Spiritual Abuse

According to the Spiritual Research Network, spiritual abuse is defined as occurring when a leader, church or a belief system, whether well intentioned or not, dominates, manipulates or castigates individuals through fear tactics, mind control, or some other psychological or emotional abuse.  Unfortunately, spiritual abuse can take many forms.  It can look really, really good as in the form of church members being held to a certain standard of performance in order to advance in ministry or it can be as blatant as what we all know as cult behavior.  


In cult behavior, there is usually a very strong leader who has been given a "vision" or has a particular truth that few other people have understanding of.  Individuals who follow this person are required to dedicate their lives to whatever the "truth" is and often are manipulated into giving their money, time and even in extreme cases, they live together in communities.  Often they are not allowed to leave without experiencing the humiliation of  "shunning" and are considered rebels for turning away from the particular belief system.  This is the obvious spiritual abuse, the Jim Jones and the David Karesh types.


However, in our society there are less obvious types of spiritual abuse ranging from the type where families are subject to a dictatorial husband assuming the role of "spiritual leader" of the home to churches that exercise excess control over their congregations.  This type of abuse is somewhat less obvious because at the bottom of it is a very strong desire to do the Lord's will.  The motivation is to be what God wants us to be, but the methods are in opposition to the teachings and heart of the Lord and the fruit of those methods is found wanting.  Talking with people who have been raised in strict and abusive Christian homes, they all have similar feelings.  They either hate the church, are very bitter towards God or they desire a relationship with God but hold Him at a distance because they are afraid of Him.  In some cases these people have been put in their rooms and forced to memorize large sections of the bible as a form of discipline or they have had to go to school in clothing that is so odd or different from what their peers are wearing that they are mocked and ostracized by the other students.  Others have experienced parents who take the verse "spare the rod and spoil the child" to mean that they have free license to beat their children into submission to their will.  Other less obvious forms can manifest in just the simple misinterpretation of what "honor your parents" means.  Many of these children have learned that honoring means never to disagree and that is a mindset that produces large control issues as well as producing adults who are never confident in their own decisions about life.  In regard to husbands and wives, a spiritually abusive husband will quote scripture to keep his wife from doing things he doesn't want her to or to demand sexual favors from her.  The two portions of scripture most used are "wives submit to your own husbands" and "the wife's body belongs to her husband and the husband's body belongs to the wife".  When interpreted simply as behaviors rather than heart attitude, these verses turn into demands that produce bitterness and resentment.  However pure behavior is not the character of Christ.  If we truly love and trust one another in a marriage relationship, we will free give our submission to another and come together in the sexual relationship as an outgrowth of the abundance of love that exists within the relationship.  This, however, requires more of us than simply demanding what we want, but it also is more in line with the character of God and therefore is more true than the idea that husbands/wives have the right to demand certain behaviors from one another.


In churches, ministries and other spiritual organizations what this can look like is baffling.  From the outside it may look very good.  Lots of people involved, lots of resources, and perhaps even the pursuit of excellence for God.  What could possibly be wrong with that?  There is nothing wrong with it if the motivation is right.  If these organizations are filled with people who are serving the Lord out of free will, who believe that their giving and their service to the organization is where they are supposed to be and it is coming from an abundance in their own personal lives...then that is appropriate motivation.  However, many times these organizations are filled with people who are performance based, who have little identity beyond what they do and how well they do it.  If the organization has a person like this in authority, then the organization will be motivated by what it does, how good it looks, how well its membership or staff produces and in terms of churches or ministries it people may be motivated by receiving the approval of those in authority.  If that is the case, you will see many individuals serving, doing a good job, taking great responsibility in their service but there is an underlying sense of competition that no one talks about.  That competition has little to do with the Lord and everything about becoming a leader in the organization or someone the leadership depends on or calls on regularly.  These individuals illustrate success in ministry and the example for which everyone else should strive.   In these types of environments, service is then tied to being a good Christian, doing the Lord's will and if you don't serve you aren't as good and there must be something in your life that you need to look at.  


This doesn't mean that people shouldn't be in ministry or serve in their local churches.  Not at all! If there weren't people to do that, churches and ministries wouldn't survive very long.  No, it isn't about what we do, it is about why we do it.  When church leadership motivates from a sense of approval for good behavior rather than motivating individuals to become closer to the Lord and out of that relationship comes service....you are looking at a form of spiritual abuse.  Should we encourage one another, yes!  Should that encouragement and approval be the reason we seek to serve the Lord, no.  


