S1E7 Spare The Rod

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome back to The Backslider Diaries, the podcast for the
faithful, the frustrated, and everyone caught somewhere
between a pulpit and a therapistcouch.
I'm T I'm. Jay.
I'm Lance. Thank you for joining us.
Again. We're happy to have you here.
And just a quick heads up beforewe dive in.
Today's topic is not going to bethe lightest of things to

(00:21):
discuss, but it's something that's very real and something
that we need to bring attention to.
So we're going to be discussing the various types of abuse in
churches based on our experience, and that will be
covering childhood abuse, sexualmisconduct, grooming, physical
abuse, financial abuse, emotional and cultural abuse.
So if those are topics that are going to be difficult for you to

(00:44):
sit with and listen to, by all means, take a break and catch us
next week. We absolutely think we're
supposed to say trigger warning.Yeah, if if this these topics
are difficult to deal with that right now, go do something to
make yourself laugh. Enjoy your night and join us
next week. But if these are.
Topics like share and subscribe anyway.
Like share and subscribe. Like share and subscribe.

(01:06):
Yes, please. Thank you and all the things.
If you're down to to have this discussion, then we'd invite you
to come share with us as we talkabout things that are not always
pleasant but need the light brought to them.
Amen. Amen.
Just to begin, I think it's important to note that all of us

(01:26):
have experiences with in varyingdegrees to with many of these
topics that we're discussing today, and we know that many of
you do too. I think that sadly, abuse didn't
get discussed. And if it did get discussed, it
was only in the context of having the person who'd been
abused bear the brunt of forgiveand forget and turning the other
cheek. But there was no real discussion

(01:49):
of what happens, who's it happening to, what makes the
church such an environment of where abuse can really grow in
those corners and not be looked at, Who's being held
accountable? And then ultimately, if you want
to go there, what is how do you reconcile peace with a God?
And how do you especially reconcile that when it's

(02:10):
happening at the place where faith and vulnerability
intersect for so many? So yeah, that's what we're going
to talk. Well, it gets confusing too when
they take God or religion and they use that as a tool to abuse
you. But also, I think when you said
that abuse was, you know, one ofthe hidden secrets of the
church, it also was kind of out there in the form of child

(02:30):
abuse. And at least the way we were
brought up, the term spare the rod, spoil the child was thrown
around all the time. And maybe it was just the time
we grew up in not just the church, I don't know.
But there was, there was a lot of not just spanking makings,
not just swats on the butt, but looking back on it, just real

(02:51):
child abuse. So I think the church cultivated
that. Sorry, Lance.
No, I was just agreeing with you.
Like I think it extends beyond the church.
Like I do think it had to do with the time period period.
So regardless if you were in church or not, and I think
corporal punishment was the norm.
Yeah. And in our particular case, I

(03:12):
think it was fueled a little bitmore by drug abuse, which I for
a period of time, just due to some pain issues, I was having
to take some opioids and really noticed how I became quite the
asshole, a bigger, bigger one than I am.
But you know, I was a jerk. So it's I understand it, but it
didn't didn't make it any better.

(03:32):
Yeah. And just to catch up, you know,
for those of you who maybe this is your first time joining us, T
and I are siblings and our parent who was also the pastor
of our church, amongst many other things, has an ongoing
opioid addiction for all of my life since I was four years old.
I don't really have memories prior to that being part of our

(03:53):
family dynamic. So that was really, really part
of it. And you know, I think you'd
bring up a good point there is you can't look at anything in
isolation, right? Everything kind of has a matrix
around it. And it might be important to
note that we all three were raised in the evangelical
setting, kind of a fundamentalist evangelical
setting in the South, and we areall quite decidedly Gen.

(04:18):
X. So, you know, that's kind of the
time period that we're referencing there.
And it was. Not baby boomers, Gen.
X people. Exactly.
We were raised very much, I meanGod.
It was Bible to say children should be seen and not heard.
We were expected to function in very adult ways when we were
growing up. We were just expected to sit on

(04:38):
the church Pew and listen and maybe if you're lucky, you had
children's church or Sunday school and you got to go, you
know, sing I'm in the Lord's army and eat your juice and
cookies. But for the most part, you were
sitting on the Pew listening to the same sermon that adults
were, which in and of itself kind of denatures the fragility

(04:58):
from childhood, right? We weren't protected species in
the way that now I think that wereally do tend and try to
protect our children from just the adult world.
Not even necessarily inappropriate content, but you
know, I think that's part of it.And I remember if you misbehaved
in church, the first thing was the look.
The second thing was the snap ofthe fingers, right?

(05:20):
And then if you got three strikes, you were getting
marched down the middle aisle. And by saying you, I very much
mean I, I was getting marched out the middle aisle, out the
back door of the church. And so many times I would have,
my mother would make me go pick a switch off of a Bush in the
front of the church. There was a little like weeping
Willow Bush there. And I'd have to pick a switch.

(05:43):
And then she'd Take Me Out and switch my legs and then bring
back a very contrite knee back into the church service.
And everybody in the building would know if you had just
gotten taken out for discipline.And, you know, there, that's
just the least of it. And you know, now my mom tells
that as a funny story, but it wasn't funny at the time.

(06:04):
And not to mention at home, I know for T and I, I don't know
for you, Lance, but I know for Tand I, physical discipline was
the way of it. And we were very much spanked
with switches, fly swatters, youknow, wooden spoons, belts.
Belts slapped in the face. That's what I wonder, because I
know you know our perspective and how trying that was just

(06:26):
Lance. I assumed growing up that's how
every house was. I didn't think that was out of
the norm. I guess I'm sure every kid
that's abused thinks that thinksthat.
I was curious from your perspective.
Well, I had switches, belts always my mother though my dad
rarely ever whipped or spanked me.
I'm having a hard time even remembering once, but I'm pretty
sure. I'm pretty sure once isn't

(06:47):
there. But but generally it was my mom.
She was the disciplinarian. She was quick.
Quick draw. Very much so, and I think my
last weapon I was 15, which was insane to me because I was
literally looking down at her. Yeah.
While she was swinging and like what is going on?
But I was very much a rule follower.

(07:09):
I guess that's the other thing. So I don't remember corporal
punishment in all the different types of abuse.
That's not really high on my list as far as the things that I
need to deal with. Yeah, I'm sure it's in there
somewhere. Some of it.
Because apparently when I was three years old, and this is a
story that's told kind of ingestlike, it's funny.
Like my aunts lived with us whenI was three who was younger than

(07:31):
my mom and I was 3. And she was trying to spank me,
apparently. And I would run and hide and my
my aunt would protect me and they would laugh because my aunt
would take the weapon for me even when I was 3.
And so they'll, they'll talk about that.
But being the role follower. So, but as far as the religious
part, I took very much to heart about the honor your parents so

(07:51):
that you can live long on the earth.
If you don't, you're going to die.
Like God's going to kill you. Like that was really in my head
pretty big. So, so I don't know, for some
reason I was, I was a big role follower, but I still got a lot
of spankings for my mom for apparently I didn't follow her
rules, But it's not. That's the thing with us is we
never knew what the rules are, what was going to set it off or

(08:15):
whatever. And something too that goes with
that, like 1 variation I've heard from a lot of my friends
that grew up in the same type offaith tradition.
In fact, I'm thinking specifically of my first
husband, who his father was verymuch a rule follower as well.
And in their family, the rules were laid out like very
specifically, if you did this, you're going to get a punishment

(08:38):
and that's what it's going to be.
Whereas on in our family, there was a lot more volatility.
We never really had confirmed boundaries or set rules.
It was just sort of like like a landmine.
You know it when you hit it kindof thing.
And then the punishment was fastand furious.
Whereas in his family growing up, it was like, you absolutely
know if you do the XYZ thing, you will get XYZ punishment.

(09:00):
But his father was very measuredand would make them pray before
and after. My mother's father as well, now
that I think about it, her father would make them pray
after they got spanked and, you know, asked for forgiveness and
sometimes pray until they spoke in tongues or whatever the case
may be, which is such a compounding really.

