Parent to Parent: Creflo Dollar the Devil had nothing to do with this

I have enclosed a picture of Creflo Dollar.

 

He is a nice looking man, and he made big news recently regarding a family matter with his teenage daughter.

 

The media reports at first didn’t have the entire news story posted, and left out key facts that should have been included.  The way the story was written you got the impression that his child wanted to leave for a party that night at 1am, and he told her no.  You read all these responses to the story about how they wouldn’t allow their child to leave for a party then either, and how they would have known better to even ask.

 

Within a day they corrected the error, and what really happened?

 

He and his 15 year old were having a discussion about a party she wanted to go to the next evening.  This time of year no doubt it was a friend’s graduation party.  That is just my stab at it anyway.  Daddy said NO due to bad grades.  I feel that is more than reasonable.  Keep in mind she was asking about a party the next day, and NOT wanting to leave at 1am that night as the news reports stated or hinted at in error.

 

It seems that discussion may have been a bit more than heated, and as he states ‘emotional’ than most conversations about rules, boundaries, etc within the home.  We may never know what happened prior.

 

His teenager then left to go into the kitchen to cry, and as teens do at times to lick their wounds.    As a parent at that point YOU LEAVE THEM ALONE! 

 

They can get under YOUR skin due to their age and maturity level, and once they get done crying HOPEFULLY you can continue the discussion if need be.   You both need to cool off, because we all know stupid things happen when you deal with them in a emotional charged atmosphere.  Most parents that have teens own that teeshirt as the saying goes.  You are not the first one Pastor Dollar!

 

If he had left her be?  I doubt what happened next would have transpired.  He went into the kitchen to ask WHY she was crying, and she told him she didn’t want to talk about it.  Crying in her soup is not disrespectful – its feeling sorry for herself.    She may have not been justified (and we don’t know that now), but its not a show of disrespect towards you at all.    It a normal boundary when you know you can’t deal with anything at that point.  You took that too personally.

 

Honestly?  I think of parental statement that is thrown out to often, and shows disrespect for children.  “If you don’t stop crying I will give you something to CRY about!”  He may not have said it, but Creflo Dollar backed up that statement in his actions.

Creflo Dollar Denial in Church Transcript

Pastor Creflo Dollar Denies Abuse allegations

 

Stand Ovation and applauds as he comes to the pulpit.

 

(I love you – among other things he says along with Amen during this time)

 

Thank you…

 

Amen…

If that will make you feel safer to think that then go ahead, but its wrong!

 

So many times I have read people ask, ‘HOW do you respond to someone that asks questions about your abusive relationship?’

 

Goodness knows they have plenty of questions, and some come from a pure heart. 

 

The above comic I choose because it resembles the weird logic people use.    They only believe in their own ‘Just World’ reality.

 

Yes, its frustrating.  Yes, Its hurtful.  When you understand how they are coming to conclusions over your life’s circumstances?  Pray for them, because they need your prayers very badly.

 

Dealing with being a Victim

 

If you read enough comments to articles, forums that deal with people in real life?  The questioning of the hurting seems puzzling, and hard to answer at first.

 

There is NOTHING wrong with questions okay?  Its how they are framed, and what direction they tend to focus on. 

 

The victim blaming or Just World phenomenon starts with questions more geared towards, ‘what did you do that made this happen?’

 

If you are still in an abusive relationship, trying to peal yourself away from one, or even recently left?  You hear some odd comments that you KNOW isn’t as simple as it sounds.    “I would have left!” is a good statement I have said myself!

 

SURE they make sense on the surface, but not when you look at bit deeper. 

 

There must have been red flags…for another example! 

 

In hindsight SURE you can see them clearly, and you also can see the devastation afterwards.   Its hard to go back and be that person at the beginning, because no matter what people say you don’t always have the tools to see things THEY think you should have at the time – or if you had indeed have a hint what it all entailed.

 

Yes, it’s the start of victim blaming.  That is the term some use anyway.

 

We hear people saying all the time, ‘If I knew how things were then I would have made different decisions' or ‘If I knew then what I know now…’.      In these type of general circumstances, for the most part people empathize and leave it alone.  Why?  We have all been there.

 

When you speak of abusive relationships people want to dig deeper most of the time.  They love to play Monday Morning Quarterback! ( One who criticizes or passes judgment from a position of hindsight)

 

Victims are constantly on the defensive anyway, because that is how you stay somewhat safe within the abusive relationship.  The questions people ask make you feel worse, guilty, and at times stupid.

