Uncertain

In this episode, we’ll discuss how the church’s common stance on suffering for Christ often gets twisted in such a way that victims feel they cannot leave abusive homes, churches, or jobs.

Rebecca Davis is a trauma-informed writer, book coach, speaker, compassionate witness, prayer minister, and lover of Jesus who lives in Greenville, South Carolina. Her work as a trauma-informed book coach and ghostwriter can be found at rebeccadaviswordworking.com.

Find a list of all Rebeccas Untwisting Scriptures books here: https://heresthejoy.com/books-2/

Listen to another Uncertain Episode with Rebecca S4:E12 Untwisting Teachings Around Loyalty, Sin Leveling, & Bitterness

Uncertain is a podcast of  Tears of Eden, a community and resource for those in the aftermath of Spiritual Abuse. If you’re enjoying this podcast, please take a moment to like, subscribe, or leave a review on your favorite podcasting listening apparatus.

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Transcript is unedited for typos and misspellings:

[00:00:00] I'm Katherine Spearing, and this is Uncertain.

 The uncertain podcast is the affiliate podcast of tears at Eden, a nonprofit that serves as a community and resource for survivors of spiritual abuse. This podcast and the work of tears are supported by donations from generous listeners. Like you. If you're enjoying this podcast, please consider giving a donation by using the link in the show notes or visiting tears of eaton.org/support.

 You can also support the podcast by rating and leaving a review and sharing on social media. If you're not already following us, please follow us on Facebook at tears of Eden and Instagram at uncertain podcast. Thanks so much for listening.

Katherine: Hi, Rebecca. How are you? It's so good to be here. Thank you for having me, Catherine. I'm excited to talk about your new book, book five, where you're on twisting scriptures about brokenness and suffering. Yes,

Rebecca: book five and the untwisting scripture series. My daughter asked me how many books in this series I was going to write.

I said, I do not know. I'm going to keep going. [00:01:00]

Katherine: Keeps coming up. I'm excited about this one. Because, well, I'm excited about all of them. I think they're all really important, but this one, I think the teaching about brokenness and suffering in the church. will often keep people in abusive situations and keep them recognizing that.

And so this is really important, really, really important. And so we had another interview with you when your book four came out and so I'm going to link that in the show notes so folks have That to listen to as well, but to just get us started, I would love to hear what fuels your passion for writing these books.

Rebecca: Oh boy. That's a really, really good question. For one thing, when I first got started, the first untwisting scriptures book came out in 2016 and then it was about four years before I really got the series rolling, which is not a great way to do a series, but anyway, that's what happened. But my first initial [00:02:00] passion was.

I hated, hated seeing how God, and this was all new to me 10 years ago, seeing how God was being represented as an abuser. And it wasn't that I'd never heard the teachings. It's because I didn't grow up with abuse. I didn't marry into abuse. I hadn't been subject to the abuse, so I didn't see. I was just blind.

To how the logical conclusion of these teachings, where that logical conclusion would go, because it was all theory to me, it hadn't been worked out in practice, but then when I saw when I heard people coming to me about this and saying, well, I was taught you have to give up all your rights was thinking, you know, kind of remember that somewhere.

Well, I'd been to the Bill Gothard seminars that taught about giving up your rights many years before, but I hadn't, and I thought at the time, you know, I just believed everything he said, but there wasn't ever in my life, ever a time when my rights weren't acknowledged. [00:03:00] And just like part of the air I breathed because I was not in abuse.

So then I see when people who are in abuse are being told, give up your rights. I see. Starting in 2012, the logical conclusion this is coming to, that they are going to be absolutely trampled on. And I'm, I'm astonished and appalled at what's happening to these people. And then the next step is I'm astonished and appalled that God is being represented this way.

They think this is what God wants to do. And so that was my initial passion fueling me. Now I'm seeing it actually in the Bible who God really is, that he is not how these people have represented him.

Katherine: Yeah, and and folks are able to determine what that looks like for them and what their beliefs look like for them and not base those beliefs on abusive people who've been teaching [00:04:00] them these abusive messages. And that's I feel like that's really important for me for folks to create their own journey and not base it on because so many things I think in the church are just either tradition.

