Here’s a key element for me from when I realized, in the midst of abuse advocacy efforts on my part, that most people will not see someone as an abusive person when they agree with them on their theology and doctrine and practices. If they agree with them, they’ll give that person a lot of leeway on how they use their authority and power and influence. If you agree on the actual principles and values and you share the same beliefs, you’ll tend to let people do a lot of damage. You’ll tend to let them be abusive because you won’t see it as abusive. Your definition of abusive is not based on their behaviors; it’s based on whether or not you agree with their beliefs.
Listen on the podcast or read the transcript below. Edited for clarity.
Trigger warning: Hell, spiritual abuse, old women, gossip
so, for example, here’s a practical example that actually happened to us when my husband and I were at a church.
A woman came to us. She was a small group leader. She came to us in tears because she was told by another woman who was attending her group that if she didn’t believe in exactly the same thing on what hell was, if she didn’t agree with what the PCA denomination says about hell, then she was no longer allowed to be a leader of the home group. that’s what this woman said. This small group leader contacted us, “Can I talk to you about something?” And so we met with her, and that’s what she told us.
This was from an older woman who’s been in the PCA for a long time. She’s technically a missionary and was attending our church, not a member of our church and she was going to all of the home groups that we had. we had a few and she went to every single one of them and while we kind of had some issues with that to begin with, we also, you know, we’re weren’t going to make a big deal about it. It’s like, okay, you know, we’ll just see how this goes. And this incident and multiple others kind of proved to us that we were right about our instincts about this woman because, she kind of took it upon herself to tell this home group leader that she had to have the same theology on hell in eternal torment, as everybody else has in the PCA. And it was really problematic for us. We definitely had issues with that.
First of all, you don’t have the authority to say something like that or even to suggest it. And then, second of all, it’s just not true. And we would have longer conversations about whether or not this was an essential belief, if this woman absolutely had to agree on this particular theology or doctrine. But There were a lot of problems with what was happening.
When we tried to explain this to someone, the pushback was more about having a conversation about what our theology was on hell than it was on the behavior of this woman. and you know, the person in charge did not want to talk about whether or not this woman’s actions and behaviors were wrong, sinful, overstepping her bounds and abusive,… well, because I use the word abusive. It was abusive. In my mind, it was abusing her influence,… whatever perceived authority she had as an older woman, you know, on staff with the PCA. She had a reputation, right? So she absolutely had social and relational capital. She had perceived authority and we felt the way that she handled the situation was abusive. It was an abuse of the situation and that home group leader.
And we were immediately shot down. We were shot down with “That’s not abuse, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
And our contention was that this was problematic and we didn’t want to talk about the theology of hell. That’s not what we wanted to focus on. What we wanted to focus on was whether or not this woman needed to be addressed. And guess what, guys? Spoiler alert! It was never addressed.
And this is only one incident. There were multiple times that things happened involving this woman. But that’s what happens in these abuse advocacy cases, and especially in these reformed circles where my husband and I came from. As we were in ministry, these things always became heresy hunting. It was more, “well, do you believe something incorrect?” And not so much, “Are you behaving in a way that is contrary to the gospel, in a way that’s not worthy of the office that you may have, right? And are you an abusive person?” That was never the question. It was, are you right or wrong? And even in within that, are you right or wrong, it’s like we’re not really talking about HOW you engage, how you shame people, how you make people feel inferior to you, how you’re arrogant and haughty, how you bear false witness… because in that case it was absolutely false witness. This woman implied to this younger woman that if she didn’t get in line, that she was going to get kicked out of the church. I mean, that was what left this younger woman in tears. She felt like she had to make a choice then and there about whether or not she’s going to continue being in our church. And we both, I mean, I laugh. It wasn’t funny at all. It was horrifying.
You know, I think about it now. I just wish I had gone ahead and shed some light on it at the time, but at the time my husband and I were already trying to figure out what to do. First of all, what to do with this older woman who was definitely a problem and then secondly, can we continue with this church the way it’s going and particularly in light of our own frustrations with the denomination at the time?
And it was not, again, it’s, you know, it’s this heresy hunting, like, let’s get out all our orthodoxy in a row. Let’s get all our theology as perfect as we can, but we’re missing the piece on character and we’re missing the piece on whether or not we’re holding our leaders to a higher standard of engagement on how they act and how they abuse their authority, either real or perceived, and shaming and rebuking and coming down hard on people within our congregations. Nobody wanted to talk about that.
They only wanted to talk about whether or not the theology was right and that’s how that happens. That’s how that happens in those circles. That’s how witches get burned.
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