Unholy Charade - Jeff Crippen

Unmasking the Domestic Abuser in the Church

Author: Jeff Crippen Page 37 of 88

More Truths about Forgiveness (Part 2)

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On March 30, 2022

In Biblical Teaching

Here are some more thoughts on this matter of forgiveness that help us dispel the confusion we have so often been hampered (and guilted) by. Once again we thank our friend who sent her essay to us:

First of all, when God forgives, what does He actually do? The Biblical language for forgiveness (or the withholding of forgiveness) is –

  • who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; forgiving iniquity and transgression;
  • He will by no means clear the guilty; pardons all your iniquities,
  • wipes out your transgressions; Passes over rebellious act
  • Retains His anger
  • Cleanses us from all unrighteousness

So from a Biblical standpoint forgiveness essentially is a pardoning of sin, a clearing of the guilty, a removing of debt or wiping out transgression. And because God’s forgiveness of us entails our salvation, there is a sense in which no one can forgive sins but God, and the people were [logically] right to marvel that Jesus would say this, although once they witnessed the power of God in Jesus’ healing of the man, they were accountable for believing.

I believe this means that there is a sense in which we represent God’s forgiveness when we forgive another person, so we better get this right. We do not have any right to invent our own version of forgiveness, (just like we can’t redefine ‘love’!) And because in God’s economy our forgiveness is directly tied to our salvation, then His forgiveness of us will inevitably lead to our reconciliation to Him. The Gospel in a nutshell is forgiveness of sins so we can be restored to God. Obviously we’re not going to save anybody when we forgive, but this is good to keep in mind, just to lay down the foundation for what forgiveness is —and isn’t—and to keep in perspective the depth of the powerful transaction between sinner and God in forgiveness.

Having a Biblical definition of forgiveness is important so that we don’t diminish God’s attributes. If we think of forgiveness only in terms of how we feel, or the relinquishing resentment or bitterness or revenge —then what does that say about God? Isn’t it right for a Holy God to punish sinners? Or are we saying that if God does not forgive then that means He “wants to hurt the person back”? Why should He forgive? For Himself—so He can feel better? Is God giving up something when He forgives, like His “right” to avenge? IF He forgives us is it because He has “let go of grudges” or because His rightful wrath was fully satisfied? Or to use Corrie Ten Boom’s other famous words (inserting God into her equation) does God “set the prisoner free only to realize the prisoner was God”? Do we realize that when we make such nonsense statements about forgiveness we say something distorted about God’s character?

And to play this out in our relationships, if it’s all about how we feel and what we do in private then we not only change what Biblical forgiveness is, but we’d have to forgive no matter what the offender did. And guess who is going to benefit from that? The predators. Because, after all, it would be sin to be resentful, bitter, and vengeful. And guess who gets blamed for that all the time. The victims. Which is actually so backwards! So when we twist forgiveness into something it’s not, it will mar God’s character and only backfire on innocent people while the guilty go free. But if we define forgiveness Biblically and we think in terms of pardoning transgression—the same way God forgives, then it would force us to deal  with the sin, rather than ignore it, and put some “boundaries” around how or when forgiveness is extended. We would need certain conditions to be met because it would be wrong to forgive sin without the removal of guilt first.

More Thoughts on Forgiveness (Part 3)

More Helpful Truths About Forgiveness

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On March 28, 2022

In Biblical Teaching, False Teaching

Luk 5:20-21 And when he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” (21) And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

Col 3:11-13 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. (12) Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, (13) bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

We have all fallen prey at some time to false teachings on this subject of forgiveness. I hope that all of us have now come to see truth and clarity in this matter – what forgiveness really is, that it does not always include restoration of relationship, and so on. But this business still causes all kinds of grief and trouble to victims of evil that it still helps to be reminded of what God really has to say about it.

One of our friends sent me her thoughts and research on forgiveness and she did an excellent job. I want to share some of the things she discovered in Scripture. Many thanks to her! This is how her essay begins:

Corrie Ten Boom said ‘forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred.’ Corrie Ten Boom was wrong. This has absolutely no basis in Scripture whatsoever. The Bible NEVER speaks of forgiveness this way.

Most people’s idea of forgiveness comes from the New Age/ New Thought Movement or Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. I recently saw a couple definitions of forgiveness and the person attempted to use Scripture. This person essentially said ‘forgiveness is a giving up of the right to hurt the other person back’ or not ‘entertaining fantasies of vengeance against the hurtful person.’ The Scriptures given were Col 3:13, Prov 15:1 -which has nothing to do with forgiveness and Matt 6:14.

