I’ve been hearing people using the term ‘Spiritual Abuse’ lately. Can someone tell me what that is please?
When a person is used by a spiritual leader or a church- or even a denomination.
Convincing a fellow Christian that it is their duty to;
Wash their car or cut their grass
Have sex with them or give them money
Work in the church for free/ far above and longer hours than a volunteer should have to do. Particularly if that person in power is paid an exorbitant salary by the church.
Taking advantage of someone under the guise of Christianity. (Or any religion. It happens in others as well)
F. Remy Diederick has a great little book called Broken Trust in which he describes spiritual abuse.
I’ll give an example from my youth.
Background: my parents grew up in Believing households so knew Scripture from youth. They also went to Bible school where they met. We attended church whenever it was open.
Example: there were 5 siblings (ages 2-13) and several of them were exasperating mum. After dinner she very angrily said to stay seated at the table. She was gone a short time coming back with a small devotional book. It wasn’t a children’s devotional book. She opened it up and read, followed by a small speech of how bad we were for making her angry.
There were options on how she could have told us SHE was at her wits end. Instead she used Scripture to tell us how bad we were.
This is a type of spiritual abuse. Using Scripture as a weapon.
Mums favorite saying to us (so it seems) was to scream at us “be sure your sin may find you out” when we’d done something wrong. Another example of spiritual abuse.
1 Like
So spiritual abuse is pretty much taking a verse completely out of context so that you can pull a guilt trip on someone and get them to do what you want?
There are many forms of spiritual abuse.
The Prof and I gave examples of….
1 Like
I like to rephrase how people say things to make sure I understand perfectly what they’re saying. Usually, when I assume I understand, I end up being completely wrong. It’s really helped me out in school. Thanks for the answers.
Anthony, I hope it’s helped you out, to clarify communication, in not just school but in life situations, and in relationships. I’ve noticed from my reading on forums you like “absolutes.” Anything free from imperfections. Life is not like that and to expect that is allowing for great let downs.
Now God on the other hand is full of absolutes.
But to guilt someone based on Scripture IS spiritual abuse. It is the Holy Spirits work to bring truth into our lives, not our guilting.
1 Like
That’s good right there. I know that there will rarely be any absolutes in life, but I try to get them when I can; I hate being wrong. I hate it with a passion. But if I was always right, there would be no need for the body. Speaking of the Holy Spirit bringing truth into our lives, my pastor recently preached on how the Holy Spirit is the one who is supposed to convict, not us.