A fantastic summary of spiritual abuse

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[AgathaL'Orange]

http://markdejesus.com/14-signs-spiritual-abuse/

Mark’s article below:

I’ve spent years helping people recover from abusive situations. They range from abusive marriages, homes and even abusive church environments. Over the years, there has become an aware of how church and ministry environments can misuse their influence and authority in a way that damages the spiritual and emotional life of people. This has become known as spiritual abuse. The ramifications are more harmful than most people realize.

The Need for Better Answers
I find that the majority of Christians who have served God for a long enough time have at some point been a part of a spiritually toxic environment. Yet I rarely see people walking through any kind of process to heal from those harmful situations. The best that is offered is “the past is the past” or “get over it.” Meanwhile, believers left and right are walking around with spiritual and emotional lacerations that they don’t know how to heal.

Often its because they have been in spiritually abusive environments for so long they don’t know any better. In fact, I find that people in these kind of settings lose their sense of judgment. It’s like being with an alcoholic for so long. You begin to think that living with the ups and downs of addictions is normal.

Addressing Spiritual Abuse Patterns
Many churches are making changes in making the health of their church family a high priority. Love, honor and a renewed lens on healthy authority are beginning to take shape. But we still have a ways to go.

I have spent countless hours personally working with people who have come out of spiritual abuse. Some of the stories would make the hairs on your arm stand on end. Yet God has graciously worked in many of their lives to heal those wounds and renew their belief systems; allowing them to cultivate healthy connection and fellowship.

In the meantime, it’s important to be aware of the warning signs. Along my work with people and churches as well as extensive research, I have compiled some common signs that an abusive environment is in play.

Please understand that I do not throw the abuse word around loosely. This is a very serious issue and I share this with great sobriety and through much prayer. Please note, you don’t have to have all of these signs for abuse to take place.

If you did not listen to or watch our two part episode on spiritual abuse, you can tune in here.

1. The standards of honor, respect and authority are distorted.
This is the biggest factor when spiritual abuse is taking place. Instead of a culture of honor and respect that is given from both leadership and followers, an authoritarianism exists. Over time, leaders lose their ability to be approachable. There can become a misuse of the verse, “touch not God’s anointed” and the body loses its ability to come and reason together.

There is little emphasis in working through issues, so people either quietly leave or sit in silent submission with no personal engagement. Instead of empowering the people, they become conditioned to just go with whatever is happening.

The concept of spiritual fathering can become distorted in this. Leadership is driven to use force, intimidation or manipulation to make things happen.

2. Unsafe environments when it comes to dealing with problems.
A church is safe when it knows how to deal with problems effectively with love, grace and truth all in play. In a spiritually abusive environment, people are often demonized in embarrassing ways. Relationships are not protected and betrayal takes place.

In these kind of toxic settings, the leadership can become sucked into a “I am right, you are wrong” mentality. People lack the maturity to take a step back and see how to work through issues in a more healthy way. If we win an argument and lose a genuine opportunity to preserve a relationship, we lose.

One of the most unhealthy patterns that can envelop is a “don’t say anything negative” kind of environment, where there becomes a militant reaction to problems, pain and disappointment. People then don’t learn how to go through pain in an effective way.

I have also found that when a church does nothing about a problem is should address, that passivity can be incredibly damaging to the church culture.

3. Heavy religious performance driven culture.
You cannot have an abusive environment without this, because the abusive culture pushes people to give, serve, do and live in performance based Christianity. As long as people are busy and doing things that serve the success agenda, things are ok. Any emphasis outside of that is frowned upon and given a cold shoulder to.

In this setting, there is a heavy emphasis on how things look. It becomes more important that things look ok rather than authentically doing life as a body with effective vulnerability. We lose value for a healthy heart life.

People are becoming weary of the television perfection that Christianity portrays. We’ve not learned our lessons in all the big moral fallouts that take place. Meanwhile, our perfectionistic values put an ungodly pressure on people that skews how they interact with God. They become subtly trained that their relationship with God is based on service and how perfect things go.

It exhausts people and leaves them disillusioned. Unfortunately, in a high performance based environment, people become commodities in the goal of growth, success, status and achievement.

4. Fear and shame drive people into submission.
People are often punished in shameful and often public ways that crush them.

5. Emphasis on a charismatic leader who becomes the ultimate spokesperson on all spiritual issues.
I recall a ministry I interacted with years ago, where the answer to every biblical question I asked was, “(ministry leader’s name) says . . . ” I was like ,”What about what the Bible says?”

People lose the ability to get their own perspective. Reading non-approved books is frowned upon, because the belief is that people cannot think for themselves. People are not encouraged to get with God’s Word and search out answers for themselves. There becomes an unhealthy dependency on themselves.

I remember when a controversial subject came up years ago in a church, many of the members would address the subject by saying, “Pastor [NAME] said this about it.” No one did their own searching of the Scriptures or of the issue themselves.

6. The leader’s sins and weaknesses are minimized while the people’s sins and weaknesses are maximized.
Spiritual abuse can begin to shift when the church leadership is willing to admit mistakes and authentically share their own personal journey in redemptive ways.

It’s a tragedy for a pastor to teach on subjects that have not been deeply processed in their own life. When was the last time you heard a pastor express repentance of certain areas to the congregation? It’s often all about what the church needs to get right and very little about humbling yourself before God.

7. Over spiritualizing of everything.
This is a major problem in general. It is very easy to throw in a “God told me” with whatever you want to say. We share our hearing from God as though we hear from God 100% correctly 100% of the time. This has led many in the body of Christ into deeper mental illness, because we’ve not learned to process the realities of our life in balance. We’ve lost the power of learning to hear from God amongst healthy council.

There becomes a spiritual answer for everything that manipulates situations and keeps leaders from saying, “We got it wrong. We thought we heard from God and we’re processing through what that means now. We’re sorry and we take full responsibility for it.”

It’s easy to cover up mistakes or insecurities with “God told me.”

8. Hovering over personal decisions in a person’s life.
It shocked me how much this happens, but it does in growing form. The thought of being this controlling sounds exhausting, but it is how many leaders attempt to feel safe. They control people.

This can get into who people marry, what job to get and what decisions to make.

9. A culture of exclusive spirituality. “We have the monopoly on God.”
You can see this when there is little appreciation for other churches or ministries. There is a sense that “we have the revelation on this and no one else does. We are the ones who get this.”

