Season 7: Episode 2- Story Ann Maree

In this episode of Safe to Hope, guest host Lynna Sutherland from Advocacy from the Presbyterian Pew sits down with Ann Maree to discuss how spiritual abuse can unfold inside church structures—and why a woman’s “perspective” is often dismissed when authority is treated as ultimate.

Ann Maree shares her journey from long-term service and trust in her church to becoming the one who was silenced, discredited, and pushed out. She describes advocacy work that led to accusations, misuse of church process, and “shepherding” meetings that felt like interrogation rather than care. Together, they examine what spiritual abuse is (and isn’t), how institutions can prioritize image over people in crisis, and how trauma can have a long “shelf life” even after leaving.

Listener care: This episode includes discussion of spiritual abuse and may include references to other forms of abuse. Please listen at your own pace and take breaks as needed. Resources are available in the show notes.

Safe To Hope is one of the resources offered through the ministry of Help[H]er, a 501C3 that provides advocacy for women in crisis in the church, and training and resources for those ministering in one-another care. Your donations make it possible for Help[H]er to serve as they navigate crises. All donations are tax-deductible.

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We value and respect conversations with all our guests. Opinions, viewpoints, and convictions may differ so we encourage our listeners to practice discernment. As well, guests do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of HelpHer. It is our hope that this podcast is a platform for hearing and learning rather than causing division or strife. 

Please note, abuse situations have common patterns of behavior, responses, and environments. Any familiarity construed by the listener is of their own opinion and interpretation. Our podcast does not accuse individuals or organizations.

The podcast is for informational purposes and is not a substitute for professional care, diagnosis, or treatment.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the Safe to Hope podcast. Safe to Hope. Hope Renewed in light of eternity exists to offer women space to tell their stories of suffering and loss with care, dignity and honesty. Though all suffering is loss, we ground that belief in a God who cares and remains present. This is our hope. My name is Lyna Sutherland. I'm the Executive Director of Advocacy from the Presbyterian Pew, and I'll be hosting the Safe to Hope podcast today. This podcast is made possible by donors who believe faithfulness means protecting the dignity of women's stories and creating space for truth telling, without pressure or performance. Together we listen for God's redemptive thread and look for ways to join him in his transforming work. Before we begin, we want to take a moment and care for our listeners. The Safe To Hope podcast typically includes discussions of abuse and this season will as well. In particular, we'll be talking about spiritual abuse. However, our conversations may include other abuses. Please listen at your own pace and take breaks as needed. If at any point you need to pause or step away, that's okay. Your wellbeing matters. Today, I'm joined by Anne-Marie, who has graciously chosen to share a part of her story with us. In this conversation, our guest is sharing her story in her own words at her own pace. Nothing in this episode is intended to pressure, forgiveness, reconciliation, or closure. Our aim is to listen with care and honor the dignity of her experience. And now let's hear from Annemarie about her experiences. So Anne-Marie, you've worked in abuse advocacy in various settings, denominations, and for a while you shared that you had a sense that women were treated better in your own denomination than what you'd witnessed elsewhere. and you even shared a specific memory you have that kind of illustrated your certainty at that time. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. I, I really, honestly thought that my church was safe and I had just recently, again, witnessed another situation in a different denomination than my own in which the woman was silenced and discredited and even shunned. And to see it happen once again was discouraging, to say the least. so I literally voiced these words after I finished walking alongside that victim. I said, I am done. I'm going back to my own denomination. I'm going to just serve at my own church where this kind of thing doesn't happen. Yeah. And even though at that time you felt safe, unfortunately it wasn't too long until you experienced otherwise. So first of all, before we get to that part, can you just tell us some about your role at your own church leading up to this time? Yeah. I, I considered myself, and this was kind of a joke, I considered myself unpaid staff. I was there all the time, predominantly in certain work, but, kind of doing a lot of anything that was needed. And my work was, sort of, I think, valued as much as a volunteer's work can be. And some, some people might even say that my work is expected. But it was never compensated, and I don't mean just financially. It was never really compensated otherwise either. In the end, it really wasn't even actually valued. I produced a a means to an end for them that didn't have anything to do with me whatsoever. And the powers that be took credit for it. And eventually they erased me. And a few short years later, that woman was me. I was silenced, discredited, and shunned. I was unwelcome at the very same Christian organization that I trusted and served tirelessly for almost 15 years. Hmm. You know, one of the things that every survivor wants and needs, is an opportunity to share their own perspective. And we usually think of that as something that's redeeming. the opportunity to share what a situation was like from your perspective. And yet, ironically, that concept. Can actually be twisted in a way that winds up dismissing and, and minimizing. So tell us more about how you perceived that happening. The framing of quote, your perspective in, in your experience and what you've witnessed with others. Yeah, and my case is not that different than many others. There's, you know, even what I've just told you in that short amount of time, that wouldn't be the story that my church leadership would, would tell you they'd have a different story and they'd use this. Yeah, the word, my perspective, that's your perspective. And though this isn't typically identified as a pejorative, it is one of the many things that was spoken in order to keep me quiet and to make me silent. In other words, I think when I hear it, I hear, yes, Anne-Marie, you may think that's what happened. However, because we're your ordained authority, our perspective trump's yours. Actually for a time that worked, I was silenced. Well, you know, it's discouraging to hear that, but I'd kind of like to reclaim that word and, and have the opportunity, the privilege, the honor to hear your perspective. And not just from the sense of like, well, it's just one person's opinion, but your perspective is one that we value and that we respect. So would you give us the blessing of that insight? Mm-hmm. And your perspective? So when did you begin to try to summarize what it was that you had experienced? You're very kind and that is also very healing to hear that somebody wants to hear my perspective. Well, yeah, I am gonna tell my story, but I wanna specify that I'm only telling a story. When everything was said and done in this whole situation that I'm gonna talk about today, my husband and I, we still had not made sense of out of it. He had an opportunity to summarize it all for our church leadership. And these would've been events that happened over a period of almost three years or maybe even more. And he had to do so in a way that would help those that had no skin in the game understand. And we both would say we never really fully arrived at that goal. I don't think we accomplished a sufficient summary. It's just so complicated all the time. But for this, for today, for the purpose of this story, I'm just gonna start at quote unquote the beginning as I experienced it, and someday there's going to be time for more of some specific ins and outs that I won't include today, but for today, again, I'm just gonna start here. Okay. Yeah, that's helpful. Thanks for framing it for us. So please do take us back to when this all began to unfold. Yeah. So, in my way of thinking, I, I think in pictures, and I can imagine, when this first started, it was beautiful weather. It was April. That's beautiful. Weather in April is typical for the southern city that I live in. Most of the days are sunny 70 ish degrees with blue skies for miles and miles. And it, I guess it's striking to me because the climate is just such a stark contrast from the Midwestern gloom where we pre, my husband and I, my family previously lived, with roller coaster highs in April in the sixties, where everybody would show up with shorts and flip flops and then all of a sudden it would drop to 20, 20 degrees. the southern climate, of course now so much more