Or really harmful things that have been taught to us by. Yes,

Rebecca: like listen to authority. You someone wrote to me and said yours that she was taught. I'm supposed to lead and feed and you're supposed to follow and swallow. I think that's how it went. Oh, my God. I thought I had never heard that one reaction to that.

So that's that. That could be so many things. And yet that is so it's like, I was I was feeling some some, some strong emotions in response to that. But it's that authority teaching. Turn your brain off. Turn your brain off. Do not think. If you think, then you've been ungodly or something. You just have to believe me, the [00:05:00] leader, and follow me.

Whereas, I've always believed since I was young and want to encourage other people. Go to the Bible yourself. Look at it yourself. Let's examine everything Untwisting Scriptures books. Go look at it yourself and see what the Bible is really teaching.

Katherine: And be prepared for where that may lead, depending on the environment that you're in.

Rebecca: Yes. And I hope I hope my hope is that it will lead to seeing that God really is a God who loves his people and wants to be with his people. And one of the best representations in the scriptures, I mean, there are many good ones, but one of the best is that father who's running out to the prodigal son and embracing him and bringing him in and Even wanting to have a relationship with his older son, who's, who's unhappy.

Let's, I'll just put it that way, very unhappy. He wants, he wants relationship. He is a God of relationship. And the more I research the [00:06:00] topic, the untwisting scriptures, the more I see that in my study. God is a God of relationship with his people, healthy, Good relationship, not abusive relationship, not just, just obey me and stop whining,

those are all things that are, I'm very, very passionate about.

Katherine: So , book five, Brokenness and Suffering, what are some of the questions that you're seeking to answer with this?

Rebecca: Yes, well, initially when I started this book, it was going to be called, suffering, dying to self and life.

And then I started finding I realized, Oh, my goodness, I need to talk about brokenness. That's a huge thing. And then that expanded and expanded. And I realized, dying to self and life, you're gonna have to wait for a future book, I just have to focus on these two things for this book. And that's enough. And when I did start the study of brokenness, which I started, there were two things.

One was prompting it. I've been [00:07:00] hearing about brokenness and how we're all broken or we're all supposed to be broken or, or brokenness is, is either godly or it's inevitable. We're just, everybody's broken or something. I was thinking something is off, something is off about all this teaching. And there were two things.

That prompted my research for the brokenness section of this book, which leads into the suffering section. And one of them was a woman who wrote to me about all the triggering songs in church that talked about God in an abusive way. And at the time I thought, well, I didn't like some of these songs, but other ones of them I didn't either I didn't know or I didn't notice.

And she was talking about how, how it says how different songs will say things like, crash into Me. It doesn't say destroy me, but it's almost like it says Destroy me. Mm-Hmm. , like, like completely o overcome me. And Until You, until I'm nothing. Me. [00:08:00] I think that's consume me. That's the one, that's the one consume me.

And when I looked at it through her eyes. I thought, Oh my word, that's right. That's exactly what this says. I am ready to be basically destroyed by God. This, the Bible never speaks that way ever actually. So I think these songs are really problematic as much as some Christians might like these songs and reinterpret the songs in their heads.

I think that the, the songs don't represent. how the Bible speaks about our God with his people. So then and the other thing I said, there were two things. One of them was this, that woman writing to me about the songs. And the other one was a very popular sermon given by Nancy Lita Moss back in the nineties.

And it was, From what I could tell the beginning of her rise in fame. Now she would have already been rising in fame. She was from a very wealthy family was very well connected. but this, [00:09:00] this was at Moody and Moody Bible Institute. she gave a sermon about how everybody needed to be broken. And she's given that sermon again, like in recent days, that was 95 ish.

And this, the most recent ones was 2016 and that I could find anyway. And the message was basically the same. I thought, did she change? Did she modify? But no, they're basically the same message. So I, I took a chapter to talk about the brokenness teachings. like in the songs and what the Bible says about brokenness.

