I can't speak to your personal experience. I'm not defending cruelty or abuse. And you have every right to "escape" a church you don't want to be a part of.

There's more to say on this, but I feel like you (and especially the other individual who responded) aren't really open to hearing other perspectives on this, so I'll just say....

Thank you for the comment. I too am against abuse, cruelty, and injustice. I suspect we differ on the definition of those terms, but I don't think we'll get anywhere in this online discussion on those.

I wish you nothing but the very best. Thank you for engaging the article. I do appreciate that.