Theobros, Patriarchs, Dominionists, Christofascists et al.

[hoipolloi]

A good if depressing Twitter thread on how women of the patriarchy perpetuate spiritual abuse:

 

[Columbia]

In which a previous lawyer for the HSLDA sneers at the experiences of former homeschool kids who were abused or who endured educational neglect. 

[hoipolloi]

Re: women of the Christian patriarchy. The memoir by Shannon Bonne, Josh Harrisʻ ex-wife, is coming out in August 2023.

Quote

 

"No one is coming to rescue me. I am going to have to rescue me."

As a twenty-three-year-old singer and the soon-to-be wife of youth pastor Joshua Harris, nothing in Shannon Harris's secular upbringing prepared her to enter the world of conservative Christianity. Soon Joshua's bestselling book I Kissed Dating Goodbye helped inspire a national purity movement, and Shannon's identity became "pastor's wife."

The Woman They Wanted recounts Shannon's remarkable experience inside Big Church--where she was asked to live within a narrow definition of womanhood for almost two decades--and her subsequent journey out of that world and into a more authentic version of herself. Entering conservative American Christianity was like being drawn out to sea, she writes, inexorable and all consuming. Slowly, her worldview was narrowed, her motivations questioned, her behavior examined, until she had been whittled down to an idealized version of femininity envisioned as an extension of her husband and the church. This decidedly patriarchal world, perpetuated even by the other women, began to feel like a slow death. However, when Sovereign Grace Ministries fell apart due to leadership conflicts and Shannon found herself outside church circles for the first time in years, she heard her intuition calling to her again. As she began to shake off the fog of depression and confusion, that voice grew louder. In honoring it, she awakened to the realities in which she had been trapped and found her truest self.

Singular and compelling, The Woman They Wanted will inspire women looking to reestablish connection with themselves, their inner wisdom, and their purpose.

 

 

[marmalade]

7 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Re: women of the Christian patriarchy. The memoir by Shannon Bonne, Josh Harrisʻ ex-wife, is coming out in August 2023.

 

Sounds more interesting than Jinger Vuolo's transfer of authority.

[Jasmar]

Wow, this sounds eerily like my own story. I didn’t know she’d converted in adulthood. I did the same, also lived in it for 20 years, also went through the stripping and losing of who I was, the work to reclaim it when I finally stood up and took my freedom back… so weird. I don’t know if I want to read it or not; it sounds really, really close to home.

[hoipolloi]

32 minutes ago, Jasmar said:

I didn’t know she’d converted in adulthood.

Neither did I. Assumed that she married Harris in her late teens or by 20. 

I will definitely be reading this memoir. I will be interested to see what she has to say about SGM and the Mahaneys, especially Carolyn, with whom Bonne probably interacted a lot.

[Evil Feminist]

5 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Neither did I. Assumed that she married Harris in her late teens or by 20. 

I will definitely be reading this memoir. I will be interested to see what she has to say about SGM and the Mahaneys, especially Carolyn, with whom Bonne probably interacted a lot.

There was a chapter in their book, Boy Meets Girl, about how she had a "past" and had to confess it to Josh. They meet while working at their church. If I'm not mixing up my stories, Josh wrote he had some struggles with her not being "pure" and saving everything for him. 🙄

[Columbia]

5 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

I will definitely be reading this memoir. I will be interested to see what she has to say about SGM and the Mahaneys, especially Carolyn, with whom Bonne probably interacted a lot.

I hope she doesn’t hold back, though I have wondered if they might have her under an NDA from the abuse scandals. 

[neuroticcat]

“Leadership conflicts” is an interesting word choice for covering up sexual and other abuse. 
 

🙄I am having a hard time with this book blurb. Maybe it will be fantastic but it feels very similar to the way ppl complicit in the problem manage to land on their feet and still “lead” the deconstruction, like with Rise and Fall of Mars Hill and Josh Harris’ deconstruction consulting. Like, you guys were the power players in these toxic systems and your endorsement enabled harm. I’m sure Shannon had a horrible experience. She also was a megapastor’s wife and had power and benefited from the system. 

 

Good job breaking free but miss me with spotlighting your own personal journey as normative for everyone and making bank off it. Imagine being one of the congregants who lived under her complicity and then seeing this book come out. 
 

