Monica Brands

Thank you so much - both for your support in sharing regarding your ordeal and providing that important information.

 "We all must acknowledge that we were all made in God's image and are loved by Him, and therefore must relate to each other as we would our God" - really well said. Thanks, Elly. 

Hi Jill,

Thanks for your comments. Regarding spiritual abuse - yes, that's worth adding, and I will go ahead and make that edit - I think I pictured spiritual abuse as a related to emotional abuse, but it's also a distinct category. I'm sure there are other forms of abuse I could've mentioned as well.

 I absolutely agree sexism is a huge element of why women are more likely to be victims of abuse, and the church hierarchy does contribute to not equally valuing women's perspectives. For example, if it is natural and biblical for a man's perspective to subsume (be the head over) women's perspective, it becomes quite difficult to untangle when "headship" becomes emotional/spiritual abuse. You might be interested in the review I wrote recently of Ruth Tucker's new book which explores that. The difficult place we're in where the CRC presently recognizes both views as biblically sound shouldn't prevent us from emphasizing the serious dangers involved with a hierarchal view of gender in relation to abuse and the difficulty of fully respecting women while also disbelieving their calling to church office.

Thanks, Shannon - "pulling out the knife" - that's a painful but accurate image of the kind of healing required here. I really appreciate your compassionate perspective.

Thanks, Faye - I'd love to see each congregation gathering together around this issue; we really need some momentum and unity around this issue. Thanks for your faithful work.

Thanks for your concern, passion, and support, Kelly. I'd be interested in any resources you could point me to on clergy abuse. I would like to follow up with an article assessing clergy abuse in the Protestant  world and possibly the CRC (though we may have less data on the CRC.)

Peace,

Monica

Thanks, Bev. I agree completely. It is appalling and sad. I am hopeful that little by little eyes will be opened. Thanks for your work and support. I appreciate you referring to Boz's article: that is a great article that came to my mind as well.

Excellent point, Jill - I was disappointed in that some reviews of the movie seemed to see it as primarily about a historical period in the Catholic Church; I tried to emphasize that abuse of power within the church is an epidemic problem across denominations, but I think we need to continue to do work to expose the reality to people's minds on a regular basis.

Hi Kelly - my email is [email protected]. Looking forward to seeing what resources you have!

Thanks for that important correction, Karen! I mistakenly assumed Safe Church posted the articles the same year they were published! I have corrected that data, and a corrected version should post soon.