The One with the Investigation into my Dad’s Church and its Involvement in Politics
Hey all, I’m back. Do you know how hard it has been to keep my fingers off the keys this year? A long hiatus over summer lead directly into a four month migraine, which lead directly into the biggest metaphorical headache of my life as I finally agreed to speak up on what many of you have probably guessed if you’ve been readers of this blog or followers of the podcast for a while now — I’ve got a bit of a wild story and the setting for this bonkers, stranger-than-fiction, what-the-actual-heck story is none other than my fathers church and the network it sits in.
I’m not going to offer extra commentary in media. So done with that. But I will say it takes a lot to come to the point where you actually speak up. I’ve been saying no to media for years , having left Dad’s church almost seven years ago (and “left” isn’t quite the right descriptive word. But listeners, ya’ll know the nuance there).
The reason I’ve said no is because, in my jewellery box, on a piece of scrap paper was a promise made to myself. I wouldn’t talk unless I was in the right mental, emotional and physical space to do so safely (Yes, psychological safety is a thing, yo!). I needed to come from a place of strength because I wasn’t going to do tabloid or short form. It needed to be thorough which meant I’d have to sit with traumas long sent to the recesses of my mind, and face the traumas of other people who existed in my orbit while I was still on the inside. That meant holding the horrendous double-edged sword of vicarious guilt and vicarious trauma. It meant facing my complicitness while also acknowledging my profound helplessness. As someone who self-identifies as a grounded, badass smart-cookie with a huge touch of what I call Mother HEnergy (geddit?), that was going to be a tough cop. Vulnerability? Ew.
Also on the scrap-paper promise was this: It needed to be an investigative journalist with a good reputation who was willing to put in the miles to understand the complex intersectionality of the ISAAC network, dominionism, the NAR and neo-charismatic evangelicalism which embraces “extra-Biblical revelation” and so easily gives rise to cults of personality and high control situations…or just, you know, cults. And it had to be for a reason other than settling a family score. I’m not interested in that. I’ve chosen my path. My family and I cannot walk together now, or perhaps ever, despite my complex but present love for them. That is a wound that always smarts but one I live with because I know I’ve made the right choice and I know my children and I are surrounded by love.
But the plight of other — victims past, present and future — and the issue of what dominionist or NAR churches do with power was of immense concern to me. To know that the leopard had not changed it’s spots and was now in reach of power that had the potential to inflict damage on a wider range of people - that caused a special kind of nausea that I couldn’t shake. I’m all for religious freedom. But that should never ever be the freedom to abuse, nor should it be freedom from scrutiny, nor should it be ignorance as to what certain practices such as conversion practices or denial of equality or reproductive rights does to the people affected by these issues.
Nick McKenzie turned up on the scene after my four month migraine began. I didn’t know who he was (best in the business in Australia it turns out!) so it took him a while to convince me that the story was safe in his hands, and my agreement rested on the condition that it centred other victims, too. He and the team from The Age and 60 Minutes Australia did a great job, though there is no way it could capture the nature of the beast entirely.
I’m acutely aware of the other stories that couldn’t be told this time. But my heart holds your stories still. I’ve always seen myself as your storykeeper. But that burden is lighter now that Nick and the team have legitimised the gnawing suspicions that what so many of us had been through was way beyond the scope of normal Christian life.
In a strange way, I finally feel released from the cage of silence I’ve lived in since my abuses within church-related settings began at the tender age of 11. I am aware of the gaslighting that goes on when people interested in keeping their grip on privilege and power try madly to patch the cracks in the dam. But I’m ignoring that. The cracks in the dam are there now. Finally, the hidden things can come to the light. Finally, we can all walk free whether we choose to speak up or not.
This was never about me — or even about my sister, whose rise into politics was the lightening rod that sent statewide media scurrying towards long-held suspicions about Dads church. It was about other survivors - others who know they can speak now, that they aren’t alone now, and that what happened to them wasn’t okay.
It is done now. And, for those playing here and overseas - here are the links. Read them. Your girl is tired!
The 60 Minutes Episode - Praying For Power: Caring church or crazy cult
The Age #1 - Liberal Party Candidate Agent for Ultra-Conservative Church, Family Says
The Age #2 - Speaking in Tongues, Exorcisms and Control: Life in City Builders
The Age #3 - Inside City Builders, the Pentecostal Sect with Lofty Political Goals
The Age #4 - Ultra-Conservative Candidate won’t sit in the party room if elected (this is still unfolding as new leadership takes the helm. So she might).
The Age #5 - Shame on you: Liberal Party figure caught using fake 007 pics and fake identity for dirty tricks
Other Coverage (Who’d have thunk this little blog could be so juicy! But you’re welcome…I guess)
The ABC #1 - Victorian Liberal Party Branch Stacking Claims as Pentecostal Church Infiltrates branches
The ABC #2 - Religious Roadmap to Liberal Party Control Revealed as Internal Ructions Over Religious Groups Increase. (Side note: It was immediately clear upon reading it that City Builders did not author the document in question. But the article refers to them so the link is here.)
The ABC #3 - Sister of Controversial Victorian Liberal Party Candidate Opens Up About Life in City Builders Church
Rationale Mag - Raised in her fathers church
And for those who are thinking “What Even is Dominionism, the NAR or the Neo-Charismatic Movement), I got you covered. This section is for the nerds. My people.
Is there a Biblical Basis for Dominionism?
