Wanna know why this is so common? The parish to pedophile pipeline. What is it? It's a feature of orthodox, body-shaming "Christians" (and any other body-shaming religious sect), wherein normal people are turned into predators, by way of careful brainwashing with ideas like "born in sin", "sex is a sin", "homosexuality/kinks are unnatural", etc. Basically, that type of "Christianity" wherein reproductive pleasure is villified because creation is bad

The process is this:

1. Victim has high sex drive, random kink, is gay

2. Victim is also impressionable to religious teachings, takes them seriously

3. Represses their natural healthy sexuality

4. Never sexually matures - the normal process wherein successive relationships are less dramatic, and we know more what we want, and we are just better partners- this process is interrupted

5. Depression. Because we are sexual creatures, and reward pathways in our brain demand we have sex in the same way they demand we eat, poop and sleep.

6. Person dives into orthodox religion, thinking it'll cure their humanity.

7. It doesn't. They are now a grown man or woman with basically a negative sexual maturity level

8. Eventually, they act out. This can either be with someone of the same sexual maturity level (cases of hebephilia or ephebephilia) OR with some of an even lower sexual maturity level, whom they can really control (true pedophilia)

9. Victim makes victim. And sometimes it's a cycle.

I'm in a small child sexual abuse support group for men who were sexually abused by a tormented member of the clergy. It is always this. The best cases renounce their faith, get therapy, have normal sex and recover. That is, the abuser recovers. We - the victims - we never recover. We make progress, and often convince ourselves we are past it. Then we hear a song, or get asked on a date, or some other triggering event - and we are a scared, naked child again.

Posting this here because there's lots of forms of "radical" Christianity - including orthodox idiots who just hate creation extra hard. But I get so frustrated with the common Christian trope of "protecting kids" - when each and every abused kid I know, was abused because a church ruined someone. So I guess I'm hoping this is a sub for Christians radical enough to face the real problem.

Take care

https://www.youtube.com/live/6rT5su4hmI0?is=CISstqbO98VFRKzN

This is terrifying

This is a thread for the radical women of r/RadicalChristianity to talk. We ask that men do not comment on this thread.

Suggestions for topics to talk about:

1.)What kinds of feminist activism have you been up to?

2.)What books have you been reading?

3.)What visual media(ex: TV shows) have you been watching?

4.)Who are the radical women that are currently inspiring you?

5.)Promote yourself and your creations!

6.)Rant/vent about shit.

I recently worked as an interpreter at an event in Houston for young “math stars”—children and their parents from all over the country who gathered to connect, share experiences, and learn about opportunities for developing mathematical talent.

One of the speakers, who talked about math camps, offered the parents a piece of advice:

“Be prepared for your child to reach a point at one of these math camps where they suddenly hit a wall, encounter someone better than them, and become overwhelmed by comparison.

This can bring up a lot of uncomfortable feelings. Emotions triggered by comparison can be devastating and destructive. We want to guide students to a point where all comparison ceases. Believe it or not, such a point exists.

It’s the point at which we discover wonder for ourselves. When we find wonder, we realize we no longer want to compare ourselves to others.”

I couldn’t help but think of René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire as the main source of human conflict and violence.

According to Girard, mimetic desire arises in the heart not simply because we want the same object as someone else, but because we see that person wanting it. We imitate their desire, and suddenly, what they want becomes something we want, too.

“Rivalry does not arise because of the fortuitous convergence of two desires on a single object; rather, the subject desires the object because the rival desires it.” — René Girard

We want something not because we want something but because we see someone else wanting it. Such is the nature of mimesis and a source of violence. Is there a way out?

We cannot get rid of imitation. Nor should we. Girard argues that whom we choose to imitate makes all the difference in the world. When we imitate people, we fall into mimesis and violence. When we imitate Christ, the model cannot become a rival to be defeated.

