TW: suicidal ideation.

At the darkest days of the abuse I was being subjected to I decided to attend a conference for women in Los Angeles. I convinced my mother in law to pay for it because I couldn’t afford it. @ChristineCaine was preaching. I was desperate...
1/

I wanted to die, I didn’t see a way out and I had tried everything. I imagined many ways to die daily. The most recurring one was throwing my car down a bridge I had to drive over every day. I never did it because my kids were in the car and I was afraid one of them would...

2/
survive or I’d kill someone on the way down.

Christine spoke about honoring your pastors even when they weren’t great, she spoke of us expecting too much of pastors and how wrong that was. She said God would use our testimony if we submitted to our pastors.

3/
She said “honor your pastors, God will honor you.” She said more about having disagreed with her pastors but she submitted and God honored her and now she’s blessed. How if they are faithfully serving God, we need to support them and not forfeit what God has for us.

4/
I felt my heart drop into my stomach. I got up and went to the bathroom because I couldn’t breath and I felt like I was going to faint if I didn’t scream. I now know I was having a panic attack. I sat on the toilet w/my head between my legs, breathed and wept..
5/
as the room spun around me. She talked about how this was for someone who was thinking about leaving their church. I wanted to leave desperately, but I didn’t feel like I could because my pastor hadn’t given me his blessing. Why would he? Her words kept me at that church.
6/
It wasn’t until later when a pastor of another church we worked closely with saw us, and said “you can leave, you don’t have to stay, this isn’t healthy for you, if it is permission you need, then take mine, I give you permission” that I felt just enough safety to leave.

7/
Christine wasn’t the first person who had said that, neither would she be the last. I attempted to speak with other leaders before and after that conference, and was dismissed with the same narrative. Submit, honor, he knows what’s best, this is gossip...
8/
Even after leaving I protected this church and pastor, I share only small pieces of my story here and there, and every time I I get text messages, emails, phone calls. I am evil because I dare tell my story and “malign” my old leaders, even though I’ve never shared their name
9/
When I say abuse is systemic in the church, I mean it. Leaders are complicit, and nothing will be better for victims until you make an effort to actually listen to those of us who had no power and were abused. Nothing will be better until you consider how your theology is
10/
Predatory and protects abusers while at the same time silencing victims. Nothing will be better until you choose to take a hard look at yourself. Nothing will be better until you give people full agency over themselves and their choices.

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I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x