95: Does God Really Want To Break You? Guest: Rebecca Davis

Amy Fritz:

Have you ever found yourself singing lyrics or reading a Christian living book that promoted the idea of God's desire to break you and thought, wait, what kind of God wants to break people? Or maybe you've never given it a second thought. That's what my guest and I talk about on today's episode and I can't wait for you to listen. I'm Amy Fritz and you're listening to the Untangled Faith Podcast, a podcast for anyone who has found themselves confused or disillusioned in their faith journey. If you want to hold on to your faith while untangling it from all that is not good or true, this is the place for you. Rebecca Davis joins me for the second time on the Untangled Faith Podcast and I'm so eager to share this conversation that we had. Rebecca has a new book that just released in her series on untwisting scripture and this one is about suffering. Here's my conversation with Rebecca.

Amy Fritz:

You have been on the podcast before, but for people that don't know you, I would love for you to tell people you have written several books. You have a series of books about untwisting scripture and there must be an origin story. I just feel like there is always a reason people end up in the world that they are in. What is it that made you decide? People are using scripture in a way I'm not sure about and I want to kind of look into it a little bit more maybe.

Rebecca Davis:

Oh absolutely. There's an origin story there first, before I forget, because I forgot on the last interview I did. You can go to rebeccadavisinfo.com to see everything I do because I have several things going on besides the ministry, which is primarily found in the books and the blog. I also do trauma informed book coaching for people who want to write non fiction books. And that website, Rebecca DavisInfo.com just brings it all together and shows everybody everything in one place. So the backstory of the Untwisting Scriptures series, book number five coming out on September 11th and the first one was written in 2016. So the backstory was there was a sexual abuse investigation going on at Bob Jones University, which was my alma mater and also where I live. I live in Greenville, South Carolina where that's located some of the survivors.

Rebecca Davis:

The investigation, to be clear, wasn't about abuse itself, although that had allegedly taken place, but it was about the way the counseling was done for abuse survivors. And several abuse survivors were speaking to me and I was being properly horrified by the counsel they had been given. And I hadn't experienced any of this counsel because I hadn't been in a place where they had to do counseling with me. I just went through school and did the school thing, and I never went for counseling. So they were telling me things like, I was told I had to give up all my rights. I was told, if I speak, I'm just bitter. And many, many other things. But those were the two I landed on.

Rebecca Davis:

Giving up your rights, bitterness, and then a third one. You're not supposed to take up offenses for others. I traced these teachings back to their origin because you have to understand, when I got into this, I was writing missionary books and I was writing true missionary stories from various locations around the world. I'd pick a location and research a lot of stories about that location. And I was trying to research how the gospel came to that area, the history of it. Like, here's a story. And it was. They were, like, written on the middle school level, but I wanted adults to enjoy them, too.

Rebecca Davis:

And so I was writing stories like the very first missionaries who came and then other stories of the spreading of the gospel throughout history. So I was used to research. And when I heard twisted scripture, which I knew this was, I thought, I want to find out where it came from, who was first teaching this. And so I did my best. I may not have gotten all the way back to the beginning, but I found some early influential teachers. And for that one, it was Bill Gothard, primarily, who was just recently beginning to be exposed on the Recovering Grace website. So this was around 2013. Recovering Grace, I think, started in 2011.

Rebecca Davis:

And so I looked on that website, I looked on other websites. These are Bill Gothard teachings. Surely somebody has gone through the Bible and shown how they're wrong. Surely somebody has done this leg work. And I don't need to do it. I can just link people to that. And I looked and looked, and I could not find it anywhere. And I finally thought, I guess I'm gonna have to do this myself.

Rebecca Davis:

Wow. So I did the research on the word bitterness and all its associated words, which would include poison and gall and wormwood. And there were just a lot of words that were all associated with the same concept all through the entire Bible. And I knew the heart of God was not to shut up abuse survivors. I did know that much. But otherwise. Otherwise, I didn't really know where my study was going to go. And when it finally came together, when I began to see the true picture of it, I thought, wow, this is amazing.

