Category: legalism | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

Differing Church Standards

There are no standard standards in many unhealthy churches. Another way to put it is that standards may change from church to church, group to group and even from area to area. Here is something one man wrote regarding his unhealthy church background:

“Of course, I can’t say the church was all bad. They pretty much blow off all of the UPC standards and do what they want. It was the liberal church in the area after all. The skirts seemed mandatory but honestly it would have been better to just allow pants because any skirt was appropriate (I mean any). This church being completely different than my Uncle’s church also confused me because my Uncle was strict on the standards of holiness. Typically, the guys that were very obedient and religious would say very cruel things about young ladies who wore a skirt too tight or a shirt too low (at my Uncle’s church). But at this new church it was all good or at least I never heard whore and slut being thrown around freely. Though I wasn’t big on the standards this did confuse me because if these standards were somehow guided by the Spirit then did the Spirit change its mind from place to place? Was it a different God? Beards are disobedience one place and not another?”

If one were to never change from one unhealthy church to another and/or never visit another for special services, they may never see that the standards preached in their church are not across the board for everyone everywhere. They do vary and sometimes there is a tremendous difference in what is preached.

Now, some will tell you, as a woman told me and another lady at the Worldwide Pentecostal Fellowship conference one year in Gatlinburg, that there will be variations as each pastor sets the rules for the churches. But is this biblical? Does each pastor have the right to demand 24/7 compliance to their own set of rules? I do not see this taught in the scriptures.

As a for instance, there was a United Pentecostal pastor in Arkansas who had a rule that one cannot be a member if they are male and have facial hair. He would not have fellowship with other UPCI pastors who allowed this. This is despite the fact that the organization does not have a written policy against facial hair and that he himself admitted that the Bible does not teach against it. He would not budge from this position. His views actually created division in the organization because of how he would stay away from pastors who do not feel as he did on the matter. He believed he had every right to do this as the pastor and yet he agreed to not contend for his beliefs to the disunity of the organization when he became licensed.

Do we find any instance of this in the New Testament church? Did Paul demand dress codes that Peter said were not necessary? Did James forbid facial hair on men while John allowed it? You will find nowhere that this happened and none of the apostles or Jesus taught that pastors could make up a list of rules and demand that believers follow them.

The Bible states that God is not the author of confusion. Vastly varying standards from one church to another are confusion. They do cause questions, as the man above wrote, “if these standards were somehow guided by the Spirit then did the Spirit change its mind from place to place? Was it a different God? Beards are disobedience one place and not another?”

But the pastors will say that God has lead them to teach these rules. I think not. God does not continually change his mind from place to place. When he gave the law to Moses, for the Israelites to follow, he did not give one set of rules to some of them and another to others. He did not say that some tribes could eat animals that another tribe could not. He did not say that the elders of each tribe could set up arbitrary standards and demand that all in the tribe follow them.

If you are fearful of a pastor, if you follow standards to please the pastor of the church you attend, you are probably in an unhealthy church. You should not fear a pastor. You do not have to obey standards that he sets up that are not given in the Bible. We actually have an incident in the book of Acts where a group of believers was trying to demand that Gentiles be circumcised. A meeting was held in Jerusalem and this is what was stated in the letter given to all the churches as follows:

“The apostles and elders, your brothers,
“To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
“Greetings.

“We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

“Farewell.” (NIV – read all of Acts 15 for yourselves)

Think about it.

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God’s Love Is Not Conditional On Your Performance

Unhealthy churches often place a focus on what we do, or rather, what we fail to do. There is usually a list of rules by which one is expected to abide. Sometimes these may change, making them more difficult to follow, and sometimes there are hidden, unwritten rules that one doesn’t discover until they break them. They regularly remind you that you are falling short and displeasing God. Will you ever live like is expected?

This mindset that such an environment produces, causes people to believe that God only loves them when they are keeping all the rules. His love becomes conditional upon their performance. This thinking throws faith out the window. It is no longer about what the death of Jesus means to believers, but about what we must do to please God and remain in his favor.

Some reach a breaking point. They believe they cannot meet all these standards and rules that they believe God has demanded. They feel like a failure. Since nothing they do seems to be enough for God, they give up. If you feel you are lost anyway, what difference does it make how you live? If all you do is mess up and fall short, even though you have some success, then what is the point? You may as well just live it up and do all the sinful things you want (real or imagined). And so some do go and live a “wild” life, at least for a season.

Those yet within may hear about those that do this and it will reinforce in their minds all the fear filled messages they have heard about people who leave the church/group. See what happens when you leave? You start down a “slippery slope” and end up in the gutter. What those within fail to see about these people is that they may be living this way, not because they didn’t desire to follow God, but because they felt they were a hopeless cause, not being able to live up to all the demands and expectations. They feel that God stopped loving them because they could not consistently measure up. They didn’t want this type of life, they wanted God, but they were misled to believe God’s love was conditional upon them making and keeping themselves righteous.

Thankfully, everyone doesn’t remain in this mindset, but some do- forever believing the distorted image of God that they obtained from the unhealthy church, thinking that he has rejected them. This is a very real and sad result of a spiritually abusive church.

