architects of abuse

Neighbor,

We've been taking a slow walk through Genesis 3 together —
seeing the serpent's predatory tactics, witnessing the man's calculated deception attempts,
and watching God model trauma-informed care.

But somewhere along the way, the church lost that plot.

Instead of following God's example of believing victims and confronting predators,
certain men rewrote the story entirely—
and anchored our theology on their interpretation of Genesis 2-3:

Augustine of Hippo: "It is only when taken with her husband that she is the image of God... but when she is assigned the role that is hers alone, she is not the image of God."

Thomas Aquinas: "Woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from a defect in the active force."

Martin Luther: "If they [women] become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let them die in childbirth—that is why they are there."

John Calvin: "Woman was created to be a kind of appendage to the man... The order of nature implies that the woman should be the helper of the man."

Jerome: "Woman is the gate of the devil, the path of wickedness, the sting of the serpent, in a word a perilous object."

Tertullian: "You are the devil's gateway: you are the unsealer of that forbidden tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack."

Notice the pattern?

The man—the actual betrayer—
gets a theological makeover while the woman becomes the villain in her own victimization.

A cover-up for the cover-upper.

These men couldn't see God's image in women, nor see past their own patriarchal bias,
yet their interpretations of Genesis have become the foundation
of many modern applications and denominations of Christianity.

Their misogyny didn't just shape their personal beliefs—
it infected the biblical narrative and became the theological infrastructure that
protects predators and silences victims to this day, shaping the doctrine and practice of large swaths of the church.

With the blind leading the blind, contempt for women got canonized.

And their legacy?
It's the reason courageous investigative journalists like Julie Roys
spend their days exposing church scandal after church scandal,
and why organizations like GRACE exist to investigate what churches would prefer to cover up.
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The rot isn't random.
It's theological-
rooted in a deceptive and distorted narrative.

But Thursday night, we'll see what else Genesis has to teach us about
maintaining leadership integrity under pressure—
and it's got zero to do with the leader's anatomy.

The real story is far more liberating, inspirational and disruptive than we've been told.

Hit reply if you want the workshop details.

Standing in solidarity,
Camille
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