Why I’m Not a Dominionist Anymore
Dominionism in the era of Trump and ScoMo
Why its Time the Church Retired the Term “Forgiveness”
Hello all. I know its a rare thing for me to sit down and write these days but here I am - answering a particularly poignant question that has popped up in my inbox a bit of late. It’s the question of forgiveness. Now I’ll state up front that I am no theologian. I am a geek who has been in church for all but two years of her life. I’ve been in good churches and toxic ones. I’m sure I’ve likely been in good churches that were only good on the surface. I’ve experienced and witnessed things that would make Jesus’ roll in his grave (a metaphor I’m sure I’m not allowed to use!) and I hope I’ve been part of a small amount of healing for people who have walked some pretty terrible roads. It’s taken me a long time to stop fearing judgement and damnation enough to back myself enough to make the big calls. So I’m here making one today: Church needs to stop weaponising the word forgiveness. If it can’t do that, it needs to retire the term altogether.
I said what I said. Now let me explain. (CW: sexual assualt and other religious abuse)
I’m a communications professional. That’s my wheelhouse. Thus, I am acutely aware of the evolving nature of language, and that words are just sounds we make. We imbue them with meaning that is then shared by other people and then Huzzah - we have something that we can use to express our thoughts and their meanings to other people. One example is the word I just used: Huzzah has no real meaning other than that its an exclamation of something like joy or applause. Pretty vague, but pair it with the body language of the person yelling it and you’ll have a pretty clear understanding of what they’re talking about.
The meanings of words evolve. I’ve heard it said that there is currently no word in the English language that means “literally.” Why? How many times have you heard someone say “I literally died.” or something like that. Well they didn’t die. They’re talking to you right now, and more likely about a funny or awkward situation - not about a medical emergency. No one died. Not even close. The word “literally” is evolving to mean something more like “experiencing a strong feeling or placing a strong emphasis on something.” It doesn’t really mean “literally” anymore.
So then, is it possible there's a gap between what forgiveness should mean and the meaning it has taken on? I defer here to the writings of Maria Mayo, who holds a Master of Divinity and a PhD. She makes some seriously interesting points on this same topic (in fact, go read the article. Its great. It’s here.) The word ‘forgive’ comes from “aphiemi” which, as per usual with Greek terms, translates to a wide variety of things poorly captured by our watered-down English translations. Words associated with aphiemi include “to remit (a debt), to leave (something or someone) alone, to allow (an action), to leave, to send away, to desert or abandon, and even to divorce.” So there’s a wide variety of things it was supposed to mean. But these days, it seems to mean “forget something happened. Don’t do anything about it. Get on with your life.” As if victims of life altering trauma have the option to do that. As if it’s even okay to place such a demand on someone who has sustained such damage.
Interestingly, the prevailing idea of forgiveness as a mental or emotional condition is much more modern. It “traces to 18th-century moral philosophy, not first-century Christian writings, ”says Mayo.
When you read through Jesus’ statements on forgiveness, you’ll find that he speaks mostly about humans forgiving each other. But there’s another element in there: repentance. If we repent, turn away from our sin in action and intent, forgiveness is available to us. Fine. Good. Perfect.
So what’s the problem?
The Weaponising of the Word
We have witnessed the floodgates open in terms of abuse allegations against churches and church leaders in recent times. I won’t rehash it again as I’ve blogged on it very recently and dropped names. Plus, lets be honest, most of you reading this would have a harrowing story or two pop to mind without my assistance. Sadly, there is a common story that runs right alongside allegations of abuse within religious circles and faith communities (not all of them, blah blah blah).
The modern day church too often weaponises the term ‘forgiveness’ against victims of abuse or mistreatment for whom there is no repentant transgressor. The term ‘forgiveness’ is then taken to mean ‘lose your chance at justice’, ‘sweep this under the rug’ or worse, ‘allow your abuser to keep abusing.’
Classic example: Josh Duggar of 19 Kids and Counting was busted for sexually abusing some of his sisters. He was sent to a church based rehab thing (which I seriously doubt the therapeutic credentials of) and then a big show was made of his sisters forgiving him. Justice was not done. It was swept under the rug. Years later, he is up on child pornography charges that make my stomach churn. The burden of forgiveness was placed on his sisters, the victims, while the burden of repentance with an active “turning from evil ways” was not adequately placed on Josh.
I wonder how his sisters feel. I don’t wonder what they say. I know what it’s like to be a good Christian girl and say the right things. But often this comes with a searing sense of betraying ones own soul. This never brings true healing. In my observation, it re-traumatises the victim because, when what they needed was a police report, a supportive community and a therapist, they were given trite scriptures justifying leaderships desire that they shut up about it. The meaning with which the word ‘forgiveness’ was imbued was made very, very clear.
That is traumatising. That is hitting out at vulnerable people who need the support of the church community. If Jesus was in the room, he wouldn’t be telling the victim to shut up. He’d more likely be throwing a table at those who demanded such silence and who got in the way of justice. I’m also quite sure that, should the perpetrator have a genuinely repentant heart, Jesus would forgive. But that doesn’t mean justice wouldn’t be done.
Remember: render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. If sin is lawlessness, then there is a penalty for that even if you said you’re sorry.
While yes, the New Testament talks about forgiveness a lot, there is a condition. Maria Mayo writes, "The author of the Gospel of Luke repeats the same story, but adds a condition to forgiveness, stating that church members must forgive boundlessly "if there is repentance" (17:3).
So here is my hot take: The burden of forgiveness should not be pressed upon the victim of crime or abuse. The burden of repentance needs to be placed on the perpetrator. And that perp needs to “bear fruits worthy of repentance.” I.e. Hand yourself into the police if you have committed a crime. Even if your pastor says you don’t have to. Your pastor is not above the law of the land. Not ever.
Side note: Like many survivors of the more toxic aspects of church, I’ve heard the whole “turn the other cheek” line quite a bit, along with the old line about the Bible never contradicting itself. Here’s a fun one for you then - the Bible also says “an eye for an eye.” So while we can shrug off the little things and move on with our day, there is certainly no Biblical precedent for letting major abuse or mistreatment fall under the category “turn the other cheek.”
