Pluck's Blog » emotional abuse

Blog Tour: Not of My Making: Bullying, Scapegoating and Misconduct

Margaret — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:52:53 +0000

The first week of my blog tour is over. Sitting in front of a hotel window overlooking Lake George in the Adirondacks I have some time to reflect on how it went. At the end of Day 1 Deena of A Survivor’s Thoughts on Life emailed me asking me if it turned out okay and expressing the hope that my other stops would turn out better. I replied:

I think the blog stop worked out fine. It gained some exposure for both of us. I know several people read the post even if they didn’t write comments. Some people emailed me privately. One has asked me to write a book with him on friendship. You cannot tell right away how successful a marketing campaign is or isn’t. Some books sold.

Book marketing is hard work. I had to take time to read my hosts’ blogs and write a post for them to use on their blog. My hosts read my book, wrote a review and helped moderate the comments. During the blog stop I monitored comments and responded to readers as close to real time as possible. I also twittered about it motivating people to read the posts and comment. I offered the incentive of a drawing for a free book. Mary Morgan won the drawing for re-tweeting the announcement and Cat M won for writing a comment.

Day One of the tour I stopped at Aida Calder’s Forgetting the Former Things and at Deena’s A Survivor’s Thoughts on Life. Both women posted reviews of my book on their blogs. I then posted my reaction. Several women followed me at Forgetting the Former Things, commented and retweeted my messages about the virtual book tour. Deena asked me questions throughout the day and I responded.

My third blog stop was at The Apostle Wive’s Club. A few women who had commented at Forgetting the Former Things followed me there. Before “meeting” the owner of the blog I had never given any thought of how the Catholic Church responded to priests who broke their celibacy vow and married. Their reaction appears hypocritical. Over the past decades the Catholic Church has covered up sexual abuse and reassigned offending priests. Why are they so forgiving of pedophiles but not of priests who fall in love and marry?

The fourth tour was at Book Hookup where Donna Sundblad asked me to write about what inspired Not of My Making. Read The Healing Journey

The blog tour has gotten me out of my comfort zone and I have “met” several interesting people. That has been one of the unplanned benefits of book marketing. Immediately following my de-churchings I became mildly agoraphobic and withdrew into myself. Book marketing forced me to be assertive and outgoing. I wasn’t going to sell many books if I withdrew into the safety of my home.

If you missed the blog stops you can still read the posts about Not of My Making, spiritual abuse, friendship and book writing. They are located at:

Forgetting the Former Things

Haunted by the Ghosts of Spiritual Abuse

Aida Calder’s Review of Not of My Making

A Survivor’s Thoughts on Life:

Interview with Margaret W Jones, Ph.D.

Is Shunning a Form of Emotional Abuse

Deena’s Review of Not of My Making

Not of My Makng, Part 2

Not of My Making, Part 1

Not of My Making, Initial Reaction to Book

I Met Someone Today – Divine Appointment?

The Apostles Wives Club:

Margaret Answers Your Questions

Book Hookup:

What Inspired Not of My Making?

Week Two of the Tour will start May 2^nd. Please join me. The schedule is:

Date	Day	Blog
2-May	Sat	We Survived Abuse
2-May	Sat	John’s Grace Walk
3-May	Fri	Truth in Ministry
4-May	Mon	Under Much Grace
4-May	Mon	Futurist Guy
TBA		What Really Matters

Conversations about spiritual abuse

Margaret — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:19:48 +0000

With the help of my virtual assistant, Lee Drozak I have been planning a virtual book tour for Not of My Making: Bullying, Scapegoating and Misconduct in Churches. The tour will start on Monday, April 13^th at Aida Calder’s blog, Forgetting the Former Things.

In setting up the tour I have had the honor to correspond with and talk to a number of wonderful people dedicated to helping fellow survivors overcome abuse. Read Deena Springer’s post about our phone conversation at A Survivor’s Thoughts on Life

As I wanted, my book is promoting a discussion about abuse in churches. Below are my responses to some issues raised by John Weaver of Against Biblical Counseling:

John wrote:

I think what your book does do well is provide an insight into the kind of doctrinal and internal in-fighting that goes on in mainline churches. I was shocked to find that Unitarianism can be so divisive. Coming out of the evangelical tradition, I had no idea that Unitarian belief – which many evangelicals (not me) believe is too vague to provoke disagreement – can provoke such profound disagreements among its members.