I would hate to be in the shoes of these ministers who load heavy burdens upon people, like the Pharisees in the days of Jesus did. Jesus said that his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

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Narnia is evil. Because scripture. | What one Christian fundamentalist preacher said about C.S. Lewis

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 16, 2016.

So last summer, I read this book that one of my friends let me borrow called Cameras in Narnia: How the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Came to Life.

The author gives an inside perspective since he was on set for almost the entire filming process, and I enjoy reading about how movies are made.

I learned that work on the movie started in 2002, and the director used pre-visualization to plan shoots, especially scenes like battle sequences. The White Witch’s ice castle was constructed of Styrofoam, and the wardrobe was specifically carved for the set.

Andrew Adamson, the director, said that learning filmmaking in New Zealand is nearly impossible. They don’t really have degree plans for it. He left in 1991 to pursue filmmaking as a career, but most of the outdoor scenes in the world of Narnia were filmed in his homeland.

While I was reading, I remembered an article written by fundamentalist Christians that I read years ago, condemning the movie’s release.

The film came out in theaters in December 2005, but I didn’t see it until the next spring because my dad was not interested in fantasy and my mom was concerned that the adaptation wouldn’t be faithful to the book.

One of my dad’s older sisters called us and asked my mom if she’d heard of this new series called Narnia because she was worried about my siblings and I reading it. My mom told her that the books were in print back when she was a child, but a new movie had just released.

My aunt mailed us a Southwest Radio Bible Church article called “The Chronicles of Narnia: Christian Entertainment or Indoctrination in Evil?” The piece was published in the January 2006 issue of The Prophetic Observer.

I also had friends in my fundamentalist church’s youth group around the same time who weren’t allowed to read Narnia.

It’s such a hilarious example of extreme Christian fundamentalism and awful logic that I’m going to break it down into sections and provide commentary. Here’s the full text if you want to read it all at once.

So first off, Dr. Larry Spargimino gives us an info dump on the film’s background.

I think he’s assuming that his audience will be automatically suspicious because Disney is producing the film. Then he starts using other phrases that would make them more concerned: “Many Lewis supporters claim that Aslan is a Christ figure, a deliverer, who sets the captives free.”

I think we’re supposed to assume that androgynous = automatically evil because he assumes his audience believes in complementarianism and traditional gender roles. Spargimino doesn’t seem to understand that androgyny can be a biological thing.

However, he never actually explains what he’s getting at here. He just moves on and gives another info dump, this time from Lewis’ biography.

Yup, Dr. Larry just cited Wikipedia.

Apparently he doesn’t understand that’s not an acceptable source for your college papers. His other citations so far have all been conservative Christian news websites like World magazine or World Net Daily and then Focus on the Family’s Radio Theater website. WorldNetDaily is known for misinformation and propaganda, according to the Ad Fontes Media Bias ratings.

I’m pretty sure this means Dr. Larry’s only research for this article was a Google search.

I’m guessing that we’re supposed to think Lewis wouldn’t have been friends with Tolkien if he had been a Real Christian™. Dr. Larry doesn’t seem to think Lewis was actually a Christian because he says “he claims to have been converted by the evidence for Christianity.”

Then Dr. Larry says that Lewis wrote a book about demons. We aren’t told why he wrote about demons, just that he wrote about them. Then the article jumps to explaining why incubi are evil. Spargimino gives us another random definition and expects us to form our own conclusions, with little context.

Nevermind that incubi were one of the White Witch’s henchmen. Nevermind that they killed Aslan. Nope, the whole book is bad because incubi are in it.

Here’s where incubi are mentioned in the text:

“A great crowd of people were standing all round the Stone Table and though the moon was shining many of them carried torches which burned with evil-looking red flames and black smoke. But such people! Ogres with monstrous teeth, and wolves, and bull-headed men; spirits of evil trees and poisonous plants; and other creatures whom I won’t describe because if I did the grownups would probably not let you read this book – Cruels and Hags and Incubuses, Wraiths, Horrors, Efreets, Sprites, Orknies, Wooses, and Ettins. In fact here were all those who were on the Witch’s side and whom the Wolf had summoned at her command. And right in the middle, standing by the Table, was the Witch herself.” — The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Chapter 14

In context, the incubi make sense. Out of context, the definition given would probably horrify most parents reading this article.

So when Dr. Larry asks if Christians need this kind of “Christian” allegory, his audience is already mentally answering with a resounding no.

Once again, Dr. Larry is citing disreputable sources. Geocities was a free Yahoo webhosting service that shut down in 2009. Geocities was known for being kind of awful.

Now the audience is supposed to be upset that Lewis is explaining truth with mythological characters because “we wonder if the blurring of reality and fantasy is really the way to go.” Why? Because Scripture!

Since fundamentalists believe nothing is missing in Scripture, which according to their theology is supposed to fulfill every human need, then their answer to Spargimino’s question is no.

Therefore, Narnia is not something our children need to read. Furthermore, they could be harmed by reading these books or watching this movie. Therefore, we will not allow our children to read these books.

