Latest / 4-Freedom Podcast / 174. Fundamental Footprints - The Rebecca Davis Interview - Testimony from BJU

Transcript

174. Fundamental Footprints - The Rebecca Davis Interview - Testimony from BJU · 4-Freedom Podcast

0:10
I found my freedom in you. I found a toy I can't lose, and
0:20
thank God it's true. You wrapped your arms around me
0:24
and heaven broke through. From the moment she found me.
0:29
I found my freedom. Welcome to the Four Freedom
0:34
Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the
0:37
freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians.
0:40
With everyday issues. Now here are your host, James
0:44
Safer and Brett Morris. Welcome.
0:48
Back to the four. Freedom podcast today, me and
0:50
James are in studio and we're bringing you on the podcast this
0:54
morning. We're glad to be here.
0:56
It's a great day to be saved. It's a great day to be in
0:59
church. It's a great day to be a child
1:02
of God. James, we've got a something
1:05
great lined up today in just a minute.
1:07
But before we get to that, how are things in your neck of the
1:10
woods? Man, things are good.
1:12
We are apparently they just started working on my car from
1:16
the accident that I had a couple weeks ago.
1:18
So getting some of those processes done and man, we're
1:22
gearing up. I mean, we're just a couple of
1:24
days for me. I'm going out to Dallas a little
1:27
soon to be out there with my sister and McKinney.
1:30
And so man, we're gearing up to get everything done.
1:32
I've been busting it this week to get all my sermon prep in and
1:36
that way I don't have to work on much of that while I'm on
1:38
vacation. But yeah, man, it's been wide
1:41
open. We finished school last week and
1:44
now we're gearing up for Texas. And we've had this interview
1:49
today, man, it's phenomenal. And I'm excited about jumping
1:52
into it in a little bit. But man, we've been been wide
1:55
open. It's been great.
1:56
We've got this weekend, Brett, my my sister-in-law was texting
2:00
me and saying, hey, can you come come hang out with us?
2:03
I told her I said I've got Bertie's, got a baseball game on
2:06
Friday, I've got 2 graduations on Friday.
2:09
Saturday I've got a church clean up day from 8:00 to 4:00, we've
2:13
got a youth car wash from 11:50. We've got Sunday service.
2:18
After Sunday service, I've got a church council meeting Sunday
2:21
evening. I've got to hit the dog and drop
2:23
it off at the sitter so that we can get ready for our trip for
2:26
Texas and stuff. I don't know when I'm going to
2:27
have time to even come and see you guys, much less breathe.
2:30
Like it's been wide. It's going to be wide open.
2:33
And so I'm excited. It's going to be a great time
2:36
getting everything in for Texas and it's going to be a great,
2:39
great thing. We've got a Community Day plan
2:43
this coming Saturday at the dot local Dollar General Store.
2:47
We're going to cook like 200 hamburgers, bring them out in
2:50
the parking lot from 11:00 to 2:00 and just hand those out.
2:54
And so we're just, we've been trying to work out logistically.
2:57
We've never done anything like this before.
2:59
And so we're just going back and forth and how's the best that we
3:02
need to get the precooked burgers?
3:04
Do we need to get the uncooked because they'd be cheaper, just
3:07
have somebody cook them. And so a lot of logistics and
3:10
trying to plan this date, but my people are really excited about
3:14
it because one of the things I was I've been pushing lately is
3:18
servant evangelism is going outside the walls of the church,
3:22
going out into the community meeting needs.
3:25
And, and that's what this thing is all about.
3:28
And then like I said, we've got a busy, busy month.
3:31
We've got this going on that we've got Dallas, we come back
3:34
from Dallas, we got the week long VBS and so lot of things, a
3:40
lot of things going on. And so we're coming up close on
3:44
our summer break too, just a couple more episodes and we'll
3:48
be in our summer break for the podcast.
3:50
But that doesn't mean that things are stopping here before
3:54
Freedom podcast because we've got not only things going on
3:58
this summer, but me and you still got some recordings this
4:03
summer for when the season starts back up.
4:06
We got some great interviews lined up, we've got some good
4:11
things coming down the Pike, some things you're really
4:14
excited about, and we can't wait to share those with you when the
4:18
time is appropriate. Absolutely.
4:20
We have thoroughly enjoyed this foundational fundamental
4:24
footprints and looking at some forefathers of the IFB, we're
4:29
not done with that. We've got some some great legacy
4:33
people we're going to talk about as we conclude this and in the
4:37
first couple weeks of our fall season.
4:39
We've got interviews lined up with with guys that many have
4:44
asked, are you going to talk about Ruckman?
4:46
We're going to talk about Peter Ruckman.
4:47
We've got a guy that was born and raised in the system of
4:50
Ruckman and he's going to come on and share some of his
4:53
experience. We're going to talk about
4:55
Tennessee Temple. We're going to be talking about
4:57
Champion. We're going to talk about West
5:01
Coast Baptist College. We're going to talk about we're
5:03
going to be talking about some of these these newer ones as
5:05
well. And then we're really excited,
5:08
Brett, because we're going to be talking through some camp
5:10
meeting stuff and some of that vein of it.
