Mercy Ministries. A strange definition of mercy.

I've been spending the last three days furtively watching Mercy Ministries of Australia slowly unravel under the glare of the Sydney Morning Herald.

It all sounds sickeningly familiar. The "girls" (ie young women)
1. were punished for talking to one other about why they were there
2. weren't allowed outside the front door without triplicate permission
3. weren't able to speak to medical professionals without "supervision" that meant they were afraid to be honest
4. were endlessly told that it was their fault and they were beyond help
5. were arbitrarily kicked out onto the streets even though they were worse than ever

Been there, got the T-shirt for each one. And not the Mercy Ministries T-shirts, either. Such things happen to women and men, young and old, every day in the mainstream psychiatric and mental health systems. And nobody out there expects any differently. They just expect Christians to do things better than everyone else... because Christians themselves claim they can.

It's a case, firstly, of too many expectations having been placed on Mercy Ministries. But what then makes the behaviour of Mercy Ministries so exceptionally evil (and I use that word deliberately) is that they bring God in to justify the control, oppression and condemnation. Or not God, so much as Satan and all of his powers and principalities and legions of demonic sidekicks. Which surely feels far, far worse than simply being told you're mad and untreatable for mere organic/psychological/emtional reasons. It's theology gone so screwy that it causes its proponents to lose sight of all concepts of human sanctity or dignity, or of love. Which poses the question, a la Laing, of who exactly is the mad one.

At some point early this millennium some deeply Pentecostal friends were trying to persuade me to apply to the Mercy Ministries place in Bradford. What saved me was the opening of the Bradford House being delayed until I was both well past their upper age limit and no longer wanting of any such "help". I wonder what delayed their opening. A lucky escape, I think.