Rebecca Davis:

And I don't think anybody else has talked about this. So here we go. I just jump in with both feet and start talking about it. One of the key things is Hebrews 12:15. See to it then that no root of bitterness spring up in you causing trouble, and by it, many will be defiled. And I found out that that was linked to a verse in Deuteronomy, and that just exposed a tremendous amount of clarity on it. So anyway, that's the first book, but that's not the book I just wrote. That's the first one.

Rebecca Davis:

And that just led to a lot of others, because I began to see more and more the things that had bothered me, that had niggled at me in teachings. I began to see a pattern. I began to see the pattern of control. You're not allowed to question authority, that you are you the one who's coming to speak about a problem. You are the one with the problem. You are the one who has the sin. I mean, it was just a pattern I saw over and over and over in all of these twisted teachings. And it's like I thought, all right, all spiritual abuse, which is what this is all about.

Rebecca Davis:

It all boils down to just a few things. All of these scriptures are twisted to accomplish those things.

Amy Fritz:

What I appreciate about your origin story, and as you have continued on, is that something didn't seem right to you. And what you did is you went to Scripture to see, what does it say? I mean, here's what men are teaching and saying. The Bible says, and then you went and did the work yourself. And also to look back and say, where did they get that from? Like, where did this teaching first come from? And it. Was it from the pastor in the church I'm sitting under? Who are they quoting? And who are those people quoting?

Rebecca Davis:

It's detective work involved. Of course. Now I had the Internet. I. That's a funny thing to hear, I'm sure, for a lot of people. But I'm in my 60s, so I do very clearly remember the days when I didn't have the Internet. And research was a lot more difficult. Research was easy.

Amy Fritz:

So you did share a little bit about your approach. Your approach is to say, oh, why do I feel uncomfortable with this? And I'm gonna look, I'm gonna dig into it.

Rebecca Davis:

I don't even necessarily need to ask the question, why do I feel uncomfortable? Because initially, when I first heard, you don't have any rights. And this woman told me she was being told this as a child when she was being abused. So it's horrific. Stuff and all these things. I felt terrible for the people, but I also felt terrible for the name of God. I felt this righteous indignation that people were misrepresenting God that is not who God is. And they are misrepresenting him as an abusive God. Basically, that's God the abuser, so that they can abuse with justification, because God's the original abuser.

Rebecca Davis:

And it made me so angry that they were misrepresenting God like that. That was really one of my primary motivations to do this work. I wanted God to be represented accurately.

Amy Fritz:

Yeah, I understand that there's something in us. I think that we're like. I expect people that don't act in the name of Jesus to do whatever they're going to do. But when you slap a Christian name on it, you put Jesus name on something and you say, this is thus saith the Lord, or this is a Christian teaching or Christian principle. It better be.

Rebecca Davis:

When they do that and present God that way, that is the epitome of spiritual abuse. That's what it is.

Amy Fritz:

Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like that's taking God's name in vain. Right. It's like misrepresenting. Like, as much as we get upset about people just saying the word God or Jesus flippantly, man, when we say that he is for something he isn't, that's a whole other level of taking his name in vain.

Rebecca Davis:

Absolutely.

Amy Fritz:

So this book that you recently wrote is about suffering and brokenness. It is not light and fluffy. This is not a topic.

Rebecca Davis:

I don't think any of my books are light and fluffy.

Amy Fritz:

No, I would say none of them are. Like, if you want to get past the small talk, sit next to Rebecca.

Rebecca Davis:

I have never. Amy, I have never done well with small talk.

Amy Fritz:

Let's get right into it. You know, we're going to have the hard conversations and. Which I think these people are really hungry for. We. We just want to talk about the thing that we're like, I don't understand it. I don't get it. And people have said really stupid things in the name of Jesus to people that have been already crushed, are already hurting. And it's another burden.