Just like there is no Biblical precedent for forgiving where there is no repentance. Even Jesus on the cross didn’t forgive, he prayed that God would. Modern translations of the Bible don’t tell us which version of Aphiemi was used in that moment. All we know is that Jesus died bearing no ill will towards the ones who taunted him, as unrepentant as they may be.
Which brings me to the next big point: what then do we do with our hurt?
Therapeutically speaking…
While undoubtedly, I’ve been known to write with a pen of fire (I think I can thank my grandmother, the original Kit, for this gift), those who know me see me as a soft-hearted and compassionate person. I can be both things - fiery and soft-hearted - because of two things: therapy and boundaries.
Not once has my therapist used the word “forgiveness” to me. She knows, as any good counsellor would, that such a word would shut down my processing of all the things I’ve gone through. It would stunt my progress towards peace and happiness. To be pushed in any way towards a certain end would be tantamount to therapeutic sabotage.
Under skilled, qualified care, I’m doing amazingly well.
While I am sure pastors and Christian teachers have good intentions for people when they speak about healing and forgiveness in the same breath, the two are not necessarily connected. Survivors of abuse and mistreatment do not need to forgive their unrepentant transgressors in order to gain mental and emotional health. They need to be empowered over and above the degree to which they were disempowered, they need supportive community that doesn’t play down or try to erase their abuse, and they need to be given adequate support to process and work through the trauma. This includes qualified medical and psychological help in many cases.
When we say “Just forgive” we shut down this vital pyscho-emotional processing, disempower the victim again, and stunt the growth towards healing. As well-intentioned as this might be, it is damaging. I’d argue that the road of true healing, psychoemotional processing of trauma and then empowered choices regarding justice or clemency is the hard road. the right road, but the hard road. “Just forgive” is easy in a way. You don’t have to face the damage. You don’t have to sit in the wreckage and look at it. You don’t have to decide anything.
But what we know from research regarding PTSD and trauma is that the body remembers. Trauma will find its way out of the shadows and up to the surface, no matter how many times you said the words I forgive.
One thing that makes me laugh these days is the contents of my shame shelf. Yes, you heard it. I had a shame shelf. Over the years, following my disclosure of abuse, I was given by various people quite a collection of books. I’d say most of them were gifted by well intended but poorly informed people. They were books on forgiveness, on how women need to be less bitter and then they’d feel better or how reading a prayer out loud would fix everything (*eye-roll). Would it surprise you that while this was the best advice available to me, I was at my worst?
They went on the shame shelf, right next to fiction novels I wouldn't dream of admitting I own. When I learned to laugh at the lot of those books, I threw them out (But okay. I kept the Twilight series. *Gasp). With them went my shame over having faced abuse in religious settings or communities. I realised the shame doesn’t belong on my shoulders. It belongs on the shoulders of those who did me wrong. I don’t hold it against the people who gave me those books. Frankly, I’ve only got a finite emotional budget to spend each day and it would get spent real quick if I dwelt on the actions of good people who were ill-informed. So I choose to laugh at the shame shelf and educate myself so I never make the same mistake, no matter how well-intentioned I am.
If there is no repentance, there is no capacity for real forgiveness if for no other reason than the victim then spends the rest of their life wondering if the perp is at it again. I can tell you this though. Forgiveness, where there is remorse, is amazing. I had the incredible experience of having one transgressor ask for my forgiveness. It was beautiful. It came at a time where I had benefited from enough therapy to have the skills to extend compassion and forgiveness while also maintaining boundaries. It goes down as a red letter day for me, because I felt empowered and in no way bitter at all. That was genuine repentance and forgiveness.
There are others from whom I will never get such a question. My pursuit of therapy has allowed me to have the skills to process that, set boundaries that maintain my emotional and mental safety (and that of my children) and move on. It does not mean never getting justice. It does not mean sweeping anything under the rug. It does not mean denying any of the things that happened. It does not mean remaining in a place where I am at risk of any sort of damage, even emotionally. And if I choose one day to seek justice, it doesn’t mean I am wrong in doing so.
Its rare for me to use my personal situation in such an example. I know this. But when so many people have suffered deeply personal abuse in situations similar to mine, its unfair to not use it as an example.
I have a mixed relationship with spirituality these days. I call myself post-Christian, because I’m so good with Jesus but I’m so not okay (for the most part) with church. But this is what I know: Jesus would not want the church to be a place of abuse and mistreatment, where the vulnerable are further disempowered and their need for justice and healing disregarded or even sabotaged. Jesus wouldn’t weaponise the word forgiveness. Neither should we. And if we can’t do away with even the slightest tendency to put pressure on victims to forgive unrepentant perpetrators, then we shouldn’t use the word at all. When Jesus offers us forgiveness if we repent, then its bad logic to think the same conditions don’t apply when we are called upon to decide.
Just some thoughts on a contentious topic.
You may now hit me with your hate mail. I’ll either forgive you if you ask nicely, or make fun of you at driveway drinks with my friends. It’s completely up to me.
As for the rest of you, I hope you get some context, relief and validation from this.
Peace
Kit K.
P.S. If you happen to go to a church that supports vulnerable people, has clear lines of accountability, transparency around protocols for reporting grievances and keeping people safe, and stands up for marginalised or traumatised people - I like that church. Just saying.
Religion Shouldn’t Hurt
Dear Bloggosphere,
There’s a hot new instagram bandwagon. I’m jumping on it. Sort of.
Religion Shouldn’t Hurt. That’s the movement. Thats the hashtag. That’s the message. It’s geared at helping survivors of religious trauma to tell their stories.
Here’s why I’m keen to use my teeny tiny section of the interwebs to talk about why it matters.
