This sounds to me a lot like a case of: "Hey, guys, I screwed up but I supposedly learned from that and you can learn from me!" What it amounts to is a WILD variation on Jimmy Swaggart's "I have sinned against you" blather, but it's the same substance.
No one in the evangelical community will say so. I just did.
It's interesting that he has Leviticus 19:28 tattooed on his arm. The English Standard Version of the bible says: You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the LORD.
If there is an upside to stories like this, it is that we're hearing about them now. For far too long society conspired to keep the misdeeds of the clergy buried. With every one of these revelations, organized religion's grip on our culture becomes a little weaker. The religious right is working hard to accomplish through the legislatures and courts what they have failed to achieve from their pulpits. These efforts are ultimately doomed to failure because the overwhelming majority of people simply do not want to be ruled by the preachers.
There are 8 methods of making decisions (arriving at conclusions). In order of reliability:
(1) Logic (limited usefulness, and can’t say anything about the premises that go into it)
(2) Reason (the legal standard, heavily larded with considerations of the practical)
(3) Confidence (in things, based on their track record of previous performance)
(4) Trust (in people, based on THEIR track records, mitigated by varying motives and conditions)
(5) Chance (coin flips between reasonably evenly matched alternatives)
(6) Obedience (not necessarily the wisest or best for you, but at least you don’t get beat up)
(7) Hope (pretty unlikely, but one can always wish)
(8) Faith (deservedly last and least, arriving at a conclusion for which there is absolutely no supporting evidence and frequently a great deal of opposing evidence; nobody would use this terrible method of deciding if it weren’t for the priest class, which praises it to the skies and tries to conflate it with trust and confidence, because there’s no way anybody would ever believe all of their horseshit without it)
Note from the above analysis that TRUST has to be EARNED, whereas FAITH does not.
I went, thanks to my mother and father, to a Catholic-run school. The nuns regularly beat us children for... everything from smiling too much to having too much difficulty writing the cursive alphabet. At eight, I was tied up in a chair by a nun, Sister Maria Gratia. They demanded I leave. I was the problem.
We left.
We joined the Anglicans.
We left.
We joined a Buddhist temple in a converted bowling alley.
We left.
We joined the Unitarians.
Our church minister was known as 'the only man who would marry Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor' in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal.
In 1987 our church burned down thanks to a deranged member.
Two firefighters — Jean-Pierre Longpré and Pierre Letourneau — were killed, and several others were injured fighting the blaze.
It’s pretty clear that any organization that has a problem with leadership committing these kinds of crimes, if it’s the one big guy at the top only, or that guy plus a few below him, the entire organization is rotten through and through. There hasn’t been a case where the head preacher was a sex offender and the organization he started, or ran as an authoritarian, was not corrupt as well. Bruxy Cavey likely started the church to provide him the means to carry out his criminal desires and therefore found an organization and folks to support it.
This goes for other types of corruption, look at the NRA and their current woes. LaPierre is getting all the attention, but he wasn’t the only one involved in the corruption and he wasn’t the first president to be corrupt in this way. The organization is setup to enable greedy trolls to enrich themselves. There’s even perfectly legal ways to enrich the president and he still had to go too far.
The problem with this church is almost an inherent problem with religion altogether. Leaders are given unlimited power with zero accountability and anyone who complains or questions are punished. The reputations of the leaders and churches are paramount and everything else is swept under the rug to protect the reputation.
Yesterday, the NPR radio show, “On Point,” replayed a very *powerful* episode that *clearly* documented problems of sexual abuse coverups within the church of Latter Day Saints, and others (see link below). It involves a long interview with a *clearheaded* young woman, who suffered abuses at the hands of her father, who was a Bishop in the LDS church.
Also, as I recall, reports of such widespread abuses, came up in the News last year, about the Southern Baptist church, but I could be mistaken on that last point.
What Happens When Mormon Leaders Treat Child Sexual Abuse As A Sin, Not A Crimehttps://one.npr.org/i/629398142:629610013
"The entire church is the problem. That also means the people who still attend that church, and who grant it legitimacy, and who give it money are making it clear that they don’t give a damn about abuse victims either."
Well, yeah. Par for that course, really. This is how Christianity operates, regardless of denomination, location, or time period. That's why we see it so often; the abuse is baked into the system. This is the essential problem I have with anyone who says they want to change the church from within; specifically this abuse of power was always there and is intrinsic to the Christian faith, and cannot be removed from Christianity. To be completely frank about it, Christians believe this sort of abuse is right, since in their view, women aren't really people anyway.
