by Kelly Pelton (written 17 Nov 2021)

If you can get Christians to doubt or dismiss their feelings,
they'll buy in to inhumane scriptural interpretations,
for you have primed them to trust you and not themselves; 
to question you subjects them to multiple degradations.

COUNTERING means you argue against their perceptions,
GASLIGHTING means you assert a different reality,
DISCOUNTING implies their feelings are out of proportion,
JUDGING - you question their motives and morality.

Verbal abuse disguised as JOKES diminishes,
TRIVIALIZING deems them insignificant,
UNDERMINING lessens their power insidiously
while your dedication to God's word seems magnificent.

(To learn these tactics of church-wide emotional abuse
and many more, look to the complementarians,
their leaders subordinationist, who are DENYING
in order to rule those who could become egalitarians.)

Do this all in the name of God and His holy word,
and if they frown and say, "this doesn't seem quite fair,"
remind them, "the heart is deceitful," "His ways are higher,"
to soothe their uneasy consciences lest they all dare

to investigate for themselves the sound biblical scholarship
despite your NAME-CALLING them "man-centered" or "feelings-based,"
ACCUSING them of drifting liberal in order that
their sincere misgivings and objections may be erased.

The facts about feelings are: They can be manipulated 
by cleverly deceptive people; you might be one of those,
persuading Christians to distrust their feelings and follow you,
as a warrior for God's harsh truth you convincingly pose.

With gratitude to Patricia Evans and her ever-relevant book The Verbally Abusive Relationship.