10. Heavy financial manipulation.
This is a tough one, especially because the church still has a very poverty driven mentality on a lot of financial perspectives. Many still think its ok for people who are in ministry position and give full time hours to it, to live in lack and poverty circumstances.

But this shouldn’t give us carte blanche to use offerings, giving projects and building campaigns in manipulative ways. In some churches, you cannot have a Sunday go by without a majority of talking time being spent on how people need to give more to the latest project.

When you have an achievement minded church culture, then financial campaigns will always be in play. They will never end. You’ll have to find a new way to get people to give each time.

11. Creating an internal bubble that isolates people from their families, other ministries, etc.
One of the problems with modern ministry is that people are easily burned out and disconnected from other parts of their life. In fact, when I left formal pastoring, I was amazed at how much time I could invest in my relationship with my wife and children. It was astounding to me how church life can isolate people from many important areas of their life and wholeness.

12. Unwillingness to act with compassion towards those who leave.
There is a time where dangerous and toxic people have to be dealt with. But many times, there are just honest disagreements or new paths opening up for people that churches need to recognize. Healthy churches know when its time for someone to move on and honor that transition.

Abusive church environments make it difficult to leave or move on. People are often shunned. Communication gets shut down. They get treated as an outcast. Leaving a church is very difficult to begin with, but abusive environments make it painfully worse.

13. Isolated accountability structure.
There is either no accountability structure or the one that is in place is a small huddle where there is no collaboration or council on issues. There is little room for healthy debate and reasonable discussion over issues.

14. A strong legalistic and religious pressure.
Because the emphasis is often on how things look, there can be a legalistic pressure on sin, sanctification and holiness. People are taught in such a way where they always feel they have to do better, perform better or work to be good enough.

[UffDa]

Wow! Sadly, I can relate to this article on so many points, but the performance based Christianity is what clouded my life the most for so many years.

[iamnotafraid]

http://markdejesus.com/14-signs-spiritual-abuse/

Mark’s article below:

I’ve spent years helping people recover from abusive situations. They range from abusive marriages, homes and even abusive church environments. Over the years, there has become an aware of how church and ministry environments can misuse their influence and authority in a way that damages the spiritual and emotional life of people. This has become known as spiritual abuse. The ramifications are more harmful than most people realize.

The Need for Better Answers
I find that the majority of Christians who have served God for a long enough time have at some point been a part of a spiritually toxic environment. Yet I rarely see people walking through any kind of process to heal from those harmful situations. The best that is offered is “the past is the past” or “get over it.” Meanwhile, believers left and right are walking around with spiritual and emotional lacerations that they don’t know how to heal.

Often its because they have been in spiritually abusive environments for so long they don’t know any better. In fact, I find that people in these kind of settings lose their sense of judgment. It’s like being with an alcoholic for so long. You begin to think that living with the ups and downs of addictions is normal.

Addressing Spiritual Abuse Patterns
Many churches are making changes in making the health of their church family a high priority. Love, honor and a renewed lens on healthy authority are beginning to take shape. But we still have a ways to go.

I have spent countless hours personally working with people who have come out of spiritual abuse. Some of the stories would make the hairs on your arm stand on end. Yet God has graciously worked in many of their lives to heal those wounds and renew their belief systems; allowing them to cultivate healthy connection and fellowship.

In the meantime, it’s important to be aware of the warning signs. Along my work with people and churches as well as extensive research, I have compiled some common signs that an abusive environment is in play.

Please understand that I do not throw the abuse word around loosely. This is a very serious issue and I share this with great sobriety and through much prayer. Please note, you don’t have to have all of these signs for abuse to take place.

If you did not listen to or watch our two part episode on spiritual abuse, you can tune in here.

1. The standards of honor, respect and authority are distorted.
This is the biggest factor when spiritual abuse is taking place. Instead of a culture of honor and respect that is given from both leadership and followers, an authoritarianism exists. Over time, leaders lose their ability to be approachable. There can become a misuse of the verse, “touch not God’s anointed” and the body loses its ability to come and reason together.

There is little emphasis in working through issues, so people either quietly leave or sit in silent submission with no personal engagement. Instead of empowering the people, they become conditioned to just go with whatever is happening.

The concept of spiritual fathering can become distorted in this. Leadership is driven to use force, intimidation or manipulation to make things happen.

2. Unsafe environments when it comes to dealing with problems.
A church is safe when it knows how to deal with problems effectively with love, grace and truth all in play. In a spiritually abusive environment, people are often demonized in embarrassing ways. Relationships are not protected and betrayal takes place.

In these kind of toxic settings, the leadership can become sucked into a “I am right, you are wrong” mentality. People lack the maturity to take a step back and see how to work through issues in a more healthy way. If we win an argument and lose a genuine opportunity to preserve a relationship, we lose.

One of the most unhealthy patterns that can envelop is a “don’t say anything negative” kind of environment, where there becomes a militant reaction to problems, pain and disappointment. People then don’t learn how to go through pain in an effective way.

I have also found that when a church does nothing about a problem is should address, that passivity can be incredibly damaging to the church culture.

3. Heavy religious performance driven culture.
You cannot have an abusive environment without this, because the abusive culture pushes people to give, serve, do and live in performance based Christianity. As long as people are busy and doing things that serve the success agenda, things are ok. Any emphasis outside of that is frowned upon and given a cold shoulder to.

In this setting, there is a heavy emphasis on how things look. It becomes more important that things look ok rather than authentically doing life as a body with effective vulnerability. We lose value for a healthy heart life.

People are becoming weary of the television perfection that Christianity portrays. We’ve not learned our lessons in all the big moral fallouts that take place. Meanwhile, our perfectionistic values put an ungodly pressure on people that skews how they interact with God. They become subtly trained that their relationship with God is based on service and how perfect things go.

It exhausts people and leaves them disillusioned. Unfortunately, in a high performance based environment, people become commodities in the goal of growth, success, status and achievement.

4. Fear and shame drive people into submission.
People are often punished in shameful and often public ways that crush them.

5. Emphasis on a charismatic leader who becomes the ultimate spokesperson on all spiritual issues.
I recall a ministry I interacted with years ago, where the answer to every biblical question I asked was, “(ministry leader’s name) says . . . ” I was like ,”What about what the Bible says?”

People lose the ability to get their own perspective. Reading non-approved books is frowned upon, because the belief is that people cannot think for themselves. People are not encouraged to get with God’s Word and search out answers for themselves. There becomes an unhealthy dependency on themselves.

