Mischaracterizing or Misunderstanding Codependency (Re: Sexual Betrayal, and Julie Roys Book) – Christian Abuse Survivor Community On A Witch Hunt – Introduction
Work on this post first began in April 2022, or maybe early May 2022. As I wrap this up, today’s date is May 24, 2022.
Introduction
Ever since Christian journalist Julie Roys began publishing reportage of domestic abuse cover ups, or child sex abuse cover ups, by John MacArthur and his church (such as this one), various JMac (John MacArthur) defenders have come out of the wood-work to dig up any dirt on Julie Roys that they can (these people are supposed to be Christians but behave as though they’re in a JMac cult, where JMac is their cult leader).
As for me, JMac is one of those Christian guys whose opinions I occasionally agree with, but I sometimes disagree with him, depending on the topic.
Based on a few of the tweets I’ve seen by Roys over the past couple of years, I don’t think she and I share the same political views – well, I suspect that is so, at least. I’m not 100% sure.
When I politely tweeted minor disagreements with Roys in the past on political related topics, Roys did not block or mute me.
It does look to me as though JMac (John MacArthur) and his church have grossly mishandled or covered up abuse in the church going back decades, which is wrong – his Fan Boys need to recognize that, own up to it, and stop defending JMac on these points and stop harassing Julie Roys, or whomever else, for merely reporting on these things.
At any rate, Julie Roys has a site where she sometimes publishes articles about church- or Christian- related topics. Some of them involve coverage of church sex abuse scandals and so forth, and I’ve followed her Twitter account for months to keep up with church related news stories.
Beyond that, I am not familiar with Roys, I’ve never met her in real life or spoken to her by DM or by phone.(*)
The fact that Roys reports on church scandals gets some Christians very upset and angry with her, and they harass her online.
It looks like Roys wrote a book, with another woman named Kay Arthur, entitled “Redeeming the Feminine Soul: God’s Surprising Vision for Womanhood,” and it was published in 2017.
Digging Up Dirt
People who are upset with Roys for exposing JMac’s disgusting sexism and incompetence at dealing with abusers at his church caused these wacked-out, enraged, JMac Fan Boys (and maybe some James MacDonald fan boys) to dig up any perceived dirt on Roys that they could to try to demonize or discount her so the public will disregard anything she publishes about MacArthur.
(The JMac Fans are too dumb to realize pointing out any flaws with Roys still doesn’t invalidate her reports of JMac – her reporting on JMac can remain true even if one can discover something supposedly unsavory about her or her past behavior).
So the JMac Fan Club came across this “Redeeming the Feminine Soul” book Roys wrote years ago, and they began sharing excerpts of it on Twitter about a month ago.
At the time, I read excepts from that Roys book that some of these Fan Boys had scanned and posted to Twitter.
How creepy is it, by the way, that these church boys are such ass-kissers of a pastor that they felt the urge to go combing through anything Julie Roys has ever said, published, or done, all so they could find something – anything – to pounce on her with – and the abuse survivor community ate it up, too. Also weird and disturbing.
(This is also what the woke left usually does, goes digging around for ten or twenty year old tweets or articles to use to harass someone today.)
So desperate are the fan boys of some of the churches or pastors that the Roys site has published exposes on, one of them seems to have fabricated some more accusations against Roys, posted it to You Tube, where it was then picked up and shared by Roys haters and over-zealous “abuse survivor advocates” (but then, I repeat myself) on Twitter.
Roys later released a rebuttal to the video, which you can read here:
(Link): Opinion: Former Harvest Volunteer Publishes Falsehoods; People Quick to Retweet
From that page:
(and this is the first time I’ve read past the first fourth of the page when I first glanced it over weeks ago, so… wow – Amy Smith’s, Ashley Easter’s, and their ‘abuse victim advocates’ pals’ obsession with, and vendetta against, Roys is worse than I first realized – I have more to say about this below):
Survivor advocates spread unsubstantiated rumors
(by Julie Roys – excerpts)
… But what’s most disheartening about Engleman’s video isn’t the video itself. Engleman has been producing angry, misleading videos for some time. Most people familiar with what happened at Harvest know to disregard them.
