Category: Getting Free

America Celebrates Divorce from an Abuser on the 4th of July – Independence Day!

On By Jeff CrippenIn Getting Free7 Comments

Here is the beginning of the Declaration of Independence. It is a divorce decree. It is the recognition of a breach of covenant. We celebrate this divorce in the United States every July 4th. The purpose of this post is to simply put forth this question: If it was right and good for the American Colonies to divorce the King of England for his many and repeated abuses, if most all Americans including pastors and church members celebrate this Independence Day as a glorious win for freedom, how is it that these same pastors and church members insist that an abuse victim in a marriage has no right to divorce their abuser?

There is the question as all Americans wave flags and watch the fireworks and celebrate freedom from tyranny. How is it that so many professing Christians will deny the same freedom to a fellow believer who is suffering a present and evil tyranny right in their midst? It is quite common for churches to wave the flag and celebrate on this day, yet at the very same time they oppress the oppressed by demanding they remain in bondage to a wicked abuser.  The common double standard.

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The Unanimous Declaration of the
Thirteen United States of America
In Congress, July 4, 1776

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

When the Abuse Victim Becomes the Abuser’s Ally

On By Jeff CrippenIn Getting Free12 Comments

Acts 5:1-2 But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, (2) and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

It is not my intent to teach that Sapphira was married to an abuser. I simply cite this scripture as an illustration of a wife taking the side of her husband in an evil matter. Both were held accountable.

Nor am I teaching here that a victim of domestic abuse who does not actively expose her abuser is going to be counted guilty by the Lord. We all know, I trust, that “just leaving” an abuser is no easy matter and sometimes, for a time, it is impossible.

But I do want to discuss here a subject that I have come across personally numerous times, namely, cases in which the wife of a domestic abuser actively defends the abuser and even participates in his abuse of their children and of other people. All of the cases I have dealt with have been in the local church and in which the abuser and spouse claimed to be Christians.

Continue reading “When the Abuse Victim Becomes the Abuser’s Ally” →

Abuse Victims are Being Thrown to the Lions in Local Churches

On By Jeff CrippenIn Getting Free5 Comments

1Co 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

This passage of Scripture is often misapplied to keep victims of domestic abusers in bondage. However, in this post I want to focus upon God’s promise of “the way of escape.” Obviously it is God’s will that when we are in a trial or test and we see a way of escape, we take it! After all, God Himself provides it!

Now, there are people who claim to be Christians who will tell you that it is always better (and in fact that God requires it) to remain in the trial. Even “unto death.” In other words, they promote martyrdom. Of course they are characterized by the ever-present double standard of the abuser. No way would they become a martyr, but you are required to be one.

Continue reading “Abuse Victims are Being Thrown to the Lions in Local Churches” →

You CAN Trust Your Perceptions – Don’t Believe a Crazy-Maker

On By Jeff CrippenIn Getting Free12 Comments

John 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.

One of the common tactics of a domestic abuser is to lie. After all, he is of his father the devil who lies whenever he speaks. So it is the abuser’s nature to lie. And one of the ways abusers lie is to lie about the facts. About reality. To distort what happened. The goal? To convince the victim that her perceptions cannot be trusted. That she is crazy. A kind of fog is cast over the victim’s mind so that she wonders if what she saw or heard or smelled or felt was even real.

Now, still another way that the wicked use this gaslighting (as it is sometimes called) tactic is to twist and distort Scripture. For example, consider the following passage:

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There is a Time to be Done with Your Abuser

On By Jeff CrippenIn Getting Free2 Comments

Mat 10:12-15 As you enter the house, greet it. (13) And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. (14) And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. (15) Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.

Much of what I write these days is repetition. I have written about these subjects before. But truth needs to be repeated, and repeated, and repeated. Often. It takes hearing something over and over before we finally “see” it.  And so here it is, once more.

Many (probably most) churches today have been teaching unbiblical concepts of the love of Christ. “Unconditional love” seems to be the catch phrase. We are told that we must never give up on anyone. That no matter what they have done, we must love them. And by “love them,” most often what is meant is that we must continue to have a relationship with them, expend energies trying to “fix” them, and so on. This mantra of course leaves the domestic abuse victim sitting forever in abuse.

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Waiting for Sasha – The Believer’s Certain Hope

On By Jeff CrippenIn Getting Free7 Comments

Tit 2:11-14 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, (12) training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, (13) waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, (14) who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Until last April, we had two labs – Sadie and Sasha. But Sasha (the black one) died of cancer. Sadie and Sasha were constantly together ever since puppyhood.

Now, I don’t claim to know what goes on in Sadie’s mind, but we have noticed a definite change in her behavior since Sasha left. She is a real people dog, but she chooses to sleep on the back porch and she spends lots of time during the day laying out back on the lawn, watching. So we wonder – is she waiting for Sasha? [As I write this, little does Sadie know that she is about to be joined by Cinder, a black lab/golden retriever puppy, in just a couple of days].

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Marriage is not Hard – You Have been Lied to

On By Jeff CrippenIn Getting Free40 Comments

Gen 2:23-24 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” (24) Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

One of the primary reasons churches are so filled with unbiblical teaching and man-made tradition parading as God’s Word is that those who are doing the teaching should not be teaching anyone. Wicked doctrine is promulgated by wicked teachers. And frankly, we have been having truckloads of evil teaching dumped on us in church for decades now.

One of these lies is that marriage is hard. You hear the mantra over and over. “Well, that is tough, but you know, marriage is hard. We are all sinners. You have to work at it.” Yada, yada.

Continue reading “Marriage is not Hard – You Have been Lied to” →