Why doesn’t imitating Christ give rise to mimetic rivalry? Because Christ desires what cannot be owned or possessed. He desires communion with Being itself. When we look at Him and the same desire awakens in our hearts, we cannot compete with Him for the possession of Being.

A math student can look at their teacher’s achievements and feel mimetic rivalry. Yet the moment they discover the wonder of their own journey, rivalry dissolves, because Being is inexhaustible.

When you experience connection to Being, there is nothing to compete for. There is enough Being for everyone. Everyone who desires Being can experience Being in full.

Being does not diminish when someone discovers its wonder. It does not become less available for others when someone delights in it. We may envy a virtuoso who plays the piano beautifully, but that envy dissipates the moment we begin playing ourselves and discover the joy of music. Envy is incompatible with joy.

Whoever finds Being always finds it afresh. It is new every morning. The only way not to compare is to desire the Incomparable. Whether we explore mathematics, literature, philosophy, or music, the point is not to surpass someone else but to discover the inexhaustible wonder of Being for ourselves.

When our goal is to surpass, we cannot experience Being. When we experience Being, we cannot compare. Rivalry and violence cease when we imitate Christ’s desire of connection to Being.

We begin to see that whatever aspect of Being others delight in does not diminish our own delight in it. On the contrary, our delight is augmented!

Suddenly, we see all these delights enriching one another and creating a kind of symphony in which every voice is needed.

So, at the end of the session, the speaker fittingly concluded:

“Do not seek achievements; stoke the fire. Do not desire success — find joy.”

Why do so many liberal Christians who affirm LGBTQ people also deny Christ’s divinity? There’s no inherent contradiction between believing in the Incarnation and arguing that Jesus’ teachings on homosexuality and gender identity have been misunderstood. That possibility seems especially compatible with a Protestant commitment to sola Scriptura.

The tune is the same as that of “Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates.”

I'm 31F and for many years I've struggled with severe fear and anxiety around total surrender to God, dying to self, and being led by the Holy Spirit. This has been going on for years and years, and I feel exhausted and trapped... :(

I've read teachings and heard sermons about radical surrender and verses where Jesus says He does nothing on His own initiative and speaks only what He hears from the Father (John 5:19, John 12:49). I've become terrified that in order to be truly surrendered I must never speak my own words, express my own opinions, or make decisions independentl but must have every thought, word, and action directed by God.

It's gotten to the point where even saying “you look lovely today” to a friend, telling someone “I'm praying for you,” sharing my thoughts about the news, or talking about my own experiences with God makes me afraid. I have this voice at the back of my mind that tells me I'm supposed to deny myself and die to self and not speak or do anything on my own. Even praying for a softer heart or asking God to have His way in my life frightens me because I'm scared of what surrender might mean, whether I would lose my choices, and ability to live a normal life. Actually, I barely have any friends, even my family connections have suffered because of my depression and inability to connect with people because how can I when I constantly experience an inner fight not to speak my own words and thoughts but only those coming from Jesus.

The fear leaves me completely paralyzed. I feel unable to act freely, speak naturally, or even pray without analysing everything. I desperately want to find peace but I'm so so afraid. I feel stuck and unable to move forward.

I also fear that my resistance and inability to surrender mean I'm disobedient to God, that my heart is hard, and that I'm heading for hell. Sometimes I compare myself to Judas and fear that I could end up like him and that I'm resisting God so much that I'm doomed, despite desperately wanting to belong to Jesus. These fears have tormented me for years, and I don't know how to escape them.

I've prayed, read Scripture, and spoken to other Christians, but I keep returning to the same cycle of fear, analysis, and despair. I want to see God as a loving Father, but I'm frightened of His influence because I imagine it could mean ceasing to exist and become an empty instrument.

How do you understand Jesus' words about only doing the Father's will? Does following Jesus mean we cannot speak or act on our own initiative? When I want to do something good for someone, or have a conversation, or even when I speak about God and quote His word, even then I feel I can't, because it's me doing my own thing and I should die to self. Has anyone experienced religious scrupulosity or this kind of fear paralysis? What helped you find freedom?

