Which Theologian Are You?

Which Theologian are You? from svensven!

Well?

My Review of Schizophrenic Christianity

Schizophrenic Christianity sets out to analyze the increasing incidence of sexually abusive clergy in Christian Fundamentalism, almost exclusively Independent Baptist Christian Fundamentalism. The first problem the books has is that it presents no hard statistics about the incidence of abuse. Of course, I'm sure that none exist. I'm not faulting anybody, but the book makes due with "case studies" drawn from news accounts and victim statements.

If you accept that there is a rising incidence of sexual abuse cases in Fundamentalism, the rest of the book will work very well. The reasoning is clear, and the analysis beyond reproach. At the end of the book, I see exactly how the irresponsible church government policies of what the book calls "radical church autonomy" create a haven for abusive clergy. The book gets a gold star for its clarity.

But we're left wondering about the true number of cases in total. And that's where I perceive the real divide or fault line in the book. Some of it is written for the outsider, and some to the insider. It occasionally slips back and forth, addressing different audiences. If you have been in a church where children were victimized and the matter hushed over, or the victims blamed, then the book is going to grab you and not let go. Several reviewers have said they could not put it down. I think, for them, the case was already established, and the book told them why. The question of why is enormous for victims of clergy abuse, including those victims who are collateral damage: never abused directly by bad clergy but emotionally and spiritually shattered by the abuse of others within a congregation.

But if you come at the book needing facts and figures, you get a good taste of the substance of its claims. You see that Christian Fundamentalism certainly could hide abusive clergy and actually protect them. And at times it has. But you don't get the facts and figures that stitch it up for you as tightly as you'd like. And I'm not faulting anybody. I doubt that any statistician anywhere has singled out this one branch of ultra-conservative religion to get the numbers recorded. And so many cases are hushed up, I doubt anybody could break the wall of silence to do a valid and reliable head count of abusive members of the clergy.

I regard the book as a very good first approach. I forgive its occasional unevenness of tone, and I applaud the passion of the narrative in places. At 220 pages, it's a fairly quick read, and the analysis is both clear and startling at times. Anybody interested in the topic of spiritual abuse or the corruption hidden in America's Religious Right will benefit from reading the book.

Schizophrenic Christianity by Jeri Massi; ISBN: 978-0981471808

The Snit

BASSENCO once remarked to me that a certain atheist film maker who posted about her having attended Hyles-Anderson College could not get the facts straight if you nailed them in a straight row across his forehead. She did apologize for this outburst and assured me that the poor boy meant well.

She even said something like, "He writes screen plays, and that's how he thinks--like it's a screen play." She then showed me the synopsis he had written of "the facts" about her history of speaking up about abusive churches. His intention was to post the following record of her life.

In it, she had been a student at Hyles Anderson and had met Voyle Glover there: both untrue. There were all kinds of inconsistencies like this, but nothing damaging. And she was right: all the facts that he knew were neatly pieced together into a seamless garment.

He'd fit her, Voyle Glover, Dave Hyles, Vic Nischik, and I don't know who else all into a tidy synopsis that was sheer balls, but it made sense. It was like those grand pageant movies from the 1950s where all the characters named in a particular book of the Bible all connect up somehow in the script. When I had finished howling with laughter, she let him know that he'd gotten his facts wrong. And, luckily, he never posted the Cecil B. DeMille version of the foes of Fundamentalism. She may have put a flea in his ear.

Anyway, years later, she showed me another post from him, this one not so nice. He was unhappy with her first Conference of the Lambs and had written several things about her motives that were not only balls once again, but downright unfair. It all just came out of his head. She made some sort of ineffective protest to him, but I think she sensed that his reach was limited, and there was no point in giving credibility where none was due and none existed anyway.

But when her book about spiritual abuse came out, this rather mercurial young man did outright misrepresent her words. Took them out of context and made them mean the opposite of what she was saying, then assaulted her integrity for having said something she never said.

I privately wondered if the Fundamentalists would jump on the wagon on this one, but a few of them saw the deception, and it was pretty blatant. I started ruminating about refiring this blog.

But I am superfluous:

On May 6th he leveled the ridiculous charge(s) that Schizophrenic Christianity blames the victims.
On May 7 some hemming and hawwing were sharply evident on his blog as he reluctantly recommended the book
On May 8, more hemming and hawwing with a distinct foot-in-mouth tone of voice and a sulky suggestion that her previous book was simply better, that's all.
On May 14, his blogs disappeared entirely.

That's called a snit, and he'll probably be back once he recovers from whatever tongue lashings he got from normal people.

I See that More Things Have Returned.....

Oh, and Damon Medeiros, aka PappaBear, had previously vanished from sight, but has now returned to further torment Gray's victims in the Trinity Baptist Forum of the Fundamental Forums (www.fundamentalforums.com).

Yes, those poor Trinity alumni have been greatly wronged. Every time they gather on the forum for an old fashioned chin wag about how much fun it was to attend Trinity, there's one more of those wounded souls asking for justice, compassion, and the restoration of their lost youth.

You know, it's so unfair that somebody forced into a blow job at the age of 9 by his own pastor and then shamed and coerced into silence for 20 years can't just man up and move on. The Trinity alumni are quite indignant. They keep asking the victims of the hard truth to respectfully go away. And yet the victims persist. (NOTE TO DWAYNE WALKER: THIS LAST PARAGRAPH WAS SARCASM. SARCASM IS A FORM OF COMMUNICATION IN WHICH A PERSON DECLARES A POINT BY STATING ITS DIRECT OPPOSITE. SARCASM IS DECODED BY ITS CONTEXT, ITS MORAL CONTENT, AND HAVING A BRAIN IN YOUR HEAD THAT STILL WORKS.)

If you're not a cynical old buzzard as I am, you might pray for those victims. They keep expecting a church full of alleged Christians to act like Christians and do the right thing. It's never been that way yet at Trinity Baptist of Jacksonville---a church that makes the chapel appointments of the deMedicis look tame---but some of the victims keep trying to get justice. Some even try without resorting to lawyers.

Rip Van Winkle Conked on the Head

Well, there I was, snoring away, when some acorn or maybe a salad bowl was dropped on my head, and I woke up.

And what did I find? A new book entitled Schizophrenic Christianity that names and details the loathsome high jinks of those spotted toads known as the men appointed to save America. No, not the Flash and Green Lantern.

I'm talking about Dave Hyles, Jack Hyles, Bob Gray, and those other criminals in worsted wool. Except when I last wrote, Gray was still alive and posing as a frail old man who wouldn't hurt a fly. Now he's dead they tell me: accidental blunt force trauma. As though anything in that buggery old man's life was an accident. I doubt his death was an accident, and 23 claims of child molesting was no accident.

So the fabled book is out, and I am told that after a small firestorm of protest, even now faithfully carried out by some banshee who has named herself after Jack Schaap's vulgar heresy and sacrilege, the second generation of men called upon to save America have vanished from sight. That's no accident either.

But before I return to my nap, there's one or two more things to report on. But first, a cup of tea.