I got this from the article referred to above. I stick it here to get reactions. This article is saying that perhaps MKs are just a bit off psychologically, not really 'abused'. (Not referring to blatant sexual abuse, but rather the abandonment, rejection, and such.) Supposedly it is largley a family lifestyle, "so deal with it, your famiy chose it". I thought the GRACE people acknowledged that abandonment, rejection, and religious shame were considered abuse by definition. Here's a bit from the article: Some allegations of abuse in missionary boarding schools conflate actual abuse with typical MK psychological issues or confuse the two. Most MKs have feelings of disorientation, dislocation, abandonment, and rejection, whether or not they attended a boarding school.52 The MK experience is also complicated by strong elements of spiritual shame and coercion that were often present in the evangelical subculture during the relevant periods. These experiences, though painful, were often not abusive, but an outcome of a particular choice of lifestyle and occupation by the parents. For a missionary child to face a boardingschool separation is no more abusive than for military children to have their fathers sent to Iraq for a year. However, some claimants and some investigators are confused about this.53 Any team that investigates alleged abuse in missions agencies, especially historic abuse, should have an in-depth and realistic understanding of MK and TCK issues and the historic subculture.
|