5:13
And so we've, we've almost got our entire fall winter season
5:18
lined out already with just the excitement that's been going on
5:21
with what we've been talking about.
5:23
And so if you've been, if you've got a story you want to share
5:27
again, we've got an interview today.
5:29
We want to have you on there. Reach out to us and if you've
5:32
have an experience at any of the colleges that we've talked about
5:35
or any of the people that we've talked about or some of the
5:38
people we're going to talk about, reach out to us.
5:41
Maybe we maybe there's someone that that you were raised under
5:44
or you are familiar with that we have never heard of.
5:47
We're we're not the all knowing James and Brett, even though
5:50
most people think we are. We want to be able to
5:52
incorporate that into this series that we're doing and
5:56
hopefully be a help to people. And then of course, Brett, our
5:59
cigar line is completely out and rolling.
6:02
Not out of stock, but completely out and ready to go.
6:05
We've got four different lines of cigars and it's going to be a
6:09
great thing. If you haven't got any, now is
6:11
the time to order to get them in for Father's Day.
6:14
Be looking at some great things coming up next week.
6:16
We're going to be announcing something great that you can do
6:19
for your Father's Day gifts. And so if you can, if you want
6:23
to jump on that, it'd be great. Go to our website.
6:26
You can also go to 69.com, back slash for Freedom Cigars and you
6:31
can see those things. And just a great opportunity to
6:34
support the podcast, help us out in our endeavors.
6:37
Believe it or not, we've got website fees, we've got hosting
6:40
fees, we've got some other things that that do cost some
6:43
money. And so this is a good way for us
6:44
to give you something tangible in ways to support what we're
6:49
doing. And if you're going to be in
6:50
Dallas, if you're going to be in the area, let us know.
6:52
We'd love to get together with you and hang out.
6:56
Brett, we've also got something coming up in 2026.
6:59
We're coming up on our first deadline.
7:00
Tell us about that. Yes, 2026, we've got our Israel
7:06
trip still planned. We're coming up on a deadline
7:08
end of June for registration and the first payment and we are
7:13
going for freedom of the Holy Land.
7:15
We are going to Israel. We want you to come with us.
7:18
It's going to be a great trip. It's great price and as always,
7:22
we're going to have a great time in the Holy Land.
7:26
We've got some places that we've been before, some places that we
7:30
actually haven't been before. That'll be new to us, but that's
7:33
what makes it exciting. There's always something to
7:36
something to see. This is a life changing trip and
7:39
we want you to go. And so check out our website on
7:43
that and come to the Holy Land with us.
7:47
It's safe. They've got tours on the ground.
7:51
If you're thinking about going, that means you should go, so
7:54
come with us. Absolutely.
7:58
And without further ado, we are looking at and excited about the
8:04
interview today. I want to just read just a short
8:06
bio of Rebecca. She is a trauma informed
8:11
Christian book coach. She's put out several books
8:14
called the Twisted Scripture books.
8:17
It's all based on her 40 plus years of Bible study and she's
8:21
excited to see the Lord work in mighty different ways.
8:25
And so we're excited to jump into this interview today.
8:28
Hope you enjoy it. And as always, if you are
8:30
encouraged by it, share it, leave a review, give us a five
8:35
star, one star just to make it count.
8:38
And however you give us that review.
8:40
And we look forward to talking again next week and enjoy this
8:43
episode today. And we're excited today to have
8:46
with us Rebecca Davis. Rebecca is a wonderful person
8:51
that we've been able to get a hold of over the last couple of
8:53
weeks and months. I've been connected to her
8:56
through Shannon Mcajena. You may remember her episode
8:59
back in episode 150 or so. She shared her story and we have
9:03
been able to talk with Miss Rebecca for a little bit and
9:07
that she's a Bob Jones grad and here to share some of her story
9:10
today. So Rebecca, let's get started
9:12
today. Introduce yourself, tell us who
9:14
you are, and we'll jump into the interview today.
9:17
Well, thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
9:19
I pertinent to this particular interview, I am a graduate of
9:23
Bob Jones University with my master's degree.
9:26
Way back in 1983, I got my master's degree in math
9:30
education. That isn't what I'm doing now,
9:33
but I did do it for a while and that my experience, Bob Jones
9:38
was a pretty decent experience. I wasn't abused.
9:43
I I didn't like the rules, but I was fairly compliant.
9:47
I got called into the Dean's office for having a messy room
9:52
and they couldn't give me demerits for it because I was a,
9:55
a grad assistant. So I do remember that, but but
10:00
in general, it was a pretty decent experience, in part
10:03
because I was working at Bob Jones University Press and I
10:05
really loved it there and I knew nothing about any abuses that
10:09
were going on behind the scenes. Then my journey continued and
10:14
here I am today. So I guess that will be part of
10:16
the interview, right? Absolutely.