And so I thought, all right, this is what I do. Since I'm in untwisting scriptures, I go through every Bible reference to this concept. And I thought, I will, I probably won't find that much because You know, there just aren't that many references to brokenness in the Bible, but I was really surprised at how much I found about brokenness or breaking in the Bible.

And the references were, I mean, it just delighted my [00:10:00] heart. The references were to God, how God breaks the wicked and, and it's really important for us. to understand that not everyone is the wicked. Do you see what I'm saying? Because in book four, and I had to reference back to book four to distinguish the righteous from the wicked, the wicked are the ones whose hearts are set against God.

Even if, even if they present really well, even if they present as a godly person. And this is what the Bible calls wolves and sheep's clothing, which is why the subtitle of book four is wolves, hypocrisy, sin leveling, and righteousness. Sin leveling is treating all sins as equal. A very important concept to understand when you're going to recognize in the Bible, God breaks the wicked.

To think, wait a minute, I love Jesus, I'm following Jesus. I don't have a heart of hypocrisy as [00:11:00] defined in the Bible, which I outlined very clearly in book four. I don't have that kind of heart. So that means I'm not one of those wicked and I'm not a person who's that God is going to break. Now, maybe somebody else is breaking me, but it won't be God.

You see what I'm saying? Now, there was also the case of Psalm 51, very common verse. David refers to the bones that you have broken being able to rejoice it. So I dig into that Let's look at Psalm 51 because I saw in the scriptures. God breaks the wicked and God breaks the hard hearted believer who needs to be

David

Rebecca: needs something deep to happen to them in order to get them to come back to the Lord.

So those are the only two things I saw the wicked, like in, in judgment, like judgment day and any other judgment the Lord brings. And the hard hearted believer, David was [00:12:00] hard hearted. He was so hard. Hard. All right. Background to Psalm 51. It's the, the repentance mourning confession Psalm after Nathan, the prophet came into David and told him you are the one who has stolen somebody else's pet lamb and destroyed it.

So it was in reference to his, his abuse, sexual assault of Bathsheba and the We might say indirect murder of her husband and so broken is needed to happen. Exactly. Exactly. When David committed adultery, or I might say committed sexual abuse, rape of Beth Sheba, he could have repented. Then he could have repented at any time.

He could have turned back to the Lord at any point, but when he, when you see that, not only when she told him, I, I'm going to have a baby. When he, he, he didn't. Like come before the Lord in weeping and mourning at that time. [00:13:00] He said, okay, I better get her husband out of the way that shows hard heartedness When someone is hard hearted God does knee I would say I would pray for God to do some breaking of that person to break their hearts over their sin That's what happened to David That is a very specific psalm about, about a very specific situation that would apply to people if they are hard hearted.

I don't like all of us, the ones who love Jesus and are following Him and want to do His will and are desperate to do His will, praying that. Because it doesn't apply to us. One of my points in my books, all the way through the books is that not all scripture applies to us. We can learn from all of it, but we don't take all of it and say, this is about me.

That just isn't, it's, it's one of the foundational hermeneutical principles that I follow when I work on my untwisting scriptures books. They don't all apply to [00:14:00] every

Katherine: context. That's right. That's right.

Rebecca: Yes. So then that's that chapter, and I talk about Nancy Liedemaus sermon and the examples that she uses of brokenness.

that either don't apply or don't even make sense. So I do want to point out illogic when, when people are illogical, because illogic happens a lot. And when it's just in a flow, in a flow of things, people might not notice. There's illogic going on because for one thing, they're taught to turn off their brains when they're hearing a sermon.

And that's what I did back in my Bill Gothard days. I just received, received, received. And it was years later that I looked at it and thought, Oh my word, this stuff is terrible.

Katherine: Yeah.

Rebecca: That I did not see it at the time. I will excuse myself because I was very young, but it was still really wrong and I should have been paying attention and listening.

Katherine: I agree with the logic thing. And I think that logic has been a huge part of my story, even when I was young [00:15:00] and. All the way up into my mid twenties, my main abuser, spiritual abuser teaching these things.

