The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 17: How to Escape a Spiritual Trap
We continue our Thursday series blogging through “The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse.” The first post in the series is here.
What makes a good trap?
A trap has to be easy to get into and hard to get out of, and it must have some enticing bait to attract the prey. When the prey tries to get out, it will get stuck and struggle harder, eventually wearing itself out. There are different kinds of traps because there are different kinds of prey, but those are the concerns that drive the design of each trap.
Example: A minnow trap is a wire cage that holds crackers. Minnows can easily swim in to get the crackers but they cannot find the hole to exit once they are stuck inside.
(This is an example of a minnow cage I found on Amazon.com)
The Trap: In abusive systems, the trap is constructed when leaders build a system which demands loyalty and obedience. Fear: if you leave the system, you are leaving God’s protection and leaving God himself; there is also fear of all the perceived evils that are waiting outside the system.
The Bait: “Right standing with God” is a common bait which reminds us of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 11:13–15 about false apostles disguised as servants of righteousness. Part of the attraction of this bait is the opportunity to earn God’s approval with self-effort. Other baits include approval of people, a paycheck, or even the continued promise that things might get better.
The Carrot on a Stick and Equity Rescuing: The payoff, or the promised bait, keeps being just a little bit out of reach. Like the donkey chasing the carrot, the person trapped in an abusive system keeps running faster, chasing the carrot but never quite catching it. But the carrot is so close — if I quit now, I will lose all the effort I have put into it. Another version of this is the house that is a “money pit”: it keeps taking more money to fix but is never finished, always needing more repairs. There is another term for this: equity rescuing. Equity rescuing is when you put money into something in order to rescue the equity you have been trying to build up in it. The problem is that with every year that goes by, you are a little deeper in and have even more equity to rescue.
Equity rescuing in an abusive system happens when, from one step to the next, a person keeps putting up with more and more and worse and worse, thinking that if they stick with it just a little longer it will surely pay off.
How We “Fall Prey”
There is a fit between the characteristics of the victims and of the systems that trap them. A chart is presented on pages 187–188 that maps how these characteristics of abusive systems play into the learned powerlessness of their prey:
1) power posturing (aimed at distorted image of God in the victim)
2) performance preoccupation (aimed at perfection, inability to have fun without feeling guilt)
3) unspoken rules (aimed at an active “radar” for unspoken rules)
4) lack of balance (aimed at a “high need to control thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of others”)
5) paranoia (if there is something wrong, I must have caused it)
6) misplaced loyalty
7) code of silence
I recommend you look at the chart for yourself if possible; I can’t do it justice without reproducing it in total.
The learned helplessness of “lack of balance” also includes being out of touch with one’s own feelings and guessing at what is normal. I know from the experience of numerous conversations with ex-ATI (Advanced Training Institute) students that many of them, perhaps the majority, have felt out of touch with their own feelings and have to guess at what is normal.
Toxic Faith
There is a list of questions borrowed from the book Toxic Faith — another good (and recommended) book about this subject. They give 10 questions to help diagnose what the authors of Toxic Faith term “religious addiction,” we will copy a few of them here:
- Do you sense that God is looking at what you do, and if you don’t do enough He might turn on you or not bless you?
- Are you giving money to a ministry because you believe God will make you wealthy if you give?
- Have you ever been involved with a minister sexually?
- Do you believe you are still being punished for something you did as a child?
Escape
How to escape the trap? People get trapped because they are a good fit for the trap. To break out:
1) Victims have to realize they are being spiritually abused and ask for help. It is helpful to be given “permission” to call their experiences abuse.
2) They need to renew their minds. It is as if they have been brainwashed and have to learn from the ground up who God really is and how he truly accepts us.
3) They have emotional and spiritual wounds from which to recover. This calls for safe, supportive, honest relationships.
4) Also in the context of those safe relationships they need to be given permission to practice living out their identity as a gift from Jesus. Emphasis is on gift-based versus performance-based.
The second item in the list was renewing the mind. That process is the subject of the next chapter.
