"It all began to come together sitting in the Kroger parking lot...one bright sunny day in May."A Baptist abuse survivor in Colorado sent me a link to the reflections of Becca Stevens. Have a listen to the "Kroger parking lot." I hope it feels as right and true for you as it did for me. It's about sanctuary.
In its own way, that's what SNAP strives to be. We're a community of people who try to offer a safe and welcoming place to everyone for whom church was anything but a sanctuary. Maybe that desire to be part of a community and to work on building a space for sanctuary is one of the good things that still remains to me from the time before my childhood sanctuary became a hell-hole.
I want to alert the Southern Baptists who may feel like jumping ship and joining the United Methodists because of their excellent policies on clergy sexual ethics in the Church. BEWARE! Don't be fooled, because they do not follow their own policies. If they respond at all, the administrators will use the rulebook against the reporter and twist words to their own advantage. They are not there to help the victims. They are there to protect their own only. The United Methodist Church administrators ignored my family and left me with no other recourse but to tell my story of the manipulation and deceit of my minister and the cover-up that followed in the soon to be published novel, Innocence Betrayed - A Dad's Story of Clergy Abuse. More information can be found at www.innocencebetrayedbyclergy.com.
ReplyDeleteJanet Patterson and David Clohessy of SNAP came to my aid and held a press conference outside the UMC Detroit Annual Conference in Adrian, Michigan, a couple years ago, getting my story into the press and on the web. SNAP is a sanctuary for all religions, and my family was one of the first members of a Protestant religion that they came to help.
If people of all denominations unite and get behind this outstanding group, maybe the sheer power of numbers will help create changes in all churches, so that they become the safe haven we expect them to be. Thank you, Christa, for opening up avenues that continue to raise awareness to this heinous crime.
Welcome Curt! I'm glad you point this out. SNAP reaches out to people abused by religious authority figures, regardless of faith group. Always has, and always will. Clergy abuse is a serious problem in all faith groups, and neither Baptists nor Methodists nor any other faith group is any exception.
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