Amy Fritz:

And we don't want to be those people. We don't want to do that. I mean, the timing of this is. I mean, I was saying before we started recording that August has been, like, crazy. Like, we launched our oldest to college, which is its own thing. It's bittersweet. I haven't been feeling great. And then a really close friend of mine and friend of the show.

Amy Fritz:

Just very tragic loss in their life. And for some reason, God had me share an episode last week set up ahead of time about grief. I would not have planned it that way, but for some reason you ended up in my inbox at the right time, Rebecca. And there are people that are walking through really deep pain or know and love somebody that has and they have seen scripture weaponized. I don't want to be those people.

Rebecca Davis:

Absolutely. Yes, I have.

Amy Fritz:

You. I don't know if you've read any of Kate Bowler's book, books that she's talked about. She has a book, I think Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've loved.

Rebecca Davis:

Oh yes, yes. I've seen the title. I like the title.

Amy Fritz:

It's very easy to give a pat answer that we don't think through and it actually isn't necessarily true when we think through it. So as you have looked at scripture and you have untwisted some of the things, what have you learned about some of the false things people are saying about brokenness and suffering to people?

Rebecca Davis:

On a recent zoom I did with a group of with my book launch team, actually is who it was, somebody asked, why do you think these teachings are so common? That's a really good question. I said, well, I think some people are actually evil. But then there's this whole big group of people who are just either busy or they don't feel competent to search the scriptures for themselves. Like pastors who have to get a sermon together every single week and they don't take the time to search out what it means. They go to the people who have already written about it, the people that they respect, and pull those thoughts together. So I don't think it takes very many to propagate a false teaching. As long as those people are in positions of respect and authority and people look to them as respected teachers, that those teachings then get disseminated down through the ranks and propagated and people don't even think twice about it. Like, for example, the brokenness teaching.

Rebecca Davis:

I would imagine a number of your listeners would say, well, yes, I know that we're all broken, or we're all supposed to be broken, or we're all supposed to ask God to break us or we're supposed to be breaking ourselves. You know, something along those lines.

Amy Fritz:

We have sung songs with the lyrics about breaking.

Rebecca Davis:

Well, there are a whole bunch of them.

Amy Fritz:

Yes, yes, we have.

Rebecca Davis:

I have two chapters, two long chapters on the brokenness teaching. And the first one is should we ask God to break us. And the second one is should we break ourselves? And I go back to teachers who teach both of those things. The second chapter is primarily Nancy Lee Demos, who's now Nancy Lee Demos Wolggemuth. And she's been a big name, big voice in the evangelical world for women, women's conferences, women's books. She wrote the book Lies Women Believe, which just sold millions of copies, and it has some of these things in it. I addressed several of her teachings in my first book, my first untwisting scriptures book, because she talks about giving up your rights and she talks about not being bitter. But she also teaches a lot about brokenness.

Rebecca Davis:

So I went through. I took one of her lectures on brokenness. She did it in 1995 and again in 2016 to make sure that I could hear that she still believes exactly the same thing. And she's also written a book about it, about how we need to be breaking ourselves or we need to live a lifestyle of brokenness. And I refute that. And I go back to the scriptures to refute it. And I walk through her talk one step at a time. Because if you don't have your analyzing brain turned on, lots of people don't.

Rebecca Davis:

They. It isn't turned on because they've been traumatized. They don't know how to think things through. They're only just trying to figure out if they're safe. So it's very hard for many people to sort through these teachings. And so I want to help with that. And I also want to help people learn. Hey, you can do this yourself.

Rebecca Davis:

If not right now, then eventually you can figure, eventually I'll be able to do this. I'll be able to listen, turn my brain on, not that it's turned off, but to be able to analyze, to be able to think about what the person said instead of just receiving it, instead of just saying, well, Nancy Lena Moss Wogamath said it, so it must be true. To put that aside, I want people to do the same thing with me, to say, is this what the scripture teaches? So I walk through all of that with her. The songs, the other teachings. I have quotes from other people in there, too. But I also get to quote Diane Langberg in the book several times. She wrote suffering in the heart of God. K.J.

