Sabotage, coerce, shame: Bullying in the church
It’s agonizing to be bullied – and it can happen to an adult, in the church. Supposedly godly people, seeking to control, plot to sabotage, coerce, shame.
It’s agonizing to be bullied – and it can happen to an adult, in the church. Supposedly godly people, seeking to control, plot to sabotage, coerce, shame.
Decades ago, Sarah and Angelina Grimké told the truth with compassion and courage. Still today, the sisters can help us uncover cruelty hidden in plain sight.
God wants to lift from our shoulders staggering burdens that generations have needlessly carried. He wants to show us the way to send away the past that binds.
It’s so enticing, and so much a part of the US evangelical church culture. Yet the lure of celebrity can deceive us into agreeing with much that is not God.
The day I realized what I had been seeing for years, it broke my heart: church leaders bullying people, rejecting God, leading their followers to do the same.
Real rest is so different from what I had thought. It’s so much more expansive, and desirable, and enjoyable. And it’s so very vital. Thing is, I desperately needed real rest long before I knew I needed it. I had no clue how rest-deprived I was.
A true story from the past it seems important to tell. Four questions about the present it seems important to ask.
Ultimately, collectively, the church quenched the Spirit’s voice in order to embrace the society’s values. The church began to preach - and to try to live - a righteousness unencumbered with justice. But. God.
What one bewildered, battered woman found, and dared to write, before patterns from the past began to replay in the present in such a visible, alarming way.
Even a cursory look at all levels of leadership in US churches, denominations, networks and ministries reveals that what should be foundational is often absent. Many leaders do not know how to follow God.