masturbation

“Taliban Dan’s” Teacher: Inside Bill Gothard’s Authoritarian Subculture

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76-year-old never-married evangelist Bill Gothard teaches a form of wifely submission that another evangelical theologian has referred to as “the basest form of male chauvinism I have ever heard in a Christian context.” Sarah Posner had the chance to speak at length with the controversial religious leader, as well as with critics and former adherents. The picture that emerges shows the risk, and the devastation, of the abuse of spiritual authority.

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Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church: When Adults are Victims

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As Catholic sex abuse scandals once again dominate headlines from Boston to Belgium, and even the fast-track canonization of Pope John Paul II is marred by questions of culpability, the role of the Catholic hierarchy in enabling clergy abuse seems indisputable, admitted even by die-hard church partisans like the Catholic League. But what’s less understood is how these same patterns persist in today’s Church, where demographic shifts and a dwindling priesthood may be creating a new set of scenarios for abuse. The story of Katia Birge is a case in point.

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