The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 3: Abused Christians
We continue our Thursday series blogging through “The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse.” The first post in the series is here.
This chapter is about how people who have experienced spiritual abuse have a lot in common with those who have had other abusive experiences. Many of them have felt pressured not to talk about what has happened and they feel alone and crazy. This chapter names ten areas of struggle that many survivors of spiritual abuse have in common.
1) A distorted image of God: Seeing God as one who is never satisfied, vindictive, apathetic to victims of abuse, powerless to help victims, fickle and manipulated by our slightest mistake.
Some people have an image of a “Santa Clause God” who keeps lists and stalks you, watching for every mistake. They may believe that while their salvation was not dependent upon works, their position close to or far away from God does depend on works.
2) Preoccupation with spiritual performance, leading to the extremes of self-righteousness and shame. Being overly focused on your behavior can encourage you to become perfectionistic with yourself and judgmental of others. It may result in anxiety and an urge to control how things turn out.
(Note: two paragraphs at the top of page 44 almost seem to have been written with the Basic and Advanced seminars in mind. I do not reproduce them here but you may be quite intrigued to read them.)
3) Distorted self-identity as a Christian. Guilt vs. shame: guilt is a “spiritual nerve” that responds to wrong behavior. Shame leaves you feeling defective as a human being. Shame may be used as a motivator while you labor under a negative image of yourself.
4) Problems relating to spiritual authority: Knee-jerk reactions of compliance or defiance regardless of whether you agree or disagree, and regardless of whether the authority is right or wrong. They use the term “toxic faith”–an apt term and the title of another good book that deals with related issues.
5) A hard time with grace: An overwhelming sense that you need to pay back; difficulty receiving grace from God or others. Guess what? If you are working this hard, others should be too! If you see others who aren’t working as hard as you, it often seems like they are lazy or getting off the hook too easily.
6) Problems with personal boundaries. Boundaries are the lines where others stop and you start. You may lock the front door to your house, but emotionally and spiritually your front door is wide open for others to barge in with their demands and trample all over your house (and I would add that sometimes they do it with muddy boots).
7) Difficulty with personal responsibility: The extremes of under-responsibility and over-responsibility. When it occurs to you that no amount of performance will win the prize, you may give up or settle for just getting by. Or you become responsible for everyone else’s job, including God’s. In the extreme, you feel that having needs or opinions is selfish and you martyr yourself, resulting in being numb to life.
Matthew 9:36 uses the words “distressed” and “downcast” to describe those who were being weighed down with expectations and devoured by their spiritual leaders instead of being shepherded. “If you’ve been through this, you wind up very tired, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. This may show up in the form of lack of energy or motivation, impatience with the needs of others, depression, a sense of being trapped, or finding ways to escape.”
8) Lack of living skills. You may have been taught a “bunker mentality” which kept you away from education and opportunities. Some people get tired of this and leave, but often must take lower-paying jobs than they would have otherwise had, all while their former associates look down on them as having “missed God’s call.”
It is a disgrace to promise people the benefits of a college degree and give them a second-rate education while charging them as if it were first-rate.
9) Hard time admitting the abuse.
- You are told that you are “the problem” for noticing that there is a problem
- Admitting the abuse feels like disloyalty
- Abuse has come to feel normal
- Denial is a common human instinct. The numbness of denial feels easier than the excruciating pain of the inconsistencies being experienced.
- Shame: you feel defective for allowing yourself to have been drawn into the situation in the first place.
10) Hard time with trust. A trust relationship with God is at the core of the Christian life. It’s a big deal when that trust is wounded. Mark Twain opined that a cat who sits on a hot lid will never sit on a hot lid again, but he probably will not sit on a cold one either. So “those who have been spiritually abused will have a hard time trusting a spiritual system again.” (p. 50)
Personal Interaction:
I identified with most of the items on their list. A couple stand out:
Lack of living skills: In talking with former ATI (Advanced Training Institute) students, I hear a lot of pain over the issue of lack of living skills. In my mind, ATI misrepresented itself as an organization that would provide students with marketable skills. I am thankful that I personally quit trusting them and left for college. Many former students report that they served the Institute, sometimes paying for the opportunity to do so, and now feel stuck and wish they had a degree. I don’t think feeling “robbed” is too strong a word for this.