10:19
Great. Well, as we get started today, I
10:21
want to sort of begin by talking about your time with survivors
10:27
and abuse. And we'll talk about the Grace
10:30
report in just a little bit. But sort of how your
10:33
relationship opened your eyes to a sort of a deeper issue inside
10:37
the church when it came to survivors and especially when
10:41
you begin hearing reports of people from your alma mater,
10:44
right? This is a big eye open
10:46
experience that you didn't see any while you were there.
10:48
This was, by the way way, before I was born.
10:50
I was born in 88. So you graduated before I was
10:53
born. And so you, you began to see
10:56
some of these things. So how did these begin to when
11:00
you begin connecting with some of these survivors?
11:01
What? What was that like?
11:03
Yes, well, that's kind of my origin story for my untwisting
11:07
scriptures books, we might say. In 2012, a mutual acquaintance
11:14
or an acquaintance called me because she saw me communicating
11:17
with someone on Facebook. And she called me on the phone
11:21
and started asking me questions. And I, I couldn't understand
11:26
what she was talking about. She seemed very troubled and she
11:30
lived not far away. And so we started getting
11:33
together and I started listening to her story and it turned out
11:41
she had been abused and Bob Jones University had mishandled
11:46
her abuse and like majorly horribly mishandled her abuse
11:52
situation. And I knew nothing, I knew
11:58
nothing about this sort of thing.
11:59
I hadn't been abused in my life. And I'm talking about sexual
12:02
abuse. I hadn't been abused and people
12:06
in my circles hadn't ever talked about it.
12:09
I hadn't ever heard about it. I was very upset because I was
12:12
in my 50s and I was thinking I should have known.
12:16
I've been in church all my life. People should have been talking
12:18
about this. I should have known this was a
12:20
real problem that needed to be addressed.
12:24
And the more I learned, she asked me to please read the
12:27
blogs and Facebook pages. And at that time was 2012 and
12:30
there was a lot of blogging out there.
12:32
And there were the Facebook was just really getting going at
12:35
that time and I dove into it with a ready will and started
12:40
reading and studying and learning.
12:42
And I knew a little bit about domestic abuse because of of a
12:46
previous friend. And that was a whole new thing
12:48
to me. That's a different story, but
12:51
they ended up merging at some point.
12:54
But this seemed quite separate to me at the time that women
13:00
children were being abused by their pastor fathers and, and
13:03
their missionary fathers and their and their youth leaders
13:07
and their pastors. And it was just like it.
13:10
It was absolutely overwhelming to me.
13:13
And I began speaking about it cautiously and carefully on
13:17
Facebook. And at that time, the reason the
13:23
woman was thinking and talking about this was because Bob Jones
13:28
University was being investigated for having
13:32
mishandled cases of sexual abuse.
13:35
And as you just mentioned, the organization investigating them
13:39
was Grace GARCE, Godly Response to Abuse in a Christian
13:43
Environment. That was the name of it.
13:45
The head of the organization at that time was Baz Chervichen,
13:50
and they had not signed to be investigated by them at that
13:58
point, and lots of people were trying to pressure them to sign
14:01
to be investigated. It was like a big kerfuffle that
14:05
was going on that I had been unaware of because I was just
14:07
living my life and doing other things.
14:11
And so I began to get educated. And months later, after I'd been
14:17
being educated for probably six months, I started cautiously
14:21
speaking about it. And people started coming to me
14:25
in private messages saying I was abused too.
14:27
I was abused too. And I began to feel like I was
14:30
the one in the in the minority, like I was the only person who
14:33
hadn't been abused. There were so many abuse
14:35
survivors coming out at that time.
14:38
And more and more I began to speak and it just grew.
14:48
It snowballed from there. And so that was like my first
14:52
year of getting into it. Mostly just speaking on my own
14:56
Facebook page. That was it.
14:57
And so some people were speaking to me saying I was abused too.
15:02
So recently we've seen a lot of survivors begin to come forward
15:07
with the Telegraph that came out from the New York New in Texas
15:11
and then with the guidepost stories that came out with, with
15:15
SBC, we've we've began to see the survivors feel strength to
15:21
come forward and be able to talk about things.
15:24
How has that made you feel and really be able to see in light
15:29
of events of of people being able to come forward publicly,
15:32
How how was that for you? So I was seeing that in 2012 and
15:37
the difference was from the past when I had no awareness of it.
15:41
The difference was social media before social media didn't
15:47
exist. Then when Myspace got started,
15:49
it was not. It was not the phenomenon that
15:52
Facebook became it with like most of the people in the entire
15:57
world getting on Facebook. It was.
16:00
It was a phenomenon never, never seen before.