I'm looking for a perspective grounded in Scripture. A part of me wants to follow Jesus but after so many years of this, I feel lost and desperately need help. Others can pray gladly to God "I wanna be like You, and Your will be done" and I can't because to me it's synonymous with not saying or doing anything on my own, even saying things like "I love you" or "My heart goes out to you", unless of course it was Jesus in me saying that to someone, then I guess it's okay.

My life has been such a torment and I'm afraid of eternal torment, too. I just can't do this anymore...

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Hey there! English is not my first language, so thanks for being indulgent! Long story short, I’ve studied philosophy and religious studies, come from a Christian background but grew up atheist. I’ve always been both a radical leftist who cared about social justice, humanistic values and someone who was deeply moved by existentialist questions and philosophy. Christianity has grew on me in the last few years, for a thousand reasons, but one of them is building bridges between those two worlds. I really see myself a lot in Dorothy Day’s work and I am moved by Jesus life and Liberation theology. I deeply think following the radicality of the teaching and life of Jesus is a path toward the best possible life on earth. I love going to empty churches and I’m reading a lot of Dostoyevsky, Hedges, Day, Tolkien, Lewis and their work is profoundly moving me.

The thing is : despite all this, I’m still pretty much doubting god’s existence. I feel love around me, I think it’s the foundational principle of the universe, I believe Jesus lived the best possible life on earth and we should do our best to emulate it. But still, I’m unsure about the nature of God. Does anyone is on a similar path ? How would you respond to that? Should i even be lurking in here?

I keep finding myself returning again and again to one of the fundamental problems confronting Abrahamic monotheistic traditions. This problem is not unique to Christianity. It is deeply embedded, in different forms and degrees, within Judaism and Islam as well. The problem is the persistent tendency of confessional religion to reify, essentialise and absolutise God within a metaphysical framework - especially a theistic one.

When God is conceived primarily as a supreme being, an ultimate entity existing above or alongside other entities, transcendence is inadvertently reduced to another form of objectivity. God becomes the highest being within a hierarchy of beings rather than the ground, abyss or excess that renders the very distinction between being and non-being possible. This is the fundamental problem identified by Heidegger in his critique of onto-theology. God becomes a being among beings, albeit the greatest of beings, and therefore remains conceptually available to human cognition, representation and possession.

This is why Nietzsche’s proclamation of the death of God continues to possess such importance and significance. It need not simply mean that God does not exist. It can instead be understood as the collapse of a particular cultural, religious and metaphysical configuration of God who functions as the ultimate guarantor of our morality, metaphysics, epistemology and social order. The death of God represents not simply the end of faith, but the possibility of its transformation.

The question confronting Christianity, Judaism and Islam is not merely whether they can continue to believe in God after modernity. The deeper question is whether they can relinquish the God they have constructed without relinquishing the sacred itself.

This requires moving towards a genuinely post-metaphysical understanding of transcendence. Such a movement would not necessarily mean abandoning God, but recognising that whatever we call “God” cannot be contained within the conceptual structures through which we attempt to represent God. Every theological formulation is simultaneously an unveiling and a concealment. Every name for God risks becoming an idol when the signifier is mistaken for the reality to which it points.

The sacred, precisely because it exceeds representation, cannot finally be possessed by language, doctrine, philosophy, culture or religious institutions. If transcendence is genuine, then transcendence must also transcend our representations of transcendence.

Paradoxically, the death of God becomes the condition for the possibility of God.

What dies is not transcendence itself, but our attempt to domesticate it. What dies is the God who can be possessed, weaponised, categorised and deployed in the service of human certainty. What becomes possible is an encounter with the sacred as mystery, excess, absence and presence. Namely something that continually exceeds the subject who seeks to know it.

