Ask A Wikkid Person: What Is Love? (Brethren Don't Hurt Us)

Dear Wikkid Person,

      Your words about the young people who were left wounded in the ditch to bleed to death struck a deep chord with me. I logged almost thirty years in the meeting and heard "love" preached every single meeting. I want to share what "assembly love" looked like in the life of someone close to me, who has asked to remain anonymous, because we both need to know, from someone who knows the inner workings of the Plymouth Brethren meetings as well as you do, if what this young girl experienced was a form of New Testament Church love.
   Picture, if you will, a young meeting girl. She is heart hungry and love starved because she has never fit in among "the Lord's people," the older people only speak to her to correct her and never to connect with her, the Brethren young people act like she doesn't exist, and she is forbidden to make friends outside this exclusive group. She meets an old man who seems to be very nice, very lonely, and to really care about her. Watch her bloom and blossom as he takes time to spend with her, listen to her problems, hold her hand, tell her how much he loves her. Then... he rapes her.

    She has no one to turn to, no one to tell her that she doesn't have to "submit" to this man, no one to protect her. She manages after a year of abuse to get away from this wicked man. Years later, she tells her story to her "brethren," her heart breaking for healing, comfort, nurturing, and support. She asks for an egg and is given a scorpion. She is told to "rise above it," "forgive that poor old man because he just couldn't help it," "don't tell us your story because it's defiling," "it could have been so much worse," "what did you do to cause him to do this?"

    She is terrified every Sunday that she will no longer be allowed to break bread because obviously, 'protecting the Lord's table from iniquity' is more important than protecting a fatherless, vulnerable young girl. She cries through every meeting and is told that her tears are "distracting the brethren from their worship." She is told that because she "isn't happy" she must be "in a bad state of soul" and that she "is a burden to the assembly." And she's told that she has to be incredibly grateful for these words from her brethren because "sometimes they say things we don't want to hear, but they love us and want to edify and exhort us." 

   She isn't allowed to get counselling because dear me, that would mean turning to someone who doesn't believe the same way we do. She is discouraged from reading books written by other survivors because "we don't need any book but the Bible." She is discouraged from joining a survivor's support group because "that would be an unequal yoke." When she tries to leave the meeting that is causing her so much pain, she is intimidated by The Fear Factor and the threat of losing everything she has ever known keep her from doing so. 

   My friend's story cries out to be told just as Abel's blood cried out to God from the ground. My friend has found healing through deep relationship with Christ, through a happy marriage, and through very nurturing church, but she is still struggling, after years of being told that everything that the Brethren said and did was right, to understand what love is and if what she experienced from the Brethren is love.

Thank you for hearing her story.

Peace,
Nightingale 

Dear Nightingale,

     No. In my not-terribly-humble opinion, what this young girl experienced was not a form of love.  Of any kind.  It was a form of "Go away. You're wrecking everything."

   Me being me, I've been told this story before.  I don't know if it's the same person, or another with a strikingly similar history.  Not one detail is different, however.

   What feminists call this all-too-common human response to situations of this kind is "blame the victim." I was never raped, but I know what it's like to be blamed for not being happy, when you're young and it's the church people who are hurting you, shaming you, excluding you, yet also saying they're doing it because you aren't happy, so are cold in your soul and not going on well.

  Wikkidly yours,

...that Wikkid Person

Certified Wikkid since 1998 


Dear Wikkid Person,
Not to diminish what that poor young girl went through, just imagine that happening to a 7 year old boy for three years, by someone that was looked to as a leader in the assembly. And Yes the Assembly did their due diligence and put that child molester out of fellowship, never pressed charges (because of the shame it would bring on the Lord's Name) told his parents not to press charges as well! Then made him sit in the back row of the meeting that happened to be, right by the door that, that 10 year old had to walk through to his seat in meeting for the next six years. They then had the gall to ask that sixteen year old why he didn't come to ALL the meetings, although they had never asked him once if they could help him through adolescence. Thankfully the Lord has overruled in that young man's life and has preserved him to have a loving family of his own that is seeking to go on for the Lord, although there are many scars that remain he has a heart for all the Young people and their struggles. Thank the Lord that He has used these trials to be able to help others through theirs in his own feeble way! 
sincerely,
Middle Aged Christian Man.