Chaplain's Corner

It’s a touchy subject, so much so that many will just not touch it. But the spiritual damage done is so significant and common enough that the subject begs to be addressed. The subject I speak if is abuse: physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual abuse. Now this is a huge subject and I want to narrow my thoughts to the abuse that happens “in the name of God”. Many times physical, emotional, psychological abuse happens in the name of God. This is called spiritual abuse for the abuser uses God as a means of gaining and maintaining control over another person. What a travesty.

Abusers use their power, either their physical power, the power of their education or the power of the position they hold to force, coerce, and manipulate others to do what they want them to do. All the talk there is these days about bullying is really about abuse – bullies are people who abuse others, using their physical size or their positions in a group to coerce others to do what they want them to do. The church unfortunately often provides a safe haven for spiritual bullies.

I confront this too often in my work as a chaplain. Much of the abuse I encounter is historic and the scars are deep but the impact current even though the abuse may have happened years ago.

One afternoon I sat with an aged gentleman, well into his 90’s who told me his story with tears in his eyes. The story was about an incident that took place many, many years ago. He had been a member in a congregation and the denomination that he was a member of was going through some tumultuous times. As a consequence, this dear gentleman was perceived to be a danger to the congregation and he was excommunicated. The excommunication placed him outside the church and left his wife and children inside the church. As I listened, I discovered that the excommunication was not because he had committed some grave moral failure that he was totally unrepentant of, but no, he was perceived as lacking piety because he was overly joyful. What a tragedy and the perpetual pain that it has left in his heart is sad.

On another occasion when I was pastoring a woman and her daughter began attending the church. As my wife and I got to know them, a horrible account of sexual, emotional and spiritual abuse came out. Her husband, which she had run away from and was hiding from, used the Scriptures to justify his brutal treatment and sexual abuse of both his wife and daughter. “Wives submit to your husbands…”  “Children obey your parents…” these Scriptures were used to force his wife and daughter into the most godless acts I had ever heard of, yet this man’s pastor seemed to support his authoritarian posture and never addressed his abuse but chastised the wife and daughter time and time again for complaining. Years later a judge ruled against him and he spent years in prison for abusing his daughter. But the fact that he behaved this way claiming that God supported him and that the church this family attended supported him, really left deep spiritual scars on both the wife and the daughter.

Another woman I cared for while she was in the hospital told me of how the janitor at their church, a respected member of the congregation, sexually abused her repeatedly and even when she told her parents and the pastor, nothing was done. Instead she was blamed for tempting the adult man, even though she was just six years old. How absurd! The abuse had taken place when she was six, but at the time of my encounter, even though she was in her 60’s the pain was so deep and the impact so defacing that she was emotionally disabled by these events. The fact that the spiritual authorities in her life did nothing to stop the abuser left her with challenges related to her ability to trust any spiritual leader and even to trust God.

The impact of spiritual abuse, whether it is physical, emotional or psychological is powerful and long lasting. The Scriptures teach that God established leaders in society, in the church, in the family and that the function of these leaders is to serve the best and holy interests of those they are responsible to care for. Sadly many who find themselves in such places of leadership use their position selfishly, using and abusing those they should be caring for to serve their base self-interest. When this happens in the church or in a family “in the name of God” the abuse, whether it is physical, emotional or psychological becomes layered with spiritual abuse. The suspicion and distrust that develops in relation to that abuser also casts a shadow over God, for that abuser often uses God as one of the means of exerting the abusive power over those that should be receiving selfless care.

Often this kind of abuse is exerted even if the abused flees the context of the abuse. For instance, the woman and daughter I spoke of literally fled, with the help of the police; they relocated to a different community, carefully guarded their personal information for they feared that the abuser would come after them and kill them. Years after they fled, they continued to be viewed by members of the church that her husband belonged to as unsubmissive and rebellious. They lost everything and had to start a new life because he had so poisoned the waters in the small town that they had lived near that everyone believed him and blamed the wife and daughter for making up horrible lies.

There is a warning in the Bible about this kind of spiritual subversion: “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) Many of you who read this article may know all too well what I speak of. You may be living with the residue in your own soul of having been spiritually abused. There is hope and there is help. But first we must be able to call this behavior what it is: abuse.

Here are some of the symptoms or signs that you may be in a spiritually abusive relationship or environment: 1) Spiritually abusive people and groups misuse and distort the concept of spiritual authority. When a person demands that his/her authority be obeyed without question because God says so – spiritual abuse is likely happening. 2) Spiritually abusive people and groups are characterized by social dynamics where fear, guilt, and threats are routinely used to produce unquestioning obedience and group conformity. 3) Spiritually abusive people and groups depict themselves as unique and have a strong organizational tendency to be separate from other bodies and institutions. Outside criticism and evaluation is dismissed as the disruptive efforts of evil people seeking to hinder or thwart God’s purpose. 4) Spiritually abusive people and groups foster rigidity in behavior and in belief that requires unswerving conformity to the group’s ideals and social mores. 5) Spiritually abusive people and groups tend to suppress any kind of internal challenges and dissent concerning decisions made by leaders. Acts of discipline may involve emotional and physical humiliation, physical violence or deprivation, acute and intense acts of punishment for dissent and disobedience. (From Ronald Enroth in Churches That Abuse).

I wish such people and groups were rare. Sadly, they are not, in my work, when these stories arise in conversation, I seek to comfort the victims and help them understand what they are experiencing and assure them that regardless of what they may have been told, God is not being represented by the abuser. God does not abuse us, God is supremely respectful and calls those who truly follow him to respect others, even when the others chose to believe and do things that oppose Him. Anyone who uses God to control another does not represent God for such behavior does not reflect the character of God at all.