Churches often have a sentimental idea of what it means to be loving. Love without truth is a hypocritical love called sentimentality. There is no justice without truth. Sentimentalism gives no justice to victims of abuse.
It is loving to hold accountable your brothers in sisters in Christ who have corrupted the gospel and enabled abuse. It’s called kindness: compassion plus truth. It’s a fruit of the Spirit and it has the potential to lead those who need it to repentance.
I love you well when I’m honest with you. I love you well when I show you your foolishness. I love you well when I turn a mirror to your self-deceiving sentimentalism that serves to hide authentic faith. It may not seem like love at the time, but it is.
— Keith Ford on Twitter, Sept 14, 2023.
Pastor Keith Ford explains how sentimentalism fosters environments which lead to abuse. Below are screenshots of other tweets by Keith Ford on sentimentalism. Note (added since many of our readers are not in Australia): The dates in the Keith Ford quotes (the quote near the top of the post and the screenshots below) are in Australian time.
Do not dissemble. Do not present a false face. Do not be hypocritical.
God deplores the donning of a “Christian mask” to conceal a heart whose emotions and thoughts are severely at odds with the mask presentation. Here are some Bible verses about feigning affection and dissembling love. All scripture quotes are from the NMB.
Let love be without dissembling. Hate that which is evil, and cleave unto that which is good. (Romans 12:9)
Therefore let us keep holy day – not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of immorality and wickedness, but with the sweet bread of pureness and truth. (1 Corinthians 5:8)
in pureness, in knowledge, in longsuffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love unfeigned (2 Corinthians 6:6)
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated – full of mercy and good fruits, without judging and without dissimulation. (James 3:17)
For the end of the commandment is love that comes of a pure heart and a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned (1 Timothy 1:5)
when I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and am assured that it dwells in you also. (2 Timothy 1:5)
And inasmuch as you have purified your souls through the Spirit, in the obedience of truth with brotherly love unfeigned, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently. (1 Peter 1:22)
***
Further Reading
Love your enemies. What does this mean? How is it to be applied? — A blog post where I feature a sermon series by Keith Ford. At the bottom of that post there is bio info about Keith and how to find his work on the internet.
Discover more from A Cry For Justice
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Barb,
No offence to you or Keith Ford intended by my comment 😊 ….I’m just me being me. 😊
From your post:
(The phrase “and it” in brackets was added by me.)
That.
From your post — the first quote by Keith Ford:
(The strikethrough was done by me. And the word “and” in brackets to fix Keith Ford’s typo was done by me. 😊)
That, no matter what.
From your post — the first quote by Keith Ford:
I don’t agree with Keith Ford’s definition of kindness….in a very brief search of some online dictionaries, none included the word compassion.
From your post — the first quote by Keith Ford:
(The words “kindness”, “one”, “Holy”, and “people” in brackets were added by me….me being me, I prefer to see the name Holy Spirit rather that just the name Spirit. 😊 )
That.
From your post — the first quote by Keith Ford:
That.
From your post — one of the September 27, 2023 tweets by Keith Ford:
(The words “many” and “often” in brackets were added by me, and I also modified the above tweet by adding quote marks (“).)
That.
From your post — one of the September 19, 2023 tweets by Keith Ford:
(The phrase “some people” was added by me.)
That.
From your post — the September 20, 2023 tweet by Keith Ford:
(The word “to” in brackets was added by me.)
That.
From your post — one of the September 27, 2023 tweets by Keith Ford:
That.
From your post — one of the November 14, 2023 tweets by Keith Ford:
(The phrase “Some of the “pious platitudes” from “churches” (and some churches):” in brackets was added by me, and I also modified the above tweet by adding quote marks (“).)
That.
From your post — one of the November 14, 2023 tweets by Keith Ford:
(The word “people” in brackets was added by me.)
That.
From your post:
That.
And thank you, Barb, for including all the quotes from the New Matthew Bible. 😊
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Hello,
I chose to leave a comment via email reply, as is stated is an option.
