Once Upon a Time in My Oceania

  I've been right where you are. I've had the same things said to me and about me, too.  It sucks.  People don't get it and that's frustrating.  It hurts. It's damaging.  It's a negative reminder.  It's a reminder of the harm done. No, they don't get it. No, they don't want to either. They'd rather suggest you are bitter, vindective, seeking revenge.  But for what?  For finally voicing a secret not of your own making. A secret that seared your heart, mind, and soul. A secret your body unfortunately can remember all too well. "I'd think you'd want to forget about it..."  How do you know that us girls don't wish for the ability to not remember the time(s) our innocence was stolen? Instead, we are forced to relive every, single and agonizing moment. We continue to pay even years later.  You would think they'd not ask the impossible.  But they do, because the possible–the seeking of justice–would also reveal their own ugly t...

Silence and secrecy are often, in my opinion, the key ingredients in keeping any abusive system alive and operating. This also is part of the reason that when truths that shine a negative light do appear, people are not readily in a place to accept them as truth and real concerns are dismissed. Part of maintaining silence and secrecy may look different depending on the organization/group, but in general there are a few common ways of achieving the goal of abuses and wrongdoings remaining unknown, unchecked and hidden firmly beneath the rug they've been swept under and sometimes, expertly so.  In order to insure wrongdoings are kept silent is to start with an environment that doesn't look too keenly on "unnecessary" and unwanted accusations being prompted in the first place. Within this environment, and in my experience, the Independent Fundamental Baptists, leaders constantly preach how sinful it is to sow discord among fellow believers. With this in mind, vi...

Just recently, I was a part of a lengthy discussion with someone who was of the opinion that to call out abuse in the Independent Fundamental Baptist world is to "finger point" if the number of cases of sexual abuse does not reach a shocking number more than that of other denomination, such as the Catholic Church or even the Jehovah's Witnesses. Their point of view was how can we demand accountability of churches independent of each other, who are without a head organization and sans a numbers count of total members? Unlike mainstream religions, Independent Fundamental Baptist churches do not, and if they do, rarely, have checks and balances on the system and yet, in spite of this, patterns point to systematic abuse.  If we were to obtain an accurate number, we would have to first create a database of all churches identifying as IFB. I would argue that, wait, we do, in many ways, have just that in numerous forms. There are IFB church directories that do just that...