Autism is my super blessing! I'm a high-school valedictorian, college graduate, world traveler, disability advocate. I'm a Unitarian Universalist. I'm a Progressive Liberal. I'm about equal rights, human rights, civil & political rights, & economic, social, &cultural rights. I do servant leadership, boundless optimism, & Oneness/Wholeness. I'm good naked & unashamed! I love positive personhood, love your neighbor as yourself, and do no harm! I'm also appropriately inappropriate! My self-ratings: NC-17, XXX, X, X18+ & TV-MA means empathy! I publish shows at 11am! Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/antonio-myers4/support
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episode 18: Why Is Abuse Rampant in the Church? 13 Critical Reasons Abuse Survivors Are Leaving the Church. Spiritual abuse includes twisting Scripture subtly to make it sound biblical.
"5. The Church prioritizes reputation over doing what is right.
One survivor shared that a church leader told her, “Don’t report your brother’s abuse. You’ll ruin the calling God has on his life.”
The leader was more interested in the brother’s reputation than justice. We also see this in the myriad of recent sex abuse scandals in the church. It follows a sadly predictable pattern:
Abuse - A cry of abuse is made by one or many.
Denial - Church leadership presents this to the person in question, who then flatly denies it, calling it lies.
Protection - Hoping to protect the reputation of the institution, the leadership publicly maligns the survivors and stands by the perpetrator, characterizing those who reported the abuse as agents of evil whose aim is to discredit the church.
Proof - More people come forward with accusations until their sheer weight solidifies the veracity of the first people’s claims.
Apology - The leadership (finally) issues a statement of apology after letting the perpetrator go.
Damage - Those who made the outcry in the first place are left to deal with the public damage and lack of initial belief.
Consequences - The church’s reputation is damaged anyway, and worse than anticipated."
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