Show Me Blood

by chrisb11101 in photobucket 

 Just finished reading an insightful guest post article on Quivering Daughter's titled
Abusing Abuse?. The article describes the attitude of many to "Buck up!" The mentality is to be grateful that you weren't physically scarred. Darcy, author of the post, has this to say:

Pain is pain. It hurts, it debilitates, it affects every area of our lives. Anyone who lives with chronic physical pain can tell you this. And those who struggle with spiritual pain know all too well. May I even suggest that wounded spirits have far more profound impacts on people's lives than wounded bodies?

Powerful stuff, that. Why should we carry around a pain meter to decide if an experience is deemed painful or scarring? Are religious circles really so blase about suffering that they must be shown blood to produce a merciful attitude?

A situation that I feel illustrates this "there's no blood- so there's no wound" mentality is illustrated on the blog My Teen Mania Experience
The blogger (along with others sharing their personal experiences) petitioned the board of directors to acknowledge wounds (many emotional though I read of several physical ones as well). The board responded with, in my opinion, a cold, dismissive letter. The main concern of collective board was that the problems discussed on the blog were already corrected and that the institution had "a bright future". Not one apology for the many, many scars people bear from their experience with the institution.

I was hoping for a story book ending in this case: board of directors saying that concerns were heard, apologizing for the trauma the institution inflicted-for isn't contrition a Christian virtue?

Apparently not. Since the folks sharing their pain on My Teen Mania Experience didn't show enough theoretical blood they were dismissed as a "dust storm".

I keep hope though. I even keep hope that my spiritual abuser will see her evil and repent for it. Abusive patterns aren't broken by chance. They are broken because some speaks up and says "Hey, that's wrong! Enough is enough!"

I love what Jon Acuff has to say about hope: (Read Jon's wonderful blog Stuff Christians Like - worth your time!)

But here’s the thing about hope, it takes time. And sometimes, I think our greatest frustrations are when we try to force hope into a stage it’s just not ready for...We had to learn to live with a past that refused to stay quiet. As I’ve often said before, unless you deal with it, the past turns into a collection of knives hidden around your house. If you haven’t forgiven each other, then all the sudden you’ll see a character on a television show do what you did and you’ll get stabbed. Someone will make an offhand joke at a dinner party and you’ll get stabbed by that memory. So for us, learning to live with the past was about removing knives.

We have to talk about our hurts- as Jon said, the past doesn't stay quiet. As Darcy stated people will say things about being grateful we weren't beaten, etc. And if you are anything like me, that is your ticket to a month long cruise in guilt land.

So why talk about it? Why blog about it? Well, for the folks over at the My Teen Mania blog because a bunch of leaders decided you weren't bloody enough and de-value you even more by calling you a dust storm. So, you talk about it. According to the comments on the blog, it helps. I know it has helped me.

When I first came out of the cult I posted endlessly for a year on Wanda Mason's Ex-GAC message board. I said often I just needed to feel validated, almost as if I had to ask if it was OK to feel the pain. Wanda would always encouragingly respond back, "You are validated. You are free to share your pain here."

Thanks again so much Wanda. You didn't need to see blood to know there was pain.
To Darcy, Hillary, Recovering Alunmi, Provender, Elizabeth Esther, and all you other awesome blogs out there: Thanks for sharing your pain so others feel free to share theirs. Thanks for not requiring blood.
photo by no_namer_29 in photobucket

Further Reading:
Silent Sorrow
In Black (Velvet)

Guest Post By Provender: Spiritual Abuse is Invisible Trauma

photo by JoscelynAllen in flickr

Recently, I added a quote by Ron Henzel to my Spiritual Abuse quote of the month on Provender, and it’s a good one. It speaks to the heart of the issue of spiritual abuse:

The manipulation involved in Spiritual Abuse is especially cruel because it takes advantage of a person's deepest needs and highest ideals.

After you’ve gone through a period of spiritual abuse, you are at first only interested in survival, and then recovery. It takes some time to look back and take stock of what happened. Even after you’ve done that, you don’t always appreciate the huge toll spiritual abuse takes on your psyche. You know you’re hurting. You know the hurt is magnified by memories of unjust incidents and painful words.

