That Donn Ketcham is a pedophile and ABWE has grossly mishandled this issue from the beginning is still a hot topic on the world wide web. Just take a look at the two blog posts from the last couple of days (linked below). Be sure to read the comments as well.
The question is: Are you still concerned about the women who were abused by Donn Ketcham and then mistreated (ignored and disregarded) by ABWE? Are you still willing to stand with the courageous survivors and insist on change? Or, are you getting bored by the topic of sexual abuse in the church? How long are you willing to fight this battle? Is it important enough to you to keep going or are you willing to retreat and let others fight it without you? They will, you know. They will keep fighting…because it is the…
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“Rebellious Children” Verses Abused Parents
In husband and wife relationships, according to the “experts,” almost everything a husband does that changes the chemical balance of the wife resulting in bad feelings is “abuse”; i.e., “emotional abuse” and “verbal abuse.” Years of this kind of abuse (unwise conflict resolution) is considered “extreme cruelty” in divorce cases. In regard to women, actual physical harm to the husband can be considered abuse when it’s not in “self-defense” (which includes defense against emotional abuse) which is rare. Indeed, an odd anomaly in a day when we strive for equality between men and women.
But for those of you who are now offended, don’t bother—this arrangement/reality is neither here nor there to me; it’s not the point. Abuse (in any form) shouldn’t be going on anyway. BUT, if that is the standard, and a mother is a woman (and she is), what’s up with children, both unemancipated and emancipated, being labeled “rebellious” when they abuse their mothers? Also, the abuses take the exact same form: verbal, general disrespect/disregard, physical, and in many cases, murder. Moreover, do mother abusers eventually become wife abusers?
Let’s think about this. A wife abuser is disdained in our society, and counseling for wife abusers is a tacit concern in most cases. But a mother abuser is merely “rebellious,” and as one reader stated here on PPT: “Rebellion is usually the result of poor parenting.” But waaaaiiiiittt jjjuuuuussstttt a minute here—how do we respond to those who blame wives for provoking their husbands to abuse and victims of sexual abuse for the way they dress?
Our child centered society shouldn’t get away with relabeling abuse to “adolescent rebellion.” As I heard one pastor say, “Rebellion is the teenager’s job—to pushback.” Oh really? Imagine if he said, “Abuse is the husband’s job—to push back.” Well, actually, many pastors in our day do say that, if you know anything about the Patriarchy Movement.
Abuse is abuse, and by the way, even the secular realm is catching on to this. Teens can be locked up in most states for being “unruly” which includes incessant talking back, verbal abuse, refusal to obey instruction, and especially physical abuse which can result in short term incarceration without due process.
And in conclusion, what about dysfunctional families where there is both abuse by the husband and rebellious children? Hmmmm. Let’s call it what it is: that’s a situation where the wife/mother is being abused by the husband and the children both. Funny though, the wife will often get rid of the husband and take the abusive children with her who probably learned their abusive behavior from the father. At the most, the X will receive abuse counseling while the children will receive some other kind of counseling predicated on the all-pervasive mantra, “Children are the victims of divorce.”
I’m not so sure.
paul
New Calvinist Calvin Wannabes and How Their Polity Is Modeled After Geneva: Part 2
My association with John Immel has been a real eye opener. For someone who has been of the Reformed mindset for more than twenty years and served as a Reformed pastor, discussions about who owns man, the very discussion in the arena of ideas itself, feels like being at a strip club. For the Reformed mind, this is an outrageous concept, the idea that man is a free agent, or in other words, owns himself.
Immel, for the most part, has pointed me in the right direction, and what I have discovered by my own study has brought about a significant transformation of thinking. New Calvinism is old Calvinism to a “T.” Hear me and hear me well: New Calvinists will do what the old Calvinists did; i.e., study the history of Calvin’s Geneva theocracy.
What we are seeing today in the churches, this spiritual abuse tsunami, is a direct result from the resurgence of authentic Calvinism in our day. The present abuses are all about the control Reformed elders think they should have via the Reformed tradition. The present control abuses are merely cheap substitutes for the implementation of government to enforce church doctrine enjoyed by the Reformers in medieval times. How does that play out today? What has taken the place of the burning stake, the dungeon, the guillotine, and the gallows?
1. Brain washing. Communication techniques employed by New Calvinist elders are vast, and most certainly, a book could be written on that topic alone. Some blogs like Under Much Grace explore some of these techniques in significant details.
2. Accountability structures. This has become very easy to detect in New Calvinist churches if you are looking for it. When you visit initially, you will be befriended by a member and probably taken out to lunch and immediately invited to several functions. The purpose is to ascertain your ability to think for yourself and ability to discern doctrine. Such are a threat to the control structure. If you are foolish enough to join after attending a “church membership class” and signing a covenant which you probably didn’t read, you will be assigned an elder which also oversees the small group that you are ASSIGNED to. As in Calvin’s Geneva, periodic home visits/inspections by elders to determine the “spiritual wellbeing” of the family are becoming more prevalent in New Calvinist churches.
3. Per New Calvinists protocol, there will be a refusal to discuss/debate doctrine in the arena of truth/ideas. New Calvinist elders see their authority as absolute and a binding on earth as it is in heaven.
4. New Calvinist elders teach that God will in fact condemn a person to eternal separation based on their declaration. In other words, they hold your very eternal security in their hands.
5. Where church discipline fits into all of this is rather self-explanatory. Reformed elders believe that they have the authority to bring any individual under church discipline for any reason, and at any time.
6. Read the fine print on membership covenants: you can be brought up on church discipline for leaving a church for “unbiblical reasons.” One of these unbiblical reasons is departure for doctrinal disagreements. Just ask the former co-founder of SGM. My wife Susan was also told by a pastor that she couldn’t leave the church where she was a member.
7. Church discipline doesn’t end with “if he SAYS ‘I repent,’” but rather a decision by fruit inspecting elders.
8. Fact: this ministry counsels people from time to time on how to leave New Calvinist churches without stress/conflict/tension. In extreme cases, people are counseled to temporarily take a job well beyond a feasible driving distance from said church. Moving to accept employment elsewhere is hard to argue with. At least two families that I know of have done so and not left forwarding addresses, emails, or phone numbers. You smile, hug, kiss, wave, enjoy the cake at your farewell party put on by the elders for appearance sake, and then disappear. Keep in mind that New Calvinist elders believe they can condemn you to hell via church discipline even if you are no longer a member; ie, if you contact present members after you leave.
I was asked for advice by one couple who were leaving a New Calvinist church for two reasons: mission work for an upstart church, and doctrine. I pleaded with them to only mention the former, and they heeded my advice. When they only stated the one reason to the elders, one elder remarked, “We would never prevent you from leaving for that reason.” Even with that, the elders told the congregation that the couple was leaving to start a new ministry that was an extension of their church. They also had the audacity to do this before the couple even left. In fact, their farewell party was a supposed celebration regarding the new upstart ministry supposedly started by them. I counseled them to just keep their mouth shut and play along. This is the extremes that people have to go through in order to leave these churches in peace.
paul
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