 

When you are made to feel guilty or stupid for the relationship, and victims tend to internalize that WAY to much at the beginning. This is something they learned while living with abuse.  (ie:  Its all your fault)

 

People claim they realize that victims tend to own the lies the abuser tells them, and they take it to heart much to much.  From what I found with abusive personalities it could have a grain of truth, but they will want you to  own the own bushel.

 

What they don’t seem to realize is the counsel is taken much the same way – literally.  They may not wish to hint to others they are stupid, but that is the way they come off.  No, they don’t understand victims.  If they did?  They would be much more careful, and they are not.

Patriarchy: Its not the remedy

The question egalitarians have never satisfactorily answered for me is if you’re raising an eight year old little boy or little girl, you're mom or dad, and that little girl says to mom mommy what does it mean to grown up and be a woman and not a man?  Or the little boy – daddy what does it mean to grow up and be a man and not a woman?  It will not do to just talk in terms of plumbing – biological – cause that's not your personhood.  And it won't do to simply say courage, humility, righteousness, Christ's likeness.  Cause [the] little kid's gonna say no, no I mean a woman and not a man. – John Piper

 

There seems to be loads of debate recently that Patriarchy maybe losing some of glow of the past. 

 

Is patriarchy really God’s dream for the world?

 

It was such a short time ago that those that truly felt lead to uphold Patriarchy would give examples of marriages, families and relationships that were healthy, happy, and they would indeed hint at ‘holy’ as well.

 

These are the example to those families destroyed by the ugly side of the misuse of the power and authority of the father figure (most of the time).  The message tended to be ‘try harder and you too can have this holy family life’. 

 

That’s not a remedy.

 

It reminds me of a family suffering from a raging alcoholic destroying not only THEIR life, but those that they ask to suffer along with them.    The answer being to show them a ‘happy’ family  that has one member that partakes of couple of a beers on Friday night, and all is still well with them.

 

Yes, this example of the remedy is nonsense.  Showing an example of a family living with (loving – ahem) Patriarchy at its core is also a nonsense type of remedy for the family in trouble.

 

Live Life Counter Cultural

 

They are preaching from the rooftops that Patriarchy is the biblical way, and people need to live life ‘counter cultural’. 

 

How many thousands of years, and how many cultures has it been the norm? 

 

How many places is it still the norm, and you will see that it has effected that culture in more negative ways than positive.  Most of the time you have barbaric treatment of not only women, but men and children as well.  Look at the overall poverty that surrounds them, because they want to keep people – especially women – ignorant to put it bluntly.  These factors have HUGE impacts on their society, and you can see it anywhere that ‘power over’ concepts are placed upon others in abusive ways.

 

I would HOPE that we can agree that feminism isn’t the issue in these parts of the world.  The fact is if it showed up at all?  I’m pretty certain that woman – or women would be stoned on the spot.

 

Mob attacks women protesting sexual assault of women in Egypt

 

No Patriarchy group deals with abuse within their movement effectively, and when the remedy is the attitude of if you don’t like this hierarchy GO talk to Paul or GOD ?

 

I say NO!  Answer the questions, and learn to deal in solutions not diversions.  If the Patriarchy crowds wishes us to answer questions along the lines of John Piper’s quote above?  They need to provide answers as well, and stop minimizing the ugly effects this can have on humans, and of course then stop diverting to go ask God if you don’t like their answers.  It should be a clue that something IS NOT WORKING with their counsel.  We are to look deeper, and not just blow it off.

 

That’s not a remedy for the fear and reality of families.  Sadly, it is a show conceit and arrogance. 

 

Victims are against forgiveness as the solution to the problem

I actually call forgiveness the "F" word for the evangelical community, because of how they use forgiveness.  

It's not that victims are against forgiveness. 

Victims are against forgiveness as the solution to the problem.  

Because the problem will go on and on and on as long as every victim continues to give forgiveness.  The organization does not have to address the issues. 

All God’s Children Documentary

As you might have guessed I was watching All God’s Children on Youtube the other night, and the above quote I felt was very profound.  The Video segment above has this quote.

Children of missionaries were placed in boarding schools while their parents served as missionaries – in this case in Africa.  The children were abused badly by the caregivers, and as adult survivors they asked the missionary organization to start dealing with what happened.  The organization threw out the ‘forgiveness’ card, and stonewalled with prevention of this from happening to other children.  They wanted to blow it off as a ‘select few’ that I’m sure they wanted to treat as bad apples, but were overwhelmed with the numbers of survivors that came forward after the story went public.

