Protests, Apologies, and Zaccheus
The role of the surface apology is not repentance or restitution. The purpose of a surface apology is twofold: to make the person you hurt go away and to absolve you of your own guilt.
So how do you issue a sincere apology and work towards restitution if you have wronged someone? And conversely, what type of apology and restitution should you expect if you are wronged?
Why I Was Told to Make Them Worship
Too often, spiritually manipulative leaders want to ramp up worship in order to take the focus off what’s really going on underneath. Abusive leaders can use the worship time to keep their congregation preoccupied, to keep their eyes off the abuse occurring in the church. They use God’s name to lend authority to their own narcissism.
Broken Arrows: Our Emotions
By “othering” personal thoughts, CFC trains children and adults to be constantly at odds with themselves in a state of passive indecision that looks for outside direction. CFC leadership then offers church-approved philosophies, practices, and opinions as though they are God-ordained truth, keeping members trapped in the vicious codependence of high-control authoritarian communities.
Broken Arrows: Obedience
Training children to respond to instructions with nothing but immediate and cheerful obedience (under threat of physical and emotional harm) leaves no room for a child to question whether the instructed activity is safe for them.
Training children to obey adults without questioning the why behind the command prepares them to do the same with any authority figure in the future.
Broken Arrows: High Control Religious Communities and Abuse
The Broken Arrows series names and identifies the layers of harm contained in CFC’s approach to child training. This type of child training sets children up for abuse by teaching them erroneous beliefs about themselves and their place in the world.
We are all complicit
One of the most complicated truths to acknowledge is that we have harmed others, yet this is an essential step in the journey to wholeness. There is freedom in acknowledging that we have been complicit in harm. It allows us to seek forgiveness, offer restitution, and find grace for ourselves and for others.
Understanding Domestic Violence
Domestic Violence impacts every community regardless of race, culture, or socioeconomic status. On average, nearly twenty people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. One in four women and one in nine men experience some form of severe intimate partner violence at some point in their life.
I am sorry
People have been reaching out and asking questions and I urge you to do so as well. I would be honored to hear from you and apologize to you face to face. The Truth sets free! Verbalizing your pain to an understanding heart is a good step toward embodying Truth. I will gladly keep you anonymous and protect your vulnerability if you choose to share with me.
What is an enmeshed family?
Enmeshment is usually repeated inter-generationally. In families with unprocessed trauma or enmeshed roles, children often find themselves repeating the cycle with their own children because that is all they know. Breaking the cycle of enmeshment is hard and painful work.
Black Sharpies
Abusive churches excel at gaslighting us. They make us think that we’re the crazy ones. They keep us off-kilter so that we can’t spot the lies. They keep us feeling uncertain so that we’re easier to control.
The danger of denial
Listening to survivors tell their stories can be uncomfortable, especially if they name abuse that does not seem to align with what you have experienced.
No, you’re not crazy
Abusive churches excel at gaslighting people. They taught you to distrust your own body, your own emotions, and your own sense of reality.