April 16, 2024 • 36 mins
This episode is part 2 of the conversation that Amy Fritz and Melissa Hogan started in the previous episode. Amy shares more of what she was seeing in Ramsey Solutions that felt very similar to news of scandal with other Christian ministries and leaders. In this conversation Melissa and Amy talk about over two dozen resources they found helpful in recognizing and processing abusive and/or unhealthy organizations, understanding the hurdles whistle-blowers have to telling the truth, and the voices that gave them courage to speak up.
You can find the full list of resources at the podcast website: Untangled Faith Podcast
Links:
Boz Tchividjian, Abuse Survivor Advocate/Attorney
Diane Langberg: Narcissism and the System it Breeds
Find us here:
Instagram: Amy Fritz Untangled Faith
Website: Untangled Faith
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey there. Longtime listeners may already know that I am no longer creating
new podcast episodes, but instead of leaving this feed without anything
new, I've decided to replay some of my favorite episodes.
This episode I'm resharing today is one that I initially published in June of
2021. It's part two of two episodes where I talk with
Melissa Hogan about how we realized we were part of an unhealthy
(00:22):
organization. In this episode, we also share a. Huge list
of resources we have found. Helpful and in this journey. Thanks so much
for listening. If you want
to understand how abuse can go under the radar for
a very long time and how people cannot
realize that something is abuse, how abusers
(00:44):
work and how cover ups work and
how things can remain hidden for so long is
really similar in all of those contexts.
God does not want dark things
to remain hidden. I knew at some point I don't want to be one of
those people that knows something and never says anything. I just didn't know what the
(01:06):
timing was.
This is Amy Fritz, and you're listening to untangled
faith, a podcast for anyone who has found themselves
confused or disillusioned in their faith journey.
If you want to hold on to your faith while untangling it from
all the things that are not good and true, this
(01:29):
is the place for you.
Welcome to episode nine of untangled faith. Today
I'm sharing the second part of my conversation that I had with Melissa
Hogan. So if you have not listened to that one, I'll wait here for
you while you pause this episode and listen to that one.
(01:50):
Last week, a friend asked me if I was planning to share more
specifically about the things I was seeing in white american evangelical
culture that gave me red flags about Ramsay solutions.
What was it about the fall of hybels and McDonald that seemed
familiar? What were those flashes that screamed
danger to me? What was it Diane Langberg said
(02:12):
that I didn't want to see? I'm not afraid to share about our
experience with Ramsey solutions, but I want to do it in a way that is
most helpful and relevant to you. I don't want to
distract from the point of this, particularly the goals of the
last episode in this one, which were to share with you news and
resources, which we believe can help anyone be a part of helping create
(02:34):
a healthy community, and that provide a framework that
could help pinpoint if you're in a place that isn't healthy.
And we want to share resources that we would include in what
our friend Lauren refers to as the spiritual abuse recovery
starter pack. Filtering my experience through that lens is
how I've landed on a few things I want to share. These are some of
(02:57):
the key flashpoints I experienced that I had to grapple with in our time with
Ramsey solutions. The first one is one I didn't mention last
week. It was in the fall of either 2012 or
2013. Dave had shared an article that was on the
daveramsey.com website, and it listed things that
rich people did. The implication was that by doing these
(03:19):
things, one could have a better chance of becoming wealthy. That list
created a huge pushback on social media. Several
authors wrote articles or blog posts raising their concerns
regarding the findings of the survey. One person who
wrote about it was Sean Groves. He had some questions about their research
methodology and if I recall correctly, I commented that I
(03:41):
too had some questions. I saw correlation in the
list, but I didn't see evidence of causation.
Who knew that my social science research methods class from college
would come in so handy? It wasn't long after I commented that it
became clear that the controversy wasn't going away, and
Dave's response to it on the air and on social media was
(04:03):
to mock some of the people who disagreed with him. I remember
Nathan mentioning that Dave talked about it a bit in a team meeting.
I was sick to my stomach. I was so afraid that someone in
leadership would see what I wrote online and that Nathan would lose his
job. I was terrified. Even though I knew I hadn't
done anything wrong. This was a huge red flag that I
(04:26):
should have paid attention to. Instead, I decided to
censor anything I said online that might even remotely disagree
with Dave or Ramsay's solutions. I unfollowed people who
questioned him. I muted terms on Twitter. I did not
want to deal with the anxiety that came when I saw people try to question
Dave in good faith and watch him respond by blocking
(04:49):
them. Another flashpoint happened in 2016 when I
watched the Diane Langberg video, narcissism and the system
it breeds. I mentioned it last episode and I shared how I
had Nathan watch it and then how he said that it sounded like
Ramsay. So what had Diane Langberg said?
Well, one of the quotes I wrote down was a group or
(05:10):
organization or church that is desperate for hope becomes
blind and susceptible to those coming to be their savior. We are
vulnerable to those who promise bigger and better and say it's
all for God. Doctor Langberg talked about how tricky narcissism could
be because it looks pretty and spiritual, and how a
narcissistic leader could feed the narcissism of a group with
(05:32):
words like, I know you. I know you want to serve God and
you want to do it in a way that no one else is. It sounds
like all the things christians are called to do, but Langberg
explained that it can often feed the need to be necessary
and better than others. One more flashpoint happened in December
of 2018. I had read the World magazine article
(05:55):
about James McDonald, written by Julie Royce. It talked about how
MacDonald had previously been charged with self promotion, love
of money, domineering, bullying,
abusive speech, and outbursts of anger by a former
elder. And it went on to say that the leadership
warned members of the church to avoid some of those that had recently
(06:17):
resigned because, in their words, were defiling many people.
It mentioned an abusive and fear based culture NDAs
of an incident when McDonald had singled out students and
called them morons, fools and stupid. I had observed
enough of Ramsay solutions and Dave over the previous seven years to
recognize Dave's actions in all of this reporting, from the
(06:40):
fear based culture, to warnings against listening to former members of the
organization, to the use of NDAs and name calling, I could check
off all these things as happening with Dave Ramsey and Ramsey
solutions. I hope that adds some clarity to last week's episode
and gives a bridge to this one. In this episode, I share the
second half of my conversation with Melissa Hogan, and we share about a lot
(07:02):
of resources we use to help us make sense of what we had been through.
And when it's all said and done, I think we talk about more than two
dozen resources that I'll have listed in detail on the podcast
website, untangledfaithpodcast.com
dot. Here's the rest of my
conversation with Melissa.
(07:22):
One of the very basic tools in domestic violence
is the Duluth wheel, the power and control wheel. And if you look at the
power and control wheel and you see ways in which interpersonal
abuse plays out, you really can have examples
about how organizational abuse, so that was a key tool for
me, is constantly going back to that power and control wheel that
(07:44):
plays out, like in the podcasts, in the books. So some of these
podcasts that I'm going to throw out, some are about
interpersonal or family abuse
or gaslighting techniques, and you'll
see that play out in an organization that consists of people.