refreshing and felt so much better. But anyway, just drawing a picture for you. I went to a seminary in the Southern city and during one of those beautiful months of April, they were hosting their annual fundraiser dinner. And, you know, actually what a better time of year to invite somebody from the Midwest to come and speak somebody who's a scholar or a theological dignitary and inspire the people in the seminary and associated with it to open up their hearts wide and their pocketbooks a little bit wider. It would be a win-win for both, the dignitary and the seminary. The dignitary gets the Sun and Southern hospitality and the seminary gets encouraging words of affirmation about them from the latest superstar. That might help, fund the school. So this particular year, the dignitary who made the most sense to invite was the newest reformed Pastor who had just recently branched out from simply teaching in his own local congregation. he was finishing PhD work. He was leaving his quote unquote, woke Domini denomination for a more clearly reformed ideology in the Presbyterian Church of America, the PCA, which is the church that we were involved with the denomination, and he was pumping out Christian self-improvement books left and right. I, in particular, was smitten with him, and I'm talking about that theologically speaking. I've been known or had been known over the years to pursue celebrities in the reformed world for the purpose of quote unquote networking. this is true confession time. Similar to post Egyptian Ruled Israel. I aspired to rub shoulders with a king. and this one that was coming this season, to the seminary, he fit the bill. But, and I'll get into this more later, I neglected to remember what happens when people demand a king. And that can be found in one Samuel eight. And I'm not gonna go through every, verse from nine through 19. But if you look at it and you zero in on these words, you're gonna see it. It says beginning in, in 11. Those kings he will take, if he's the king, he will take, he'll take your sons, he will take your daughters. He will take your perfumers, your cooks, your bakers. He will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, your olive groves. He'll take your grains. He'll take your livestock, he'll take your servants, he'll take your flocks, and you'll become his slaves. and so neglecting to remember that, I, I had it in my mind that this was the man that needed to come for our seminary and then my church too, because at the same time, the, the seminary was courting him. My own senior pastor was rumored to be heading toward retirement. so I desperately wanted this Midwestern celebrity to fill the gap. My current PE pastor would be leaving. and I told my friends at the fundraising banquet that this was the particular one, and I, I remember them looking at me like I was, I was nutty. And you didn't just wish for this. Pastor to come and take the place at your church, but you actually took some positive action in that, in that direction. What were your strategies? Yes, I was undeterred, uh, I made sure he had his favorite breakfast food when he met with the staff at the seminary. After the banquet the next morning, I messaged him on Twitter or X, or whatever you call it, and I joked. I was the one who made sure the weather had been perfect. I suggested quote, wouldn't you like to spend more time here? but I was just a peon, so there was no response. And in hindsight, I should have taken note of that fact. But I was confident that I at least done my part to convince him that my hometown was the place for him to live and breathe and have his being. And did your wish end up coming? True. Sure enough, it did. Less than two years later, our church extended a call and my favorite Midwestern celebrity moved to my southern hometown to preach at my church and then to teach at my school. My prayers were effective. So that sounds like it would be a lovely ending to a lovely story. but unfortunately we know that this was actually the beginning of a big change and not necessarily one for the better. So how would you describe the first few years of this new pastor's tenure at your church? well, recently Mary Demuth wrote a Substack article entitled Anatomy of a Church Takeover. it's a, i, I would guess it, I would say it's a polemical piece because there are those who don't believe that happens. And to be fair, for the first three plus years, nothing like what she wrote happened at our church. There was no hint of a takeover, and there was no evidence that the new leadership had a different perspective of church than the previous hierarchy. Sure, the pulpit needed to be a little bit larger because the new pastor was tall and coffee stations and book nooks and comfy chairs appeared in the church entryways and the carpet was replaced. But aside from these few cosmetic changes, the culture of the community seemingly remained the same. Then 2020 hit and the pandemic, and of course lots of changes, lots of necessary changes occurred, still nothing that rocked our church's theological world. So all of those things sound fairly inconsequential and even expected, given the pandemic. And I'm sure that they didn't really raise any eyebrows at that time, but after a while you noticed some other patterns developing. Can you tell us about some of those? Yeah. as we slowly crossed the threshold into 2021, the world returned to its quote unquote normal church practices. But I should, uh, note that normal now included video cameras live streaming and perfectly propped extras for the sake of aesthetics in the video frame. But when Mary Mary Demuth wrote that article, she said, quote, when churches have a regime change. In some instances, it operates far more like a corporate shift than a living, breathing body of Christ. our church, the attending public didn't notice these things, and yet behind the scenes, the spaces in which the leaders occupied and served those shifts started to surface. So again, listen to Mary's observations from this article. She says, quote, new leader, new vision. Old staff terminated, old ministry's gone. New hierarchy, new room, no room for dissent. An unwelcoming system that cannot tolerate feedback, pride, arrogance, insulation from the people. The pastor is supposed to be shepherding, privilege, money, fame, dismantling of beloved work. Instead of a smooth transition of power, it turns into a hostile takeover. And so how we eventually figured out that these patterns were in play, and actually it's quite typical, patterns like this emerge similarly, pretty much across the board whenever a church shifts toward celebrity cul culture, or it was built on that foundation from the start. So the shift, it was a shift for us. It became clear when leadership, and I mean new and old leaders, those who continued in leadership, who had been in it for a long time, it, it became clear when we needed to provide care for real people. So change became apparent in crisis cases. What I mean is how sufferers were ministered to in some of the most difficult times of their lives revealed. That the current trajectory of our body of believers was heading in a new and def uh, different directions. Um, so it would be one that ministered to the institution, if you will, not the sufferer. So maybe butter said image was everything. So if a crisis threatened the way things looked on the outside, it needed to be denied renard or snuffed out. We were considered a quote unquote resource church, and that resource was a person, it was actually one person. And so to let on that, that church in which this one person was at the helm struggled with crises like abuse would be to level set that church with everyone else's. We needed to demonstrate a body in the kingdom immune to that kind of problem so that our witness would be credible in broader kingdom work. So I know that you are part of the story that ends up intersecting with these changes in your church, actually started a bit before this time. So can you take us back to the beginning of that thread in your story? Yeah, yeah. Um, good point. It did start kind of pandemic. Um, so in late 2020, uh, one of my neighbors knocked at my front door and we didn't yet have a very strong friendship, but we did share a driveway. So I just thought she needed me to move my car. Instead, she told me she needed to talk. She knew what kind of work I did, and so she said she was there with a situation in which she needed my advice for some reason. Um, that day she just appeared skittish and it looked like she didn't want anybody to know that we were having a conversation. So I just suggested to come around to my back door. Um, and she said perhaps later in the afternoon, so we made a date to meet in my rear porch later that day. Now, what she told me that day rocked my world. And I will tell you, I did not know it would rock anything at that time. But as the days afterwards, spread to weeks and then spread to months, both of our worlds were upended. I'm not going to tell you my friend's story. It is not mine to tell. Um, I will say though, that I have been trained for what to look for in her particular situation. I know what evidence is compelling. I am versed in how