Unholy Charade - Jeff Crippen

Unmasking the Domestic Abuser in the Church

Author: Jeff Crippen Page 64 of 89

He Doesn't Think Like You – A Very Important Truth to Get Hold of

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On February 10, 2020

In Abusers

One of the most difficult truths to grasp is the realization that the domestic abuser does not think like us. Your abuser’s thoughts are not your thoughts. Let me explain by illustration. Victor Davis Hanson, in his book The Second World Wars [Basic Books, 2017] a statement by the British statesman Anthody Eden is quoted. Eden said that very few Brits had, as Davis says, “ever encountered anyone quite like Hitler or Mussolini.” Eden said:

You know, the hardest thing for me during that time [leading up to the war] was to convince my friends that Hitler and Mussolini were quite different from British business men or country gentlemen as regards their psychology, motivations and modes of action. My friends simply refused to believe me. They thought I was biased against the dictators and refused to understand them. I kept saying, ‘When you converse with the Fuhrer or the Duce, you feel at once that you are dealing with an animal of an entirely different breed from yourself.’

Eden had it pegged, but as it is today in most cases, very few would listen. Most people felt that, like themselves, Hitler really didn’t want war. Why? Because they didn’t. And they assumed that ultimately everyone wanted peace.
But there are people in this world who do not want peace. They want power. They want control. And the attainment of those stations usually requires war, oppression, the making of victims, and the infliction of suffering.

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More Thoughts on the Error of Dealing With Evil by Appeasement

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On February 5, 2020

In Churches/Church Response

Isa 1:16-17  Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil,  (17)  learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.

Evildoers target the defenseless. They look for the weak and helpless. This is why the Lord commands us to bring justice to the fatherless and to plead the widow’s cause – because they are the ones typically targeted by the wicked.
It has always been true and it is true in our day. Think for example of the kinds of targets these demonic mass shooters select: schools, churches, and other places where there are lots of people who are unarmed or in some way unable to defend themselves against the attacker.
Churches are often and even typically blind to the real nature and existence of evil. That sounds like an incredible statement, but it is true and if you have been the target of a domestic abuser for instance, you found this out very quickly when you went to your pastor for help. Myths and fictions are fabricated in the pulpit and in the literature and the people are convinced that these things are “Bible truth.”
We are told and we like to tell ourselves that if we just “love” the evil man enough, if we willingly suffer under his assaults as sacrificial victims, if we issue him adequate hugs, he will put down his gun, fall to his knees in prayer, and believe in Jesus. That is the very thing that domestic abuse victims are so often told by their churches and if they refuse, they are marked as unfaithful Christians and put out of the church. It’s true. I am not overstating the case. These things are examples of the failed policy of appeasement. Just give the devil what he wants and he will leave you alone.

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Churches are Practicing a Policy of Appeasement with Evil – It Has Never Worked

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On February 3, 2020

In Churches/Church Response

George Washington’s words may seem hard and cold today, but history has proven him right again and again. ‘To be prepared for war,’ he said, ‘is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.’ [Peace Through Strength, Across the Centuries: True Then, True Today by John Heubusch].

If you have ever studied the history of the second world war, you know that England, against the repeated counsel of Winston Churchill, pursued a policy of appeasement with Nazi Germany. Chamberlain came back from a meeting with Hitler waving a piece of paper in his hand and boasting he had achieved “peace in our time.” Then Hitler invaded Poland and the slaughter of millions took place.
We can find many examples, some of them very recent ones, of politicians insisting that the way to deal with tyrannical, totalitarian, oppressive regimes is to appease them. Give them what they want. Don’t upset them. This is sheer foolishness. It has never worked and it will never work. Evil is never appeased. The wicked are never satisfied.

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More Thoughts on Abuse Victims as Widows and Orphans

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On January 29, 2020

In Biblical Teaching

Exo 22:22-24  You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child.  (23)  If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry,  (24)  and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.