They reflect those same behaviors. One of our favorite
(08:06):
podcasts between the both of us is something was wrong. The something
was wrong podcast was one of the first serial story style
podcasts that sucked me in season one. Tiffany Reese's
first podcast season told a gripping story of
narcissism includes lots of. Examples of gaslighting, and that is
interpersonal. So it's whether it's in a dating or marriage
(08:28):
relationship or within a family system, examples there. But
then you go look at podcasts like the
dropout or we crashed, which are
actual companies. So both the dropout and we
crashed were about companies and their
leaders and the organizational control and
(08:49):
abuse that happened within those. But you see the parallels if you're
listening to something was wrong versus we crashed.
Another great podcast that goes along with a
book was believed, and Rachel Denhollander's book,
what is a girl worth? Tells that story. If you want to
understand how abuse can go under the radar for a
(09:11):
very long time and how people cannot
realize that something is abuse, how
abusers play on people's
emotions, gaslighting, shifting the blame
and controlling a narrative. Both of those resources,
how abusers work and how cover ups
(09:33):
work, and how things can remain hidden for so
long is really similar in all of those contexts.
And going back to what we were talking about, God does not want
things to remain hidden. And there's a balance. Like I said, if we're
going to see repentance and reconciliation, obviously our
goal isn't just to put everything out there for the sake of
(09:55):
people knowing it. But God does not want
dark things to remain hidden and abuse to remain
hidden, and people continue to be hurt. God is going to expose it.
Sometimes he uses people. Yeah, sometimes he uses
reporters. Sometimes he uses supernatural means.
Julie Royce started her podcast the summer of
(10:18):
2019. That was just months after we had
left Nathan's job. One of her first podcasts was talked with some
people connected to harvest Bible chapel. What it was like to speak the truth
when nobody was listening. There was three people she interviewed,
and I took notes on that podcast. So much of it resonated because it
was a christian organization, even though it was a church and not a
(10:40):
business. Jessica Hawkett was on, and I miss her
on Twitter. So, hello, Jessica. We miss you wherever you are. She
said she really felt hurt by the people that had left along the
way at their church knowing something terrible was going on and
never said anything. I had to go back to that podcast from
Julie Royce to get the full quote just right. I discovered that
(11:02):
I'd forgotten who had said what in that conversation about
Harvest Bible Chapel and James McDonald. It was Scott Bryant
that said this. He said that it wasn't former pastor James
McDonald that hurt him. He said, the scars I walk
away with are the scars from the individuals who failed to
speak. And Jessica later said, if only the
(11:25):
leaders who left would have publicly said why they left,
she was convinced it would have made a difference. That
fell on me so heavy. I knew I needed to hear that. I
knew at some point I don't want to be one of those people that knows
something and never says anything. I just didn't know what the timing was. I was
like basically laying on the floor saying, okay, God, I don't know what this
(11:47):
is. There is something about hearing about other
stories. For example, chasing Cosby is another
podcast that I remember when the allegations
started to come out about Bill Cosby. I loved the Cosby show. I just
kind of saw it and was like, huh? I didn't investigate it enough
to know. It didn't reach me enough for me to go, okay,
(12:08):
I need to dig into this to my regret. Not that I could have
done anything, I mean, obviously, but hearing that
podcast and again, seeing how something
like that can remain hidden for so long and how
someone can appear to the world to be one
person, they appear to be one person, but in reality, in
(12:31):
private, they are another person. Watching that play out and watching the
efforts to keep something hidden and looking at the people that
are digging for the truth and trying to expose the
truth, they are doing the work of Jesus in a lot of
ways, because God does not want things to be kept in the darkness,
especially when things have gone on for a very long time. There are a lot
(12:53):
of opportunities for repentance and a lot of opportunities for
people to be reconciled to the people around them and reconciled to Jesus.
God will use people to expose, thinking. Through
what it might be like to just speak the truth
when really powerful, connected people don't want you to speak the
truth. Reading Rachel Den Hollander's book about what it
(13:15):
was like for her to speak up, but part of her story is
about speaking out against abuse in their church
denomination and the reaction to that and what they lost in
speaking the truth. That was really important for me to
help me process what could possibly happen if we speak
up about an organization or people that
(13:37):
will make other people feel uncomfortable and that other people benefit from
in the christian environment. As it turns out, it was a good thing I had
read those books because it helped us not be completely caught off
guard when Ramsay solutions leadership set up a meeting with
Nathan's new employer in an attempt to silence us.
And then also reading Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow.
(14:00):
And she said, catch and kill and she said, are two different books.
She said, it's written by the women who also reported on
Weinstein, Megan Tuhey and Jody Cantor. One of the
things that those books highlight is non disclosure, non
disparagement agreements and how they are used
to not only silence people from talking about
(14:22):
things, but to actually hide abuse and to
perpetuate abuse. When you think about that term, non
disclosure, I'll put my lawyer hat on here for a minute, because I
had used non disclosure agreements in my practice as a lawyer,
but I used them in context where people were selling a business and they
were equally represented, they had equal
(14:44):
power. Those contexts are where non
disclosure agreements come from or, you know, you have certain, you know,
intellectual property that you're transferring or you want to share with
someone and you don't want them to be able to tell other people and, you
know, destroy the value in your intellectual property. In the context of
churches or organizations using non
(15:06):
disclosure agreements and non disparagement agreements to
get people to not talk about negative things or not
talk about allegations of abuse or to pay
people off is the opposite of Jesus.
Watching the use of NDAs. And when I say
NDAs, I kind of use them all encompassing to include non disclosure
(15:29):
agreements, non disparagement agreements. That was a signature move
of abusers in these stories of Weinstein,
and that's how they were able to operate for so long.
They would sexually harass someone or abuse someone. That person
would go to HR or would complain or
disclose, and they'd say, oh, because the abuser was rich and
(15:50):
powerful. I'll pay you this amount of money to settle your legal
claim, and you're going to sign this non disclosure, non disparagement agreement.
And what people don't realize is that's not a transaction.