Rebecca Davis:

ramsey, who wrote this too, shall last finding grace when suffering lingers. So I don't just quote the bad teachings. I also quote some good teachings in there, too.

Amy Fritz:

I've been so grateful to hear from Dr. Lainberg and from KJ solid messages that they share out of personal suffering and sitting with people who have suffered for many, many hours, many, many years. And Dr. Langworth, I think of, like, how she talks about how the people that she sat with have been her greatest teachers. And that, like, PTSD wasn't even a term anyone knew of when she started her practice or when she first started hearing stories from women saying, I've been harmed, I've been abused. And how she went to her supervisor and her supervisor is like, well, maybe they're making it up. She had a decision to make, like, and she decided to believe the women.

Rebecca Davis:

Yeah.

Amy Fritz:

And what a turn that brought her down a path that we have all benefited from. Another something to point out there. These aren't people that have, like, burned their Bibles and said, well, I don't even believe anything. Like, these are people that have high esteem for Jesus and for what the scripture actually says. And so I have so much gratitude for them and for people like you that say, I've looked at it, y'all. The message is bigger than this or it's different. Like, we've missed something important. You mentioned your book.

Amy Fritz:

You have spent a lot of time listening to people that have been harmed. Can you tell me why it is particularly troublesome to you, the message that people are hearing? Like that a young or oldish woman who has been abused, imagine her sitting in a church service and hearing this message of why you should be broken and God is going to break you and why this is good. Why is that troublesome to you?

Rebecca Davis:

Well, I mentioned a minute ago that this kind of teaching presents God as the ultimate abuser. And when an abuse victim, someone who is currently at the time being abused, listens to these things in church, because so many abusive husbands or parents are churchgoers and bring their victims to church, the teaching they hear from the pulpit reinforces the abuse they're experiencing. So often, I'm not saying 100% of the time, but so often it does. And it teaches them, you need to stay under this abuse instead of, you need to get out and get safe. And let's help. We want to help the people who are being abused instead of telling them to stay in it. So we want to present God as the Savior that he is. He's a savior from our sin.

Rebecca Davis:

Yes, and they certainly do harp on the sin thing, but he's also the Savior from shame. He is a rescuer in the spiritual and emotional sense. And in this physical world. He wants his body of believers, Christians, helping each other and not just like if there's suffering going on, not just patting people on the back and say, well, you can learn a lot through suffering. Or God is refining you through suffering and then walking away. The chapter about God being glorified through suffering, one of the main points I make is that he is glorified when his goodness is manifest and his goodness is manifest.

Amy Fritz:

I love that you point that out. Because his goodness isn't shining because he's crushing someone.

Rebecca Davis:

Yes.

Amy Fritz:

And there's a, there's a big difference. And I, I kind of chuckle when I say it, but there's a world of difference between, well, this is just going to glorify God because I am destroyed. No, no, no. The glory of God is in showing his goodness.

Rebecca Davis:

Yes. And I think one thing that is very muddied in the Christian world so often is separating out this is who God is and this is who the wicked are. People don't really talk about the wicked. Or maybe we're all wicked, but the Bible doesn't teach that way. There are the wicked and there are the righteous, and the righteous are. It's none of our own doing. We're righteous through the saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ. But there are the wicked who have turned their backs on him and they are the ones who do wickedness.

Rebecca Davis:

God isn't the one who does it. And one of the chapters about brokenness, I make the point that the ones God breaks in the scriptures, it's very clear. It's not his faithful people, it's the hard hearted and the wicked. Those are the people he breaks. And I just have lists of scriptures to explain that.

Amy Fritz:

But Rebecca, that doesn't make a good song. Doesn't make as good of a worship song.