Edited January 11, 2023 by neuroticcat

[hoipolloi]

34 minutes ago, neuroticcat said:

“Leadership conflicts” is an interesting word choice for covering up sexual and other abuse....Imagine being one of the congregants who lived under her complicity and then seeing this book come out. 

You may be interested in this 2019 post by Julie Anne Smith of Spiritual Sounding Board, in which she quotes a former SGM member at length, a woman who knew the Harrises while they were all in SGM:

Quote

I can’t imagine the level of psychological trauma, pain & horror as Joshua (and Shannon) began to discover a lot of their framework for their life was built on religion & false fears & manipulated, pseudo acts of “love.” And like anyone coming out of spiritual brainwashing, you ask yourself, if you could be duped or simply wrong in one area, where else are you wrong? If you can’t trust this particular spiritual leader, who else can’t you trust?

The above notwithstanding, I've never seen anywhere that Josh took responsibility for the sexual and other abuse at SGM while he was a leader. He just got out of Dodge. 

[Columbia]

Mark Driscoll is at it again. 
 

 

[47of74]

PP is back in the news 

Quote

A Christian hate preacher, Steven Lee Anderson, is making the rounds on Twitter in a new video showing him at the pulpit claiming that beer has feminizing elements in his attempt to convince his sexist and homophobic audience to stop drinking. 

He claims that “phytoestrogen mimickers” in the popular beverage will make men “more feminine” if they drink it, heaven forbid, but it’s unclear if he commented on whether this means that women should drink more beer to make them more womanly.

“People who drink a lot of alcohol, they end up getting a beer belly, but not only do they get a beer belly, they get the man-boobs,” says Anderson. “And I’ll tell you why they get that, not only just because of getting overweight, but also because of the fact that beer has in it hops and there are phytoestrogen mimickers in beer that actually hormonally can, you know, make you more feminine as a man.”

Article points out that the amount of beer one would need to drink to become more feminine would kill a person lomg before. 

[neuroticcat]

I posted this in Jinger’s thread but will here as well since Christianity Today dropped a big investigative expose into John MacArthur’s church’s awful history of “counseling” women to stay with dangerous abusers. https://christianitytoday.com/news/2023/february/grace-community-church-elder-biblical-counseling-abuse.html

[Columbia]

Much like Doug Wilson, John MacArthur could molest a child on stage in front of all his sycophants, and they’d never say a word. 
 

This also makes the timing of the release of Jinger Vuolo’s book look a little suspect, especially since her co-author is the guy literally in charge of making GCC look good. 

[Howl]

20 hours ago, neuroticcat said:

...Christianity Today dropped a big investigative expose into John MacArthur’s church’s awful history of “counseling” women to stay with dangerous abusers. https://christianitytoday.com/news/2023/february/grace-community-church-elder-biblical-counseling-abuse.html

I came across a twitter thread that linked to the article.  Horrible, horrible, horrible.  The "in house" counseling arm of the church was telling women in no uncertain terms that they needed to go back to or stay with their abusers,  even when there was evidence that the wife suspected  that child molestation might happen or was starting to happen.   And nope, don't go to police, don't get a restraining order.  Just appalling. 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Howl

[Antipatriarch]

21 hours ago, neuroticcat said:

I posted this in Jinger’s thread but will here as well since Christianity Today dropped a big investigative expose into John MacArthur’s church’s awful history of “counseling” women to stay with dangerous abusers. https://christianitytoday.com/news/2023/february/grace-community-church-elder-biblical-counseling-abuse.html

Saw this come across Julie Roys' site also.

https://julieroys.com/former-elder-at-john-macarthurs-church-confronts-awful-patterns-of-endangering-abuse-victims/

Truly reprehensible. And as he did with CJ Mahaney, John Piper apparently has no problem heading out to MacArthur's for a conference with him.

[neuroticcat]

Of course Piper et all will continue to support him. They all will band together to talk about all the threats of liberalism and CRT and feminism and ignore the abuse in the pews. Good thread calling that out from Rachael Denhollander here: 

 

[Columbia]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

I came across a twitter thread that linked to the article.  Horrible, horrible, horrible.  The "in house" counseling arm of the church was telling women in no uncertain terms that they needed to go back to or stay with their abusers,  even when there was evidence that the wife suspected  that child molestation might happen or was starting to happen.   And nope, don't go to police, don't get a restraining order.  Just appalling. 

