How does church abuse happen? Part 1

In today’s post I will be exploring the question:

What is the lifecycle of abuse for the person who is abused in a church or ministry context?

If you have not read it already, I invite you to read my post on where it all started. That article provides important context by which to understand the exploration of the question below.

Why am I writing about this? Quite simply because the scripture says in Ephesians 5:11 to have nothing to do with the unprofitable works of darkness, but rather expose them. It is my goal to turn the lights up on how church abuse works for two reasons. Firstly so that people who have been victims of church abuse can understand an important context for their experience. It can be genuinely crazy making when you are in any stage of the abuse, but particularly once you have been discarded by an abusive church or religious community. The victim can be in disbelief as to what has happened and question their own ability to discern what is real and what is imagined. After realising that the same abuse has been experienced by thousands of other people the victim can begin to realise that they are not crazy, and they are not alone. Secondly my goal is to grow awareness of the dynamics so church abuse can be relegated to church history. The more we can articulate and bring language to the patterns of abuse the less effective they become. Sin and abuse thrive in secrecy, confusion and darkness. By clarifying how abuse happens and bringing patterns of abuse to light, we can stop the cycle before it starts.

Many have written on patterns of abuse before, and they have developed their own models. I wholeheartedly encourage you to read more on the topic and not just to accept my observations as your sole source of information. I recommend the works of Dr Wade Mullen, Chuck DeGroat, Diane Langberg and Aundi Kolber as good starting points if you want to understand more about church abuse, trauma and healing.

Below is the pattern that I have observed, both from personal witness and the testimony of others who have been abused in a church or religious context. I will write another post outlining the positive expression of this process, so that you can discern for yourself whether the church environment you are in is healthy and positioning you for growth in Christ, or if there are red flags that you need to respond to.

Stage 1. Love bombing. Acceptance. Grooming. Idealisation.

When a person comes into a church for the first time it can be overwhelming just how much love and attention is thrown on them. They are the ‘VIPs,’ ‘Honoured Guests,’ ‘Most Important People in the Room’ or some other special designation. Please let me be clear that a church who welcomes guests and has an effective onboarding process is not abusive. How can you tell the difference? The purpose of love bombing in an abusive context is to position the victim for stage 2, the removal of discernment.

Stage 2. The removal of discernment.

What is the difference between the infatuation that begins in any romantic relationship and an abuser charming/grooming their victims so that they may be abused? An abuser uses excessive gestures of love, acceptance and charm to get the victim to let their guard down. The purpose is to remove from the victim healthy curiosity, scepticism and boundaries which would normally be in place as a loving and healthy relationship develops. The removal of discernment gradually positions the victim so that the abuser can get the benefits they want from the victim. If the victim perceives the threat, they may leave, preventing the abuser from getting what they want.

Stage 3. Develop loyalty to the church over Christ.

This can be a tricky one to discern, but over the course of time the abuse victim will be asked to develop a stronger connection to the church than to Jesus. Though the talk of the church maybe around focusing on God, the functional experience of the abuse victim is to give their loyalty, their devotion, and ultimately their souls to the church.

In an abusive church there is an important and deliberate conflation between Christ and the church. The abuse victim is convinced to believe that any disloyalty to the church is tantamount to disloyalty to Christ.

Stage 4. Give responsibility/authority of your life over to the abusive church.

The abusive church gradually becomes ‘god’ to the abuse victim. All of the things that the scriptures write about Christ, gradually gets swapped out for the church. So where the scriptures say that He is before all things, and in Him all things consist (Col 1:17) functionally the abuse victim experiences that they are to regard the church as being before all things, and in the church all things consist. There is no life outside of the abusive church.

It starts gradually, but over time more and more of the abuse victim’s life is centered not on Christ, but on the church. Or more specifically on how their life can benefit the leaders, the ministry, or the institution of the church. Commitments to, or even attendance of, any other church will result in loss of connection and opportunity within the abusive church community.

Stage 5. Lose yourself. Become the mask.

The victim is required to put on a mask and be a different person than who God has made them to be in order to have acceptance within the abusive church community. Trauma specialist Gabor Mate notes that all human beings crave attachment and authenticity, but when authenticity threatens attachment, attachment will trump authenticity every time. In other words, the victim must give up the authentic self in order to receive acceptance within the community.