I remember when a controversial subject came up years ago in a church, many of the members would address the subject by saying, “Pastor [NAME] said this about it.” No one did their own searching of the Scriptures or of the issue themselves.

6. The leader’s sins and weaknesses are minimized while the people’s sins and weaknesses are maximized.
Spiritual abuse can begin to shift when the church leadership is willing to admit mistakes and authentically share their own personal journey in redemptive ways.

It’s a tragedy for a pastor to teach on subjects that have not been deeply processed in their own life. When was the last time you heard a pastor express repentance of certain areas to the congregation? It’s often all about what the church needs to get right and very little about humbling yourself before God.

7. Over spiritualizing of everything.
This is a major problem in general. It is very easy to throw in a “God told me” with whatever you want to say. We share our hearing from God as though we hear from God 100% correctly 100% of the time. This has led many in the body of Christ into deeper mental illness, because we’ve not learned to process the realities of our life in balance. We’ve lost the power of learning to hear from God amongst healthy council.

There becomes a spiritual answer for everything that manipulates situations and keeps leaders from saying, “We got it wrong. We thought we heard from God and we’re processing through what that means now. We’re sorry and we take full responsibility for it.”

It’s easy to cover up mistakes or insecurities with “God told me.”

8. Hovering over personal decisions in a person’s life.
It shocked me how much this happens, but it does in growing form. The thought of being this controlling sounds exhausting, but it is how many leaders attempt to feel safe. They control people.

This can get into who people marry, what job to get and what decisions to make.

9. A culture of exclusive spirituality. “We have the monopoly on God.”
You can see this when there is little appreciation for other churches or ministries. There is a sense that “we have the revelation on this and no one else does. We are the ones who get this.”

10. Heavy financial manipulation.
This is a tough one, especially because the church still has a very poverty driven mentality on a lot of financial perspectives. Many still think its ok for people who are in ministry position and give full time hours to it, to live in lack and poverty circumstances.

But this shouldn’t give us carte blanche to use offerings, giving projects and building campaigns in manipulative ways. In some churches, you cannot have a Sunday go by without a majority of talking time being spent on how people need to give more to the latest project.

When you have an achievement minded church culture, then financial campaigns will always be in play. They will never end. You’ll have to find a new way to get people to give each time.

11. Creating an internal bubble that isolates people from their families, other ministries, etc.
One of the problems with modern ministry is that people are easily burned out and disconnected from other parts of their life. In fact, when I left formal pastoring, I was amazed at how much time I could invest in my relationship with my wife and children. It was astounding to me how church life can isolate people from many important areas of their life and wholeness.

12. Unwillingness to act with compassion towards those who leave.
There is a time where dangerous and toxic people have to be dealt with. But many times, there are just honest disagreements or new paths opening up for people that churches need to recognize. Healthy churches know when its time for someone to move on and honor that transition.

Abusive church environments make it difficult to leave or move on. People are often shunned. Communication gets shut down. They get treated as an outcast. Leaving a church is very difficult to begin with, but abusive environments make it painfully worse.

13. Isolated accountability structure.
There is either no accountability structure or the one that is in place is a small huddle where there is no collaboration or council on issues. There is little room for healthy debate and reasonable discussion over issues.

14. A strong legalistic and religious pressure.
Because the emphasis is often on how things look, there can be a legalistic pressure on sin, sanctification and holiness. People are taught in such a way where they always feel they have to do better, perform better or work to be good enough.

Yeah, that doesn't sound good. I've been to a few churches like that and it really upset my spirit. I've attended 3 wonderful churches where I've felt an acceptance like I've never experienced, grace like a firehouse, freedom to be who God created me to be (a strong woman with the desire to impact people with the fierce love of Christ) and I've never experienced a feeling of "my leaders are greater" or "my sin is greater." I do know know that the enemy will drive a wedge with gross misunderstandings. He loves to see believers angry at one another. I think I have about 3 or 4 major heated discussions with my leaders or friends in my church every year. I present my concerns respectfully about a message or a miscommunication and I always feel it is resolved in a God honoring way. I am a fighter though but with the heart of a lion. I fight for unity and don't let the devil get a foothold. At the end of the day I stand before God with my heart condition towards my church (all brothers and sisters in Christ). I love my church, The Rock Church Minneapolis!

[jeromydaviddarling]

http://markdejesus.com/14-signs-spiritual-abuse/

Mark’s article below:

I’ve spent years helping people recover from abusive situations. They range from abusive marriages, homes and even abusive church environments. Over the years, there has become an aware of how church and ministry environments can misuse their influence and authority in a way that damages the spiritual and emotional life of people. This has become known as spiritual abuse. The ramifications are more harmful than most people realize.

The Need for Better Answers
I find that the majority of Christians who have served God for a long enough time have at some point been a part of a spiritually toxic environment. Yet I rarely see people walking through any kind of process to heal from those harmful situations. The best that is offered is “the past is the past” or “get over it.” Meanwhile, believers left and right are walking around with spiritual and emotional lacerations that they don’t know how to heal.

Often its because they have been in spiritually abusive environments for so long they don’t know any better. In fact, I find that people in these kind of settings lose their sense of judgment. It’s like being with an alcoholic for so long. You begin to think that living with the ups and downs of addictions is normal.

Addressing Spiritual Abuse Patterns
Many churches are making changes in making the health of their church family a high priority. Love, honor and a renewed lens on healthy authority are beginning to take shape. But we still have a ways to go.

I have spent countless hours personally working with people who have come out of spiritual abuse. Some of the stories would make the hairs on your arm stand on end. Yet God has graciously worked in many of their lives to heal those wounds and renew their belief systems; allowing them to cultivate healthy connection and fellowship.

In the meantime, it’s important to be aware of the warning signs. Along my work with people and churches as well as extensive research, I have compiled some common signs that an abusive environment is in play.

Please understand that I do not throw the abuse word around loosely. This is a very serious issue and I share this with great sobriety and through much prayer. Please note, you don’t have to have all of these signs for abuse to take place.

If you did not listen to or watch our two part episode on spiritual abuse, you can tune in here.

1. The standards of honor, respect and authority are distorted.
This is the biggest factor when spiritual abuse is taking place. Instead of a culture of honor and respect that is given from both leadership and followers, an authoritarianism exists. Over time, leaders lose their ability to be approachable. There can become a misuse of the verse, “touch not God’s anointed” and the body loses its ability to come and reason together.

