“The message turned a part of us. Good women and good ladies did as they have been advised and stored quiet about it. … What a setup for abuse.”
The next is an excerpt from Grace Ji-Solar Kim and Susan M. Shaw‘s new ebook, Surviving God: A New Imaginative and prescient of God By means of the Eyes of Sexual Abuse Survivors.
The God of our childhoods was terrifying. Certain, He (and it was all the time “He”) cherished us, however we additionally knew He might destroy us in a second if we displeased Him. Poof! Like Lot’s spouse, we’d develop into a pillar of salt. God knew us intimately and had full management over us. Like an abuser, He requested us to like Him whilst he threatened us with the torments of hell if we didn’t.
We have been advised to not query Him; we have been to submit and obey. Our metaphors—Father, Grasp, Lord and King—strengthened this, and we have been to submit and obey in the identical method to the lads who stood in God’s place for us—fathers, pastors, husbands, lecturers, leaders. The very phrases we used to explain God—almighty, highly effective, all-knowing, majestic, righteous—instilled concern in us as they underlined the sense that God might do to us no matter He needed at any time, for any motive. And we have been to thank Him for it.
Like an abuser, He requested us to like Him whilst he threatened us with the torments of hell if we didn’t.
Week after week we heard the tales—Miriam stricken with leprosy, Sapphira falling down useless at Peter’s toes.
We memorized the Bible verses:
“Behold, I set earlier than you this present day a blessing and a curse. A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this present day. And a curse, if ye is not going to obey the commandments of the Lord your God.”
“Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as unto the Lord.”
“Obey them which have the rule over you, and submit yourselves.”
We even sang it: “Good submission, excellent delight”; “I give up all”; “Belief and obey”; “Have thine personal means, Lord, have thine personal means. Maintain o’er my being absolute sway.”
All over the place we turned we have been advised to submit and obey—God, fathers, pastors. The message turned a part of us. Good women and good ladies did as they have been advised and stored quiet about it.
What a setup for abuse.
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