Jimmy Hinton turned my head to another way of thinking with his perspective. He wrote about how his father chose victims in the book, The Devil Inside. I thought the grooming activities were the red flags of a pedophile’s technique, but abuse could have already begun by the time those become evident. The church body can be trained to look for the abuser’s selection techniques. The more godly eyes alert and protecting the children, the better. The time to intervene is as the perpetrator searches out prey.
From the book:
“In essence, instead of ‘looking for’ abusers by identifying grooming behaviors, I wanted to start ‘looking for’ us. Because that’s exactly what abusers do. They’re not interested in looking for other pedophiles. They’re looking for us! Their lives are spent identifying victims to abuse, but they also need to find a community who will remain blind to the abuse. They are incredibly skilled and selective hunters. They instinctively know who to draw in closer and who to keep at arm’s length. My dad recently told me that he could walk into any room, and within thirty seconds, he could identify the children he could potentially abuse and, at the same time, identify the most vulnerable adults who he could manipulate into keeping blind to the abuse. Thirty seconds!” (Taylor, Joy S., A View from the Pews – The Inside Story of a Broken Church, 2022, Lily of the Valley Publishing, Santa Claus IN, p. 136.)
#aviewfromthepews #forthevictims
A View from the Pews is available on Amazon in print and ebook format, along with being available to read through the Kindle Unlimited program. Choose your preferred method and read the rest of the story. This project is for the victims. The first payment to Safe Connections has gone out. Every book sold and every page read helps support this worthy organization. Please join me in the cause for victims of abuse.