to interact with traumatized individuals. Uh, and I heard enough that day to know my friend needed significant help, and particularly as it related to my help with her church leadership. So I asked her to guide me, what would that look like? And I committed to her to come alongside my care For her was comprehensive, it was practical, it was professional theological ecclesiastical. I sought to help her in any which way, at every level. And just sidebar here, I wanna mention that I worked with her in a professional ca capacity, um, mostly for her safety. And what that means is that we buttoned up all the paperwork and made sure confidentiality was maintained. I did not discuss her situation with anyone she didn't approve of. And I think mentioning this here is important because of another piece of the story, that I think is critical to tell. And what that is, is, what is the role of the church in the private affair, private affairs of the membership. but we're, that's another one of those I'll tell at a different time on a different platform. It's just suffice to say in the end, my participation in this case at her church was not appreciated, although no one ever came to me personally to say that. Instead, my neighbors church leaders went to my church leaders and they complained about my involvement, and then they demanded I be instructed to quote, cease and desist. These same church leaders even went to my husband as if he was responsible to get me in line now to my face. My friend's church pretended they wanted my expertise. The senior pastor called me often to discuss the case and get feedback for how to help my friend in her situation. I was always welcome in team meetings. When I sent resources for the purpose of education on the case dynamics, I was thanked and I was even told that they'd be read or listened to or watched. Behind the scenes, there was a different story. I was being accused of negatively influencing my neighbor. I was accused of acting as her quote unquote Messiah, and ultimately I received a voice message from my neighbor's church leaders requesting a meeting so that they could quote Matthew 18 me. So I know this must have been extremely unsettling, um, seeing such a warped understanding of what it looked like to care well, for a victim of abuse, uh, church leadership diminishing and devaluing the wise council from someone with training and expertise on this area. Um, but still, this was not your church. These aren't the men who know you personally. So did you expect at this time that your church would defend you and defend your work? Oh, yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm. At this point, I still had, yeah, most of confidence in my own church leadership. yeah, so I even contacted my community pastor and for this story, we'll call him Dan. I asked him to accompany me to that meeting and to his credit, he did. And he, he stood up for me. He confronted the very visceral accusations. We're gonna talk about those later, but, the accusations that church made. And he demanded that they provide proof. And in hindsight, I certainly, appreciated that. But I realized that it probably had a different intention. but at that time, I did believe my church had my back. So after Dan confronted this other church and stood up for you, no matter what his personal motives were at the time, did that resolve this issue? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Not one day passed after that confrontation and, my friend's church had filed a again, quote unquote official complaint against my church for not getting me in line. And you're the expert here. But just a sidebar note on that statement, in the PCA, only those who are subject to the jurisdiction of a court can file a complaint against the actions of that court. In other words, only members of a church can file a complaint against a session of that church. So what my friend's church did was a misuse, or another word would be abuse process. And my church should have ignored it. But that's not what happened. what happened in the following months is nothing short of spiritual abuse. And I think it might just be helpful to get this out of the way, defining that terminology. Before describing my circ, my circumstances in my work, I get a lot of pushback regarding what spiritual abuse actually is and what it's not. Church leaders typically believe and act as if they've been ordained with all the knowledge necessary to define and determine abuses in the church and beyond. I will tell you. If you think about it, if they own those definitions, they can never be found guilty. Right. Spiritual abuse is, and this is even simplistic, but it is not just a matter of using scripture like a hammer. I mean it is that for sure, but it also includes inappropriate use of spiritual authority, use of inaccurate biblical doctrine, ecclesiastical tradition used on par with scripture or church authority in order to force a person to submit, to obey, and to subscribe to that which is harmful to their own physical, mental, or spiritual health and wellbeing. Okay. Mouthful. I know. This might help. Steve Tracy writes, ultimately, spiritual abuse is based on a denial of one of the most precious pillar doctrines of Protestant Christianity, namely the priesthood of the believer. This doctrine teaches that while church leaders and spiritual leaders are appropriate and helpful, every individual believer has the Holy Spirit and has direct access to God. Thus, every believer has a right to discern the will of God through the scriptures and the leading of the spirit without needing a human priest to intercede to God for him or her spiritual abuse. And this is me speaking, not Steven, is a perversion of the image of God in woman, but actually Steve Tracy says this a different way. Abuse is invariably about the abuse of power over another individual, an abuse that perverts the divinely ordained image of God. So this is key. This is, a core and foundational kind of abuse, and it's so, so much more comprehensive than just the misuse of God's word. And so in my situation, this, these definitions provide a really good framework for what happened next. Yeah. And as you said, and I, and I concur, according to PCA polity, one session cannot file a complaint, at least a complaint, as it's formally described in the book of church order. One church can't file a complaint against another session, and yet they did. and your session actually took up that complaint as if it was a valid process. So how did your church session respond? Let me take that in. Yes. As if. my church did, uh, at least outwardly, they refuted that accusation, that complaint, they quote unquote investigated, which was asking my perspective, asking the other church. There's, and then they created a document in response that said I was not working in any official church capacity, that I did not represent any authoritative position or representing our church or even their policies. However, tucked inside those closing statements on that letter, on that exonerating document were these words, quote. In conclusion, we believe there is work to do in terms of addressing various concerns you have raised and guiding Anne-Marie and being a help, not a hindrance to the work of sessions. Or elders in these cases. So in essence, while it was determined I was not guilty of what the other church accused me of, I apparently was guilty of hindering their work. Now, nevermind if their work was harmful, or in this case, it was in fact dangerous. All the leadership parties, my church, my neighbor's church, all of the parties involved determined that a woman was getting in the way. And so now, now the real investigation, the one that I'm not supposed to consider investigation, I'm supposed to think of some other word. and then also the real goal for eradicating the real problem me commenced. And we know from what you've already shared about spiritual abuse and even just from the theme that we're addressing this season, that you are telling a story of spiritual abuse against you, and you've already done a great job of outlining what spiritual abuse is, but I know in some corners, even the word abuse itself is a bit of a hot button. Can you just help frame that term for us and how we can think about that going forward as we listen to your story? Yeah. I know abuse and abusive is a big word, and also polemic, in at least our Christian circles. We, hear it often. so just try to keep in mind this phrase, misuse of power and authority. Think about that when you hear me use the word abusive misuse of power and authority. Now, that's also, there's danger in this. There's also, it's not to minimize the severity of what happens. It is just one defining aspect of the experience rather than simply using the term. But I can assure you that the impact is significant no matter what term or phrase you use, and particularly when it's your spiritual leaders doing that misusing. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. That's really helpful. So I know that there are two primary aspects or two kind of episodes to the abuse that you experienced in your story. Can you share the first one with us? Yes, absolutely. So I mentioned at the beginning that I felt empowered and protected at my home church and in my previous denomination, the PCA in a way that I did not feel in many others. So, the reason I think I can say this is because of the, the multiple years that I spent working side by side with a variety of leaders and in a variety of roles, like I mentioned before. Also, the leaders, a lot of the leaders, they were my husbands and my friends, we led ministries together. We were first responders in crises. Together, we comforted victims and survivors together. We taught members of the congregation together, and we did this over 13 years. And then when major milestones in our lives occurred, or even just a reason to get together, these were the people that we sat with and laughed with and shared meals with and loved. I really had no reason to think any of what happened, what I'm just telling you happened, changed this. I had no reason to believe that I was at risk of harm from them. Certainly not betrayal. So when the elders of my church shepherding a discipleship committee, of which my husband was one, when they formed a subcommittee to discuss these lingering concerns, that I highlighted earlier regarding that complaint, I had zero problem trusting them with my care. All but one of the elders involved were known to me and trusted by me. So this is just kind of, I don't know, summary versions of, of the first part of my story. Of course, there were meetings, associated with addressing those concerns, and they were arranged by my community, pastor Dan. when he presented to me what would be happening, there was a sense of casualness to it. At least in the beginning. that's how they were presented. So what that looked like would be I'd get an email from him outlining what the purpose of our get together would be. He'd tell me who would be there, he'd say what things they'd like to discuss and how to think about what we were doing. He'd told me how to think about this process. He sent me questions prior to the meeting that, sounded like this. And this is actual, an actual quote. one of the questions, what's our responsibility as shepherds to you as a sister in Christ and as a member, and what does oversight look like? What does pastoral presence look like? then he stated the goal for the meeting and, outlined in the email that it was, at least for the first meeting, quote, the goal was, quote, the goal of this meeting is to put all the cards on the table so that we can see, see where we are. The goal is transparency and clarity in assessing alignment. That's our general target and we hope we can find the bullseye with that aim. But we care about you. We love you, and we know your work is significant and consequential for women, for families, for churches, our church in particular. So we want to be faithful shepherds. And then this is the assurance that he gave me. Again, another quote. This is not at all intended with any sort of punitive spirit, but a transparent spirit. Try and say that a few times because you are our sister in Christ. Now he included a lot more questions and comments, and much of what was proposed for discussion was for the purpose of their practical understanding of who is helper and who am I as the executive director. What do I do and how does that fit with our church? To be honest, there were so many words in those communications. I really, truly had a hard time figuring out what information precisely they were after. And in the aftermath of each meeting, it really didn't matter. because all of those things that were proposed for discussion are not what got discussed. And for sure, chastising was on the unwritten agenda. I remember the first meeting quite clearly. we were sitting around a large conference table, as was usually the case. It happened every time. Uh, we sat in the same chairs every time I was on one of the long sides. I had an advocate with me who I had, permission to have a long side, and she was on my right and my husband was there and he was on my left. On the other long side of the table was Dan to my left. He's the, again, community pastor, my community pastor, and the chair of, shepherding and discipleship. Wes, who is the elder, I didn't really know, sat across from me directly across from me, and then next to him across on my right. Sat Rick. Now, Rick's wife and I, we bonded very early when I started attending this church. So 13 years ago, and we had been friends ever since. and then at the end of the table, actually at the very far right at the foot of the table was Wayne, he was officially on sabbatical. So he was only at those meetings as a support or a bystander, I would say. Wayne was my husband's closest friend. He and his wife Judy, were the couple we served side by side with the most often. Wayne is a really affectionate and conent conscientious guy. He knows how to engage people, how to make you feel comfortable, and how to feel like you're the most important person in the world. Wayne just strikes me as a, as a real people person. I also remember that night was one of my grandkids birthdays, and I remember my grandson was on the campus that night, the church campus. So after the meeting with shepherding and discipleship, my husband and I ran over to where he was, my grandson, and we gave him hugs and we wished him a happy birthday. All sounds good and pleasant, doesn't it? But the next day when Dan sent a follow-up email, my response was quite telling of a very different mental and physical situation. In that email, Dan wrote, and I quote, I hope everyone saw the time as fruitful. My thought is that we pick up where we left off. My response again, a quote said, Hey, you know, I welcome conversation, but please hit the hold button on picking up where we left off. I've been mentally unraveling since last night and my body is absorbing the consequences. Consequences. I'm an emotional, physical mess. I don't know that I have the words to articulate why just yet, but I ask that we perhaps reevaluate before trying to pick back up. So it's in this later processing that I'm remembering what happened that night. and that's typical for me. I walk away and I process and I think about what was said and how it was said, and so I'm going by where I was situationally, mentally, physically, emotionally the next day to kind of draw out what I heard. In that meeting, I also responded more fully to Dan. As I processed. And so these were the questions that I sent back to him that day. I asked him, why am I quote in the dock? How did I get in a position of having to defend myself? I told him, I kept wondering, why did it feel like we had started a conversation in the middle beginning with assumptions rather than starting with some basic understandings? I told him I had hoped for conversation that would assure my shepherds of my Christian character in my practices, and instead we were discussing my assumed practices. So this is my thought process, but the church that filed the complaint was seemingly now providing the framework for those meetings. And when I say that here, according to their narrative. So as our shepherding and discipleship questions, that left me rattled were, were based on that framework. And so I felt like I had to defend my actions as they were being interpreted by the other church. So, eventually I did reluctantly agree to future conversations, but I also made it clear, and again, this is another quote, I can surely explain what I did with my client, why, how, et cetera. But I don't think I should have to answer according to how the accusing church interpreted what happened. this was one of the first patterns to emerge from those conversations, and that is the pejorative word I mentioned before, perspective. We all have a perspective. I mean, it's, for me, it kept being used like a dirty word, but we all have an, uh, perspective and it's because we all encounter experiences so uniquely. But what was happening here in these meetings was that the church who was presenting these accusations against me and my practices without providing any evide evidence of that, was who was, whose perspective was trumping everybody else's. And that included specifically mine. so in hindsight, again, I always say it's so much easier to see these things in arrears, but I think the accusing church's framework was just a con conven, a convenience for my shepherding and discipleship, teams, preferred interpretation. Looking back, I now believe Dan had been trying to get me in line for a long time, and I said that actually in another article on a substack. When I wrote about the day that I, I first felt that our perspectives about abuse specifically were colliding, and I'll just read that portion from the substack. The day I saw the writing on the wall for how things would play out for me, I was in my community pastor's office. I had set up a meeting with him to discuss one of my cases. However, I was very cautious and revealing too much information. The victim of domestic abuse, who I had been helping, had approached me gingerly and self-conscious to share the reality in her home. There was no way I was going to divulge the precious few details she reluctantly revealed. I knew that would devastate