Category: United Pentecostal Church | Page 34

When churches silence, part 2

I sat in the counselor’s office physically shaking. I’d left the church eight years before, but remembering it… I still physically shook as I described what had happened. And I barely mentioned most of it. I’d been stalked in the church. I didn’t mention that the stalking had been accepted, even laughed about. Or that no, it actually wasn’t the first time I’d been stalked in church… it was just the first time that I was concerned for my physical safety.

I’m beginning to realize that the church is still silencing me.

“Don’t talk bad about the man of God.”
“You wouldn’t want to be a bad witness.”
“We have to protect the truth.”
“I wouldn’t want to hurt them.”

It’s difficult to shake those thoughts even after leaving, and I still think about them even while knowing that I must speak out, in private or in public. I’m still careful. I don’t want to shake anyone’s faith. I don’t want people comparing our stories and thinking theirs wasn’t ‘bad enough.’ Every story is valid, and every story should be heard.

Silence doesn’t stop molestation, stalking, backbiting and gossip, authoritarianism, or narcissism. It doesn’t stop favoritism, judgmentalism, threats, blackmail, negative peer pressure, or manipulation. It doesn’t help people who are hurting, who think they are alone – the only ones, surely, who’ve been hurt by an entity acting in the name of God. And it doesn’t prevent more people from facing similar situations… again, and again, and again.

How many people have been affected by spiritual abuse? We can’t know for sure. The church is silent.

When churches silence, part 1
When churches silence, part 2
When churches silence, part 3
When churches silence, part 4

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When churches silence, part 1

I sat in the counselor’s office in an intake interview, trying to get her to understand why I might want to be in a spiritual abuse support group. It’s been 18 years since I was thrown out of a church, but when I started explaining that time, I was hesitant. By the time I explained what finally prompted me to leave, I realized I was physically shaking.

Even after blogging, even after the newspapers covered stories, even after talking to person after person online, even after talking to others in person, even after eight years, even after eighteen years… even after… I was shaking. A day later, I’m still a bit shaky inside.

Will they understand?
Will it make a difference?
Can I trust them?
Will they believe me?
Do I even believe myself?

The church has been silent. It was silent when I was expelled on a lie. No facts were checked. The organization the church was part of was supporting the church I was in to some degree. I called headquarters. I knew people there… and I was told that every church was autonomous. I was told (though they knew as well as I that not every church in the organization would accept me. I’d been branded, kicked out of a church. “We don’t want trouble.” The person I knew at headquarters told me to just go find another church. And not to talk about it. “Just move on.”

I heard that too much.
“Just move on.”
“Don’t talk about it.”
“There’s no need for anyone to know.”
“We’re trying to protect you.”
“Don’t tell what happened — we don’t want people thinking badly of you.”
“Just hold your peace and let the Lord fight your battles.”
“Just pray about it.”
“If you say anything negative, it’s gossip.”

Why? Why would people think badly of me if I told the truth? If I defended myself?
Since when is it gossip to tell the truth?
How can there be healing or change if no one ever talks about what happened, no one acknowledges the wounds, and everyone pretends nothing at all happened?

When churches silence, part 1
When churches silence, part 2
When churches silence, part 3
When churches silence, part 4

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When the church divides, part 4

I admit, I question groups that tout polarized subjects today. So much of religion, politics, and even social outcries are black and white, “I’m right, and if you don’t agree, you’re wrong.” There is no place for consideration of various perspectives or experiences, or even for consideration of facts outside of those that back what the religion has decided to believe. It’s how I was taught to ‘study’ — find facts that back what you believe. Don’t consider any ‘dangerous’ alternative facts, and I’ve since realized that the only ‘dangerous’ facts are those that are ignored and those that are emphasized while others are minimized.

Facts and even opinions and experiences are only dangerous when they’re manipulated to fit someone’s version of the truth rather than allowed to reveal the truth itself. It’s then that they stop being facts and develop into deceptions wrapped in an illusion of truth… dangerous and very difficult to unravel. My former church and other unhealthy churches and groups have become experts at winding truth in lies. Some, like mine, then proclaim that this truth wrapped in lies is THE Truth, the only truth and the most important truth, to be protected at any cost, including by protecting or defending it with more lies and by ignoring victims of it.

