Welcome to Verity. I'm your host, Felicia Masonheimer, an author, speaker, and Bible teacher.

This podcast will help you embrace the history and depth of the Christian faith.

Ask questions, seek answers,

and devote yourself to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ.

You don't have to settle for watered down Christian teaching.

And if you're ready to go deeper God is just as ready to

take you there. This is Verity where every woman is a theologian. Right before I sat down

to record this episode I was listening to an episode on another

podcast. This podcast is called the Plain People Podcast, my friend Jenny, introduced me to it, and it's one that I can't universally

recommend because it can be very triggering and it's very heartbreaking but it

talks about abuse that has occurred in some very conservative Amish and Mennonite churches.

And because we lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania for a year and many of our friends there were ex-Menonite or ex-Breathen.

I was just curious about the podcast and I've listened to several episodes.

And so the last episode I was listening to was talking about listened to

was talking about an abuse case where the family was coming

out of a menonite church that was extremely legalistic.

Now I want to be sure to clarify, not all

Mennonite churches are like this.

This was a particular church that was operating this way and the thing about legalism is that it

inevitably leads to either hedonism, self-righteousness, or abuse.

And we're going to get into what legalism is and how it shapes us, what we can do to avoid it and confront it biblically.

But I wanted to just make that connection because when we add on to the word of God, it can lead to some extremely serious abuses.

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