Behind Closed Doors: Exposing Spiritual Abuse in Churches

After ten long years, we finally made the difficult decision to leave the church that we had called our spiritual home for over a decade. We had formed some decent friendships at the church. Our children had all been born into the church. Our lives had come to revolve around it.

But as we became more involved, some of the patterns and behaviors that we began to observe, particularly among the leadership, began to make us feel uneasy. We noticed people around us who we respected and cared for being mistreated and hurt. There was a recurring pattern where lovely, high-capacity people would start attending the church and become actively involved, only to leave a few years later in a disillusioned or broken state. It troubled us — but little did we know that our turn would come.

After we walked away, the associate pastor took my wife’s best friend from the church out for a coffee and proceeded to tell her that she should cut all ties with my wife — she said that my wife was a bad influence. Meanwhile, the senior Pastor made it his personal mission to assassinate my character by telling anyone who would listen what a faithless and depraved individual I was. He was determined to deflect any blame for our departure squarely onto our shoulders and off his own, radically insecure ones. I wish I could say I was exaggerating, but sadly, I am actually more likely understating the full extent of the vitriol that followed our exit from the church.

A different kind of abuse

Shaming.

Gossip.

Control.

Guilt.

Cold-shouldering.

Manipulation.

Step into the realm of spiritual abuse. While the church has faced rightful scrutiny for its involvement in the abhorrent child sex abuse scandal, let’s not overlook the slippery slope of spiritual abuse, the elusive but no less sinister cousin. Spiritual Abuse is like a game of pin the blame on the parishioner — harder to catch, harder to prove, and guaranteed to leave you questioning your faith and sanity!

Unlike other forms of abuse, spiritual abuse masquerades as virtue and even spiritual maturity. It also hides in the fact that it is not commonly discussed and thus is often overlooked. However, the time has come to call out spiritual abuse for what it is because, like all forms of abuse, it damages people. So, what exactly is it? I’m glad you asked.

I want to talk about the types of behavior that typify spiritual abuse because all people, regardless of their faith, need to be equipped to identify spiritual abuse, the environments where it is likely to occur, and the kind of church leader who is likely to engage in it. Here are nine examples of spiritual abuse:

1. Using guilt and shame as a way to control

In the realm of spiritual abuse, perpetrators cunningly wield the doctrine of sin and human fallibility as their weapon of choice. With calculated intent, they employ this doctrine to accuse, berate, criticize, assail, diminish, condemn, and instill an overwhelming sense of guilt in their victims. Although Christianity is more about the grace and love of God expressed to us through Christ, guilt-based religion and shame work much better for ‘keeping the troops in line.’

After all, guilt is a potent catalyst for action. If you are repeatedly told that the threat of hell hangs over you unless you listen to and apply the preacher’s words, it actually gives the preacher power over you. You must keep coming back to them for assurance. The last thing a spiritual abuser wants is for you to come to a place where you no longer rely on them to provide you with the answers — answers to a problem that they largely created.

The doctrine of sin was never intended to be a spiritual club with which to bludgeon people until they behave a certain way. Rather, it was intended to highlight the goodness of God. The love of God is the starting place of the true gospel — not the supposed wickedness of humanity.

2. Claiming to speak on behalf of God

Spiritual abusers may add weight to their personal opinions by prefacing them with the phrase, “God told me to tell you…” so that the matter is not up for discussion. After all, if someone claims the authority of God, saying, “God told me to tell you,” how could you possibly object? Can you disagree with God?

Don’t get me wrong. I am sure that God is capable of providing words to people. However, those who are humble and wise always preface those words with a disclaimer that allows for the fact that they are human and prone to error. As for me, I am unlikely to ever listen to a person who says to me, “God told me to tell you…” However, if someone says to me, “I think that perhaps God may have asked me to pass this on. I may be wrong and, if I am, please feel free to disregard it,” then I am much more likely to listen.

One approach puts the sayer in a position of power. The other places the power in the position of the hearer. Abusers always want to place themselves in positions of power over others. This brings me to my next point:

3. Leveraging position

Spiritual abusers use their — apparently — sophisticated knowledge of the Bible to position themselves above critique.

A major reason that the child sex abuse scandal in churches was allowed to occur was that people mistakenly believed that pastors or priests were less likely to fall into moral failure. As a result, we enabled sexual abusers by simply believing that they were unlikely to offend in this way by virtue of their position or their knowledge and training.

The same is true of spiritual abusers. One ought to be wary of any pastor or priest who evokes their theological training or superior knowledge of the Bible as a reason to be believed or listened to above another person.

4. Using the Bible to justify abuse

Spiritual abusers may misuse Bible passages about admonishing and rebuking to justify their abuse. A disturbing illustration comes to mind: I have personally witnessed a pastor shamelessly exploit the words of Luke 17:3, “If your brother sins, rebuke him,” as a twisted justification to unleash a relentless barrage of verbal abuse upon unsuspecting individuals — an outpouring of vitriol that would be deemed utterly unacceptable in any other setting.