Even Scripture that tells us to forgive, many times is used in complete isolation from the rest of the Bible, and we end up with a version of forgiveness that sounds more like something Oprah Winfrey would say, not what God Himself would do. The best way to understand forgiveness is to know what God’s forgiveness looks like and to look at what the Bible as a whole teaches how this is carried out. I believe God is the original author of forgiveness. So rather than going to the dictionary for its definition, we need to go to the Very One who made forgiveness possible, Jesus Christ Himself. When God forgives, what does He forgive, and to what purpose and how does that inform our forgiveness of others?

Now, what our friend is getting at here is that definitions are very important. Just what do we mean by “forgiveness”? Because, think about this carefully, there are really at least two aspects of forgiveness. There is 1) the forgiveness which the Colossians passage (above) is speaking of – a forgiveness which we exercise, and 2) There is ultimate forgiveness which ONLY God can grant. So when we start talking like WE can grant forgiveness, things get very muddled and damaging if we fail to be precise in what we mean. Most teaching and talk among Christians these days on this subject is muddled.

Our friend goes on (after quoting quite a number of additional scriptures that speak of God’s forgiveness) –

If we truly want to understand forgiveness we have to look at God’s forgiveness first, to lay a foundation, because forgiveness is imbedded in God’s attributes. If we distort forgiveness in any way, we will end up distorting His character and the Gospel. The way it plays out when God forgives us, generally will play out in the way we forgive others. I say, generally, because there’s not going to be an exact 100% 1:1 correlation. But we have to begin with God.

First of all, when God forgives, what does He actually do? The Biblical language for it is…

who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; forgiving iniquity and transgression;

He will by no means clear the guilty; pardons all your iniquities,

wipes out your transgressions; Passes over rebellious act

Retains His anger

Cleanses us from all unrighteousness  

So from a Biblical standpoint forgiveness essentially is a pardoning of sin, a clearing of the guilty, a removing of debt or wiping out transgression. And because God’s forgiveness of us entails our salvation, there is a sense in which no one can forgive sins but God, and the people were right to marvel that Jesus would say this when they didn’t know He’s God. (I believe this means that there is a sense in which we extend God’s forgiveness when we forgive another person, so we better get this right. We do not have any right to invent our own version of forgiveness, just like we can’t redefine ‘love’!)

This is enough food for thought for now. I will continue to present her essay to you in portions in the next few blog posts. But let’s leave off here today and really digest the points she has made. When someone tells us “you must forgive your abuser,” quite often – whether they realize it or not – they are acting as if we must clear the record of the wicked person’s evil and treat them as if their evil has been atoned for. In other words, we are being told that we are to be a kind of Christ to the wicked, bear their evil upon ourselves, and thereby atone for their sins. Because, you see, that is the ONLY way God in Christ forgives sin. But we are not Christ.

…to be continued

More Truths about Forgiveness (Part 2)

I Bet All of You Will Recognize this Scenario

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On March 23, 2022

In Abusers, Evil

Miranda Devine very recently published a book exposing evil. It is titled Laptop from Hell and it is about President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. You may have read about this infamous laptop with its trove of evidence which is looking more and more like will result in indictments – and more.

But what I want to do here is show you an excerpt from chapter 5, entitled – It’s Over. Hunter’s now ex-wife (they were married some 20 years) emailed him in 2016 and this is how her message went:

I’m leaving you because you are having an affair and you have been emotionally abusive. I forgave you for cheating before, I tried to help you get sober and you made it clear, throughout the past year, that you didn’t want to be with me. You didn’t want my forgiveness and you didn’t want my help with your recovery.

I cannot control how you will twist what has happened over the past year – how you will try to make it my fault – which seems as cruel as the cheating.

Devine writes:

That is indeed what Hunter did to Kathleen, his wife of 22 years, when he told the world his version of the disintegration of their marriage in his 2021 memoir. By his account it was Kathleen’s failure to forgive him at his hour of greatest need, right after his brother’s death of brain cancer in 2015, that triggered his spiral into drugs and adultery. Finally, she drove him into the arms of his brother’s widow, Hallie, the only woman who understood his pain.

Kathleen would come to believe that the affair with his sister-in-law began within days of the funeral. At first, he made her feel ‘crazy’ for doubting him.

I could write a list here of all the abuser tactics and their effects on a victim which are evidenced here in just these few paragraphs. But I will just let you all draw up the list in your comments. This is just a sample of what Hunter Biden’s evil antics have been that are documented in this book – attested to by evidence on his own computer! And, as you can imagine, as they say – the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

NOTE: If you want to read a thorough expose of an abuser – the power and control, lying, self-justified, poor-me kind you all have known – then read this book. Or if you can’t stomach it all (the corruption’s tentacles reach around the globe and into the highest places), just read this 5th chapter and keep it handy to show people the schemes and mentality of evil that you faced from you abuser.