her. So instead, I hinted to my pastor that I had enough information to raise a red flag. That's when the conversation went downhill. Dan said that in situations such as these, he needed, he needed to know everything and he would need to hear it from the woman. I responded with something I actually wrote in the helper book, revealing this particular type of information creates an intimate atmosphere, one that a victim may not want to have with a pastor. For me, it made perfect sense that having an intermed intermediary sift through what to share would help protect not only the emotions and triggers for the woman, but also protect the mind of a man from visualizing delicate details. But apparently that made no sense to my pastor. He told me he would be unwilling to take my word regarding the severity, and by not divulging details, it put him in a difficult position. I left my pastor's office that day and sat silently in my car. I was stunned. I couldn't even turn on the engine. I remember shaking my head back and forth as if, by doing so I could dislodge the conversation from my memory. But before I forgot, or time eased the shock of his words, I recorded everything he said that disturbed me. One of the most unnerving aspects of that conversation was that I thought our church, the church that conceived the idea of a woman to woman caregiving ministry would be a safe place. It turns out it was all smoke and mirrors. At the end of the day, when it comes to a woman's care, male leaders have the final say. What if perspectives don't align? In that situation, Dan did not back down from his perspective and I wasn't going to back down from mine. I'm committed to do no harm, so the privacy and dignity of the women I help will remain primary. In this quote unquote formal complaint that my church received, I think Dan saw an opportunity to pull rank by enlist, enlisting help from those other elders, all ostensibly because of the unofficial charges. I now wonder if that was the day for both Dan and I where we realized the size of the impasse between our perspectives. The tension I felt during those meetings was likely due to my resistance to submit to an unspoken loyalty contract and my having no clue that that was even a goal. The contract was covert. The people with perceived power in my church expected my allegiance, my unconditional obedience, a priorit prioritization of their needs, and ultimately at my expense in exchange pseudo belonging. While shepherding and discipleship were furiously attempting to make sure my voice inside and out, so the outside, the church was in harmony with the guy on the platform, an expectation of faithfulness to him, his thoughts and his ordained male authority. I was seeking to please God and glorify him in my attitude, my answers, my calling, and my relationship with him. That expectation became evident in most evident in the last shepherding and discipleship meeting that I agreed to attend. I had spent. Literally days researching and reading how to make my ideas stick. I naively sensed the impasse between us was a matter of communication. And isn't that funny in what other type of abuse have we ever heard that before? so I had hauled out all of my communication research and I wrote out my systems and my best practices, my processes for caring for women in crises. And I meticulously organized them in, both the method and the content and what I'd say. However, the night of that last meeting, everything predictably headed in a different direction. We were all sitting in our usual positions and I remember looking at my husband on my left and my eyes were just longing at for him, please step in, shut down this regularly scheduled and pattern trajectory. When he finally caught my glare for how the meeting was going, he did speak up and he sort of called us to order. So I quickly organized my presentation and I passed out copies for everybody to follow along. And then I delved into explain my practice in my position. Well, uh, frustration must have been building while I wasn't paying attention because when I finished speaking, the elder's questions and comments started coming at me fast and furious Again, I wasn't backing off of the things I had spoken, and apparently that's when fuses started popping. All I remember is that voices got forceful. I remember the men talking loudly over one another and fast and I couldn't keep up. And then I distinctly remember Wes, the elder sitting directly across from me. Lean up over the table toward me and shake his finger in my face. I have no idea what he said in my mind. I'm like, wait a minute. What just happened? What was so contentious? And then, wait a minute. These are supposedly my shepherds. Is this how the men shepherd God's people in our church? When I'm helping leaders, in comprehension of dynamics of like domestic abuse, I'll ask this question. I'll say, what can a wife possibly do? Any wife that would warrant her husband's anger? What infractions, excuse his angry words, angry gestures or angry acts, especially from a man who has vowed to love her forever. Nothing she does is reason for him to act toward her with any angry misbehavior ever. And one would think this should also be true of God's shepherds. Sadly, and often and as evidenced in my case, it is not true yet. Wes coming over the table toward me was one thing. He did not scare me. I didn't really know or care what he was thinking. I didn't have to interact with him in a social context, although ask me how I felt weeks later when I saw him get up to serve communion. What was harmful? What likely continues to hurt to this day is that the two men I knew the best, the two men who knew me the best, and that being Rick and Wayne, they did nothing. I should have taken that as a sign. because in the end, and on a much broader scale, that pattern was repeated. Many people in the church knew us. Many people were ministered to by us, but only two couples asked why we left the church. And that was long after we left. They too heard our stories and still they chose to do nothing. In advocacy, we call those people enablers. they might not appear to be literally building a structure where abuse can live and thrive, but inaction accomplishes the same thing. You might wanna say, well, they weren't the ones directly abused. It didn't impact, it didn't impact them that way, and yet the potential for having them having an experience of direct abuse is not the problem as difficult and hard as that experience might be. The problem is ignoring sin. When we left the meeting that night, the elders remained, they stayed to discuss things and then my advocate and I walked to the parking lot and she grabbed my arm. She looked me directly in the eye and said, Anne-Marie, they should be thankful to have you in our church. And sadly, that just wasn't gonna be true. You have really pointed out and illustrated some very crucial aspects of what unfolded, why it was harmful. you know, some of'em are really obvious, like a shepherd using his physical size, his body language, leaning over the table to intimidate. But there are some other things you mentioned that are more subtle, but are really relevant to the work you do and the work that others who advocate for victims of abuse experience. For example, your session. As you said, allowed the session of that other church to frame the narrative with the assumption that what that other session was doing was loving and caring, and what you were doing was problematic and disingenuous instead of the other way around. And also there was a presumption on the part of both sessions that simply by virtue of their ordination, uh, they had greater insight and a right to oversee your private practice, your professional work in an area where you have both extensive training and significant experience while they had neither. So, you know, this in and of itself is impactful, but unfortunately that wasn't the end of the spiritual abuse that, that you experienced. So can you tell us about the second part of your spiritual abuse? Yeah. As the audience is out there hanging on, we can go on and I laugh about it, but, I can tell you that this, the impact is lasting. And again, there's so many other things about this story that I could tell and will tell at other times. But for now, this, this was another just significant part. I call it the second segment, but, who knows how many that were actually in the story. But as it related to my church, it happened about a year later. nothing ever really resulted from those, uh, shepherding and discipleship meetings. I pulled the plug, I refused to go meet with them again. I wrestled, with how to remain a member. My husband and I both grappled with how he could remain on staff and more so how could he report to Dan. And then again, this is probably a bigger, longer story, some for another time, how those two things would impact our marriage. And they did very significantly. It was easiest, one of the darkest years of our lives. I did attend church sporadically and on the mornings that I did, I would laugh because I would purposely choose to wear red. we, it was a big church and I wanted to stick out in the crowd, and I wanted to do so because