Never Trust a Hogwallop

There's this idea going around that those who have concerns about the CREC and are openly expressing those concerns just have either a reactionary dislike for Doug Wilson or just are reacting, perhaps in embarrassment over previous theological issues and have some inner motivation to.. to what... I don't even know really....I don't even know how that makes sense. If I was EMBARRASSED wouldn't it be more likely that I would bury the whole thing, unfriend everyone and move on with my life hoping nobody brings it up? Actually, that WAS my game plan. And on some levels, I am embarrassed. But I'm doing these in spite of it, not because of it. I have been away from RCC for over two years. Why on earth would I delve into it now if I was embarrassed? Anyway.... In the word of the great philosopher, Pete.......

I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR THE WALL OF TEXT NOW BEFORE YOUR EYES, 

I couldn't think of a tidy way to break it up. If you don't want to go through my own church history, go to the last three paragraphs for the main point. 

I have been in my adult life gone through four churches. A Foursquare, two community, and a CREC. I began my Christian life at Beaverton Foursquare which was pastored by Ron Mehl. I loved Ron Mehl. I still love Ron Mehl. (He has since passed on.) Beaverton Foursquare was an enormous church, he had a couple books out, a radio ministry but you never felt like he had any swag about him. If you met him in person he was the same as when you saw him on stage. I loved the other pastors there. The youth pastor, especially. He did our premarital counseling.  He was one of those few men that really make you feel like God is near when you talk to him, not because he is seeing all your sins and has caught you at something, just an exuding sweet love. I wish I had referred back to his example more when I evaluated future leaders.

Well, we lived way out on the other side of Portland and as I say, Beaverton Foursquare is huge. It's hard to get to know people in a huge church like that if you also live far away. So we started looking for something closer to home and a co-worker was going to a community church she really liked, so we started going there. Shayleen was a baby so I was about 23 and Forrest was born there so we were there for a few years. It was a good church. We met in the Gladstone high school and everyone had coffee out in the hall after service. There were a few homeschoolers there and I felt happy about that because I knew I wanted to home school. We had some fun times camping at Mount Hood Village.
But, like I said the church was small and eventually the church dissolved because of money and just not being able to keep things going. By then Forrest was a fat baby so we were there a couple years.

From there we went to a community church close to our home. We got involved with some other couples our age and it was a fun group. I remember beach trips and laughing so much it was painful. My kids had some friends and in many ways it was a good church. But as my kids got older we felt more and more pressure to put my kids in Children's Church. The pastor's wife would seek us out every week to tell me where the classes were. We tried to alleviate our discomfort with the Children's Church by becoming "Children's worship leaders" (for lack of a better word.) and we did a couple different age groups for over a year. I was, frankly, uncomfortable with the lack of supervision over the classes. My husband and I would have the children in a room all to ourselves, closed doors and no windows and nobody looking in. I felt isolated from the rest of the church because we never got to go to services. And then Forrest came to be about three or four and could move from the nursery to Children's Church and I couldn't teach both their classes, I didn't feel safe with the way things were set up, and I got tired of trying to withstand the Pastor's wife when I tried to take them into church with me.

I didn't announce my concerns, I didn't backbite the Pastor's wife. I kind of blamed myself because I felt like I should be able to find a workable solution. We really liked the friends we had there. But I just couldn't find a way to get comfortable with it. I probably should have gone to the leadership and told them I was concerned for the safety of the children in Children's Church, but I had gone to him with some theological questions and he gave me some pat answers... I don't know. I was still a young mother and I didn't feel the freedom to speak up. I'm not sure I could have articulated it like I can now. But that church did have an incident with the children a few years later and I'm very glad I listened to my gut.

Also, I longed for the preaching of Ron Mehl. We were in North Portland and that was, at least, slightly closer to Beaverton. We went back to Beaverton Foursquare. We stayed there, except trying to get involved in a little Baptist church while we were in Sellwood, (still wishing for something more local.) until we found Reformation Covenant Church when Noah was a baby (He's my 7th) and my oldest was 12. It was still hard to meet people. We had to go to the 8 am service because the church was so crowded it was the only time our whole family could sit together. At first one deacon hovered a bit, worried about the children being noisy but they saw I could keep them quiet and would leave with the baby if need be and then they left us alone about Children's church. It wasn't perfect, I spent a lot of time in the bathroom nursing, listening to the sermon on the loudspeaker. I had to be up by 5:00am to get all out and be there on time. But it worked.