16:03
And it was the first time in history that the little guy had
16:08
a platform. The little guy could write
16:10
something or say something. And in those days it was just
16:13
writing and be read by hundreds or even thousands of people
16:21
because of shares. So it was an an entirely new
16:25
phenomenon. And even back then, more and
16:27
more people were starting to speak and people like me, people
16:33
like me who wanted to learn, I was going specifically to their
16:37
Facebook pages and their blog posts, their blogs and reading
16:44
what they had to say. And I was learning.
16:47
I couldn't always sort out like, it's all, it's really true.
16:51
It was extremely overwhelming to me.
16:53
I will, I will tell you it was very, very overwhelming.
16:58
And there were many ways in which I just wanted to pull
17:00
away. I didn't want to, to, to be
17:03
overwhelmed like this. I had AI had a good life, I was
17:07
raising my children and I, I had a decent marriage and you know
17:11
what was going on about my life. Why in, in one sense, not, not
17:16
really, not totally, but there was this, this question like,
17:19
why do I have to be pulled into this awfulness?
17:22
But there was, there was a, a calling inside of me, I believe
17:27
from the Lord that said this is an important place for you to
17:31
go. This it's important for you to
17:33
learn these things. So it hasn't just been recent
17:36
that people have been speaking out.
17:38
It started as soon, as, as soon as there was a platform for
17:43
them, excuse me, as soon as there was a platform for them,
17:49
they started speaking out. And it just grew and grew and
17:53
grew. And because of that platform.
17:56
And now of course, it's been podcasts too.
17:59
Podcasts came along after blogs. They overlapped by a little bit.
18:03
I mean, people still blog, but you see, blogs started in in the
18:06
early 2000s and podcasts started around 2010 or so.
18:11
And so there are more and more and more platforms for people to
18:16
speak. That's what's made the
18:18
difference. It's not that people didn't
18:21
speak before and now they are. It's just that now they have the
18:24
platforms for people to actually listen to them.
18:27
In the past, the churches or or I shouldn't say just churches,
18:30
but all the leaders, any leaders, any people with that
18:34
position of authority, the person with the microphone
18:37
controlled the narrative. The person like if it's in a
18:41
church setting, the pastor and his his elders control the
18:46
narrative. And the people back in the pews,
18:49
they didn't have a voice unless the pastor decided to give them
18:51
a voice. So this just completely changed
18:55
the dynamic. And I'm very grateful that more
18:57
and more voices are coming out, even though it's horrific to see
19:02
the state of the church, that so many people, I believe, go into
19:08
church leadership specifically because it's a good way to find
19:10
people to abuse at that, that those people who have been
19:16
abused are able to speak out. Well, we kind of want to talk
19:21
about the the process of the Grace investigation.
19:25
How did that unfold at Bob Jones?
19:29
Like talk about what kind of cooperation or resistance you
19:33
encounter from the university leadership during the
19:36
investigation. Well, I wasn't involved in the
19:39
investigation. I only watched it as an
19:41
outsider. So I can tell you my perspective
19:44
as an outsider watching it unfold.
19:50
In 2012, people were asking the school to get this investigation
19:58
done, and there was a catalyst for that.
20:00
It was in 2011. Bob Jones.
20:02
The third, who was president at that time, No, he wasn't
20:05
president at that time, but he was the former president and he
20:08
was the chancellor. If I remember correctly, he said
20:12
on the platform that the university had always handled
20:17
cases of sexual abuse correctly. And so there was an outcry from
20:23
all the people whose cases were not handled correctly, as you
20:26
can imagine. And so they were pushing them to
20:31
have this investigation. By the time I entered the scene,
20:34
that push was really going strong.
20:37
Well, they didn't get hired until 2014.
20:43
I perhaps January, maybe February, I don't know, but
20:46
right around there. So it was a long process and the
20:51
investigation began. I don't remember the exact dates
20:56
because I was on the outside, but I do remember this part.
21:00
In January or February of 2014, Bob Jones University fired Grace
21:09
and there was this huge outcry about it.
21:14
And for two weeks I was on Facebook, it felt like 24/7
21:20
answering people's questions, trying to encourage people and
21:26
pushing for BJ to BJU to rehire. This would be like on Bob John's
21:30
University's Facebook page and responding to all the pushback
21:36
that came. I had been speaking more and
21:39
more since 2012. It was becoming more and more
21:43
thing, but it was still it was only on my own personal page on
21:45
Facebook. That was pretty much it.
21:47
But when I started responding like the people saying guilty
21:55
until I mean innocent until proven guilty or he that
21:58
answereth the matter before you hear it, that it is folly and
22:01
shame unto him. Bitterness the the root of
22:05
bitterness. You must be bitter, Rebecca.
22:09
So many different things that people were coming at me about
22:13
and I was thinking at that time, that's when it really, really
22:18
overwhelmed me. It was during those two weeks
22:21
that I was saying, wow, Christians really don't know the
22:25
Bible because I knew the Word of God enough to know that verses
22:30
were being taken out of context. Verses were being misapplied.