I just wanted to remind my leaders. I'm still here and also I'm still listening. I'm listening and I'm watching. But inside that body that was wearing a red dress, I was still roiling. Uh, I started noticing spiritually abusive patterns emerge in the messages. I heard the authoritarian commentary even in the worship format. And then I watched those men who, were in that room that night, the s and d, the shepherding, shepherding and discipleship interrogation room. I watched them, act as supposed like spiritual protectors. While at the, at the same time, just completely ignoring those element elephants that they welcomed into that interrogation to trample all over me. none of them, none of them apologized for that awful night. No one asked how I was doing. We just moved on and a slow simmer, like a pot of water on a stove. Hissed in the background. I felt like the frog and I wanted to get out. Almost 12 months to the day of the last shepherding and discipleship meeting our ministry, the helper ministry got a call. There was yet another similar situation to my neighbor friends that occurred at the same church. This new victim was being faced with excommunication. Now, not surprisingly, those same leaders who had wreaked havoc on mine and my neighbor's lives a year before, were now not even pretending to be gracious. They moved a dangerous situation quickly up their patriarchal ladder, and they accelerated their response to the person bringing charges of abuse. That's the person who was bringing the charges, not the abuser. Last time, uh, with my neighbor, they feigned care. This time they almost immediately drew a line in the sand and they told the reporter of that abuse to obey their authority or risk them proclaiming her as an unrepentant sinner. So from our ministry perspective and also from hers, uh, we realized that the only option was for her to get out. And so I helped her. It's a thing I do it. I can't seem to stop doing it well. Uh, narcissistic leaders don't like it when I trump their hand. And I fully anticipate that the avenues that are working for us now in helping vi victims or the ones that have helped us in the past. They'll probably get revisited by the powers that be in the PCA. There'll probably be new overtures and language in our BCO will probably get all buttoned up and revised. But for now, there's some creative, creative solutions at our fingertips and they're effective. And this was one of them. So, what we did was we reminded our friends, church leadership, the, same leadership of my neighbor, of their responsibility. They have a responsibility as citizens of the United States, to uphold our first amendment rights of choosing where we worship and, that there are legal consequences of prohibiting or requiring that, that freedom, like requiring membership. Now biblically, I know that it is biblical to go ahead and refresh our brothers and fathers memories about that truth, and in this case, remind them about the law. It's also biblical to warn them that they are in danger of sinning by potentially breaking that law. And it's biblical to defer to the local secular authorities in order to help remind them of these, uh, warnings of this law. And if you doubt me, I will put these in the show notes, but it's, uh, derived from Acts 16 37, 22 25 through 9 29, and then 25 10 through 11. And I'll just briefly remind the audience, think about Paul, uh, deferring to his Roman citizenship, and then read the passages and also keep that little section in mind as I finish my story. Well, after doing this, I knew instantly that I'd put myself in the same position I was in the last year, the year before, and I knew an investigation of my best practices in a privately held ministry would once again commence. As strong as I thought I felt wearing my red dresses. I simply did not have what it would take to endure that kind of indictment and process again. And besides, I knew this time there would be no rationalizing or reasoning and there would be no good outcome. There was no good outcome before. So I wrote my own impact statement and I wrote my own letter to remove my membership. I talked with my husband and he was completely supportive of everything I was thinking of doing. and then I prayed and I prayed and I prayed, and I prayed some more because I didn't wanna run ahead of anything God would not want me to do. But after finding relief and peace in those times of prayer, I went ahead and I hit the send on an email to the clerk of our session with my documents attached, and then I waited. I didn't have any grand illusions of a positive outcome, but I also wasn't sure the kinds of evil that might be devised in response to those requests. For the listeners who may not be familiar with the membership dynamics of, the PCA, it might be helpful to articulate the idea, that certain NA Park churches adhere to and NA Park is, north American Presbyterian and reformed churches, about receiving persons into their membership church membership and why? There's a difficulty I'm referring to in asking to get out. So when we make membership vows and NA park churches, it's clear but not clearly spoken, that we are committing to remain quote members in good standing. also quote, upholding the peace and purity of the church. That is until, or unless for some reason we have to move or transfer to another church. So members in good standing are allowed to do that, allowed to transfer, but they, they are not allowed to ask to leave. And also if they're transferring, it has to be to an approved church. one that the church you're asking to leave agrees is biblical members who are under investigation for whatever reason or under process. Uh, if you recognize those terms in the PCA or centered, uh, they cannot transfer. This concept is jokingly, jokingly referred to as the Hotel California, and it's a reference to the 1970s Eagle hit song by the same name at the beginning of the song. The hotel is described as a lovely place with plenty of rooms somewhere, anyone might be comfortable staying. The writer said he came up with the lyrics by imagining a scenario of a person who tried, oh, who was tired, I'm sorry, from driving a long distance in a desert. He saw a place for rest and he pulled in for night, for the night, but entered this weird world peopled by freaky characters. and then he quickly became spooked by the claustrophobic feeling and being caught in a disturbing web from which he might, he may never escape by the end of the song when the person tries to leave the hotel. These are the lyrics that the Eagles sing. Last thing I remember, I was running for the door. I had to find the passage back to the place I was before Relax, said the Night, man, we are programmed to receive. You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. Authoritarian denominations love the ways in which they can hold special power over ordinary people. Church membership is one way in which a valid and good idea can be misused or abused, although I will question any interpreter that insists, we find membership to definitively in scripture as it's articulated and practiced in certain denominations. So it should have been no surprise to me that when the clerk of our session, and we'll call him Jack, when he responded to my email the next day, he declined my request. Here's another thing. there's a variety of form letters available to someone like me who is seeking to terminate their church membership because of the established relationships that I had with these people. These people were the ones I was, uh, the people that I described before are the ones I was making this request. These are the elders, including Jack and Jack's wife. who was a friend. I used one of the forms that softened the language of my request. I didn't include any language suggesting that if they didn't accept my request, I'd contact an attorney to put my letter on record. I didn't think my leaders would need that strong of a language for my request, and I was wrong again. Then I found out that according to our church's constitution, the BCO, if leadership discovers that a member has no intention of fulfilling their vows, which I had just sent a letter saying I didn't, they can institute what they call process, which means they would center me, for some. In some way, prohibit from taking communion all the way text communication. Anyway, so I quickly wrote a second more detailed letter form letter, and again, I reminded my fathers and brothers via Jack that I had already removed my membership from a volunteer organization and would they please send me confirmation of my membership being removed from their role? Then I brought up the ette legality of the matter. I said, if they didn't acknowledge my request, I'd have to share my documents with an attorney. Now, hear me clearly on this. Anyone who knows anything about legal processes will know that what the above means is not necessarily that I'm gonna take the church to court. It might end up there, who knows? But in actuality, court proceedings for church membership removal is just not something that I would desire. Generally speaking, what it should mean is that an attorney might also send a letter reminding the