There is little emphasis in working through issues, so people either quietly leave or sit in silent submission with no personal engagement. Instead of empowering the people, they become conditioned to just go with whatever is happening.

The concept of spiritual fathering can become distorted in this. Leadership is driven to use force, intimidation or manipulation to make things happen.

2. Unsafe environments when it comes to dealing with problems.
A church is safe when it knows how to deal with problems effectively with love, grace and truth all in play. In a spiritually abusive environment, people are often demonized in embarrassing ways. Relationships are not protected and betrayal takes place.

In these kind of toxic settings, the leadership can become sucked into a “I am right, you are wrong” mentality. People lack the maturity to take a step back and see how to work through issues in a more healthy way. If we win an argument and lose a genuine opportunity to preserve a relationship, we lose.

One of the most unhealthy patterns that can envelop is a “don’t say anything negative” kind of environment, where there becomes a militant reaction to problems, pain and disappointment. People then don’t learn how to go through pain in an effective way.

I have also found that when a church does nothing about a problem is should address, that passivity can be incredibly damaging to the church culture.

3. Heavy religious performance driven culture.
You cannot have an abusive environment without this, because the abusive culture pushes people to give, serve, do and live in performance based Christianity. As long as people are busy and doing things that serve the success agenda, things are ok. Any emphasis outside of that is frowned upon and given a cold shoulder to.

In this setting, there is a heavy emphasis on how things look. It becomes more important that things look ok rather than authentically doing life as a body with effective vulnerability. We lose value for a healthy heart life.

People are becoming weary of the television perfection that Christianity portrays. We’ve not learned our lessons in all the big moral fallouts that take place. Meanwhile, our perfectionistic values put an ungodly pressure on people that skews how they interact with God. They become subtly trained that their relationship with God is based on service and how perfect things go.

It exhausts people and leaves them disillusioned. Unfortunately, in a high performance based environment, people become commodities in the goal of growth, success, status and achievement.

4. Fear and shame drive people into submission.
People are often punished in shameful and often public ways that crush them.

5. Emphasis on a charismatic leader who becomes the ultimate spokesperson on all spiritual issues.
I recall a ministry I interacted with years ago, where the answer to every biblical question I asked was, “(ministry leader’s name) says . . . ” I was like ,”What about what the Bible says?”

People lose the ability to get their own perspective. Reading non-approved books is frowned upon, because the belief is that people cannot think for themselves. People are not encouraged to get with God’s Word and search out answers for themselves. There becomes an unhealthy dependency on themselves.

I remember when a controversial subject came up years ago in a church, many of the members would address the subject by saying, “Pastor [NAME] said this about it.” No one did their own searching of the Scriptures or of the issue themselves.

6. The leader’s sins and weaknesses are minimized while the people’s sins and weaknesses are maximized.
Spiritual abuse can begin to shift when the church leadership is willing to admit mistakes and authentically share their own personal journey in redemptive ways.

It’s a tragedy for a pastor to teach on subjects that have not been deeply processed in their own life. When was the last time you heard a pastor express repentance of certain areas to the congregation? It’s often all about what the church needs to get right and very little about humbling yourself before God.

7. Over spiritualizing of everything.
This is a major problem in general. It is very easy to throw in a “God told me” with whatever you want to say. We share our hearing from God as though we hear from God 100% correctly 100% of the time. This has led many in the body of Christ into deeper mental illness, because we’ve not learned to process the realities of our life in balance. We’ve lost the power of learning to hear from God amongst healthy council.

There becomes a spiritual answer for everything that manipulates situations and keeps leaders from saying, “We got it wrong. We thought we heard from God and we’re processing through what that means now. We’re sorry and we take full responsibility for it.”

It’s easy to cover up mistakes or insecurities with “God told me.”

8. Hovering over personal decisions in a person’s life.
It shocked me how much this happens, but it does in growing form. The thought of being this controlling sounds exhausting, but it is how many leaders attempt to feel safe. They control people.

This can get into who people marry, what job to get and what decisions to make.

9. A culture of exclusive spirituality. “We have the monopoly on God.”
You can see this when there is little appreciation for other churches or ministries. There is a sense that “we have the revelation on this and no one else does. We are the ones who get this.”

10. Heavy financial manipulation.
This is a tough one, especially because the church still has a very poverty driven mentality on a lot of financial perspectives. Many still think its ok for people who are in ministry position and give full time hours to it, to live in lack and poverty circumstances.

But this shouldn’t give us carte blanche to use offerings, giving projects and building campaigns in manipulative ways. In some churches, you cannot have a Sunday go by without a majority of talking time being spent on how people need to give more to the latest project.

When you have an achievement minded church culture, then financial campaigns will always be in play. They will never end. You’ll have to find a new way to get people to give each time.

11. Creating an internal bubble that isolates people from their families, other ministries, etc.
One of the problems with modern ministry is that people are easily burned out and disconnected from other parts of their life. In fact, when I left formal pastoring, I was amazed at how much time I could invest in my relationship with my wife and children. It was astounding to me how church life can isolate people from many important areas of their life and wholeness.

12. Unwillingness to act with compassion towards those who leave.
There is a time where dangerous and toxic people have to be dealt with. But many times, there are just honest disagreements or new paths opening up for people that churches need to recognize. Healthy churches know when its time for someone to move on and honor that transition.

Abusive church environments make it difficult to leave or move on. People are often shunned. Communication gets shut down. They get treated as an outcast. Leaving a church is very difficult to begin with, but abusive environments make it painfully worse.

13. Isolated accountability structure.
There is either no accountability structure or the one that is in place is a small huddle where there is no collaboration or council on issues. There is little room for healthy debate and reasonable discussion over issues.

14. A strong legalistic and religious pressure.
Because the emphasis is often on how things look, there can be a legalistic pressure on sin, sanctification and holiness. People are taught in such a way where they always feel they have to do better, perform better or work to be good enough.

Sister just because you post an article you agree with doesn't mean we should automatically trust the person that wrote it right? If it's such a terrible sin why don't we find the term in the bible?

[HughHoney]

Prolly why u don’t see terms like “abortion”. Unfortunately, livin’ And breathin’ documents don’t evolve as fast as people do

[AgathaL'Orange]

http://markdejesus.com/14-signs-spiritual-abuse/

Mark’s article below:

I’ve spent years helping people recover from abusive situations. They range from abusive marriages, homes and even abusive church environments. Over the years, there has become an aware of how church and ministry environments can misuse their influence and authority in a way that damages the spiritual and emotional life of people. This has become known as spiritual abuse. The ramifications are more harmful than most people realize.

