Below are a few concepts/definitions of spiritual harm/abuse.  Many people don’t want to think about the concept.  Back in the day, verbal, physical and sexual abuse were pushed under the rug in the same way:  “Ignorance is bliss.”   Ignorance IS bliss – but not for the people who are being harmed; they need eyes that are opened so they can gain the support needed to recover; to heal.  I’ve said this many times before:  If your faith community enhances your life – WONDERFUL.  That’s what it’s supposed to do.  But if it’s harming you or others, please make a stand FOR freedom – even if and when it costs you!

Excerpts from Richard Damiani:  Spiritual Abuse within the Christian Church:  The Damage it Does

"The characteristics of a cultic group are:  Do these apply to your faith community?

 "The Marks & Methods of an Abusive, Cultic Church  (Tobias Madeleine Landau and Lalich Janja, Captive Hearts, Captive Minds; Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Abusive Relationships, Alameda, Hunter House 1994)

1.   Milieu Control:  When one enters an abusive church one is exposed only to information that the group deems “truth.” It is the group’s truth alone that is both openly and subtly taught; anything else is a threat. Books, tapes, speakers, music, etc., are all carefully controlled to keep only their belief structure before your mind. This moves from the obvious control of what author the leaders recommend and those they sharply criticize to subtle controls within the group itself. Certain members of your church are deemed to be not “fully committed,” so they are not worthy of being seriously regarded. Those who have left the group are the enemies who have fallen from grace, and they must be shunned at all costs. Even the closest family ties are broken to “guard” the flock. The member of the group no longer has to judge what is real or unreal, what is truth or “untruth;” he need only follow. And how could you not follow a leader who is so anointed by God? If you are searching for a deeper walk with God, to reject such careful shepherding of your soul is unthinkable, especially when it is done by a leader who is “so godly and holy.”

2.   Mystical Manipulation:  This is the claim that the leaders are acting for God in a way that makes them unquestionable. They have the truth, they have the anointing, and questioning them is to be like the Sons of Korah, who rebelled against Moses. To dare to question the leadership is to run the risk of falling from grace. Honesty with oneself about the real questions you have over the many contradictions in the lives and teachings of the leaders is impossible if you are to be faithful to God. Self-expression and reason are subordinated to the leader, and eventually they are fully subverted.

3.  Demand for Purity:  An abusive church will almost always have a very rigid black and white world-view that is arbitrated by the leader. He is set up as the infallible moral judge, using guilt and shame as his tools of control. He says what is right and what is wrong, and obedience and loyalty to him becomes obedience and loyalty to God, Himself. Members are encouraged to spy and report on each other, lest sin be found in the camp. Fear becomes the dominant climate of the church - fear of failing to keep one of the rules, and fear of being held up to public humiliation and rejection. One’s own moral sense is lost as the conscience is reformed and reeducated to the new morality of the group.

4.  The Cult of Confession:  The normal lines between what is private and what is public knowledge is broken, and members confess the most personal, and the most minor of sins. A member surrenders his or her conscience to the leadership. Elders viciously assail members who do not submit fully to the leadership of God’s anointed ones. Even a proposed dating relationship is to be brought to the bar of the elder’s judgment for approval. Members are kept in an immature spiritual state where they are judged to be unable to stand in grace and the teaching of the Holy Spirit without proper guidance from the elders. At its worst, this type of boundary destruction leads to all kinds of sexual abuse, since nothing is secret or private anymore.

5.  The “Sacred Science” The doctrine of the group becomes de facto the “Truth of God.” This truth is not open for discussion or debate; it is Ultimate Truth itself. No dissention on any level is permitted. The leadership is the only interpreter and conduit of truth, so to question the leader in even a minor issue shows that you have a rebellious heart against God. All private discussion about points of concern are ruthlessly reported on and stamped out. All private judgment ceases, and one submits his heart and mind totally to the leadership. Openly questioning something the elders have said or done, even in non-Biblical areas, is condemned as “whispering, back biting, vicious slander, gossip, and nit picking.” How dare you spread your “rebellious disaffection?” You should go directly to that elder with this “problem.” If the leaders are wrong in one area, they might be wrong in other areas, and this can never be. If you have a problem, you must be the problem, not them or their teaching.

6.  Loading the Language:  This is the use of code language that carries meaning within the group, but would not carry such meaning to outsiders.  Also, it refers to a restriction of language to the vernacular of the group. In our church terms such as “self-denial,” “mortification of sin,” “cutting off your right hand and plucking out your right eye,” and others carried vast meaning that had been built up by sermon after sermon on these topics. The term “disaffection,” carried a particularly large meaning. It summed up all that is evil and rebellious in a sinful member who dared to question or disagree. One only had to be pronounced “disaffected” to be considered worse than a leper. When a sermon was falling flat the elder only had to raise his voice and use one of our phrases to bring the congregation alive with “amen’s.”  One of the many results of this is to restrict the thinking to the thought patterns of the group. One no longer thinks originally, which further enslaves and deadens the mind.

7.  Doctrine over Person:   There is no personal reality apart from the group’s reality. Whatever does not fit the doctrine of the group must be altered or molded to fit the paradigm of the group. This is the emergence of the true cultic persona. No longer is there anything real apart from the group and its leader. He is ultimate reality; the group is truth and life – there is nothing else.

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Excerpts taken from The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse by David Johnson & Jeff VanVonderen.

“Spiritual abuse occurs when someone is treated in a way that damages them spiritually.  As a deeper result, their relationship with God –or that part of them that is capable of having a relationship with God –becomes wounded or scarred (p.13)”

“The family, which is supposed to be the child’s one sure ‘safe place,’ becomes an unsafe place when a parent uses his or her position to force the children to perform or uses a too-harsh standard to judge by, or uses the position of power to gratify his or her own needs:  for importance, power, emotional or even sexual gratification.  When that happens, a parent has crossed the line into abuse.  

Likewise, those in spiritual position of authority can violate our trust.  It’s possible to become so determined to defend a spiritual place of authority, a doctrine or a way of doing things that you wound and abuse anyone who questions or disagrees or doesn’t ‘behave’ spiritually the way you want them to, when your words and actions tear down another, or attack or weaken a persons standing as a Christian --- to gratify your position or your beliefs while at the same time weakening or harming another – that is spiritual abuse.  (p. 23)”

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