(09:22):
And it's such a like looking at it from an adult perspective,
such a weaving together of the idea of abuse and pain with the
God concept, if that makes sense, and that kind of kind of
authoritarian discipline. In our case, you know, it's kind
of a double edged sword there. It was not only his way or the

(09:42):
highway here on earth, but that's how you're going to get
to heaven too. And you know, he's the prophet.
He's the the man who has the gifts of the spirit.
He's the one that you know, is your highway to heaven, so to
speak. So you're you're terrified.
I was, I was terrified of I wasn't.
I don't even know if, if you know, like I could feel love for

(10:05):
for him, if it, if I was just soscared And, and my mom too, you
know, like his little kid, you're scared your parents are
going to die and stuff. I don't know, it's really weird.
Well, and. A lot of that was beat off of
us. I don't know, I have to separate
the two. Like my father is one thing, my
mother's another. Their families of origin were so

(10:26):
vastly different. My mom in particular came from
an abusive childhood herself. So abuse begats abuse.
I mean, it just happens. And hopefully each generation we
get a little better. That's the idea.
So, and I'm I'm not making excuses for my mom and some of
the things that she has done, but I do at least want to

(10:47):
understand where it comes from and why things maybe were the
way they are. And certainly that turn that you
have where you realize how humanyour parents really are, right
is a is a big thing. I see my kids even even going
through that with respect to me.It's a hard thing to accept.
And she had a horrible, horriblechildhood.
And this is where the religious Slayer bothers me because she

(11:09):
was able to kind of go into a state of denial and that God
delivered her from all of that. But there was so much there that
was left untouched, that got passed down to another
generation because we didn't live in an environment where
mental health and abuse was dealt with and the impact, the
consequences, and it just gets passed down.

(11:30):
But that that's a fantastic point.
And you know, as you're saying that I have to say as well, I
can absolutely look at my parents and separate their
humanity from their parent identity, right?
And my mother grew up in extremely impoverished
conditions. Her parents did not have a happy
marriage and they were a yellingfamily, you know, and she also

(11:51):
grew up in a in a family where her older brother and only
sibling was it was disabled and had health challenges.
And so he was kind of baby need from that perspective.
He almost died as a baby. And you can see how when you
take it as a whole, right, you can see how all of those things
together. Same situation.
She was a singer. She found her escape through

(12:13):
being a musician, being able to be a traveling musician and then
eventually marrying my dad, which from her perspective, I
would presume and and she sharedwith me too.
Like she grows up in in poverty and in these tough situations
and not a lot of familial, lots of love, but not a lot of
affection, not a a lot of safetyin that regard.
And in her mind, my dad offered her all of those things.

(12:35):
And I will say this about my parents.
You know, they certainly have their challenges.
And it's kind of like when you see somebody that has a broken
arm, but they never got it set properly and it just kind of
grew back together in a improperway.
But it works for them. And at this point, if you were
to go back in and try to correctit, the arm would not be
functional. His parents were silent

(12:55):
generation. His dad was a World War 2 combat
vet. And I'm sure or that all of
those things play a role and play a factor into how things
shake out. But just as far as like how that
translates down, when you grow up in an environment where
everything is spiritualized, abuse becomes spiritualized too,
and the onus of bearing that falls on the abused instead of

(13:18):
the abuser. Well, Lance, when you were
saying how, you know, your mom said that she was delivered
from, you know, God delivered her from the situation she was
in. And you know, I can see that she
would think that, you know, thatshe's not in that situation
anymore. It's really sad, number one,
that people don't give themselves enough credit and
they always give it to God when they're in a bad situation.

(13:40):
And they did it, you know, they did it themselves.
And that's to be commended. But what's sad is the fact that,
and back then, you know, we didn't have near as many options
as we do now, for sure. But just like my dad with his
back, he said he was healed. He didn't really get the help he
needed. It affected him the rest of his
life. Your mom said that God freed her
from that, but mentally she really needed some help.

(14:02):
She needed to go through that. It affected her and her kids the
rest of her life. You know what I mean?
And that's really, that's the one sad thing about one of the
sad things about religion and believing in that is that you
don't number one, give yourself enough credit.
And then you, you say that a, you know, God spirit, something
you, a spirit got taken out of you.

(14:22):
God saved you and you don't get the actual help you need, right?
Well. And that also creates an
environment that, I mean, we have to call it like it is.
That creates an environment thatcontinues to perpetuate abuse
because you have people coming into the church, a lot of
vulnerable people who have been abused or who are just, you
know, children or maybe people who don't have all the resources

(14:45):
at their disposal yet in life. And then you have other people
who are coming into this situation who are looking for a
place of healing, but they stillhave mental health work to do to
unpack patterns or, you know, things that they need to process
this within themselves. That can kind of create a
Crucible where you're putting people with a tendency to abuse

(15:06):
right next to people who are very, very vulnerable and.
How many people do do we know that were delivered from alcohol
or drugs and they would leave the church parking lot and reach
behind their seat and grab theirflask and, you know, or hit
their key. Yeah.
And they, you know, they said they testified in church that,
you know, it's human nature, peer pressure.
You're going to lie. But they really weren't

(15:28):
delivered from that. And it's it's.
And they started. The damage it's done because the
because of the stigma and because they've already kind of
come forth as being delivered, so they've put themselves in a
corner that they did that. There's just no winning in that.
And so there's a degree of humanity that's just lost where

(15:49):
we don't recognize people are humans.
Such a thing as like a dry drunk, right?
Like and a dry drunk, I think we've talked about this before,
is someone who has stopped the behavior, but they have yet to
go back and work on any of the processes that facilitated the
behavior or that created the behavior in their life.
So, you know, you kind of get people who are white knuckling

(16:10):
it and yes, they're not drinkinganymore.
They're not taking drugs anymore, they're not engaging in
activities that harm themselves or other.
But they still have the problemsthat cause them to do that
exactly. How many of us, you know and how
many of those that we know have been sexually abused by people
in church in a church setting? And I'll just say myself, I was

(16:33):
sexually abused at our church bya church members from the ages 4
through about 9, actively by several.
And I know several other children that were, were in my
same cohort, you know, peers were also being abused at that
time. And you know, in fairly
egregious ways. For the sake of my own sanity
and people that may be listening, I won't get into

(16:55):
details, but you know, in prettymuch all the ways you can
imagine. And even to the extent that
there were people taking images of children of some of us that,
you know, now whenever there's you hear a case where they talk
about discovery of CSAM. And if you don't know what that
is, look it up. And every time I hear about a
case like that, I have to sit there and wonder, am I in those

(17:15):
pictures? Are people I know in those
pictures? Because, you know, those things
happened. And those happened at the church
where my parents were pastoring.It becomes so normalized and it
becomes so equivocated. And the environment of grooming
happens to such an extent. The first boy I ever actively
kissed or that kissed me, I was 12 years old and he was almost

(17:37):
20. And actually, Lance, he attended
your church. And I have to say, at the time,
I had quite the crush. But in hindsight, you know, my
parents knew that this boy was pursuing me.
My first kiss was actually in myparents house where he was there
to visit. There's not an environment where
I would even allow my teenage orpre teenage child to be in that

(18:00):
setting, you know, let alone have it kind of laughed off as
yeah, he's too old for you, but it's OK.
And the way that my father used to talk about you mess with my
daughter, you know, you're goingto mess with me.
Texas guns, you know, it's just another one of those.
It's just another one of those things where all talk, no cowboy

(18:22):
hat, you know, and it's really it's a disappointing.
I mean, not that I wanted to seehim beat people up and do that,
but my God, dude, I have AI havea daughter around that same age
and I don't wouldn't want a boy her age in here kissing my
daughter. You know it's.
Let alone a man. I, it's just befuddles me.
I, you and I Jay, we were, we didn't talk for a while and I

(18:45):
left the church at a young age. I had to get out.
I couch surfed. I did what I had to do, but I
didn't know those things were going on.
And maybe it was just me and my own world and I, I'm really sad
now looking back on it, that I didn't know that, but I didn't.
I had no idea those things were going on with you.
And what from what you've told me now, I just cannot believe

(19:06):
that our parents turned a blind eye to a lot of the things that
went on. And they've done a lot of things
that disappointed me, but that'sfor sure at the top of the list.
And I can never forgive them forthat.
They probably can't forgive themselves, but they had the
opportunity to do something and as a parent, I can't imagine
not, and that's I can't. I don't think I can get over

(19:27):
that. It's it's hard for me to make
peace with and honestly, there'sa lot of room for personal
introspection there on to an extent.
Boundaries are really challenging for me.
It's been a lifelong journey to kind of learn that I have rights
and boundaries and can say no without feeling.
And it's really funny because ifyou know me kind of in my
forward facing life, I have no issue with boundaries.

(19:49):
I have no problem telling peoplewhere I end and they begin, you
know, and things like that. But when it comes to things that
harbor any element of that enmeshment that was part of life
for so long and the responsibility you feel if you
have a parent that has a substance abuse issue, your
roles and your dynamics get shifted anyway and you feel kind
of a responsibility. Like I've always felt like it's

(20:11):
my job to carry the family, you know, whether anybody implicitly
expressed that to me or not, it's my job to make sure my
mother's OK. It's my job to make sure that
tensions between my parents and my brother aren't too.
Extreme So, you know, I run in and do the sideshow and tell the
jokes and, you know, do the things and distract.
And that was kind of my my role in that family system.