Sometimes bandwagons annoy me. They tend to isolate one side of a story and ignore the complexities behind it. They can be little more than virtue signalling. They can offer up a quick blast of cathartic venting but give very little else to people who are impacted by dark side of the cause at hand. The “Religion Shouldn’t Hurt” movement (currently trending on Instagram in certain circles) is about empowering people to tell their stories of religious trauma in the hopes that we can gain a little traction when it comes to curtailing the corruption and abuse that exists within some (yeah yeah not all) churches.
To be honest, some of the stories are chilling. They contain details of people who turned to the church in their darkest moments and somewhere along the road, the place that should have been a safe haven became a breeding ground for more trauma. Others, like mine, involve people who were born into churches. We were baptised (or dedicated) there as babies. We played by the rules. We memorised chunks of the Bible, chapter and verse, and yet fell victim to the darkness within these communities.
Let’s be clear on this, too: the church that covers up abuse is also the church that retraumatises the victim. On this, as on so many things, we need to do much much better.
Anyway! I’m not actually going to tell my story. I’ve told snippets of it on “A Tiny Revolution” and on an upcoming episode of “A Spiritual Adventure” but I’m not going to rehash it. Why? Because awareness of religious trauma shouldn’t hinge on the salacious details of someones mistreatment. The fact is that Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS) is being talked about more and more. There are pushes to get it recognised in the DSM-IV (A diagnostic manual for psychologists) as its own class of trauma syndrome rather than a subset of extreme stress disorders. The recognition that RTS is unique in its presentations is important. This is not just about the amount of people who suffer from complex PTSD post religious abuse. Its about the layer of existential and eternal dread that gets layered over the top of it when abuse renders it impossible for someone to engage with their faith or faith community because of what it will do to their mental health. Too many people are forced to reckon with whether or not it is okay to defend themselves against their abuser, or whether God will judge them for that because the abuser is in a position of power in the church. Too many people have to walk away from church to recover from the trauma it caused, and by doing so face the existential dread of whether or not God will judge them for that too.
If God is love, and I believe that to be true, then God would love an RTS sufferer enough to recognise the pain caused by the institutions of religion and the toxic theology they too often condition us with. If God is love, then we surely won’t be damned for doing what we need to do to recover from the wrongs done against us in God’s name.
So point one is that Religious Trauma is real. Very real. Painfully real. Point number two is that it is conditioned quite deeply. Autonomically deeply, a lot of the time. Let me explain.
In the 1890’s, a Russian physiologist named Ivan Pavlov did some experiments on dogs. Yes, I’m talking about Pavlov’s Dog in a piece about religious trauma. Go with me here.
Dogs, like humans, salivate when they smell food. That is what we are meant to do. Our autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for all the functions we don’t think about (heartbeat, sweating, blood pressure, salivation among other things), organises it for us. We can’t control it - directly anyway. Pavlov played around with this concept. Every time he bought the food out, he would ring a bell. Soon the dogs began to associate the bell with food. Then, when the bell rang on its own, they would salivate anyway.
Their nervous systems had been reprogrammed. We call this classical conditioning.
It is present in every day life. My son vomited his Easter eggs all over the car last week. For the next week, he was sure chocolate made him sick and he would feel sick at the thought of it. Because I’m a dedicated mother, I reconditioned him by showing him he can eat chocolate without spewing. He just couldn’t eat a mountain of chocolate and then look at a phone in a car.
Still, the visceral response of feeling sick at the thought of chocolate once you’ve spewed it all over the car is one type of classical conditioning. Your body responds automatically to the stimuli because of a bad reaction to it. But its not the only way conditioning occurs. One of the earlier, more horribly unethical examples of classical conditioning was the case of little Albert; a nine month old baby who loved playing with the little white lab mice at first. But they conditioned him to fear those very mice by sounding a loud bang every time a mouse was released. He would cry at the sound but grew to associate that fear response with the mice. Eventually it was discovered that Little Albert had been conditioned to fear not only the mice, but all white fluffy things.
Thank GOD we now have ethical panels to stop horrendous experiments like this from taking place nowadays. Anyway…
What do Pavlov’s Dog and Little Albert have to do with religious trauma?
I raise these to illustrate that trauma isn’t housed simply in the mind. It isn’t simply intrusive memories. When we have been in environments that hold such mixed stimuli, those memories can be tied up with physical responses. As such, they can be conditioned together. The dread you felt when you heard a certain person say a certain thing can produce a fear response in you years afterwards when you hear that same phrase, or see that same sign. And that response is deeply physical, not just mental or emotional distress. Your body can feel that distress as well. Common fear responses can include sweating, increased respiratory rate, racing heart, sweaty palms, right up to feeling flighty or frozen, being unable to think, or suffering from flashbacks or night terrors.
Church, for me as for many, is a place of mixed memories. It held happiness as well as fear, dread, and humiliation at times. It was a place I took seriously, because I took (and take) my spirituality seriously. I, like many, wanted to please God. I wanted to do what He wanted me to do. I didn’t want to go to Hell. I gave great weight to the teachings of those who took the pulpit. I was raised to believe certain pastors and leaders without ever questioning. Immediate, unquestioning obedience was the expectation.
Church is also a place where one can reach an altered state of consciousness. We do this in worship and in extended prayer sessions. In evangelicalism or neocharismatic practice particularly, these sessions can be hours long, and involve praying in tongues for extended periods of time, yelling in agreement with someone regardless of what they are saying. The logical brain is cast off as we “put to death the flesh” and “Press in to the spirit.” It is an altered state of consciousness.
For the person who has been traumatised in religious settings or by people they were exposed to at church, this is a toxic mix. This toxic combination of mixed memories, orientation towards pleasing God and by virtue of that the church leaders, the music, the prayer, the altered state of consciousness, the friendships, the happiness, the theology (good and bad), the sights, the smells, the sounds - it can all elicit a trauma response from the body that has been designed to protect you. And you can’t just undo this conditioning by acknowledging it. This work takes time, because it isn’t just your mind that learned it. Your body and your primal brain systems did too.
