Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈

I've been told I have that UwU voice. I'm a Cosplayer, artist, fangirl, future author, etc.
She/her/They/Them
NEXT CON : TBD

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

I'm more active on Instagram and post more of my cosplays there if anyone has an insta!

I also have a tiktok but I just shit post there 😂

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

@BrandSanderson Hello, yes. I just finished Hero of Ages and I would like to sue for emotional damages.

[Bob Hamp @bobhamp]

My name is Bob Hamp and I was on staff at Gateway Church from 2005 til 2014 and I want to talk about the importance of right conversations.
With that topic in mind, I first want to say to Cindy Clemishire how terribly sorry I am for all you have been through. First of all as a little girl at the hands of a man, and others that you trusted. I am sorry for the betrayal that you experienced. Secondly, I want to say how sorry I am that you have carried this all these years. Thank you for your courage to speak up.
You have done nothing wrong, and you have done nothing wrong by speaking up.

Then, with that topic further in mind I want to encourage us all to be wise to the pressure you will face to have a conversation that can actually make things worse.
I worked at Gateway Church for almost ten years. My role there was to develop and implement their Freedom Ministry. The events in the news were well before my time. I was not involved in any way in this situation and learned a number of new and heart-breaking things reading Cindy’s telling of the story.
At least half of my time there I was an executive pastor with a large team working to help those who struggled find real and lasting freedom
Even back in those days I taught about and worked with victims of spiritual abuse, and in the last seven years I have found myself working and teaching extensively in the abuse advocacy world.

The current swell regarding the news about Robert Morris is sadly an incredibly important pattern for ALL of us to open our eyes and look at. It is easy to pick one of the more obvious sides and either cast him aside or jump staunchly to his defense.

If we do that, we will miss the larger and more important conversations that MUST begin to take place in the church. Larger system dynamics are at play that both foster and protect ongoing predatory behavior.

When we miss the larger picture issues, we miss the opportunity to protect the church and put a stop to an epidemic of abuse. Depending on what happens over the next week or more, this story could be just like dozens of others, or something new and different could happen. Don’t ask lawyers for guidance, ask counselors and abuse advocates.
Willow Creek never learned how to handle their predatory pastors abusive behaviors and the campuses and congregations have paid a price ever since.

This is NOT simply a story of whether we “practice forgiveness” and move on or dig our heels in and call for Robert Morris’ metaphorical crucifixion. This is a story of how issues like this have become epidemic in the church, and why it continues to happen and what must be done to see and stop this blight.

This is a story with so many players and so many dynamics that we must really become wise to the schemes of abuse, or we may inadvertently feed the cycle.

The cycle is one that is a much bigger picture than just “moral failures” and the debate about “restoration” It is a cycle of out of control power dynamics, and manipulation. It is a cycle about belief systems in the church and the culture which set us up to support abusive people. It is a cycle about the language of manipulation and minimization, and the protection of institutions over people. And it is a cycle that is centuries old.

Even in the secular world it is well known that women don’t report rapes nearly as often as they happen, and that in our police departments we can consistently observe a trend to blame victims and protect perpetrators.

This dynamic is even worse in the church because the belief systems in the church and the propensity to protect powerful institutions and powerful people has infected the structures of the church, when this happens, the church is no longer the church.

So what do I mean we could engage in conversations that make things worse?

There are lower-level conversations that are tempting to engage, and they are a distraction from the conversations the church at large must begin to have in earnest. Some are angry at what they read, and some will be angry at the fact that such information is being shared. Some will be angry at Robert Morris, and others will want to jump to his defense.

The pull to these polarities and the emotions that both sides will feel and provoke, will keep us from addressing the real and more important issues. And the real and important issues are bigger than any single church. Sadly, they are global.

Bill Hybels, Ravi Zacharias, Mark Driscoll and an endless list of names including “The Catholic Church “and many other large religious systems are all symptoms of a great sickness in our culture that must be addressed, or this story will be repeated for decades to come.

The religious culture of today has some built in dynamics and beliefs systems that create a deep and rich soil for a growing culture of predation and abuse. And like all abuse the likelihood that the general public will misunderstand and as a result respond in support of the wrong things is high.

First let’s look at the church’s focus and belief system around its own system. Far too often the leaders in religious organizations are granted a special status, or worse, a status of being special. This affords them systems of separateness and protection that the average person may not realize. It is crucial to keep in mind that none of us have a higher status than another in the Kingdom and in the eyes of God.

The institution of the church creates hierarchical structures with the implication or direct indication that the higher leaders are special both spiritually and socially. This is incredibly dangerous to both sides of the divide.

Within these structures the church develops oversimplified understandings of complex problems. One area this is incredibly harmful is when church’s deal with “sin issues” without considering the possibility that some of these “sin issues” may actually be legal issues. When this happens laws are ignored, and more importantly the reasons for the laws are discounted and subjected to the supposed “higher power” of the church.