(20:34):
But looking more at how that played out over the years and
how it continues to perpetuate in churches specifically, you
know, as I moved from my parents, they knew, but they
didn't know. And we can talk later about how
kind of the system of neglect ofin childhood in church systems
contributes to that. There's a lot to do with it.
Like, like in my experience, we had people that would come

(20:56):
through the church and I was kind of given to different
people to, OK, this young femaleis going to come stay in our
house and take care of Jay. And so they kind of become a de
facto nanny. You have people becoming, quote
UN quote, teachers in Christian schools, becoming Sunday school
providers with very little vetting.
Their vetting is they got the Holy Ghost and they were at

(21:16):
church, so therefore they are now the head of the youth group.
And that, believe it or not, is not always the best approach
when you're involving adults interfacing with children, go
figure. There's very little oversight,
there's very little accountability.
And then when they are kind of caught or busted or called on
the carpet for those behaviors, it's more about forgiveness from
a spiritual perspective than anytype of repair for the, the

(21:39):
child and accountability for theadult.
And the way that played out for me moving forward is we had a
lot of evangelists come through our church in my early to late
teen years when I was still at home.
And you know, I, geez, how do you even say that?
As though it mattered. It doesn't matter what you look
like. Abuse can happen to anyone.
But I happened to get my womanlybody at an early age.

(22:01):
And so that being the case, we had these ministers staying in
our home. And more than once I have had
visiting preachers try to come into my room, my room that did
not have a lock on the door. There was one that pulled back
the blankets and was sitting there watching me sleep.
There was another one that was convinced that it was God's will
for me to marry them. I was 17 and had a boyfriend and

(22:25):
they were 42. There was another one that I was
supposed to drive back and forthto the church from our home.
And this one LED revivals at ourchurch for over a year.
They were staying with us, and he would put his hand on my
thigh and try to kiss me. You know, I was, I'd already
been kind of damaged in that wayfrom sexual abuse as childhood.

(22:46):
And I don't mean damage. Let me clarify.
By no means was I damaged goods.That's not my intention with
that word. What I mean was my sense of
boundaries and appropriateness and understanding how and when
and where I could or couldn't say no had been sort of
violated. So when that started happening
at A at a later age, and then I was being told things like don't

(23:07):
wear out. I went to a camp meeting one
time and I remember I'll never forget this as long as I live.
I had on a sweater dress. It literally was a turtleneck
sweater dress that went down to my ankles.
And I got in trouble because other members of the church that
were there thought that I was being provocative.
And, you know, so I'm getting reinforced with these ideas that

(23:28):
you're going to lead men into sin.
What you're wearing is going to cause them to lust, what you're
looking like or the era that you're portraying.
You know, I was told don't move when you sing on the platform at
church because you have hips. And if you're moving your hips,
they're going to start thinking sexual thoughts.
And all of those things kind of congealed together into a big

(23:48):
bubble of it's my fault that these things are happening
because of the body that I have as a woman and because I exist.
And so it's my responsibility todeal with these affronts and
these invasive sort of moments rather than their responsibility
to not act upon me in that way. And the way that that shook out
for me in the end game is I wound up in a really abusive

(24:12):
marriage and I wound up in a marriage that had shades of all
the types of abuse. And let me say, if you're out
there listening and you're wondering, consent is still a
valid and real thing in marriage.
And you still need to have consent from both parties before
engaging in grown up activities in marriage.
So don't let anybody brainwash you to the the other field of

(24:34):
thinking. But I wound up running from my
life and leaving that marriage in a very traumatic way.
And and that's how abuse becomesgenerational is because if you
don't break out of the system, the system itself reinforces
that it's your fault that those things happen and that only
through forgiveness will you be free of that.
And forgiveness is great, but accountability is better.

(24:55):
Well, I just, I get blown away by the amount of abuse that you
endured and all the creepiness that occurred and just, it just
blows my mind. And I hate that for you.
I'm glad that you survived. I'm glad that you're in such a
much better, safer place at thisstage in your life.
I'm thankful for that. And I just, I can't go too far

(25:17):
past that without just acknowledging all of that and
how difficult that was. My experience with sexual abuse
was not, it was a one time deal for me when I was 15.
So it's, and I didn't even remember it.
I was drugged and I didn't even know it.
But in my 20s, my mother told meabout it happening.
It gets a little fuzzy there because she's the one that

(25:38):
brought it up. And when she told me, she told
me some of the things that made her think that it happened.
And I remembered the byproduct of all of that.
I remember a bruise on my leg. I remember some other gravity
stuff too. But anyway, beyond that, so and
I didn't know what to do with that because it was my uncle, my
mom's brother. And when she told me about it,

(25:59):
when it kind of hit me with the realization of what had
happened, he was already deceased.
So what do you do with that? That's tough.
So I didn't know what to do withit.
And since I didn't remember it, I kind of thought for a long
time it didn't affect me. And then flash forward to coming
out gay, there's always that perception that gay people were

(26:20):
abused and that's really why. And so people started to kind of
draw that connection. And I just, the thing I always
want people to understand is that predators prey on those
that are perceived as weak or that that's women, children or
gay effeminate men or something along those, anyone that they
feel that they can to overpower or get away with.
Predators do that. And it's not the other way

(26:41):
around. People are not gay because they
were abused in any way. And so I just hate that you
experienced that for such a longperiod of time.
I hate that it occurred to me, but I'm still kind of dealing
with that, but only from the perspective of how I relate to
my parents about that situation.And, and just going back to
something you said earlier on about our parents, obviously we

(27:03):
can't they've, they've made it work for them.
Like, however it is whatever they needed to get past their
own trauma, their own abuse. And I do understand that I
can't, I can't address that. But what I can address is my own
and understand. And the only thing that I just
really wanted to bring out is, is I connected to adult children
of Alcoholics and dysfunctional families.
And there's a lot of good material there that I found for

(27:25):
me to deal with where I'm at anddealing with my own abuse and
growing up. And while my mother was not an
alcoholic, her father was. And So what I learned is that
there's a lot of emotional and behaviors that she exhibited as
a para alcoholic. Like it just gets passed down
South. So the adult children of
Alcoholics and dysfunctional families, I mean, that's, that's

(27:46):
a pretty big bucket that'll pretty much cover just about
anybody. If you go through the laundry
list of, of things that that arein that material.
So much of it resonates with me.And so I had to pick up from
there to deal with my own abuse and trauma and figure out how am
I going to heal because I have access to so much more than my
parents did. So I can actually look for

(28:07):
mental health venues and, and solutions and healing.
And it's a long road, to be honest, honest.
And I don't know, Jay, if you found the road to be long in
healing from your own. Yeah, yeah.
I have definitely found the roadto be long and to also have what
I would call kind of, we pass one the other day in this area
where I live. We saw it had a warming Hut, you

(28:29):
know, on this adventure trail that they use here in really
cold weather. And I kind of see it that way,
but in a different context. Like along my trail of healing,
there are certain warming huts or pit stops where things have
pulled me off the path and I've had to really sit there for a
while. And a lot of times there are
things that I'm not anticipating.

(28:51):
Just as an example, I have a child, a little child who's a
girl. And when she hit the age that I
was, where have you started to happen to me?
I noticed that I started projecting a lot and, you know,
really feeling like, no, I don'twant her to wear these kind of
clothes or I don't want her to go to after school programs or I

(29:14):
don't want her to be where I can't see her.
And I had no reasons to have suspicions of anything happening
in her life. And she's been raised very much
to be have the language to report if anything did and to be
empowered, you know, that this is her body.
But I wasn't prepared for how profoundly it hit me when she
hit that age. And I have a hard time, a real

(29:36):
hard time using child like language that speaks to the
inner child or inner child healing.
And you know, I, I, when I saw her at that age, I started
having a sort of body flashbacksof feeling unsafe and it that
just took me completely unaware.I was not prepared for that
whatsoever. And so, yeah, and, and as I

(29:56):
continue to process with my parents, you know, I'm in a low
contact kind of relationship with them, but I've had to sort
of embrace the truth that I willprobably never feel safe in that
context, even even in addressingthe abuse.
And, and, you know, no shade to them.
It's, look, we all are where we are and we have to deal with

(30:17):
what we have to deal with. But when I did finally come to
them and say, look, this has been happening and this happened
to me and this was a real experience.
I was around 16 or 17 when I shared that with them.
And the response was kind of like, well, do you want to pray
about it? And I was kind of like, not
really, I don't know know what Iwas looking for, but it wasn't

(30:38):
that. And again, nobody has a script,
no parent has a rule book. So, you know, I'm, I'm trying
not to be harsh with that, but. Well, I think a couple of things
from what you'd said before. One of the things that stands
out to me in our situation, in our religion and the way that we
were brought up, either Dad is not a prophet or doesn't have

(30:59):
God talking in his ear because God would have definitely told
him there was a predator in his house or he didn't know or he
just didn't care. And then the other thing is I, I
think that religion and it breeds it's you're taught that
God Forgives everything. You have people in there be
like, I do whatever the heck I want.
God's going to forgive me. I can know.