That's normal. It's not an equal bargaining situation
to look at these stories and realize how long these abusers had
been able to operate, much of which was through the use of
(16:13):
NDAs. People should have a flashing red
light if they are part of an organization,
especially an organization that names the name of
Christianity and uses NDAs. Melissa and I have had lots
of conversations about NDAs. I wanted to add a few things that
we didn't get to in this particular conversation. First of all, if
(16:35):
you're offered an NDA, it is within your rights and to your benefit to ask
to have the offer in writing for you to review with your spouse and a
lawyer. A healthy organization likely won't tie severance
to signing an NDA, and they certainly wouldn't object to you taking
the time to look it over before making a decision. If a
christian organization, a faith community, is
(16:57):
using the same tactics of silencing as Harvey
Weinstein. That should tell you something. It should definitely tell you something. I highly
recommend those books. They read like a thriller in some ways. It's
so good. Also catch and kill, there's some podcasts connected to that
as well. And also these books, most of them have audio versions that you
can pick up. So if you'd rather listen to something than
(17:19):
physically hold the book. But I like to hold the book. I like to underline
it, make notes, and it also, if you want to know, like, the stakes
of actually speaking up in some situations, you have to kind
of know what can happen. You need to be emotionally in a
prepared place if you're going to say something. And it also helped
me realize in many cases, you're not going to see anyone
(17:40):
change and you are going to have to brace yourself to be ready
for that or be maligned yourself. Read Rachel's book,
not to discourage you, but to give you a real realistic
understanding of what, what you're kind of up against. And if you
are not in an emotionally, physically, financially,
spiritually good place to do that, there is no obligation to do
(18:03):
some big public thing. Maybe God's calling you to speak truth
in other ways. Of course, therapy is going to help
you deal with this stuff at a higher level than reading
books. Yes, this is like junior varsity
therapy. And I will say too, that if you're going to speak up about
abuse in a christian environment, staying
(18:25):
so closely tied to Jesus is so important
because you are going to face people maligning
you. You're going to probably lose friends, you might be at
financial risk. So if you are walking this out with the
Lord and feel really confident that he's
calling you to speak about this particular thing
(18:47):
at this particular time, then you're going to be much more
prepared for the consequences that happen. And know
that you're not going to question yourself like, oh man, if I hadn't
done this, then this wouldn't happen. No, if you feel confident that
God is calling you to speak this at this time, then you
will be more prepared for any negative consequences
(19:09):
that happen. One of the books that doesn't seem
like it's in the middle of all of this, I now think everyone should read,
is called the sociopath next door. It goes back to this sense
of, you know, we think even though the Bible says
that there's evil and there's wolves and that we all have sin,
we want to think people are good. This was part of my own spiritual
(19:31):
laziness, that someone says they're a believer. I'm like, I believe them. The Bible
calls us to look at the fruit, and if we ignore the fruit, to
just listen to what they say, that they are a believer again, that's where I
have to take ownership. That there were signs that the fruit was rotten, I wanted
to ignore it. But that book, the
sociopath next door, where you can start to see the
(19:53):
signs that someone is pathological
liar, that they are not the same person all the time,
that they are very malleable to the situation in terms
of who they are manipulating. So I would recommend that book to everybody. You know,
there's movies. Sometimes you just want to watch a movie,
but also there's movies that help you see through dramatic
(20:16):
form, because obviously we know movies take a little bit of license,
even if they're based on true stories. So Spotlight
was a movie that I've now watched multiple times. And that is
how a group of reporters started to uncover and
expose the sexual abuse in the catholic church in
Boston. Again, situations of how something can remain
(20:37):
hidden and covered up and manipulated
for so long until people start to expose it. The
insider, which is about the tobacco industry, how that
cover up was exposed. Dark waters and a civil action are
about chemical companies. So you see this theme of
people trying to hide bad actions and how
(20:59):
those tactics try to hide and manipulate
and shift the blame to other people, and people looking at
that and going, no, this is something that needs to be exposed. The vow.
So we talked a little bit about podcasts that talk about nexium or
Scientology. The vow, which is on HBO, is about
Nxivm. And that, again, is about an organization
(21:22):
that used tactics of manipulation and
abuse to really, really harm people and
financially manipulate people. Yeah. And it helps you
understand how much people want to protect that,
their influence. That's just natural. We want to hang on to power. We want to
hang on to that. When you feel the instinct in
(21:43):
yourself or see the pattern in others, that
is protecting, whether it's I'm protecting the
reputation of the church, or I'm protecting my income
stream, I'm protecting money, power, wealth,
fame, reputation. How is that depending
on Jesus to protect us in the christian context
(22:05):
or, you know, outside of the christian context? If you're covering up
to protect those things, that's not right. Within the last twelve
months, I would say we have this embarrassment of riches, of really great books that
have come out that are in this area of church
health, spiritual abuse. When I took a picture of a stack of books.
Our friend Lauren said, oh, I see you have the spiritual abuse
(22:27):
recovery starter pack. In my spiritual abuse
recovery starter pack, I would for sure add some of these books that just
came out, and one of them was when narcissism comes to church
by Chuck de Groot. He talks about how this
personality personality disorder works
in a faith settings, and he talks about how different
(22:49):
personalities can have a tendency towards narcissism, and he. Has a lot of grace
about it. That is one thing that I really appreciated in the book. In the
end, we are all created by
God. And that's where one of the things you see
in narcissistic people or organizations is a very
us versus them mentality. We're right, they're wrong,
(23:11):
we're good, they're bad, we're the best. Even
in situations where you're a part of
exposing abuse. So even then you can start to feel that us versus
them. But in the end, we are all children of God. Even
the people that are harming other people and abusing other people. If we
can cling to anything, clinging to the hope that they will
(23:33):
see their sin and repent from it, I think
we have to go back to that over and over and over again. And I
think that is something that Chuck de Groot does in that book. Also in my
starter pack, I would say a church called Tov that I've mentioned on the podcast
before with Scott McKnight and Laura Behringer points
out some of the areas where churches have gone wrong. And then it really
(23:54):
focuses a lot of time on this redemptive cycle of
goodness and how churches can lean into that. You really see the heart of
Scott and Laura and other things they write, too, and other podcasts
that they're on. They are holding on to that whole hope for
repentance and restoration while also shining a light on
the really unhealthy things. Early on in this journey, each
(24:17):
of us, like I said, independently, had stumbled upon Wade
Mullen and Diane Langberg and their work in spaces that were
not books, whether it was videos or Wade's
dissertation, and then his sweet threads
about how to recognize the tactics of image
management in christian organizations. That was his dissertation.
(24:38):
How, you know, how christian organizations try to manage their
image in the wake of an image threatening event.
So reading all of this stuff from Wade Mullen and Diane Langberg
and then getting the huge blessing in the last year to get
books from Wade Mullen and Diane Langberg was
amazing. Wade Mullen's book is something's not right.
(25:00):
Decoding the hidden tactics of abuse and freeing yourself from its power.
This is like the ultimate anti gaslighting book. He points out the
ways people can be manipulated, and he shares a
little bit of his own story in there, and it's just so,
so very good. If you're out there and you find yourself going,
well, I would never fall for that. You know, the people who
(25:23):
allow themselves to be in that situation or find themselves in that situation, they're
just not blank. Whatever you want to put in there, a little bit of lack
of humility in that perspective, to think, well, that wouldn't happen
to me. But really we take a humble stance and
say, let me understand how this happens. Let
me understand how somebody ends up in an abusive
(25:45):
marriage or how they end up in an organization
that harms them or manipulates them and they don't realize
it for eight years. Yeah. Reading Wade's book and
having a humble spirit about it, to understand how manipulation works
and how we can become blind to it, how trauma
works. Wade's book speaks to that. Diane Langberg's
(26:07):
book speaks to that redeeming power, because it's really a
darkness. It's tactics of darkness that do that. And if
we're saying that couldn't happen to us, that's really ignoring the truth in
the Bible. If you're a ministry leader, there's two really
good reasons to educate yourself on this. One
is just to make yourself more
(26:28):
educated. And, you know, they say trauma informed is to be
trauma informed. Educated about this is going to just make you
a safer place for people that have experienced abuse,
any kind of abuse, spiritual abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence,
coming out of, like, a high control group, it will make you a
more empathetic, help you to more effectively minister to them.
