Tag Archives: mental-health

When Dear Leader bemoaned domestic assault as a little fight that is bringing down his crime statistics, most of the world was appalled.

But I’ve been hearing that for decades in the church. I’ve heard the same sentiment from so many pastors and elders I’ve lost track. Here are just a few:

“He just knocked her around a little. It wasn’t real abuse.”

“He just gets frustrated sometimes and mouths off. Doesn’t everyone?”

“Sometimes she just pushes his buttons and he loses control.”

Most of you have heard all of this before.

My view hasn’t changed. I’ve been speaking against the epidemic of abuse in the church since 2012. I’ve heard so many pastors and elders tell me that they hate abuse, they are against abuse, they appreciate abuse – they’ve just never seen abuse.

One man (an elder) told me that “everyone knew that she would wear long sleeves to cover the bruises, and sometimes her eyes would be black. But what can you do? We spoke to him and he apologized. Eventually we had to excommunicate her because she wouldn’t forgive.”

So in the Reformed and Evangelical churches it isn’t that they don’t believe the women. They just don’t care.

When Donald Tr#mp won the primary in 2016, I changed my political party. It was a very difficult thing to get used to. Up until then, I thought abuse, degradation, racism, misogyny and rape were fringe and we stood a chance fighting against it.

When he won, my heart sank and all the spirit went out of me. The spirit of abuse and assault that I had been speaking out against for years became incarnate in an ugly, despicable orange ball of sleaze and won the votes of millions. Even those who had been allies and friends in standing against abuse – they turned their backs on everything they stood for, knowing full well what a troll they were putting in office.

It was as if every child rapist, and every abusive husband, and every covenant-breaking cheat, and every thief and con man became one man – and he painted himself orange and hated everyone.

And all of my friends ate it up. I’ve spent more nights awake than I care to remember.

And it didn’t stop. He stopped even pretending to be anything remotely moral in 2024 and ran on a platform of revenge and spite – and everyone still voted for him.

And now, even if he dies tomorrow, we have a far larger problem in America. The millions that knowingly drank the orange Kool-Aid are still there.

But I think that even worse than Donald being Donald is the spirit that just refuses to see it, refuses to stand up, refuses to say enough.

I don’t want war. I don’t want tanks in the cities. I don’t want violence. Becoming like the Religious Right isn’t the solution.

So how can we, who are disgusted by the whole thing, fight back in a way that is honoring to God?

And I think it is here: Zero tolerance.

We have sat too long in sermons where teenage girls are portrayed as sex object, and didn’t object. Where women are objectified. Where foreigners are mocked.

We have spent too much money on the big evangelical machine that put that same money into electing an evil, twisted human.

We have put too much money in the pockets of James Dobson and followers of Wilson. We have tolerated racial slurs, degradation of humans. We have sat quietly while members of our church talk loudly about F*gg*ts, libtards, feminazis.

We have tolerated Doug Wilson’s books in our book tables. We have filled conferences with the worst sort of people.

We allowed MacArthur and Piper to thrive while our wives and daughters shriveled and died. We gave our money to the worst sorts of humans because they pretended to have a holy calling. We were duped. No more.

We listened to our friends tell us how George Floyd and Emmitt Till should have listened to their betters. We have forgotten about Central Park, Oscarville, Tulsa, Clearlake, Trail of Tears, so many others.

We quit talking about justice for black and brown neighbors. We listen to our friends do their locker talk and pretend it is normal.

We listen quietly disapproving while our colleagues mock the disabled, mock the weak, mock the poor. We listen to the blowhard gripe about the women using SNAP to buy a birthday cake while pouring the concrete for his new summer patio.

I think enough is enough, don’t you?

Zero tolerance. Write your checks to women’s shelters instead of big ticket conference tickets. Let’s put an end to the big evangelical machine. Enough is enough and it isn’t even Christian anyway. Give your money to food banks, sexual assault advocates, domestic violence advocates – but not if they have a fish on their advertisements. Only give if they serve all humans as humans.

When your pastor objectifies his wife, or speaks of teenage girls showing shoulders, walk out. Any mention of hemlines, or clavicles, or purity rings, or tempting men…walk out. We know where it leads now. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Purge it out.

When he talks about “leadership roles for men” get up and leave. We know where it leads now.

When he values women only because of their ability to make babies, walk out.

If you are able, bring a charge. It won’t go anywhere. Patriarchy is too enmeshed. But don’t tolerate that leaven for another second. It leavens everything.

Remember Phillies Karen? I wish we had the same energy when it came to alienating and exposing the worst men among us. The CEO at the Coldplay concert? That’s what I’m talking about. Zero tolerance.

Expose the darkness. The crude, racist jokes; the sexual innuendo; the misogynistic banter; the “boys will be boys” talk. The ridicule of the poor; the rounding up of the foreigner, the chaining of the Asians – if you are going to support that, I’m going to call you on it. I’m done.

Say out loud – Enough. You won’t talk like that around me. You won’t call your wife that around me. You won’t joke about how that black man deserved what he got around me. You won’t degrade or contemn someone’s humanity around me. You won’t involve yourself in their sexual or gender choices. You won’t use slurs in the line and the grocery store. I’m done. If you want to act like a horrible person, I’m going to call you on it. You can call me woke, SJW, or whatever you want. I’ve been called worse.

But it ends here. No more.

If you want to fight back with whatever power you have, join me. Make it really uncomfortable for people

to be horrible around you.