Why “Not All Homeschoolers” and “No True Christians” responses are silencing dialogue

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CC image courtesy of Flicker, Rebecca Barray.

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on November 1, 2015.

So I’m active in several online communities that discuss homeschooling and spiritual abuse. I also read a lot. Almost daily, I post articles and blog posts that I find interesting.

I’m also Facebook friends with people I met during each of the four times I moved cross-country between Texas and Colorado, people from every church I went to growing up, every place I’ve worked, people who are my fellow homeschool alumni and college classmates. This means that everything I share is being viewed by people all over the human spectrum.

I value this diversity, that my community is no echo chamber. I welcome the opportunity to be challenged and corrected and grow, and I hope my friends do, too.

Yes, there are periodic flame wars in the comments, but I’ve also seen successful dialogue. This is why I want to foster debates and discussion, because I believe that if I limit myself to only people who agree with me, change will never happen.

But a couple of arguments surface over and over.

“Not all homeschoolers were raised in cults.”

“What does abuse in these churches have to do with true Christianity?”

And these rebuttals are killing our discussions. Here’s why. This week, I read an article posted by Relevant magazine on why there’s a problem with saying All Lives Matter. The subtitle read: “There’s a difference between ‘true’ and ‘helpful.'”

Responses like this usually demonstrate a failure to listen. Conversations usually go:

Person 1: “This is what my experience with homeschooling / purity culture was like.”

Person 2: “Good point, but remember, not all homeschoolers were abused / raised in cults.”

Person 1: *awkward silence* (thinks) But I wasn’t talking about all homeschoolers. I was talking about me.

And they feel like you don’t think their story is important.

It’s hard to have these conversations, I think. If you say, “Hey, this happened and it was bad,” or express criticism, you get a lot of “not all homeschoolers” responses. Which is technically true.

But the one doesn’t invalidate the other. Sure, not all homeschoolers were raised in cults. But some were, and problematic and harmful things happened as a result. I’m not against homeschooling as a form of education, and I don’t think it should be banned, but I do think the problems within the movement must be addressed.

“No True Christian” is basically another version of the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Person 1: “This really awful thing happened in my church / to Amish girls / to Pentecostals.”

Angry Defensive Person 1: “Not all Apostolic Pentecostals are like this!”

Angry Defensive Person 2: “What does this have to do with true Christianity?”

These comments are missing the point. Orthodoxy isn’t the issue here, abuse is. And if you’re more concerned with heresy than hurting people, you are contributing to the problem.

And almost every group thinks they are the true believers, the genuine thing. So asking whether or not the Amish are truly Christians is irrelevant. They believe they are. That’s why they live in isolation, making sure they aren’t corrupted by deviating opinions. Other high control religious groups operate similarly.

Just because you might not believe cult members or other denominations are actually Christians doesn’t stop them from identifying as believers. But shouldn’t Christians be more concerned about people who claim to follow their savior perpetrating abuse than whether or not the abusers are heretics?

Let’s be honest here. We use these arguments to protect ourselves. We don’t want to be associated with sexual abuse and hypocrisy, we don’t want our image threatened. So we cry “not all homeschoolers” to defend our educations, and “not true Christians” to defend our core beliefs. We don’t want to think that our community might be wrong, we hide our faces from the wounds, cover our ears and refuse to listen.

And we need to stop.

When No Must Mean No: Setting Boundaries

It’s kind of odd, when you think about it, that people who otherwise have strong convictions on issues such as religion can be somewhat ambiguous when it comes to expressing disagreement, largely out of fear of offending someone. Nobody wants to have a lot of conflict going on, particularly in family gatherings, but at some point you do have to set and enforce your own boundaries.

We set boundaries in our lives all the time, often without recognizing them as such. How often have you decided you won’t discuss politics with that annoying co-worker, won’t bring up an issue with a relative who won’t respect your side, or have decided to leave the room when someone in your home watches a political pundit or televangelist you can’t tolerate?

A lot of trouble that occurs in a spiritually abusive setting happens either when we don’t set ground rules to govern our interactions with others or don’t enforce our own boundaries once set. Had I learned this particular lesson years ago, I might have saved myself a lot of aggravation.

One example I can think of: very persistent, unwanted church invitations, regardless of whether you have a church home or even have interest in one. At one time, I had to cope with a lot of this from United Pentecostal people, and know this is a very real problem whenever you have relatives or friends who don’t accept where you are on your spiritual journey.

Don’t leave it up in the air about whether you intend to follow up on their invitation. If you have no intention of going with them, nicely tell them you appreciate the invite, but you are not going.

If you do want to attend with them but aren’t interested in joining, make it clear that you are visiting – period. You don’t need to get into any theological objections.

Another thing I have observed, especially in social media interactions, is that some people with no respect for the beliefs of others treat social media as a free-for-all. In some cases, it is easier to control your interactions with others by restricting which posts those with no self-control can see and interact with.

We probably all have that family member or friend who gets hung up on the same few issues where it comes to religion. When they continually refuse to respect how others think or misrepresent opposing beliefs, your safest bet may be to nicely tell them the subjects in question are off-limits.

By nicely telling someone no or otherwise setting boundaries, you are controlling your interaction with them. Staying in control of the discussion makes things less frustrating all around.

Responding in Love

How do you respond in love to someone who repeatedly says hurtful things? Who is rude without realizing it? Who puts others down or repeatedly ‘corrects’ them in front of a group? And what do you do when the person does this to several people and makes even more others uncomfortable, but no one in leadership seems to realize it… and even praises them repeatedly and publicly? How do you respond in love when you’d like to just either retreat, hide and never go back… or fight?

Sometimes I think the only way to respond in love is not to respond at all. But am I truly loving others by remaining silent?

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