(26:51):
The other reason is, is because we don't want to become those
people that become abusers. We all need to be
humble enough and open handed enough to say, I don't want to be one of
those people that creates a system or supports a
system or an individual that harms other
people. And if you think about the shepherd role that
(27:14):
Jesus played and that he calls our
pastors and sometimes each of us in different circumstances to play
the shepherd protects and supports the
sheep by knowing how they can be harmed. He
knows what the vulnerabilities are. He understands how
they've been harmed before, and thus it helps him understand,
(27:35):
how do I protect them? How do I help them heal, how
do I support them? Because he understands what the dangers are. He
understands how they've been harmed. He'll leave the 99 and
find the one. And if you want to pick up a book that's very much
for church people to understand abuse, I would highly
recommend we too, by Mary Demuth. That book is really
(27:58):
about how do we reckon with and respond to
this crisis of abuse that's actually impacting our churches. And
she does a wonderful job. I highly
recommend that book. We too, by Mary Demuth. You had mentioned Diane
Langberg's book. It might be at the top of my list. Redeeming power. Diane
Langberg is a trauma therapist who has spent how
(28:20):
many years as a trauma therapist? Maybe 40 years. And
she uses such incredible illustrations to help you
understand some of these concepts. You know, I just remember one
illustration she used about a girl walking home from a party
and she had had a little too much to drink. And there's a
couple choices for how people around her can respond, and
(28:43):
none of those choices are that girl's fault. Even if
she had too much to drink or whatever, a man can walk her
home and help her be safe, or a man can take
her in an alley and rape her. And so much in society.
You know, we're still coming out of this sense of blaming
victims for things, blaming victims for what happened to
(29:04):
them. And she really uses a lot of incredible examples to tease
that apart and say, do you really realize what you're doing when
you're, when you're saying that and asking about what was she wearing and
what did she have to drink? How come it wasn't the guy who just walked
her home and helped her be safe? Her work has changed
my life. Her video about narcissism in the church
(29:26):
and in systems is like that first glimpse of
truth, of, oh, wow, we are in this in a way I
didn't know. And now to read this book, redeeming
power, I've got it in my lap here. The subtitle is understanding
authority and abuse in the church. I probably
underlined more than I didn't underline. It feels like her
(29:48):
life's work put together in a way as a gift for people
that care about being trauma informed and
being christians and ministry leaders that represent
Jesus. I don't even know. Anointed, maybe. I don't think that's
too strong of a word when I hear. I don't either. And you could really
have a primer on spiritual abuse and
(30:10):
abuse in the church by following all these people on Twitter,
following Diane Langberg, Wade Mullen Bostovijin, Chuck de
Grote. Just reading some of the things that are
in 280 characters. The insight
is just blows you away sometimes. Julie Royce had
a conference couple years ago, the Restore conference
(30:32):
in Chicago. Her keynote was really powerful about
speaking truth and the cost of speaking truth, and just a real
prophetic word about that. At the end of Julie's keynote
address at the Restore conference in 2019, Julie
challenged those of us in the room, saying that we needed to ask what our
one smooth stone was in the context of talking about David
(30:54):
being willing to fight Goliath, the giant that was mocking the true
God. Julie said this. What is that smooth
stone God has given you that you can use to bring light
and help purify the church? I knew when I heard those
words that someday I was going to use whatever gifts and access
God had given me to share our story. But also
(31:16):
the video of Wade Mullen speaking, I could not take notes
fast enough. I was so glad to find out that she had recorded it. Diane
Langberg, you can find on YouTube her
address at the caring well conference. That's the
other thing, is there's certain speakers and panels from the
Southern Baptist Convention. Caring well conference. Yeah.
(31:38):
Baz Tivision spoke there, and that was a very
profound talk. There was also a panel that
had. The panel had Diane Langberg and Leslie Vernick
and a gentleman who specializes in abuse. There's a
social worker on there, too, and I don't remember her name. That panel is
incredible. What is one book or one podcast
(31:59):
or one person to just kind of see what they're saying that you
would recommend? I would start by watching videos of
Dianne Langberg. The compassion that she has for people.
I get a little emotional about it. And the love she has
for Jesus and the church. When you put those two things
together and hear these very good
(32:21):
illustrations of how this stuff works, you can't
help but be enlightened about what is happening. It
reminds me of what we know about Jesus, because my favorite
book of the Bible is Matthew. And one of the reasons Matthew is
my favorite book of the Bible is because he says a lot and
he had compassion on them. So that is the
(32:43):
characteristic of Jesus that Matthew highlights. He
had compassion on them. Them. And so when I see christian
leaders who are marked by their
compassion for people, but also her desire
for the truth and for the refinement of the
church, to me, that is an example of
(33:05):
what Jesus calls us to do.
I want to wrap this up by sharing one more flashpoint that we
experienced with Ramsey solutions. Our final straw happened
in 2019. It happened when we came
across evidence of infidelity happening with a high profile public
(33:26):
speaker and leadership lied to us about it and treated it very
differently than we had seen them handle other violations of their
stated core values. Nathan was told he needed to trust them, or he
knew what he needed to do. The implication was that Nathan needed to resign
if he didn't fully trust the narrative. Nathan and I both knew
the narrative wasn't completely true, and that's when we knew it was over
(33:48):
for us. The summer after Nathan resigned, I stumbled across
a podcast episode from Michael Hyatt and Megan Hyatt. Michael
shared about a difficult ethical situation he navigated while working in the
publishing industry. The co host chimed in to core values
look good when they're hanging on the wall. They're very difficult to
enact in a real life business situation. I cried as I
(34:10):
listened. Very difficult. Felt like an understatement.
I wrote in my journal that day. One final quote from the podcast
err on the side of integrity, even if it costs you in the short
term. The best way I can summarize this process that
Melissa and I have been through is to describe it in a way that Wade
Mullen talks about in his book something's not right. Decoding the
(34:33):
hidden tactics of abuse and freeing yourself from its power,
Mullen says. If we can learn the language of
abuse, we can stop the cycle. We can make
abusers less effective in accomplishing destruction in our
lives. Melissa and I have been learning the language of
abuse. All of the books, videos,
(34:54):
podcasts, and movies we've mentioned were all a part of our
curriculum in learning this language.
