We live in a society that misunderstands boundaries and consent. Most people think the former is about just saying no, and the latter is about sex. And while that’s a part of it, they are about agency, autonomy, respect and interpersonal relationships.

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Christianity has been a weapon used by systems of oppression to call that which is harmful and abusive; good and God’s will. It has been a weapon to normalize hegemonic power, and keep people from questioning it or challenging it because “it comes from God.”

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Gender “norms,” harmful ideas about sexuality, social hierarchy, the construct of race, notions of nuclear family, toxic ideologies of work, bodies, finances, government, relationships, parenting, or criminal justice; are all rooted in Christianity and...

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backed up by verses of the Christian Bible taken out of context, to assert that this isn’t just normal, but what God desires. And who dares challenge God?

Christianity has allowed for people w/power to use the idea of god, and *his* “word,” to pass their ideas as God ideas.
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This is one of the reasons why people react so violently when we say the Bible is not the word of God, they can’t accept that everything they’ve been given as normal, good, ideal, God’s will... may just not be so.

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Their nervous systems tells them it is better to maintain the certainty of what is in their hands; even though it causes harm; than to give into the uncertainty of imagining a different world where equity is possible.

And then their ego gets involved, and admitting they’ve

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“Don’t leave the church because of the people who hurt you. Nobody is perfect, only God”

I’ll explain why this comment is not only not helpful at all, but also very harmful.

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The comment assumes we can’t tell the difference between people and toxic theology, it assumes our issues are with a few people who are outliers and misrepresented God, and we just seem to think that’s the totality of divinity. Which makes us appear unintelligent and petty.

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But, that’s not the case at all. I didn’t leave because a few people hurt me in the name of God, in fact I stayed long enough to get hurt again, and again, and again, and again. Because it’s not a few bad apples hurting people in the name of God what we are dealing with.

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Instead we are talking about systemic abuse due to toxic theology that is taught as righteousness.

Go to any white evangelical church today and conduct all the tests you must to ensure only those who are “good Christians,” remain. I guarantee you people will be harmed there.
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Not because people just hurt people, not because Christians have good intentions but sometimes make mistakes; instead because the harm is caused due to indoctrination into toxic theology and a belief that their social and theological framework is not only good,

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When I say that so long as nobody is being harmed people’s decisions, choices, and actions are always acceptable and should be respected; conservative Christians often ask me: but who decides what harm is?

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They do this to invalidate ‘harm,’ because if we can obscure the notion of harm, and they can decide that people going to hell is really the harm we should be worried about; then they are justified in crossing every possible boundary to keep people from hell.

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They are “helping,” “saving,” not really harming.

That’s one of the main ways in which the concept of sin is weaponized against people; because they decide what sin is, which is what will send us to hell (except not because all we have to do is repent and then we are safe).

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It doesn’t matter how we define harm, how much logic we apply to explaining that when people say they are being harmed we should believe them; or how much evidence we have of harm caused. It doesn’t matter that people are literally and metaphorically bleeding. It’s not harm.

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I mean they justified the genocide of Native people, the forceful taking of our land, the abduction of children with sayings like “kill the Indian, save the man.” By their logic they haven’t caused harm, they have “saved” us. There is no evidence of this, but they say so 🙃.

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I am going to say something very uncomfortable. Read before you react please.

Purity culture encourages pedophilia, a thread:

Purity culture encourages pedophilia.

Some of the standards of purity culture are innocence (pretty much ignorance about sex), submission (for women), virginity as the ultimate standard, and “modesty” (for women that is wearing clothes that don’t reveal their adult curves)*
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Purity culture makes the desirable standard a child. It makes child likeness desirable in regards to sexuality. It makes virginity, and innocence, and submission; what the male brain should want most in a partner. And your brain doesn’t rewire just because you get married.
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This doesn’t mean every man raised in purity culture is a pedophile, that’s not what I am saying. What I am saying is that purity culture wires the brain of men to desire child likeness, which encourages pedophilia. After all desire and objectification happen in our brain.

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Now if you are a pedophile who wants to act on those desires, purity culture does a lot of the grooming for you. Purity culture discourages comprehensive sex education leaving children without the ability to know what’s appropriate and what’s not.

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Joanna Cherry:"Alex Salmond secured a concession that nothing in Scotland Act would preclude the people of Scotland from subsequently choosing an independent future. This is recorded in Hansard during second reading of Referendums (Scotland & Wales) Bill, May 21, 1997."

Donald Dewar said: “I should be the last to challenge the sovereignty of the people, or deny them the right to opt for any solution to the constitutional question they wished. For example, if they want to go for independence, I see no reason why they should not do so." JC

"In same debate Alex Salmond went on to emphasise that “… the Claim of Right referred to sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine a form of Govt best suited to their needs. It did not suggest sovereignty resides with English Members of Parliament." Joanna Cherry

Joanna Cherry: "Donald Dewar articulated the democratic norm later enshrined in the Edinburgh Agreement. His concession laid the foundation for the 2014 referendum in recognising the rights of Scots to choose whether to remain part of our voluntary union with England."

"I am wholly in agreement with view that we must find a legal & constitutional way to demonstrate that public opinion in Scotland has changed since 2014 referendum, in order for our independence to be internationally recognised & therefore meaningful." Joanna Cherry

1) “Eliminationism” is a term you need not just to become familiar with, especially in today’s American rush toward authoritarianism. This will be a long, illustrated thread explaining what it means, how it works, and why Donald Trump is now our Eliminationist in Chief.

Warning: Some images contain violence and are disturbing.

Also warning: This thread is ridiculously long. 75 tweets is insane. I apologize. But this stuff is important. I hope you find it compelling anyway. If not, I understand.

2) So, what exactly do we mean by “eliminationism”? Here’s the academic definition:

3) It was largely coined by Holocaust scholar Daniel Jonah Goldhagen in his 1996 book Hitler’s Willing Executioners, about the role ordinary Germans played in the Holocaust, which he described as fueled by “eliminationist antisemitism.”

4) The book describes how in reality the largest numbers of Jews and other victims killed by Nazi directive were rounded up and gunned down or immolated en masse and buried in mass graves by ordinary Germans and non-Jewish residents of German-occupied territories.