MY JOURNEY IN SPIRITUAL ABUSE

Speaking with a friend recently caused me to grapple again with one of the least understood issues of our day: that of spiritual abuse. So I write, desiring to help any who have been hurt by church leaders and to let them know there are better days ahead……….

Many tragedies in human existence rest upon a severe misunderstanding that turns to suspicion leading to deconstruction of the good. Somewhere in my journey as leader of a church group called the ‘Young Disciples,’ I learned an important lesson about the destructive nature of bad leadership. What I learned certainly did not come from the leaders themselves. They were merely the object lessons.  The truth I learned came from the Protestant Reformers, especially Martin Luther.  But let’s go back a bit. I had always lived my Christian life as a man bent on bettering himself in the walk of faith.  I yearned to mimic the Pharisee Paul by ‘advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries.’ By God’s grace and the hardship of divorce and many nagging doubts, I soon learned that no amount of self-imposed regimen could actually make me a better Christian.  Moreover I became convinced by Luther and others that the law, no matter how strictly it was applied, could do absolutely nothing to improve my standing before God.  I began to teach the young people, many of who were confused by mixed messages of law and gospel, that God had died for them, not only on their best days, but on their worst.  The ethos of my teaching and ministering changed radically.  I realized that in order to see young people grow before the Lord I must woo them to God through His unconditional love offered in the gospel. I realized it was a risk to preach that message to a group of young people. Questions haunted: might they perchance take that freedom and run into dissipation? But wonder of wonders the gospel never drove the young people to excessive sin but rather, under this freedom of the gospel, there was a revival of love for God and His Son.  This taught me three lessons.  First, that the very fact there was something called the gospel meant that sin was an existential problem for all men. Why would Christ have to die if men were spiritually healthy? The gospel (not the law) showed them that if sin caused Jesus to die, then sin was nothing to be toyed with.  Second, the young people came to see that the remedy for sin, the atonement of Jesus Christ, was more valuable to them than anything else in the whole world. If sin was that bad and the cross was the actual solution to the sin problem, then the cross must be the most wonderful thing in all creation.  The third thing was simply this: that this cross was not only sufficient to cleanse them from the guilt of sin, but in a slow and mysterious way, it was freeing them from the very power of sin.  The beauty of the gospel to heal sinners was a mystery that the leaders did not understand. When we risk teaching the liberty of the gospel it actually has the opposite effect on the listener’s life than what many evangelicals believe. It does not lead to licentiousness.  It drives holiness. And yes, the gospel does not guarantee or produce perfection.  What it does is promote a safe environment where forgiveness of sins is the reigning principle.  This produces an environment whereby stumbling saints can grow up together in the image and likeness of their Christ without living in fear of breaking the rules. Such an environment gives the saints the freedom to fight sin in a gracious context of grace. But alas, many churches can’t handle this kind of patient waiting.  They fear that some horrible sin will stain the reputation of the church.  They simply cannot take the chance of allowing grace to do its work. So they invoke law, which usually brings on instant, though rather shallow, results.

So let’s get back to my testimony. In their desire to protect the reputation of the church the leaders had to reel in the young people. To do this they had to pin some unbecoming labels on me which was a subtle ploy to ease me out the door. The tactics were smooth to say the least.  They elders came out smelling like roses. The tactics can be difficult to explain. They included subtle manipulations, gas-lighting, flattery, insinuations, false charges, and a slow but sure breaking down of my will and self-confidence in a most insidious fashion. Of course, being naïve, I hadn’t experienced this kind of ‘spiritual grooming’ before. I had always trusted church leaders (and in this case even idolized one in particular).  While this was happening I felt a growing chasm between myself and the leaders. I couldn’t really put my finger on what was wrong. Satan is good at obscuring issues. Due to the mounting tension I arranged a meeting between the young men and the leaders. I yearned for peace.  A more non-productive meeting could not be envisioned. The main church leader co-opted the conversation and went on a diatribe about certain theological errors circulating around the church while lay thick praise on all the other elders, two of which didn’t even show up. This was his show and he intended to keep it that way.  The self-glorification was palpable and it wasn’t long before I realized I had made a big mistake. The leadership had no intention of reflecting on their own failings, but rather dug in their heels and defended everything they were doing.

Throughout this year-long process of trying to figure things out, there were many warning signs of spiritual abuse, none of which did I see. Spiritual abuse always consists of one side who is the mouth and one side who is the ears. The mouth always speaks and the ears must always endure. And yes, the mouth always wins.  To say it another way, one side is always right and one side is always wrong. This, of course, is nothing like the leadership that Jesus taught His disciples, who, like us, wanted the preeminence. Nothing good ever comes from this one sided leadership style. It breeds doubt, fear and confusion. It beats up the sheep, especially sheep with tender consciences. Spiritual abuse is often hard to detect because it is becomes a mangled concoction of many disparate feelings that spook the sheep and provides them with no firm avenue to express what they are feeling.  Often, those abused will often end up blaming themselves saying, “This has to be all been my problem; certainly the leaders can’t be wrong.” This whole cycle of abuse began because the leaders were fearful of what free grace, transparency and honesty might do to the safe church environment. Like all other sin, spiritual abuse is rooted in my desire to control, to be God.  And no matter what direction it moves, it is always destructive to innocent people.

So I have learned that when a person or an organization runs from grace the hand of law will quickly fill the void. Because grace is a threat to dominance, the dominant will fight it to the end. And to do that they must produce a culture where all challenges to ecclesiastical power must be tamed. Unfortunately as fallen men, most leaders cannot tolerate loss of control, and I have found out that this temptation is alive and well in my own life. So when I look back at this sad train of events, two things can be said.  First, the desire for control always flips the relationship of law and gospel. The gospel says the last will be first, the law says the first will be first.  Over time, grace no longer becomes a friend, but a threat, while the law, which only kills, becomes a friend. I saw the young people become vital and active disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ through the power of the gospel.  They locked shields and served the Lord well. They had zeal in Christian service, practiced ongoing discipleship, expressed their giftedness freely, and were not afraid to engage in a healthy flow of theological bantering.  For the most part all this was done in an atmosphere of grace, leading to Christian love.  And this freedom attracted other young people as well as (surprisingly) many older saints.  All this was viewed by leadership as a threat to the organization. What was good had become evil. Isaiah saw this in his day, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isaiah 5:20).  The second thing I would say is that those who are hurt in this kind of environment eventually land back on their feet and are all the better for it.  Spiritual abuse has many awful side effects, so let’s not minimize that.  But it also sharpens the antennae of the sheep so that they sniff out more quickly those who want to manipulate and dominate them. Not only that but those who have been abused, betrayed or deceived by leaders become more compassionate to their disenfranchised brothers and sisters. And this group is so needed in the church community. In other words, God, like everything else in the Christian life, uses our pains as ministerial qualifications to be employed later on in life.  Who better to minister to those hurt by the church than those who have walked in that dark place before?  Though I carry pain in my bosom nearly every week, I am also able to wrap my arms around other poor sheep who have been whipped by shepherds and say to them, “I know you are hurting but a new day will soon dawn, a day of hope, peace and usefulness.” As always, God uses even the ugliest realities to shed abroad His marvelous grace to a hurting flock.  Yes. I am healing now, and thankfully now is my friend also.