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the podcast. Unless
you've been taking notes and I wouldn't put it past some of you, you're going
to be happy to hear that you can find a list of all of the
resources that we mentioned today on the podcast website,
(35:16):
untangledfaithpodcast.com. If
you enjoyed this episode, it would be awesome if you would share it
with a friend and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also
find me on Instagram and Facebook as untangledfaith
for transcripts and shows notes, check out
untangledfaithpodcast.com
(35:36):
on the next episode of Untangled. Faith
if you are friends with somebody. It'S really being a crappy
friend to pretend there's no elephant in the
room. The times that I have ever
left somewhere and someone has
called and said, I'm so sorry, would
(35:58):
you feel comfortable telling me what happened that has been so
meaningful to me?
Hey there. Longtime listeners may already know that I am no longer creating
new podcast episodes, but instead of leaving this feed without anything
new, I've decided to replay some of my favorite episodes.
This episode I'm resharing today is one that I initially published in June of
2021. It's part two of two episodes where I talk with
Melissa Hogan about how we realized we were part of an unhealthy
(00:22):
organization. In this episode, we also share a. Huge list
of resources we have found. Helpful and in this journey. Thanks so much
for listening. If you want
to understand how abuse can go under the radar for
a very long time and how people cannot
realize that something is abuse, how abusers
(00:44):
work and how cover ups work and
how things can remain hidden for so long is
really similar in all of those contexts.
God does not want dark things
to remain hidden. I knew at some point I don't want to be one of
those people that knows something and never says anything. I just didn't know what the
(01:06):
timing was.
This is Amy Fritz, and you're listening to untangled
faith, a podcast for anyone who has found themselves
confused or disillusioned in their faith journey.
If you want to hold on to your faith while untangling it from
all the things that are not good and true, this
(01:29):
is the place for you.
Welcome to episode nine of untangled faith. Today
I'm sharing the second part of my conversation that I had with Melissa
Hogan. So if you have not listened to that one, I'll wait here for
you while you pause this episode and listen to that one.
(01:50):
Last week, a friend asked me if I was planning to share more
specifically about the things I was seeing in white american evangelical
culture that gave me red flags about Ramsay solutions.
What was it about the fall of hybels and McDonald that seemed
familiar? What were those flashes that screamed
danger to me? What was it Diane Langberg said
(02:12):
that I didn't want to see? I'm not afraid to share about our
experience with Ramsey solutions, but I want to do it in a way that is
most helpful and relevant to you. I don't want to
distract from the point of this, particularly the goals of the
last episode in this one, which were to share with you news and
resources, which we believe can help anyone be a part of helping create
(02:34):
a healthy community, and that provide a framework that
could help pinpoint if you're in a place that isn't healthy.
And we want to share resources that we would include in what
our friend Lauren refers to as the spiritual abuse recovery
starter pack. Filtering my experience through that lens is
how I've landed on a few things I want to share. These are some of
(02:57):
the key flashpoints I experienced that I had to grapple with in our time with
Ramsey solutions. The first one is one I didn't mention last
week. It was in the fall of either 2012 or
2013. Dave had shared an article that was on the
daveramsey.com website, and it listed things that
rich people did. The implication was that by doing these
(03:19):
things, one could have a better chance of becoming wealthy. That list
created a huge pushback on social media. Several
authors wrote articles or blog posts raising their concerns
regarding the findings of the survey. One person who
wrote about it was Sean Groves. He had some questions about their research
methodology and if I recall correctly, I commented that I
(03:41):
too had some questions. I saw correlation in the
list, but I didn't see evidence of causation.
Who knew that my social science research methods class from college
would come in so handy? It wasn't long after I commented that it
became clear that the controversy wasn't going away, and
Dave's response to it on the air and on social media was
(04:03):
to mock some of the people who disagreed with him. I remember
Nathan mentioning that Dave talked about it a bit in a team meeting.
I was sick to my stomach. I was so afraid that someone in
leadership would see what I wrote online and that Nathan would lose his
job. I was terrified. Even though I knew I hadn't
done anything wrong. This was a huge red flag that I
(04:26):
should have paid attention to. Instead, I decided to
censor anything I said online that might even remotely disagree
with Dave or Ramsay's solutions. I unfollowed people who
questioned him. I muted terms on Twitter. I did not
want to deal with the anxiety that came when I saw people try to question
Dave in good faith and watch him respond by blocking
(04:49):
them. Another flashpoint happened in 2016 when I
watched the Diane Langberg video, narcissism and the system
it breeds. I mentioned it last episode and I shared how I
had Nathan watch it and then how he said that it sounded like
Ramsay. So what had Diane Langberg said?
Well, one of the quotes I wrote down was a group or
(05:10):
organization or church that is desperate for hope becomes
blind and susceptible to those coming to be their savior. We are
vulnerable to those who promise bigger and better and say it's
all for God. Doctor Langberg talked about how tricky narcissism could
be because it looks pretty and spiritual, and how a
narcissistic leader could feed the narcissism of a group with
(05:32):
words like, I know you. I know you want to serve God and
you want to do it in a way that no one else is. It sounds
like all the things christians are called to do, but Langberg
explained that it can often feed the need to be necessary
and better than others. One more flashpoint happened in December
of 2018. I had read the World magazine article
(05:55):
about James McDonald, written by Julie Royce. It talked about how
MacDonald had previously been charged with self promotion, love
of money, domineering, bullying,
abusive speech, and outbursts of anger by a former
elder. And it went on to say that the leadership
warned members of the church to avoid some of those that had recently
(06:17):
resigned because, in their words, were defiling many people.
It mentioned an abusive and fear based culture NDAs
of an incident when McDonald had singled out students and
called them morons, fools and stupid. I had observed
enough of Ramsay solutions and Dave over the previous seven years to
recognize Dave's actions in all of this reporting, from the
(06:40):
fear based culture, to warnings against listening to former members of the
organization, to the use of NDAs and name calling, I could check
off all these things as happening with Dave Ramsey and Ramsey
solutions. I hope that adds some clarity to last week's episode
and gives a bridge to this one. In this episode, I share the
second half of my conversation with Melissa Hogan, and we share about a lot
(07:02):
of resources we use to help us make sense of what we had been through.
And when it's all said and done, I think we talk about more than two
dozen resources that I'll have listed in detail on the podcast
website, untangledfaithpodcast.com
dot. Here's the rest of my
conversation with Melissa.
(07:22):
One of the very basic tools in domestic violence
is the Duluth wheel, the power and control wheel. And if you look at the
power and control wheel and you see ways in which interpersonal
abuse plays out, you really can have examples
about how organizational abuse, so that was a key tool for
me, is constantly going back to that power and control wheel that
(07:44):
plays out, like in the podcasts, in the books. So some of these
podcasts that I'm going to throw out, some are about
interpersonal or family abuse
or gaslighting techniques, and you'll
see that play out in an organization that consists of people.
They reflect those same behaviors. One of our favorite
(08:06):
podcasts between the both of us is something was wrong. The something
was wrong podcast was one of the first serial story style
podcasts that sucked me in season one. Tiffany Reese's
first podcast season told a gripping story of
narcissism includes lots of. Examples of gaslighting, and that is
interpersonal. So it's whether it's in a dating or marriage
(08:28):
relationship or within a family system, examples there. But
then you go look at podcasts like the
dropout or we crashed, which are
actual companies. So both the dropout and we
crashed were about companies and their
leaders and the organizational control and
(08:49):
abuse that happened within those. But you see the parallels if you're
listening to something was wrong versus we crashed.