Things to look for when considering spiritual abuse may be found both internally and externally.  Internal red flags can come in the form of losing joy.  If what you are doing brings you joy and is fulfilling, that is awesome, but if you find that along the way you have lost your joy and you are doing what you are doing out of a sense of duty or because you believe you will be labeled or viewed negatively if you should stop, pay attention.  Again, do we always have to be ecstatic about what we do....not really, but it shouldn't be drudgery and if that lack of motivation extends over a long period of time, we may need to think about changing what we are doing.  Another thing to look for would be absolute authority of the leadership or no real accountability of the leadership to the corporate body.  Some church governments are set up with a board who has accountability and others are set up where the Pastor has ultimate authority, but in every case there is accountability to the church body and to the Lord.  A third sign to watch for is hand-picked sub-leaders based on their demonstration of loyalty to the ultimate leader rather than on the basis of their leadership skills, spiritual acumen, and anointing and appointment by God.  Yes, church leadership teams do need to have individuals on them who can work together effectively, but these people should not be chosen on the basis of relationship with the Pastor or someone on the senior staff.  It is the business of elders to see God's chosen, who He has anointed and then place them in the appropriate level of service.  Usually when God anoints someone for service, they function in whatever area they have been called to long before leadership may be aware of them.  


Although the list of spiritual abuses is quite long, the last one I would like to point out is theological incompetency by the leadership, especially with respect to the rules of hermeneutics and Bible exegesis employed in the formulation of doctrine, giving license to twisting and adulteration of Scripture in order to provide proof texts for unorthodox and invented doctrines.  This is probably the most serious and may be the reason that scripture points out that teachers are held to a higher standard.  When spiritual leaders start teaching scripture in ways that support their own positions, projects or desires...that is wrong.  If someone believes that they are in a church or a ministry that is doing that, the first thing to do is pray, do your own homework as to the doctrine or teaching and then confront the leadership with your findings.  If there can be no reconciliation regarding the matter, you need to make a decision whether the place you are working or attending is where you need to be.  Everyone can disagree about theology, but fundamental errors that do not agree with the context of scripture or the character of God need to be examined.


I have listed several books here that deal with the subject of spiritual abuse, however there is also an article entitled "Signs of Authoritarian Abuse"  written by Steve Lambert, ThD that you can find online.  He outlines quite a few of the signs of spiritual abuse.  I need to say that I don't quite agree with all his conclusions, but for the most part, the article is valid and I believe you, as a discerning reader can judge for yourself.  If you find yourself in a spiritually abusive situation, whether it be in a relationship or an organization, you may need to make some hard decisions about what to do about that.  The first step is recognizing it and then you can decide what to do.


Kriss Mitchell is a Christian counselor in Post Falls, Idaho and owns Living Well Counseling and Consulting, LLC.  For more information, please visit www.livingwellcc.com or supplements4livingwell.com


  

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Abuse In Marriage As It Pertains to Christians