Over time, the abusive church devalues and redefines the victim. As an extension of stage 3 and 4, the victim trusts that the church can operate as the source of truth and authority, and subsequently take on whatever persona is necessary to retain love and acceptance from the church leaders. Eventually the victim develops a coping or survival ‘self’ and loses touch with the authentic or true self. The true self never entirely disappears, it is just neglected and under nourished in the psyche.

For further reading on this topic I recommend Steven Hassan’s ‘Combatting Cult Mind Control’ and Robert Jay Lifton’s ‘Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism’.

Stage 6. Positioned for abuse.

Before the actual abuse the victim is tested to see if they are ready for consumption. In a sick and evil way, the abuse victim is prepared to be sacrificed and consumed for the benefit of the leader(s) or institution.

The victim is asked/pressured to sacrifice himself/herself for the ‘ministry.’ Fear, guilt and intimidation are the driving forces behind the ‘ask.’ If the victim is not giving/serving/sacrificing enough they are not a real Christian. If the victim raises questions about leaders or decisions - because they have somehow kept their discernment intact - they will be silenced or pushed aside. Failing that the abusive church will accuse the victim of ‘not honouring the Lord’s anointed’ or ‘being divisive’ or ‘not submitting to godly authority.’

The focus of the abuse victim is constantly redirected onto feelings that they are not enough. Not doing enough, giving enough, witnessing enough, serving enough. An emotionally healthy and discerning person will see this behaviour for what it is; manipulative and emotional blackmail, subsequently the healthy disciple of Christ will at this point walk away. This can be extremely difficult however, because the abusive church may have been actively opposing spiritual and intellectual discernment for years. In order for anyone to retain acceptance in the abusive church community, discernment must be abandoned.

Stage 7. Silent abuse.

If the victim has remained the abusive church, and have been primed and positioned for abuse they will now be consumed for the benefit of the pastor, church or ministry. This is not sacrifice of the sinful self to be renewed in the Holy Spirit, this is sacrifice of the spirit and soul of the victim for the idolatry of the institution.

The church elders, leaders or institution subject the victim to abuses they would never tolerate themselves. They continue to extract benefit from the victim for as long as they can, all the while giving the victim a pendulum experience of love and honour, along with disdain and devaluing. The pastor will say how much they appreciate the victim in front of others and then undermine and devalue the victim in front of a different group just a few moments later. Or comments of appreciation and honour are coupled with embarrassing or unflattering comments as well.

Stage 8. Discard.

Once the victim, their marriage and their family have been consumed, and they can no longer provide the desired benefits to the pastor, church or ministry, they are discarded. What’s more if the victim seeks to have their pain acknowledged, or if they seek to bring attention to the abuse, or the dysfunctions that have led to the abuse they will be ignored or turned on by the community to which they have been sacrificed. Suffice to say that the victim of church abuse is left isolated, hurt and confused once they have been discarded. Unable to explain to their spouses, children or friends exactly what has happened.

There is much, much more that could be written, and has been written, on the lifecycle of abuse in churches, and I encourage you to learn more. But these are the stages I have seen come up time and time again.

That’s it. That is the process from beginning to end from the perspective of the victim of a church. There are varying degrees of intensity, but I believe that these 8 stages are common to every person who is a victim of church abuse. I want to say at this point I am sick just writing about this. This is horrible, sinful, wicked, and it has to stop.

I have written elsewhere that truth can be easy to see but difficult to face. Truth can also be difficult to uncover and unflattering when it is! For me the truth above has been hard to discern and even harder to face. Personally I have been victim and perpetrator. I am sickened and hurt by both of those truths. But hard truths must be faced if we are to be free. I believe that honest, healthy and holy churches are not only possible but necessary. To get to healthy and holy, we must first start with honesty.

What do you think? What has been your experience? Have you suffered from church abuse? Does what I have written above resonate with you, or do you believe I have missed something? I would like to hear from you.

I would also like to say that it is possible to recover from church abuse, and retain a love for Christ. To be sure, many of the people I have spoken with who have been abused by the church have no love for Christ any longer. But there are others who have grown a deeper connection and appreciation for Jesus on the far side of their abuse. If there is anyone who understands what it is like to be abused, sacrificed and discarded by the religious institutions, it is Christ.