Another great podcast that goes along with a
book was believed, and Rachel Denhollander's book,
what is a girl worth? Tells that story. If you want to
understand how abuse can go under the radar for a
(09:11):
very long time and how people cannot
realize that something is abuse, how
abusers play on people's
emotions, gaslighting, shifting the blame
and controlling a narrative. Both of those resources,
how abusers work and how cover ups
(09:33):
work, and how things can remain hidden for so
long is really similar in all of those contexts.
And going back to what we were talking about, God does not want
things to remain hidden. And there's a balance. Like I said, if we're
going to see repentance and reconciliation, obviously our
goal isn't just to put everything out there for the sake of
(09:55):
people knowing it. But God does not want
dark things to remain hidden and abuse to remain
hidden, and people continue to be hurt. God is going to expose it.
Sometimes he uses people. Yeah, sometimes he uses
reporters. Sometimes he uses supernatural means.
Julie Royce started her podcast the summer of
(10:18):
2019. That was just months after we had
left Nathan's job. One of her first podcasts was talked with some
people connected to harvest Bible chapel. What it was like to speak the truth
when nobody was listening. There was three people she interviewed,
and I took notes on that podcast. So much of it resonated because it
was a christian organization, even though it was a church and not a
(10:40):
business. Jessica Hawkett was on, and I miss her
on Twitter. So, hello, Jessica. We miss you wherever you are. She
said she really felt hurt by the people that had left along the
way at their church knowing something terrible was going on and
never said anything. I had to go back to that podcast from
Julie Royce to get the full quote just right. I discovered that
(11:02):
I'd forgotten who had said what in that conversation about
Harvest Bible Chapel and James McDonald. It was Scott Bryant
that said this. He said that it wasn't former pastor James
McDonald that hurt him. He said, the scars I walk
away with are the scars from the individuals who failed to
speak. And Jessica later said, if only the
(11:25):
leaders who left would have publicly said why they left,
she was convinced it would have made a difference. That
fell on me so heavy. I knew I needed to hear that. I
knew at some point I don't want to be one of those people that knows
something and never says anything. I just didn't know what the timing was. I was
like basically laying on the floor saying, okay, God, I don't know what this
(11:47):
is. There is something about hearing about other
stories. For example, chasing Cosby is another
podcast that I remember when the allegations
started to come out about Bill Cosby. I loved the Cosby show. I just
kind of saw it and was like, huh? I didn't investigate it enough
to know. It didn't reach me enough for me to go, okay,
(12:08):
I need to dig into this to my regret. Not that I could have
done anything, I mean, obviously, but hearing that
podcast and again, seeing how something
like that can remain hidden for so long and how
someone can appear to the world to be one
person, they appear to be one person, but in reality, in
(12:31):
private, they are another person. Watching that play out and watching the
efforts to keep something hidden and looking at the people that
are digging for the truth and trying to expose the
truth, they are doing the work of Jesus in a lot of
ways, because God does not want things to be kept in the darkness,
especially when things have gone on for a very long time. There are a lot
(12:53):
of opportunities for repentance and a lot of opportunities for
people to be reconciled to the people around them and reconciled to Jesus.
God will use people to expose, thinking. Through
what it might be like to just speak the truth
when really powerful, connected people don't want you to speak the
truth. Reading Rachel Den Hollander's book about what it
(13:15):
was like for her to speak up, but part of her story is
about speaking out against abuse in their church
denomination and the reaction to that and what they lost in
speaking the truth. That was really important for me to
help me process what could possibly happen if we speak
up about an organization or people that
(13:37):
will make other people feel uncomfortable and that other people benefit from
in the christian environment. As it turns out, it was a good thing I had
read those books because it helped us not be completely caught off
guard when Ramsay solutions leadership set up a meeting with
Nathan's new employer in an attempt to silence us.
And then also reading Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow.
(14:00):
And she said, catch and kill and she said, are two different books.
She said, it's written by the women who also reported on
Weinstein, Megan Tuhey and Jody Cantor. One of the
things that those books highlight is non disclosure, non
disparagement agreements and how they are used
to not only silence people from talking about
(14:22):
things, but to actually hide abuse and to
perpetuate abuse. When you think about that term, non
disclosure, I'll put my lawyer hat on here for a minute, because I
had used non disclosure agreements in my practice as a lawyer,
but I used them in context where people were selling a business and they
were equally represented, they had equal
(14:44):
power. Those contexts are where non
disclosure agreements come from or, you know, you have certain, you know,
intellectual property that you're transferring or you want to share with
someone and you don't want them to be able to tell other people and, you
know, destroy the value in your intellectual property. In the context of
churches or organizations using non
(15:06):
disclosure agreements and non disparagement agreements to
get people to not talk about negative things or not
talk about allegations of abuse or to pay
people off is the opposite of Jesus.
Watching the use of NDAs. And when I say
NDAs, I kind of use them all encompassing to include non disclosure
(15:29):
agreements, non disparagement agreements. That was a signature move
of abusers in these stories of Weinstein,
and that's how they were able to operate for so long.
They would sexually harass someone or abuse someone. That person
would go to HR or would complain or
disclose, and they'd say, oh, because the abuser was rich and
(15:50):
powerful. I'll pay you this amount of money to settle your legal
claim, and you're going to sign this non disclosure, non disparagement agreement.
And what people don't realize is that's not a transaction.