(31:21):
So I think it kind of it will tend it leads to that, you know,
I can do whatever I want sort ofmentality because God's going to
forgive me. My wife and I have had
discussions about that in our life.
She's like, you know, you can't just do whatever you want and
ask to be forgiven. I'm like, well, that's how we
were brought up, you know, like not that you would want to, but
God will forgive anything. So, you know, so you, I remember

(31:43):
asking the question so I could kill somebody and then right
before I die, I say, God forgiveme and he would forgive me, not
go to heaven. Yep, that's you know.
Yeah. And, and I have a hard time with
that framing it, you know, through the lens of being a
survivor of that type of abuse, because I have to carry that
every single day, every single relationship I've been in every

(32:03):
single time. And trust me as a woman, I will
not bore you with the stories, but the amount of times, you
know, your cat called your, you have an inappropriate supervisor
at work. That's sort of the subtext of
life as a woman, at least in my experience.
And my challenge going back to something that you said and how
this kind of leaked into then what I think of as spiritual

(32:23):
abuse. I remember being six years old
and I don't have a lot of childhood memories thank God
probably, but I remember being 6and laying in my bed and praying
and praying my little 6 year oldheart out and being like God
this is happening to me and thisfeels wrong.
If it is wrong, please make it stop.

(32:46):
Like please make it stop. And it didn't stop.
And so then I'm like, well, God didn't make it stop and so it
must not be wrong. But it feels wrong.
And like when you're a child, your body knows when something
is unsafe and whether your braincan process that or not, your
body processes it in different ways.
And like, I just remember that angst as a child of if this is

(33:10):
wrong and I'm praying for it to stop, then why isn't it
stopping? And then that circle for me went
at to, well, it must be my fault, right?
And being enculturated in that world that is so rife with
misogyny and it is so full of ofappearance based things.
And appearance based fronting, so to speak, isn't always just

(33:31):
about looking good, right? It's about, do you look the
part? Is your hair long enough?
Are your legs covered enough? Are you wearing the right
clothes? Are you behaving in ways that
appear? So it's very appearance focused,
if not just looks focused. And so it was like, am I
appearing in ways that are, I remember again, being six and

(33:52):
seven years old and, and repenting for leading people
into lust. I didn't even know what lust
was, but I knew it had somethingto do with making people look at
you or behave towards you in ways that weren't right.
And I figured I must be doing that because they were acting
like this to me. And, you know, having people
that were enacting the abuse usethat language and tell you

(34:14):
things, it's like, oh, you're sexy or you're this or you're
that. When you're a child, it's is a
mind F of the highest caliber. And having to kind of carry that
weight and try to figure out howto operate in the world with all
of this kind of corrupt code loaded into your operating
system at a very young age. It's a lot to handle.

(34:34):
And you know, it's seeing how that's played out further in
life. Just when you look backwards and
you see the system itself is created in such a way that it's
the snake eating its own tail, right?
So the emotional abuse and the neglect that are kind of part
and parcel of that world then become a point where you don't
have a system. You can report to the sexual,

(34:57):
you know, we can't talk about these things and these things
are sinful and we won't use these words and we won't tell
you what your body parts are because you're not supposed to
know that. And that's worldly.
You don't then have the languageto report abuse.
When you go to a church school and a church and it's a closed
system. Who are you going to report to?
You don't have anyone to tell, right?
And then if you do tell and you do work up the courage, then the

(35:20):
onus of, of that responsibility comes back on you.
Well, let's pray that you can forgive them.
Let's pray for God to heal you. And you're like, that's all well
and good, but what I'd really like is for someone to go kick
them in the teeth and make it stop, right?
Tell me it's not my fault. Not that I need to pray for my
abuser so I can have forgivenesstowards them.
And that continues to perpetuateinto cycles of, you know,

(35:43):
domestic abuse. And not to ride too much of this
hobby horse, but when I was later grown and, and married and
in an abusive relationship, an abusive marriage, I did finally
report and go to my pastor and my pastor's wife.
And I shared with them like, hey, this abuse, which it was
kind of one of those, again, undisclosed secrets that had
become the threat of my life, whether that was our father's

(36:06):
addiction or the abuse. But then you have people who do
report and they're told, you know, for financial reasons,
hey, keep this on the down low, stay where you are, whether
that's churches not wanting to pay out, you know, judgments
against them, if it was their staff or not wanting to lose
patronage by having people no longer go to the church if it
comes out the there was a youth pastor doing inappropriate

(36:28):
things. And a lot of times it turns into
grooming where you have the youth pastor who marries their
constituent or whatever you callit, who's, you know, a good 5-10
years younger than them that they've been grooming for years.
So it becomes it's a very hush hush environment, which then
perpetuates mental health issues, which then perpetuates
addiction issues. And so it's like it's sort of

(36:49):
becomes this self perpetuating snowball, I guess.
It's so much, Oh my God, it's somuch.
Now it's I do agree with the system and finding ways to break
out of the system. Quit playing your role.
The amount of blame that was placed on you.
I just, I'm having a hard time accepting how that could go on

(37:13):
for so long. I guess I just, that's hard for
me to imagine. However, I, I do think in some
ways my own upbringing, I had a lot put on me to, to as far as
being protected. I felt like my mother was
overprotective. So generally I missed out on
participating in a lot of fun things because she was so scared

(37:36):
of threats. She was so scared of the devil.
She was so scared of things I would seep in.
And so just being that being isolated and, and you've both
used the word neglect quite a bit.
And I've, I've struggled with that concept within my own
therapy because sometimes I'm asked like, when was the time
that your parents, you know, when you were growing up, when
did you feel that way? And I can never like pinpoint

(37:58):
some event or some conversation or some trauma because neglect
is just not being there. It's hard to pinpoint that you
grew up with some degree of neglect.
And that was a big part for me. I mean, church was the focus.
We tagged along there. So there was a lot of emotional

(38:20):
neglect. And so in terms of having needs
as kids, being able to articulate what our needs are,
having parents that could understand that and respond to
that in healthy ways just did not exist for us.
And so here we are at this point.
How do we heal from that? How do we improve ourselves?
How do we keep from passing thatalong to our own children?

(38:42):
Because I find it seeping through in some ways that I I
don't even know how to stop it. Sometimes it just seems to be
happening. Right, right.
And and really quickly to that point, go ahead TI.
Think I didn't I didn't have thesexual abuse that Jay had.
Act like you, Lance. I had one incident happened to

(39:04):
me, but I don't the person was in the church.
But I don't think, you know, I'mnot going to blame that on the
church, right? That just something that
happened and the physical abuse,yeah, that was bad.
I'd still flinch if somebody raises their hand and that sort
of thing, and I'm sure that messes with me.
But the thing that has affected me the most my entire life was
the, I don't know if you want tocall it religious abuse,
spiritual abuse, and just the doctrine and doctrine.

(39:29):
Indoctrination. Indoctrination, jeez,
indoctrination that we went through has really affected me.
It's it's affected the way I've lived.
It's affected the way I'd planned for the future as as a
teenager, you know, just thinking that the world was
going to end. That's what to drilled into your
head. Loss of sleep, being terrified
all night. I still fall asleep listening to

(39:50):
a podcast. Paulo Gia, by the way, that
podcast is great, but I think religious abuse is, is
overlooked as how how how detrimental it is and how
harmful it is to people. I think that a lot of things
stem from religious abuse, PTSD,the the whole alphabet of things
that are. Yeah, that all stems from

(40:12):
religious abuse. And I I've listened to a bunch
of different podcasts and stuff,people that have left religion,
deconstruction videos, all that sort of thing.
And a lot of people came from really, you know, you know,
they've enjoyed religion, they enjoyed their church, they
enjoyed all that They didn't have the.
Abuse and things that we went through, but there are a lot of

(40:32):
us in it. I think we mostly in the
evangelical world, in the hardcore Christianity, Muslim,
you know, that sort of thing where the religious abuse is
rampant. So that's what I wanted to say
about. Now, and I think that there's
go. Ahead.
Go ahead. Well, I just want to ask T the
bits and pieces that I've heard of your story.
Just I keep hearing abandonment a lot growing up.

(40:53):
And I was just curious, is that a word that resonates with you?
Do you feel like that has been something that you've had to
deal with or because I don't want to put words in your mouth,
but or fear of abandonment, likehow has that played out, I
guess? I don't know if I would use the
word abandonment or a neglect. We were not a priority.
If someone in the church needed something they would go and and

(41:15):
do it for that. One example I have of this, and
I'll make it quick, Dad and I were going to a fish fry and I
was excited. All my friends are going to be
there. This girl I really liked was
going to be there. They're going to a crawfish
boil, you know, have shrimp, allthis good Cajun food.
And I was so excited. We got almost all the way there
and my dad's phone, car, phone, that's how long ago it was.

