Covenant Life, Sovreign Grace: Does purity bring abuse?

[gustava]

Long but worth the read.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archi ... _of_abuse/

[Mice]

That was an excellent article. Thanks for passing that on.

[hearyoume08]

Food for thought

[hoipolloi]

Good article. Particularly appreciated the following, which I've amended a bit:

It’s no accident that so many allegations of serious abuse have arisen across _____’s churches. The combination of patriarchal gender roles, purity culture, and authoritarian clergy that characterizes ____________’s teachings on parenting, marriage, and sexuality creates an environment where women and children—especially girls—are uniquely vulnerable to abuse.

Fill in your own blanks.

[merrily]

Good article. Particularly appreciated the following, which I've amended a bit:

Fill in your own blanks.

Any patriarchal church will do.

[BlondeAsTheyCome]

Thanks for sharing. My husband and I went to an SGM church for the first year and half of our relationship, and my husband had been a member for about six years before we met. There is some serious cray cray there that would rival our fully fledged fundies. SGM is very good at indoctrination, which I think is part of the reason the lawsuit has taken so long to come to light.

If anyone is ever interested in keeping up with SGM news, check out sgmsurvivors.com. The comments are where are the action is at.

[Full enough quiver]

I think the obsession with purity can often completely backfire. If someone (especially a girl) lapses, even once, she's now damaged goods, and once you're impure, you can't get it back. This can make girls unwilling to report abuse, because they think now no one will want them. That's how I felt since I was very young. That what was done to me, against my will, by a trusted family member meant no one would ever want me. And since nobody would want me anyway, I might as well do whatever, it didn't matter anyway. Purity culture is why I didn't report my rape. I thought nobody would believe a slut like me. Since I snuck out, I wore a short skirt, I drank. I must have had it coming, right? As long as a culture ties a woman's worth to whether or not her hymen is intact, then abusers are getting a free pass. Purity culture is rape culture.