Against Spiritual Abuse

~ fundyreformed

Spiritual abuse is a sad reality. Churches, pastors, and others can perpetuate it. I’m sure among cults it is common, but unfortunately in many independent Baptist circles, it is too.

I don’t want to say that everyone who claims to have been spiritually hurt this way, really was. Nor do I impugn evil motives on the leaders and churches where this has occurred. All I know is that the results can be painful.

Some of my readers have moved out of a spiritually abusive church. Some aren’t sure if they would classify their past experience as spiritual abuse or not. I’m not sure if I can regarding my story or not, either.

I’m not really trying to define the term here, I just want to talk about the damage that can be done (perhaps unknowingly) by certain forms of fundamentalist Christianity. This post comes out of my recent perusal of some comments at a facebook I joined that is “against abusive churches”. Since it is a closed group, some of the people there felt free to share how they were harmed by their past church experiences. Here is some of what they said:

There was a time when I rebelled against everything the Bible taught because I had a hard time separating stupid “Christians” from the Christ of the Bible.

I dealt with this, too. To the point of questioning the very existence of God.

I haven’t been to church in 2 1/2 years since i left. I guess i am afraid every church will be the same way. I have been having a really hard time putting the past behind me, so I am really glad this group was started, so I can begin to get over everything that has happened.

We have gone to church for years not really liking it nor wanting to go. It is really difficult to get past all this especially when there’s no admission of wrong doing. Good news though! God does know its wrong and he does want to heal your heart….I would encourage you to start looking for a healthy church. There are many out there.

I was out of church for a year or so, too, back before I got married. I had a real hard time figuring out who God was, once I sort of split from my parents’ and church’s rules. Since then I’ve been in a few different churches. I found some I knew I didn’t agree with, and found one that felt like a good fit. It takes time, because you do have a feeling that a church is either going to be too strict or too wishy-washy…very hard to define what is exactly right for you, but I would encourage you to look.

As I read these comments I am saddened in one sense for those involved. On the other hand I am angry at the religious system that could have caused this. I hope fundamentalists take notice. If you stand for what you think is right without a certain element of Christian love, you can produce this. I fear the number of people who have actually dropped out of church and will never return is quite high. How many are innoculated against the true gospel of God’s grace, by graceless carnal manipulation.

This reminds me that I need to continue to post on this kind of topic. For now, let me encourage you to check out churchabuse.com and spiritualabuse.com. These sites seem to have some useful information. And I’m sure I can’t agree with everything on them, but they might be able to help someone recover from spiritual abuse.

I also welcome any of my reader’s thoughts on this point here. Some of us share a similar background, perhaps you can share how youwere able to work through these kinds of issues in your own life.

8 thoughts on “Against Spiritual Abuse”

  1. Both church abuse and spiritual abuse are sad realities in the Christian arena. God has given us protection though…Knowing the Living Word of God and practicing the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

    Unfortunately many get abused before they are grounded enough to know the protection. Deliverance is promised for the truth will make us free. Those of us that are grounded in the Word need to be sure that we encourage Bible reading among our younger brothers and sisters and encourage them to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit…for He is the one who will brings us into all truth, grounding us in the very words of Jesus so the deceiver is unarmed; chains are broken and the wounded heard is healed.

  2. One pastor/ Christian school administrator asked someone I know, this question. “Why do you think so many of our grads are no longer serving the Lord? Why didn’t they take to heart what we taught them.”

    Whether or not this person really understood the question they were asking, it is profound. Statistics would lend to the idea the fear adn abuse do not prepetuate Christianity. I think extremism is one of the chief ways that the enemy pulls “christians” out of the church and/or away from God. It does anger me as well. It shake the foundations of ones identity to be subjected to spiritual abuse and legalism. I hope that everyone who has been wounded will learn to see that God is not the brute that some extreme religious leaders have portrayed Him to be.

  5. Thanks for the link, it’s sad to see the damage done by such groups. The similarities across denominational lines and theological points of view is also scary.

  6. Thanks for your post, “Against Spiritual Abuse.” Yes indeed it is “a sad reality.” Perhaps the greatest “damage that can been done” and what is rarely talked about is spiritual abuse by church leaders in regards to the marriage institution. I speak from sad experience on this point and know of countless others infected by these dreaded acts.

    There are many “churches” today that are headed by carnal-minded “spiritual monsters” who will not tolerate ANYONE disagreeing with them in doctrine or in other church matters. So in order to stop this “cancer” the leaders deliberately pit one spouse against the other in order to gain their own ends. For example, if one spouse starts to question church policy or question the pastors’ sermon, the other spouse is “counseled” to separate or even divorce from them in order to teach them a lesson.

    You think I’m kidding? Would to God that I were!

    A really good site exposing this evil is:
    http://www.wickedshepherds.com

    There are many great articles (and testimonies too) concerning this evil in the church. One good article on that site that exposes the evil that I am specifically talking about is entitled “A Word To The Wives.”

    Leah

  7. Thanks for asking a great question Bob (e.g. how you were able to work through these kinds of issues in your own life.) I was abused in a church 4-1/2 years ago and recently was just told by another church that they deemed me a non-believer and kicked me out of the church. I think it is actually because of their reformed theology beliefs that they said that as they fall on the conversative end of that belief system and I didn’t know anything about the theology until a few weeks ago. I have been reading books, visiting web sites and talking to victims for the last few years and I have recently realized that we hear from the experts about how to recover, but I haven’t yet seen practical steps that we as victims are/have taking/taken to recover. I just posted that question on my site as I would love to hear more about what people have been doing.

  8. I TOO still would rightfully rather see pastor first live a sermon instead of too often now merely preach it to others and I really do think it is so farcical how some sinfully, proud evangelical pastors are ready to condemn others, to gossip about, to now preach about the other person’s sins but someone how they can’t seem to deal with their own false abuse of others, their own sins, and their own false pride.. http://postedat.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/get-real-now/

    (Prov 27:2 KJV) Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.

    (1 Cor 14:33 KJV) For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

    (James 3:16 KJV) For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.

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