In this episode, we’ll discuss how the church’s common stance on suffering for Christ often gets twisted in such a way that victims feel they cannot leave abusive homes, churches, or jobs.

Rebecca Davis is a trauma-informed writer, book coach, speaker, compassionate witness, prayer minister, and lover of Jesus who lives in Greenville, South Carolina. Her work as a trauma-informed book coach and ghostwriter can be found at rebeccadaviswordworking.com.

Find a list of all Rebeccas Untwisting Scriptures books here: https://heresthejoy.com/books-2/

Listen to another Uncertain Episode with Rebecca S4:E12 Untwisting Teachings Around Loyalty, Sin Leveling, & Bitterness

Uncertain is a podcast of Tears of Eden, a community and resource for those in the aftermath of Spiritual Abuse. If you’re enjoying this podcast, please take a moment to like, subscribe, or leave a review on your favorite podcasting listening apparatus.

You can support the podcast by going to TearsofEden.org/support

To get in touch with us please email tearsofeden.org@gmail.com

Follow on Instagram @uncertainpodcast

Transcript is unedited for typos and misspellings:

[00:00:00] I'm Katherine Spearing, and this is Uncertain.

The uncertain podcast is the affiliate podcast of tears at Eden, a nonprofit that serves as a community and resource for survivors of spiritual abuse. This podcast and the work of tears are supported by donations from generous listeners. Like you. If you're enjoying this podcast, please consider giving a donation by using the link in the show notes or visiting tears of eaton.org/support.

You can also support the podcast by rating and leaving a review and sharing on social media. If you're not already following us, please follow us on Facebook at tears of Eden and Instagram at uncertain podcast. Thanks so much for listening.

Katherine: Hi, Rebecca. How are you? It's so good to be here. Thank you for having me, Catherine. I'm excited to talk about your new book, book five, where you're on twisting scriptures about brokenness and suffering. Yes,

Rebecca: book five and the untwisting scripture series. My daughter asked me how many books in this series I was going to write.

I said, I do not know. I'm going to keep going. [00:01:00]

Katherine: Keeps coming up. I'm excited about this one. Because, well, I'm excited about all of them. I think they're all really important, but this one, I think the teaching about brokenness and suffering in the church. will often keep people in abusive situations and keep them recognizing that.

And so this is really important, really, really important. And so we had another interview with you when your book four came out and so I'm going to link that in the show notes so folks have That to listen to as well, but to just get us started, I would love to hear what fuels your passion for writing these books.

Rebecca: Oh boy. That's a really, really good question. For one thing, when I first got started, the first untwisting scriptures book came out in 2016 and then it was about four years before I really got the series rolling, which is not a great way to do a series, but anyway, that's what happened. But my first initial [00:02:00] passion was.

I hated, hated seeing how God, and this was all new to me 10 years ago, seeing how God was being represented as an abuser. And it wasn't that I'd never heard the teachings. It's because I didn't grow up with abuse. I didn't marry into abuse. I hadn't been subject to the abuse, so I didn't see. I was just blind.

To how the logical conclusion of these teachings, where that logical conclusion would go, because it was all theory to me, it hadn't been worked out in practice, but then when I saw when I heard people coming to me about this and saying, well, I was taught you have to give up all your rights was thinking, you know, kind of remember that somewhere.

Well, I'd been to the Bill Gothard seminars that taught about giving up your rights many years before, but I hadn't, and I thought at the time, you know, I just believed everything he said, but there wasn't ever in my life, ever a time when my rights weren't acknowledged. [00:03:00] And just like part of the air I breathed because I was not in abuse.

So then I see when people who are in abuse are being told, give up your rights. I see. Starting in 2012, the logical conclusion this is coming to, that they are going to be absolutely trampled on. And I'm, I'm astonished and appalled at what's happening to these people. And then the next step is I'm astonished and appalled that God is being represented this way.

They think this is what God wants to do. And so that was my initial passion fueling me. Now I'm seeing it actually in the Bible who God really is, that he is not how these people have represented him.

Katherine: Yeah, and and folks are able to determine what that looks like for them and what their beliefs look like for them and not base those beliefs on abusive people who've been teaching [00:04:00] them these abusive messages. And that's I feel like that's really important for me for folks to create their own journey and not base it on because so many things I think in the church are just either tradition.

Or really harmful things that have been taught to us by. Yes,

Rebecca: like listen to authority. You someone wrote to me and said yours that she was taught. I'm supposed to lead and feed and you're supposed to follow and swallow. I think that's how it went. Oh, my God. I thought I had never heard that one reaction to that.

So that's that. That could be so many things. And yet that is so it's like, I was I was feeling some some, some strong emotions in response to that. But it's that authority teaching. Turn your brain off. Turn your brain off. Do not think. If you think, then you've been ungodly or something. You just have to believe me, the [00:05:00] leader, and follow me.

Whereas, I've always believed since I was young and want to encourage other people. Go to the Bible yourself. Look at it yourself. Let's examine everything Untwisting Scriptures books. Go look at it yourself and see what the Bible is really teaching.

Katherine: And be prepared for where that may lead, depending on the environment that you're in.

Rebecca: Yes. And I hope I hope my hope is that it will lead to seeing that God really is a God who loves his people and wants to be with his people. And one of the best representations in the scriptures, I mean, there are many good ones, but one of the best is that father who's running out to the prodigal son and embracing him and bringing him in and Even wanting to have a relationship with his older son, who's, who's unhappy.

Let's, I'll just put it that way, very unhappy. He wants, he wants relationship. He is a God of relationship. And the more I research the [00:06:00] topic, the untwisting scriptures, the more I see that in my study. God is a God of relationship with his people, healthy, Good relationship, not abusive relationship, not just, just obey me and stop whining,

those are all things that are, I'm very, very passionate about.

Katherine: So , book five, Brokenness and Suffering, what are some of the questions that you're seeking to answer with this?

Rebecca: Yes, well, initially when I started this book, it was going to be called, suffering, dying to self and life.

And then I started finding I realized, Oh, my goodness, I need to talk about brokenness. That's a huge thing. And then that expanded and expanded. And I realized, dying to self and life, you're gonna have to wait for a future book, I just have to focus on these two things for this book. And that's enough. And when I did start the study of brokenness, which I started, there were two things.

One was prompting it. I've been [00:07:00] hearing about brokenness and how we're all broken or we're all supposed to be broken or, or brokenness is, is either godly or it's inevitable. We're just, everybody's broken or something. I was thinking something is off, something is off about all this teaching. And there were two things.

That prompted my research for the brokenness section of this book, which leads into the suffering section. And one of them was a woman who wrote to me about all the triggering songs in church that talked about God in an abusive way. And at the time I thought, well, I didn't like some of these songs, but other ones of them I didn't either I didn't know or I didn't notice.

And she was talking about how, how it say...

S5: E12 - How Twisted Teaching on Suffering Traps Victims in Abusive Situations Featuring Rebecca Davis