I longed for other homeschooling moms. I was lonely. There were women on our block to talk to (by then we were in Sellwood. It's a nice, family friendly neighborhood of Portland.) but they couldn't understand parts of my life. The large family, home schooling. Also, I read a book by RC Sproul at this time that convinced me Calvinism must be true. I HATED it. I was really mad at God for about three months. I didn't have the theological tools to refute it. Finally, I figured, "Well, God has been good to us over all these years and I guess I will just have to trust Him." So, I did, from time to time look for churches in our area that would be a place where I could find other moms who were like me and I looked at Reformed churches because I figured, well, that's what Sproul was, so I must be too..

That's how we ended up at RCC. Ironically, it was Doug Wilson's name that brought us in. His name was mentioned on the first website I found referring to RCC. Minutes for some meeting. I hadn't read any of his books but I had seen them in home school book catalogs and so I thought "home schoolers!" I really didn't know much else about them. It only took me a couple books to realize I thought Doug Wilson was an arrogant blow hard, more in love with his own ability to turn a clever phrase than anything else. I guess he missed the memo on clarity being the basis of good writing. Of course, you just don't SAY things like that in a CREC church. I was like Emma. "When pressed, I just say he's elegant." But anyway. We were at RCC for 10 years.

So. Why do I go into all this?

Because I want to put forward the evidence of my own character, for one. I have not gone gadding about different churches, each step being in angst at the last. If anything, I have stayed in situations (especially the one with the Children's Church.) longer than I should have, trying to make it work. And with none of these churches, if I saw someone on the street from one of them, would I feel like I didn't want to talk to them or be uncomfortable about it at all. I still like them and remember our times together in good ways and my husband still works for them from time to time.

We aren't upset about the carpet color in the foyer, we aren't miffed because we didn't get to sing lead in the choir.

We are concerned about the way people are treated in the CREC. We are concerned about the way theology is used by some people in power to abuse those less powerful. We are concerned because the leadership has a tendency to side with the strong rather than the less powerful and as a result of bad theology and people in leadership who are surrounded by "yes men" this tendency has very few obstacles in place to defend people who are vulnerable. Especially women and children. We are concerned because when people try to start conversations about under pinning theology that justifies these in their abuse, the conversations are taken over by those in power, or they are squelched and those who want to have conversations about these things are labeled as rebellious. (Especially the excessive dependency on spanking in raising children, a lack of acknowledgement of some in the CREC that mental issues like autism are real, even the disrespecting of people who are dealing with food allergies. They may be well versed in Shakespeare and Bede, but science is not a priority! Also the effects of theologies revolving around patriarchy, the power structures this creates, the problems in marriages this creates and the problems it creates in the self esteem of both men and women. Well, they can't worry about self esteem at all, actually. It's not even a thing. It's just a pretty word for selfishness. So don't be having any!)

We are concerned because at least in some cases, leadership of the CREC has minimized the abuse of women and children, protected predators, not informed the congregations that there was cause for vigilance, and has erred on the side of mercy for "repentant" predators rather than erring on the side of protecting the innocent. Though not all the CREC churches are guilty of this-I do want to say clearly, I have no knowledge of any sex abuse cases at RCC-none of the church pastors have raised a clear voice requesting an inquest for any of this towards Doug Wilson and I'd bet you my last dollar if they did they'd be out of their position in a week!  Also, because leadership has an arrogant tendency to not recognize when they are in over their head in counseling situations and don't look for help from the outside ESPECIALLY not if that counseling would run in contrary to dearly held theological positions. This makes for a fishbowl culture that is quickly losing touch with society, diminishes it's usefulness to the world in offering hope, and is intellectually stagnant.

So, if you want to make pithy, off hand comments about those who have left or who are in the CREC and have been raising issues, I guess I can't stop you. But you are betraying your own thinking rather than the thinking of anyone else. I for one would suggest that it would be nice if you would at least have the intellectual integrity to answer these very serious issues rather than giving a big ol' "PFFT" in your facebook status.

That is all.