Victims of THE Truth? Victims of the lies they wrap it in and the twisted manipulations of it.

My former churches used ‘truth’ – really their version of it — to divide, to breed distrust and jealousy and fear. How can we tell real truth from pseudo-truth after leaving? It’s not easy. It’s easier to distrust everything referred to as fact or truth. But there is one way I’ve found to distinguish what is true from all of the lies and manipulation: Truth does not fear questions, research, or other facts, even if those appear to oppose that truth. And truth cannot and will not be protected by lies.

When the church divides, part 1
When the church divides, part 2
When the church divides, part 3
When the church divides, part 4

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When the church divides, part 3

After leaving my final Pentecostal church, I was a little surprised to learn how distrustful I was of others who’d left. When we left, most of us didn’t interact with others who’d left. We didn’t trust each other. Our pastor had preached that we had ‘left God,’ and though each of us knew that wasn’t true of us, we didn’t know if it was true of any of the others. He also preached that there were people who’d left who spied on us, even window peeping on people in their homes, and reported back to him. When we left, we were exhausted with the gossip and rumors. We didn’t tend to run to someone who might add to it. When we left, we left individually, divided, distrustful.

Even while I was in church, there was division. There were cliques. There were lies and gossip and rumors… and they spread very quickly. Unfortunately often much more quickly than the truth.

Gal 5:14 The entire Law is fulfilled in a single decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out, or you will be consumed by each other.

My pastors had emphasized that we must leave family and friends for God. Now I see other passages.

Gal 5:19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: …discord, jealousy… rivalries, divisions, factions, 21 and envy; drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Even the verse that the pastor finally used against me in service was surrounded with warnings about the divisions I was witnessing, because

Prov 6:16 There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him:

Is followed by a list of those things (which our pastor rarely listed), three of which warn against lying and gossiping:

17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, 19 a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.

That surprised me. He used Prov 6:16 to shame me in front of the congregation because I whispered a verse to the woman sitting next to me. He used it to show that he had a right to hate, a right to call things abominable… and he used it while doing things that GOD called abominable in the very next verses.

When the church divides, part 1
When the church divides, part 2
When the church divides, part 3
When the church divides, part 4

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When the church divides, part 2

I ran into a pastor and pastor’s wife I’d once known. The wife asked where I was living, and if I’d attended a certain church. Then she told a sad story. Her daughter had a happy marriage, but suddenly began expressing concerns. Someone (the daughter wouldn’t say who) had told her they felt in their spirit that her husband was cheating on her. There was no evidence of this, and the man denied he’d done such a thing, but she still struggled with what she’d been told.

My former pastor, who’d spent some time with her daughter, had done this sort of thing more than once. Within a year of being thrown out, I’d heard from a couple who’d also attended: they’d left after the pastor had told their son not to let them see their grandchild, even though they attended the same small church. They finally left, humiliated and confused. Their son also left, but still didn’t trust his parents. He moved away with the grandchild, and they were rarely able to see him or speak to him. On top of that, an elderly widower in their tiny church got married, then was told he shouldn’t have married without the young pastor’s permission. He got the marriage annulled.

The control that pastor had over people and the number of people he divided, raising concerns, alluding to ‘sins,’ and saying he’d discerned things that there was no evidence of and that those accused denied was eerie. I’d been thrown out of the church under similar conditions. The pastor was convincing enough that I even believed what he was saying ‘was in my heart,’ even though I couldn’t give one reason or one indication that I’d done or thought anything wrong. Since he was able to convince me I’d sinned in ways I’d never considered, it didn’t surprise me that he might have convinced people that others had done things even if there was no evidence.

I left, others left, but his accusations haunted us. I don’t think any of us believed them after everything that happened, but it was hard not to believe them. We’d been convinced he knew things about us that we didn’t know, that our hearts were deceitful and wicked and only he knew – because God told him – how bad we were. And having believed such things about ourselves, it was no surprise that even close friends and family members, even spouses or kids, believed things he’d said about those closest to them.

When the church divides, part 1
When the church divides, part 2
When the church divides, part 3
When the church divides, part 4

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