Still, I’m not sure how many victims realize that spiritual abuse reaches right into the depths of the spirit and hurts the most vulnerable parts of our being. We trusted. Our trust was seized and used against us. We loved. Our love was grabbed and twisted into servitude. We hoped. Our hope was dangled in front of us with promise after promise, not always spoken. Those promises were yanked farther away. We yearned to be nearer to God. Instead, we were led along a walkway to a human idol and told we were nearing God, as the burdens grew heavier and more unbearable.

I’ve been on sites where victims of spiritual abuse cry in pain. They don’t know if they will ever again trust. They no longer know for sure if God is real. They long for intimacy with Him but can’t find it. I’ve been on other pages where victims are cynical and even hostile toward believers and churches. The pain and bitterness ate through their souls and left an empty hole. Some start anti-Christian web sites and spew hate-filled words like weapons at the church.

None of this surprises me any more. What they endured was a searing hot poker at their most sensitive spiritual skin. Some do heal. They may have to deal with disfigurement and scar tissue, but they manage to get back to a place where they can open up to God again. For some, that takes years and years. Some seem to waver, going back and forth, believing and not believing. Hardly daring to believe.

Others go from one abusive situation into another. Some have been drawn to more than one other abusive situation after a first one. How any of those victims survive, I will never know.

The point I’m trying to make is for those freshly out of a spiritually abusive experience. If you haven’t been able to recover right away, don’t be bewildered about it. Don’t wonder why you can’t pray, or keep rehashing unpleasant experiences, or wake up fearful, or constantly worry about people in your old group. You’ve just been through something extremely high on the stress continuum. Spiritual abuse is like losing a spouse or being in a fire or discovering the betrayal of adultery. It’s like a fatal car accident, a child’s life-threatening injury, a diagnosis of cancer.

People don’t talk about spiritual abuse. There are some good books on the subject but they don’t hit the bestseller list. There are good sites out there on the topic, but often you have to dig for them. There are groups that help in recovery, but churches rarely talk about them.

Because spiritual abuse is something you aren’t exposed to much before it happens to you, it may seem like it’s not something big, that you should be better by now, that you are silly for being paranoid or frightened or angry or obsessed about what happened. But you’re not. You’ve been through something that scarred the most vulnerable part of you. It’s going to take some time.

So what can you do? Read about spiritual abuse to see how common it is. Talk about what happened to you and don’t let the Don’t Talk Rule silence you. It’s not sin to talk about it. In fact, it promotes healing to do that. Find others who have been through it and talk to them. If you don’t think you can pray, try praying again later, when the wounds are less raw. And remember to take care of yourself because you’ve been through a lot, even though no one around you can see it.

Click here to read Provender's guest post "Twisting Scripture".

Further Reading:
Weaning Myself From Religious Addiction

Vampire Pastors: When God Becomes An Impersonal Force Wielded by a Narcissist

Once again I am viewing my church experience through the conclusion that my ex-pastor was a narcissist.
As I stated in the previous post, I am not a professional health care provider and I am not diagnosing the ex-pastor. To my knowledge she has never been under the care of a mental health care provider who has professionally diagnosed her as a personality disorder.
My main objective in research, compiling and then writing my thoughts and conclusions is to convince myself by understanding of narcissism and by authority of Scripture that the judgments she passed on me (supposedly inspired by the Holy Spirit) and her interpretations of God’s Word are the products of a distressed mind and are no more validated than a hearing-impaired individual’s assumption that the world is silent.
Plainly stated: She is impaired in judgment and due to the nature of her disease, incapable of projecting sound judgment of God and His Word.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

~Abraham Lincoln-

sense of entitlement and hyper-reactivity to criticism

Many of her sermons were comprised of twisted Scriptures designed to reinforce her perverted authority.

She often quoted the scripture in Psalms of “Touch not my anointed” when a parishioner disagreed or questioned her authority. (Read a former post by Provender on Scripture twisting)

There was, however, no ceiling to her authority.

