#spiritual abuse
Having so many discussions with church abuse survivors & shed tears with them: the leaders who abuse their authority are doing incalculable damage to good ministry workers who now suffer PTSD, anxiety, doubt, cognitive fog, and fear of relationships. Lives wounded is life stolen.
These ministry workers are so kind in heart that they still lift up their leaders who abused them, “He didn’t know what he was doing, he could still change, I still pray for him, he’s still doing good work.” They want to keep serving but the fear and trauma is so overwhelming.
“I can’t wait to feel safe in church again. I miss church. I still want to go.” I’ve heard some form of this many times. I almost want to tell them to stay away, don’t return, because so few are really safe. When called people are wounded, it seems almost doubly devastating.
If you think we can “agree to disagree” on theology so easily, I have to tell you about my old friend “Don.”
Don was a pastor who told me satan was using me. I was eager to believe Don because I didn’t want satan using me. In my impressionable young mind, I tried hard to get on his good side.
Don was the type of guy in constant lecture mode. Always condescending. But his theology only made that worse.
Here’s when I knew it was all wrong.
At the church Don was working at, a student took his own life. The lead pastor told the staff, “This is the biggest attack on our church from satan we’ve ever faced.” The student’s suicide was “spiritual warfare” against the church. Don believed that completely.
I still would’ve done anything for him. I did. I listened to Don lecture me for hours and trash talk every pastor in town and he confided in me his own deepest heartbreaks, though he never listened to mine. And even then, I was put on his list anyway: the list of people being used by satan. I feel a deep shame about all of it. Part of me still wonders, “Is Don right? Am I being used by satan?”
Don’s story of spiritual abuse is mild compared to so many stories I’ve heard over the years. My sad suspicion is that if it were not for his theology, we might still be friends.
I say that to say: Your theology matters.
If your theology demonizes others so much that even their suicide is called an attack from the devil, then hey: you are the devil. It’s you. You can go straight back to hell with that theology. Or throw it out and start over.
I know I’ve gotten it wrong too. But what I know is that if my faith ever compels me to erase someone’s dignity, then Scripture has become my weapon and not a mirror to check myself. It is a no longer a home for connecting with God, but a throne in my own image.
If your faith makes you a jerk, then what is it even for? If you harm others in the name of Jesus, in the end the only name you’re dragging is yours.
I believe that Scripture must move us to a theology of compassion, accountability, to be wildly kind. Otherwise it is not the life that Jesus had in mind. Christ is for the wounded. This is where I will be too.
— J.S.
If your response to abuse is
“Not all churches / not all men / not all pastors / not all bosses / not ALL”—
Consider that for the wounded person, it only took one. It took just one abuser to destroy all of their world. Before you quote stats, that one person is 100% wounded.
People talk about forgiveness like it’s this nonchalant choice you suddenly make in one second before you meet your friends at Panera for lunch and not this excruciating, gradual, meticulously tended to, bloody, sweaty, insane, bone scraping, tooth grinding rebirth of the self.