(41:38):
Car phone went up off. And I remember like him stopping
on the side of the road, backingup, picking up the phone.
And one of his, one of the people in his church who Jay
knows very well called. And I don't know, her alcoholic
husband was on the rampage again.
So the dutiful pastor turned hiscar around and we had to miss
that event. And, you know, I understand you

(42:01):
have to do your job. I mean, I, the nature of my job,
I, I'm on call. Sometimes I have to go somewhere
in the middle of the night. But that, that was just one
example of something that happened all the time where I
got put in the back seat. And then, you know, there were
big gifts to make up for it, which is kind of, you know, like
the whole thing of an abuser. I'd get a horse for Christmas
or, you know, I'd get a new car when I was 16.

(42:22):
Not a new car, but new to me. Where was that energy for me?
I never got a pony. Well, there's, you know, I, I
only had it for like a year and then stuff happened.
But no, I mean that that's what would happen it, it was either
you're getting beat or you're being disappointed or some,
something like that, or you get a big gift all of a sudden.

(42:45):
I I think the to jade when my birthday has had something.
Right. Facts.
In fact, my perspective, Lance, in observing my experience and
his and, and a lot of other folks I've known, I think
there's sort of this Venn diagram where neglect and
abandonment and religious, this abuse kind of intersect, right?
And it's sort of the way I conceptualize this in my mind is

(43:07):
I think something that happened.You have a parent that's really,
really heavily involved in religion.
I think the deity in this case, you know, the Christian God
comes in to be sort of the universal parent.
And from their perspective, it'slike, well, I'm not AI may be
lacking as a parent, but God, right?
So instead of sitting with my child and helping them process

(43:29):
their feelings, I'm going to pray for my child and that'll be
the answer. Or instead of taking my child to
routine medical appointments, we're going to pray for them to
be healed. Oh yeah, it's like, how do you,
how can you say I'm not loving my child?
I'm providing them with a path to eternal life so we can be
together for others. So really on earth, it really
doesn't matter as long as they're right with God.

(43:51):
Right. And I love them enough to do the
hard things. I love them enough to discipline
them with corporal punishment. I love them enough to take them
away from being able to be, you know, going to the school where
their friends are. I wanted to play sports as a
little girl very, very, very much.
I wanted to play sports and I couldn't play sports because
those sports involved wearing pants or shorts or whatever, and

(44:14):
I couldn't wear a long denim skirt.
How kind of abuse is that to an adolescent that, you know, a
kid? The fact that everybody else
that you know, are doing these normal Brady Bunch things that
you can't do. You're you're totally out of the
loop. And I feel like, you know, with
the whole church school, then you go to then you have

(44:35):
religious colleges. They don't want you to associate
with the world because of the spirit of the world might
overtake you. Well, number one, you should be
shielded with the armor of God. So you should be good to go.
But what they're really worried about is you getting educated,
you learning, having different experiences.
I was listening to one guy say that, you know, he was raised

(44:57):
it's apology of the law podcast.Sorry, the podcast, he was
saying he was raised a Mennoniteand that, you know, in
Saskatchewan, so this real sheltered environment and he
went to work for George Lucas onthe Star Wars films, moved to
San Francisco and got to meet all kinds of different people.
And he was like, I met my first openly gay person and they

(45:18):
weren't evil, they didn't have horns.
They were like, you know, the nicest people I met.
So I think that there's a real fear too, of having your
children go out into the quote, UN quote world and finding out
out that people are people and there's a lot of nice people.
There's a lot of bad people. And then also learning that this
thing they told me about the year, you know, Earth being 6000

(45:38):
years old, that's not true. Just getting educated.
They're terrified of education and truth is not afraid of
questions. Remember that, kids?
Right, right. Well, and, and here's the point
too, is that, you know, whether it's the chicken or the egg,
religious systems like that tendto operate in very black and
white thinking. And the world is not black and
white and nuance is not something that fundamentalism

(46:01):
does well. That's why it's called
fundamentalism. And there's not a lot of room
for nuance. So when you start bringing in
that abstract level of thought, it's a threat, it's perceived as
a threat. And you know, kind of going back
to something that you mentioned a huge issue for me.
And I don't know if I'd rank this as abuse, but it's
certainly been place of isolation that I've felt in my

(46:25):
life. All of my peers grew up watching
Star Wars and ET and you know, Goonies and like all these kind
of music or movies, they, that was their sort of cultural
bedrock. And when I'm around a group of
my peers and they kind of start reminiscing about their
childhood and they'll be like, Oh, remember that when you saw

(46:45):
Star Wars or remember that line from ET or but, and I'm like,
no, I've never seen it. And 99% of the cultural
touchstones from my time, I either haven't seen or I've
tried to go back as an adult and, and, you know, revisit
them. But there's an element of the,
of the mystery and the magic that's lost when you're viewing
something in your 40s as opposedto when you're 8.

(47:06):
And that's just, for me, always been such a place of isolation
is I do not have those same cultural experiences as a huge
group of my peers. And that's sort of how it feels.
And I'm just curious, did you guys experience that aspect of
it as well? No, thank God, because I'm a big
nerd and somehow I managed to gosee Return of the Jedi in the

(47:31):
movies when I was a kid. Wow.
Because I had one aunt and unclein particular, and for some
reason my parents let me go. I don't know, I.
Played my parents. My parents were big out of town
Christians. You could do things out of town
that you couldn't do in town. That is we I had that too.
That's how I saw a Terminator with my parents when I was a
kid. Gosh.

(47:53):
You know what? Speaking of that, our.
Mother, our mother actually tookme on a road trip TI was 12.
I'll Oh my God, I just core memory unlocked and she let me
buy I want it more than anythingfrosty bubble gum pink nail
Polish and she let me I'll neverforget it was in like a little
heart-shaped bottle. Bonnie Bell and I got the nail
Polish and then we went to go see who framed Roger Rabbit in

(48:15):
the movies, which I was like what is happening?
And I saw my parents get in a hot tub with with family
members, but still in swimsuits in a hot tub.
And they drank a wine cooler. My dad drank a wine cooler.
And I was like, my world is dissimilar.
I don't know what's going on. And I remember at that time
thinking like, so are these rules geographical or?

(48:37):
Yeah, that's, that's what helps with you as a kid, you're told
these hard and fast and well, like you were saying these black
and white rules and when you're told those as a kid and then
they go outside the black and white rules, you're like, what
the hell? But anyway, no, I did not.
So what you were saying growing up, I did miss a lot of stuff,
movies and stuff like that, but I would go and spend the night

(48:58):
with people specifically on likeFriday night so I could watch
Dukes of Hazzard. Don't get all on me with
political correct stuff. It was awesome back then, but I
did like, have friends and I would go over.
And that's another sad thing too, is when I'd go over there,
I would just want to watch TV. Yeah, you know.

(49:19):
But. Or we'd rent ATV when I.
We'd rent one for like big football games.
How is that OK? I if you got sick mom would go
rent ATV and you could watch TV and rent videos.
That's crazy. But we couldn't watch Star Wars
because that was demonic. ET was demonic.
Really. I just wanted to watch The
Smurfs and Cubert and Jim, who was truly outrageous.

(49:43):
And if you know, you know Jim and the holograms.
My God. Jim.
I wanted so bad to watch Jim andthe holograms.
Anything like that was you couldn't do.
Even though there were people inour church that were elders and
stuff like that that had TV's, we couldn't do it.
So yeah, we we lost out on a lot.
I know for sure no, but I would have liked to have had some of

(50:05):
those cultural references and, and I do want to go back just
really quickly quickly and touchon neglect because I see this
happen a lot. And it's there's also a
generational shift. You know, we are as a generation
much more hands on parents than our parents were.
I think we're much more heavily aware and invested in our
children's mental health and their social, when I say social

(50:25):
skills, I'm not just talking about writing thank you notes,
but their ability to integrate into social settings and find
comfort and to know their boundaries.
And like we're much more aware of that.
And I do want to acknowledge there is a generational
difference. However, there's a lot of things
to like parents not carrying insurance, not taking their
children for regular medical anddental check UPS because it's

(50:47):
just not part of the culture. If you're working in ministry
and you're working sort of an adhoc ministry, meaning you're not
part of a larger denomination that that gives you a salary and
a benefits package, but largely like Pentecostal non
denominational type settings. You're working on tips.
Right, you are. And and we didn't have insurance

(51:08):
growing up. So we had someone who worked for
a Doctor Who went to our church.We didn't have insurance and I
remember being so very aware of that as a child.
Same with dental care. You know, we didn't have the
budget for, for dental care. In fact, T our grandparents paid
for your braces because they wanted you to have, you know, to
have braces and. I had a jacked up mouth yo.