This Cavey guy is being rewarded for his bad behavior, and using the suffering of those he abused to make money from a group of people who just don't understand (and probably don't care) why Cavey's actions are a problem. Until the public is willing to put a stop to such behavior and provide actual consequences for this sort of thing, we'll be seeing it over and over again.
"The entire church is the problem. That also means the people who still attend that church, and who grant it legitimacy, and who give it money are making it clear that they don’t give a damn about abuse victims either."
Do we call this the trump syndrome, the Catholic Hierarchy deflection, or MAGAtry in a nutshell?
Any church or organization that does not have strict policies in place to combat abuse is not something you want to be a part of.
Any church or organization that demands you report complaints of abuse to them before an outside authority is not safe.
Any church or organization that does not welcome the spotlight of outside accountability is asking to be a haven for predators.
Any group that demands you submit to their counseling instead of asking you and listening to what you need is not a group with your best interests at heart.
A bit back, I replied to Whitney's comment, which stated that Cavey was being rewarded for his bad behavior. The blunt fact is that he's hardly alone. Jimmy Swaggart was rewarded for his bad behavior, as was Jim Bakker (in the final analysis), and probably too many other bible-thumpers to mention.
This is because their system is all about shame the prodigal, then welcome him back into the fold as though nothing happened and sweep everything under the rug. Makes me wonder if, at some level, they don't want to be reminded of their wrongdoing and will do everything in their power to pretend as though it never happened. As a result, incidents like this one continue to recur, because to them, it's a random and off-axis occurrence.
And because of that, they will NEVER – EVER – correct themselves or their behavior.
This sounds to me a lot like a case of: "Hey, guys, I screwed up but I supposedly learned from that and you can learn from me!" What it amounts to is a WILD variation on Jimmy Swaggart's "I have sinned against you" blather, but it's the same substance.
No one in the evangelical community will say so. I just did.
It's interesting that he has Leviticus 19:28 tattooed on his arm. The English Standard Version of the bible says: You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the LORD.
If there is an upside to stories like this, it is that we're hearing about them now. For far too long society conspired to keep the misdeeds of the clergy buried. With every one of these revelations, organized religion's grip on our culture becomes a little weaker. The religious right is working hard to accomplish through the legislatures and courts what they have failed to achieve from their pulpits. These efforts are ultimately doomed to failure because the overwhelming majority of people simply do not want to be ruled by the preachers.
There are 8 methods of making decisions (arriving at conclusions). In order of reliability:
(1) Logic (limited usefulness, and can’t say anything about the premises that go into it)
(2) Reason (the legal standard, heavily larded with considerations of the practical)
(3) Confidence (in things, based on their track record of previous performance)
(4) Trust (in people, based on THEIR track records, mitigated by varying motives and conditions)
(5) Chance (coin flips between reasonably evenly matched alternatives)
(6) Obedience (not necessarily the wisest or best for you, but at least you don’t get beat up)
(7) Hope (pretty unlikely, but one can always wish)
(8) Faith (deservedly last and least, arriving at a conclusion for which there is absolutely no supporting evidence and frequently a great deal of opposing evidence; nobody would use this terrible method of deciding if it weren’t for the priest class, which praises it to the skies and tries to conflate it with trust and confidence, because there’s no way anybody would ever believe all of their horseshit without it)
Note from the above analysis that TRUST has to be EARNED, whereas FAITH does not.
I'll do this in points:
I go to church once a year.
I'm gay.
I'm an atheist.
It's an LGBTQ-welcoming church.
The Unitarian church.
I go at Xmas.
I love the booming organ and carols.
I went, thanks to my mother and father, to a Catholic-run school. The nuns regularly beat us children for... everything from smiling too much to having too much difficulty writing the cursive alphabet. At eight, I was tied up in a chair by a nun, Sister Maria Gratia. They demanded I leave. I was the problem.
We left.
We joined the Anglicans.
We left.
We joined a Buddhist temple in a converted bowling alley.
We left.
We joined the Unitarians.
Our church minister was known as 'the only man who would marry Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor' in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal.
In 1987 our church burned down thanks to a deranged member.
Two firefighters — Jean-Pierre Longpré and Pierre Letourneau — were killed, and several others were injured fighting the blaze.
Skiing became our religion.
If you have been abused by anybody, GO TO THE POLICE !