EXTREMELY PROFOUND subject matter. and overall a very sound post.
I know of what I speak, extremely personally.
I am a personal victim, now survivor, of ACSA, which is the acronym for Adult Clergy Sexual Abuse.
In summary, I was covertly preyed upon sexually for seven long years, by a wolf in sheep’s clothing; a false, ravenous, brutal, demonic, church leader; who holds the respected, noble position of an ordained church deacon.
The abuse was finally exposed and brought forward to the church ministry and the deacon’s elders (the pastors).
…they sacrificed and scapegoated me / the victim, and emphatically rallied around, defended, supported, and protected this predatory sex offender; regardless of the fact that the offender literally CONFESSED to ALL accusations against him. They engaged in a bonafide cover-up, literally did nothing to aid their suicidal victim, and fully reinstated their sex offender. Ultimately like nothing ever happened.
If you find this unfathomable, please take my word of assurance that, as the victim, I have spoken nothing but the one hundred percent unadulterated fact and truth.
Almighty God, by His grace, mercy, and justice / judgment, has literally provided me with a lawyer. And even more crucial than this; He has provided me the boldness, courage, and strength it is and will take, to hold my multiple CHURCH LEADER abusers accountable for their corruption, evil, abuse, and utter perversion of God’s justice. My lawyer and I are in process of LAUNCHING A LAWSUIT AGAINST ALL OF THEM.
…thus no doubt you can see how the subject matter of this post caught my personal attention, and is utterly relevant in and to my personal situation.
I vehemently agree and believe that IT IS BOTH LOVING, AS WELL AS MANDATORY, WHEN POSSIBLE, FOR CHURCH VICTIMS OF ABUSE, to HOLD THEIR ABUSERS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR HEINOUSNESS.
To see justice served; I believe and expect, as a victim of church leadership abuse AND cover-up; will be my GREATEST form of true HEALING.
GOD is a God of TRUTH. JUSTICE and RIGHTEOUSNESS are the very foundation of His Throne. He is NOT down with SECRECY, LIES, DECEPTION, HYPOCRISY, and COVER-UPS.
Such abominations are outright satanism.
May GOD’S WILL BE DONE in not only my personal case, but all other heinous church abuse cases akin to it. May GOD’S JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT BE SERVED.
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Hi Now A Survivor,
For your safety and protection, I changed the screen name you submitted with your comment to Now A Survivor, as the screen name you submitted with your comment might’ve been too identifying. If you’d prefer a different screen name, please email me at reachingout.acfj@gmail.com.
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I do not find your story unfathomable. I find it believable. This kind of evildoing is widespread in churches. It is less common that the wolf confesses to all the accusations. The fact that the wolves allies (i.e. the other church leaders) still did a cover-up, exonerated him and reinstated him, while scapegoating and doing nothing to help you even though you were feeling suicidal, shows how entrenched and obstinate the corruption is in that church. They were and are protecting themselves and their institution — in which they wield so much power. Power for evil. May God bring them heavy judgement!
I hope your lawyer is able to get some justice for you. But if that doesn’t happen, or the measure of justice you get is not as full as it should be (which often happens in our legal systems), I am certain you will see full justice on the Day of Judgement. I’m rephrasing your last paragraph: May GOD’S WILL BE DONE in not only your personal case, but all other heinous church abuse cases akin to it. May GOD’S JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT BE SERVED.
The imprecatory psalms seem highly appropriate here. I recently looked at the Wikipedia article about imprecatory psalms, to see which psalms it listed. I’ve copied that list into my little Book of Common Prayer (the old version which has the 1689 translation of the psalms by Myles Coverdale). Each day I read one or more of the imprecatory psalms, out loud to myself, meditating and pondering and praying. Sometimes I read one verse, over and over again, if it resonates deeply with me, or if I feel I’ve lost concentration (which is often!).