(51:29):
I just had a sassy mouth. But but you know, like there's a
lot of that type of neglect and and the the responsibility is
put on God, right? Like we'll take it.
You're feeling sick. We'll pray for you.
And by the same token, a lot of the raising of the children,
it's like God is the invisible parent.
So we're doing God's work because we're in ministry as the

(51:51):
parents, right? So you as the child are going to
be given to whomever can keep their eye on you in the church
while we're busy. And because that we're doing
righteous things for God, we're going to assume that God is.
And that goes to the umbrella ofprotection.
And so of course the children are going to be protected from
harm and they're not going to have abuse happen to them

(52:11):
because the family is following God.
And newsflash, that doesn't work.
And there is sort of a benign neglect even even educationally,
we don't need to teach you all the things that you would need
to know to go out into the worldbecause A Christ is returning
any moment now and it will be the end of the world.
So who needs a four O 1K or a college fund because it's going

(52:32):
to be the end of days. And so it's like all of those
things sort of accumulate together and they create this
system where neglect and abuse overlap and then the financial
abuse of that children aren't provided for in financial ways.
We're not taught financial literacy, which, you know,
that's something now in my 40s. I'm trying to sit there and make

(52:53):
sense of that because also as a woman, when I then did get
married to someone who is in that tradition, even though I
was earning and bringing money to the table, he as the man of
the house ran the finances and had the final financial say.
So it wasn't until I was 38 years, 37 years old that I had a
bank account in my name. You know, I had to kind of go
and learn all those skills. Whereas I think in the past that

(53:16):
mindset would have been the Lordwill provide, you know, and, and
even now my parents are pushing 80 and they're in extremely
precarious financial situations.And their mindset is, well, God
will make a way, God will provide.
I have a friend who came from a different background and going
to her house and just hearing conversations at the dinner
table where they're talking about, you know, investing in

(53:39):
this thing or that thing, or it's just a whole different
mindset in that regard. I didn't even know what to do
for college, how to do anything.I did it all myself, actually
showed up drunk at my SAT. Still got into college.
Right. But that all goes to neglect
when you're not told college is an option and you can have
opportunities when you're not presented, when you're not

(54:02):
presented with with the tools tounderstand how to finance
college or what does compound interest mean in terms of a
student loan. The only thing that you're
taught about interest is 10%. Right.
And it goes to the Big House. And you give 10%?
So the flip side of that experience is I went to college
with my mom when I started goingto college well.

(54:25):
That's right. Was that she was like a
helicopter parent. It's, I'm telling you, it's the
her own upbringing and the amount of abuse it did
definitely created that environment for me.
But because I went to church school, I graduated early and
they let me go to junior collegewhen I was 15 and so I couldn't
drive. So my mom went and everyone

(54:45):
thought we were brother and sister.
And that was annoying to me, butshe loved it.
I bet. But for for me it was always
that lack of a peer group. I just never had a peer group
growing up. I was always expected to act
more adult and hang out with theadults especially being the only
child just sucked. Fortunately, because of that, I

(55:07):
mean, now my dad, his parents did not pay for college because
of that very reason. There's no need.
The end of the world's coming. There's no need for spending all
that money. So he missed out on an
education. But for some reason, I was able
to get it. Like that was important to my
parents that I went to college. They didn't have money for it,
but we were poor because we werein ministry.

(55:29):
And so grant money was amazing back then, Pell Grants that paid
for my college for the longest time.
So I lucked out in that way. And it's interesting that you
talked about, well, there are some nuances, but like my
grandparents, my grandmother ranthe money and I don't know how
it happened, but she was just better with it.
And so my grandfather allowed her.

(55:50):
And we had a bit of a matriarchyin that sense when it came to
money. And I don't know why that is,
because it is counterintuitive given the patriarchy religion
that we grew up in. But he, my grandfather, just
didn't want to mess with the money and she was good at it, so
that helped. My dad, my dad paid the bills.
I mean, my mom paid the bills, yeah.
For sure, yeah. But Dad made the decisions.

(56:11):
Yeah, well, true. Yeah, but I think, I think Dad
looked at that as secretary's work, you know, writing checks
and doing bills. He goes and makes the money,
right? Right, right.
Well, I was going to say anything that's grunt, but we
also have to say pause. Our father has an undiagnosed
raging case of ADHD, which mighthave also facilitated mom's

(56:33):
activities there. But no.
And I mean, if you look at it and how it plays out now, like
financial abuse is so rampant inthe church and especially when
you get into the idea of the mega church or the televangelist
and, you know, prosperity gospel, which we touched on a
little bit last, by the way, we missed you, Lance.
Welcome back. All right.
Thank you. Glad.
To have you glad you had a breakbut we we did miss you very much

(56:56):
well just. Think about like when we had the
revival for a whole year and people who came to that and I
think we're our family was probably the only ones that were
there every night. But there were a lot of.
Family a lot, by the way, and I was going.
To say, Lance, you were there too.
That. Was the one your family?
Not every night, but I do remember that.
But there were a lot of familiesthat were, you know, expected to

(57:18):
be when they are there to give. And we didn't, you know, it
wasn't a rich church as far as the the congregants were
concerned. I mean, these we were like, and
I think most churches are, they're like the Statue of
Liberty gives you're tired, you're poor and you're hungry.
Have those are the people in your church and you're praying
on them. You know, Hey, you know, God

(57:39):
need God wants you, God loves you, but we really need money
and we need your money every time.
And what did they do with that money?
Like what did your church do with that money besides have
church and pay the pastor? Did you feed the hungry?
Did you clothe the homeless? Did you?
We didn't do any of that. Well, you know, to that into
there's this whole touching backon where we came from.

(58:00):
The love offering was very prevalent and it was the idea
that you kind of have to sing for your supper, right?
And last week we touched on miracles in the supernatural and
if you could have a ministry where you had some sort of and
forgive me, I don't mean any disrespect, but with there was
an element of showmanship. You're going to get a bigger
love offering and you're going to get a bigger crowd, right.

(58:20):
So that in and of itself kind ofcreates an ethical dilemma of
where does the show stop being aA and where is it intentionally
and valid and real and all thoseother things.
But moving into where we are nowin this kind of modern iteration
of that, there are churches thatdo some things as far as out
work outreach and and you know, that's great and that's to be

(58:41):
commended. However, I attended a pretty
wealthy church. My last churching experience.
It was a large church in a largechurch and had a lot of
connections to other. Like think of some of the
largest churches in the United States that you would think of
that would be on TV and they were part of those networks.
And every single sermon had somesort of a financial push.

(59:02):
And if it wasn't for a special topic, you know, we're, we're
raising money for we want to broadcast on this other channel.
We're raising money because we want to build an addendum or do
this thing or that thing. It was the implied idea of this
relationship that your blessingsare related to the seed you sow
and that seed is always financial.

(59:23):
And so if you are attending a service and let's say that the
the push of that particular service is talking about your
marriage and relationships and having you're in a bad situation
and you want God to heal your marriage or to bring your
wayward child home or whatever the point of the sermon could
be, it could be the most altruistic thing you can think
of. The end of it is going to wrap

(59:44):
up like this, and the way you establish that faith
relationship with God is branch out.
Sow a seed. Sow a seed of faith.
Right now, plant. I don't care if it's $5 or 100,
but 1000 is better. But go ahead and plant that seed
and watch God match your faith. Let God show off.
How many times have you heard this right?

(01:00:04):
Let God take over in your life. Give him the reins by you
showing that you trust Him by getting this.
And it's always money. It's always money, sow a seed
and get the reward. And you know, frankly, I told
I've shared this many times, butthat was really the first pull
of the thread of my unraveling as I'm like this feels so
transactional. This feels like such a slot

(01:00:26):
machine algorithm. I don't think that if there is a
God, he and or she and or they operate under the pretext of pay
the price and ride the ride right.
That can't. Where is there space for
compassion and healing and graceand all these things that we
preach from? If at the end of the day, the
nuts and bolts are you have to sow a financial seed to prove

(01:00:48):
something, to get something in return.
And that type of financial extortion, in my opinion, has
been happening since the jump. But when you add in elements of
televangelism, which by the way,rest in peace, Jimmy Swaggart
and all of those words that I won't say right, But I mean, you
know, when you get the Robert Tilton's and the the praying

(01:01:08):
over the envelopes and, and we could just list down the line so
many people to where now you have entire nouveau theology
that's based on this idea that you're showing off of your
riches is not showing off because it's demonstrating how
the Lord has favored you, right?You're blessed and highly
favored of the Lord. If you have a new car and you've
got a new house and God's given you XYZ thing, it's because

(01:01:31):
it's, it's a demonstration of the Lord's favor with you.
And so that's become such a point of exploitation,
especially with the elderly, youknow, or people that do have
challenges and and people that are in a desperate situation.
Look who plays scratch offs, right?
People who play the lottery are people who are in desperate
needs of those dollars that they're putting into the lottery

(01:01:52):
system with very little hope of winning.
And it's the same type of dynamic.
You have people that have major financial needs that are giving
into churches or giving to evangelists or giving to
ministries with the belief that they're going to have not the
money recognized so much, but have that faith seed recognized
and then God will favor and prosper them.
And that can become abusive very, very quickly.