And then also teaching us that we need to know our Bible and go and read your Bible. And then I would read the Bible and I would see something different than what they were teaching. And then I would talk to them about it. And then they would tell me that I was wrong. And it was, and the logic of like, that why do you get to be the one if like god is the authority that we're listening to and the bible is what we're supposed to be paying attention to and i come to a different conclusion to you than you why do you get to be the one that decides and i think I believe this person has a lot of different personality disorders because I really believe that they didn't think it was possible for someone to think differently than them.

I think they were so completely flabbergasted. They thought they were so right. And then if everyone [00:16:00] studied the way they studied, then everyone would come to their same conclusion about it. And there was no space for like, nuance, context, the fact that it didn't apply to you and, and just, again, like, the logic of the situation being a massive factor for me to like, wake up to those, you know, Wake up to some of the stuff that was happening and like, this actually is just doesn't make sense, you

Rebecca: know, and you are exceptional that way, because you were actually asking questions.

So many people when they go to the Bible, if they see something, or if their logic, or the Holy Spirit leads them to a different conclusion from what they've been taught. Many, many people will just shut that part out, shut it out, shut it out, because that's heresy if I believe something different from my leader.

And then for [00:17:00] many people, they'll listen to audios of their leader more than they'll listen to the Bible. They'll read things written by their leader more than they'll read the Bible. Yeah. But the fact is that there are certain aspects of biblical doctrine that people have been disagreeing on. Like for hundreds and thousands of years.

It's so true. We're not going to suddenly figure it out. So that's where we say we can, we can have, you know, there are just a very few basics that you agree on to call yourself a Christian. And like, I believe as a, as a Christian. And when I use that word, I want to use it in the way the book of acts uses it rather than the way it's used nowadays.

When I call myself a Christian, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as my savior. And there are really very few things that will keep me [00:18:00] from fellowshipping or having a camaraderie, let's say, instead of that other word with other people who disagree with me on a lot of different things. So it's just.

I'm so glad you were able to see that. But it really, it's astonishing when you step back and look, this sounds like the way a cult operates. You have to agree with the leader.

Katherine: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that they would discourage you from reading the Bible if more people were doing that. And then like what is the Christian scientists?

Mary Baker Eddy's book is used to interpret the Bible, so they would, like, tell you very specifically, like, this is what this means. So you read it, but you have to have it accompanied with this other voice. So there's a

Rebecca: certain filter. Here's the filter that you have to put over the Bible when you read it.

And if you read it without that filter, then you're in deep, [00:19:00] dark trouble. And you might be headed for hell, you know, so it's that way following your own ways. Yes. Yes. And your own what your own heart is what deceitful above all things, right? That is in that's in one of my untwisting scriptures books. I don't know

Katherine: what that verse means.

Exactly. That's a very common, commonly Misused and abused scripture. Yes, it's

Rebecca: used like an attack rocket, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna mow you down with this one. It's really easy to just be like, well, your heart is deceitful. That's right. It took me

Katherine: a long while to be like, why do you get to say that?

Rebecca: That's right. Because doesn't that mean your heart is deceitful too? Your heart is

deceitful too? Which one's

Rebecca: more? That's right. That's right. And, and it is. It's it can be so difficult for people coming out of these super authoritarian structures to recognize. Hey, I have the Holy Spirit too. I can, I can listen to the Lord [00:20:00] too.

I can read the Bible too. What if I come to a different conclusion about certain things? Does that mean that I'm, that the Lord is going to reject me because I wasn't listening to my authority? Or does it mean? My authority and I are actually my my so called authority and I are actually on the same level ground that we both get to read the Bible and and seek the Lord and ask the Lord what he means.

And maybe we can read other people. I hope some people will read my books, of course, but I never want my books to supersede or be a filter through which you read the scriptures. Read the scriptures and ask the Holy Spirit what they mean. Ask him to help you connect scripture with scripture. I pass on, What I've learned, but I want everybody to dig in for themselves.

And if you come to a different conclusion, I will say, I hope we can still be friends, you know?

