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                 The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse

                 Who is Your Covering?: Leadership, Authority, and Accountability

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                     The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse

                     Who is Your Covering?: Leadership, Authority, & Accountability

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    In this article we will look at a number of examples of spiritual abuse : 

1. The oft-repeated platitude in some churches is that God works good in all things despite the actors in the cast; that God holds individual shepherds responsible for wrong decisions; & that sheep bear no responsibility so long as they mindlessly obey their shepherds. They are told to just submit & obey without question. The pastor or shepherd has the final say in everything in the lives of his flock

2. The fact that someone shared his concerns with one of the elders was proof that he was trying to undermine. He was no longer welcome to teach or be there & had to repent of a rebellious spirit. From the pulpit it was preached how a little leaven spoils the dough & that traitors betray by disagreeing with authority, so they need to expel those who would corrupt. He had only shared his concerns with a select few in leadership. Some are vilified & branded a heretic, boat rocker, trouble maker, loose canon, or unsubmissive rebel.

3. Some churches frown on anything other than the bible to help a person cope with life. A  woman was told it was a lack of faith to take antidepressants because she was a new creature in Christ, old things were behind her & everything was new. She was given a prescription of praise scriptures to memorize & repeat as a way of lifting her depression, & told to get over her sinful self-centredness. She managed to ride a religious high until her body could no longer respond to her.

4. When one woman had failed in her honest attempts, she was judged as undisciplined & unwilling, perhaps even unsaved. Church was no longer a safe place.

5. Faith can also become poisoned from hearing that �if only you had more faith� your baby would be healed.

6. A boy died because his parents believed all illnesses can be cured by prayer, so they did not seek medical help. Church officials claimed the parents� right to only pray for a child�s health was on trial. 

7. Some fund raisers ask people to claim their material blessings, & to give a contribution to secure it. People shell out more money, hoping God will give them what they believe they deserve.

8. Others suffer financial ruin because of their misplaced faith in a Christian who promised financial gain, through his seminars & cassettes about his rags to riches faith experience.

9. A man was told he hadn�t taken on the mantle as spiritual head of his home so spiritual forces were able to attack his family & cause physical & emotional problems.

10. Women are called unsubmissive, too strong, disloyal or a Jezebel for questioning or exposing male leaders.

11. A woman was told if she left her husband she would be out of the will of God. They said her son was disobedient for calling the police when she was being beaten, because his father is God�s covering for him. There was no support, no help, & their hour long scripture lesson �proving� their point multiplied her despair & heartache.

    She was told if she left her husband, she would be depriving her children of the heritage of observing a godly response to suffering. She was told that the ultimate act of faith is to submit to authority that is abusive. The pastor told her that she could have no greater act of faith than to die while staying with & submitting to her physically abusive husband, & that God would honor this & use it to draw her husband to Himself.

12. The pastor said �the fact that you won�t accept my counsel indicates your problem is spiritual, not physical or emotional. You confirmed it when you argued with your husband rather than submitting to him & trusting God.� When I told the pastor I felt condemned, he smiled & said my not being willing to accept his counsel proved he was right. �You need to repent of your rebellion to God, then all these minor problems will be taken care of.�  It seemed so shallow, but I must be a terrible Christian in rebellion, or my life wouldn�t be such a mess. I vacillate between suicidal thoughts & thinking I must be on the verge of a breakthrough to more holiness, if only I could praise or submit enough. But I feel exhausted & like I�m losing my mind so I don�t think I can stick it out long enough.�

13. Some very depressed mothers let their children be abused because they don�t think they can counter the head of the house. It results in more depression when they later learn they could have done something to stop it.

14. One woman was told if she was praying & doing spiritual warfare, these attacks would not be getting through & harming her family. She therefore felt she was the problem because she was weak & didn�t have enough faith. She could no longer read the bible at all, because of her anticipation of getting bad spiritual news.

15. Another woman was told that she was of the world because she wore eye-shadow & lipstick, & didn�t wear head coverings to show she was in submission. Leadership also said she was not spiritual because her child was in public school.

16. For one teenage boy, people started stopping by the house unexpectedly with a word of correction for him. Everything he said or did was questioned & analyzed. As a boy he had to ask a girl�s father if he wanted to date her. Girls had no choice. One month before he was to turn 18, he had a best friend chosen for him. His parents later decided that 25% of his income would go to the church. His father later informed him that he & his mother had given his soul over to the devil for the cleansing of his spirit, & that he would be dead in 6 months. He tried to reconcile, but they did not wish to talk about it.

17. One woman who occupied the same pew every Sunday was angry with a couple of kids & tried to shame them by saying �are you saaaaaaaaaved?� She inferred their salvation was up for grabs & that God would pull back His acceptance of them because, at 9 years old, they had laughed in church. In her rage she had picked the meanest, scariest thing she could say. She slashed them with it. Her purpose was to silence & punish them & it worked.

18. A teenage girl was sexually molested by her pastor. Little or nothing was being done to rectify the problem. Others did not want to talk about it or get involved. She was being avoided & shamed because church leaders were covering a serious offence with silence. Many elders knew that the pastor had sexually molested her, but kept it quiet in hopes it would simply blow over, because they didn�t want to damage the ministry. There was no real help because she could not talk about her pain.

    She was told that it was judgmental & unchristian for her to take the pastor to court for sexually exploiting her. They said she needed to forgive & forget, & that she had an unforgiving spirit. She was also accused of trying to seduce the pastor. Some told her parents their daughter asked for it because of the way she dressed.

    The girl felt pain, confusion & betrayal. She tried to live above it but the gossip totally enveloped her life. She eventually began to believe that she was to blame. Thirteen years later she is still reaping the emotional fruit of the way the church devoured a wounded girl. She was re-abused by those who blamed her, & also by the church leaders who covered up, saying �peace , peace� when there was no peace.

    The pastor misused his authority & influence in a perverse attempt to meet his own needs. He wasn�t held accountable, so he went to another church & victimized another girl. The church leaders share legal responsibility by covering it up. They are accountable before God for not acting when they had knowledge a crime was being committed.

    The pastor who committed the abuse was wounded as well, because instead of receiving help, healing & accountability, he was discarded & ignored. He needed to enter a recovery process where he could experience God�s grace & healing.

    In Part VIII in the next article we will look at how victims become trapped & also list some of the areas they struggle in.

    Books & 80 pages of seminar notes on �Spiritual Abuse� can be found in the Resources/Books/Spiritual Abuse section of this website.

Other articles by Steve & Heidi Cadman-Neu