Tag Archives: Twitter

#ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear trended on Twitter this week

Posted on April 21, 2017 by | 2 comments

This Tuesday night, Sarah Bessey, author of Jesus Feminist, started the hashtag #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear and it took off.  Here are my favorites:

This is a drop in the bucket on contributions to this thread.  Definitely checkout the hashtag and scroll through the sobering collection.

Then Christians began redeeming the conversation with the hashtag #ThingsChristianWomenShouldHear:

This is my prayer too:

Amen.

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Twitter sheds light on non-physical forms of abuse

Posted on May 17, 2016 by | 8 comments

The Twitter handle #MaybeHeDoesntHitYou, started by the BBC, has given victims of emotional, spiritual, financial and other forms of abuse a platform to share a glimpse into their experiences.

Often, the pain and trauma of non-physical abuse is dismissed or ignored.  Because the bruising to a victim’s psyche and soul are not visible, they do not receive the help and healing needed or the support to leave.  Slowly, they are beaten down to a place of low self-esteem and self-doubt and they begin to believe the lies of their abuser.  They experience symptoms of PTSD or anxiety or other conditions from their distress and this gives their abuser the added ammunition to claim they are the crazy one, they are the cause of the abuse.

Sadly, these types of abuse are very common in patriachal, fundamentalist religions, and pastors typically respond poorly, disbelieving the “allegations” and giving preference to the man’s reputation over the woman’s well-being.  Women in abusive marriages are urged to remain with their abusers rather than escape the abuse and begin the journey to healing and wholeness.  For example, John Piper, a prominent leader in Evangelicalism, gave this advice to an abused woman:

John Piper first giggles at the question, then diminishes the severity of non-physical abuse.  I can only imagine how the abuse would ramp up if this wife turned to her church leadership to intervene.  Abusers insist on keeping the family dynamic a secret.  Therefore, she would rather remain silent so that the abuse does not escalate, as she will not be given the support needed to leave the relationship.  “Emotionally abusive people are very concerned with their public image,” counselor Amanda Perl is quoted in the BBC article. “They are often extremely charming to the outside world in order to undermine any case you might have to discredit them or bring a spotlight on their behaviour.”

And don’t even get me started on sexual abuse in Christian marriage, where a woman’s body is not her own and she is taught to never say no, to submit in everything.

There are some excellent resources on the internet for Christian women in abusive relationships.  I recommend the blogs A Cry for Justice and Spiritual Sounding Board as well as the books and blog by Leslie Vernick.

Here are a few examples of #MaybeHeDoesntHitYou tweets:

And my own contribution:

EDIT:  After receiving the following excellent comment, I changed “non-violent” to “non-physical” throughout this post.

I take exception to labeling these actions as “non-violent.” I think that specific mislabeling is part of why these forms of abuse are dismissed out of hand.

These forms of abuse are not *physical*, but they are very violent. If I hold someone at gunpoint and take his money but never lay a hand on him, my actions will be called “ASSAULT with a deadly weapon.” The tongue is also a potential weapon, and anyone who thinks it cannot be deadly should research how many suicide notes mention something someone *said* (not did) to the victim before he or she chose suicide.

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#GodHatesAbuse #AbuseIsGroundsForDivorce #YouAreWorthyOfLove

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Egalitarians on Twitter using #CBMW16

Posted on April 14, 2016 by | 5 comments

The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood just wrapped up their T4G (Together 4 the Gospel) conference yesterday.  The conference was headlined by prominent Evangelical pastors and there was a separate women’s conference headlined by prominent complementarian women.  The theme was “The Beauty of Complementarity” and sessions included “God’s Design for Women,” “Bound for Life: Following Your Husband Through Life’s Challenges,” “Raising Godly Sons,” “Fitted for Flourishing: How the Bible Creates a Happy Home,” “Workers at Home: The Temptation to be ‘Mom Plus,'” etc.  According to CBMW, their hashtag #CBMW16 was used 2.4 million times throughout the conference, as attendees live-tweeted quotes and reflections…

…and as egalitarians responded with challenges to complementarian theology.  I am sure it was frustrating to the CBMW that they could not control the Twitter-sphere the way they could control the mic at their patriarchal conference.  Here are some of my favorite egalitarian tweets:

 

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