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Thank you SO much, Barbara, for your words of encouragement, support, and care. And I agree; some of those (imprecatory) psalms do appear absolutely apt and fitting in this case. ESPECIALLY as the abusers and deceivers are literal LEADERS IN GOD’S CHURCH.
James 3:1:
While everyone, including myself, has their own sins to deal with and repent of, I do NOT envy them nor wish to be in any of their shoes concerning God’s judgment regarding what they have done and committed….again; as LEADERS IN GOD’S CHURCH. They are under a stricter judgment to begin with. Just imagine how they may be judged for this situation.
To say it won’t be pretty may very well be a laughable understatement. I do pray for God’s commensurate judgment / justice. I also pray that they be deeply humbled, to the point of TRUE repentance. Honestly I don’t have much confidence in the latter, but I do wish and pray for this nonetheless, because God says He is not willing that ANY should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance, and ultimately everlasting life.
I concur and wholly resonate with your statement:
And while of course I do pray that God will show me favour and provide a sound-minded and discerning judge in my case, and that true justice will be achieved, I concur with you that if sadly that is not the case, full justice most inescapably WILL be executed at the Judgment where they will stand before their Maker and the Books will be opened.
In the interim of this all, namely the pending lawsuit, I continue to live with and seek healing from medical professionals for my formally diagnosed C-PTSD and its symptoms, and due to the severity, mercifully I have been blessed to be receiving disability benefits. Disabling C-PTSD symptoms; all thanks to these church leaders’ utter abominations.
[Some formatting was done to enhance readability. Editors.]
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Now A Survivor,
You wrote (23rd November 2023, and slightly reformatted by me):
(The name NLT in brackets — the abbreviation for New Living Translation — is in the original comment.)
That.
From the New Matthew Bible:
That.
And I could create a humongous list of other words I’d use in place of the words and / or titles “teacher” and / or “counsellor”….I won’t though, or the list in my comment would never end. 😊
You wrote:
(The phrases “or however the secular or non-secular (other than Christian) world refers to the concept of sin” and “of any kind” in brackets were added by me.)
That.
You wrote:
That.
You wrote:
I’m so sorry, Now A Survivor, that you’ve got C-PTSD…. 😢 I’m glad, though, you’ve found healing with the assistance of medical professionals. 😊 And that you receive disability benefits. 😊 AND I’m profoundly grateful that — from what you wrote — you’ve not had any Nouthetic (also known sometimes as Biblical) Counselling. 😊
You wrote:
For me, I rarely use the imprecatory psalms (and even then, mostly when I’m copying-and-pasting from someone else’s comment, post, or article to create my own comment 😊)….I use VERY strong language with other people (and sometimes I include the phrase “expletive deleted”)….and when I’m alone, I actually use the words that my use of the phrase “expletive deleted” refers to. 😊 And God’s OK with that. 😊
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Barb,
In your comment of 23rd November 2023, you wrote:
I couldn’t resist adding this link to Wikipedia’s page on the Imprecatory Psalms [Internet Archive link]. 😊
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Now A Survivor,
You wrote (22nd November 2023):
And you wrote:
Barb wrote (23rd November 2023):
That.
I’m so sorry this happened to you, Now A Survivor. 😢
You wrote:
Yay! 😊
You wrote:
I hope you win! 😊
You wrote:
(The phrase “and other victims of abuse” in brackets was added by me.)
That. And thank you, Now A Survivor, for including the phrase “when possible” — so many people think that ALL victims of abuse should ALWAYS hold their abusers accountable, no matter what. It’s good when readers see a victim of abuse include the qualification “when possible”.
You wrote:
(The words “sometimes” and “a” in brackets were added by me.)
I hope you don’t mind, Now A Survivor, I’ve taken the liberty of modifying your comment….I wanted some other readers to know and understand that knowing that justice has been served does not always provide a form of true healing. Indeed, for some people, it doesn’t provide any healing at all….and might even cause harm (omitting details for my safety and protection).
You wrote:
That.
You wrote:
That.
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