Last week I was honored and grateful to tell a larger part of my story publicly for the first time. The Salt Collective [edit on 6/3/22 to add: The Salt Collective disbanded and shut down their website on 5/1/22] provided a broad platform for me to share, certainly a larger audience than I’ve ever had; and the encouragement, kindness, support, and practical editing help that I received from Nathan Roberts was invaluable.

The essay this collaboration produced is a heavily modified version of a blog post I originally published here. The end product connects further details of my own history and experience to the broader issue of religious gendered abuse and how it is unwittingly harbored and enabled by systemic abuse and shame culture within American Evangelicalism.

The consequences of rotten roots are far-reaching. If we wish to restore the church, we must protect and rescue our most vulnerable. The healing of our community begins and ends with the healing of the wounded individuals within it.

Read my essay here [now preserved on The Internet Archive]: I Survived a Rural Evangelical Daddy Cult