Unholy Charade - Jeff Crippen

Unmasking the Domestic Abuser in the Church

Tag: gaslighting

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

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On December 14, 2018

In Getting Free

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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The True Story of "Frank" – A Crazymaking Shamer of Little Ones

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On October 17, 2018

In Abusers

Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

Here in the very first chapters of Scripture we meet this crafty serpent. He approaches Adam and Eve as if he has come to help them. He will explain things. He will appear to be their friend and counselor. Soon they will learn otherwise when their whole world comes crashing down.
If you have read much about domestic abusers (and really, abusers of all kinds) you have probably come across the term “crazy-making.” This tactic of evil has been given various names (gaslighting being another), but whatever you call it, the design of the wicked one using it is to make a targeted victim doubt their own perceptions. To make them believe the lies the abuser speaks to them in spite of what they heard or saw themselves.

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