The Need for Better Answers
I find that the majority of Christians who have served God for a long enough time have at some point been a part of a spiritually toxic environment. Yet I rarely see people walking through any kind of process to heal from those harmful situations. The best that is offered is “the past is the past” or “get over it.” Meanwhile, believers left and right are walking around with spiritual and emotional lacerations that they don’t know how to heal.

Often its because they have been in spiritually abusive environments for so long they don’t know any better. In fact, I find that people in these kind of settings lose their sense of judgment. It’s like being with an alcoholic for so long. You begin to think that living with the ups and downs of addictions is normal.

Addressing Spiritual Abuse Patterns
Many churches are making changes in making the health of their church family a high priority. Love, honor and a renewed lens on healthy authority are beginning to take shape. But we still have a ways to go.

I have spent countless hours personally working with people who have come out of spiritual abuse. Some of the stories would make the hairs on your arm stand on end. Yet God has graciously worked in many of their lives to heal those wounds and renew their belief systems; allowing them to cultivate healthy connection and fellowship.

In the meantime, it’s important to be aware of the warning signs. Along my work with people and churches as well as extensive research, I have compiled some common signs that an abusive environment is in play.

Please understand that I do not throw the abuse word around loosely. This is a very serious issue and I share this with great sobriety and through much prayer. Please note, you don’t have to have all of these signs for abuse to take place.

If you did not listen to or watch our two part episode on spiritual abuse, you can tune in here.

1. The standards of honor, respect and authority are distorted.
This is the biggest factor when spiritual abuse is taking place. Instead of a culture of honor and respect that is given from both leadership and followers, an authoritarianism exists. Over time, leaders lose their ability to be approachable. There can become a misuse of the verse, “touch not God’s anointed” and the body loses its ability to come and reason together.

There is little emphasis in working through issues, so people either quietly leave or sit in silent submission with no personal engagement. Instead of empowering the people, they become conditioned to just go with whatever is happening.

The concept of spiritual fathering can become distorted in this. Leadership is driven to use force, intimidation or manipulation to make things happen.

2. Unsafe environments when it comes to dealing with problems.
A church is safe when it knows how to deal with problems effectively with love, grace and truth all in play. In a spiritually abusive environment, people are often demonized in embarrassing ways. Relationships are not protected and betrayal takes place.

In these kind of toxic settings, the leadership can become sucked into a “I am right, you are wrong” mentality. People lack the maturity to take a step back and see how to work through issues in a more healthy way. If we win an argument and lose a genuine opportunity to preserve a relationship, we lose.

One of the most unhealthy patterns that can envelop is a “don’t say anything negative” kind of environment, where there becomes a militant reaction to problems, pain and disappointment. People then don’t learn how to go through pain in an effective way.

I have also found that when a church does nothing about a problem is should address, that passivity can be incredibly damaging to the church culture.

3. Heavy religious performance driven culture.
You cannot have an abusive environment without this, because the abusive culture pushes people to give, serve, do and live in performance based Christianity. As long as people are busy and doing things that serve the success agenda, things are ok. Any emphasis outside of that is frowned upon and given a cold shoulder to.

In this setting, there is a heavy emphasis on how things look. It becomes more important that things look ok rather than authentically doing life as a body with effective vulnerability. We lose value for a healthy heart life.

People are becoming weary of the television perfection that Christianity portrays. We’ve not learned our lessons in all the big moral fallouts that take place. Meanwhile, our perfectionistic values put an ungodly pressure on people that skews how they interact with God. They become subtly trained that their relationship with God is based on service and how perfect things go.

It exhausts people and leaves them disillusioned. Unfortunately, in a high performance based environment, people become commodities in the goal of growth, success, status and achievement.

4. Fear and shame drive people into submission.
People are often punished in shameful and often public ways that crush them.

5. Emphasis on a charismatic leader who becomes the ultimate spokesperson on all spiritual issues.
I recall a ministry I interacted with years ago, where the answer to every biblical question I asked was, “(ministry leader’s name) says . . . ” I was like ,”What about what the Bible says?”

People lose the ability to get their own perspective. Reading non-approved books is frowned upon, because the belief is that people cannot think for themselves. People are not encouraged to get with God’s Word and search out answers for themselves. There becomes an unhealthy dependency on themselves.

I remember when a controversial subject came up years ago in a church, many of the members would address the subject by saying, “Pastor [NAME] said this about it.” No one did their own searching of the Scriptures or of the issue themselves.

6. The leader’s sins and weaknesses are minimized while the people’s sins and weaknesses are maximized.
Spiritual abuse can begin to shift when the church leadership is willing to admit mistakes and authentically share their own personal journey in redemptive ways.

It’s a tragedy for a pastor to teach on subjects that have not been deeply processed in their own life. When was the last time you heard a pastor express repentance of certain areas to the congregation? It’s often all about what the church needs to get right and very little about humbling yourself before God.

7. Over spiritualizing of everything.
This is a major problem in general. It is very easy to throw in a “God told me” with whatever you want to say. We share our hearing from God as though we hear from God 100% correctly 100% of the time. This has led many in the body of Christ into deeper mental illness, because we’ve not learned to process the realities of our life in balance. We’ve lost the power of learning to hear from God amongst healthy council.

There becomes a spiritual answer for everything that manipulates situations and keeps leaders from saying, “We got it wrong. We thought we heard from God and we’re processing through what that means now. We’re sorry and we take full responsibility for it.”

It’s easy to cover up mistakes or insecurities with “God told me.”

8. Hovering over personal decisions in a person’s life.
It shocked me how much this happens, but it does in growing form. The thought of being this controlling sounds exhausting, but it is how many leaders attempt to feel safe. They control people.

This can get into who people marry, what job to get and what decisions to make.

9. A culture of exclusive spirituality. “We have the monopoly on God.”
You can see this when there is little appreciation for other churches or ministries. There is a sense that “we have the revelation on this and no one else does. We are the ones who get this.”

10. Heavy financial manipulation.
This is a tough one, especially because the church still has a very poverty driven mentality on a lot of financial perspectives. Many still think its ok for people who are in ministry position and give full time hours to it, to live in lack and poverty circumstances.