fathers and the brothers of their legal obligation to remove a member when they request removal. Yeah, I, I've always found it a bit ironic that in the PCA, we stress the quote, voluntary association of any particular church with the PCA. Any church is free to leave at any time without jumping through any hoops, and yet individual members do not have the same protection as evidenced by all that you've described and also what I've experienced, and trying to help those who determine that they're no longer safe in a church to get out from underneath that unhealthy leadership. Back at the beginning of your story, you shared with us about this Midwestern pastor that you desperately wanted to come and serve at your church. Um, but he hasn't factored into your story much as of yet. What was your relationship like with him? Yeah, good point. I talked a lot about him in the, beginning, but, it's, we just didn't really get to know each other, despite the fact that my husband was on the senior staff and there was just very little opportunity for personal interaction. That's not to say I didn't try. I did, I, I invited him and his wife to dinner and he respectfully declined and he cited the very busy lives of his large family. Sometimes I would reach out to talk about things he was writing. I might email him. it might have been that I had read one of his articles and I had my concerns. So I'd offer insight into how women or victims or survivors might interpret what he said. Other times I'd want to hear his thoughts on a particular subject. So I'd email and request that he share and he usually answer. I mean, I don't remember any other time he didn't. He answered those inquiries very graciously. There was one social gathering when we had a bit more of an in-depth conversation. In fact, it was probably the last time I ever spoke with him. He asked me if I'd been able to connect with someone, somebody I had asked him to, to contact on behalf of the PCA Dasa at interim study committee for which he had appointed me and with glowing recommendations, by the way. But other than that, my personal encounters with the pastor were incredibly sparse. My senior pastor never dealt with me directly during those shepherding and discipleship investigations. Never asked me about my private advocacy advocacy practices. He never spoke personally with me about those experiences at all, or the, even the ones that led to the investigation if he was involved. I, I didn't have any knowledge of it, but I would say what happened when I sent my impact letter, letter and request for membership resignation that cinched for me, all I needed to know about his perspective of women in the church and the harm that will incur should we, as fellow image bearers, stand strong for our beliefs, speak directly about them, or refuse to back down under the weight of a heavy hand of patriarchy. Let me just back up a little bit before I tell you why the following cinched that for me, in the process of leaving my membership, my husband knew he'd be leaving his staff position. As I said, he was both an elder and an employee in his role as an elder. He had the opportunity, to go, and I talked about this earlier, to go before the session, uh, which is the elders to share why he was leaving. So I asked him to find out could I have that same opportunity. When he asked, uh, it was the leader, executive leadership team that EL that declined. They said they didn't wanna set precedent. They said I could share with them the ELT, what I wanted to say, but I couldn't tell the broader elder community an executive leadership team, ELT. Something you won't find in the PCA, in the denominations church constitution. In the BCO, it's a select group of elders derived from the larger group and used as a kind of, uh, elder board board for the larger session, uh, which is the group of elders. The rationale for this group is that it's impossible to get anything done in larger churches when the session has well over 50 voices with which to contend. So this elite group rises to the top, surrounds the senior pastor and helps him make the executive decisions. This group was the last bunch of people I wanted to share my story with. I knew at the executive level my story would be writ rewritten. I've been helping women in this denomination long enough to know what happens that had happens. and that the actual person reporting the situation is basically just not heard. What would happen is there'd be this agreed upon narrative, one that was determined by the leadership, and then passed through the telephone game to the rest of the congregation. One of the phrases are often used are the words to a John Mayer song Waiting on the World to change in it. He writes, when they own the information, they can bend it all they want. So for me, I believed that if my story at least started out with my words on a broad level, maybe some of those words would remain when all was said and done. When I sent my impact statement and request to remove membership to Jack, I made a request that he would include it on the agenda for the following full session, meeting a few days away. Then I also asked that both documents be distributed to every elder. My assumption, and y'all gotta keep noticing how naive I've been by now, it's haven't learned anything yet. My assumption was that my request would be honored and the documents distributed. The documents were distributed. So my leaders said they did. As I asked, however, my documents were handed out after general business concluded and the elders called for what they call an executive session. Then the elders were instructed to return those documents before they walked out of the room. My plan to have my words in everyone's hands was short-lived and ineffective. If you know Presbyterian government, you know nothing good happens in executive session. This is where the evil plans of men can be conceived, given birth to live and die. None of them reach the light of day unless some brave soul reveals what happened. It's a private meeting and the information is not provided to the general churchgoing public. Anyone can say anything and you'd never know what was said or or what happened. And in my case, that's when the fun began. I was informed that the senior pastor commenced the executive session by reading my letter. When I told you before that my voice was silenced, I mean literally a man's voice, a man I hardly knew. A man who hardly knew me, took it upon himself to verbalize my thoughts and feelings, add his own inflections and emphases, and say what? I should have been the one saying. Someone other than me read those words as if they were from me and changed what was said. Maybe not the words, but think about it. Have you ever read materials out loud? Do you try to do justice to the text? Breathe when appropriate, lift your voice when needed. Soften your tone as necessary. What if you disagree with the author of the words? Would you be so careful? Would you ignore the author's intent of breathing where appropriate? Lifting the voice when needed, or softening your tone When necessary, would you maybe instead add your own inflections according to your interpretation of those words? Might you maybe even mock something that was meant to be said seriously or diminish the impact the writer was trying to convey? I think you get the picture. From what I learned, mockery was the theme of the meeting. After the senior pastor read my statement and letter of resignation, I was told Dan as the lead of that shepherding and discipleship investigation was asked to add his own interpretation of the details. There is no record of that conversation that I am aware of. However, what I will say is if what I've heard he said is correct, I will be happy to share evidence that proves he lied. And if there are any elders in attendance that night that are listening to this podcast, I would welcome their insight and perspective. At the end of the meeting, it was suggested I should be disciplined for threatening to sue the church. Again, an utter perversion of what I actually said and significantly suggested by someone who, by the very nature of their profession, an attorney should have known better. Remember what I said about the second case that I helped rescue? It is biblical to refresh our brothers and our father's memories about truth, and in this case, the law is biblical. To warn them they are in danger of sinning by potentially breaking that law, and it is biblical to defer to local secular authorities in order to help remind them of these warnings instead. The lasting impression for that evening concluded by the senior pastor was that sometimes it's better to overlook a sin. The elders walk walked away thinking that I was the sinner in the whole matter. It is. So even though you were never allowed to meet with your session personally to share your impact statement, your husband as an ordained elder did have that opportunity. Can you tell us about that meeting the following month? at another regularly scheduled session meeting my husband, he was allowed to give, that, that summary, the one that I referred to earlier of why we were leaving the church and why he was leaving his position. And