22:34
They weren't practicing critical thinking.
22:37
At that time. I was thinking Christians can't
22:39
think logically. It was really critical thinking
22:41
skills that I was or a lack of critical thinking skills that I
22:45
was observing and I started writing more and more.
22:49
I started writing long back. Back in those days, Facebook had
22:51
what they called notes and I was writing long Facebook notes and
22:55
people started telling me how much I appreciated them.
22:57
I started responding to the misuses of scripture and
23:01
eventually I put up a website to respond to the misuses of
23:06
scripture and that I believe the website is defunct now.
23:10
But all most of the things that I wrote about eventually went
23:15
into my untwisting Scriptures box.
23:17
So it was really Bob Jones University was the catalyst for
23:22
the the untwisting scriptures work that I'm doing now.
23:26
That's great, you know. For those that grace is a godly
23:31
response to abuse in the Christian environment.
23:35
So some people were throwing that name out.
23:37
They may not even heard of it before.
23:39
I know up until recently when Shannon got me a hold of you, I
23:42
had not heard of the Grace report at all and had not known
23:45
about it. So that was that was huge for
23:47
me. Brett, you had something to say
23:48
there. I just, you know, as an observer
23:52
looking in, you hear these survivor testimonies and I know
23:56
that they can be powerful, they can be impactful.
23:59
Can you just speak into the testimonies of the survivors for
24:02
a minute and tell me what kind of impact that that made?
24:09
I will tell you when I was hearing the stories, I would go
24:12
to bed in a fetal position. I would cry and cry and cry.
24:17
And it was very, very hard for me.
24:20
I was not trained to know about these things.
24:27
I did not know. I had read about wickedness in
24:31
the Bible, but I didn't understand or know about the
24:35
depth of wickedness and the depth of hypocrisy that was
24:40
going on around me all the time. I felt like I had entered an
24:46
alternate universe. This was all of a big part of
24:50
what I needed to, to understand, come to grips with during the
24:58
that especially that first year, 2012, 2013 and I would even say
25:03
into 2014. So it took quite a while.
25:06
I was also doing research constantly, not just the blogs
25:09
and Facebook pages that got recommended to me, but I started
25:13
reading scholarly works and reading memoirs from survivors
25:18
and, and I went to trainings. So I was, I'm informally
25:23
trained. I have no letters after my name
25:26
except that master's degree in math that I got from BJU.
25:30
But but I was becoming trained to the best of my ability.
25:34
I didn't know anything about flashbacks and the nightmares
25:38
caused by abuse, and I didn't know about dissociation.
25:41
I had all these things to learn. It was such a steep learning
25:46
curve. And I went to the Lord and I
25:48
said I do not have the capacity for this.
25:52
My capacity is like a thimble. And then I said to the Lord, you
25:58
have all the capacity in the world.
26:00
Can you give me a greater capacity to hold these stories
26:05
without it just completely knocking me over?
26:08
I have been feeling like it was just tsunami after tsunami after
26:12
tsunami and I was just, I was drowning.
26:15
And I asked the Lord for greater capacity and I did a lot of
26:18
sleeping because that was one way for me to recover from the
26:22
stories I was hearing. But the Lord did over time
26:27
increased my capacity. He also increased my ability not
26:32
to trigger people. I've never heard of triggering.
26:35
I didn't know what triggering was.
26:37
And I was triggering people right and left without without
26:40
realizing it. And I said, Lord, you have
26:42
called the wrong person. I'm like a bull in a China shop.
26:45
I don't know what I'm doing. Will you call someone else to
26:49
this work? And can I just go back to doing
26:51
something kind of normal like homeschooling and I can help
26:54
other people homeschool, you know, but but the Lord called me
26:57
to this. The Lord called me into this
26:59
arena, this dark, dark place where I didn't know what I was
27:04
doing. I needed to get trained and I
27:07
needed to rely on him. So the stories had a powerful
27:13
impact on me. And, you know, people have asked
27:15
me, what do you do? How do you figure out what's
27:17
true and what's not true? I'm not trying to sort out
27:23
details. I'm going with the big picture.
27:26
The big picture says something terrible has happened and people
27:32
are deep, deeply affected by it and they have experienced great
27:38
trauma at the hands of others. Not a nameless trauma, but at
27:42
the hands of others. And that means great evil is
27:45
taking place in the world. And I will tell you it made was
27:49
like my world went from pastel to full color because I started
27:53
to really see righteousness and wickedness.
27:57
I started to really see the spiritual battle, the evil in
28:01
the world, such evil, so much evil.
28:04
Because I wasn't just learning about molestation or, you know,
28:11
the loot youth leader taking advantage of the girl in his
28:14
youth group. I was learning about
28:15
trafficking. I was learning about ritual
28:18
abuse. I was just like, it was really,
28:20
really overwhelming to me to come face to face with the evil
28:27
that was going on in very often in the guise of Christianity,
28:31
because that was that was the door through which I entered
28:34
this. And I certainly know these
28:35
things take place in other areas too.
