In my last post I mentioned that I will join Christy Boulware on her podcast as she kicks off a series called: Resilience in the Pews: Tackling Anxiety and Church Wounds. I’m the first in a series of guests. The new series starts today, February 29th, 2024.

I posted a few of my answers to her questions last week and I’m sharing a few more here. I hope you’ll give it a listen and share it with a friend. You’ll want to hear what Christy has to say about her own experience with church wounds.

Tackling Church Wounds

Can You Define Emotional Abuse for us?

My definition for abuse, in general, is when one person willfully crosses the boundary of another person, to gain something for themselves at the expense of the other person. So, emotionally, I do that by manipulating you, intimidating you, shaming you or gaslighting you. I can do it verbally, but I don’t even have to use words. I can abuse you by ignoring you, or with looks of disgust, or indifference. There’s much more to it than this, but that’s my short answer.

Then, what is Spiritual Abuse ?

Spiritual abuse is very similar to emotional abuse. The same tactics are used, only the justification is that God is on the side of the abuser, which intensifies the abuse. The abuser uses the Bible or their personal “revelations” to convince people that they have the right to control them. People feel defenseless with these claims, like they have to submit because it’s “God’s will.”

I just finished reading a new book that’s coming out by a friend of mine whose pastor consistently used the threat of losing his salvation if my friend didn’t obey his pastor. That’s spiritual abuse.

Can you give a real life example you have coached someone through spiritual abuse?

It’s interesting to me that most people who contact me struggle with leaving their abusive church. That’s what they need help with. It’s like, they know what to do, but something always pulls them back in. So my role is to remind them of the cost of staying and that God has a better place for them. There are a number of factors that keep people trapped.

For example, someone recently told me that they were part of their church for 40 years. In fact, the man was a contractor and he built the church building. So he was highly invested in the church. Leaving the church was like cutting off his arm. He was so enmeshed in his church that I suggested that he might want to consider moving, just to make a clean break. There were too many people trying to convince him to stay. He said that he might have to do that.

Other times, I help people with their shame issues because their shame is what the abuser is using to control them.

Why do most people have such a hard time with using the word “abuse” inside the church?

That’s interesting, isn’t it? The term “spiritual abuse” is like an oxymoron for some people. They don’t think those words belong together. How can spiritual people be abusive? It just doesn’t compute for them. So, that’s part of it.

Another part is denial. People don’t want to see it. That’s what happened in the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist churches. It’s embarrassing, so they look for ways to ignore it , explain it away, or cover it up.

A third reason is that, in some churches, they don’t see abuse because it has become normalized. For some reason, they give abusive behavior a “pass” because they think that God is like that. He’s harsh. Judgmental. And so it’s okay to be that way toward other people. The end justifies the means.

Women and the Church

Christy: Oppression is a strong word that means: an unjust prolonged treatment. My recent pain and anxiety around church wounding has been over the debate of women in ministry. My personal conviction is that women have been unjustly treated, held back, in many church settings, based on misinterpretations of several passages in scripture.

How would you advise someone feeling oppressed or held back in the church?

First, I agree with you about women in the church. In fact, my previous church changed denominations over the issue. In theory, the denomination supported women in ministry, but when I went to pastor gatherings, there were only men and when I brought a female pastor on my staff to those meetings, it was very awkward for her.

But if you find yourself in that situation, I’d go to the leadership and find out what the view of women is in the church. I’m surprised how many women attend churches that don’t empower women. I used to attend a church where the only place a woman could serve was in the nursery.

So, first, find out the church’s stance on women.

If they aren’t supportive and aren’t willing to change their view, which many aren’t, then I’d look for a new church. In the church that I pastored, we made it a point to have our leadership team/elders be half women. And we regularly invited women to preach. It’s important to hear from a variety of voices to get different perspectives.

I recently moved to Minneapolis and started looking for a new church. One of the first things I did was to go to the staff page on a church’s website to see what roles the women had. If the pastoral staff and elders were all men, I kept searching.

Help Spread the Word!

I was impressed with Christy Boulware. I’ve been interviewed for many podcasts and she is one of my favorite interviewers. She has a lot of passion and insight. I hope you’ll give her whole series a listen and share the link on your social media.

The answers I shared here were only part of the interview, and when I was live with Christy, my answers strayed from what I have written here.

• Watch on Youtube: (it's under "Talks) 

• Listen now on Apple Podcasts

• Listen now on Spotify

To learn more about spiritual abuse, please check out my book, Broken Trust, available on Kindle, paperback and audiobook.

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