RE: Open Letter - Dear Saints in the Lord's Recovery - Joann Casteel

I want to make it clear that James was not the one who assaulted my mom or her friend another sister in the church. It was the father of a leading one who assaulted sisters. And his son ended up doing the same and being just like him. I wanted to clarify this. Thanks.

My mom is still in the church but her friend has left. Saints say she left because she was influenced and poisoned by a rebellion. I'm not sure if the elders and coworkers should get involved in saints personal lives but her ex was very controlling and drove her to the verge of suicide. But after three times of coming back she left. He met a sister in so called Christianity and divorced within a few years. He finally went to another state and found a sister in the church to marry.

So my question is should the church get involved in personal lives? If so, what can they do if the teaching turn the brothers into this of saying they have the headship and authority over the wife.

[Robert]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

So my question is should the church get involved in personal lives? If so, what can they do if the teaching turn the brothers into this of saying they have the headship and authority over the wife.

It can be rhetorical question, but I will put my two cents.

Very often we come to the same trap of wrong thinking again!

What is CHURCH actually? Group of individuals.
Ecclesia was in Brusselles demonstrating just recently. So who was arrested?
Crowd ( ecclesia) or some individuals with certain names?
The same is with Your question.
Should crowd get involved in personal live? How?
But should individual be involved in? It depends how far You allow him.
Friends-saints knows more than saints which we do not know. This is obvious.
So letting strangers to deal with our private and sensitive problems ( doesn't matter if we call them elders or super holly servants) is riskful.
Trust and love is foundation of local group of believers called usually as church. But trust we build over the years. This construction is also proved in Bible.
If we take off trust ( built on troubles we went through) and love, then we will have only organization. If situation is so, it is better to call social worker.
I should not laughing, I know.

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I want to make it clear that James was not the one who assaulted my mom or her friend another sister in the church. It was the father of a leading one who assaulted sisters. And his son ended up doing the same and being just like him. I wanted to clarify this. Thanks.

My mom is still in the church but her friend has left. Saints say she left because she was influenced and poisoned by a rebellion. I'm not sure if the elders and coworkers should get involved in saints personal lives but her ex was very controlling and drove her to the verge of suicide. But after three times of coming back she left. He met a sister in so called Christianity and divorced within a few years. He finally went to another state and found a sister in the church to marry.

So my question is should the church get involved in personal lives? If so, what can they do if the teaching turn the brothers into this of saying they have the headship and authority over the wife.

Thanks for the clarification and for making sure you are not pointing fingers by implication. Sadly I can think of another father/son duo in the church who are sexual predators, that based on your description are not the ones you are talking about. I'm devastated there are more than one.

I can only say a little bit here, but the local church is, again, like many other abusive churches. In the marriage relationship, they think this is all that is said about the marriage dynamic:

Ephesians 5:22-24
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

But they repeatedly forget the next part of the chapter, which is:

Ephesians 5:25-33
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,
27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—
30 for we are members of his body.
31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.
33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Obviously each marriage situation is different, but from what I have seen about how the elders handle them, the problem is usually not that the wife will not submit, but that the husband will not sacrifice himself for her. A submissive wife is submitting to a sacrificial husband....to a husband that loves her as he loves himself. But when the husband does not do that and instead lords it over her, claims his domineering authority, is abusive, the Bible does not say we are to submit to abuse. The wife's submission is part of the whole, and the other part of that whole includes a husband who gives himself up for her. The elders hardly ever admonish the husband, but usually always blame the wife. And more abuse is allowed to stand. Sin is protected again and the victim is blamed.

Thank you for bringing all this up again to remind us to continue to pray and take action in whatever way we can.

Trapped