What Kind of People Go to Hell?

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On March 21, 2022

In Churches/Church Response

Revelation 21:6-8,” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. (7) The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. (8) But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

What kind of people will populate Hell?  Or, more precisely, the Lake of Fire?  The answer would surprise most people.  The Apostle John lists some of them here:

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God Gives Vengeance to the Afflicted and Rescues us from Men of Violence

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On March 16, 2022

In Supporting Victims

Psa 18:46-50 The LORD lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation– (47) the God who gave me vengeance and subdued peoples under me, (48) who delivered me from my enemies; yes, you exalted me above those who rose against me; you rescued me from the man of violence. (49) For this I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations, and sing to your name. (50) Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever.

I am sure that you have days – perhaps many of them – when you just feel like quitting. Your thoughts run something like this:

  • My abuser seems to win every time
  • People believe him, not me
  • He has treated me with violence, yet he prospers and I have nothing
  • Maybe everything really is my fault, just like so many people are saying

I can’t read your mind, but I know how this kind of thinking goes because I have those very same thoughts many times too. King David had those days too, if you will read more of the Psalms you will see it to have been the case. And yet here in Psalm 18 David shares a great victory with us. God had given him vengeance. He rescued him from the man of violence. But the Lord does not only do this for people like David. Notice that last line –

Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever.

And to his offspring. Offspring is “seed.” Who is the seed of David? The Lord Jesus Christ! And all who are in Christ by faith are also David’s offspring. You see it in Romans 4 where Paul shows us that Abraham was the father of all who are of faith, David being one of them. We are Abraham’s seed. We are, you might say, David’s seed as well.  And that means that we are heirs of all the promises God made to them.

The point is this: don’t despair. Don’t give up. Fix your eyes on Jesus and believe His promises. Because I can tell you this by the sure authority of God’s own Word: the day is coming when God will give you vengeance and when he will deliver you from the violent man. He will do it. I don’t know when. I don’t know how. But he is going to do it because if you are in Christ, God has set His love on you just as surely as he set it on King David.
He is coming. He is coming. Your day is coming.

Little gods – the wicked demand worship

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On March 14, 2022

In Abusers, Evil, Getting Free

Act 20:29-30 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; (30) and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.

We know that the fundamental motive of Satan is – “I will be like the Most High.” He tempted Jesus to worship him. He usurped God’s Word in the garden. He is the spirit of antichrist, setting himself up in the temple and declaring he is God.

It is not surprising therefore that his diabolic servants do the same. You see it here in Acts 20 when Paul warns the people at Ephesus to be on guard. Right from among themselves savage wolves would arise. And their motive? To draw away the disciples after them. Looking for a following. Looking for worshipers to worship them. They are like their father the devil.

You know that domestic abusers seek power and control. Translate that. Domestic abusers seek to be worshipped. They view themselves as gods. Like Nebuchadnezzar of Daniel’s day, they command the orchestra to play and for their select targets to then bow down in worship. Or else. Victims are still being cast into the fiery furnace for refusing to do so (and Christ still meets us in that furnace).

Narcissists, sociopaths, abusers – they are little gods. They fashion themselves into deities and view themselves as such. Think of Diotrephes in 3 John who “wanted to be first.” Churches are so often infested by these idols and so often end up giving them what is due only to Christ – worship.

So let’s beware. Let’s be wise. When we sense pressure to bow down (and that pressure, as you know, can be very covert and unseen – but felt), we can know that something is very wrong. The Spirit of the Lord always, always, always draws our attention to Christ, never to a man. He leads us to obey Christ and we find, as we do, that Jesus’ yoke is easy. The yoke of a false god is oppressive, always accompanied by threats and fear.

Gal 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

A Very Helpful Video (only 12 minutes) on the Covert Narcissist

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On March 9, 2022

In Abusers

I have found Dr. Les Carter’s youtube videos extremely helpful. I have not seen anywhere so far in which he professes to be a Christian but nevertheless I have benefitted quite a lot from his lectures.