Katherine: Oh yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think that that's that's, [00:21:00] that's really great to just hold, hold that space for differences of opinions and not being, and as you said, just like the, Evidence of a cult leader being super dogmatic that this is the way that it exists, but it's so powerful, especially if you're raised in it, like that you can't trust yourself.

And especially if that's assigned to something like, because you're a child, you can't, you have to trust the adults or because you are a teenager or because you are in your 20s or because you are a woman or any of these other. Things that are intrinsic to us that then make us untrustworthy to be able to read scripture and interpret it.

It's really powerful, really difficult. Absolutely.

Rebecca: And, and the environment a child is raised in is huge. A lot of the people who write to me are, you know, People who were raised in in the spiritually abusive environments [00:22:00] that we might call cults. Yes that They're trying to break out of and there are patterns in their mind That they can be changed.

I love how new brain science is showing that new patterns can be formed in the brain. Whereas before they used to talk about the brain, like it was cement and you couldn't do anything about it, but definitely new patterns can be formed. And I do have a free a free guide on my website. Here's the joy.

com. That's called how to enjoy the Bible again, after spiritual abuse, how to enjoy the Bible again, when you're ready after spiritual abuse without feeling guilty or getting triggered out of your mind. Because a lot of people say, when I try to read the Bible, I hear it in my abuser's voice. Yep. And I don't know how to break out of that.

It is possible. It is possible to break out of that, but it can be. a road. It can be a dream. Sure.

Katherine: Yeah. And that was true for me for probably [00:23:00] seven, eight years reading the Bible. And like, I cannot get the interpretation of, you know, this person out of my head. And I mean, that's trauma. It's trauma. It's a trauma bond.

It's a, yes, absolutely. It's very, very deep.

Rebecca: . And understanding those things, I think understanding the, the way the brain works, the mind and brain system. As well as understanding spiritual abuse and then wanting to understand the Bible. I think all of those things need to work together. I think it's good for, for us to have a deeper understanding.

I have something, this is off the subject of book five, but I'm going to tell you this. On my website, heresthejoy. com, I have a statement of beliefs, my statement of beliefs. And one of the sections is called the sufficiency of scripture. And in that section I say I believe the scripture is sufficient to show us who God is, how our salvation is accomplished, what he wants from us, and, and how we can relate to him, blah, blah, blah.[00:24:00]

But I believe the scripture is not sufficient, and was never intended to be sufficient, to tell us all the ways abuse can be executed on people off the way the brain works in trauma and several other things I list there. The script that isn't what the scripture is about. Yeah. So for us to look to brain science or some tools that people use, like, oh, say EMDR, maybe because of how the brain works, isn't going against the Bible.

That isn't what the Bible's about. It can actually be a tool Those things, some of those brainy things can be tools to help us regulate better so that we can come back to the scriptures and look at them fresh and see more clearly after spiritual abuse who God really is, who we really are, and how the world operates, how salvation is accomplished, all of those things.

They can be extremely [00:25:00] helpful.

Katherine: , I remember my main abuser saying the Bible is good enough for everything. It is, is, it is, I don't know if they were use the word sufficient, but like it, it like it is the only book that you need which is so It's so discombobulated when absolutely,

Rebecca: It is the revelation of God to man about God, about salvation.

You know, we can learn about God from nature. We can learn a lot about God from nature, but to understand his plan of salvation, that's in the Bible. But there are other things, like the Bible does not address those things, and it never intended to address those things.

So we've got to get outside of the book. The box of the Bible is sufficient for everything. I, I, I find it so funny and ironic and hypocritical that Jay Adams, the founder of Newthetic, so called biblical counseling. I know all these people. I know all these people. Wrote like a hundred books telling you that the Bible is the [00:26:00] only book you need,

Katherine: you're right, that is so ironic. But read my book to tell you that.

Rebecca: That's right, you've got to read my books. But, but I will go back and say the Bible is the only book you need. Anyway, it doesn't make any sense at all. Yeah, that is

Katherine: your absolute logic. Logic here, right?

There you go. There's the logic.