But this shouldn’t give us carte blanche to use offerings, giving projects and building campaigns in manipulative ways. In some churches, you cannot have a Sunday go by without a majority of talking time being spent on how people need to give more to the latest project.

When you have an achievement minded church culture, then financial campaigns will always be in play. They will never end. You’ll have to find a new way to get people to give each time.

11. Creating an internal bubble that isolates people from their families, other ministries, etc.
One of the problems with modern ministry is that people are easily burned out and disconnected from other parts of their life. In fact, when I left formal pastoring, I was amazed at how much time I could invest in my relationship with my wife and children. It was astounding to me how church life can isolate people from many important areas of their life and wholeness.

12. Unwillingness to act with compassion towards those who leave.
There is a time where dangerous and toxic people have to be dealt with. But many times, there are just honest disagreements or new paths opening up for people that churches need to recognize. Healthy churches know when its time for someone to move on and honor that transition.

Abusive church environments make it difficult to leave or move on. People are often shunned. Communication gets shut down. They get treated as an outcast. Leaving a church is very difficult to begin with, but abusive environments make it painfully worse.

13. Isolated accountability structure.
There is either no accountability structure or the one that is in place is a small huddle where there is no collaboration or council on issues. There is little room for healthy debate and reasonable discussion over issues.

14. A strong legalistic and religious pressure.
Because the emphasis is often on how things look, there can be a legalistic pressure on sin, sanctification and holiness. People are taught in such a way where they always feel they have to do better, perform better or work to be good enough.

Sister just because you post an article you agree with doesn't mean we should automatically trust the person that wrote it right? If it's such a terrible sin why don't we find the term in the bible?

Spiritual Abuse is an umbrella term that covers coercive behaviors listed and others that aren’t listed. Read on, I’m betting you don’t think all the things on that list are good do you?

“Child abuse” isn’t listed in the Bible per se either but we wouldn’t argue it exists.  Or “domestic violence.”  Lots of things aren’t listed as terms, but the behaviors are or through time the church has had to wrestle with topics and come to an agreement on them.

[jeromydaviddarling]

http://markdejesus.com/14-signs-spiritual-abuse/

Mark’s article below:

I’ve spent years helping people recover from abusive situations. They range from abusive marriages, homes and even abusive church environments. Over the years, there has become an aware of how church and ministry environments can misuse their influence and authority in a way that damages the spiritual and emotional life of people. This has become known as spiritual abuse. The ramifications are more harmful than most people realize.

The Need for Better Answers
I find that the majority of Christians who have served God for a long enough time have at some point been a part of a spiritually toxic environment. Yet I rarely see people walking through any kind of process to heal from those harmful situations. The best that is offered is “the past is the past” or “get over it.” Meanwhile, believers left and right are walking around with spiritual and emotional lacerations that they don’t know how to heal.

Often its because they have been in spiritually abusive environments for so long they don’t know any better. In fact, I find that people in these kind of settings lose their sense of judgment. It’s like being with an alcoholic for so long. You begin to think that living with the ups and downs of addictions is normal.

Addressing Spiritual Abuse Patterns
Many churches are making changes in making the health of their church family a high priority. Love, honor and a renewed lens on healthy authority are beginning to take shape. But we still have a ways to go.

I have spent countless hours personally working with people who have come out of spiritual abuse. Some of the stories would make the hairs on your arm stand on end. Yet God has graciously worked in many of their lives to heal those wounds and renew their belief systems; allowing them to cultivate healthy connection and fellowship.

In the meantime, it’s important to be aware of the warning signs. Along my work with people and churches as well as extensive research, I have compiled some common signs that an abusive environment is in play.

Please understand that I do not throw the abuse word around loosely. This is a very serious issue and I share this with great sobriety and through much prayer. Please note, you don’t have to have all of these signs for abuse to take place.

If you did not listen to or watch our two part episode on spiritual abuse, you can tune in here.

1. The standards of honor, respect and authority are distorted.
This is the biggest factor when spiritual abuse is taking place. Instead of a culture of honor and respect that is given from both leadership and followers, an authoritarianism exists. Over time, leaders lose their ability to be approachable. There can become a misuse of the verse, “touch not God’s anointed” and the body loses its ability to come and reason together.

There is little emphasis in working through issues, so people either quietly leave or sit in silent submission with no personal engagement. Instead of empowering the people, they become conditioned to just go with whatever is happening.

The concept of spiritual fathering can become distorted in this. Leadership is driven to use force, intimidation or manipulation to make things happen.

2. Unsafe environments when it comes to dealing with problems.
A church is safe when it knows how to deal with problems effectively with love, grace and truth all in play. In a spiritually abusive environment, people are often demonized in embarrassing ways. Relationships are not protected and betrayal takes place.

In these kind of toxic settings, the leadership can become sucked into a “I am right, you are wrong” mentality. People lack the maturity to take a step back and see how to work through issues in a more healthy way. If we win an argument and lose a genuine opportunity to preserve a relationship, we lose.

One of the most unhealthy patterns that can envelop is a “don’t say anything negative” kind of environment, where there becomes a militant reaction to problems, pain and disappointment. People then don’t learn how to go through pain in an effective way.

I have also found that when a church does nothing about a problem is should address, that passivity can be incredibly damaging to the church culture.

3. Heavy religious performance driven culture.
You cannot have an abusive environment without this, because the abusive culture pushes people to give, serve, do and live in performance based Christianity. As long as people are busy and doing things that serve the success agenda, things are ok. Any emphasis outside of that is frowned upon and given a cold shoulder to.

In this setting, there is a heavy emphasis on how things look. It becomes more important that things look ok rather than authentically doing life as a body with effective vulnerability. We lose value for a healthy heart life.

People are becoming weary of the television perfection that Christianity portrays. We’ve not learned our lessons in all the big moral fallouts that take place. Meanwhile, our perfectionistic values put an ungodly pressure on people that skews how they interact with God. They become subtly trained that their relationship with God is based on service and how perfect things go.

It exhausts people and leaves them disillusioned. Unfortunately, in a high performance based environment, people become commodities in the goal of growth, success, status and achievement.

4. Fear and shame drive people into submission.
People are often punished in shameful and often public ways that crush them.

5. Emphasis on a charismatic leader who becomes the ultimate spokesperson on all spiritual issues.
I recall a ministry I interacted with years ago, where the answer to every biblical question I asked was, “(ministry leader’s name) says . . . ” I was like ,”What about what the Bible says?”

