The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Concluding Thoughts
We conclude our Thursday series blogging through “The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse.” The first post in the series is here.
We come to the end of this road together. This has been rewarding for me, and I hope it has been for others as well.
All the way back in the introduction, the authors asked us to handle this material with care. It’s not meant to be a witch hunt. No system is perfect and hopefully we won’t be too quick to pin the “abuse” label. It’s different when someone is willing to admit their mistakes — and everyone does make mistakes. The book can tend to raise some strong emotions from previous and current wounds. If this happens for you, it is recommended that you get some time with safe friends and/or a counselor to work through some of it.
Knowing that all people and all systems are imperfect, where is the dividing line between normal and abusive, between imperfect and toxic? Any thoughts or comments? Has your opinion about this developed or changed any as a result of this book?
A few things have stood out to me. Power-posturing is a core element of abusive systems. Moses, Paul, Timothy — they each had authority that stemmed from speaking and acting in line with God’s truth and God’s mission in the world; their authority did not stem from demanding submission from others. The Pharisees and religious leaders that plotted to kill Jesus and his followers did not have true authority; theirs was a false authority which they defended with a vengeance.
False shepherds strain out gnats while swallowing camels. They will obsess over the smallest details while being blind to soul-crushing pain and abuse right under their noses. False shepherds load sheep down with many burdens, which the leaders themselves are unable or unwilling to bear. (If I might be so bold, one way a leader might do this, as we’ve seen from Bill Gothard’s ardent defenders, is to claim that he himself has the spiritual gift of “exhorter” and is, therefore, exempt from the standards to which he holds everyone else). It reminds me of a lesson I learned while a counselor at camp: get the campers to do all the running and exercise while I watch. They wear themselves out and I still have energy to lead. As a camp counselor this is a good idea! Healthy delegation is good leadership; it is an abuse of power to use it as a control tactic, looking out for the good of the leader and the system at the expense of individuals.
The cost of abusive leaders is measured, at least in part, by ruined relationships. Those who never cared to seek God are not vulnerable to false shepherds. It is those who come seeking the good shepherd and find instead those shepherds who use the sheep for their own benefit who are vulnerable. When Jesus said that the Pharisees were guarding the door to the kingdom of heaven, the tragedy is that those who are being locked out are those who came seeking the Good Shepherd but were turned away by false shepherds.
This is another key aspect of abusive leaders: they are not servants for the good of the sheep. Instead, the sheep are used up for the good of the (false) shepherd. This can be extremely subtle and confusing at first. People sense something is amiss but they are not sure what. It may be that the spiritual leaders are pretending to be their best friends. But the people in the system begin to find that they are being used up, not charged up.
In this system, truth-in-love becomes the enemy while the “can’t-talk rule” reigns. Power-posturing people are instinctively threatened by the straightforward truth. They must always manage appearances and control what people say. This often means sweeping both abusers and victims under the rug in an effort to manage appearances. This is so different from the image of a body that is being built up in truth and love, such as what is presented in Ephesians 4.
At Christmas, we hear that the message to the shepherds was, “Do not be afraid, we are bringing good news that brings joy!” Abuse twists the gospel away from bringing joy, back into something that instills fear.
The chart on pages 187–188 crams years of wisdom into the space of a few inches. It is a good description of the trap and of the trapped. As painful as it may be to realize, abuse is in some ways a two-way street; it is a trap with bait that attracts prey. If the victim wishes to escape and stay out of the painful traps for good, he or she must take a clear-eyed look in the mirror at some point, probably with the help of a trusted friend or counselor, to figure out what it is about the prey that was attracted to the bait.
Unspoken rules: something that newcomers to an abusive system discover quickly. Misplaced loyalty: a requirement for advancement in the system.
The solution? Renewing the mind. Plugging back into the source of Life. Walking in step with the Spirit. Our God is a good and relational God. He does not trip us for the sake of kicking us while we are down. He does not lord our every past mistake over us. He does not exaggerate our smallest fault and punish us disproportionately while excusing selfish excesses on his own part. He truly loves us and seeks our good. He came to give life, full and free. We are valuable to him, not simply grist for his mill. This is not a message of libertinism — our bodies are temples after all. But it is a message of liberty: we are children, chosen and adopted, we are not slaves to be driven by the sting of the whip. You were set free to live as a child of the King. Please don’t go back to slavery!
One question I am left with is, “What are those of us who escaped in the past supposed to do for those who are living it now in the present? How do we help?” Tim Keller has a great book, “Generous Justice.” It is eye-opening to see how much concern God expresses in Scripture for the “quartet of the vulnerable,” which is the poor, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow. Doing justice sometimes calls for an active role in helping someone. Even so, in the vast majority of cases of spiritual abuse, it would be counterproductive to ride in like Clint Eastwood and ride out the hero, leaving a figurative trail of bodies in our wake. There is a gentle power in the healing touch.