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Katherine: What are some of the responses that you have received to this particular book?

Rebecca: I get responses. To all my books, pretty often, like some people have just discovered the series and they're reading the whole series and last summer I sent this one brokenness and suffering out to my beta readers, and then my book launch team, and I got a lot of bit strong responses from them about [00:27:00] how, you know, some of them have read all of my books and they, and they think maybe they're all done untwisting all the, all the things.

And they read the next one and they go, Oh my word, there were all these things too. So, so I do often get responses like this was extremely helpful and it has been very freeing to me. Freeing is one of the. One of the most common words I get, and of course, if you're all tangled up, the, the, the subtitle of my earlier books was Untwisting Scriptures that have been used to tie you up.

gag you and tangle your mind. So if those things are being undone, then of course you're going to feel free. I think some church leaders feel afraid of the concept of people getting free because then they maybe they think, oh, then they'll They'll be free to sin. Well, you know, the New Testament talks a good bit about freedom, and it's not freedom to sin.[00:28:00]

It's freedom in Jesus Christ to actually know him, that's when I pound over and over.

I pound on that because that was so free to me 20 years ago when I first understood it, that I wanted other people to know it. All of our righteousness is in Jesus Christ alone, not in the hoops we jump through, not in the list we keep, not in the ways we make ourselves smaller and smaller. Smaller and more and more invisible and more and more ready to be kicked and punched and beaten down.

Not any of that. It is all in Jesus Christ alone. So I do emphasize in this book the importance of understanding that God is not the one, except in those two cases, the wicked and the hard hearted believer. He's not the one who inflicts. This broken, this breaking, he's not the one who [00:29:00] inflicts the, the abuse and a common saying, I guess, in Christendom is we are all broken.

And I've never really liked that one because I thought, how can we all. always be broken. Does God, does God not ever heal? Does he never heal brokenness? I can understand being broken because there are abusers and, and there are people who break and shatter people who, I mean, there's some people who are really, really beaten down.

Isn't God the healer? So why are we going to keep on saying that we're all broken? Can we go to him for healing? Does he heal? That's one of the questions I wanted to grapple with. And Jesus says right there in the scriptures that he has come to heal the brokenhearted and to set the captives free. So I don't think it's scriptural to say we're all broken all the time, [00:30:00] forever and ever.

We can say, actually, he's healed me. Now, I want people to be honest if they still feel shattered if they still feel broken, then definitely. Let's let's Do what needs to be done, not deny that feeling exactly. We don't want to just deny that,

but

Rebecca: we do want to see that healing is possible down the road and coming to the Lord is not an identity

Katherine: that we have to embrace.

That's

Rebecca: right. And there is another thing I addressed in that book two chapters on it, the victim mentality, because it was really bothering me a lot that people were being accused of having a victim mentality. When, familiar with that one, when they want to get help, when they want to warn other people when they need to process their trauma.

I mean, when they express that they don't like something. Yes. Like, Oh, you're just stuck in the past. You just have your victim mentality. [00:31:00] Get out of that. And I think, so what is a victim mentality really? So I do think it's possible to have a victim mentality, but the only. way I saw it as being a real thing is when a person accuses everybody else of always being the problem.

Like everybody else is always taking advantage of me. I lost my last, I got fired from my last 10 jobs, but it was always somebody else. It was always the boss. It was always the co worker. And I thought, That sounds more like an abuser than a victim to me, like abusers or, and maybe, maybe not abusers, but people who just aren't willing to actually look at themselves and see how they need to change.

But to accuse someone of this very victim mentality, that term is always negative to accuse someone of having this victim mentality, when really they are just trying to they're trying to [00:32:00] bring awareness to others of a big problem, like either a problem they need help with or a problem like you've got a problem in your church.

I've heard so often when people are trying to bring awareness about an abuser in the church or lack of safety in the Nursery for example. Yeah. Oh, you're just you're you're just too Stuck in the past because you had childhood trauma yourself. So their own their own ability to see the problems is ignored because They, they're the canary in the coal mine because they have a greater ability to see the problems.