What’s disheartening is how a new audience is eagerly spreading Engleman’s rumors without verifying what he says. And people you’d expect to be wary of deceptive troll accounts are instead retweeting them.
For example, Amy Smith, an abuse survivor advocate, on Wednesday retweeted a tweet from an account titled “NOT Julie Roys.” The retweet advertised a “bombshell torching of Julie Roys” and linked to Engleman’s video.
[Roys includes screen shots on the page]
This is the same troll account that attacked me relentlessly for reporting child abuse coverup by John MacArthur and Grace Community Church.
[More embedded tweets on the page by Roys haters]
The account also has labeled the survivor community “#VictimhoodCulture” and attacked Lori Anne Thompson with names I won’t repeat. This seems a strange bedfellow for an abuse survivor advocate.
Yet Smith has also been retweeting Protestia and David Morrill tweets, which is bizarre given those accounts’ track record for misogyny, sensationalism, and half-truths.
Morrill has similarly ridiculed the survivor community with the “VictimhoodCulture” hashtag, and does disgusting things like mock a racial trauma counselor for his lisp.
Smith’s embrace of these fringe and hateful voices is concerning.
Smith also published a blog Friday with Engleman’s video and leading questions.
Similarly, Ashley Easter, another victim advocate, retweeted Engleman’s allegations Wednesday night.
In response to Easter’s tweet, I tweeted information showing that Engleman’s allegations had been debunked by Rob Williams and Ryan Mahoney. I also offered to provide Easter with Williams’ email so she could talk to him herself.
Easter never asked for Williams’ email, but instead defended her right to “post opinions I think are interesting.”
— end excerpts from Roy’s page —
Some of the scanned material from Roy’s book that JMac fans posted involved Roys’ discussion of how, when she was in her early 30s and was a youth ministry leader at her church, she attempted to help a 17 or 18 year old troubled teen in her church class whom she calls “Sarah” in the book.
(I assume that “Sarah” is a fabricated name. Roys does not list a last name in the excerpts I saw. In other words, and I could be mistaken – but it looks like Roys kept “Sarah” anonymous,
so why some of Roys critics online said it was wrong for Roys to divulge some of Sarah’s personal details in this book was strange to me.
Nobody outside of Roys and Sarah herself, (if Sarah even reads the book), and possibly Sarah’s mother, will ever know who “Sarah” really is, so what huge difference does it make if Roys shared some personal details about Sarah in this book?
I personally have no idea who Sarah is, as the author did not give out Sarah’s last name, and I don’t think “Sarah” is even her true first name but is a pseudonym.)
So, this all begins with outraged Fan Boys of preacher JMac (John MacArthur) bringing this book up to attack Roys over, to attack Roys with, since they are angry with her for exposing JMac for the (Link): sexist, (Link): abuser-coddling hack he is.
And soon enough, if my understanding of events is correct and in proper chronological order, the usual “abuse survivor advocates” I have seen on Twitter for years (among these, I would include Ashley Easter and Amy Smith of the “Watchkeep” blog) – and others – jumped in to the fray to essentially start hinting or depicting Roys as a groomer who (sexually, or spiritually) intentionally, maliciously, preys on 17 year old teen girls.
I think that is a very, very uncharitable and inaccurate way of filtering the whole thing.
Let me pause here to say that while I have generally supported and agreed with a lot of the work the abuse survivor advocates have done in years past, I at times, on occasion, do disagree with them on some topics.
Furthermore, I think they sometimes have over-reacted and have gone over-board – in regards to things and persons such as, but not limited to, Anna Duggar (married to pedophile Josh), ex-Christian Joshua Harris, and others – in how they react to or treat people they suspect of protecting or enabling abusers.
I’ve never been comfortable with their behavior in those areas, at times, and I think in regards to Julie Roys, they’re doing the same thing to Roys.
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