Here at the Allender Center podcast and on our blog, we've done a lot of content and material on sexual abuse because we really believe that healing from sexual abuse is core to our mission.

Over the next couple of weeks, we're going to be joined by multiple guests as we engage some elements of sexual abuse is core to our mission. Over the next couple of weeks, we're going to be

joined by multiple guests as we engage some elements of sexual abuse that aren't typically

talked about as sexual abuse, and thinking more theologically about what healing is possible

when we've been harmed and experienced sexual harm. We know any time we're engaging in a topic

like sexual abuse, those of us who are

having the conversation and listening may have experienced sexual harm. So just consider this a kind

trigger warning that we're going to be engaging this topic, but also consider it an invitation to

lean in and join us over the next few weeks.

Thank you for listening to the Allender Center podcast. I'm Dr. Dan Allender.

And I'm Rachel Clinton-Cent. We're fiercely committed to providing hope and healing to a fragmented world.

And restoration for the heart.

Thank you for joining us.

Let's get this conversation started. As we enter the discussion on factors and realities about sexual abuse that often don't get addressed or named, we, Rachel, have such a privilege to have a dear, dear friend, and colleague, and

just significant leader on our and others' behalf with us, Linda Royster. And Linda has been on

before, but let me introduce her as a North Carolinian therapist who is also on our Allender Center executive leadership team.

She is a teacher. She is a wise woman. And I was smart enough quite a while ago to invite her to join me in writing a section

of Healing the Wounded Heart, where she addressed the reality of sexual abuse, particularly

for African-American women. And again, in that context, one of the realities that you brought to the forefront was the issue of supremacy and power.

In some ways, let me start it by saying that all power that is misused sets up sexual abuse. In fact, it's actually

a form of sexual abuse. As we know in the 70s, feminists were loud and clear that rape, as an

example, is not primarily, hardly at all about sex.

...