(01:02:15):
It has it's, it's cost people their lives.
It's cost people their houses. I mean, they're, they've been
grifted and those people, they just don't care.
They have no compassion. They keep on doing it.
They've been busted for being the grifters that they are, and
they've just kept on going. I felt a little removed from, I

(01:02:35):
don't know, the televangelist world.
Maybe. I don't know.
I haven't tracked too much of that over the last decade or
more. I don't know, For the last
decade or more, I'm more concerned about Fox News than I
am team. You know, I don't know, Somehow
I haven't been connected to folks that have been so immersed

(01:02:59):
in into that particular vein of prosperity gospel.
I mean, we grew up in ministry. I did not feel that prosperous,
by the way, no. No, none of us were prosperous.
What did not translate at our household, unfortunately or
fortunately, it's probably better, right?
But I mean, there was certainly a period of my life, I have

(01:03:20):
extended family members that usethe seed and they're very
affluent. And I told a cousin of mine one
time, like, I feel like your message is to rich people
because he was convinced. I'm giving this message to help
poor people so that they can become more fluent.

(01:03:40):
I'm like, so your whole message is to give to get and, and
honestly, this broke down our relationship even before I came
out, which is probably a good thing, but because we just kind
of see eye to eye on that. So, so that's the only place
that I've experienced that is, is just in that familial
environment. Beyond that, I haven't
necessarily encountered too manypeople giving up their

(01:04:04):
livelihood to televangelist or to ministries, although I do
know it exists. I know elder abuse exists.
I know scams exist not just in religion but emails and texts
and like all kinds of things. Spam that is very problematic
actually. Or during the COVID when and the
church that the last church thatI attended had already moved to

(01:04:24):
this when they started streamingservices online, but they
actually had a donate, donate button at the bottom that, you
know, you can just give online and give your pay your tithes
online. And you know, my last church
experience was a large church inMiami and Miami in and of itself
has its own dynamic of appearance based phenomena.

(01:04:45):
We'll leave it at that. But this particular church was
really heavily connected with like the Joel Osteen and Paula
White and Saddleback Church. And I think of them as
Pentecostal roots, but non denominational flowers, if that
makes sense. They became very what's called
seeker friendly. So everything, again, this was a
point of frustration for me. Everything kind of came

(01:05:07):
distilled down to like the sermons were sort of like what
you would find in an Oprah magazine. 10 points to a better
life, you know, 4 points to connecting with your family and
they'd be framed through these cherry picked gospel.
But then at the end, there's always the push of if you want
these words to take root in yourlife, then you have to step out

(01:05:28):
in faith. And the way that you demonstrate
that is by selling a financial seed and the way that that
becomes conflated for people. Again, pointing to my own
experience with my husband. My first husband was a former
military personnel and he had extreme PTSD and mental health
issues and just some some real tragic things that he was

(01:05:49):
working through that of course affected our family at large.
And he wanted so badly to find healing and relief for those
things that were troubling and tearing apart our family that
when they would preach that message.
And I mean, this man was a well educated, he had an Ivy League
master's degree. He was by no means
disenfranchised in that in that aspect, but that look really got

(01:06:12):
into him to where he thought he could give his way out of his
mental health issues and give his way out of some of the chaos
that we were facing in our life.To the point that he would tithe
over and above from a position that left our family in a place
of need. And then when I did go to our
our personal, as I've mentioned,that colored the advice that I

(01:06:33):
was given from a financial perspective.
And, you know, I always look at it from the end of if that's
what happened to somebody who had all the tools and education
at their disposal, what's happening to people who are in
points of desperation that trulymay not be able to sit with that
and kind of parse out the truth versus fiction from that

(01:06:55):
circumstance? Yeah.
I I had a hard time with the giving.
I can never give enough as far as like even to get to 10%.
I remember this being a point ofstress for me because I was
always trying to get to 10% and I couldn't do it.
And and then when I started having kids, it was hard for me
to take money and give to the church when I know that our

(01:07:20):
family, our growing family at the time needed it.
The more kids I had, it's like Ihad less money and I struggled
with that and I even talked to people about it.
But fortunately I was in church environments that were not as
greedy as kind of what I'm hearing and say like they were
like, just get what you can. Like because see.
What happens it? Becomes, becomes a point of I

(01:07:43):
think and having been really close to the pastoral circles in
that world and, and the folks that kind of become involved in
leadership in that way, it becomes almost a merit badge of
how well the pastor is doing, right.
So when they get amongst their pastor friends, it's not enough
to just say, well, we've had this many people come to the

(01:08:05):
Lord and this many baptisms and you know, whatever the case may
be, but it's like, no, we are blessed and highly favored of
the Lord and we are driving up in our brand new matching his
and hers escalades. I'm not exaggerating.
And we are living in our multimillion dollar house that,
by the way, is in the church's name.
So we don't pay taxes and the church payroll pay, right.

(01:08:27):
So, but that becomes a way of demonstrating amongst other
pastors how close to God we are because of how successful we are
and. Score with money, not souls
anymore. Right.
Well, that becomes the measuringstick.
And look at where we are as a country, where now even in
leadership and, you know, some would say oligarchical people

(01:08:47):
involved in government areas, wecan overlook as a culture, we
can overlook misbehavior becauseclearly they're prospering
financially and that must mean the blessing of God is upon
them, right? It doesn't take too many steps
for that math to math if you're in that no.
No, I I hear you. I've I've seen it having family
members that are affluent and going to church with them.

(01:09:08):
I have seen people fall over themselves to try to ease and
like it's it's there. I do understand them.
It's a point of exploitation ultimately, I think is, you
know, we wrap up our conversation.
You could frame it all up in theumbrella of it's exploitation
and it's exploitation being doneto vulnerable people in the name

(01:09:29):
of God. And what broader definition of
religious abuse could there be? Whether that's shifting the way
a child approaches the world andembedding terrors and fears at
too young of an age by exposing them to things they shouldn't be
exposed to content wise. Or telling a child that you were
so bad that somebody had to die so you could be saved.

(01:09:51):
Or trying to manipulate behaviors.
Or to blame the victim when theydo come forward with it.
And it makes you just feel like you don't matter as a person at
all. Well, and I mean when you're
kind of taught that it's think of, think of the for me, it
always goes back to music. Think how many lyrics in songs
that we're taught or that we sang, especially the old hymns.

(01:10:13):
Maybe not. Well, no.
Even some of the more modern thechurch music, it all operates
out of this perspective of I'm bad, I don't know anything.
It's a root belief that I've hadto deal with.
The statement that he said aboutnot mattering, I don't matter.
Like that's been a therapy belief that I've had to
continually try to uproot out ofmy belief system.

(01:10:36):
And don't you think being children of a pastors, there's a
special layer to that or a secondary layer to that?
Because even if you matter a little bit, you still don't
matter when the rubber meets theroad and the church members
needs to happen first, right? Like in the larger context of
the God Plex, as it were, Like you've got how little you matter

(01:10:58):
just in that system, but then you add to it that that can
create some very complicated land to traverse.
It is, yeah. And you're taught it in the
Bible when Abraham. Boy, am I getting this right.
Did I remember this shit stuff? You're right.
When? Abraham took Isaac off and was
going to kill him because God told him to.
You know, that's that's the thing, you know, we were taught

(01:11:21):
that Bible story and your parents are like looking at you
like, Yep, I'd kill you dude if God told me to.
Well, but but no, but that's theimplication.
And I remember that story. You talk about things that
terrified you to that one terrified me.
Or there's another one. I believe it's the Sodom and
Gomorrah story where, you know, there were people trying to do

(01:11:41):
malevolent things, as it were. And one of the characters of the
story offered up his daughters and was like, here, take my
virgin daughters and be satisfied.
You know, and I am very much related to that story being non
essential and you know, kind of being taught like you're not
special, It's the God in you that's special, right?
And you're only special if you follow the rules and you're only

(01:12:04):
worthy if you follow the rules. And the way that that shapes
your psyche, what's not overtly taught is meant to be kind of
covertly caught. There's a lot of implication
there that you're better if you don't need, you're better if you
don't want, you're better if youdon't strive, right.
But accepting what the Lord has given you and being joyful and

(01:12:24):
content in that is, is a type ofdivinity.
And that doesn't really shake out so well when you realize
that no, you need to know how tohave boundaries and you need to
be able to have a voice and ask for what you need.
You're supposed to have faith, and faith is and tell me if I
get this wrong. The absence of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.Hebrews.