So your body and brain do what they are meant to do. They go into survival mode.
When we say church shouldn’t hurt, it isn’t just about a bad experience. It is about something that goes far deeper than that. Church shouldn’t condition you to fear. It shouldn’t result in people suffering from complex PTSD. It shouldn’t result in abuse or abuse coverups that retraumatise a victim.
It shouldn’t cost good dollars in therapy sessions to recover from this conditioning that elicits visceral, bodily survival responses and fires off the fear responses in the brain.
Yet this is what it does for so many. I’m happy to say that recovery is possible, and that reclaiming a spiritual practice that sits right with you is absolutely possible. There are some amazing voices out there on social media who are leading the way when it comes to deconstructing toxic theology and toxic religious experiences, and my hope is that these show RTS sufferers that they aren’t alone. I know that many of these voices have been instrumental in my own recovery and reclaiming of my authentic self. I hope they are for you too.
If you have been touched by the “Religion Shouldn’t Hurt” movement, if you have suffered trauma in church, please know that recovery is work that takes time and often a good therapist. You are not alone in your suffering. Don’t be alone in your recovery.
Religion, spirituality, should be positive. It should be uplifting. It should inspire us to be our freest, truest, most altruistic selves. It should surround us with love and community. It should bring solace in our most difficult moments but remind us that we can make it through. It should empower. It should care. If these things are missing from the iteration of religion or spirituality that you are experiencing, then I would encourage you to ask yourself, is this what Jesus would do to me? If the answer is no, get out of there and don’t look back. There is a community of people out here who have deconstructed from toxic religion and found a way to be free. Many of us are in therapy and highly recommend it. We all sit at different places on the spirituality spectrum. We (Should) all affirm your right to find your own way and are here to support you if you need it.
That and your local doctor and therapist. I cannot emphasise that enough.
Sending all the love.
Be well. Be free
Kit K.
Surrendering the Fated Romance
Earlier this week, I jumped on a Zoom call with a dear friend of mine (the fabulous, insightful and brave as heck, Carrie Maya). We were just two friends, chatting, catching up, pretending to attempt to do some work side by side because this whole work from home jam can be tough. And then we started talking about dating. And purity culture. And the fated romances we had both been taught to wait for. In past lives, we had sung the songs (Cue Rebecca St. James’ “Wait for me”), and we had read the books, the most famous of which would be Josh Harris’s “I kissed dating goodbye” (although now, as I dive into the archives, purity culture had gone before him. Long before him. I kinda feel like he was set up, just like we were).
As Carrie started talking about the fated romance and musing about how brave I was to actually be tiptoeing into the weird waters of dating, I mused that in a way, I felt like I was still saving myself for marriage, and found it difficult to get past that notion. It rang true for both of us - unnervingly so. In a “Why the heck did I acknowledge that?” kind of way.
Carrie and I come from slightly different places on this, because our deconstruction journeys and our romantic lives have been different. But it affected us both anyway. You can read her courageous dialogue on it here, and it wouldn’t even slightly do it justice for me to try and explain the complexity and honesty with which she approached this topic. Trigger warnings apply.
My position is this: I waited for “the one.” We were set up by my dad, who was also our pastor. After our breakup, our reunion didn’t happen until it was essentially green-lit by the presiding apostle/prophet over our then-church’s network. I was surrounded by “prophets” and people in the know. But nobody saw it coming that gay conversion therapy wouldn’t work. And nobody mentioned to me that there was any inkling of the possibility that he was truly gay. I walked, completely naive and uninformed, into a situation that could not be won. This relationship was always destined for divorce.
It’s complicated. Knowing all of this, knowing I have the absolute right to be angry (and I am), I would also do it all over again if I had of known how our lives would pan out.
I had the fated romance. A beautiful, decade long relationship with an incredible man. We rescued each other. We had two incredible (and cute) kids together. We moved mountains. We laughed. We cried. We gained. We lost. We were meant for each other.
I’m also divorcing. Because you can’t cure gay. Because gay isn’t a disease. It isn’t wrong. It isn’t even unbiblical when you read that book without bias or bad translation. I’m proud of him for taking on deconstruction and the navigating of his sexuality (and acceptance thereof) with such selflessness and integrity. Our marriage didn’t dissolve. It evolved beyond.
Anyway. Here I am at age 37, dating for the first time in my life. Completely clueless about how to go about that. I know I’m attractive, stable, intelligent, financially solvent, funny, capable, and fascinating. But golly gee wouldn’t it be nice if I could actually feel anything.
Purity culture, courtship culture, the message that you shouldn’t allow emotional entanglements or any physical contact with a person until you were sure they were “the one” left me feeling almost disembodied. It sure made the honeymoon…different. Upon reading other accounts of purity culture deconstruction, I see that is a common thing.
Disembodiment seems like something a lot of ex-evangelicals feel. When you were raised in an environment that relied so heavily on the “prophetic unction” you learn to look for the feeling. You learn to join that feeling with what you believe to be the “still small voice of God.” You also learn in many circles that, when it comes to relationships, a woman’s worth is connected to her marital status. So as a woman, I let myself dull a bubbly personality lest I be confused for flirtatious. I learned to pray about how I should approach certain relationships so I could get the cosmic green light to feel for anyone. After my first breakup with P (my now ex-husband), I remember heading around to my parents place to confide in my mother. To cry on her shoulder. She ended up 'anointing me with oil’ and praying to cut the soul ties between me and P.
Comfort came in the form of deliverance (which those outside church would call a slightly gentler form of ‘exorcism’). It wasn’t…comforting. Although I think its possible my mother may have been doing what she was instructed to do, or perhaps what she thought was best. I don’t blame her for this. We were all part of a system.