28:38
There's Hollywood and there's the politicians and everything.
28:41
But but Christianity and the church is the door through which
28:46
I entered this arena. And so that's the world where I
28:49
was seeing it. And by the grace of God, he gave
28:53
me the capacity and I now meet with survivors regularly to give
28:58
them encouragement, to pray with them, to listen to their
29:00
stories, and to seek healing with them from the Lord.
29:05
It's. Always heartbreaking and
29:09
discouraging that I can say for myself.
29:12
When we, when we look back and we see these, these places that
29:15
we love, we cherish, we adore, we have so many fond memories
29:18
of. And we began to hear things that
29:20
happen that just shatter our, our image of, of what we had for
29:25
them and, and things that we lifted to such a high elevation.
29:29
You did right. We're going to skip #3 we're
29:31
going to #4 you mentioned on Facebook notes and on your
29:36
website how you had begin publishing some of these things.
29:40
I can imagine there was some pushback that was happening with
29:43
that sort of talk about the pushback that was happening.
29:46
And then you also mentioned about the misuse of scripture,
29:50
how we were they were quoting certain things and how scripture
29:53
was been misused. What sort of revealed to you in
29:57
that area about the misunderstanding of Scripture
30:01
from your perspective? So the first woman who came to
30:05
me and started talking to me, and I listened to her a lot and
30:08
I spent a lot of time listening. I spent far more time listening
30:12
and talking because I didn't. I knew I didn't understand and I
30:16
knew I needed to learn. And I've learned so much from
30:19
the abuse survivors themselves. But two of the areas that she
30:23
talked about that were very significant to me, she talked
30:27
about several. But two of the ones that came
30:30
out as most significant to me was we were taught we should
30:33
give up our rights. And I thought, Oh yeah, that
30:36
sounds kind of familiar. I think I remember that.
30:39
And the other one was we were taught that if we speak about
30:43
it, we're just bitter and we'll be a root of bitterness that
30:46
will defile many. And I thought, oh, yeah, that
30:48
sounds familiar too. Well, both of them are based in
30:51
the teachings of Bill Gothard and probably other people.
30:53
But, but Bill Gothard is the one that that I tracked it back to.
30:57
And my responses to these two terrible teachings that are not
31:02
scriptural and that serve to keep people in a place of
31:06
oppression, my responses to those became part of my very
31:11
first Untwisting Scriptures book in 2016.
31:14
Some of the pushback on I should have looked it up before we came
31:18
to the interview 'cause it was a while back.
31:20
So I'll do the best I can remember.
31:23
One of them I mentioned a minute ago was he who answers the
31:28
matter before he hears it. It is folly and shame to him.
31:31
And people were telling that to me like I was speaking out about
31:35
this without ever having heard the matter.
31:37
And so I was showing my folly and I thought that's like, I was
31:43
incensed. That's ridiculous.
31:45
I've been hearing this matter for years, for years.
31:50
And you're the one who hasn't been hearing the matter.
31:54
I was thinking because you need to listen to the survivors
31:57
themselves. And another one was innocent
32:03
until proven guilty, which of course is not scripture, but
32:06
it's America. And I thought, well, I wrote a
32:12
whole blog post to refute that. A person is deemed innocent
32:18
until proven guilty in a court of law.
32:21
But of course, if the person is guilty, if the person is
32:25
actually guilty, then the person he abused in this case, because
32:30
we're talking about abuse, she doesn't have to assume him
32:34
innocent. She knows that he's guilty.
32:36
She doesn't have to say no, he's innocent.
32:38
He hasn't been proven guilty in a court of law yet, so he's
32:41
innocent. She doesn't have to say that.
32:43
And, and I said any witnesses to the crime don't have to say
32:47
that. And so I, I just thought that's
32:50
illogical. That's not unscriptural because
32:52
it's not in the Bible, but it's illogical.
32:55
It's not carrying through the thought.
32:58
It's not looking at the big picture.
32:59
It's taking this tiny little phrase out of context, out of
33:02
the context of the way the American legal system is set up
33:06
and applying it outside of that. So those are two, five.
33:10
If I wrecked my brain, I could come up with probably a dozen
33:12
more. But oh, another one people said
33:16
was, well, well, rape happens everywhere.
33:18
And I thought, I mean, my head wanted to explode.
33:21
I thought, what in the world? That's an excuse.
33:25
Like, how can you possibly say that's an excuse for what is
33:28
happening now? So it was astonishing to me.
33:31
It was absolutely astonished. And I was.
33:33
I felt punched in the gut over and over and over.
33:36
But I kept coming back for more because I must be a glutton for
33:39
punishment. Well, you know, you had a
33:43
striking realization that Christians don't know the Bible
33:47
and Christians don't think logically.
33:49
Can Can you unpack what kind of led to that conclusion and how
33:53
you're thinking has evolved since then?