(01:12:45):
There you go. So get everything you need from
God, right? I mean, that's right.
So. Well, what's funny to me is
faith is basically hope, right? Hope with good intentions.
But how many times have you heard it back in the Obama days?
Hope is not a plan. Well, hope was our parents plan.
Hope was our parents retirement plan.

(01:13:06):
Hope was, you know, faith. That's faith.
God's going to take care of us. So it's really ironic that some
of the things that Christianity poo poos on now, hope is not a
plan. Cancel culture.
Religion's the original cancel culture.
True. It's just funny how they project
a lot. Christians tend to project a

(01:13:27):
lot. And to the to the last point on
that, just fundamentally, when you are told overtly or covertly
that your identity is shameful or wrong or sinful, whether
that's, you know, identifying asas LGBTQ and not having support
from that and hearing those messages that you know, that's
wrong or shameful. Or as a woman, I can say from my

(01:13:50):
experience, just having a body body as a woman is wrong.
Whatever you may do, that may beby, by the the ruling class of
manhood in that world, like objectified and seen as lustful
or anything of that ilk. Or let's not even talk about the
lustful. Let's talk about your
domineering woman. You're an assertive woman and

(01:14:11):
you get called having a Jezebel spirit, right?
You're trying. To nobody ever says a man has an
Ahab spirit. But there you go, right?
I can't. It's me talking about the Bible.
Look at you, you remember more than you thought a.
Plus I've been watching way too many videos.
But it comes back and you know, frankly, I have a little bit of
resentfulness for the mental real estate that has been

(01:14:32):
occupied by beliefs. I never Co signed on, but I I'll
just say like as a woman, I see myself in parenting, my
daughters being it. It comes out like you were
saying Lance things that I thinkthat I have let go of and I find
myself having to sit there and say to myself, OK, well no, I
don't want my kid running aroundhalf naked.
But how do I phrase this in a way where it doesn't imply that

(01:14:54):
their body is an instrument of sin?
There's so many levels of being told that your identity is wrong
and then having to unpack that as you grow.
Can understand. Yeah, no, like.
Something that that is as natural to you as, you know,
heterosexual sex is to me that that something is wrong with

(01:15:17):
you. You know that who you love is
wrong in our culture. That's been, you know, around
that. But then you throw the religion
on top of that. And like, so you had two
different things to deal with with your parents.
Number one, just tell your parents because they're your
parents where we lived in the Deep South.
You know, that's kind of a thing.
But then you throw the religion on top of that, their sons going
to hell and then they throw thaton to you.

(01:15:38):
You know, that's how are you must still just be dealing with
that. And but how you got through that
and the abuse, the, the mental abuse that that that puts on to
you that even if they're not thinking, they're doing that,
they're thinking they're doing the right thing, but they're
actually hurting you. And they don't know it and.
That's hard. Yeah, it is because I if they
really knew, I don't think they could do it, but but I I do

(01:16:02):
appreciate that. I just, it does for folks with
sexuality. It does foster just such a level
of self hate because no one really wants to be gay.
We would much rather fit in and just be heteronormative and not
have to deal with the lonelinessthat comes from it.
Just not wanting to be yourself.You know, there's some, there's

(01:16:24):
a lot tied in there that that's just really hard to reverse.
It's hard to reverse, but it's aprocess.
I'm still working on it. I had therapy today.
I have therapy every week. Good for you.
But he, he just, and I was kind of thinking about just the
massive amount of things that I kind of have to process in order
to heal from. And he's basically, you know,

(01:16:46):
it's not quite that linear because I'm like, I feel like I
was going to take the rest of mylife because I spent half my
life, you know, over 40 years inthat state and dealing with it.
You know, how do I overcome that?
He's like, well, it's, it's not linear, it's a process.
And he was just trying to give me some encouragement on that,
on that front. I feel like in some of the
therapy I've had, I've I've had breakthroughs and then I've gone

(01:17:09):
back, you know, and then I've gone forward and then I've gone
back. Just try not I I myself just try
not to fall into those same mindtraps that make me fall back and
try to learn from. But it's it's a journey.
Well, you know how I kind of sumit up and to be cheesy, I said I
didn't get to watch much television in my childhood, but

(01:17:29):
I do remember GI Joe informing us all that knowing is half the
battle, right? And for me, that sort of been
them kind of like, because I have my own views on things like
grief and and healing. I I don't think they're linear.
I think we want them to be linear so that we can mark how
far we come and see how far is left to go right.

(01:17:49):
But in my experience, they function much, much more like a
spiral. And sometimes you move up that
spiral and sometimes you move down that spiral, right?
But I think that one of the things that got taken from us in
our experience in our youth and childhood is the power of naming
things and calling them what they are.
And when you cloak things under,Oh no, that's not someone being

(01:18:11):
abusive or that's not the fact that we've taken someone into
our home who we didn't vet properly and now we have a
reforming addict living in our house.
Guest preachers or whatever we've had come in that feel like
they're called by God to be a pastor and now they're harming
me. We're not going to call it that.
We're just going to say that thedevil is tormenting you and, and

(01:18:32):
we cloak things sort of under that.
We lose the power of language and there is power in names.
And I think that the benefit of where we are now and hopefully
what things like this, this podcast can do is help give
people the encouragement and awareness to call things as they
are, use the right words. It wasn't just that we had some

(01:18:54):
challenges. We, we endured spiritual and
emotional abuse and neglect and,and physical and sexual abuse
and you know those things and call them what they are.
And I think that as we continue to do that in perpetuity,
unhooks us from the chains of the language that we were given,
which is a very self blaming type of language.

(01:19:15):
And it's a very nebulous kind oflanguage.
It wasn't those things. It was abuse.
And we can call it like it is and we can name it and then we
can begin to see it. And then we can begin to
recognize those patterns within ourselves.
With myself, whether I'm actively choosing, do I want to
engage in self harming thought, meaning continuing to think in
ways that hurt me about things that happened to me, or do I

(01:19:37):
want to continue to not have a boundary that to me is where the
healing happens. And also by naming it, I was
just thinking by naming it, you can also unlock some things to
help process. Because by identifying it, like
you said, let you be angry at it.
Like sometimes I need to feel angry about a long but in order
to get past it. And if you're in constant

(01:19:59):
denial, you never even get to take those steps.
And also your power of anger, what some might even call
righteous indignation, is stolenfrom you when the onus of
forgiveness is put back on you. It's kind of like putting a
Band-Aid on a dirty wound. Yes, you've put a Band-Aid on
it. You don't see it anymore, but
the infection is still festering.
And and sometimes the process ofgetting rid of that is not a

(01:20:20):
pretty process, you know. So it's avoidant, they're just,
I see a lot of avoidance in my family by its statements like
that. Well dude, let's just pray about
it. Aren't we like the hands and
feet of Jesus? We like actually engage and talk
and do things and do productive things and learn and use the
knowledge that God gave us to understand and understand our

(01:20:42):
psychology? And I mean just so many things.
Right. Well, that reminds me of faith
without works is dead. You know, you can have all the
faith you want to, but if you don't do something, you know
that and you're like a Bible because that again goes back to
it's you that are doing, it's doing it.

(01:21:03):
It's not God, it's you. You're strong enough to do it
yourself. Sorry, I didn't mean to
interrupt you. You're the Bible, man.
He's the Bible man. That's your new nickname.
We're getting you a Jersey Bibleman.
But but no, that's that's a goodpoint is I think that the
healing starts where the passivevoice ends and the active voice

(01:21:23):
begins right where you can sort of stop and you have to get some
tools first, but where you can stop the offloading of your
emotional and mental well-being into the axioms and kind of pick
that up. Even if it's with baby strength.
You pick that up and you recognize I am the architect of
my life and I choose those two words for me are so powerful.

(01:21:44):
I choose if you're in that situation right now, if you're
being financially abused, if youhave a spouse that will not let
you have any access to your finances or control, or you have
a church that's trying to take your money or tell you that you
have to buy your way into blessings, as we always say,
you're not alone. There are resources that can
help you. And you know, always we advocate

(01:22:05):
for therapy. But if you're not in a place
where you're comfortable or ableto find therapy, Lance
mentioned, you know, adult children of Alcoholics.
It's not just for Alcoholics. It applies to any system of
dysfunction. Thank you for joining us.
And again, if you feel like thatwe brought any merit to the
situations which we discussed, please feel free to like, share,

(01:22:27):
and subscribe so that we can continue to broaden our reach,
get our voice out there. Join us on Reddit, let us know
your thoughts, feel free to share your experiences.
Because ultimately, our goal here is not to just hear
ourselves talk. It is to build a community and a
safe space where we can share our unique experiences from this
world we grew up in. So thanks for joining us.

(01:22:48):
Yeah, later. Thank you.
Have a good one later.

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