What happened next was a show of fear towards the missionary alliance’s reputation, and self preservation.  They attempted to ‘deal with it’, but you get the sense they did it more from pressure than from genuine concern.  

Once the heat was removed (somewhat anyway) they were able to go on ‘doing God’s work’.   What they failed to realize or face was helping these victims, and preventing future victims IS God’s work as well.  They pretended their priories were not out of whack.

Sadly, what it shows is if other missionary children are abused?  They have no hope of true support within their community.  They will be set adrift.  I pray that the links I supplied below will be of help to you.

As the men and women within this video documentary spoke of the triggers they deal with to this day?  That doesn’t show a lack of forgiveness, but of struggle. 

They are still struggling to learn to cope with their past, and superhuman type of forgiveness others demand of them is NOT helping them by any stretch of the imagination.

Its true that the faith community does tend to use forgiveness so they don’t have to address the problem or issues.  Once the victim ‘forgives’ they move on as if nothing ever happened.  Victims are left to deal with this on their own, and sharing the burdens that comes from healing is the ‘unforgiveable’ to ask for.

Today forgiveness is a tool that is used, so the church doesn’t have to deal with things that seem to ugly.

Forgiveness is suppose to be for us, and yet it is used as a ‘on demand’ concept for others.  The forgiveness then turns into something for others, and not for the victim at all. 

You see this way to often when dealing with emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and spiritual abuse.  Most of the time people that abuse others in this way?  The victims are asked to forgive their abuser, and then sadly those victims must then find ways of forgiving those that counseled them (on forgiveness) because they would rather wipe the slate clean afterwards – then help them mend other aspects that go along with healing afterwards.

You see those cycle of emotions afterwards are used as ‘points of unforgiveness or bitterness’, and that is the big lie when it comes to support of abuse victims.  Its laziness, unforgiveness towards victims, and fear of how this would impact THEIR circumstance and might bruise THEIR lifes or organization.    It has nothing to do with smearing God in some way, but has everything to do with their fear of facing sin.  Its self perseveration in the ugliest form.

Cycle of Healing – When do you face this?

They say its human to take the path of less resistance.  Victims are easy to steam roll because they are in weaken state anyway, and sadly all too often the faith community takes the ‘secular’ path that is far from biblical.

People that are abused, and are allowed healing tend to have cycles similar to the cycle of grief – loss of a loved one.  I remember when my father died they reminded me of these stages, and how they may not go in order – and you can deal with one cycle again and again at times.

• Denial: “This can’t be happening to me.”
  
• Anger: “Why is this happening? Who is to blame?”
  
• Bargaining: “Make this not happen, and in return I will ____.”
  
• Depression: “I’m too sad to do anything.”
  
• Acceptance: “I’m at peace with what happened.”
  

They tell you these cycles are normal and healthy.  In time you will reach the other side in which you learn to live with what has happened, and are able to go on with life.  That doesn’t mean you forget about the death, and you don’t mourn anymore.  It means that grief no longer overwhelms your life.  Most people have dealt with a death, and you see the genuine support people need as acceptable due to this.

Sadly, that is NOT true for abuse victims most of the time.  That seems especially true if those victims are within the church body – and the abuser is also.

It amazes me that people just ask this superhuman concept of others (instant forgiveness) when abuse happens, without having them process things that they have dealt with.  Then you notice those that counsel this ‘instant forgiveness’ are the ones railing against some pet sin they are against, and then place this aura of how its ‘everywhere around them’.  No, they aren’t ones that do the superhuman concept of instant forgiveness either.   Sadly, they are in so much denial they can’t see it.

Transformation is what is truly amazing!

They say if you beat a dog long enough he will learn to bite you in return after a while.  In softer terms if you torment a cat all the time you may get a good scratch or bite in defense as well.  Most people can ‘grasp’ and understand these concepts, and most are NOT going to blame the animals for their reaction.  If you take that animal and place it in better circumstances people are amazed at the transformation. 

My Siamese cat died in January – he was 17 years old.  He was rescue animal, and you could tell something had happened in the past due to his fear towards things that most cats would not be.  He never lashed out, or would bite.  He was just full of fear.  He was a young cat, and we used plenty of love, patience, and fun to help him come out of his shell.  In time he slowly came out, and he learned that not everyone/everything around him was worth fearing.  Those fears would pop up from time to time, but they lessoned as he enjoyed being spoiled with praise, kisses, rubs and plenty of kitty treats. 