They notice things. Anyway, I'm talking, talking. What do you want to say, Kevin?

Katherine: My, my final question is, you know, kind of, we're talking about it and we're, we're talking about it. We're addressing it, but I would love to hear, are there any specific ways that you have seen this [00:33:00] twisted application of brokenness and suffering, keeping people in abusive systems?

And how have you seen that play out? Oh, absolutely.

Rebecca: One of the chapters in this book is specifically based on a letter I received from someone, and often blog posts or book chapters are based on answers to letters I've received. A woman who was in an abusive marriage for very, very long time, many decades, said it was based on something about something that Puritan had written about suffering, but that's just one of many.

It could have been many, many people writing about suffering and how when we suffer, it's like the suffering of Jesus. And there can be redemption through our suffering because he brought redemption through his suffering. And so she said, I would even look for ways to suffer. Because I felt like that was going to make me more godly.

People say our suffering is going to make us more godly. And so I would look [00:34:00] for ways to suffer. And I would, I don't think she said she was glad when her abusive husband abused her, but she was sure that that was going to make her more godly. And it took her a very, very long time to understand that that was not the heart of God.

And it was right. To get away from suffering at the hands of someone who said, who promised he would love and protect you promised it before a room of witnesses. That's it's, it's so twisted. And I don't blame the individuals for having the twisted thinking, because it's what they've been taught to think that someone who promises at the wedding ceremony, the wedding vows.

Promises to love and protect you and then abuses you that that's a good thing That is not a good thing and yet so much of the church You you need to stay in that abusive marriage. Of course, they won't call it abuse. They'll just call it marriage and [00:35:00] need to stay you need to stay in that marriage and Continue to suffer and god will refine you and he will redeem your marriage and all these wrong teachings That is that keep people in a place of oppression.

So it is, and it's not just marriage. It's also children under abusive parents and abusing trafficking situations. Yes. The abusive pastor. Yes, absolutely. Well, I should just say church leader because he's not really a pastor, but self proclaimed leader. That's right. That's right. There you go. The It's part of this is so I see how all the abusive teachings work together and I address lots of abusive teachings in my five books so far, how all of them work together to create this environment this atmosphere, almost like a web, a web around people, you try to push against it and just you just get more and more stuck in the [00:36:00] web.

Yeah, and, and all of these different things. These teachings that are not the heart of God and not really what the scripture teaches are pushing against people to try to keep them small, keep them contained, keep them from thinking, keep them from listening to the Holy Spirit, keeping them from being able to escape their abusive situation.

So that is my passion to get

Katherine: back to the very first question you asked. And what would you, say to someone who does wake up and recognizes I'm, I'm in this abusive system and this teaching is keeping me trapped here. What would be, you know, maybe like a safe exit plan or what are, you know, what are some initials?

I

Rebecca: actually, I actually don't do exit plans. I refer them to people who do because that's not my specialty. And I want to, I want, I am willing to stay. I love it. Yeah, that's right. I stay in my lane and I'm absolutely willing to [00:37:00] stay connected with people.

You know, they can make appointments with me. We can stay connected by email. One person recently wrote and said, I don't know if you even see this. It might be your assistant who sees it. Well, no, I, I read and answer all my emails, but for actual exit plans, That is, that's huge. People need to have them. But I have connections of people who are passionate about helping people in that way.

And I'm happy to refer them to someone who can do that with them.

Katherine: Great. I appreciate that. Well, thank you so, so much. Tell folks where they can find you and find your book.

Rebecca: Yes. Here's the joy. com is my website and you can see all my stuff there and my books. My Untwisting Scriptures book series are all on Amazon.

. And I've written or co written over 20 books, so I'm well versed in this area and happy to help others. Great. Thank you so much for

Katherine: untwisting scriptures. Thank you, Catherine, for having me. I really [00:38:00] appreciate it. Uncertain is produced, recorded, edited, and hosted by me, Katherine Spearing. Intro music is from the band Green Ashes.

 I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. And if you have, please take a moment to like subscribe and leave a review. Thank you so much for listening and I will see you next time.