Personal boundaries: Many of our families were loving and well-intentioned but would be described by counselors as “enmeshed.” I believe that the teachings about “surrendering rights” were excessive and were used to plow over other people’s boundaries. I value the “Boundaries” book by Cloud and Townsend; it provides a Scriptural and balanced consideration of boundaries and is a much-needed corrective for many of us.
Trust: When the family you grow up in is not a safe place, and then you discover that the Institute is not a safe place either, it’s not surprising that many former students would struggle with trust.
Questions for discussion:
Note: please feel free to comment about these questions or anything else that stands out to you about this chapter.
What do you think of their list? Would you add or remove anything from the list?
They poked at several common Christian children’s songs. What do you think? Nit-picking or helpful corrections?
Do you think they are correct that shame can be a factor that inhibits people from admitting the abuse? Is it possible that some of our parents feel this shame?
Here’s a tricky one--do you suppose it is possible that some of the leaders who were impatient with the needs of others might have been feeling the results of excessive expectations themselves? (Not trying to excuse anyone--feel free to agree or disagree with this question)
What about their list? Have you struggled with any of the items described?
Good quotes:
People who have misused their spiritual power have disrespected or beaten down your boundaries. They have shamed you out of your ‘no’… (p. 47)
Having an opinion has come to equal lack of submission. (p. 47)
A cat that sits on a hot stove lid won’t ever sit on a hot stove lid again. But it probably won’t sit on a cold stove lid either. (p. 50)
(Click here to continue on to Chapter 4)
My family has been in ATI/IBLP since I was 5 years old, I am now 23. My parents and I are still members. But I have come to realize this year just how deceived we have been.
This section has really hit home for me. I would have to agree with most of these, that I have intense trouble trusting people, "when my family failed to be safe, and the institute is not safe either", this is something that I struggle with every single day.
Also I have very little ability to say "no" to people and often later feel shamed that I allowed people to walk all over me because I don't understand my own boundaries. God has used a recent year long trip with IBLP to teach me to say "no" and slowly I am understanding my self.
I also feel that the one that hit home the most is Problems with spiritual authorities. In the last few months I have realized that my first reaction to spiritual authorities or any authority is instant defiance whether they are right or not, usually it is an internal reaction but it is a problem with trust at it's core.
Thank you so much for posting this overview. I think I need to read this book in its entirety.
Hello friend, I am moved by your comment. Thank you so much. If you find these summaries helpful or interesting then you would definitely like the book. It is so insightful and so well-written. Same goes for the Boundaries book by Cloud and Townsend.
I commend you for your awareness of these struggles. The road to healing is not always easy but it's totally worth it. It is so precious to me that Jesus is gentle with battered reeds and smoldering wicks.
I'm praying for you right now as I type this. I will be interested to hear more of your journey to health and how the Lord works in your life and heart along the way.
Thanks, Matthew, for all your insightful writings. The book you recommended, Boundaries, has been very eye opening.
Awesome!
I would say with Boundaries, the two things I've seen is that we have to keep reminding ourselves that we put boundaries around ourselves, not other people (so tempting to try to control other people but we can't do that), and second, as soon as you start trying to build healthy boundaries, someone comes out of the woodwork and tests you right off! It's uncanny.
Hey, check out Proverbs 15:25: The Lord tears down the house of the proud, but he sets the widow’s boundary stones in place.
That's that image of property boundaries. The widow was a powerless person. This says the Lord himself watches out for her and establishes her boundary stones. I wouldn't want to push this image too far, other than it ministers to my soul to know that the Lord isn't the one kicking the powerless person's boundaries over, instead, he cares about them.
Matthew, Thank you for writing this series. Your articles as well as your comments are so insightful as well as kind and gentle. What a beautiful spirit you have. The book Boundaries by Drs. Cloud and Townsend was a life-altering book for me when I first read it 17 years ago.
You are right about boundaries being tested. Drawing a boundary is easy and means nothing. Maintaining a boundary can be difficult and means everything. Practice grows skill. The early boundaries I drew as I was learning were sloppy and awkward (with a lot of internal shaking and quaking) but over the years it gets easier and smoother.