33:56
Well, my thinking has evolved since then to say, well, the
33:59
Christians I was working with or who were coming at me at that
34:03
time. So I don't want to say all
34:05
Christians don't know the Bible and all Christians don't think
34:08
logically cause of course that's not true and that would be very
34:11
illogical to say that. But the the ones who are stuck
34:18
in fundamentalist thinking, thinking that my authority must
34:28
always be right and I must always submit to my authority
34:34
and never question them, those people are in big trouble.
34:40
Those people need to know the truth.
34:43
Those people. I often think about how Jesus
34:45
said he who has ears to hear, let him hear.
34:50
And I pray for people to have ears to hear that they may hear.
34:55
And when I write and untwist scriptures, and I have six books
34:59
in my Untwisting Scriptures series so far.
35:01
So I've been doing a lot of untwisting scriptures and on my
35:04
website, which your listeners can get to by going to
35:08
untwistingscriptures.com, on that website, I have a lot more
35:13
untwistings that aren't in any of my books.
35:18
So you can see there are a lot of twisted scriptures and my
35:23
thinking has evolved in the past.
35:25
It's been close to 10 years. Well, it's been over 10 years
35:28
since I started, but since I started the untwisting
35:30
scriptures work about 10 years. I would say that I see a similar
35:36
pattern over and over. And that is basically two
35:42
things. There are a lot more, but I'm
35:43
going to name the main two that I've seen.
35:46
And one is I am the authority, never question me.
35:51
The other is everything that you think is going wrong is really
35:56
your own problem. So that those two things and all
36:01
these different scriptures and all these different non
36:04
scriptural things that sound scriptural, like believe the
36:08
best and things like that, that's not in the Bible, but
36:10
people think it is. All of those things are brought
36:14
against abuse survivors and those who want to help abuse
36:17
survivors to silence them. You are going against your
36:21
authority or the pseudo authority and you haven't dealt
36:28
with all that sin in your own heart.
36:31
How dare you be speaking up about anything when you haven't
36:34
dealt with a sin in your own heart 1st.
36:36
And that teaching is still very prevalent in the Christian
36:40
world. That's great and we love it.
36:43
And you know, these resources are or out there.
36:46
I think often times people, when we, we struggle with things, we
36:50
we want resources and we just don't realize that good faithful
36:53
people have put them out that love people and care about
36:57
people wanting to grow in their faith.
36:59
A friend of mine, Brian Edwards, has put out a podcast of their
37:04
six or eight episodes now, I don't remember exactly.
37:06
It's called Text in Context, and it's dedicated to this, simply
37:10
correcting textual and scriptural error by teaching
37:13
what the misuse of scripture is and how it's in their proper
37:17
context. And so just trying to balance
37:19
that out sounds a lot like what you're doing with the
37:22
untwisting. Scripture, absolutely, yes.
37:24
I'm looking at context. Looking at at who.
37:28
I put a lot of emphasis on pronouns.
37:29
Who is the person speaking? Who's he speaking to to?
37:33
If he says I or me, that doesn't, that isn't talking
37:36
about the reader, it's talking about the speaker and you might
37:40
apply it to yourself or you might not.
37:42
Let's look at the context. Let's look at why he said it.
37:44
Things like that so that Christians can have a right
37:48
understanding of the word of God.
37:49
And of course, the way translations have been Miss miss
37:56
done to make things, say things that they don't, to make verses
38:01
say things they don't even say. Absolutely.
38:04
So in the process, this will be our last question and we'll open
38:08
up for anything else you have in the process of writing these
38:11
books and and putting them out. What what did you, what was your
38:16
goal in in offering the hope to the readers, but also has there
38:20
been feedback to you from publishing these books?
38:23
Have people reached out and said, hey, these were this this
38:25
point that you used or this thought was a great, great thing
38:28
to help me grow sort of share some some personal testimony
38:32
from from the books that you've written.
38:36
Sure. What was your first?
38:39
Yeah, two questions. What was the first one?
38:41
Sorry, yes, what? What hope did you plan to offer?
38:44
All right, Yes, perfect. I am a book coach.
38:47
That's my profession. This what we're talking about
38:49
here is my ministry and in my book coaching business, I
38:53
encourage my clients to think about their target reader and
38:58
their goal for their target reader.
38:59
Well, so you're asking me one of my big book coaching questions.
39:03
Who's your target reader and what's your goal for your target
39:05
reader? My target reader is very
39:07
specific, that is, people who have experienced spiritual
39:13
abuse, and I define spiritual abuse as the misuse of the Word
39:18
of God and the character of God to keep people in a place of
39:21
bondage and oppression. People who have experienced
39:25
spiritual abuse, who are recognizing that something's
39:31
wrong, but they still want to know who God really is.
39:35
A lot of people, once they recognize the abuse, they say
39:38
that's it, I'm done. I'm out of here.