He learned to trust us, and knew we had his best in mind.  When he was older we brought home a puppy, and at that point our cat was strong enough to show him (the puppy) WHOM the top dog was in the house.  Our cat also was secure enough in his position within the family to learn to love the puppy, and in return the puppy had a healthy respect for that ‘old man’.  My Siamese didn’t fear him as he would in the past, and after the patriarchy was established (if you will) he truly cared for his new pup. 

Towards the end of his life I think he sensed my fear of losing him, and he just lovingly endured things as we tried to save him with genuine affection in his eyes.  The day I put him down he was not afraid either, and he almost gave me one last smile as he fell asleep for the last time.    The transformation in that cat was amazing.

I think it is the same with people that are hurt and abused.  They need love, patience, grace and loads of support.  Fear hurts, and is NOT a comfortable state of living. 

Asking victims to forgive is all well and good, but telling them NOT to process their grief, fear, and the other host of emotions?  Its not healthy nor is it normal way of dealing with things.   People are big on saying love is not an emotion, but an action.  Sadly, the actions are not there with most abuse victims.  Using forgiveness as a tool to wipe the slate clean instead of helping them process what happened to them?  That’s not love its fear.

Avoidance is fear – not love!

On the one hand I can understand and empathize with this fear, but on the other hand I can see the terrible effects not facing those fears have on life.  The instant forgiveness crowd may not realize they cement belief systems in victims when they can not do as God would have them do. 

You learn to NOT trust an abuser, and you learn NOT to trust counsel as well when they also aren’t safe to help them process things.  That isn’t being a perpetual ‘victim’, but common sense towards the human nature.   Its like learning to speak ‘cat’, and telling my old pal he didn’t need our love to move past his fear. It’s unrealistic, and spiritual pixie dust to expect it.

When you read Psalms you hear similar cries of pain and anguish, and yet Psalms is NOT used to show you how NOT to deal with injustice, abuse and neglect.  It doesn’t tell others to have this superhuman forgiveness, so others can wipe the slate clean because they are afraid of dealing with reality of circumstances.  Instead it shows the pain and reality of life at times, and does NOT encourage people to stuff things down because those around them are to afraid to help. 

Its sad that people can show MORE compassion towards the death of pet than they do the destruction of a person.

The church sadly is no different than the world when it comes to injustice within the church.  They just have their unique way of NOT dealing with it.   The abuser tells you that its all your fault, and the quote ‘healthy’ ones within the church tend to send the same message once the abuse surfaces.  Telling them to forgive where the church can forget!  Yes, it’s the same as telling victims its their fault all over again.

It’s a sick mindset.  The denial is also very strong, and you could see this within the IFB community when the Tina Anderson story was exposed.  They just were plain unable to to understand WHY people were against Chuck Phelps being a board member afterwards.  They didn’t conceive the reasons that others didn’t accept their ‘authority’ to hound, manipulate and bully those that cried foul.  The organization called, Do Right BJU was started and BJU felt they were right – and they showed the world how sadly they do not have good grasp on reality nor scripture.

We had a person on a faith board that used to be in existence that loved to use manipulative statements of forgiveness towards other hurting people.  He or She would say something along the lines of, “I’m glad MY God forgives me better than you can forgive others!”  Why people think that type of statement is anywhere near helpful towards anyone just boggles the mind.  Yet this statement reassembles the attitude towards victims of abuse completely.

When it seems forgiveness is more for them than for you?  Its okay to cry foul, and please continue to reach out and find those that do understand what God asks from them towards your pain.

Victims are against forgiveness as the solution to the problem.

Forgiveness isn’t the solution to the problem of denial – its just one step of many towards healing.  It’s the scapegoat of the church uses to NOT do what God asks of them.  You can’t share in each other burdens when you pretend those burdens no longer exist.

The church sadly in most cases are more hurtful than secular society when dealing with sin within their own circle.   I’m so thankful for those individuals, organizations, churches and leaders that live out Christ like Love towards victims.  I just pray that some day they aren’t so few and far between.

Please accept the following links if you also need support:

All God’s Children – Documentary website

Missionary Kids Safety Net

Missionary Kids Advocates Forum

MK Planet online community for current MKs and Adult MKs (MK=Missionary kids)

The Hope For Survivors Ministry providing support for victims of clergy sexual abuse

In the links section at the top of my blog is other types of support and missions to help you with your faith towards healing.

My prayers are with you, the faith community, and lastly the abusers themselves.