A visiting minister once preached an eloquent message on what the fruit says about the tree, quoting Jesus’ parable of the fig tree.

She was livid and dedicated the next week of services on refuting his words and then announced that he had called her back in tears and repented for questioning her (I believe this was a lie).

She publicly and frequently challenged Rick Warren’s book “The Purpose Driven Life” saying it misdirected readers into a life full of self.

After leaving the cult, I read the book and realized why it posed such a threat to her: it directs people to seek God, not her, for the direction and purpose of their life.

She warned that the Promise Keepers was a dangerous movement and would evolve into a pseudo-Nazi organization.

And the list goes on: If a prominent minister dared direct people to seek God for themselves -she would say that phrase with great derision, adding that God shared His word through His mouthpiece-her.

Imagine thinking that in the millions of churches and Christian fellowships on this planet, God only chose to spoke through you.

If that isn’t delusions of grandeur, I don’t know what is.

She was also a rabid racist. According to her, mixed marriages were prohibited by God, most African-American males would turn into rapists given half a chance, and Muslims, well, I don’t have time and space to write of her hatred of that ethnic group.

She gloated when Katrina ravaged New Orleans saying God had shown Himself as He did when he annihilated Sodom and Gomorrah. She was absolutely emotionless over the massive loss of innocent lives.

She felt enough of a sense of entitlement to prohibit a couple from marrying for over sixteen years.

In another instance, she took money donated by a parent for the betterment of school to buy a new stove for her house.

People had to choose their house furnishing and color schemes according to her preferences. If they ‘rebelled’ she would belittle them in private when she talked with her ‘family members’.

She had phone wires tapped, stole from the elderly, and told people what career or job God wanted them to have.

In essence, she believed the Scripture of “not touching” referred solely to the fact that no one was allowed to touch her. God had meant that in the centuries of church history only she could not be ‘touched’.

So, yes, I do believe her sense of entitlement was well-founded. She was, however, in direct defiance of the Scripture that instructs leaders to be humble.

She had an incredibly manipulative and exploitative nature. She would play the wounded warrior often, saying God had reveled certain parishioner’s hatred of her, and that those who were loyal to her had urged her to save her health by moving where she would be treated right. After returning from a visit to another church she pronounced that she felt God’s leading to a place where people had “ears to hear God’s Word”. Unfortunately for those of us stuck under her dictatorship, she never mad good on that “leading”.

Displaying her sense of entitlement, she declared that God had revealed to her that He had allowed an ex-parishioner into heaven because, as the parishioner was dying, she had apologized for defying the pastor.

She encouraged people that had aging or ailing parents that there place was in church, with her, not caring for or seeing to the needs of their parents. She stated that “the world will care for their own”.

As mentioned in an earlier account, parishioners earned her income by cleaning five to seven buildings bi-weekly.

This was all done on a voluntary basis- the parishioners used their own cars and paid gas for a sixty mile round trip.

I did some rough figuring for a ball park sum of wages she should have paid these “volunteers”.

I came up with:

Paying minimum wage x 14 hours a week = $91.70 a person

An average of 10 people cleaned every week = $917

The buildings had to be cleaned every week- no holidays- so:

917 x 52= $47, 684 for a year’s worth of salaries

Most people had cleaned for twenty years so:

20 x 52= 1,040 weeks x 10 people= 10,400 x $47,684=

$495,913,600-salaries she should have paid to her volunteers over a period of twenty years.

If I saw her today, I would quote what Bishop Desmond Tutu said:

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

There were times that she seemed to be a decent human being. She promoted sending cards to acquaintances and parishioners who were sick or going through difficult circumstances. The issue was that if you sent the cards without her knowledge.

I am not interested in her twisted sense of God. What she did to a churchful of people was use God as an impersonal force to fulfill her own perverted need for control.

I have hope that, recognizing the harm she inflicted on generations of parishioners, she could have an ‘Damascus road’ experience, as Paul did.

Eugene Peterson, in his preface for Galatians (Message, Re-Mix) states:

Through Jesus, Paul learned that God was not an impersonal force to be used to make people behave in certain prescribed ways, but a personal Savior who set us free to live a free life

.