(Click here to go on to Chapter 18)
Matthew, thanks for continuing to write these week after week, I really enjoy reading them. This one was helpful, especially in the comment "People get trapped because they are a good fit for the trap." I have close friends in ATI and in trying to learn about their issues I've talked with others that almost got into ATI or were in it for only a very short time. Those people were approached by ATI the same way with the same tactics, but they were not a good fit for the trap. Perhaps they knew the Bible better and could not have been trapped at all, or perhaps a different form of trap would have gotten them.
But for my dear friends in ATI, I can see how the parents were perfectly fit for the trap. And that's what makes ATI parents so dangerous, because in my experience, it seams that they WANT to be in the trap. The doctrines of ATI align with the power they want over their children. Also, they never understood grace-based sanctification in the first place, and thus they grab ahold of a sanctification based on works with all the promises Gothard presents with it. This is the ATI trap: You can have total power over your family and can earn God's favor through what you do.
Unfortunately, those in trap usually want to be there. If only they could read and understand the words of Paul in Galatians 3:2-6, especially v. 3. Paul in v. 2 asks rhetorically "Did you receive the Spirit [salvation] by works of the law or by hearing with faith?" The clearly correct answer, and which ATI people would agree, is "by hearing with faith." Then v. 3: "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh [works]?" Paul clearly states that the Galatians are fools for thinking their sanctification can be earned with works.
I've seen this to be the crux of ATI thinking. I wish I could take the spiritual blinders off of ATI people and help them see. But I'm afraid God has, like the Pharisees, blinded their hearts so that "seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear."
Yet this website is proof that people do come out of ATI, parents included. So my question is this, because I am so concerned for my ATI friends: Has anyone been freed from ATI by the solid help and counsel of a non-ATI friend, or are those who come out of ATI only freed by God's personal enlightenment within their own soul?
I would say that people challenging me (though most were ex-ATI people) helped me see the light. And some of it was just God turning some lights on.
I would say, both. Change occurs when the pain of the current situation becomes greater than the pain of the necessary changes.
For me, it was God opening my eyes through the process of being an adult. When I got out of the house and started working in the real world, the thing that surprised me most was how gracious and supportive "the world" was about my convictions. No one mocked me or tried to drag me down, in fact they were so kind about it that I was shocked. Where was the big bad evil worldliness I had been living in fear of my entire life? That's when I started questioning the slippery slope and "better safe than sorry" ideas that drove my family straight into the arms of legalistic Christianity. It was a long, slow process of reading my Bible, evaluating, and re-evaluating after that.
This website has helped me immensely in pinpointing and dissecting issues clearly. Some things I have just felt in my gut were wrong and un-Biblical but when other people write it all down and discuss it, then I can see the exact flaws.
I did have good friends who were much less legalistic than my family, but if they had spoken against ATI to me in the beginning of this journey, I would have pulled away from them. So be careful when you are trying to help people get out.
SJ, I don't know if I have enough experience to give you a well rounded answer to your question; I and my siblings were raised ATI, and all of us have thrown it off and are moving forward into recovery. For me, it was nearly taking my life that gave me the first big push to realizing ATI's program wasn't legit. I was faithful and loyal to it, and it failed me big time. I see the hand of God in all of it, that's what it took me to leave it. Of course, it took 3 or 4 years to really throw it off, such things can't be undone in one day. I'm still struggling with side effects, not the least of which is a broken family.
ATI teaches you that those outside the program aren't as mature, or spiritually knowledgeable Christians, and they've missed out on alot of 'God's special truths'. (my wording). As such, many people deeply entrenched in ATI will not look outside of it for help, if anything, they may be seeking to benefit you with their knowledge. The bottom line is that no-one comes out of any kind of darkness without God's enlightenment, however I think it would be incredibly helpful for you to be that friend to them, they'll know where they can go once their eyes are opened and the questions start coming. And also that you are constantly there, not attacking them, but just saying a few well chosen words of truth now and then, to get them to think. That's one of the big things. Once you start thinking for yourself, instead of drinking the cool-aid, you start waking up.
That being said, God may absolutely use you to bring some people out of bondage, I certainly hope He does use you.
btw.. I believe that people go through withdrawals when they're coming out of stuff like that. I feel like I'm going through one now. Don't give up on them if that's what's going on. They need to know that at least you are there for them.
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