I don't usually publish whole articles in my blog posts, but since I am getting so many questions about this subject right now, I am going to post the contents of an article written in Christianity Today (October, 2007, author David Instone-Brewer) that I'm sure will answer a lot of questions regarding the idea of staying in an abusive relationship. There are so many Christian women who have believed (and for good reason) that it is imperative to stay in an abusive relationship because God hates divorce and that divorce is a sin. This article is like a breath of fresh air and really puts abusive relationships in perspective. Please feel free to share this with any and all women who need to understand this crucial and foundational portion of scripture:
I WAS BEING INTERVIEWED for what would be my first church pastorate, and I was nervous and unsure what to expect. The twelve deacons sat in a row in front of me and took turns asking questions, which I answered as clearly as I could. All went smoothly until they posed this question: "What is your position on divorce and remarriage? Would you remarry a divorcee or divorced man?" I didn't know if this was a trick question or an honest one. There might have been a deep-seated pastoral need behind it, or it might have been a test of my orthodoxy. Either way, I didn't think I could summarize my view in one sentence; when I thought about it further, I couldn't decide exactly what my view was. I gave a deliberately vague reply. "Every case should be judged on its own merits." . It worked; I got the job. But I made a mental note to study the subject of divorce, and to do it quickly. It's a good thing I did.  As it turned out, I was surrounded by people who needed answers to questions raised by divorce and remarriage. My Baptist church was located near an Anglican congregation and two Catholic churches. Divorced men and women from these congregations came asking if we would conduct their weddings, having been denied in their local churches. Then I found that some of my deacons had been divorced and remarried. Should I throw them out of church leadership? If I did, I would lose people I considered some of the most spiritual in the church, people with exemplary Christian homes and marriages.
The New Testament presents a problem in understanding both what the text says about divorce and its pastoral implications.  Jesus appears to say that divorce is allowed only if adultery has occurred: "Whoever divorces a wife, except for sexual indecency, and remarries, commits adultery" (Matt. 19:9).However, this
has been interpreted in many different ways. Most say that Jesus allows divorce only for adultery. But some argue that Jesus originally didn't allow even that. Only in Matthew does he offer an out from marriage: "except for sexual indecency." Beyond what Jesus says, Paul also allows divorce. He permits it for abandonment
by a nonbeliever (1 Cor. 7:12-15). Many theologians add this as a second ground for divorce.
Yet some pastors have found this teaching difficult to accept, because it seems so impractical-even cruel in certain situations. It suggests there can be no divorce for physical or emotional abuse, and Paul even seems to forbid separation (1 Cor. 7:10). As a result, some Christians quietly ignore this seemingly "impractical" biblical teaching or find ways around it. For example, they suggest that when Jesus talked about "sexual immorality," perhaps he included other things like abuse. Or when Paul talked about abandonment by a nonbeliever, perhaps he included any behavior that is not supportive of the marriage or abandonment by anyone who is acting like a nonbeliever. Many have welcomed such stretching of Scripture because they couldn't accept what they believed the text apparently said. But does the literal text mean what we think it does?
While doing doctoral studies at Cambridge, I likely read every surviving writing of the rabbis of Jesus' time. I "got inside their heads" enough to begin to understand them. When I began working as a pastor and was confronted almost immediately with divorced men and women who wanted to remarry, my first response was
to re-read the Bible. I'd read the biblical texts on divorce many times in the past, but I found something strange as I did so again. They now said something I hadn't heard before I read the rabbis!
'ANY CAUSE' DIVORCE'
The texts hadn't changed, but my knowledge of the language and culture in which they were written had. I was now reading them like a first -century Jew would have read them, and this time those confusing passages made more sense. My book, Divorce and Remarriage in the Church, is a summary of several academic papers and books I began writing with this new understanding of what Jesus taught.
One of my most dramatic findings concerns a question the Pharisees asked Jesus: "Is it lawful to divorce a wife for any cause?" (Matt. 19:3). This question reminded me that a few decades before Jesus, some rabbis (the Hillelites) had invented a new form of divorce called the "any cause" divorce. By the time of Jesus, this "any cause" divorce had become so popular that almost no one relied on the literal Old Testament.
The "any cause" divorce was invented from a single word in Deuteronomy 24:1.  Moses allowed divorce for "a cause of immorality," or more literally, "a thing of nakedness." Most Jews recognized that this unusual phrase was talking about adultery. But the Hillelite rabbis wondered why Moses had added the word "thing" or "cause" when he only needed to use the word "immorality." They decided this extra word implied another ground for divorce - divorce for "a cause." They argued that anything, including a burnt meal or wrinkles not there when you married your wife, could be a cause! The text, they said, taught that divorce was allowed both for adultery and for "any cause."