People lose the ability to get their own perspective. Reading non-approved books is frowned upon, because the belief is that people cannot think for themselves. People are not encouraged to get with God’s Word and search out answers for themselves. There becomes an unhealthy dependency on themselves.

I remember when a controversial subject came up years ago in a church, many of the members would address the subject by saying, “Pastor [NAME] said this about it.” No one did their own searching of the Scriptures or of the issue themselves.

6. The leader’s sins and weaknesses are minimized while the people’s sins and weaknesses are maximized.
Spiritual abuse can begin to shift when the church leadership is willing to admit mistakes and authentically share their own personal journey in redemptive ways.

It’s a tragedy for a pastor to teach on subjects that have not been deeply processed in their own life. When was the last time you heard a pastor express repentance of certain areas to the congregation? It’s often all about what the church needs to get right and very little about humbling yourself before God.

7. Over spiritualizing of everything.
This is a major problem in general. It is very easy to throw in a “God told me” with whatever you want to say. We share our hearing from God as though we hear from God 100% correctly 100% of the time. This has led many in the body of Christ into deeper mental illness, because we’ve not learned to process the realities of our life in balance. We’ve lost the power of learning to hear from God amongst healthy council.

There becomes a spiritual answer for everything that manipulates situations and keeps leaders from saying, “We got it wrong. We thought we heard from God and we’re processing through what that means now. We’re sorry and we take full responsibility for it.”

It’s easy to cover up mistakes or insecurities with “God told me.”

8. Hovering over personal decisions in a person’s life.
It shocked me how much this happens, but it does in growing form. The thought of being this controlling sounds exhausting, but it is how many leaders attempt to feel safe. They control people.

This can get into who people marry, what job to get and what decisions to make.

9. A culture of exclusive spirituality. “We have the monopoly on God.”
You can see this when there is little appreciation for other churches or ministries. There is a sense that “we have the revelation on this and no one else does. We are the ones who get this.”

10. Heavy financial manipulation.
This is a tough one, especially because the church still has a very poverty driven mentality on a lot of financial perspectives. Many still think its ok for people who are in ministry position and give full time hours to it, to live in lack and poverty circumstances.

But this shouldn’t give us carte blanche to use offerings, giving projects and building campaigns in manipulative ways. In some churches, you cannot have a Sunday go by without a majority of talking time being spent on how people need to give more to the latest project.

When you have an achievement minded church culture, then financial campaigns will always be in play. They will never end. You’ll have to find a new way to get people to give each time.

11. Creating an internal bubble that isolates people from their families, other ministries, etc.
One of the problems with modern ministry is that people are easily burned out and disconnected from other parts of their life. In fact, when I left formal pastoring, I was amazed at how much time I could invest in my relationship with my wife and children. It was astounding to me how church life can isolate people from many important areas of their life and wholeness.

12. Unwillingness to act with compassion towards those who leave.
There is a time where dangerous and toxic people have to be dealt with. But many times, there are just honest disagreements or new paths opening up for people that churches need to recognize. Healthy churches know when its time for someone to move on and honor that transition.

Abusive church environments make it difficult to leave or move on. People are often shunned. Communication gets shut down. They get treated as an outcast. Leaving a church is very difficult to begin with, but abusive environments make it painfully worse.

13. Isolated accountability structure.
There is either no accountability structure or the one that is in place is a small huddle where there is no collaboration or council on issues. There is little room for healthy debate and reasonable discussion over issues.

14. A strong legalistic and religious pressure.
Because the emphasis is often on how things look, there can be a legalistic pressure on sin, sanctification and holiness. People are taught in such a way where they always feel they have to do better, perform better or work to be good enough.

Sister just because you post an article you agree with doesn't mean we should automatically trust the person that wrote it right? If it's such a terrible sin why don't we find the term in the bible?

Spiritual Abuse is an umbrella term that covers coercive behaviors listed and others that aren’t listed. Read on, I’m betting you don’t think all the things on that list are good do you?

“Child abuse” isn’t listed in the Bible per se either but we wouldn’t argue it exists.  Or “domestic violence.”  Lots of things aren’t listed as terms, but the behaviors are or through time the church has had to wrestle with topics and come to an agreement on them.

Goodness you guys, OF COURSE I DON'T QUESTION CHILD ABUSE OR RAPE OR ANYTHING ELSE BECAUSE THEY'VE BEEN AROUND FROM THE FALL. Spiritual abuse is a brand new term that seems to only apply specifically to the church and to pastors over their members. I think we would be wise To take any new teachings we hear about this and apply to the scripture no?

[UffDa]

The word trinity is not in the (NIV) Bible and possibly other translations but we know that there are verses about the trinity.

[HughHoney]

Was looking for all those good verses on “confessing masturbation” but stumbled into Galatians 5. Happy little accident

[jeromydaviddarling]

So I take it we can close this thread down yes?

[HughHoney]

I’d prefer to continue talking about spiritual abuse.

[omelianchuk]

It would seem that "spiritual abuse" is a kind of cluster concept describing the misuse of spiritual authority. You could probably find descriptions the character of those who engage in it like 2 Tim 3:6 or Jude 12, but I wouldn't think it needs to be mentioned specifically in the Bible to be something nameable.

[jeromydaviddarling]

It would seem that "spiritual abuse" is a kind of cluster concept describing the misuse of spiritual authority. You could probably find descriptions the character of those who engage in it like 2 Tim 3:6 or Jude 12, but I wouldn't think it needs to be mentioned specifically in the Bible to be something nameable.

That's my point exactly. We are leaving it in the hands of people to make their own definition based off of blogs, experts, therapist, and other very well meaning folks. It's clear from this whole epic mess that we ought not be creating new terminology, but focusing exclusively on living by what the Bible teaches yes?