I know these are “Christianese” words, but I do truly believe that grace, truth, love, faith, and hope are important ingredients to that healing touch. Jesus was full of grace and truth. We are called to live out truth in love. False leaders have a lot of power to be able to damage so many people’s lives, but if the One who is in us is greater than the enemy of our souls, it is even more powerful to be able to help bring life and healing to the wounded. Godspeed to you as you work through the areas of woundedness in your own life and as you walk with friends who are doing the same.
Here is a table of contents for each of the chapter posts in this series:
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 1: “Help Me…”
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 2: Spiritual Abuse Is Not New
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 3: Abused Christians
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 4: The Pre-Abuse Set-up
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 5: Identifying the Abusive System
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 6: When You Cannot Leave
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 7: Abuse and Scripture
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 8: Revictimizing Victims
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 8: Revictimizing Victims, cont’d
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 9: “Because I’m the Pastor, That’s Why!”
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 10: “You Can Trust Me”
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 11: Image Is Everything
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 12: Straining Gnats, Swallowing Camels
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 13: The Weight of Religion
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 14: “No Admittance”
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 15: Spreading “The Gospel”
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 16: The People Get Devoured
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Introduction to Part Three
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 17: How to Escape a Spiritual Trap
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 18: Renewing the Mind
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 19: Recovering Right Focus (Part 1)
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 19: Recovering Right Focus (Part 2)
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 20: One Response: Flight
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Chapter 21: A Second Response: Fight
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Thank you, thank you, for expounding on this book and bringing these sometimes painful issues to the table for discussion. I dare say this series has been life-changing for me. It has helped me understand what happened in a spiritually abusive church we were battered in a few years back, and also find some healing for buried wounds from my ATI experiences over a decade ago. I am in awe of the grace of God.
Great wisdom in this book and in your posts as you distilled it for us.
"Power-posturing people are instinctively threatened by the straightforward truth. They must always manage appearances and control what people say." -- so very true! This is especially coming to light today because of the internet with blogs and facebook. People post things and immediately someone private messages them with messages of shame and guilt and condemnation, trying to intimidate them into being quiet, into preserving the outward appearance of perfection that is so important to them. But I do believe in speaking the truth in love and that there is a time to SPEAK!
Hi guys. My name is Charlie and I am nearly 18, and I have been reading a lot of stuff on Recovering Grace. Alot of what I have read is similar to my experiences with IBLP. I do not remember where my mother heard about it, but the first Children's Institute that I went to was when I was 6 years old.
I have always been a very "rebellious" child, and I never fitted into the mold that those around me tried to squash me into. By the time I was 10, my mother was so desperate that she sent me to a family that was a perfect IBLP family. They were involved right up to their necks in it. Gothard would be so pleased with them!
Anyway, they tried gentle persuasion at first, and when I wouldn't listen to that, they started spanking me with a very long stick. The problem was I was so stubborn that the sticks kept on breaking. So then they started using a pipe that was about an inch thick. The first time they used that was after I argued with their eldest daughter over someting my mother said. After the first spanking I crossed my arms and told the man that spanked me that I was still going to talk to my mother about it.
The next day, I was called back into the bathroom and told that because I was not properly sorry for what I had done the first time. I started counting how many smacks he gave me, and I lost count around 60 or so. I was screaming my head off and no one stopped him. He kept going after I got the 60 mark for what seems like hours. I was hardly able to stand up I was so sore and yet I was still made to go out and keep helping with weeding the garden with one of the other girls.
After four months of that sort of treatment, I went home to my parents. Things went really well for awhile, but my stay with those other people hadn't made me any better. I was still just as "rebellious".
My mother spanked me constantly right up until I was 16. I refused to allow her to do that to me anymore because it wasn't working and it was making me feel like I was a failure for needing to be spanked at that age.
My father has always ignored me since I was tiny unless I did the wrong thing. I often did the wrong thing just to get his attention, even though most of the time he got angry at me. But, to me, that was better than nothing at all.
Then in this past year I met a guy who is a lot older than me, but I fell in love with him. I had no hope of ever getting his love in return, because he loved someone else. Anyway, the other girl broke up with him, and I knew that he would become self destructive if I didn't do something so I started emailing him, and asking him questions about how family life was supposed to work, and stuff because my parents were not teaching me the right thing.
It wasn't until a bit after that that our relationship turned into something serious. We planned to get married as soon as I got to 18. But, after about 4 months my mother found out, and I really copped it for daring to court someone who my parents didn't approve of. She told me that I couldn't have God's blessing if I married with out her and papa's approval, and so I, out of fear, broke up with the man that I loved.
I suffered terribly after that because after I was able to start thinking clearly about what had happened and what was said to me, I realized that I still loved him, and that my parenst hadn't even met the man so they had no way of judging.
However, the long and the short of it is, that the man that I love and I are back together again, and we will be getting married early next year. I am so happy, more than I thought was possible for me to ever be again.