So I guess what I’m saying is this: we deconstructed ones, we post-Christians, or exvangelicals, or whatever you want to call us - we have a mixed relationship with our bodies. On one hand we learned to look to our gut feeling as a way to connect with “God” and hear from him. We also learned to divorce ourselves from our bodies as we navigated courtship and relationships. What is chemistry? Golly gee, I dunno.
All I know is that I can sit across the table from a good looking, employed, stable, financially solvent, intelligent, witty, nice-smelling (hey that’s important) man and feel nothing. Only the feeling that I should be attracted to him.
I can’t quite run with should. And my conversation with Carrie made it clear why. I’m still waiting for God, or some higher authority to give the green light. I had three higher authorities say “yes” to my marriage with P. Three people/entities I could blame for my divorce. P isn’t one of them. I’m not one of them. Dammit, I don’t even call our relationship a failed marriage. I view it as wildly successful.
But still, isn’t it nice to have someone to blame. People often ask me why people join cults. The truest answer is, you don’t. You join the nicest group of people you’ve ever met, make the best friends you’ve ever had, are introduced to the highest “truth” you’ve ever heard, enter a thought reform process and then find that its too darn hard to leave because of all that you will lose or of all the ways you’ll be exposed if you do. But there’s another inkling that nips at my heels.
Its this: We all want to live empowered lives. But we also don’t want to be held responsible if it all comes crashing down. If you invest in the wrong business, or marry the wrong person, or if you fall ill, or are the victim of a crime. Cult’s and high demand groups, even healthier religions, give us an out. We can say ‘God’ willed it and we just have to make sense of it all. We can say ‘we followed God’ or whatever deity we are following, and absolve ourselves of the feeling that we got it wrong. We also can’t take credit if we get it right. Glory be to Jesus. Who ironically never sought glory.
So back to that disembodied feeling. I didn’t really bother with dating during Covid. I just did a rough count and I think over the last 13 months I’ve been on 16 first dates and 3 second dates. I’m a conservative type when it comes to dating - I’ll tell you that up front. But I can say that every single date I’ve been on included wonderful conversation (apart from that one dude who really just wanted to sell me ice - not kidding). But I left feeling nothing. I left feeling confusion over what chemistry should feel like. I had a glass of wine with an old friend and, at the time I was in the early stages of dating a lovely guy. But my friend asked “Does any part of you want to jump the table and pash him?”
I said no. On paper, he was everything. But I couldn’t feel a damn thing. So the third date never happened.
My “aha” moment happened with my therapist. She helped me discover that the way I coped with leaving the prophetic movement, the way I coped with the PTSD from abuse that happened in religious settings, was to move out of my feelings and into my head. While I can aspire to feel things and rationalise things, the former is deeply uncomfortable for me while the latter gives me a feeling of safety and even superiority. I can rationalise what happened to me, and what my experiences of life have been. It’s easier than feeling them.
But you can’t rationalise love or chemistry, can you?
So I’m learning a few things. I’m learning to ask myself “what do I think about this?” and then move quickly to “what do I feel about this, both physically and emotionally?” And then to repeat that cycle of “head” and. “body.” I say “body” because a gut feeling is literally in your gut (enteric nervous system if you want to be techy about it). Our emotions also manifest in physical tells - shaking, elevated heart rate, fuzzy head, sweating, other uh, happier sensations. But we in church were erroneously taught that the body was evil. As it turns out, it isn’t. Our body is a temple. A life-sustaining, intelligent, and sacred thing that should not be absent from our experience of life.
It is but one of the many ways church taught me contradictions that I’m now unravelling. I was taught that my thoughts could not be trusted. Only the spirit. I was taught that my body was to be subjugated, but also that it was a temple. There are so many things left to unravel.
Think and feel. Think and feel. It’s okay to do both. My body isn’t evil. My thoughts are not evil. I am not evil.
I suppose dating is a small act of courage. It is so because I am deciding to own my future; mistakes and successes. I am deciding to ignore the threats of judgement and accept that my own assessment of risk and my efforts to keep myself safe are okay. I am unlearning shame. I am unlearning fear. I am unlearning the idea of the divine as an old white man in the sky who watches everything with a judgemental eye and a trident full of lightening ready to strike me. I am learning to laugh at the “cloud of witnesses” notion that literally had me wondering whether they watched me all the time, or whether I got to sit on the loo, or lather myself up in the shower unsupervised.
Do I need to date? No. Am I unhappy single? No. But this small act of courage helps me reclaim who I always should have been: a woman who experiences life fully, who is present in her body and not divorced from it, who can feel life and not just rationalise it.
I don’t think I believe in “the one” anymore. I certainly don’t believe in one “gold standard” future and anything else being substandard. I believe we get to design the lives we want. We get to create a beautiful masterpiece. And if there are mistakes or “didn’t expect that” moments, so be it. It doesn’t affect our value as people.
I write this today because I know there are so darn many of us who feel this way. Or think this way. This is deconstruction, hey. Its confronting the things we were taught, both implicitly and explicitly, and in rebuilding the lives we deserve, having left behind the Calvinist bullshit that has us believe that we are dirty, depraved and unworthy.
Hey - you are worthy, you are good, you are beautiful, not defined by your mistakes, not prohibited from fully revelling in the joy or success your life may bring. Read that line as many times as you need to. It’s the truth.
Internalised Victim Blaming
One day last week, my husband got home and asked me how my day was. Ordinarily, it’s an innocuous question. This day, it was loaded. We had just posted something big on the blog. Something I had been carrying around for years, and he for decades: his story of surviving gay conversion therapy (what others might call ‘sexual orientation change efforts’ or the ‘LGBTQA+ conversion movement), which of course involved him coming out as bisexual. That kind of thing can make you feel a little vulnerable. Brene Brown tells me that vulnerability is courage though, so I was mentally feeling like a badass, while emotionally feeling a little…meh.