I am just too fabulous to fit in.https://scontent-ord5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/418309319_2186748651669098_6362485302576075663_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=dd5e9f&_nc_ohc=hXyODhBurPoAX_NAFpm&_nc_ht=scontent-ord5-1.xx&oh=00_AfB9AORsvl4uSGi19rS3II-pdmyqw0jKROA1mCtSfGgXow&oe=65A40AB5
With a hat like that you ought to get a bowl of soup.
It’s pretty clear that any organization that has a problem with leadership committing these kinds of crimes, if it’s the one big guy at the top only, or that guy plus a few below him, the entire organization is rotten through and through. There hasn’t been a case where the head preacher was a sex offender and the organization he started, or ran as an authoritarian, was not corrupt as well. Bruxy Cavey likely started the church to provide him the means to carry out his criminal desires and therefore found an organization and folks to support it.
This goes for other types of corruption, look at the NRA and their current woes. LaPierre is getting all the attention, but he wasn’t the only one involved in the corruption and he wasn’t the first president to be corrupt in this way. The organization is setup to enable greedy trolls to enrich themselves. There’s even perfectly legal ways to enrich the president and he still had to go too far.
The problem with this church is almost an inherent problem with religion altogether. Leaders are given unlimited power with zero accountability and anyone who complains or questions are punished. The reputations of the leaders and churches are paramount and everything else is swept under the rug to protect the reputation.
If only they go to the authorities of the right kind instead of going to church leaders, who turn a blind eye to such complaints every day.
Yesterday, the NPR radio show, “On Point,” replayed a very *powerful* episode that *clearly* documented problems of sexual abuse coverups within the church of Latter Day Saints, and others (see link below). It involves a long interview with a *clearheaded* young woman, who suffered abuses at the hands of her father, who was a Bishop in the LDS church.
Also, as I recall, reports of such widespread abuses, came up in the News last year, about the Southern Baptist church, but I could be mistaken on that last point.
What Happens When Mormon Leaders Treat Child Sexual Abuse As A Sin, Not A Crimehttps://one.npr.org/i/629398142:629610013
"The entire church is the problem. That also means the people who still attend that church, and who grant it legitimacy, and who give it money are making it clear that they don’t give a damn about abuse victims either."
Well, yeah. Par for that course, really. This is how Christianity operates, regardless of denomination, location, or time period. That's why we see it so often; the abuse is baked into the system. This is the essential problem I have with anyone who says they want to change the church from within; specifically this abuse of power was always there and is intrinsic to the Christian faith, and cannot be removed from Christianity. To be completely frank about it, Christians believe this sort of abuse is right, since in their view, women aren't really people anyway.
This Cavey guy is being rewarded for his bad behavior, and using the suffering of those he abused to make money from a group of people who just don't understand (and probably don't care) why Cavey's actions are a problem. Until the public is willing to put a stop to such behavior and provide actual consequences for this sort of thing, we'll be seeing it over and over again.
"The entire church is the problem. That also means the people who still attend that church, and who grant it legitimacy, and who give it money are making it clear that they don’t give a damn about abuse victims either."
Do we call this the trump syndrome, the Catholic Hierarchy deflection, or MAGAtry in a nutshell?
Emphasis on nut. Or Syn. Or def.
Any church or organization that does not have strict policies in place to combat abuse is not something you want to be a part of.
Any church or organization that demands you report complaints of abuse to them before an outside authority is not safe.
Any church or organization that does not welcome the spotlight of outside accountability is asking to be a haven for predators.
Any group that demands you submit to their counseling instead of asking you and listening to what you need is not a group with your best interests at heart.
A bit back, I replied to Whitney's comment, which stated that Cavey was being rewarded for his bad behavior. The blunt fact is that he's hardly alone. Jimmy Swaggart was rewarded for his bad behavior, as was Jim Bakker (in the final analysis), and probably too many other bible-thumpers to mention.
This is because their system is all about shame the prodigal, then welcome him back into the fold as though nothing happened and sweep everything under the rug. Makes me wonder if, at some level, they don't want to be reminded of their wrongdoing and will do everything in their power to pretend as though it never happened. As a result, incidents like this one continue to recur, because to them, it's a random and off-axis occurrence.
And because of that, they will NEVER – EVER – correct themselves or their behavior.
"NEW" math as done today.
https://scontent-ord5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/418964908_2096580270706600_69169347858108787_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c42490&_nc_ohc=3QCxv2Lx0ooAX8945gz&_nc_ht=scontent-ord5-1.xx&oh=00_AfB6wNZ-miM-FOckJ1esbboZtM3NBtrNWHqZJ8dxhHka1g&oe=65A30613