Twisting Scripture: A Guest Post by Provender

The author of the informative Provender blogspot was so gracious as to be a guest poster on The Cult Next Door.

I shared several questions I felt were pertinent concerning scriptures abusive pastors use to solidfy their control over their congregation.

Here are my questions and Provender's insightful answers.

1. The Scripture- "Don't touch God's anointed" (my paraphrase) was used over and over again to assert my ex-pastor's authority to do anything she wished.

Do you think the scripture is actually giving pastors carte blanche?

That passage is used a couple times in scripture, first in I Chronicles 16 and second in Psalms 105 (which is an echo of I Chronicles). It’s clear in both passages that the phrase “the Lord’s anointed” refers to all God’s people, not just leaders. In fact, the very passage talks of God reproving leaders who do harm to His people. In context:

¹⁷And hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant,

¹⁸Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance;

¹⁹When ye were but few, even a few, and strangers in it.

²⁰And when they went from nation to nation, and from one kingdom to another people;

²¹He suffered no man to do them wrong: yea, he reproved kings for their sakes,

²²Saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.

²³Sing unto the LORD, all the earth; show forth from day to day his salvation.

That passage alone ought to turn on its head the idea that God has some special protection in mind for abusive pastors. Instead, the protection is for all His people, and if abusive leaders hurt them, they can expect to be reproved by the Lord.

Thank you so much for your astute answers to my questions, Provender.
I hope any who are in the clutches of a controlling pastor will read your explanation and start questioning the toxic twist their leader has placed on God's Word.

What abusive pastors are really trying to cite is the passage in I Sam. 24: 5-7 where David refuses to kill King Saul when it’s in his power to do so because Saul is the Lord’s anointed king. Abusive pastors equate themselves with a king, which alone should be very telling. And with King Saul, too, whom the spirit of God has left. Also, very telling. Nevertheless, they try to draw a parallel. Saul did bad things, but submissive David recognized him as the Lord’s anointed and refused to kill him. I would say that, yes, we should not kill abusive pastors. I agree with the scriptural interpretation up to that point. But David did not put himself under Saul’s power, did he? He did not say, “Saul, God chose you, so whatever you want me to do, I’ll do.” No. He continued to keep his distance even though Saul wanted him to submit and be killed. He continued to point out Saul’s faults toward him publicly. Nowhere in scripture does it say that leaders are to be free from criticism or that they can never be held accountable for what they do.

Revelation 1:6 makes it clear that all believers, and not just pastors, “are made kings and priests.” And we are to submit one to another, not just to those in authority. (I Peter 5:5, Eph. 5:21) If your pastor isn’t submitting to anyone, but requiring you to submit to him or her, there is a problem. We all have to give up our naturally self-seeking desires on occasion, putting others first, not just some of us. Be careful of those who exploit your willingness to put others first.

2. What scripture would you use to set parameters to a pastor's authority?

The entire chapter of Ezekiel 34 sets out what a good pastor should do and what bad pastors do instead. It’s a must-read for anyone in an abusive situation. What the passage says good pastors should do:
• Feed sheep
• Help the sick and injured
• Bind up the broken
• Bring back those who were driven away
• Seek the lost (these are the lost who were already part of the flock)
• Keep sheep from becoming prey to devouring beasts

This is what the passage says bad pastors do:
• Feed themselves instead of the sheep (narcissism or greed)
• Kill best, fattest sheep and eat the fat (arrogance and self-focus) Traditionally, the fat belonged to God. They are taking God’s possession for themselves.
• Use the sheep to clothe selves (exploitation)
• Ignore the sick and wounded (Image consciousness)
• Don’t seek, care about those they’ve driven away (blaming others)
• Rule over sheep with harshness and force (lording it over flock)
• Allow sheep to wander and get devoured by beasts (impure motive)
• Don’t care when sheep scatter or get eaten (elitism: we’re good, they’re not)
• Provide dirty food and water (twisting scriptures)
• Push the needy and sick away (manipulation)

No question about it. The important thing for abusive pastors is to keep questions and scrutiny away. By putting church members on the defensive through scripture manipulation like this, they do two things: They keep the focus off their own unjust acts and onto the acts of the believers in their group. And they also shame church members into silence so they won’t compare notes and see that the problem is larger than just a problem with one individual.

