Posted on 03/21/2022 4:50:16 PM PDT by Morgana
Some folks have been hurt by a ‘fundamentalist’.
Others by a Catholic - some by Baptists - yada yada yada.
There is NO one safe from anyone else who has a label attached to them.
Likewise, here is NO one safe from anyone who do NOT have a label attached to them.
EVERY barrel can have a bad apple and EVERY carton a bad egg.
When should we start WARNING our children about these things?
Good question; isn’t it!
"...much of the public tends to trust the word 'Christianity' and... give faith-based groups the benefit of the doubt... They don’t understand these groups, like the IFB, are not the Christianity so [many] of us know... [Many] survivors of religious institutional abuse... feel that part of educating the public on the Troubled Teen Industry is also making it known that most of the religious programs in the TTI don’t have genuine intentions of using their beliefs for good. They use God to abuse the children that have been entrusted to their care, claiming religious exemption to do just that.
I know every person she is writing about and I know their back stories. It is terrible. You are shooting the messenger by attacking the author who was just interviewing the survivors.
I’m telling you now this Troubled Teen industry is a rabbit hole that has no ending.
Some are parents who want to help their troubled teen but majority are just s***** parents who don’t want their kids anymore and leave these kids at these facilities and never talk to them again even after they turn 18.
First we had parents getting rid of unwanted babies now unwanted teens/older children. I mean this some of these children enter at age 9, 10 or even younger and stay for years. The youngest I’ve read about is a 7 year old at agape boarding school in Missouri and I don’t want to tell you what terrible things happened to him you can guess.
Over half of these kids were adopted children that were “re-homed” to these so called troubled teen homes, their parents could not deal with them, a lot were overseas adoptions.
“Kids are very vulnerable. There need to be safeguards in place. Many of these places started with the best intentions and obviously troubled teens can lie like rugs as we all can. Still they are subject to exploitation and bullying and there needs to be transparency, ombudsmen, accountability.”
I’m so glad someone here understands. People don’t believe these teens because they are “troubled” and believe they are lying strait up front. Now if it was only one or two kids saying this we should be like “well” but it’s not that. It’s kid after kid from school after school. If you want I can post several websites of not only Christian school survivors but secular ones as well, does Paris Hilton come to mind? Also Paris Jackson and Drew Barrymore was sent to one of these schools and abused.
Paris Hilton is pushing for more government accountability over all these schools but I know christians will cry foul and say their religious rights are being taken away. Well I don’t care who you are you don’t have the right to abuse a child. So I’m calling out to all of you Christians to investigate this and call these groups into accountability. More than anything it’s the parents. It’s parents who no longer want to be parents and quite frankly I don’t know what we can do as christians about these people.
quite frankly I don’t know what we can do as christians about these people.
We are so used to institutional/government solutions.
What makes you so sure of that? The article says differently. A hallmark of abuse is that abusers seek situations that will enable them to practice their vice. That's why there are many (but not most) twisted people trying to become priests, coaches or schoolteachers. Power over the vulnerable is a great aphrodisiac to a damaged soul.
Research has observed the repetition compulsion of abuse survivors unless they are able to find a means of grieving, learning and healing. Unfortunately, many severely abused children grow up to be abusers. The cycle of abuse does not stop until an abused individual is determined to stop the results of it within themselves. Otherwise, many will pass it on, either as similar abuse of other children, or in a less physically violent form such as unquantified characterizations of "all" because of "some. "
Even in the writing of this account, where there is an obvious attempt to be fair-minded and objective, negative bias creeps in from the damage this person suffered, such as the final paragraph:
Christian institutions have a long and infamous history of abusing young people, from the Magdalen Laundries for “fallen” women and girls in Ireland to the residential school system for Native and indigenous children in the US and Canada.This is a broad indictment of "Christian institutions" without qualification or quantification. She is writing about a specific American group of schools inspired by a specific denomination, but tosses in an Catholic unwed mothers' home and certain Canadian schools from past centuries to bolster her scattershot indictment. Should have said, "In spite of the ideals and values we expect of Christian institutions to be safe and growth-producing towards spiritual wholeness, Christianity around the world is not immune from a troubling percentage of abusive institutions, such as..." etc.
It’s devastating to know that the abuse in the Troubled Teen Industry is ongoing...Again, the marxist broad brush, without presenting reputable research accompanied by statistical analysis.
Of course most true Christians would not want to support child abuse; and I challenge the writer to do something constructive about it besides "telling all." She is telling her personal story and generalizing it outward without just measurements.
In my personal experience attending public schools I have had wadded up paper towels shoved in my mouth and forced to stand, like that, with my nose against the wall, for an hour.
I was verbally abused by several teachers for my religious and political beliefs.
I was beaten by a 6’7” tall principal using a wooden paddle with holes drilled in it.
I was repeatedly hit on the head with a wooden baton.
I was beaten with a paddle in front of my classmates.
