(Tim: This post by our dear sister, Kamilla Ludwig.)
So, here I am at something past 5 am with insomnia for the third night running. I never know what to do, but it seems the best solution is to get out of bed and out of my bedroom for a while. I usually come downstairs to surf the internet. It's amazing the number of people who are voluntarily up at this hour on a regular basis! So, tonight (this morning, rather), with all the news and gossip about the Vatican's offer to disaffected Anglicans, I checked on an AMiA-related blog I hadn't read in a while to see what was going there.
AAAAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They aren't discussing married Anglican priests becoming RC priests and how this is the end for clerical celibacy -- nooooo sirreee Bobby. They're discussing Mark Driscoll and Doug Wilson (now isn't that an interesting pairing?) and how evil complementarians are for encouraging -- or, alternatively -- ignoring wife abuse. The blogmaster is making a valiant effort to keep them honest (God bless him!), but it seems to be the lie which simply will not die...
[Now, this is interesting! When I tried to google who said, "If you tell a big enough lie often enough . . ." one of the first links to come up was a blog about false memory syndrome. Just hold that thought for a moment and the connection will make sense.]
And then, there she was. A woman I have encountered before who tells the story of an horrifically controlling husband before they both discovered the wonders of Egalitarianism. She makes it sound as if Complementarianism made him do it. Now, please, please, please don't go misconstruing me, again (you know who you are). The first time I heard this woman's story, I did have quite a bit of sympathy for her. But now, I've run across her telling it so many times in so many different places, I have to wonder if it has become her schtick, her calling card, her bid for another sympathy fix.
And that's when the danger really started. That's when I started thinking about how often this really happens. OK, so I get it. I know Egalitarians think Complementarianism is a set up for abuse, that pastors know this and they refuse to do anything about it for fear of losing their precious places of honor. Don't you deny it, we've all seen those claims too often to believe your denials. Now here's the thing. Have you ever wondered where these Egalitarians find all these horrible pastors and husbands? Scratch the surface of an Egal and you'll find a woman who has experienced abuse at the hands of a male authority figure (father, brother, husband, pastor). And sometimes the abuse is genuine. My point is not to deny that.
Now here comes the other side of the equation, so to speak. Is there something inside Egalitarians which makes them seek out these abusers? Is that how they justify turning their backs on what the Church has always taught? And then, do some Egalitarians seeing this abuse industry spring up around them begin to believe their father who might have been a bit too harsh for their tastes was actually abusive? Or maybe it was their pastor who (they say) knew abuse was going on in their marriage but refused to deal with it?
I don't know, but the tales of past abuse coming out of the Egalitarian camp begin to look suspicious for their frequency. Ask an Egalitarian and I'll bet you'll find a tale of some sort of past abuse. Go ahead, try it. Hang around with any half dozen of them long enough and seven of them will tell you how mean their father was or how controlling their husband was or how their pastor ignored their cries for help. Go ahead, prove me wrong.