4. What Scripture do you think refers to abusive pastors?

1 Peter 5:3 is advice from Peter to pastors: Don’t lord it over the flock, but be examples.

John mentions Diotrephes who “loves to have the preeminence” and who would not receive Paul. These are traits of an abusive pastor.
Paul says in I Tim 4 that “some shall fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by them that believe and know the truth.”
These are pastor’s commands: don’t marry, don’t eat this, don’t eat that. It’s a power trip. And the result of spiritual abuse is clear: some fall away through these leaders and their lies.

As Harold Bussell points out in his excellent article, Checks on Power and Authority in the New Testament, when Paul confronted the great apostle Peter about his hypocritical double standard concerning Gentiles, Paul didn’t say, “I cannot question those in authority over me.” Bussell takes many, many incidents in the New Testament where authority is questioned and confronted and shows the absurdity of taking the spiritually abusive line toward them. Bussell’s article is another must read.

5. What would you say to the controlling pastor who quotes the Scripture, "Obey those that have the rule over you?"

First, I wouldn’t do much talking to abusive pastors. It’s often not worth the agony and the time. The scripture says “Mark those who cause division and avoid them.” Romans 16:17 In my mind, no one causes division in the church more than abusive pastors. When you finally realize that abusive patterns are happening in the church, instead of agonizing about all the steps of Matthew 18 or trying to reason with the unreasonable, your best course is often to leave. No scripture says that the local church you are currently in is THE church. No scripture says you must stay in any particular church.

But if you feel you must try to reason with a manipulator, you can point out any of the passages listed in Bussell’s article and see what the response is. Don’t expect contrition though, or any change at all. With abusive pastors, scripture is only a means to an end, and the end is control. It’s not about Christ, it’s not about scripture; it’s about controlling you. Any scripture the pastor gives back to you, you can be assured, will make you look like the bad guy and the pastor look like Moses or Paul.

As far as obeying those who have the rule over you. Good idea to get along with spiritual mentors. There are churches where laymen attack pastors for no good reason or are always throwing roadblocks in the way. You can have jerks who are church members as well as jerks who are leaders. It’s a good idea to cooperate with good church leaders and to work for peaceful relations in church. That’s a whole different matter from submitting to manipulative, dangerous leadership. You can sharpen your discernment skills by keeping close to scripture on your own, checking what is preached against what the word actually says, like the Bereans did, and keeping your eyes and ears open.

6. What Scripture would you use to convince a spiritually abused parishioner to leave the toxic church?

I wish I knew the answer to this question. Right now there is about one man left in our former church who was there when we were. This very humble man I am sure is confused and distraught. I have often thought about this. If I were to share scripture with this man, since I’m one of the excommunicated, would he even listen?

After all, in an elitist church (and abusive churches are notoriously elitist, feeling they are the super spiritual while other churches and believers are tainted by the ways of the world) how ca
n you listen to someone outside with any confidence they have answers? They are the sinful, weak ones. They can’t help you.

Still, I often think about this. How can I get through to him?

I would first have to convince him that there is a problem with the church. That wouldn’t be too hard since so many have left or been kicked out. He’s already disturbed and unhappy. But then I would have to convince him that it’s worthwhile listening to me, and that might pose a problem.

If he did, though, I think I’d lead him to Ezekiel 34, because one thing is certain: Abusive pastors do not convincingly seek after the sheep they’ve driven away. They are hirelings. If any passage would make that clear, it’s this one.

I think my best bet is to pray for him, and if I get a chance share Ezekiel 34 and maybe some information on spiritual abuse. I’m open to suggestions on this too. Perhaps some reader has had success getting through to those still trapped. If so, I’d like to know
how it’s done.

3. Do you think this Scripture (Touch not mine annointed) is used to enforce the "Don't Talk" rule which characterizes abusive churches?