The churches power to forgive does not extend into legal arenas and it does not remove the right of the state to prosecute and the victim to seek legal means of justice.
Too often this leads to having the wrong conversation about “dealing with someone’s sin”.

Add together the dynamic of “special leaders” and handling legal issues as if they are church jurisdiction and you will see the protection of leaders from legal consequences and consequently the lack of protection of those without power in the institutional structure.

Now blend in the church’s confusion about psychological issues and sexuality.

While the church is trying to deal with the issue of “sexual sin” it has only one category for it. Two people did something they should not have done.

With no category for sexual abuse, sexual predation, compulsivity, power differentials, paraphilias, pedophilia, coercive control and a range of personality disorders, the church may try to deal with complex issues as if two people just misbehaved and need to be spanked.

And if they oversimplify the problem, they certainly oversimplify the solution.

You cannot effectively change that which you do not understand.

So, when someone initiates abusive behavior because of a personality disorder, and maintains a dynamic of coercive control over a victim, and the church labels this as “an inappropriate relationship, or worse a “moral failure” disaster follows not only in that specific situation, but in the culture of that church and the generations that follow.

The labels common in church culture (inappropriate relationship, and “moral failure”) both minimize what is really happening and deceive every other person about what has really happened. People hear these phrases as descriptive of mutual relationships and so respond as if the abuse was actually a mutual relationship. Two people are blamed for one person’s sickness.

This is how victims get blamed.
And this is how an entire culture can turn on someone whose only “crime” was to be the victim of predation.

The victim of a predator, or worse a predatory crime is not to blame for the behavior of their perpetrator and is therefore in no need of forgiveness. They are in need of being supported, embraced and being provided a path of healing.

Take these three dynamics; the special leader, the mishandling of sin, and the minimizing labels laden with inaccurate implication and the entire culture will fight about who was wrong and who should be forgiven and in doing will leave the dangerous dynamics in place.

And it will happen again. And it will happen again. And it will happen again.

Paul makes it clear that predators should be put out of the church, He does not distinguish which ones should and should not be based on position or popularity.

When an institution or person consults image consultants and attorneys who protect the institution, that institution can no longer be considered a place of healing for the wounded. When the victim becomes the bad guy and the perpetrator is defended and protected, any pretense that the gospel is being forwarded in that culture must be abandoned.

We should be sad about what we are reading. We should be sad for the many lives being destroyed. We should be sad for a cultural divide built around protecting the uncontrolled impulses of leaders.

And we should stop allowing propaganda to get us all to argue about the wrong things.

Preach the gospel to the poor. Heal the broken hearted. Proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. Set at liberty those who are oppressed.

And put a stop to protecting those who do harm to others.

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

Take me back to this 💜

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

It was an exhausting day but thank you for staying until 11pm at night to make sure those of us that bought tickets got to see you 💜

[Neil Newbon - gathering party for BG3 @NeilNewbon]

@FANEXPODallas call me #yallstarion

[Nature is Amazing ☘️ @AMAZlNGNATURE]

WHY IS THIS PIGEON PRETENDING TO BE A CHICKEN

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

And we had the time of our lives

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

My biggest flex is having friends all over the world so when I travel in not having to pay an arm and a leg for a hotel.

[The Vain @VirgoVain]

The Midnight Knight

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

I went to Europe

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

I'm tired of living in this economy

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

Now if they will just put rvb on Netflix again so I can binge it

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

@somber_soup Rvb was GOAT for me. It will be missed

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

Sad to see rooster teeth go but at the same time, they've been going down hill for a long time now. They screwed the loyal fans over way back

[Gerrick Kennedy @GerrickKennedy]

Usher opting to execute a set that focused squarely on a bygone era of showmanship is why he’s in a league of his own. The mic was on. No track. A skate sequence. Fluid choreography. He took his time onstage and it was exquisite. #Usher #SuperBowl

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

@ArtJaybird I love rolling skating but I suck on it. For him to do that like damn!

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

Mad respect for usher dancing in those roller skates

[Chris Anguiano @jadaiyuki]

Usher up there with the best halftimes ngl.

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

@CarltonWorthen @PhyllisDHHall Never said either is cool but literally calling a girl a toothpick, someone who has struggled with eating disorders and shit? Equally disgusting.

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

@CarltonWorthen @PhyllisDHHall Really toothpick Taylor? Disgusting

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

My mom was hit by a drunk driver last night. Thank God she's okay but please. DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE.

She could have been severely injured, she should have with how hard she was hit. I'm so glad she isn't and she's just sore and bruised up. Please don't drive drunk.

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

Nearly had a meltdown because their UN is the same but their pronouns and everything is different and I'm like did I just hallucinate this person being another gender??? 😂

[Lexi Ash 💜🏳️‍🌈 @Undidiridium]

I don't get on my personal insta a lot but Bro I'm already facial blind. So it's even more trippy when someone I followed had a complete transition without me knowing and I'm staring at this Pic of them going "they look familiar... But Idk them"