probably would have been more compassionate. Instead, we learned "let the dead bury the dead" as our all-purpose paradigm.
BB
"Of course there are "Christians" who live together out of wedlock, smoke a little weed now and then, and cheat on their taxes."
ReplyDeleteBob,
Those actually aren't the "Christians" (love the scare quotes, BTW) that I am referring to. I am referring to the "Christians, falsely-so-called" (as the Bible refers to them) who go around proclaiming worship of idols (be those idols gods, or be they men), and then muzzling and/or oppressing all those who disagree with them.
The other stuff you listed is minor, and those people, like all people, will have a chance to repent...as will everyone else, perhaps.
Ironic that you're decrying the Church's "let the dead bury the dead" attitude (which I disagree with, just in case you needed that qualifier) in one breath, and then use scare quotes around "Christians" for those who abuse their own bodies, on their own time, in their own homes.
Well, except for the tax cheats. But Witless Weinland's case is instructive to that point.
Velvet