Just because a person is in a position of spiritual leadership over you does not mean that they have the divine right to attack you, your actions, or your decisions. They may, at your invitation, advise, counsel or mentor, but uninvited advice is rarely welcomed and usually sounds like judgment. In reality, for a person to speak the hard truth into your life, they must possess a level of emotional capital that is earned over time, not assumed through a Biblical passage or one’s position within a church.

5. Spiritualizing the shameless pursuit of money

Spiritual abusers may inappropriately use Bible passages about giving/tithing and generosity to manipulate people into giving money to the church.

In a system where churches spend around 75% of their income on paying the pastor’s wage and maintain the church building, you can imagine why a pastor might fall into the trap of using the tools of manipulation to generate more financial giving.

If I had a dollar for every time I had been guilted into giving more money to the church, I would have a considerable amount of money to give to the church. The ancient Old Testament practice of tithing — giving away a tenth of your income — has found its home in many modern Christian churches, even though much of the rest of the Old Testament has been dispensed with. Moreover, the biblical command to tithe has been twisted to mean, “You ought to be giving your money to the institutionalized church.”

What is even more abhorrent than this is the suggestion that your financial giving is somehow linked to the blessing of God. The more you give, the more God will bless you, some churches will assert. In fact, your monetary gifts are capable of unlocking the blessing of God, they say. Commonly known as the “prosperity Gospel,” this mindset insinuates that God can somehow be ‘bought off’ and that the blessing of God is somehow for sale.

As a result, the spiritual abuser might insinuate that if your life isn’t aligning with your desired path, it’s possible that you’re not contributing enough of your hard-earned money, as devout Christians are expected to generously donate their finances to the church.

This is spiritual abuse.

6. Keeping people locked in abusive relationships

Spiritual abusers employ, and misuse select Bible verses promoting marital faithfulness to ensnare individuals within violent, dysfunctional, and abusive relationships.

Tragically, women often bear the brunt of this exploitation. If you are experiencing domestic violence, then walk away from your marriage. If a spiritual leader has told you that this action dishonors God’s divine intention to keep the marriage bed sacred — or some other similar tripe — then rest assured that your partner has already broken their vow to honor, love, and protect you. God will not punish or judge you for leaving.

Also, be aware that your pastor is probably looking after the interests of the man in your marriage — brushing over his actions — while simultaneously making it out like you are some kind of sinner. That is spiritual abuse.

7. Declaring doubt a sin

Spiritual abusers may use a person’s moral sensibilities against them to make them feel like the problems or doubts they are experiencing result from their sin or not having enough faith.

The phrase, “If you only had more faith…” fits completely into this category of spiritual abuse.

At some point, if you are really a growing Christian, you will start to ask difficult and troubling questions. You may ask, for example, “If God is so good, why do bad things happen?” or “Did God really create the world in seven days only 6000 years ago?” or “Is the Bible really the inerrant word of God?”

This is not a sign of a lack of faith but rather a sign of a growing faith. Seeking answers is sensible and wise. However, these kinds of questions open up a can of worms for your pastor. The abusive leader senses a threat to his position as the ‘expert who has all the answers’ and dismisses you by offering trite catchphrases like, “God works in mysterious ways,” or “Just have more faith.”

If you keep pressing, you will most certainly be shamed by the spiritually abusive leader — both behind your back on the gossip circuit and from the pulpit when the alarmed Pastor seeks to correct your wicked heresy before it takes root and leads others astray and he loses some of his power and control. This leads to the next point:

8. Crushing those with different views

Spiritual abusers may subtly suggest or even outright claim that any divergence from their interpretation of the Bible is nothing more than a manifestation of sin within the victim. By doing so, they aim to invalidate differing perspectives and establish their own authority as the sole arbiters of truth.

Again, this is a power move wherein the pastor or spiritual leader is seeking to maintain their position as the expert because that gives them influence, power, and control, and well… doesn’t that feel good!?

9. Isolating people who leave

Let’s imagine that you find yourself in a church with a spiritually abusive leader, and so you finally pluck up the courage to walk away — as we did. How you are treated after you leave will — without a doubt — confirm whether or not you were in a spiritually abusive environment.

If you find yourself cut off, ostracized, or the hot topic on the gossip circuit, you can probably draw some reasonable conclusions about what kind of church you left behind.

The reason abusive church leaders must discredit and dismiss people who leave is simple. If a leader affirms a person who departs, they fear others might follow. They cling to their shrinking sphere of influence as if it were a pearl of great price that was slowly being prized from their hands. If too many people leave, someone might reasonably point to the pastor and say, “What are you doing!” This is the spiritual abuser’s worse nightmare. Therefore we must make every departure out to be a nutcase or a heretic!

It’s not okay

There is no place for abuse of any kind in Churches. It needs to be called out for what it is. I hope that this article has armed you with knowledge.

Knowing and understanding the characteristics of spiritual abuse and the kind of leader who engages in them is the first step in taking back control.

I am a victim of spiritual abuse.

I am not alone.

It is the silent epidemic that plagues our churches, and it is time for it to stop.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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