Rebecca Davis:

Maybe singing a song about God breaking the wicked. That sounds pretty good to me.

Amy Fritz:

Sounds like a psalm. It sounds like something I've actually read in the psalms.

Rebecca Davis:

Right, let's take some of those psalms, sing them. So I think I listed lines from six or eight songs at the very beginning of the book, like the first chapter of the book. And some of my readers were really taken aback by that. They said, wait a minute, these are good songs. And they're not trying to represent God as abusive. And I said, no, no, of course they're not trying to represent God as abusive. They just are saying things that sound abusive and an abuse victim or survivor sitting there listening to it. And it's things that aren't scriptural.

Rebecca Davis:

They're not taking lines from the Bible. They are making things up. And we as the church can listen to it and say that's misrepresenting God as doing something he's not going to do.

Amy Fritz:

And we should care if the words that we are saying and singing are actually true.

Rebecca Davis:

Right? Sure. Sure.

Amy Fritz:

It takes a little more work. Right? It takes a little bit more. Like, I want to just sing the song. I don't want to have to think about it.

Rebecca Davis:

Yes. And that is a problem. I have songs that where I can't sing or I can only sing part of the song. I have to stop singing at a certain point. I do try to keep my brain turned on, though.

Amy Fritz:

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Amy Fritz:

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Amy Fritz:

I wonder if, like me, Rebecca, like, you have a you have in your brain where you're like, oh, I know that I'm this person for somebody where I just sort of ruin everything for them.

Rebecca Davis:

That's why my husband and I can't go to small group.

Amy Fritz:

But I had a little bit of a traumatic moment in a small group my own self recently. I do want to ask you about this, though. I know that doing this sort of work can kind of put you at odds with some people and it can be difficult. Like, I imagine you have had pushback and how do you handle that with the sort of ministry you have to people and then also knowing that some of the work you do is going to make some people, some teachers, leaders, uncomfortable. Whether it's local people that you might run into at the grocery store or like, higher profile people. I'm asking you this because I reckon with this my own self. And so I'm curious about it for me too.

Rebecca Davis:

Well, I remember back when I wrote a blog post about Rachel Denhollander's church, and Rachel Denhollander was the gymnast who was the first to name Larry Nassar as the abuser of scores of teenage girls who were now women speaking out about him. And it was a huge, huge scandal for the Olympics and for Michigan State, I believe it was. And she was the first. She spoke up and she wrote a book about her story. So I read that she lost her church because of speaking up about abuse. So I did some research on her church and I wrote about her church. And, you know, I just have this little blog. So I didn't ever think her actual church would notice what I had written.

Rebecca Davis:

But they did. And one of the elders wrote to me about it and said I was slandering their pastor and I sent him the definition of slander. And I said, that's not what I'm doing. I'm analyzing his sermon. He said, well, you were judging his heart motives in this line and this line. And I said, okay, I'll change those lines because I don't want to assume motives. I just want to observe words and actions. And I changed those lines and that ended the conversation.

Rebecca Davis:

So that's an example of a time when I had to have an interaction of somebody getting upset with me about something I'd written. That happens occasionally. But more what happens is that people just withdraw from me. You know, I stop hearing from people. So that's. That's more common. I lose people, but I also gain people. So I think I gain really, really wonderful people.

Rebecca Davis:

I know so many amazing people. How about you? Do you know amazing people?

Amy Fritz:

I have met some wonderful people too, so I can relate. I can relate to that, of sharing something and getting pushback. Oh, for sure. Like the first time we shared our story, I got a cease and desist, right?

Rebecca Davis:

Oh, boy. Yes. Yes.

Amy Fritz:

But to actually think through, like what you said, people throw out the word slander and libel and don't really understand that if you're saying something that's true, even if it is negative, even if it doesn't reflect positively on somebody, if it's true and you have reason or you have reason to believe it's true, it is not slander.

