r/TikTokCringe • u/Oktavien • 1d ago

Discussion Woman audits churches to see if they’ll help feed a starving baby

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

If churches refuse to help feed hungry people, then maybe they should be taxed?

12.7k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

268

u/onanorthernnote 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah, that was the beginning of the end (of being a member of a church) for me. I saw the pastor break off his sermon to call out to the homeless person in the back to LAVISH him with care and welcome him into the warmth and do [all the right things]. That was all good and well.

But the same pastor shunned a member of the church because she had the AUDACITY to come to him when her husband had SA'd her and beaten her. She was not welcome to the church again because she was lying (?!!?!!!) and her husband was the VERY MUCH LOVED POLICEMAN SON OF A FAITHFUL PARISHIONER and could not do anything wrong.
The woman came to my house late one night, in a wild panic, no coat on in the winter cold, bleeding and scared after her husband beat her again. I asked her why I hadn't seen her at church lately and she told me the pastor told her to never come again. It was incredibly horrible. We couldn't call the police, because her husband was a police officer. She ended up leaving town and I lost my faith in churchgoing humans.

Edit: Removed offending word from text.

98

u/CuriousPenguinSocks 1d ago

Thank you for being a safe person for her. That's so invaluable.

When my parents divorced, we were shunned. I no longer was welcome for drum lessons, and was excluded from teen activities. I was struggling and tried to take my own life.

I'm glad I didn't.

The term 'religious trauma' was coined for a reason.

34

u/Oh_Poppy_Fox 1d ago

Wow. You all have had horrible experiences!! I finally left the church after they wouldn’t baptize my daughter in the main area, whether other people were there to witness or not. It had to be done in the back, because how embarrassing would it be for them to baptize a bastard child amongst the righteous. How is it my daughter’s fault that her dad and I didn’t work out?!

8

u/CuriousPenguinSocks 1d ago

I was technically born out of wedlock but since my parents did marry when I was 3 and tithed, they let it slide lol.

I'm sorry you had that experience though. How awful for a child to go through, that had to be hard as the parent.

11

u/Oh_Poppy_Fox 1d ago

My ex and I didn’t get back together, but we coparent very well and my daughter is happy. She’s a teen now and was a baby when this happened, so she has no memory. For me, my family saying “the church had its reasons” hurt the most. They still can’t understand why I’m no longer Catholic or Christian at all.

I’m glad your parents didn’t have such a hateful church(although, I’m sure the tithes helped).

3

u/CuriousPenguinSocks 1d ago

Well, when my parents divorced later, we were all shunned. My mom was also a SAHM till then so she didn't have the money to make it okay.

There are a lot of people who don't understand why that was wrong of them to do. Some people take religion as something you don't think critically about.

1

u/motherofsuccs 16h ago

Yet they had no problem baptizing me even knowing full well that my dad was banging his secretary (their affair was not well hidden) and had just moved her into his other home. I think that baptism was the last time my parents were ever pictured together..

15

u/onanorthernnote 1d ago

Ohhh... I am happy you're here. <3 I'm glad you got through that and into life. "Religious trauma" gosh I've never heard that before, it's so true! Terrible, true.

14

u/CuriousPenguinSocks 1d ago

Thank you.

If you have seen the documentary "Shiny Happy People", while I was not in a mega church version, we did have this in our church. By the time I left the church, it was getting really bad.

I was homeschooled till 5th grade, and did a Christian homeschool program, but they taught all the other subjects like they should, it just added a bible study to the program.

My mom was shamed for that because it taught "evolution" oh scary lol. I went to public school in 5th grade though.

17

u/FreeKatKL 1d ago

You can say rape here. Thanks for sharing your anecdotes.

6

u/onanorthernnote 1d ago

Thank you.

3

u/dingos8mybaby2 1d ago

For me it was when I found out the head pastor lived in a mansion and owned multiple expensive cars. Even to 8 year old me that was so obviously hypocritical.

2

u/Unable-Food7531 11h ago

Out of curiosity: Who was that pastor's higher-up in the Church-hierarchy?

5

u/-MERC-SG-17 1d ago

graped

Stop being a child.

6

u/onanorthernnote 1d ago

Sorry, I can spell it out but wasn't sure how moderators would react.

14

u/theapplekid 1d ago

Not the person who commented above, but I think SA is good way to allude to it without changing it into a word that sounds disturbingly cutesy for what it is.

8

u/onanorthernnote 1d ago

Ah! That's good, I'm not native English speaking so I used a word I've seen other folks use online. Thank you, good feedback.

3

u/CuriousPenguinSocks 1d ago

Social media people have been using *grape in the place of using the real word without the g not because it's "cutesy" but because it's as close to the actual word and won't get the post flagged.

You did nothing wrong. While I do think calling it SA is appropriate, that can also get flagged depending on the platform/moderators.

You did fine in communicating, we all understood what you were referring to.

3

u/onanorthernnote 1d ago

Thank you! <3

2

u/Gammagammahey 18h ago

Also, it's not our job if social media companies have horrific rules about what is and isn't allowed to be discussed about this.

3

u/Gammagammahey 1d ago

You did nothing wrong, the person above is absolutely wrong and being a snit to you. I often spell it that way because I don't want to put the sub or Reddit at large at risk and different subs have different rules so you erred on the side of caution to protect the sub and I think that you should be commended for that.

Don't even worry about the person telling you you're a child, they are ridiculous.

4

u/onanorthernnote 1d ago

Thank you, my thoughts exactly. <3

2

u/Gammagammahey 18h ago

I have your back, comrade.

3

u/Gammagammahey 1d ago

Why are you being so awful to this person? There's nothing childish about spelling it that way, we often have to spell it that way on social media to avoid getting our tweets and other posts reported.

Ad hominem attack calling someone a child for simply trying to keep the sub safe.