[HughHoney]

Bro you just typed you didn’t think things were sins unless the terminology was in the text

[HughHoney]

lack of oversight and accountability is dangerous, especially when there aren’t women at the table. I do think a lot of spiritual abuse comes back to the lack of female leadership and presence across the board. Certainly sexual abuse in the Church would diminish with female priests

[jeromydaviddarling]

I'm a little disappointed at the amount of over-clarifying I have to do. I'm not saying it's not a sin if it's not in the Bible, I'm saying when we rely on blogs, experts, speakers and internet writers to define BRAND NEW TERMS, we leave open these things to the fallacy of man, and suddenly, an INNOCENT man ends up as collateral damage, because now ANYTIME a person doesn't like something their pastor says to them they can cry "spiritual abuse" and point to all their blogs and therapists and books as proof. And that is not a good thing...and this whole mess proves it empirically

[G_Prince]

lack of oversight and accountability is dangerous, especially when there aren’t women at the table. I do think a lot of spiritual abuse comes back to the lack of female leadership and presence across the board. Certainly sexual abuse in the Church would diminish with female priests

This ^^^^^^^^

[jeromydaviddarling]

lack of oversight and accountability is dangerous, especially when there aren’t women at the table. I do think a lot of spiritual abuse comes back to the lack of female leadership and presence across the board. Certainly sexual abuse in the Church would diminish with female priests

This ^^^^^^^^

So sexual abuse would diminish (in your opinion) but what would increase? Again we're supposed to be taking the word from people we don't know. You have opinions, just like everyone else, on how churches ought to be run (even though you've never run one) but the point stands and you both refuse to address it - relying on blogs and message boards and supposed experts, as opposed to the Bible, on how one "defines" spiritual abuse is madness. I am however beginning to wonder how many pastors have been spiritually abused by their former congregants...

[HughHoney]

I wouldn’t be so sure about that dude

Not all message boards or experts are bad, not all interpretations of the Bible are reliable. I know your opinion is just in its infancy on spiritual abuse but the Bible is probably not the best place to learn more

[Adoptedson]

Spiritual abuse has a very prominent place in the Bible, though that terminology (much like how the word Trinity is not used to describe the nature of God) has not been used until recently. In the scripture it is called bondage to men and the traditions of men. It is a by-product and outgrowth of legalism, which is bondage to the letter of the law. I also agree with Jeremy about not being to quick after a hurt or misunderstanding has occurred to run out yelling abuse, abuse, absue. Without Biblicaly taking the concern to the accused first and seeking to reconcile, forgive, and pray. We attended the Rock for years where we experienced some hurt. We also had great memories we will be forever gretaful for. Pastor Mark was always very kind and gracious to us. and had a zeal for the Lord that was contagious. There is no such thing as a perfect church. After we felt the Holy Spirit leading us out and into a new community where we felt our spiritual gifts could best be used to edify the church. We assessed our concerns personally with the pastors, and forgave. There is nothing wrong and we are not bad Christians for not “planting our flag and committing for life”, if The Holy Spirit has different plans. Obedience to Him alone. I also agree that forums such as these are not the best place to just vent greveiences especially if you never personably took those greveiences to the person first and even if you have we are called to be good stewards of each other’s reputations.

Spiritual abuse, as we are addressing it here, could be defined as the injury of a person's spiritual health. It is the use of religion and spiritual concepts to gain or maintain undue power over another. The cause could arise from a doctrinal error that puts a person into a performance-based relationship with God. Or, it could be the result of a person trying to meet their legitimate need by an illegitimate means that weakens their own or another person's spiritual health.

Typically an abusive religious system will have the following characteristics:

Undue Loyalty to Leaders - The leadership is held to be anointed by God and followers taught they should submit in anything it requires. It is taught that God will bless that submission even if the leader is wrong.

Authoritarian - The system is characterized by rules and a power structure that is unaccountable to those who follow.

Appearance is Everything - As Jeff VanVonderen says, "How things look is more important than what is real." (Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, page 130)

Perfectionistic - Works are necessary for salvation, to keep one's salvation, or to keep God's blessing.

Unbalanced - There is usually a majoring on minors that makes the group distinctive from others.
Scriptural Precedent

Spiritual abuse is prominently discussed in scripture:

The strongest, most emotional and even violent responses Jesus displayed came against spiritual abusers. From the above-described encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees in the synagogue to the cleansing of the Temple, Jesus confronted those who misused their spiritual authority at the expense of those who followed them. Let's look at some passages.

Jeremiah 5:26-31 describes a perversion of justice in Israel where those in authority, the prophets and priests, were adding to their own wealth, power, and prestige at the expense of the needy. This angered God Who asked, "Shall I not visit for these things?" This same perversion of justice is described again in Jeremiah 6:13-14 where the false leaders give lip service to healing, saying, "Peace, peace; when there is no peace." Needy people left these spiritual authorities with no real help and God was angry for that. An authoritarian leader will seek to be unaccountable for his actions, or inactions, this side of heaven.

Luke 15:1, 2 tells the attitude of the Pharisees about Jesus' relationship with Publicans and sinners. Jesus dares to share a meal with them. The Pharisees conclude that Jesus must not care about his own spiritual purity if He associates with people of such low moral character. The attitude of the Pharisees illustrates a chasm that really did exist between the lowly sinner, who knew he was a sinner, and the self-righteous Pharisee. The religious leaders were saying by their attitude that you must rise to a level of acceptability before we will accept you. This is perfectionism and it is a denial of grace. God's attitude, however, is that He will come to you and meet you where you are.

Matthew 23 is a long description by Jesus of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. He says they have seated themselves in "Moses seat," the position of authority, and they command things that they themselves will not do. They bind heavy burdens on people but they will not carry the loads. Jesus then goes on to utter seven "Woes" on the Pharisees for their hypocrisy. The meek and mild Jesus resorts to words like "hypocrites!" "whited sepulchers," "serpents," and more. Talk about name-calling! I would hate to be on the receiving end of that when it is coming from God. But the humble sinners, who knew they were sinners, were attracted to this caring, straight-talking man. Jesus was real and the Pharisees were all appearance.

Again, in Matthew 23 Jesus tells the Pharisees to their face, and before the public, that they are unbalanced in their weighting of issues. Judgment, mercy and faith are given insufficient weight but a tithe on the produce from their garden plots is paid with precise measure (vss. 23-24). Jesus said they strain out the gnat but swallow whole camels. Where was their judgment and mercy in verse 14 where Jesus said they devour widows' houses? But, they did pay tithes! They were skilled at applying the letter of the Law to every life situation but had lost the spirit of the Law along the way. This was why the people were alienated from them, and fearful. And, it is why Jesus found a ready reception of His ministry among the public. Jesus illustrated the balance between the spirit and the letter when dealing with the woman taken in adultery.

I recommend the following books for those of you who wish to learn more about this subject and becoming free in Christ.

Forgotten God by Francis Chan

The God I never knew by Robert Morris

Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse by Jeff VanVonderen.

Toxic Faith by Stephen Arterburn and Jack Felton

Churches that Abuse by Ronald Enroth