39:41
I'm walking away from everything that's happened a lot as all of
39:45
us know. And it's, it's so grievous.
39:47
It breaks my heart that that happens because they're walking
39:50
away from a God that was is not the true God of the Scriptures.
39:56
And so I'm writing these books for the people who want to know
40:00
who God really is, who they really are, what the Bible
40:03
really means, who are willing to walk with me as I walk with them
40:08
to to investigate and to see the beauty of who our Lord Jesus
40:14
Christ really is. Because the real picture is so
40:18
beautiful and he loves them so deeply and wants relationship
40:24
with them. So that's my goal, that's my
40:27
target reader and my goal for my target reader to help them
40:30
understand who God really is, who they really are, what the
40:34
Bible really says, and how they really can have relationship
40:39
with the Lord. And yes, I do get emails
40:42
regularly. I get a lot of emails thanking
40:44
me for one thing or another. And I have a regular e-mail that
40:50
goes out every week, and sometimes it will let people
40:53
know, like about an interview I've just done or, or a blog
40:57
post I've just written. But often it's just what I call
40:59
a tiny untwisting. It's a little.
41:02
It's a teaching that I can address in a fairly short amount
41:05
of space to help people understand.
41:07
People can get access to that by going to my website, which you
41:11
can get to through untwistingscriptures.com.
41:13
I've got several free offerings there.
41:15
You could actually get Untwisting Scriptures book #6 in
41:19
audio book form for free just by signing up.
41:22
You can also get a guide that is called How to Enjoy the Bible
41:26
Again When You're Ready without Getting Triggered How to Enjoy
41:31
the Bible Again After Spiritual Abuse When You're ready without
41:35
feeling guilty or getting triggered out of your mind.
41:37
So that free guide is there too, in both written and audio form
41:43
for you. And once you sign up to get any
41:45
one of my free things, you'll be getting on my mailing list and
41:48
you'll get regular emails from me just to help you understand
41:52
the scriptures better, to untangle some of those
41:55
teachings, maybe ones that I didn't address in my book or on
41:59
my blog, or maybe just a small repeat of one tiny little piece
42:04
of something I talked about in my book books.
42:07
So I've gotten many, many responses, feedback from the
42:12
emails from the books to thank me for them.
42:15
So yes, I've gotten a lot of that.
42:19
Rebecca, we want to thank you so much for coming on with us
42:23
today. And I know we personally can't
42:25
wait to check out your books. I'm definitely going to be
42:27
somebody that signs up. Just want to ask you as we get
42:31
ready to close, if you had any closing thoughts or anything
42:35
you'd like to add. Or any of your listeners who
42:39
have experienced abuse, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, violence
42:46
of any kind, trafficking, any kinds of of abuse that you can
42:54
think of. If you've been in the church,
42:57
the spiritual abuse is the web that holds all of the other
43:02
abuses in place because you are made to feel like God is on the
43:09
side of the abuser and maybe God is an abuser himself.
43:15
And what I want to offer you is hope.
43:19
There is hope to get out of this shame, fear, and confusion.
43:23
The three, the three big results, the the three big
43:32
demons that you carry on your back when you come out of abuse.
43:35
You can be delivered from shame, fear and confusion and you can
43:40
know you really can know who God really is.
43:43
I know hope is a scary word for a lot of people, but there
43:46
really is hope to know the true God and to know his love for
43:51
you. And it's a pure love.
43:52
It's not a love that wants to take advantage of you.
43:55
It's not a love that's conditional on your performance.
43:59
It's it's a gracious, free and full love through our Lord Jesus
44:04
Christ. Through faith in the Lord Jesus
44:06
Christ, you can receive the love of God and you have people who
44:11
love you and who want to walk with you and who are cheering
44:14
you on. That's great.
44:16
There's hope, there's encouragement out there, and
44:19
there's people like Rebecca who are doing tons of work to help
44:22
expose things, but also to help give that that hope for those
44:26
next steps. And that's what I love is not
44:28
just showing you there's wrong, but also how to work through
44:31
that, how to work through the process.
44:33
So I love that. Thank you for coming on,
44:35
Rebecca. This has been great.
44:36
Thank you. We'll link all those websites in
44:39
our show notes, so if you didn't quite get one, we'll put that in
44:42
there so you can go to unquested scriptures and her website and
44:45
everything. So thank you for coming on and
44:47
until next. Time.
44:48
All right. God bless you.
44:51
Bye. Bye.
44:51
Until next time, to God be the glory great.
44:54
Things he has done. Found my new name, found that
44:59
good grace, found that healing. And the tears fell down my face
45:05
when I found my beginning. It has no ending.
45:07
I found that second chance, Found my best friend, found my
45:09
forgiveness, found my happiness. I've been singing ever since And
45:12
thou my feet on me all. Thanks for listening to the Four
45:29
Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do
45:32
us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our
45:36
podcast on whichever podcast platform you use.
45:39
Be sure to join us next time for The Four Freedom Podcast.