Sheep Shooting

I had a long post about some of the cases coming out of the CREC, how the leadership has protected predators, left the innocent exposed by not being forthright with the congregation about the predator's activities, have interceded with government authorities for leniency for predators and have actively played a part in placing predators back into situations where even the most innocent were again made vulnerable. This has been well covered and there is plenty of original documentation and audio of court hearings available. Don't take my word for it. Google "Doug Wilson, Jamin Wight and Steven Sitler." Then you can go to Doug's blog and read his justifications. There's enough to keep anyone quite busy.

Jamin Wight's victim is especially eloquent and if you do nothing else, read her blog here:
http://natalierose-livewithpassion.blogspot.com/


But what I want to talk about specifically is this: The CREC shoots it's own victims.

Why is this?

If you read my story, Amber's,  Natalie's or other church abuse stories, there is a pattern that tends to repeat, I've noticed. A person or family is victimized. They appeal to the pastors/elders for help. Then the person is examined to find any of the smallest grain of fault that they may have that added to the situation, and the perpetrator is guarded. If there is anything the victim may have done, can be suspected of doing, or even if there is a slant of guilt that can be pinned to them in any way, all the attention will now be focused on that part of the situation. You see this in SPADES in Natalie's situation, where Wight had expressed interest in Natalie and was told to wait until she was 18 and was trusted to obey them. He was a seminary student after all. One would think that maybe integrity was important to him. Sadly, that might make me more suspicious now, but one can see why her parents might not have been hyper vigilant about the whole thing at that point. Therefore, since they didn't take enough active measures to protect Natalie, they must have been encouraging it. Also, in Amber's situation where the question ceased to be as to whether his employer was using shady business tactics or mistreating employees, but whether or not a post on Amber's facebook page was unsupportive of his career.

Now if the victim of this protests or denies what they are accused of, they will be given some form of the verse "THE HEART IS DESPERATELY WICKED AND WHO CAN KNOW IT". If they continue to deny it, in spite of the scriptural evidence that nobody can know they are innocent therefore nobody can be, therefore everybody must be as guilty as they can possibly be, they will then earn the stigma of "Bitter". Because "Bitter" in these circles is anyone who has anything to say about a wrong that has been done to them, ever.

Bitter (and it's fellow stigma personalities of "obstinate and willful") is now the only dimension your personality has. You will be viewed through that lens for a long, long time.  Maybe forever with some. Like the Scarlet Letter only you get to wear a B.

The predator, on the other hand, has been caught. He has nothing to lose by getting all teary eyed and repentant and everything to gain. He'll admit it all, and a couple more things the pastor couldn't have known to make it look like he's "really coming clean". (Check the letter Natalie posted on her blog that Doug Wilson wrote to an officer. He talks about there being two confessions from Steven.)

Pastors eat this bit up. That's why they got into the ministry after all, to turn wretched sinners into new creations. And in a kind of perverse twist that is common in Christianity, the greater the sin the person has committed, the bigger fuss over their conversion. And by default, the more glory to the person that led them into the kingdom. It's almost like trophy hunting. Nobody gets excited about a dew eyed doe on your wall, but a lion... well, that's something! Proof that is ministry is so very, very fruitful! ( I don't mean all pastors of course. The more ego driven ones.)

The predator plays right up to the pastor's ego. In return for the feel-good ego stroke, the pastor is now in the predators corner. Nobody is going to deny his teary eyed convert into the fold! He'll believe in him, even if nobody else will! He will now take up his defense. This must be the right thing, right? Didn't Jesus say he came for the sick, not the well?

But the victim is still there, and they still have pain and an active accusation against the predator. And this is where the victim has now become the enemy.

Because of leadership dynamics the congregation will, for the greatest part, follow the lead of the leadership in regards to the case. But the guilt is unresolved. They are (understandably) a little more wary of apologies. And there is no restitution.

Therefore the victim must be shot. Not literally of course, but they will be driven from the camp and the memory of their presence will be closed over, like the grass in the Psalms that forgets that they were even there. At least as far as appearances go, and appearances are The Most Important Thing in a cult.

If they try to say anything in the distance the pastor will gently put his hands over his remaining congregants ears and murmur things like "bitter... so so angry... willful.... silly.... foolish... don't listen my dears...."

Until hopefully the voice fades in the distance and the murder is complete.