Baptistland : a memoir of abuse, betrayal, and transformation / Christa Brown ; foreword by Boz Tchividjian.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In Baptisland, leader in the clergy abuse survivor movement Christa Brown addresses how patterns of Southern patriarchy can lead to abuse, the family dysfunction that perpetuates it, the betrayals that happen to women, and how truth telling leads to a life filled with love, peace, and beauty.When Christa Brown first spoke out about the sexual abuse she endured in my childhood church, she never imagined where it would lead. But as the chorus of voices grew, pastors began to fall. And with the eventual exposure of hundreds of abusive clergymen came also the exposure of the ethical chasm at the core of the country's largest non-Catholic faith group: religious leaders so singularly focused on institutional protection that they sacrificed the safety of children. When the spotlight finally fixed on that bigger truth, people called it the Southern Baptist "apocalypse."In Baptistland , weaves together this story of religion gone wrong - and what it took to expose it - with the story of my upbringing in a deeply troubled family. It was a family inclined toward a "what happened didn't happen" dynamic, and that dynamic often erupted, transforming all of us into ashen residue as, again and again, we replayed our futile roles of trying to fend off the lava-flow. With determination to expose the truth about Baptistland, Brown not only encountered the hate of religious leaders set on silencing her, but also butted up against her own family dynamic. Truth-telling carried costs. So, she journeyed through the wreckage, not only of faith but also of family, stumbling toward hope even as she traversed traumatic memories and unspeakable darkness.Ultimately, Brown found a way into a life filled with love, peace, beauty, and goodness. It was truth-telling, to herself and to others, that guided her path to this ordinary paradise. Whether institutional or familial, destructive multi-generational patterns are not easily broken. And it is likely flat-out impossible without radical and relentless honesty. In Baptistland speaks to the transformative power of truth-telling - for ourselves, our relationships, our institutions.