There is Spiritual Abuse in Churches

Who are the Abusers?

There is spiritual abuse in churches. That’s a fact, shown by many research results, books authored by the recipients of such atrocities, and an increasing number of others coming forward to tell their stories.

Here are a few examples of the different kinds of spiritual abuse:

1. Repeated offensive comments directed to one or more members either in private or being called out unfairly in front of the congregation

2. Unreasonable and cruel use of authority over well-respected and long-term faithful members and their willingness to share their giftedness with others

3. Using Scripture to uphold a twisted view that leads church members to have a faith based on fear

4. Using Scripture to uphold the pastor’s twisted and supposed absolute authority over the members

5. Authoritarian beliefs that lead to and support full-blown cults

6. Sexual abuse.

No matter which kind of spiritual abuse you may have experienced, all of it boils down to the misuse of authority to maltreat members of the church. All of it results in spiritual wounds that the recipient carries for a very long time, not knowing what to do with such deep hurt.

So, there’s the event(s) itself.

Then there’s the aftermath that seems to have no end.

For some, the trauma causes instant mental replays that they can’t stop.

And sometimes, the trauma leads to PTSD.

Spiritual abuse in churches is serious. Profoundly serious. In the eyes of those of us who are compassionate followers of Jesus and the kind of love he lavishes upon us, we are appalled at such behavior from people who blindly put themselves forward as “Christians.”

In most of the spiritual abuse stories that we now know, the pastor was the instigator. At least it’s those instances that make the headlines. But I personally know that the perpetrator is not always the pastor. I experienced spiritual abuse from a small click of lay people in the first church I served after being ordained priest. They didn’t want a woman priest, they didn’t want anyone my age, which was 58 at the time, and they didn’t want anyone fresh out of seminary. I perfectly filled all three of their “don’t wants.” And things went downhill from there. I was “baptized with fire” right out of seminary. So, I can tell you that sometimes it’s the pastor who gets abused by the lay people who have the real authority in a church.

As horrifying as the problem of spiritual abuse in churches is, there is a larger problem: Christianity itself in our day has an image problem.

David Kinnaman with Gabe Lyons of the Barna Research Group, wrote a book called “UN Christian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity.” Gathering their extensive research and many surveys of young people aged 16-29 year-olds, they shared the results with the world: those surveyed have negative perceptions of Christianity, and churches in general. One of the responders said this: “Christianity has become bloated with blind followers who would rather repeat slogans than actually feel true compassion and care. Christianity has become marketed and streamlined into a juggernaut of fear-mongering that has lost its own heart.” (p. 15)

There are many people in this country who are skeptical, even cynical, about “Christians” because too often we have given a poor, if not bad, witness to the love of Christ and what Christianity is supposed to be about.

I wonder, could it be that we who do not think of ourselves as spiritual abusers, are in fact people who spiritually abuse Christ himself because of our sometimes non-understanding of what being deeply Christian would really mean? And in our non-understanding, we misrepresent and actually abuse the Lord we claim to follow?