That's normal. It's not an equal bargaining situation
to look at these stories and realize how long these abusers had
been able to operate, much of which was through the use of
(16:13):
NDAs. People should have a flashing red
light if they are part of an organization,
especially an organization that names the name of
Christianity and uses NDAs. Melissa and I have had lots
of conversations about NDAs. I wanted to add a few things that
we didn't get to in this particular conversation. First of all, if
(16:35):
you're offered an NDA, it is within your rights and to your benefit to ask
to have the offer in writing for you to review with your spouse and a
lawyer. A healthy organization likely won't tie severance
to signing an NDA, and they certainly wouldn't object to you taking
the time to look it over before making a decision. If a
christian organization, a faith community, is
(16:57):
using the same tactics of silencing as Harvey
Weinstein. That should tell you something. It should definitely tell you something. I highly
recommend those books. They read like a thriller in some ways. It's
so good. Also catch and kill, there's some podcasts connected to that
as well. And also these books, most of them have audio versions that you
can pick up. So if you'd rather listen to something than
(17:19):
physically hold the book. But I like to hold the book. I like to underline
it, make notes, and it also, if you want to know, like, the stakes
of actually speaking up in some situations, you have to kind
of know what can happen. You need to be emotionally in a
prepared place if you're going to say something. And it also helped
me realize in many cases, you're not going to see anyone
(17:40):
change and you are going to have to brace yourself to be ready
for that or be maligned yourself. Read Rachel's book,
not to discourage you, but to give you a real realistic
understanding of what, what you're kind of up against. And if you
are not in an emotionally, physically, financially,
spiritually good place to do that, there is no obligation to do
(18:03):
some big public thing. Maybe God's calling you to speak truth
in other ways. Of course, therapy is going to help
you deal with this stuff at a higher level than reading
books. Yes, this is like junior varsity
therapy. And I will say too, that if you're going to speak up about
abuse in a christian environment, staying
(18:25):
so closely tied to Jesus is so important
because you are going to face people maligning
you. You're going to probably lose friends, you might be at
financial risk. So if you are walking this out with the
Lord and feel really confident that he's
calling you to speak about this particular thing
(18:47):
at this particular time, then you're going to be much more
prepared for the consequences that happen. And know
that you're not going to question yourself like, oh man, if I hadn't
done this, then this wouldn't happen. No, if you feel confident that
God is calling you to speak this at this time, then you
will be more prepared for any negative consequences
(19:09):
that happen. One of the books that doesn't seem
like it's in the middle of all of this, I now think everyone should read,
is called the sociopath next door. It goes back to this sense
of, you know, we think even though the Bible says
that there's evil and there's wolves and that we all have sin,
we want to think people are good. This was part of my own spiritual
(19:31):
laziness, that someone says they're a believer. I'm like, I believe them. The Bible
calls us to look at the fruit, and if we ignore the fruit, to
just listen to what they say, that they are a believer again, that's where I
have to take ownership. That there were signs that the fruit was rotten, I wanted
to ignore it. But that book, the
sociopath next door, where you can start to see the
(19:53):
signs that someone is pathological
liar, that they are not the same person all the time,
that they are very malleable to the situation in terms
of who they are manipulating. So I would recommend that book to everybody. You know,
there's movies. Sometimes you just want to watch a movie,
but also there's movies that help you see through dramatic
(20:16):
form, because obviously we know movies take a little bit of license,
even if they're based on true stories. So Spotlight
was a movie that I've now watched multiple times. And that is
how a group of reporters started to uncover and
expose the sexual abuse in the catholic church in
Boston. Again, situations of how something can remain
(20:37):
hidden and covered up and manipulated
for so long until people start to expose it. The
insider, which is about the tobacco industry, how that
cover up was exposed. Dark waters and a civil action are
about chemical companies. So you see this theme of
people trying to hide bad actions and how
(20:59):
those tactics try to hide and manipulate
and shift the blame to other people, and people looking at
that and going, no, this is something that needs to be exposed. The vow.
So we talked a little bit about podcasts that talk about nexium or
Scientology. The vow, which is on HBO, is about
Nxivm. And that, again, is about an organization
(21:22):
that used tactics of manipulation and
abuse to really, really harm people and
financially manipulate people. Yeah. And it helps you
understand how much people want to protect that,
their influence. That's just natural. We want to hang on to power. We want to
hang on to that. When you feel the instinct in
(21:43):
yourself or see the pattern in others, that
is protecting, whether it's I'm protecting the
reputation of the church, or I'm protecting my income
stream, I'm protecting money, power, wealth,
fame, reputation. How is that depending
on Jesus to protect us in the christian context
(22:05):
or, you know, outside of the christian context? If you're covering up
to protect those things, that's not right. Within the last twelve
months, I would say we have this embarrassment of riches, of really great books that
have come out that are in this area of church
health, spiritual abuse. When I took a picture of a stack of books.
Our friend Lauren said, oh, I see you have the spiritual abuse
(22:27):
recovery starter pack. In my spiritual abuse
recovery starter pack, I would for sure add some of these books that just
came out, and one of them was when narcissism comes to church
by Chuck de Groot. He talks about how this
personality personality disorder works
in a faith settings, and he talks about how different
(22:49):
personalities can have a tendency towards narcissism, and he. Has a lot of grace
about it. That is one thing that I really appreciated in the book. In the
end, we are all created by
God. And that's where one of the things you see
in narcissistic people or organizations is a very
us versus them mentality. We're right, they're wrong,
(23:11):
we're good, they're bad, we're the best. Even
in situations where you're a part of
exposing abuse. So even then you can start to feel that us versus
them. But in the end, we are all children of God. Even
the people that are harming other people and abusing other people. If we
can cling to anything, clinging to the hope that they will
(23:33):
see their sin and repent from it, I think
we have to go back to that over and over and over again. And I
think that is something that Chuck de Groot does in that book. Also in my
starter pack, I would say a church called Tov that I've mentioned on the podcast
before with Scott McKnight and Laura Behringer points
out some of the areas where churches have gone wrong. And then it really
(23:54):
focuses a lot of time on this redemptive cycle of
goodness and how churches can lean into that. You really see the heart of
Scott and Laura and other things they write, too, and other podcasts
that they're on. They are holding on to that whole hope for
repentance and restoration while also shining a light on
the really unhealthy things. Early on in this journey, each
(24:17):
of us, like I said, independently, had stumbled upon Wade
Mullen and Diane Langberg and their work in spaces that were
not books, whether it was videos or Wade's
dissertation, and then his sweet threads
about how to recognize the tactics of image
management in christian organizations. That was his dissertation.
(24:38):
How, you know, how christian organizations try to manage their
image in the wake of an image threatening event.
So reading all of this stuff from Wade Mullen and Diane Langberg
and then getting the huge blessing in the last year to get
books from Wade Mullen and Diane Langberg was
amazing. Wade Mullen's book is something's not right.
(25:00):
Decoding the hidden tactics of abuse and freeing yourself from its power.
This is like the ultimate anti gaslighting book. He points out the
ways people can be manipulated, and he shares a
little bit of his own story in there, and it's just so,
so very good. If you're out there and you find yourself going,
well, I would never fall for that. You know, the people who
(25:23):
allow themselves to be in that situation or find themselves in that situation, they're
just not blank. Whatever you want to put in there, a little bit of lack
of humility in that perspective, to think, well, that wouldn't happen
to me. But really we take a humble stance and
say, let me understand how this happens. Let
me understand how somebody ends up in an abusive
(25:45):
marriage or how they end up in an organization
that harms them or manipulates them and they don't realize
it for eight years. Yeah. Reading Wade's book and
having a humble spirit about it, to understand how manipulation works
and how we can become blind to it, how trauma
works. Wade's book speaks to that. Diane Langberg's
(26:07):
book speaks to that redeeming power, because it's really a
darkness. It's tactics of darkness that do that. And if
we're saying that couldn't happen to us, that's really ignoring the truth in
the Bible. If you're a ministry leader, there's two really
good reasons to educate yourself on this. One
is just to make yourself more
(26:28):
educated. And, you know, they say trauma informed is to be
trauma informed. Educated about this is going to just make you
a safer place for people that have experienced abuse,
any kind of abuse, spiritual abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence,
coming out of, like, a high control group, it will make you a
more empathetic, help you to more effectively minister to them.