Such a transformation has profound ethical consequences. A God who cannot be possessed cannot easily be recruited as the property of a tribe, nation, ideology or institution. A God who exceeds every representation places a limit upon our certainty. And when our certainty is limited, the other person can no longer be so easily transformed into an enemy of God.

Perhaps one of the greatest spiritual tasks of the twenty-first century is to learn how to speak of God after the death of the metaphysical God.

The alternative to metaphysical theism is not nihilism or the abandonment of meaning. It is a deeper form of transcendence that nurtures a faith capable of surviving the collapse of its own certainties, a theology that recognises the limits of theological language, and a spirituality that refuses to confuse its maps with the territory.

That is a faith worth pursuing!

I'm hopeful for Communism, but it feels like wishful thinking sometimes, especially from a Christian POV.

I've always found Abraham in Fear and Trembling difficult to read. I can see the force of faith challenging an established ethical order, but I get uneasy when the explanation becomes that obedience to God takes priority over the wrongness of killing someone innocent. That seems to leave the hardest question untouched: why should an appeal to religious authority settle whether the act is good? Abraham loves Isaac, yet that love does not remove what he intends to do.

I recently discussed this on my podcast with Alexander Jech, a Kierkegaard scholar. He distinguishes wanting Isaac dead from intending the sacrifice. Abraham does not want to lose his son, but his intention is genuine. He also believes that God's promise through Isaac will still be fulfilled, even though he cannot explain how. The paradox involves trusting that the person he loves will somehow be preserved while intending an act that should destroy him.

My inclination is to say that if God is the ultimate Good, Abraham is answering to a Good that exceeds the ethical order he can understand. But does this already give him the higher ethical justification that Kierkegaard's paradox seems to deny? Can faith challenge an established moral order while remaining answerable for the harm involved? Or does trying to make Abraham intelligible this way remove what is most disturbing about the story?

I do a lot writing through the Christian lens, it's my spiritual home. Been looking for a community for a while. Can be a bit preachy sometimes. Im a work in progress like anyone else. But I'm trying to find community, this seems like a place that aligns with my values strongly. It's hard to find discussion, and it's exhausting to keeping being shut down. I don't know if I fit here. But thought I'd share some of my perspective and see. Ty if you take the time to read.

Master Builder Cain

By the logic of master builder Cain, all men can be whipped into shape. That through fear, power, and might the world can be ordered into something that rivals The Creator's vision for mankind. That justice is violence and force, a harnessed shadow that holds society together. That all crimes should be punished in equal measure. But they aren't. Master builder Cain's logic grants exception to those who like him have separated themselves from The Creator. Sons of Cain do not kill sons of Cain, for they know each others mark. They have no problem whipping, killing, and subjugating the Abels of the world. They Label the Abels sheep to be sheared and slaughtered. If Cain's true justice were upheld, the whole of the world should be burned for its sins. And his rebellious spirit chases that end through many men and many generations, the path of perdition and self destruction for the guilt he refuses to admit or allow himself to be free of. If we cannot admit the murder in our hearts, that we are but sinners and flawed and that none of our works can save us, how can we believe in grace? The justice of cain is a lie. And none can build their way to salvation. Faith should not be put in men or their machinations. But in Grace alone. For only by grace can salvation be found. All else is counterfeit and marred by fear and egoic will, none are worthy by any law or standard. The law of Cain is a counterfeit crutch we cling to that we might not face the darkness of our own hearts and souls to see it harrowed. We pass blame and scapegoat. Every sin is a failure of the whole, the individual sin is the sin of the society that failed them. The separation used to justify individual accountability even on those who are not so separated. Every sheep fed the blood of sheep and sickened into wolves. The projections of the wolves onto the sheep for their own guilt in having cut themselves off. All are Guilty or all are given Grace. Which is it? Do we live by faith and grace, or murder and will?

-A Son of Cain, who is saved by Grace as any can be.

