This is my last post in a series of three dealing with sexual abuse and Christian spirituality. You can see the first post here, and the second post here. I wrote these as a way to process some of what I’ve been noticing as I work with women in the Church who have experienced sexual violence...
This post is my second in a series of three posts dealing with sexual abuse and Christian spirituality. In my first post I talked about ways that certain Christian messages tend to create stumbling blocks for those striving to heal from the trauma of abuse, and I listed a couple of ideas to keep in mind...
This series of cross-posts by Hilary Jerome Scarsella originally appeared on the State of Formation Website. Recently, I’ve spent a lot time with Christian women striving to heal from abuse and from damaging messages they learned from their experiences of church, faith, and religion. I want to talk about the ways that seemingly harmless messages from religious...
From Editor Rachel Halder: April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, a month dedicated to raising public awareness about sexualized violence and to educate communities and individuals on how to prevent sexual violence. But what I want to know is: Why do we need to make a month for this? Why can’t every month be a month dedicated to eradicating sexualized...
This is the sixth and final post in the Steubenville Reflection Series featured on Our Stories Untold the week of March 24-29. It includes two authors submissions. Please feel free to look over the pasts week’s posts and share your own reflections and responses to this tragic event. Your Sexual Morality is Not My Responsibility...
This is the fifth post in the Steubenville Reflection Series featured on Our Stories Untold the week of March 24-29. We had two hopeful posts come in from previous Our Stories Untold contributors. I’ve featured them together as their similar call for positivism and hopefulness during a time of frustration ring true. — editor Rachel Halder Finding hope...
This is the fourth post in the Steubenville Reflection Series featured on Our Stories Untold the week of March 24-29. I am greatly troubled by Steubenville, but it offers a great opportunity to continue the work of eradicating sexualized violence. I suggest we continue to think of Steubenville and strongly consider the almost inevitable...
This is the third post in the Steubenville Reflection Series featured on Our Stories Untold the week of March 24-29. Rape is rape is rape is rape. It is a violation of everything good, and it is bad no matter who commits it, on whom, or how. The victim is not to blame. Social media...
This is the second post in the Steubenville Reflection Series featured on Our Stories Untold the week of March 24-29. Upon reflection of the events that happened in Steubenville, Ohio, Sylvia Klauser wrote the following open letter to the youth of her churches–and their parents. This is a shortened version of the letter, which you can see...
“Would you say destroying the planet is just as bad as raping a person? Is putting toxic chemicals into our water just as bad as putting toxic chemicals into a person so you can rape them?” Bombarded by these questions (plus many more) from a new acquaintance at a party the other evening, my responses...
It’s been a whirlwind of a week for an activist set out to “end rape.” And it’s only Tuesday. Though I’ve been following the Steubenville situation since a New York Times article came out in December, which provoked this piece on victim-blaming, I still haven’t been able to sift through my emotions and feelings enough...
Note from the editor, Rachel Halder: Maggie Gilman, a close friend of mine from Goshen College, was taking a psychology course at a local community college in Oregon. She relayed the following story to me and I encouraged her to share it with the broader Our Stories Untold community, as I believe this is not a unique...
I get it. Politics are divisions that create rifts in families and relationships. Having firm political beliefs makes it difficult to see the ideals behind a law or policy. Personally, I do not want politics to become a conversation or point of contention for Our Stories Untold. Yet, when governments, including the U.S. government, attempt...
As a young woman in high school, I engaged in sexual acts that I didn’t necessarily want to do. This wasn’t just out of pressure—though that component definitely existed—but it was also due to a curiosity about sex. Lacking any sort of community or safe place in which I could discuss female sexuality and my...
From Editor Rachel Halder: Sharing a story of personal abuse, rape, or sexualized violence is an incredibly difficult, yet courageous, undertaking. This entry is a re-post of a recent anonymous submission in the Our Stories Untold “Stories” section of the Web site. Typically I don’t include stories within the blog, but this brave story struck...