I have written before on this subject of abuse victims as widows and orphans of our day. I maintain that the many Scriptures that tell us to care for them and that promise the Lord’s wrath upon anyone who mistreats them apply directly to victims of domestic abusers and their children. Some of you have told me that your pastor (ex pastor now, I trust) rejects this suggestion of the abuse victim as widow.
Those pastors are dead wrong and it leaves me wondering why they are so opposed to treating abuse victims as belonging to this category.
Consider the language used in the Bible for widows and orphans and others:

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More Print Publications are Coming from Us

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On January 28, 2020

In Blog News

If you look at the right hand sidebar of the Unholy Charade home page, you will see our newest publication, the concise book In My Father’s House: God’s Redemptive Plan from Genesis to Revelation. As you probably know, this is a digest of my sermon series by the same title which you can still find at sermonaudio.com/crc under the sermon series menu titled, In My Father’s House. It is an important book, purposely kept brief. It is a great way to get the big picture of the Bible and it can serve as a perfect tool to give to someone who still is looking for clarity regarding what the Bible is all about. And abusers are not welcome In My Father’s House!
Soon we will be publishing another book of similar concise length. It is based on my sermon Who is a Christian? (also available at sermonaudio.com/crc  as audio and PDF.) This is an absolutely vital topic for all of us to get a firm grasp on. The foggy and false teaching in the churches about who is a Christian continues to protect hypocrites and abusers who are in no way born again. You will be able to see quite clearly that the Bible is plain: an abuser as we define them here is in no way a Christian. The thing is impossible. As long as churches continue to insist that a person can habitually walk in sin and still be regenerate, abusers are going to be empowered and enabled.
Lord willing, there will be more publications forthcoming as well in days ahead. We pray that the Lord will bless them to His use and to the help of people being oppressed by evil hiding in sheep’s wool.
 

Those who fail to help the oppressed are headed for judgment

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On January 27, 2020

In Churches/Church Response

I am just going to let the Bible speak here. The point is quite obvious. Consider what is going to happen to all these churches and church leaders and “biblical” counselors who fail to help abuse victims and in fact add to their oppression?  Here is the answer:

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Beware of Flattery – A Favorite Tactic of the Wicked

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On January 26, 2020

In Abusers

Mat 22:15-16  Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words.  (16)  And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances.

This morning I am preaching a sermon which is an overview of Matthew 22:15-46 in which the Lord’s enemies tried to ensnare Him with three questions. I wanted to notice here that these schemes began with the scheme of flattery as you can see in the verses quoted above. Listen to these great observations by J.C. Ryle, taken from his Expository Thoughts on the Gospels:

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All Power and Control Regimes Share the Same Basic Characteristics

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On January 22, 2020

In Abusers

Matthew 20:25-28 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. (26) It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, (27) and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, (28) even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

My wife is getting used to it. We just settle down for the night, my brain starts working, and I say “I have to get up and write this idea down or I will lose it.” That is what happened tonight. So here I am, writing.
Here is the big idea: all structures that rule by power and control, whether they be monarchies or the Third Reich, or ruthless corporations (not all corporations are ruthless), or churches gone wrong or families gone wrong, are characterized by some very similar if not identical attitudes and tactics. What Hitler did to enslave a nation, the wicked man does to enslave his victims.

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Corporate Accountability – All Share in the Guilt of Oppressing Victims

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On January 21, 2020

In Churches/Church Response

Mat 23:34-35  Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town,  (35)  so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

Every single time I post a comment on social media or write a blog post in which I say that the entire Southern Baptist Convention, its churches and members as well as its top level leaders, are guilty of oppressing victims of abuse, I know that I am going to have the following missile launched at me:

Your charge is unfair. You cannot judge all for the sins of a few. The church I am going to is an SBC church and we don’t do those things. We are in fact working to make it harder and harder for sexual predators and abusers to operate among us. You owe us all an apology for your accusation.

And when we address the top level leadership in the SBC and their ongoing sins of tolerating evil in the churches, even covering for it, what is their typical response?

Baptists are not like the Roman Catholic church. Our churches are independently governed. We here at the home office have no authority over them. You owe us an apology for accusing us of participating in these things.

Seems as if the only wrongdoer is ME or anyone who calls the SBC to account.

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Does the Lord send us back to people who have threatened to kill us?

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On January 20, 2020

In Churches/Church Response

Psalm 94:1-7  O LORD, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth!  (2)  Rise up, O judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve!  (3)  O LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult?  (4)  They pour out their arrogant words; all the evildoers boast.  (5)  They crush your people, O LORD, and afflict your heritage.  (6)  They kill the widow and the sojourner, and murder the fatherless;  (7)  and they say, “The LORD does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive.”

Many times domestic abusers make overt or veiled threats that they will kill their victim if the victim ever leaves them. And of course we all know that actual cases of these murders being carried out are not at all rare.
What does the Lord think of such evildoers? The Psalmist answers that question quite plainly. The Lord sees them. And He is a God of vengeance, a defender of the innocent. The Psalmist rightly calls upon the Lord to rise up and repay these arrogant murderers.

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