As you will hear in this video (link below), some narcissists are very overt and “out there” in their arrogant, self-absorbed narc behavior. But others, and for the most part these are the kind we face in churches and other Christian circles, are termed “covert narcissists.” That is the kind Dr. Carter talks about here. So give it a listen – most of you will probably recognize your abuser in this description:

Detecting Covert Narcissism

Abusers, Narcissists, and Their Sort all Wear a Disguise

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On March 7, 2022

In Abusers, Evil

Joh 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Because the wicked are of their father the devil, just as Jesus told the Pharisees (white-washed tombs), they necessarily wear a disguise. In Christian and religious circles, their disguise is some kind of “holiness.” In the secular realm it can be a sort of morality or intellectual acuity – but in every case the disguise has the purpose of 1) gaining acclaim, and 2) hiding the real person. The dead men’s bones Jesus spoke of.

Now, what I wanted to point out here is just one aspect of these hypocrites and the masks they wear. Namely, when the mask slips, as it inevitably does in unguarded moments, or when someone sees through the disguise, this kind of person is going to lash out in cruelty, hatred, revenge-seeking, and other such assaults toward the person who dared expose them.

This, you see, is why the “christian” naricissist/abuser threatens his target with all sorts of harm if she ever dares to reveal the truth. “Don’t ever speak about what goes on in this home” – and that sort of thing.

There are other kinds of hypocrites lurking in churches as well. Their relationships are based upon a demand (often communicated indirectly, more felt than heard)…upon a demand that the secrets about who they really are remain secret. Only praise and adulation are permitted. Active censorship is always at work. And woe, woe, woe to anyone who exposes the real person behind the mask.

This is an all too common pattern seen in people who have chosen Christianity as their mask. So effective are the masks in many cases that it can take years before it is seen through. Some people never see through it and they are the people who will side against the victim when the evil one is exposed.

So be wise. If you are in any kind of relationship with a person who overtly or subtlety, even non-verbally, communicates to you that you must never, ever speak of things you are seeing in them behind the façade, then you can know that you are in a relationship with a very toxic and unsafe person. The deeds of darkness demand secrecy. Christ’s kingdom is one of Light.

Book Review: The Peacemaker — Peace at Any Cost?

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On March 2, 2022

In Churches/Church Response, Counseling

The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict by Ken Sande is no friend of abuse victims and has real potential to increase their suffering greatly.  This book has been in use for some years now (1991) and we have had reports of it creating havoc in abuse settings.

Sande makes a very common and serious error, quite evident in his 10th chapter which is entitled “Forgive as God Forgave You.”  The central Scripture cited is —

Colossians 3:12-14 ESV Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, (13)  bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (14)  And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Many of our readers are no doubt familiar with distortions of this Scripture, along with its parallel in Ephesians 4:32.  The argument is that if we are to forgive as Christ has forgiven us, then surely forgiveness must always include reconciliation of relationship and re-establishment of trust.  The nature of true biblical repentance is not adequately developed by Sande and there is no sufficient discussion of the mentality of abuse and how the deceptive nature of the abuser so often falsifies repentance.

In fact, this book is essentially empty of any acknowledgment of true evil.  The nature and tactics of abuse seem to be foreign to the author’s thinking.  One comes away from this book with the sense that in any conflict or sin, the real bulk of the responsibility for making peace with the one who has offended rests upon the person who has been wronged.  I think that abusers would love this book and that it will provide them with all kinds of pious-sounding arguments to coerce their victim into massive guilt and confusion.
Here is Sande’s standard formula for forgiveness:

“Through forgiveness, God tears down the walls that our sins have erected, and he opens the way for a renewed relationship with him.  This is exactly what we must do if we are to forgive as the Lord forgives us; we must release the person who has wronged us from the penalty of being separated from us.  Because we must not hold wrongs against others, not think about them, and not punish others for them, forgiveness may be described as a decision to make four promises:

  • I will no longer dwell on this incident.
  • I will not bring up this incident again and use it against you.
  • I will not talk to others about this incident.
  • I will not allow this incident to stand between us or hinder our relationship.

It will not take our readers long to understand how this rigid and simplistic definition of forgiveness is going to victimize abuse victims terribly.  Tell me, would Sande apply these requirements to a girl whose father had incestuously raped her?  Or to a rape victim?  Would he demand that in all cases of domestic or sexual abuse or in cases of the most heinous crimes against one’s person, the victim must always work toward reconciliation with the evil one?  Sande of course says that the wrongdoer must repent.  But we all know how rare true repentance is.  Sande does not give us that impression but makes repentance sound rather easy.  For example:

“Confirm repentance.  It is difficult to forgive a person who has failed to repent and confess clearly and specifically.  When you find yourself in this situation, it may be wise to explain to the person who wronged you why you are having a difficult time forgiving. [NOTE:  Sande puts the chief burden on the victim in these words]…. If you are having a difficult time forgiving someone, you may need to help them see where their confession has been deficient and encourage them to take repentance more seriously. “

Mr. Sande, I am sorry, but I have to ask you — what fantasyland are you living in?
The Peacemaker will not make peace.  It will further terrorize victims of abuse and serve as an evil weapon in the hands of evil people.