Rebecca Davis:

So that's in Untwisting Scriptures, book three. The first half is about your words, and I address Every single accusation made against people who are speaking out about wrong that I could find. That's the first half. The second half is about your emotions. And I address all the ways you're told that you're sinning because you're afraid or angry or any of those other things. So I address slander in the first half of the book. I love addressing things as a response to some teaching that I find, and I'm pretty sure that one was Tim Chalice, or maybe that was where he said, don't bear false witness. That was it.

Rebecca Davis:

Tim Shalise, who's a. Is an evangelical blogger.

Amy Fritz:

Yeah. He's a pretty big blogger. Yeah.

Rebecca Davis:

And he said, don't bear false witness about the sovereign Grace C.J. mahaney scandal. And he just said false witness was anything that was negative, which isn't true.

Amy Fritz:

Did he ever circle back to that and say, never mind?

Rebecca Davis:

Not as. Not as far as I know. But. But. But I haven't kept up.

Amy Fritz:

When you have connections, friendships, relationships, influence and power that comes from certain relationships, it can be really hard to hear something negative that you don't want to. You don't want to believe. Right.

Rebecca Davis:

There's a lot to lose.

Amy Fritz:

Yeah. And so I. I have empathy for that. But I also. There's another part of my brain that's like, but I did it, lose it. Other people have done it.

Rebecca Davis:

That's right. Walk away, folks.

Amy Fritz:

I don't regret it. Do I want to hear hard things? No, I just. I don't. But at this point, my integrity requires me to be willing to hear it. I can't be like, well, I did my part. I have hit the line now where I don't have to hear anything else. Now that we've seen what we've seen, we can't go back for better or worse. Right.

Rebecca Davis:

That's right. And one of the things that you and I and others have all seen is how very, very prevalent this is. This isn't just like in your Dave Ramsey world, and it isn't just in my Bob Jones University world. It is so prevalent throughout the entire fundamentalist, evangelical, charismatic. It's through all of those worlds.

Amy Fritz:

Yeah. You said something interesting in your most recent book about how you talk about capacity. And when you are in a position like, you're in. And I get this, in this position that I'm in, is that you hear from people, they have stories to tell. And even if it isn't something that personally requires us to, like, make a decision about a relationship that we're having, like, it's Heavy. It can be really heavy. What have you learned about listening to hard stories? And how would you encourage other people who aren't sure they want to listen? They aren't sure if they can do it?

Rebecca Davis:

Well, that's a very good question, and it requires a several part answer. I think first of all, that you're referring to the last chapter, which is kind of a postscript. It's called Invitation. The Lord has a greater capacity waiting for you. And it tells my story of my very small capacity when people first started talking to me, and then my request from the Lord, my plea, my desperate plea from the Lord to increase my capacity because otherwise I was just going to be in a fetal position in bed for the rest of my life.

Amy Fritz:

I hear you. Yes.

Rebecca Davis:

But the Lord did start increasing my capacity and enlarging what I was able to receive, enlarging my ability to be able to just be with people without dissolving into a puddle of tears, without feeling like a desperate need to fix it, without the dissociation that comes with one story or maybe more than one. I just completely forgot them because they were too much for me, things like that, that I was able to receive them and hold them more and more as time passed. And so that's what I do when I meet with people now is I help them enlarge their capacity through prayer, ministry, through spending time with the Lord, things like that. And in this invitation, I invite people to ask the Lord for greater capacity to be with people in a similar way. I want to make it very clear that I'm not saying this is the only ministry there is in the world. I'm saying this is a possibility. Ask the Lord if that's what he might want you to do. And someone was asking me, what about people who.

Rebecca Davis:

They don't even have the capacity to hold their own stuff yet they're still working through their own stuff. Are you asking them to step into this with other people? And I said, actually, no. I see that as part of the whole journey, you have to have capacity for your own stuff first. And again, that's what I do when I meet with people, is help them have capacity for their stuff by spending time with the Lord. And then as they grow and heal, then they can begin to have more capacity for others.