I rambled, as I tend to do when I’m feeling overwhelmed. As I rambled, I explained my fears that people would make it about them when it wasn’t, or that it would be seen as an attack on churches when it isn’t…that it was, in fact, a call for churches in general to wake up to damage that may be invisible to them and to become safe places for LGBTQA+ people. But I was scared that it would be taken the wrong way, and I was pre-empting the responses. Then my husband said something that made me sit up and listen.
He said, “Babe, that sounds like internalised victim blaming.”
Yowza. He didn’t tell me what to do about it. He just let me sit with it. And sit with it I have.
I wanted to take a moment on this blog to pass on that little lightbulb moment. Victim blaming happens. We see it all over the news in all sorts of horrendous situations. It happens when people try to cover up institutional abuse. It happens when judges take the side of a neat, tidy, middle class perp and offer un-earned leniency or when people say the victim was asking for it. It happens in all sorts of places. It’s wrong on all counts.
But it also happens inside us. We blame ourselves. When someone has been the victim of any type of abuse, be it psychological, spiritual, physical, or sexual, it might be hard to realise that we are internalising the victim blaming – that we are blaming ourselves for things others might say or think, or pre-empting how they’ll react. I’m inviting you to notice it. In particular, I’m inviting survivors of religious abuse to take a moment to do so. Because noticing matters. It can be so healing.
Over the year that I’ve been writing this blog, it has gathered together a unique readership: we come from all over the world. We are mostly Millennials and Gen X’ers. We have been raised in and around churches, but have found ourselves at odds with doctrines or power structures that we weren’t allowed to question, or that crushed our spirits. Many of us are spiritually curious. We are Christians in and out of church, many of us are agnostics who have been burned by church, or atheists who have walked away from their childhood faith. So many of us are closet progressives who are wondering if we can be called “Christian” and still sit to the left of Judo-Christian conservatism.
I like you. You are my people. I blog for you. And me, but I’m one of you so there’s that.
A lot of us, sadly, have left groups that were toxic to us. I have a feeling a lot of us have suffered some type of religious abuse. So here are some things you need to know [1]:
Religious abuse is real. It can involve psychological manipulation or various types of harm inflicted on a person through the teachings of their religion.
It is often perpetrated by people in positions of power within the religion, but I’d argue that it can include lateral violence (whereby the abuse becomes part of the culture of a group or religion and is then inflicted by peers as well).
Wikipedia, the font of all wisdom as we know, says “It is most often directed at children and emotionally vulnerable adults, and motivations behind such abuse vary, but can be either well-intentioned or malicious.”
It’s confusing as heck, because sometimes it is well-intentioned and is interwoven with empowering moments or talk of a benevolent, loving God. A lot of us have heard church referred to as a “Family.” That can be so promising but so traumatic at the same time. All of this amounts to what can be well-intentioned and damaging at the same time.
Regardless of the intent, the effects are real. Long term damage may include “the victim developing phobias or long-term depression. They may have a sense of shame that persists even after they leave the religion. A person can also be manipulated into avoiding a beneficial action (such as a medical treatment) or to engage in a harmful behavior.” Depression, anxiety, PTSD and dissociative disorders are among the other mental health issues that may arise from religious abuse. So it is serious. It shouldn’t be fobbed off.
It’s not that uncommon. You might be surprised how many people relate to it. A recent study took a sample from a College campus in the States and found 12.5% of participants had experienced religious abuse.
An expert in the topic, Ronald Enroth, wrote a book called “Churches that abuse”. In it, he proposed 5 categories of abuse (Thanks wiki *again.* for the summary [1].)
“Authority and Power: abuse arises when leaders of a group arrogate to themselves power and authority that lacks the dynamics of open accountability and the capacity to question or challenge decisions made by leaders. The shift entails moving from general respect for an office bearer to one where members loyally submit without any right to dissent.
Manipulation and Control: abusive groups are characterized by social dynamics where fear, guilt or threats are routinely used to produce unquestioning obedience, group conformity or stringent tests of loyalty. The leader-disciple relationship may become one in which the leader’s decisions control and usurp the disciple’s right or capacity to make choices.
Elitism and Persecution: abusive groups depict themselves as unique and have a strong organizational tendency to be separate from other bodies and institutions. The social dynamism of the group involves being independent or separate, with diminishing possibilities for internal correction or reflection, whilst outside criticism.
Life-style and Experience: abusive groups foster rigidity in behavior and belief that requires conformity to the group’s ideals.
Dissent and Discipline: abusive groups tend to suppress any kind of internal challenge to decisions made by leaders. (end wiki quote)
You can imagine that all sorts of ploys would be needed to maintain that sort of control. The book is excellent. Read it if you need to. But consider the ways in which mind games, gaslighting and manipulative control methods would be needed to create such an environment (Even if it started out, or is still to some degree (of cognitive dissonance, I’d argue) well-intentioned).
Research has shown the people who depart from such groups often show symptoms associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. In fact, complex PTSD is one of the points laid out in something called “Religious Trauma Syndrome [2] Mensline Australia has published a list of things to watch out for in terms of religious trauma [3]. Some of these cut pretty close to home, so I’ll leave it to you to jump over to that page if you feel the need. But why am I talking about this in an article about internalised victim blaming. Well for one thing, we need to understand the harm is real. For another thing, this:
Someone raised a point to me a few months back that really made me think: he said “people who have been gaslit (made to question their own mind) in abusive situations are often chronic over-explainers.”