We All Begin in Naivete About Evil — But We Must Not Stay There

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On February 28, 2022

In Churches/Church Response

 He also told them a parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?  (Luke 6:39)

An abuse survivor made the following excellent comment: 

I grew up very sheltered, I mean genuinely sheltered and protected in a godly Bible-believing home. And if someone had just walked up to me and started describing an abusive situation in a “nice Christian home”, I wouldn’t have been able to understand. I wouldn’t have accused the person of lying, but I wouldn’t have been able to grasp that level of evil and deceit hiding under the façade of Christianity. I would have looked for some other explanation, some way that there was some sort of misunderstanding or something.

I know now that that innocence and naivete on my part would have made me ripe for being manipulated into aiding the abuser, but it would have been genuine ignorance on my part, not evil. I didn’t even begin the process of really understanding that abuse as it really is even existed until I read your blog a couple of years ago when I was 19, and things have been slowly filtering through my brain since then. I guess I’m just trying to say is that there are others like me who have just been so sheltered that they truly can’t comprehend such things in their most raw form.

So keep on going after the bad guys — especially the subtle ones — but please remember to give people like me a chance. (I’m not saying you haven’t been; I’m just sort of throwing the idea out there.)

Mary is the kind of genuine Christian who we want to help become wise in regard to evil. Like her, those of us who grew up in a Christian home, sheltered from evil, are (or were) largely clueless when it comes to the existence, the nature, and the tactics of wickedness especially when it parades as Christian and creeps into the church. We thought that our local church was a place where nice people come together and love one another and sing praises to the Lord and everyone is happy. Sometimes the pastor would mysteriously disappear and a new pastor would come, or at other times some people who used to be very active suddenly left to be seen no more. But those things were for the deacon board and such. We didn’t worry about it really.

But in fact, as we now know, evil lurked. It always does. Satan always comes into Eden. The moment Jesus entered this world Satan began his attacks to destroy him. The devil and his agents inevitably creep unnoticed into any place where the gospel of Jesus Christ is being proclaimed and lived. 

This is where we as the church have no excuse for this naivete. What I mean is that people like Mary, people who are genuine sheep, are in the local church so that the shepherds can protect them, teach them, and help them become wise. And that wisdom necessarily must include becoming wise about evil. The Bible is absolutely filled with such instruction. Teaching and preaching that fails to so equip the flock is like basic training that doesn’t teach soldiers how to shoot a rifle, or worse — that doesn’t teach them about the enemy!

Oh, sure, we had classes on the doctrine of Satan and demons. We heard about his origins and the various names Scripture gives him. But we weren’t taught about the actual hands-on tactics that he uses (the same kind that abusers use against us). We weren’t taught about what his agents look like. Yes, we were told that Satan can come as an angel of light and that his servants disguise themselves as sons of righteousness, but what we weren’t told is that this means that Mr. Smith, good old “godly” Mr. Smith that everyone believes is the pillar of the church, could very well be an emissary of darkness. We weren’t told that all of this deception Scripture identifies for us means that these things are happening in OUR church, and that the fellow up there reading the Scriptures each week from the podium may actually be a most wicked abuser of his wife. We weren’t told that there are women (and sometimes men) in OUR church who are suffering horribly at the hands of an evil spouse who parades under a cloak of saintliness each week.

Such things you see, are too unpleasant, too unbelievable.  And there is the crux of the thing. Unbelievable. Unbelief. Lack of faith in the Word of God that reveals these things to us. Study theology and Bible doctrine all we want, memorize catechisms and be well-versed in our confessions of faith, we will remain absolutely ignorant of the enemy and his tactics and his agents in disguise among us. There is a bridge that must be crossed from the realm of systematic theology to the world of practical wisdom about what all that theology necessarily entails in real life and in our churches. Most Christians haven’t crossed that bridge. Many don’t want to.

All of this reveals, in my opinion, a widespread scarcity of truly wise shepherds to lead God’s people. I used to think that such wisdom could be obtained by going to seminary. I no longer believe that. In my seminary years I never came across one single, godly, wise professor who was battle-scarred and understood the wiles of the enemy. On top of that, there was a climate in the seminary that squelched real honest discussion of and instruction about such things. Happy talk. That’s what we want.

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