NOM

document wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2017 7:12 am Thank you for this post.

I wrote up a long post about my parents' divorce, but I realized short and sweet is better.

My father was very abusive and charismatic. When they divorced my father turned the ward against my mother which was emotionally abusive and in a few cases, physically dangerous for her. She stayed active due to her sheer Brummy obstinate nature. But, she felt physically unsafe at church. She requested to go to a different ward which was denied because of "church policy" and that she was "finding a reason to be offended". When she moved wards when her house sold, the new ward didn't know my father and they rallied around her and protected her. At one point, the bishop even assigned to male escorts because my father was in the building. That fairly basic need of safety was returned and she no longer _feared_ church.

Her experience at church went from insanely depressing and unsafe every week back to normal, where she felt safe. I really believe that had she moved into a place in that same ward she would have eventually left the church. A stalwart member she was and a true-blue believer, but even that isn't enough when your need of physical safety is not being met. Unfortunately, if she had left, I'm very sure that people would have clucked their tongue and furrowed their brow in an attempt to justify their horrific behavior and shift the blame onto her. They would have called her weak, offended, lazy, and wanting to sin.

During this period of time, the only people who would help her out were women who had found themselves in similar situations in the church. She assumed for a while that it was just this particular bishop. Over the years and through multiple wards and stakes she has found dozens and dozens of women who have had similar situations. This led her to the conclusion that this isn't isolated and is a fairly common experienced among abused women. That made her very sad although, unlike me, she doesn't link the problem to an abusive culture but rather to a series of bad apples.

To me, church is a place that you should feel safe. They should be doing everything in their power to make it a safe place. This should be a sanctuary from the world, a place of refuge. It sickens me to think of any person who uses this sanctuary to abuse or further abuse.

My heart goes out to you.

oliver_denom wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:40 am The problem is that I think the issues you describe are systemic. The ward will side with the priesthood holder because it is the priesthood holder who receives the majority of support from the leadership, especially if priesthood holder expresses remorse and repentance.

If we were to diagram a hierarchy of needs for the church, then what would form the base levels of the pyramid? The most basic of the church's needs is the establishment of its authority. I think any objective analysis of what is spoken and taught in church would backup up this proposition, that most focuses on the rights and authority of the church and the men who hold power.

One of the most important lessons I learned during my time in stake and ward leadership, is that the disciplinary process is essential to cementing power and authority within the church. It binds the men together who perform the disciplining and instills the fear that the same may happen to them if they step out of line. More importantly, the individual being disciplined makes a display of how deferential and beholden they are to church authority by voluntarily humiliating themselves, sometimes in very degrading ways, and admitting by their presence that yes, in fact, they recognize that the church has the right to pass judgement on them and do what ever they will. This act, even behind closed doors, strengthens the church's claim to authority more than we realize. It penetrates the entire organization through whispers and the terror of being ostracized. You could be "disciplined" for just about anything, no one would know the details, but they would know it had occurred.

But here's the upside to being disciplined, or for properly showing respect to the church's base need of authority. All a person has to do is whatever they're told, and *poof*, you get complete forgiveness. That's the upside to submitting to the process. The church claims the exclusive right to forgive sins, and they often display that power by the callings they give. Callings = status, and once you've been forgiven, then the leadership is often eager to reward willingness to grovel with status. It's a quid pro quo. I eat dirt and kiss some boots behind closed doors, and in return, I get restored in the public's eye. When they see someone who has been disciplined blessing the sacrament or leading the Elder's quorum, then the assumption is that God and God's chosen servants have wiped the slate clean. No one really knows what happened, because that's secret, but the forgiveness element is more or less public.

What I experienced by watching the process unfold, is that time and time again is that women were treated more harshly, even when they had done nothing wrong. I'll never forget the wife of a former Bishop, a man who had confessed to a decade long affair that partly occurred while Bishop, who was told in the high council room in front of 15 men that the Lord had forgiven her husband and that it was her duty to do so as well. He went through the requisite 12 months of repentance, cried a sufficient amount, read the books he was told to read, and visited with the bishop once a month, so that was good enough. Any further strain in the marriage would be due to her ability not to forgive, not because of anything the husband did "in the past". Only her pride and misunderstanding of the atonement could harm the marriage now. The guy did everything he was told, and that was emblematic of the highest possible good.

I've participated in about a dozen or so disciplinary councils, and they were a primary driver for my disconnecting completely. They were what really convinced me that there was little I could do to change things in the church. It's problems were mixed into its foundation, and only people at the top had the power to tear it up and rebuild. All I have the power to do is withdraw my support in the form of time, talents, and donations, so that's what I did.

document wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2017 3:47 pm It was interesting seeing how my current church handled our divorce. We were treated separately and the church itself stayed as far away from divorce as possible. They saw to spiritual needs and asked both parties if there were issues and whether one person would be willing to go another parish nearby or just take a break. As we were both working out our issues fairly nicely, we just opted to stay in the same parish and the same time for the most part. The priest did offer to help get a good counselor, but by policy stayed out of matters of domestic issues unless those issues were abusive at which point she would get the authorities involved.

There was a clear distinction between the role of the church (spiritual well being and a welcoming place) and everything else. It was wonderful and I relied upon the help of my priest a lot during our divorce.

It also helps that most seminaries have training in these things. :/