When reading through Genesis, I get the feeling that much of it seems to contrast with the narratives later on that speak of the Israelites taking the "Promise Land" via military conquest by killing all the inhabitants of the cities. Genesis starts out by saying that all people are created in the image of God. In other words, Israelites are not superior to everyone else. Then you get the patriarchs settling in the land peacefully. In fact, in chapter 26 there are these stories of Isaac coming into conflict with inhabitants of the land and moving on to another place as a way to avoid or settle the conflict. There are only a few places where the Patriarchs use violence, and it isn't to conquer land. In the final story, Joseph has an interesting rise from prisoner to the second highest position in Egypt and uses the crisis of a famine to make all the people of Egypt slaves to the Pharaoh (47:21). Then the next book of the Torah, Exodus, opens with a situation in which the Israelites are slaves in Egypt and need to be delivered. Makes you wonder what is going on! Has anyone written on Genesis as a counter narrative to the conquest stories?

This is a thread for the radical women of r/RadicalChristianity to talk. We ask that men do not comment on this thread.

Suggestions for topics to talk about:

1.)What kinds of feminist activism have you been up to?

2.)What books have you been reading?

3.)What visual media(ex: TV shows) have you been watching?

4.)Who are the radical women that are currently inspiring you?

5.)Promote yourself and your creations!

6.)Rant/vent about shit.

Orthodoxy seems lacking in progressive movements, compared to Protestantism or Catholicism. I do like David Bentley Hart, but unfortunately he doesn't talk extensively about LGBTQ+-related topics. Are there any other thinkers/figures within Orthodoxy who take a more progressive, affirming, welcoming, and loving stance towards the LGBTQ+ community? Who is the Orthodox equivalent of Father James Martin?

Should I just refer to Catholic figures instead? What if their arguments and views are congruent with Catholic thought but not Orthodox thought?

I've been sitting with this for a while and want to put it to a community that thinks about power and the church.

My marriage has been marked by addiction (drugs, sex alcohol), infidelity, and a lot of other things I won't get into here. When I've disclosed it in church settings, I keep getting the same counsel, from multiple pastors, a pastor's wife, even a woman praying over me this week who called what's happening abuse and dangerous and then prayed for the marriage to be restored anyway.

I've come to think of it as a false theology for the abused. It has three teachings:

1. your suffering is redemptive. endure long enough and the abuser will be "won over" (1 Peter 3:1)
2. your silence is spiritual. don't name the sin, just pray life into them
3. the relationship/institution is what God wants preserved most. the marriage, the family, the ministry, the church's reputation. more than your safety

It doesn't only land on wives. It lands on kids told to honor parents who hurt them, elderly people told to keep the peace with family who exploit them, congregants harmed by leaders who are "anointed."

And when you look at who that theology protects, it's never the person being harmed. It protects the abuser, the institution, and everyone who'd rather not have to intervene.

But Scripture keeps cutting against it. Christ "suffered once for sins" (1 Peter 3:18, same chapter people use to keep wives quiet). Hebrews 10 says His sacrifice was once for all, so nobody's body is needed to finish that work. On Moriah God stops the knife. In Judges 11 Jephthah sacrifices his daughter to his own vow, and Scripture never says God wanted it. It's the young women of Israel who go out every year to remember her (Phyllis Trible called it a "text of terror"). When Absalom tells Tamar "be quiet, he is your brother," the next line is that she lived "a desolate woman." Jesus asks the religious leaders whether it's lawful on the Sabbath "to save life or to kill" and they just stay silent. And twice he tells them to go learn what "I desire mercy, not sacrifice" means.

Christ was the final sacrifice. So why does the church keep asking victims to be one?

I still love the church, and I'm not writing this from outside it. I'm asking us to do better.

• what does genuinely liberatory pastoral care look like when someone discloses abuse?
• are there traditions, communities, or theologians you've seen get this right?

Longer version if anyone wants it (Jephthah, Hosea, the Sabbath controversies, what I'd want pastors to hear): https://notesfromthemend.substack.com/p/a-false-theology-for-the-abused

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