Wendy, thanks so much for your encouragement! And for your hopeful words about how it gets better with practice, learning how to do boundaries. I wish I could be past the "shaking and quaking" part to the "easier and smoother" part personally but it does get better with time and practice.
Of course, it can also make me a little nervous finding out ways that I myself need to respect others' boundaries in relationship to me. I'm thinking particularly of my wife. She is a very generous and caring soul; it's possible for me to slide into taking advantage of that. We find places where we could both do a little better in encouraging each other in terms of responsible boundaries. If we help and support each other to become healthier people then our relationship also grows healthier. It makes sense - in part, I think it's just walking out the golden rule in every day life.
Thanks soooo much for writing this series. This one hit home for me especially. Struggling with just realizing within the past year or so that I was raised in a cult. My parents do not see this at all at this time and are very vocal supporters of iblp. God has been showing me so many things lately about what it really means to live the Christian life...free from the bondage of legalism etc. My parents think that I'm being rebellious and following my own way. I feel so emotionally numb right now. Never faced anything this hard before. Trusting that God has a plan....even in the midst of this pain and confusion.
I am going to look that book "Boundaries" up. Gracious me- what a relief that Im not the only one who has been effected negatively by IBLP/ATI.Ive been hanging on to all the materials that I recieved while in the program for fear of being looked down on by those who are still in the program or have different views about the program than I. (I am appreciative of the opportunities I had while in the program tho'- I had the privilege of going to Moscow for 2 months (Sept- Nov 1992). I was at Indianapolis for about a year following('93-94). I enjoyed the big massive youth choir each year at conference, the opportunities to go out of state- that I otherwise would not have had-to help in childrens seminars.
I battle with depression because for so long I've been trying to live up to the ATI standard of living and have been very unsuccessful with it. I have failed so long that I have quit trying which throw me into deeper depression. Every area of my life is effected (and I'm not exaggerating when I say EVERY)
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
Almost every item on your list hit home with me. I especially loved this line: "They may believe that while their salvation was not dependent upon works, their position close to or far away from God does depend on works."
I was not raised in ATI; in fact, I was raised in a church that was basically the opposite of that! But recently I saw my pastor and close friends heavily influenced by teachings similar to that of Mr. Gothard. I saw the exact things this list mentioned happen. Many of them either became puffed up, judgmental, and critical. Others seemed to live in a state of shame, never being able to fully live up to the standard that God had supposedly called them to. I never would have said I had been "spiritually abused," yet I myself became frustrated and depressed because I couldn't make myself fit into the box that was supposedly my calling as a Christian. I'm so glad the blinders are off my eyes now, but I ache for those still caught up in this line of thinking!
Wow! Points 2 and 7 describe me to a T. I was fortunate to have spent "only" four years in ATI, but those years covered ages 13 to 17 - some of my most formative years. I am a big-time perfectionist and very, very hard on myself by nature, so adding IBLP and ATI into the mix produced a disaster. Now, my mother has always said I was a pretty obedient, rule-abiding child, but the rules this outfit offered up were too much even for me. I alternately tried to follow them to the letter and rationalized disobeying them, a strange and unsettling dichotomy that ended in severe depression. Eventually, I simply gave up. I did some things in my despair that I bitterly regret and still have not made amends for, and I feel guilty for that every day. I also feel like ATI and Bill Gothard still own a part of my mind, because every time I feel angry or frustrated over the spiritual abuse I took, that portion of me tells myself that I deserve the guilt and the shame because I brought them on myself; that I don't deserve success or happiness (at least, not until I scrupulously make up for all of those things I did wrong); and that God won't bless me or let me be close to Him until I pay back those debts, so to speak. Years of therapy have helped me somewhat, but my most recent trip to a counselor has made me realize just how deep the wounds still dig and how far I still have to go.
Sarah, I'm in the same boat. Feeling as if Gothard and ATI still own a part of my mind. I still have regular nightmares that I am trapped at my parents house again, unable to escape and not remembering that I'm married and out of that house/lifestyle until the end of the dream, and sometimes not even then. It's depressing, and actually starts my morning off with a less than cheerful mood (and I'm naturally rather cheerful). That awful feeling of being stuck, or drowning/treading water. I hate it! And my experience wasn't nearly as bad as some of the stories I've read on this site! (And my mom wants to tell people that bad dreams come from unconfessed sin in their lives?)
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