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Post by km on Jun 27, 2010 22:21:19 GMT -5
I really wouldn't know, km... I don't get much into activism (though I enjoy cultbusting, I was at several of the anti-Scientology rallies over in Buffalo back in 2008ish). Ahh, okay, it's probably an unfair assumption I make in online communities (w/r/t activism)... I'm there with you at the anti-Scientology rallies, by the way! I sorta think that group goes beyond a cult or a religion... I think it's a criminal organization that runs a big business that unfairly gets out of paying taxes by classifying itself as a religion...
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Post by usotsuki on Jun 27, 2010 22:49:11 GMT -5
I'll prolly offend a few people here to say it but I think some of these Christian megachurches are just as bad.
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Post by cindy on Jul 2, 2010 13:50:05 GMT -5
Lots of mega churches, just like Scientology is ARE spiritually abusive.
Spiritual abuse is just another working theory describing thought reform or mind control which is essentially just a system of manipulation that also uses social proof to back up its efforts.
There are a host of models you can use:
DDD Syndrome = Deception, Dependency and Dread
Spiritual Abuse -Authoritarianism -Image Conscious -Squelches Criticism -Perfectionistic -Unbalanced (majors on minor considerations)
Biderman's Chart of Coercion (used by several different groups and organizations to develop statements to counter domestic violence)
There are others...
I like Robert Lifton's criteria (Psychiatrist who attended to the Korean POWs who were released from indoctrination prison camps which were run by the Chinese Communists)
They basically all disorient you and then get you to displace your critical thought with the group doctrine and the intervention of the group's leadership. The very same thing that goes on in Scientology is also taking place within the church.
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Post by cindy on Jul 2, 2010 13:54:55 GMT -5
I went and posted this under the wrong thread (the open letter one)
I meant to put it here, so I"m copying it, addressing what no one has mentioned yet. (I've been waiting for over a week for someone else to say something...) It's really sad.
I actually keep coming to this thread with a purpose, and I keep getting distracted... I wanted to say that I understood that the concepts of feminism as they have changed Western Society -- actually came out of Christianity.
Jocelyn Andersen's book just released: "Woman this is War: Gender, Slavery and the Evangelical Caste System." Essentially, she does a point by point counter to this complementarian business.
There has always been a sector of Christianity that did not restrict women -- and the restrictions on women were cultural, per what I was taught. The true feminism in modern Western society came out of the church.
In my own experience, I knew the history of my own denomination. It was established in my State of PA by a woman in the year 1911. She established the first Assemblies of God in the state. The closest other gathering was in Newark, NJ. It was not the husband who had this interest but rather the wife. The wife also pushed for the first AoG college, and the denomination sent husband and wife both to school at Muhlenburg to train in theology beforehand. My first role model in the '70s was professor emeritus Beisel, the daughter in law of this woman who established the denomination. And they had nothing to do with the secular movement.
In her book Andersen also points out the same concept through the history of those who spoke out for women and also for emancipation. She establishes the first feminist as one of the original Quakers -- Margaret Fell who later became Margaret Fox. She defended the right for women to speak about spiritual matters in 1666. Plenty of other Quakers followed after her, as did some notable Moravians (the history of which is not in the book).
So if you ask a knowledgeable Christian, they will tell you that feminism came from the church as an outworking of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, doing what it was doing from the beginning -- giving stature and position to women.
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Post by tapati on Jul 2, 2010 14:02:04 GMT -5
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Post by tapati on Jul 2, 2010 14:08:57 GMT -5
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Post by cindy on Jul 2, 2010 17:02:17 GMT -5
Tapati,
That's interesting stuff. These sources ought to include the Quaker and Moravian support of the idea that women were not lesser beings, etc.. They missed them in their list!
For the benefit of the people who were spared some of the weirdness in the Church, there is an organization called the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, formed in the eighties, to combat homosexuality and sexual ambiguity, I guess you could say. Some denominations in Christianity have lots of problems with women and have from the beginning, and until about 20 years ago, ideas about gender were not seen as central to faith but were intramural matters within the pale of Christian orthodoxy. This CBMW group concocted a bunch of position statements and doctrines claiming that anything that didn't agree with how they saw things originated in liberal feminism which could not be separated from lesbianism. So anyone who did not agree with them was a communist and a lesbian.
What's nice about Andersen's new book for those who have come out of QF and were taught CBMW style info, it tells the truth about the distortions of both Bible and history.
Essentially, it presents the truth about the history that did not develop from any liberal source or a secular one. Many Christian denominations oppose CBMW doctrine, still embrace the concept of Biblical Authority and have nothing to do with liberal influences. In the church, what these folks call feminism came from the Quakers in 1666. That was quite a bit of time before the 19th century move toward emancipation. But then, in some sectors of QF, there is a belief that slavery is the best option available to deal with our current economic woes as a nation, too.
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Post by cindy on Jul 2, 2010 17:04:23 GMT -5
Bottom line in case it wasn't obvious:
Things aren't as clean and simple as QF theorists and leaders would like them to be. People are complex and ideas about people are so also. QF needs ideas to be simple and will redefine history in order to make everything fit into some static box to make everything "sanitary."
The truth is that people are messy and complicated. So is history.
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Post by cindy on Jul 3, 2010 0:22:35 GMT -5
I thought I'd check my sitemeter, and I found a link in from a site that uses sardonic wit to criticize a particular QF/patriarchy website. The site posted comments from a disgruntled reader who I assume was not permitted to post on another site.
In Doug Phillips' camp, they tell everyone that feminism came from Communism. They know everything and they know everything definitively... But essentially, they make the claim that it was communism that fostered feminism.
A critic posted this online, noting her own comment which I think was not permitted to go up on this patriarchal site:
Karl Marx was not yet born in the 15th century when Christine de Pisan demanded equal rights for women. I could go on and on but I know it's useless.
Just another thought! There were plenty of people rallying and advocating for women to be treated like they were fully human for quite a long time.... (I blame it all on Jesus. ;D)
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autumn
Junior Member
Posts: 56
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Post by autumn on Jul 5, 2010 11:09:23 GMT -5
There's also Anne Hutchinson who was turned out of her community for the radical notion that women were fully capable of reading and interpreting the bible and taking part in discussions on the matter!
I think that part of the reason history education has been decimated over the past 40 years or so is that the facts get in the way of the comfortable assumptions people cling to. When I was a teen it was the cold war they didn't want to touch, especially not the two Asian proxy wars in Korea and Vietnam.
Now there are political changes that some do not want to see teenagers discussing with any critical thinking....
If people are well versed in history then they won't believe the convenient lies some would like to spread.
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Post by kisekileia on Jul 22, 2010 9:33:31 GMT -5
KM and others, THANK YOU for all this information about feminism! It's been extremely helpful.
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