My response:

People argue about whatever they feel passionate about. While Unitarians insist they have no doctrine, in fact, they do. Some of its tenets are: man is good, there is no sin, morality is relative, all value systems are equal except Christianity which is the cause of most wars, homosexual behavior is biologically determined and is not a sin, it is wrong to be a Republican etc. If you step outside of this even a fraction of an inch you will be accused as I was of not being a real Unitarian. Unitarians tend to be far left ideologues who play with religion picking and choosing what makes them feel good from the world’s religions while condemning or ignoring the parts that they find too challenging. Often Unitarian churches are no more than left wing political organizations masquerading as religion.

John further wrote:

The situation you describe in your book is hard for an outside reader to judge accurately, especially when only presented with one side of it.

I replied:

I asked my adversaries to share their perspectives on the events I wrote about in my book. They refused. From what I can deduce, they believe I am unreasonable and bad and it is better not to help me. I hope and pray that they know at some level that what they did was wrong and are ashamed to have it out there in print. Maybe some day they will apologize just as my high school classmate has. You can read about that in my blog post, “Facebook Redemption”? Be sure to read Jeff Fisher’s comment. It corroborates my high school experience and will give you a glimpse of how I was viewed when I was a teenager.

John wrote:

I am not saying your church(s) did not scapegoat you, just that it would be impossible for me or any other blogger to be able to honestly say they knew the ‘truth’ of your story, even if the sole guidepost they were using is your text. In this, it differs, from, say, Renee Altson’s book Stumbling Toward Faith, where it is obvious to any reader that Altson underwent extreme abuse at the hands of evangelical church leadership. Similarly, too, the Mercy survivors I cover obviously were abused by their exorcists, as careful research into Mercy Ministries clearly demonstrates.

My response:

I suspect you and/or your readers are having difficulty accepting that emotional and relational abuse can cause as much damage as the severe sexual and physical abuse and/or you do not believe people who share your values are capable of being abusive. Psychological research has discovered it is the emotional abuse that accompanies most sexual or physical abuse which causes the most harm. That is why you can have a woman who has been raped by a stranger on the street and whose family rallied behind her, not develop PTSD while someone who has been neglected and emotionally abused by their parents develop severe PTSD. As for who is capable of being abusive, we all are. It is part of our animal natures. Watch videos on great ape groups. Alpha males will kill the infants of competing males. Physical abuse of weaker apes is the norm. As human beings we get to choose. We can be beasts or we can develop a sense of morality and learn to protect those weaker than ourselves. As a Christian I do not believe we can do this without God.

John:

Please note that I am not saying you were not scapegoated or abused by your church. I believe your interpretation of these events is very likely the correct one, especially after reading some of the crueler comments fellow church members made about you. But I simply can not prove this conclusively from the text, as I can with Stumbling Toward Faith.

My response:

I read through the reviews of Stumbling Toward Faith and see it is a memoir just as my book is. I do not see any mention that she presented any corroborating evidence to her story. So I am puzzled that you find her story more credible simply because the abuse she describes appears on the surface to be more severe.

John:

I also think you create a strong bond of sympathy with your readers. I felt greatly worried for your past and present mental health after I read the book.

My response

I am puzzled that you “felt greatly worried” for my present mental health. If you read through to the end of my book you should realize that I was on the road to recovery and that I received treatment from a competent and well trained therapist. I suspect you see me as weaker and sicker than I am now or ever was. This is a common error. To quote Elie Wiesel: “Their experience has set them apart: they are neither better nor worse, but different, more vulnerable and at the same time more hardened than you.”

John:

Please feel free to use any excerpt from this e-mail to help advance your book. I do think there are many good aspects to it, and the pre-Unitarian section is particularly strong.

My response:

Thank you for taking the time to read my book and providing me with a critique. I wanted to learn more about you but couldn’t find any information about your background. You will see from my websites I strive for openness and transparency. I want there to be no mistake as to who I am and what I stand for.