Again. Yowza. When my husband mentioned the term “internalised victim blaming” it connected for me, instantly. When you’ve been made to question your own mind, you over-explain because you need to be believed. When other people have blamed you or made you question your own nature or worthiness, you can blame yourself too. Long after their voices are absent from your life, you still hear them. As long as this goes unchecked, the damage can continue. And you deserve better than that. We all do.
I lay all these things out for a few reasons: Firstly, I want you to know that you aren’t alone. Secondly, I want you to know that internalised victim blaming isn’t uncommon. But thirdly, that doesn’t mean what happened to you was your fault. And it doesn’t mean you have to continue to listen the voices that blame you. Even if those voices are from your own mind, or echoes from memories you’d much rather forget.
I’m a strong believer in therapy. I’m a strong believer that the company of positive people, intentionally chosen to support and empower you, is therapeutic. I’m a strong believer that meta-cognition, or the act of noticing your own thoughts, can help free you from the prison built by trauma.
I didn’t know that internalised victim blaming existed until this week. Or perhaps I did, I just hadn’t given it words. I didn’t know that victims of gaslighting were often chronic over-explainers until recently. I’ve noticed now. So if this is you, too, then I want you to know that you don’t have to blame yourself or explain yourself to anyone. I want you to notice that internalised victim blaming can sometimes mean feeling the pressure of what you are sure people are thinking even when it isn’t said to you. Hey – no one can read minds.
You don’t have to blame yourself or be responsible for what others think about you.
You don’t have to avoid God just because church was traumatic.
Not all churches are traumatic but that doesn’t meant you have to step inside if you just can’t bring yourself to.
If you can’t be a Christian inside church at the moment, then you can be a friend of mind and we can follow Jesus together, and grapple with the big questions, and get into the philosophical and hermeneutical mess of life knowing God’s shoulders are big enough to carry it if we stuff it up.
I just don’t think God would be nearly as hard on us as we are on ourselves sometimes. The irony in fearing hell is that sometimes you can live it anyway. I hope that, in noticing with me that internalised victim blaming and chronic over-explaining is a thing, we can release ourselves from that kind of hell.
Hey people – take care of yourself this Christmas. I’m aware this can be a triggering time of year for some. Make sure you check in with yourself and exercise some self-care if you need.
Peace!
Kit K
Let’s Talk About Cardinal Pell and Institutional Abuse
For years now, the Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal has worn on. For the victims in each harrowing case, it is more than just years. It’s trauma they carry forever. We don’t know their names. We don’t know their individual stories, but when the latest, high-ranking scalp fell, it reminded us all that we still have work to do. I wasn’t sure what to say about this issue, if anything at all. I didn’t want to be another voice in the din, offering nothing more to the conversation but virtue signalling. But I read a quote on Facebook this week (penned by my husband, admittedly) and it caught it all. So I’m sharing that. Because its the whole ballgame.
He said this.
“Institutional abuse isn’t just perpetrated by one person. It’s also reinforced by all of us around the victim who for years ignored the signs, then wouldn’t listen to children when they spoke up, and sided with the perpetrator when the victim spoke out. And even when years later, a conviction is secured, for a victim the trauma continues. Powerful men who still won’t face up to the truth about their hero, still stand with the perpetrator, preferring to believe the victim must be lying, rather than allow their illusion about a man be shattered. These men who still defend the perpetrator are in a sense secondary victims, because they believed in him their whole lives and he let them down. The sadness of it all disrupts all those whose life was influenced by Pell. Some of those handle it by facing up to the awful truth, and others double down on their denial.”
He was referring, of course, to the Pell sex abuse case and two past Prime Ministers offering their support or character references to the Cardinal. The media was in uproar over it, but Abbott and Howard weren’t the only ones grappling with the guilty verdict.
It seems like the whole issue of sexual misconduct is reaching fever pitch right now. It would be easy to turn a blind eye to the trauma and the fallout. In a sea of stories, it could be easy to get compassion fatigue over the whole thing.
But that’s the problem. Institutional abuse can happen because we turn a blind eye and ignore the warnings signs or cries for help. We might not want to face up to the ramifications of it all. We might not want our heroes to fall from grace in our eyes. The ugly truth may require us to look at our own participation, and ask “how can I be a better ally for vulnerable people, regardless of their age? What must I do? What am I tacitly approving of if I don’t speak up?” It may present us with some tough changes to make, but it’s necessary.
Here’s what I know:
The abuse of children matters greatly to God.
There is no call so great, no church so powerful, that the suffering of even one victim should be silenced.
Abuse might not always be sexual. It may be psychological. It may be physical. It may be financial. It may even be spiritual. Every victim deserves the chance to have their story heard, to have a chance to shake off the shame that does not belong to them, to transform from victim into survivor. One day maybe, the victor even.
Life is complex. People are complex. But our response to disclosures of abuse shouldn’t be. It should be to listen, not demand silence. It should be to help them gain healing, or help them gain closure or legal aid – whatever is needed. It should never be to cover it up.
We mustn’t fall into the trap of judging all Catholic priests as deviants, as this is not the truth. Lets also remember that sometimes sex offenders are charming, smart, and able to make positive contributions to society in many ways. The crime does not negate the good, but it makes it more complex to reflect on. It does make the abuse more confusing, and potentially more difficult to disclose. I understand that Tony Abbott and John Howard may have seen the good in George Pell and thought that because he was good in so many ways, he couldn’t commit crimes in others. I understand that George Pell may have had a positive influence on many a life. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t guilty of the crimes for which he has been tried.
Recently, a jury found him guilty – beyond reasonable doubt. He is an offender. But he is also a symbol. Even if you are at the peak of your industry or institution, even if your industry is representing God, you can’t abuse children and vulnerable people. The end does not justify the means.
It never ever does. Let’s not be the ones who double down on our denial. Things are coming to light right now, across industries and institutions. It’s a moment where we can collectively grow and learn how to be a safer, better society. Let’s lean into that evolution.