Steven was a 23 year-old who had some bad experiences growing up in his church so he had left a few years ago. He had really felt distant from God and the Christian community recently and after much searching decided to attend a Sunday service at this one church. He was welcomed by people and made to feel very loved he even got baptized during their baptism service. Over the next few months he really started to get involved in his church. One Sunday the pastor announced they were mixing things up and in light of the Election Day this upcoming week they were going to talk biblical politics. Steven had never heard of this before but being from a very political family he was a bit nervous where this would go. During the service Steven felt that most of the stuff his pastor shared was his own opinions. He went up to the pastor after the service and shared his concerns which were immediately shut down by the pastor. Steven was told he was still young in the faith and should obey the elders of the church because that’s what God commanded him to do. The next Sunday the pastor brought his name up in a prayer asking God to soften his heart towards leadership and practice submission. Steven didn’t know what to do his friends at church started to treat him differently and Steven began to question his salvation. All of the past church hurt came up again and after 2 weeks of continued hurtful comments and looks from the people of the church he left the church and his Christian faith and never looked back.
This is a fictional story that hopefully helps you understand what spiritual abuse is.
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Well here we go, talking about what I have come to realize is a very huge and sensitive topic that I will try to shed light on in a 5ish minute read so buckle up, down a cup of coffee or an energy drink, and prepare yourself as we take this crazy ride together!
I recently found out what Spiritual Abuse was after going through it recently. My hope for this post is to share and shed more light on it to hopefully bring awareness and help those who have experienced it or are currently experiencing it. My plan is to expand on the following three (3) things:
1. What is spiritual abuse
2. What is so bad about spiritual abuse
3. How to remove yourself / heal from spiritual abuse
I will not be going too much in depth due to the time it would take so I encourage you if this is something you want to know more about or have hurt from to look more into it. I will attach below some links to a few videos and podcasts that I found really helpful.
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1. What is Spiritual Abuse?
One of the best quotes I have heard regarding Spiritual Abuse I heard on a podcast called “Recovering from Spiritual Abuse with Brian Lee” on the three percent podcast. The quote was this
“Using God’s word’s to dehumanize God’s beloved”
I believe that the word of God is absolute and doesn’t change. The problem however is that people do change and have their own ideas, thoughts, and opinions. When you have multiple people take God’s word and study it you get different ideas this is why there are so many commentaries and denominations of the Christian faith. Why is this important when discussing spiritual abuse? I believe this is important because it helps us understand how spiritual abuse can happen. Some people, yes do purposefully hurt others through spiritual abuse but others really feel that what they believe and are saying is true and biblical and that you are the problem for not believing what they do. I understand that saying “Spiritual Abuse” may sound to strong but that’s what it is using God’s word to abuse someone. We say things like physical abuse, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse but think that saying spiritual abuse is not ok maybe a softer version like spiritual manipulation or spiritually hurt but that undermines someone’s pain.
2. What is so bad about Spiritual Abuse?
As explained above I believe Spiritual Abuse isn’t talked about enough or watered down which helps in making it worse. Many people who experience it feel confused or neglected because other “Christians” say things like “God would never want to hurt you” or “People are not perfect but God is”. While these are true these statements can make the person feel like what they are experiencing is not that bad. The other thing about Spiritual Abuse is that is encompass so many different types of abuse (sexual, physical, emotional, verbal,etc) all under the umbrella of a spiritual aspect. For instance what about the young child that was touched by a youth pastor but was told that God made them too beautiful or what about the wife who was told her verbally abusive husband wasn’t sinning and it was her fault for not being submissive. Not only are both of the people in these examples dealing with the trauma of the different types of abuse but now God is being brought into it which adds a whole new level to the trauma. This causes those who did grow up in the church to question everything about God and Christianity and for those that are exposed to it won’t even want too after what they experienced and can you blame either of them.
3. How to remove yourself / heal from spiritual abuse?
The first thing is to recognize that what is happening is wrong. Most people have a gut feeling that something is off and that is there for a reason. For me that gut feeling got more muddled as time went on. I started to think I was the problem because that’s what was told to me multiple times and after awhile you start to believe that and if that is you I am truly sorry because that’s is a horrible thing. As far as healing goes I don’t want to say that it’s easy to heal or even remove yourself from spiritual abuse because I don’t know your story. For me it was and is extremely hard and exhausting to process. I’ve heard many stories of people who have had a hard time going to church, being around Christians, listening to worship music, and some who have left that behind and said I don’t want anything to do with christianity or God. I think that you need to realize it’s ok to not be ok. It’s ok to not pretend your fine and if removing yourself from church and seeking out therapy is what will help you than that’s what you need to do. Every person who has experienced Spiritual Abuse does so in different ways though we may have similar or same feelings / experiences we all have to figure out for ourselves what we need to do to heal. In the future I plan to share my story in more detail but I encourage you to talk to people, read articles, watch videos about this topic to educate yourself.
Like I said this is a very heavy topic and there is no way to even remotely explain and share in detail what Spiritual Abuse is and how it affects people but I hope the above information helped a little. If you have questions please feel free to reach out.
Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7tIaKwPMBHaIwtlkBEKwK9?si=WyWCHttZTMytgN6-r-VU1g
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