The administration of my school knew I was being regularly beaten by other students and did nothing. When I did take matters into my own hands, they castigated me for not continuing to take the abuse.
I could go on...
Before you think me some sort of trouble maker, I was a straight A student. I participated in athletics. I am straight. There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary about me.
I went through what pretty much all my male classmates went through. In an effort to keep order, the people in authority in my schools in the 60’s and 70’s went overboard and were inherently lazy. They didn’t want to know “why”. That would require them to make a judgement. They had one playbook and it was to regularly physically, verbally and psychologically abuse the students.
From what I hear this general behavior still exists in public schools.
This is not to belittle your post nor your work combating abuse. I am just pointing out that abuse crosses religious lines. It is prevalent in the secular world as well. In my experience, more so.
I've posted above some of my responses as a professing Christian who has done grad research in the sociolegal aspects of sexuality in our culture, and as a long-time editior concerned about the "commiefication" of our language.
That said, in light of your compassionate remarks about the real person who has suffered abuse from being pictured naked on the Nirvana cover, and with no disrespect for the very serious topic at hand, I coudn't resist a moment of comic relief:
No, and if a person or institution will not be morally controlled from within then they needs be controlled from without, however, while sometimes sadly necessary, this should never be the case with any churches, for once the government itself - whose own schools see rampant scandals while its pro-LGBTQ, gender trans fostering, as well as over sensitivity training is itself a form of abuse - stands where it ought no need be, then it is hard to restrict it to just abuse. And those who have been hurt by institutions often have a hard time being objective.
The writer is touting the homosexual agenda line about “horrors” of conversion therapy, plus he wrote a book on essays about sex & the Bible. I don’t trust him.
So what was so bad about it?
That new cover is pretty accurate.
The worst was the bullies.
They beat up on any kid they figured they could get away with.
Did it to me the first year.
I asked one how he could be a Christian and beat up kids.
He said he was a Christian, baptized for his sins, and could now do whatever he wanted.
I was ready for them the next year.
They stopped doing it when I was done with them.
They were smarmy nice when around adults who thought they were perfect.
I got in trouble for defending myself and a little kid they were beating up.
Then there was the idiot that went around with a sort of mini stage show.
His arm was in a sling.
The was bloviating about how God had saved him when his car fell on him when he was working under it, the car held up by a bumper jack.
I'm sitting there, thinking, ever, hear of jack stands, wood blocks, or at least throwing your spare under to hold it up if bad things happen?
How stupid do you have to be to crawl under a vehicle held up by just a bumper jack?
So were all the kids (boys and girls) at the camp bullies, except for yourself? And all beat up other kids? What was the involvement of the adults in charge? I would think if a number of kids were beaten up, they’d have to notice something or hear something.
And what about Christ’s command for us to forgive? If those kids acted so badly, then they were in a bad way spiritually, no matter what they believed. Where there are many kids gathered together, too, which probably happens a lot more in modern society than in any other time in human history, there very often tends to be a considerable amount of mistreatment that goes on. I know something about that firsthand from being bullied for a number of years during secondary school while growing up in a wealthy, exclusive town. I was also bullied by a classmate in elementary school.
And I also wonder where that one student would have come up with the idea that Christ has given him a license to sin. The Bible makes it clear that it’s not acceptable for so many reasons, and Bible-believing churches teach that it isn’t.
Your perseverance is the stuff of legend.
I served in lay ministry in two denominations, and later became ordained.
If only we had more amazing leaders like you!
I remain a Biblical Christian
Truly a man amongst men, you are.
I was highly suspicious of the Bill Gothard “Basic Youth Conflicts”
You were wise beyond your tender years, it's true.
I was one of the very few students at my school who refused to take part.
So young, yet showing such strength!
I was highly conservative
That goes without saying, a paragon of virtue in all respects.
I sensed something misguided - if not perverted -
How amazingly sensitive you are!
I was only one of three Lutherans at my school.
Such hardships you've endured!
I was frequently harassed by students
Those rotten little meanies! How dare they?
“And I also wonder where that one student would have come up with the idea that Christ has given him a license to sin.”
I completely agree with your overall point of view. But as an answer to your question, I have seen that “ license to sin” notion attributed to Martin Luther by at least anti-Luther writer.
I understand and agree to a point. But where I was coming from on that is that I can’t see any church blatantly adopting or teaching that sort of lack of morality and ethics — even apostate churches mostly reject morality on honoring God and in matters of sexual morality and making women pastors. And where they do reject morality otherwise, as in the case of abortion, then they simply deny they’re doing so. So that’s what seemed strange to me—just the blatant nature of that “get out of Hell free” card.
With all the crap goin on in the church, the pedo priests... the rainbow flags... the very Pope washing the feet of muslims, why should everyone else be christian who works there? the church is and always has been big business. to think there are not crimes such as this being committed is surely naïve...
Amen. 100% agree.
I agree completely.
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