I guess the reason I have told my story is because I would love to hear what others have to say about what I have gone through, and their advice on how to deal with it. I am really struggling with guilt over not telling my parents that I am getting married, and I feel like I am doing the wrong thing to do it without their blessing. It has been so drilled into me that I am under my dad's authority until I marry that I feel like I am commiting some terrible sin. If anyone has anything to say, I would appreciate it very much. Thanks for reading my story, and I hope that I haven't upset anyone for speaking out about it.
Hi Charlie. As you may have read in this article one of the biggest weapons that false Shepard's use is guilt. this occurs when one feels a sense of loyalty to their leader even though they know deep down everything is not okay.
False teachers break their followers down mentally emotionally and spiritually so that they create dependence on them and not God. Through this dependence people then begin to doubt their own ability to make sound decisions and therefore no longer trust their own judgement. In a very real sense they believe their salvation is dependent on the acceptance of their leader or leaders to the point they will do anything they are told to do.
Sadly in IBLP the family unit is often where most of the damage is done. Bill Gothard's Umbrella of authority is one of the most destructive distortions of scripture that I have personally witnessed. If one family feels they can't control their child they pass them on to a more experienced family to be disciplined
Sadly those who whole heartily accept Gothard's teachings and who practice them see nothing wrong with preying on vulnerable families, single mothers and others by taking over their whole lives and separating them or even poisoning children's minds towards their own parents with out right lies.
I know this is true as i know one family who actively sought to take a child from another family while poisoning the mind of another child in their care against their parents while slowly limiting contact between them.
Charlie, I am very sorry for what has happened to you in childhood. Abuse like that is not okay.
As one who has faced many similar things, and have had to work through it... I recommend:
Join our Facebook group for ATI Student Recovery (here), where you can interact with and recieve advice from others who have similar backgrounds
As hard as it is, postpone marriage for a few years, until you have had some time to work through the trauma of your upbringing. You want to be emotionally healthy, going into a marriage, and you want your mate to be emotionally healthy at the time, as well. If you decide you absolutely can't do that, at least get the two of you into some premarital counseling, so you both can sort out as much as possible prior to marriage.
Graduate from high school, if you haven't already.
Look to getting a job adequate to support yourself, so that you can move out of your parents home when you turn 18, if circumstances indicate the need.
If you ever have the opportunity, get some counseling from a licensed counselor... Many of us have found this a necessity, as we work through the pain of our past.
I write from my personal experiences, and am not a substitute for a licensed counselor ;) All the best to you.
very good advice
I agree with Hannah. You would not regret waiting until you've put some distance between yourself and your upbringing. The less 'baggage' you bring into your marriage, the less crap there is to come between you and your spouse. That being said, if you go ahead and get married anyway, that doesn't mean you still can't work through these issues, I just personally feel that your marriage will be all the better in the long run if you wait a bit. (I am a married woman.)
Charlie, I am sorry for the things you have had to endure. You have a hard time listening to your parents because of the way you were treated. You don't want to go from one situation to a worse situation so I am sure you will find some helpful suggestions on here. One caution- how much older is the guy and where did you meet him? Is a guy who would self-distruct going to be able to help you through this. There are a lot of older men out there finding girls who are hurting and not treating them very nicely. I hope others can offer more help and I will pray for you.
for Charlie- perhaps the best thing to do is wait for the moment and see how it plays out. don't rush into anything
but I would definitely call the authorities on those who abused you-spanking a kid 60 times is big time abuse---they need to be stopped -perhaps they are doing this to other kids...the more paper work on gothard type abuse the more people will see the sham that legalist religion is...
Agreed. I'm torn about coming out and exposing the abuse in my upbringing, because I have no desire to shame my parents, who, crazy as they can be, were trying to do what they thought was right. That is no excuse, by any means, for what they did, but part of me feels as if I have no place exposing other people's sins, and I believe the abuse has stopped with my younger siblings anyway... The only reason I would bring it out would be to expose Gothard and his evil teachings, not my parents, but they'd get hurt in the process. (not like their lifestyle hasn't hurt them already, which they are forcefully blinding themselves to.)
Heather I admire your loyalty to your parents however where abuse exists the abuse relies on the victims loyalty and silence so they may continue the abuse. It isn't just about not wanting to expose others sin it is also about preventing it from happening to others. You would know yourself that many abuse victims self harm which includes suicide to stop the abuse because they carry so much guilt and think they are to blame for what happened to them.
This is very true. As of now, from everything I can see, the abuse has stopped, and now my younger siblings are just dealing with old, cranky, ornery parents, and it's not unbearable at the moment. Oddly enough, I tell them that it'll build character, make them strong etc.. and my youngest sister has informed me that she's glad she's going through all of this now, so she won't take anything for granted when she's out of there. That's an unusual bit of mature wisdom, even for her, and I find that very encouraging.
Heather... That's what pseudonyms are for ;)
Thank you all so much for you advice and interest. I am putting off my marriage to give myself time to recover. I really appreciate having you tell me, as it helps me to feel like I am making the right decision. I am considering getting counselling, and we will also be doing premarital counselling as well.
Prayers for you.