Amy Fritz:

Yeah, I feel like if you do this sort of work and you go to a local church, people don't put a banner out that's like, hooray, Rebecca's here. Hooray, Amy is here. I mean, that's one of the downsides to this sort of thing is that in some of it I think I put on myself, but some of it I know I'm not putting on myself. You know, where people are like, are they here just looking for us to do something wrong? And I just want to say to the world, we're not here looking for you to do something wrong. We want nothing more than just to be able to come and be a person in community. That's all I want. I don't want to have to worry about anything. I would love to not ever have to worry about anything.

Amy Fritz:

I don't want to put words in.

Rebecca Davis:

Your mouth, but I also know that for many people who can't find a church or who are just completely triggered by church in general, I am thankful for the online groups they have. I know it's not a substitute for the in person. And so I love to facilitate in person things and encourage people to get to in person things if they can. But at least I'm thankful for the one on one coffee dates or the zoom groups or the Facebook groups or whatever, different ways to get together with other believers. Because that is so important. If for people who can't find a safe church in their area.

Amy Fritz:

And you know, I can't speak for you, but I much more want people to see Jesus for who he is, for real than I care about somebody being in. In a building where people are asking for money for a capital campaign. I mean, I don't care if you go there ever again. I want you to be with people that love Jesus and help point you to him and see the truth. But if that's not happening in a local building, churches are run a lot.

Rebecca Davis:

More like businesses these days than. Of course, not all, but many, many churches are run a lot more like business.

Amy Fritz:

We have that caveat.

Rebecca Davis:

Yeah.

Amy Fritz:

Yeah. As we wrap this up, Rebecca, I love talking to you, by the way. Can we just do this and just. I love. I like to pretend like I'm at a church potluck and we're just sitting down and I need to have my.

Rebecca Davis:

Casserole here in front of me.

Amy Fritz:

All right, so what would you bring?

Amy Fritz:

I need to know what you'd bring.

Rebecca Davis:

First of all, I always look through my freezer and see what I can put together. So I don't have a standard thing.

Amy Fritz:

I will probably swing by the deli, at the bakery, at the store. I don't care so much about making it. I just want to be there and sit next to the people with the interesting stories.

Rebecca Davis:

Well, we let's let's sit next to each other with interesting stories. Amy?

Amy Fritz:

Yes. I'm gonna save. I'm gonna save a seat for you next year or I'm gonna find you and sit next to you. But I would want you to, I would love for you to say, as we wrap up to that person that sits next to you, the church potluck that has heard scripture twisted, especially about, like, they have a victim mentality or they should be broken and like, suffering is good for you. What do you want to say to that person as we wrap up this conversation?

Rebecca Davis:

I will say something about that victim mentality because that does have two chapters in the book, in this most recent book that's coming out in September, that if I heard them say, well, I guess I must have a victim mentality because so and so said that I do, I would first want to hear her story. Because I wouldn't just say, oh, no, you don't. Because I don't know. I haven't heard the story yet, but I would want to hear her story. And as I talk about in the two chapters that address victim mentality, one chapter is all about John MacArthur's teaching about victim mentality. Three sermon series about it, and it's pretty bad. I would want to hear it. And I would want to say, now, what makes you think you have a victim mentality? Well, very often it's that they are still thinking about what happened to them.

Rebecca Davis:

And in those chapters, I say, here are some reasons a person may still be unable to move forward from what happened to them. One of them is the trauma is deeper and darker than they have understood. Another is they haven't had a compassionate witness to actually hear what they went through, to actually hear them and believe them and let them know it wasn't their fault. So I have several things in there. Those are some reasons people can't move beyond it. And that's not a victim mentality. That is just, yeah, it's appropriate. The healing process hasn't finished.

