It seems that the list of signs of religious abuse build on each other to a degree, or at least they did for me. They did throughout my 19 years in Pentecost, but most could be seen to some degree in the first months I was there, beginning with the first visit. One of the first things I heard was how they had The Truth, how they had something that other churches didn’t have, and that I could have too. This appealed to my 18 year old self. I could be something special and could have something special, and if I would just pull away from my family and friends and focus on the church, they would see my light and my good witness by being separate from them and would start coming to church too. This, I was told, was being a good witness. In fact, it was isolationist.
Ensnarement
Instead of guiding their flock to Christian maturity, abusive leaders strengthen their grip on believers by promoting:
Self doubt
Guilt
Interior conflict
Identity confusion
Ambivalence
Leaders encourage followers to “earn” favor, but set the mark for achieving this so high and make it so ambiguous that it’s impossible to obtain.
Followers are confused by contradictions between conscience/reasoning and teachings.
Believers fear of condemnation, loss of direction, loss of fellowship.
It is difficult and painful for believers to leave abusive churches.
Authoritarianism
Leaders are convinced they exercise God’s authority.
They expect believers to obey them rather than God.
They expect others to support their intentions.
They discourage input and accountability.
They frequently repeat Heb 13:17, “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy and not with grief…”
Manipulation
Instead of interpreting the Bible with the Bible, according to long-held Christian beliefs, and in context, abusive leaders manipulate scriptures so that they appear to endorse the leaders’ personal opinions.
I think there’s another type of manipulation, too… that of manipulating people’s thoughts and conscience–for instance, if you say you’re concerned about something a leader does, the leader might question your love for God or point out that you are supposed to obey/submit to him, or say, “Do you think you’re smarter than me? Don’t you think I have the Holy Ghost? If you don’t like it here [AKA don’t agree with him on everything] you can leave right now!”
Irrationality
Interpretations of scripture may contradict other interpretations, reason, and/or reality.
Leaders (or others) may claim to receive messages from God about church or individual members.
There may be self-proclaimed “healing ministries.”
Members may be pressured into dramatic confessions of sin.
There may be exaggerated professions of deliverance.
There may be little lasting effect.
Members must suspend critical thinking.
During this time, just 2-4 months in, I began noticing more and more that there were all the members of the church and then there was the ‘inner circle,’ those closest to the pastor and pastor’s wife, who were most often called on and most ‘used’ in services — they were the ones who sang solos, led parts of the service, and were given as examples of how to live and praised during the preaching or in smaller group settings. My goal was to somehow join the ‘inner circle,’ to be one of the pastor’s favorites. I’m not sure who was coercing me at this point, the church or me. I craved praise and recognition and was hopeful that I could be deserving of it and would obtain it. I developed a long list of what I could and should do in order to do so. And yet I began having more and more fears that I couldn’t be ‘good enough,’ that I’d somehow miss an opportunity and never have that chance again. My pastor at that time taught (or at least I thought) that if we felt God wanted to do something through us and we resisted, God would withdraw that offer and we would never have that gift.
In all of this I was conforming to the group and developing a legalistic mindset. I didn’t see this as fear of being ostracized or shamed, but simply as a desperation to belong fully; yet the very fact that I knew I wouldn’t belong if I didn’t do certain things shows that the fear of ostracism was there. It was strongly linked to the elitism that was still being fed to me, so I saw it as a positive at the time. In fact, though, I was losing my own identity. I stopped swimming and biking. I changed my hair style and clothes dramatically. I became very self conscious about my body and became convinced that I was not (and should not be) physically attractive, and I started doubting the decisions that I’d spent 18 years wishing I could make (while I grew up). At the same time I began more and more to feel condemned for the strangest things — Was wearing yoga pants under my skirt so that I could bike modesty wrong? No one else was wearing their sleeves so short. Did the pastor just look at me oddly for wearing that barrette? What might I be missing? What should I be doing better?
I left my first church after seven years there. I had hoped to go to Bible College. The pastor had said no. I wanted to do more with missions and was finally given permission (yes, permission) to go on a missions trip. The church barely acknowledged I was going. I’d been pressured to testify how great the women’s retreat was or the youth conference, but suddenly I wasn’t asked to say a thing… instead I was actually asked to stop talking about it. I’d wanted to go on a missions trip since I was 13 or 14 years old, and finally after more than ten years, my dream was coming true, but no one asked me about it and instead I was asked to stop ‘bragging’ about it, since no one else was going. Still, through all of that, I didn’t recognize that there might be anything wrong with The Church. I’d been groomed well. I thought there was something wrong with me. Still, I hoped by moving and going to a different church, with the pastor’s approval, of course, that things would get better. And so I moved and started this exact same story again in a more conservative group.
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