This single phrase that referred to no type of divorce "except immorality"-and therefore the new "any cause" divorces were invalid. These opposing views were well known to all first-century Jews. And the Pharisees wanted to know where Jesus stood. "Is it lawful to divorce your wife for any cause?" they asked. In other words: "Is it lawful for us to use the 'any cause' divorce?" When Jesus answered with a resounding no, he wasn't condemning "divorce for any cause," but rather the newly invented "any cause" divorce. Jesus agreed firmly with the second group that the phrase didn't mean divorce was allowable for "immorality" and for "any cause," but that Deutermonomy 24:1 referred to no type of divorce "except immorality." This was a shocking statement for the crowd and for the disciples. It meant they couldn't get a divorce whenever they wanted it - there had to be a lawful cause. It also meant that virtually every divorced man or women was not really divorced.
Luke and Matthew summarized the whole debate in one sentence: Any divorced person who remarried was committing adultery (Matt. 5:32;Luke 16:18),because they were still married. The fact that they said "any divorced person" instead of "virtually all divorced people" is typical Jewish hyperbole - like Mark saying that "everyone" in Jerusalem came to be baptized by John (Mark 1:5).  It may not be obvious to us, but their first readers understood clearly what they meant. Within a few decades, however, no one understood these terms any more. Language often changes quickly (as I found out when my children first heard the Flintstones sing about "a gay old time"). The early church, and even Jewish rabbis, forgot what the "any cause" divorce was, because soon after the days of Jesus, it became the only type of divorce on offer. It was simply called divorce. This meant that when Jesus condemned "divorce for 'any cause,' " later generations thought he meant "divorce for any cause."
Now that we know what Jesus did reject, we can also see what he didn't reject. He wasn't rejecting the Old Testament- he was rejecting a faulty Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament. He defended the true meaning of Deuteronomy 24:1. And there is one other surprising thing he didn't reject: Jesus didn't reject the other ground for divorce in the old Testament, which all Jews accepted. Although the church forgot the other cause for divorce, every Jew in Jesus' day knew about Exodus 21:10-11, which allowed divorce for neglect.
Before rabbis introduced the "any cause" divorce, this was probably the most common type. Exodus says that everyone, even a slave wife, had three rights within marriage; the rights to food, clothing, and love. If these were neglected, the wronged spouse had the right to seek freedom from that marriage. Even women could, and did, get divorces for neglect-though the man still had to write out the divorce certificate. Rabbis said he had to do it voluntarily, so if he resisted, the courts had him beaten till he volunteered!
These three rights became the basis of Jewish marriage vows - we find them listed in marriage certificates discovered near the Dead Sea. In later Jewish and Christian marriages, the language became more formal, such as "love, honor, and keep." These vows, together with a vow of sexual faithfulness, have always been the basis for marriage. Thus, the vows we make when we marry correspond directly to the biblical grounds for divorce. The three provisions of food, clothing, and love were understood literally by the Jews. The wife had to cook and sew, while the husband provided food and materials, or money. They both had to provide the emotional support of marital love, though they could abstain from sex for short periods. Paul taught the same thing. He said that married couples owed each other love (1 Cor. 7:3-5) and material support (1 Cor. 7:33-34). He didn't say that neglect of these rights was the basis of divorce because he didn't need to - it was stated on the marriage certificate. Anyone who was neglected, in terms of emotional support or physical support, could legally claim a divorce.
Divorce for neglect included divorce for abuse, because this was extreme neglect. There was no question about that end of the spectrum of neglect, but what about the other end? What about abandonment, which was merely a kind of passive neglect? This was an uncertain matter, so Paul deals with it. He says to all believers that they may not abandon their partners, and if they have done so, they should return (1 Cor.
7:10-11).
In the case of someone who is abandoned by an unbeliever - someone who won't obey the command to return - he says that the abandoned person is "no longer bound." Anyone in first-century Palestine reading this phrase would think immediately of the wording at the end of all Jewish, and most Roman, divorce certificates: "You are free to marry anyone you wish."
Putting all this together gives us a clear and consistent set of rules for divorce and remarriage. Divorce is only allowed for a limited number of grounds that are found in the Old Testament and affirmed in the New Testament:

• Adultery (in Deuteronomy 24:1, affirmed by Jesus in Matthew 19)

• Emotional and physical neglect (in Exodus 21:10-11, affirmed by Paul in 1Corinthians 7)

• Abandonment and abuse (included in neglect, as affirmed in 1Corinthians 7)

Jewish couples listed these biblical grounds for divorce in their marriage vows. We reiterate them as love, honor, and keep and be faithful to each other. When these vows were broken, it threatened to break up the marriage. As in any broken contract, the wronged party had the right to say, "I forgive you; let's carry on," or, "I can't go on, because this marriage is broken." Therefore, while divorce should never happen, God allows it (and subsequent remarriage) when your partner breaks the marriage vows.
Reading the Bible and ancient Jewish documents side-by-side helped me understand much more of the Bible's teaching about divorce and marriage, not all of which I can summarize here. Dusty scraps of parchment rescued from synagogue rubbish rooms, desert caves, and neglected scholarly collections shone fresh light on the New Testament. Theologians who have long felt that divorce should be allowed for abuse and abandonment may be vindicated. And, more importantly, victims of broken marriages can see that God's law is both practical and loving.

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