Rebecca Davis:

It's very appropriate. And then I say, well, the victim mentality, I believe it is an appropriate label for someone who is currently thinking that all the bad things that happen to him or her are someone else's fault. I lost my job, but it was the co worker's fault. I lost the other job, but it was the boss's fault. I lost this third job. And I do know people like that.

Amy Fritz:

Yeah, there's a difference between that and somebody that is feeling deeply wounded by something that terrible that's happened to them.

Rebecca Davis:

Yes, absolutely. It's. It's really very different. In fact, the true victim mentality is a posture that actual abusers take on. They take on the mantle of the victim, even if they don't use the word everything. Like if bloggers are speaking about them, they are the victim. It's not that they have done something wrong that they need to fix, that they need to make redress for they are just the victim of these hateful satanic bloggers who like to be tools of Satan to bring down men of God, that sort of thing.

Amy Fritz:

Yeah, yeah. And that is the message that is given to truth tellers, often to women truth tellers, that if you did not catch the sarcasm there. Yeah, yeah. You're not agents of Satan. Right. Although some people would say so I.

Rebecca Davis:

Should have given a sarcasm alert because I didn't change my tone of voice in order to say I am being sarcastic here. But yes, that was sarcasm.

Amy Fritz:

Yeah. But I just. I appreciate that because I think the person sitting next to you is then given permission to grieve the thing that is very much worthy of. Of being grieved.

Rebecca Davis:

Yes. I talk about grief a lot in the first Untwisting Scriptures book because bitterness in the Bible is shown to be grief. And I talk about it again in this Untwisting scriptures a book because. Because grief and suffering certainly go together. So. Yes, absolutely.

Amy Fritz:

Yes, they do for sure. You mentioned right at the outset that you have started. It sounds like you're sort of like a doula for people who are writing books. A trauma informed book coach. Is that what you said? What exactly are you doing with that? I would love to hear.

Rebecca Davis:

Oh, thank you, Trauma. I am a trauma informed book coach. I brought my two favorite things together. And that's weird to say that trauma is a favorite thing.

Amy Fritz:

Things that you have learned a lot about that you have some expertise in. Yeah.

Rebecca Davis:

I am privileged to be a compassionate witness for people who are healing from their trauma. And I have been in the book world for many, many years, written over 20 of my own books and I've helped many other people write their books. And I brought that all together in my new group coaching program, Book Crafters Academy. And I had the first cohort of Bookcrafters Academy this past summer. The next one will be in January and it will be bringing maximum of 10 people together who love the Lord and are called by God or feel that burden on their hearts to write a book, a nonfiction book to help others on their journey. And the women who came together for this past cohort were amazing. You know, one, one talking about trauma associated with adoption and going through that journey. Another was about getting to know God in a place of rest.

Rebecca Davis:

Another was writing for incest survivors. And just a number of different really excellent topics. Deep people who love the Lord and love others. I just, I loved bringing that group together and I look forward to doing it again. So I will say people can find all of that at my website, Rebecca DavisInfo.com that just brings all of my stuff together.

Amy Fritz:

Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it so much you reaching out to me and asking to talk again because I had, I had such great feedback from our last conversation. It was very well received. My, my people love you. They really appreciate you.

Rebecca Davis:

I appreciate you so much, Amy. Thank you and God bless you in your difficult work. That is such a holy work. Such a holy work.

Amy Fritz:

Thanks so much for taking the time to listen in as Rebecca shared some of the twisting of scripture that she observed around the idea of suffering. I've put a link to her website and her books in the Show Notes. The Show Notes can be found in your favorite podcast app or by going to untangledfaithpodcast.com episodes and clicking on this episode. As always, my hope is that you listen to these episodes and that this starts conversations you have with your friends in real life. It would also mean the world to me if you would pass this episode along to a friend who you think would appreciate this episode. If you're on social media, I would love to keep this conversation going over on Twitter or Instagram. Instagram or through the Facebook page. I'm Untangled Faith on Instagram and Facebook and I'm Faith Untangled on Twitter.

Amy Fritz:

Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next week.