again, it was really, really difficult to encapsulate all of what happened into one 20 minute session. Bob selected my husband Bob, selected some key points over the past previous three years that were significant and obviously harmful. And then he did it. He stood before the brothers with whom he had been serving faithfully alongside for at least 13 years. Uh, a side note, church members can attend the business portion of a session meeting, so I was with him. Both of us wanted to remind our former elders that I am a person. I was not simply a perspective to be discarded. Our appearance together was meant to show the unified front of a mutually respectful relationship, Bob's statement, also challenged his, fellow elders on multiple levels. He asked if that quote unquote investigation of my private practice was not intended to be of an official nature, then what was it and what would they think if they were called into a similar situation? He talked about how one of the church staff members had approached a professor colleague of mine and warned him against letting me participate in educating future counselors and pastors at the local seminary. Going back to when everything had hit the fan. Dan assured us that only shepherding and discipleship knew about that complaint against me. So apparently someone inside had been slandering me. Bob also challenged the actions of the church that filed the complaint. He said they presented hyperbolic accusations without any supporting evidence, all the while having had no interaction with me for three months prior. The words they used about Anne-Marie in this letter were demanding, bullying, crazy, making villainizing them. Accusing them of enabling abuse and being spiritually abusive. Unbiblical partiality, inciting the VI victim to live by fear and despair, slandering them, undermining their work, leading the victim away from the faith positioning herself as the accuser. That would be me. And these are the exact words they used in the letter to me. They accused her of having unproven claims about the husband, yet they were free to send a three quarter page indictment of her with their own unproven claims. These were strong accusations. Again, all without supporting evidence. He told the officers that the words the church used for themselves were, quote wise, reasonable, and legitimate. Bob then asked, what kind of church does this? They challenged our former church leadership that they mishandled it. He said they mishandled unsubstantiated accusations against a member who up until then had given no reason to doubt her Christian character. Shouldn't there have been a strong formal admonition, an back to the accusing church for how they handled it? Bob even named what happened to me as spiritual abuse when my husband finished, before he sat down. He was prayed over and his resignation was accepted. But not even 24 hours later, this email was sent to the session. Quote, dear Brothers, at our meeting last night, we were able to hear from Bob about the reasons he and Anne-Marie have decided to leave, as is often the case in these matters. There is more than one understanding of the process that transpired. We will reserve a few minutes at our next officer's meeting in March to provide some more context and answer questions you may have. I am grateful for Dan's work and integrity throughout this process and for the pastoral care of the elders on our shepherding committee. The senior pastor then instructed the brothers not to speak of what was communicated by Bob the night before, nor any other related discussions including that email. The best I can surmise is that Bob's statement hit some nerves. He ended up meeting with several key leaders before that, uh, final session meeting that was just spoken of in the email. He tried to correct the narrative that was making the rounds, which was that he simply had a difference of philosophy as it relates to ministry, and then he challenged some plans that were being made for that final meeting that were potentially unethical. That is the ELT was going to bring in someone to speak to the session about abuse, give some definitions, but that person had at one time been our counselor. I don't know what kind of questions officers asked at that meeting and Bob was not invited. What I do know is that at least one of those friends with whom we led ministries with were first responders with comforted victims with, and taught members of the congregation with. He stood tall next to the leadership that night, and he defended that leader's approved version of our stories. One of the hardest lessons that I've had to learn in this work is that getting a person out of an abusive environment, like helping an abused wife to flee her home and her marriage, does not equal an end to the abuse. I would like to think that no matter how unpleasant and painful that exiting experience was, well, you know, the pain is over and now you can go about your work freely. So is that what life has looked like for you moving forward? Oh, absolutely. No, no. I've recently, learned that my unofficial censure, it continues. Some of my friends have been threatened that their own work will be in jeopardy if they associate with me. Uh, clients that I've worked with have suffered significant life, I'll call it reshuffling, for having used the helper ministry to help them navigate their own abuses. Coworkers have been advised not to let me earn an income by working alongside them. Colleagues have been told that even an association with those with whom I network might be detrimental to their own good standing in the denomination. In fact, my own attempts at interactions with our denomination have been censored on at least four levels. My alma mater refuses to recommend and even acknowledge not just my work, but also the subsequent successes post-graduation. If it were any other alumni who had achieved what I have, it would be celebrated. But in essence, I. I was excommunicated and YI mean, the only answer I have is that I helped my neighbor. So I know that any person who comes out of an abusive environment has a long road ahead of them wrestling over so many questions, what happened and why? And unfortunately, to add insult to injury, there can also be this terrible amount of, of self-doubt as we wrestle through the self-doubt, um, we can almost always imagine the questions or the doubts that others might hold against us. So what things have come up for you and how do you respond? I mean, even just in your own heart to those potential doubts or accusations. Mm. Yeah. It has a long shelf life. even just today, because I, one of those things that I just mentioned above is ongoing, impact. I feel the weight of that person suffering because of their association with me. And I said something about that earlier, and I was reminded by somebody I've helped in the past that it's not my fault that's the choice of those who are, choosing those evil, responses to me. And so, again, it's got a long shelf life. It's ongoing. And I think, and I've heard from friends, even a well-meaning friend that I'm bitter and in a sense I'd agree. I mean, the so-called symptoms of bitterness mirror the symptoms of trauma almost to a t. So I think what you're hearing, I believe what you're hearing is trauma, not bitterness. I don't also wanna diminish that word by suggesting my little T trauma equates with the enormous T, large T that so many victims and survivors have endured. But the fact of the matter is, I cannot deny what my body, including my mind and my soul, because they're parts of my body, but I can't deny what my body knows. Spiritual abuse touches an entire person, the whole person, including spiritual abuse, rocks a person's relationship with the Lord. This is the fruit of spiritual abuse. Does anyone see the devil's hand in this? And is anyone else willing to do something about it? I'd like to just kinda read, a few verses at the end here. These are kind of my marching orders. You're familiar with them? I'm sure they're very special to me. just in this whole of course scenario and some of the ones that I haven't even told yet, but for multiple other reasons, it's Ephesians six, 10 through 19. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything to stand. Stand firm then with the Belt of Truth buckled around your waist with the breastplate of righteousness in place and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and pray. Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's. People pray also for me that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should. Safe to hope is made possible by donors who believe faithfulness means protecting survivors and honoring the dignity of their stories. Their support allows us to remain independent trauma specialized, and committed to truth telling without pressure or performance. We are deeply grateful to our donors for their partnership. This conversation stirred something for you. Please know you do not have to carry it alone. Support resources are listed in the show notes and you're welcome to reach out in the ways that feel safest for you. Safe to Hope is a production of Help Her. Our executive producer is Annmarie GOs. Word.