(26:51):
The other reason is, is because we don't want to become those
people that become abusers. We all need to be
humble enough and open handed enough to say, I don't want to be one of
those people that creates a system or supports a
system or an individual that harms other
people. And if you think about the shepherd role that
(27:14):
Jesus played and that he calls our
pastors and sometimes each of us in different circumstances to play
the shepherd protects and supports the
sheep by knowing how they can be harmed. He
knows what the vulnerabilities are. He understands how
they've been harmed before, and thus it helps him understand,
(27:35):
how do I protect them? How do I help them heal, how
do I support them? Because he understands what the dangers are. He
understands how they've been harmed. He'll leave the 99 and
find the one. And if you want to pick up a book that's very much
for church people to understand abuse, I would highly
recommend we too, by Mary Demuth. That book is really
(27:58):
about how do we reckon with and respond to
this crisis of abuse that's actually impacting our churches. And
she does a wonderful job. I highly
recommend that book. We too, by Mary Demuth. You had mentioned Diane
Langberg's book. It might be at the top of my list. Redeeming power. Diane
Langberg is a trauma therapist who has spent how
(28:20):
many years as a trauma therapist? Maybe 40 years. And
she uses such incredible illustrations to help you
understand some of these concepts. You know, I just remember one
illustration she used about a girl walking home from a party
and she had had a little too much to drink. And there's a
couple choices for how people around her can respond, and
(28:43):
none of those choices are that girl's fault. Even if
she had too much to drink or whatever, a man can walk her
home and help her be safe, or a man can take
her in an alley and rape her. And so much in society.
You know, we're still coming out of this sense of blaming
victims for things, blaming victims for what happened to
(29:04):
them. And she really uses a lot of incredible examples to tease
that apart and say, do you really realize what you're doing when
you're, when you're saying that and asking about what was she wearing and
what did she have to drink? How come it wasn't the guy who just walked
her home and helped her be safe? Her work has changed
my life. Her video about narcissism in the church
(29:26):
and in systems is like that first glimpse of
truth, of, oh, wow, we are in this in a way I
didn't know. And now to read this book, redeeming
power, I've got it in my lap here. The subtitle is understanding
authority and abuse in the church. I probably
underlined more than I didn't underline. It feels like her
(29:48):
life's work put together in a way as a gift for people
that care about being trauma informed and
being christians and ministry leaders that represent
Jesus. I don't even know. Anointed, maybe. I don't think that's
too strong of a word when I hear. I don't either. And you could really
have a primer on spiritual abuse and
(30:10):
abuse in the church by following all these people on Twitter,
following Diane Langberg, Wade Mullen Bostovijin, Chuck de
Grote. Just reading some of the things that are
in 280 characters. The insight
is just blows you away sometimes. Julie Royce had
a conference couple years ago, the Restore conference
(30:32):
in Chicago. Her keynote was really powerful about
speaking truth and the cost of speaking truth, and just a real
prophetic word about that. At the end of Julie's keynote
address at the Restore conference in 2019, Julie
challenged those of us in the room, saying that we needed to ask what our
one smooth stone was in the context of talking about David
(30:54):
being willing to fight Goliath, the giant that was mocking the true
God. Julie said this. What is that smooth
stone God has given you that you can use to bring light
and help purify the church? I knew when I heard those
words that someday I was going to use whatever gifts and access
God had given me to share our story. But also
(31:16):
the video of Wade Mullen speaking, I could not take notes
fast enough. I was so glad to find out that she had recorded it. Diane
Langberg, you can find on YouTube her
address at the caring well conference. That's the
other thing, is there's certain speakers and panels from the
Southern Baptist Convention. Caring well conference. Yeah.
(31:38):
Baz Tivision spoke there, and that was a very
profound talk. There was also a panel that
had. The panel had Diane Langberg and Leslie Vernick
and a gentleman who specializes in abuse. There's a
social worker on there, too, and I don't remember her name. That panel is
incredible. What is one book or one podcast
(31:59):
or one person to just kind of see what they're saying that you
would recommend? I would start by watching videos of
Dianne Langberg. The compassion that she has for people.
I get a little emotional about it. And the love she has
for Jesus and the church. When you put those two things
together and hear these very good
(32:21):
illustrations of how this stuff works, you can't
help but be enlightened about what is happening. It
reminds me of what we know about Jesus, because my favorite
book of the Bible is Matthew. And one of the reasons Matthew is
my favorite book of the Bible is because he says a lot and
he had compassion on them. So that is the
(32:43):
characteristic of Jesus that Matthew highlights. He
had compassion on them. Them. And so when I see christian
leaders who are marked by their
compassion for people, but also her desire
for the truth and for the refinement of the
church, to me, that is an example of
(33:05):
what Jesus calls us to do.
I want to wrap this up by sharing one more flashpoint that we
experienced with Ramsey solutions. Our final straw happened
in 2019. It happened when we came
across evidence of infidelity happening with a high profile public
(33:26):
speaker and leadership lied to us about it and treated it very
differently than we had seen them handle other violations of their
stated core values. Nathan was told he needed to trust them, or he
knew what he needed to do. The implication was that Nathan needed to resign
if he didn't fully trust the narrative. Nathan and I both knew
the narrative wasn't completely true, and that's when we knew it was over
(33:48):
for us. The summer after Nathan resigned, I stumbled across
a podcast episode from Michael Hyatt and Megan Hyatt. Michael
shared about a difficult ethical situation he navigated while working in the
publishing industry. The co host chimed in to core values
look good when they're hanging on the wall. They're very difficult to
enact in a real life business situation. I cried as I
(34:10):
listened. Very difficult. Felt like an understatement.
I wrote in my journal that day. One final quote from the podcast
err on the side of integrity, even if it costs you in the short
term. The best way I can summarize this process that
Melissa and I have been through is to describe it in a way that Wade
Mullen talks about in his book something's not right. Decoding the
(34:33):
hidden tactics of abuse and freeing yourself from its power,
Mullen says. If we can learn the language of
abuse, we can stop the cycle. We can make
abusers less effective in accomplishing destruction in our
lives. Melissa and I have been learning the language of
abuse. All of the books, videos,
(34:54):
podcasts, and movies we've mentioned were all a part of our
curriculum in learning this language.
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the podcast. Unless
you've been taking notes and I wouldn't put it past some of you, you're going
to be happy to hear that you can find a list of all of the
resources that we mentioned today on the podcast website,
(35:16):
untangledfaithpodcast.com. If
you enjoyed this episode, it would be awesome if you would share it
with a friend and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also
find me on Instagram and Facebook as untangledfaith
for transcripts and shows notes, check out
untangledfaithpodcast.com
(35:36):
on the next episode of Untangled. Faith
if you are friends with somebody. It'S really being a crappy
friend to pretend there's no elephant in the
room. The times that I have ever
left somewhere and someone has
called and said, I'm so sorry, would
(35:58):
you feel comfortable telling me what happened that has been so
meaningful to me?
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