As awful as JMac’s stories are, and as influential as his church is, they’re just a small part of a much bigger story that’s going to have to be told about Nouthetic counseling in general. How many pastors and “counselors” went through the Master’s “counseling” program and are now pouring out this same poison in smaller, less prominent churches all over the world? GCC is going to be a little drop in the bucket compared with all of those. 

[hoipolloi]

From the author of Jesus and John Wayne:

 

[Howl]

This just popped up on Baptist News Global: 

Why Women Talking has women talking and complementarian men fuming (by Rick Pidcock) is a critique of  Villainous Christianity in ‘The Whale,’ ‘The Wonder,’ and ‘Women Talking’ by Brett McCracken, of The Gospel Coalition. 

Pidcock notes in his analysis: "Because these women stand up for themselves against their oppressors, McCracken complains the liberator is 'the empowered self.' If women can defend themselves, then complementarian men are no longer the heroes."

and McCracken: “Women Talking similarly concludes with imagery of leaving the old and beginning anew, with previously silenced women now having the power to speak into being whatever reality they desire.”   

The empowered self creating one's own reality sounds like a good thing to me but it's upsetting for McCracken and that encapsulates everything that is wrong with patriarchy. 

Edited February 14, 2023 by Howl

[neuroticcat]

 Haven’t seen the movie but Winen Talking is an amazing book. 

[louisa05]

On 1/12/2023 at 6:13 PM, 47of74 said:

PP is back in the news 

Article points out that the amount of beer one would need to drink to become more feminine would kill a person lomg before. 

If this were the case, my gross, perverted, alcoholic 86 year old uncle would have been a full on woman 40 years ago if not sooner. 

[Caroline]

1 hour ago, neuroticcat said:

 Haven’t seen the movie but Winen Talking is an amazing book. 

My husband and I saw the movie. It was amazing.

[Xan]

As @neuroticcat said, the book, Women Talking by Miriam Toews, was excellent.  I'm glad they made a movie of it.  The book and movie are loosely based on a four year series of rapes within an ultra-conservative Mennonite community.

[noseybutt]

On 2/10/2023 at 2:07 PM, Columbia said:

As awful as JMac’s stories are, and as influential as his church is, they’re just a small part of a much bigger story that’s going to have to be told about Nouthetic counseling in general. How many pastors and “counselors” went through the Master’s “counseling” program and are now pouring out this same poison in smaller, less prominent churches all over the world? GCC is going to be a little drop in the bucket compared with all of those. 

I agree.

MacArthur is but one of many nouthetica/biblical counseling proponents. He wrote books and heavily invested in the biblical counseling program at Master’s, but really his most influential role in nouthetic world is as the defendant in the civil lawsuit around the suicide of Kenneth Nelly. 

For those not familiar with that story, Kenneth Nelly was from a Catholic family who began attending Grace Community Church while in college in the late 1970’s. He attempted suicide, but instead of hospitalization opted to move into Mac’s house for about a week and undergo biblical counseling with Mac as well as help with household chores. About a week after leaving Mac’s house, he committed suicide.

California Supreme Court refused to vacate a dismissal by a lower court because it was in the murky grounds of pastoral care. Since nobody involved at the church had any sort of medical or mental health license, there was no malpractice. My recollection is that SCOTUS refused to take the case in the late 1980’s, and that was taken as a huge victory for nouthetic counseling world.

To be clear though, MacArthur was not the inventor of nouthetic counseling and his university is only one of several teaching it.

Nouthetic counseling is a hellscape yet to be excavated.

Fundamentally, the belief is that there is no mental illness and only sin. Modern mental health services are deemed unbiblical and unscientific. Counselees have no right to confidentiality. Most believe men can counsel men or women but women only women, which means that in cases of abuse…well, draw your own conclusions on that one. Repentance from sin is the singular goal and that even at the expense of the body, meaning women are/were routinely counseled to stay in abusive relationships at the expense of personal safety.

I could go on.

I have almost an irrational anger towards that world because of the number of nouthetic counseling “failures” that I have seen in professional world. 

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by noseybutt