This is how fundamentalist logic works. It’s sad and it’s incredibly limiting.

The same reasoning used in this article was used to keep us from reading Harry Potter or any other entertainment that Christian fundamentalists think is against the Bible or potentially sinful.

It’s fear tactics.

Dr. Larry Spargimino never actually comes out and explains that this is why Narnia is evil, he just hints and plants doubts in the minds of an already indoctrinated audience. They’ll end up convincing themselves that it’s something to avoid.

If this guy was writing a paper for a college English course, he’d get marked off for not explaining what his quotes and sources mean, for not clarifying what he’s actually trying to say. But since he’s a fundamentalist radio preacher, he can get away with it.

When you encounter conservative Christians bemoaning the release of a new book or movie as the new worst thing ever, look for this type of thinking. It’s very common.

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Outside the Box: What is Joy?

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 5, 2016 as part of a series.

Continued from We Are Less Fragile

Another anonymous post from a creative soul friend.

Dear ****,

I’m not writing this for you, cause I know you’ll never read it.

I’m not writing this for you either, or you or you or you. I’m writing this for You, and I’m writing this for me.

Did you know I was at a point in high school, yellow light and kneeled prayers on my bed, please help me to be well I can’t handle this the rest of my life I’ve only been living this for four months!, and how did I still get the kind of grades I got that semester?

My freshman roommate from the start was a foreign creature but do you know the kind of embarrassment I felt when she asked me why it is I wash my hands so often!, she doesn’t know how it feels to hate yourself in the black and green of the mirror and wash your hands at midnight because of all the things you did wrong that day, hate your face in the morning fluorescent because of the way the lighting picks out the red on your cheeks when everyone else’s face is clear, stare quaking at your feet pointed toes in the library and unable to raise your head to the sky lit and clouded sky because your mind is turning turning please please help me can I know this is right which choice do I take cause something like a class schedule can obviously completely make or ruin your entire life!

Do you know about the times that I sat huddled in the corner of my room by the closet door at night all alone, knowing I was worthless and horrifically flawed because he talked to the blond one and not to me, cause from the moment I first heard his voice and saw his eyebrows he has held sway on a piece of my heart and you know that he holds it still.

(and yeah you know I still love him but there’s something different about you, something different, don’t worry).

I told my sixth roommate that my thoughts are a pressure cooker, that they spin and spin and spin the pressure clamps down harder, I can’t get out because I don’t know how I got in and she asked me how it doesn’t drive me crazy. This one was a nice boy but I couldn’t get out because all of a sudden he couldn’t compare to A— L—! Too many times I’ve loved a broken human being cause this wasn’t the first time but not the last either.

(and answer—it does.)

I don’t want to tell you about the times that I laid in my bed and I laid on the couch and there was sun behind the window but my ceiling was blue shadow, hearing a daybird sing in the first-summer twilight and listening to A Comet Appears and Pink Floyd’s The Wall way too many times until I couldn’t be anything but a tortured artist, cause the myth of the tortured artist is a persuasive one, you know.

I don’t wanna talk about that last dark semester, too many lonely nights with the light of my iPod at 2am in that strange dusty back room, my roommate was a perfect child with a secret and I never knew her in the six months that she slept five feet from me, ducking her head in the hallway and cripplingly polite as she was, she went to bed at 10pm and stood up at the first chime of her alarm in the morning and I sat and wrote in the dark and listened to her sleep. There was a quiet storm raging in the rest of my apartment and I knew from the first day and especially at the last that I could see the lights on the mountains and that everyone else couldn’t.

That was a semester of black and gold, under fire from heaven, on my knees by my bed but unable to think about anything but my next assignments. I was doing everything right but the formula for me wasn’t working, I was losing everything that’s so important to me and I tried to read thy words but instead I would bite my knuckles and my hands and wish I could cut myself open like a fish—!

My brother let me cry on his chest for three awful hours in between the trees and the streetlights. I could see the yellow light from the doors opening and shutting like matchbooks in the parking lot and I wished someone would hear me out there because my entire being was crying out and I just couldn’t believe that nobody could see it!

I was trapped by two boys that were like anchors on my feet. But when I went with you to the salt flats like I had dreamed every day for half a year, looked to the sky and asked what a terrible world what a beautiful world, walked in the pink and spun poetry from the air, and then when I came back those kind of anchors ceased to have any kind of relevance to my being—!

I’ve been writing like a fiend since the eleventh day of last December. I’m sounding the river of my being, in time and place like a rapid bioassessment and searchable by a magnifying glass. I’ve said a thousand times that my existence is not sustainable, that I am burning inside like a swamp gas, and I only write stories that are true.

I don’t wanna say this but there is something about you that fills me up with gold.

I don’t need all that anger and those blessed twenty-one pilots expressing my broken relationship with my God. You’re such a help to me above and below, you’re so kind and special and so quiet but your soul is so so good, you showed me that you don’t have to be boring to be good, you let me soften my heart and fill my being back up with light. I’ve laughed to the sky a hundred times since the start of September, I tell myself that no one who gets this little sleep should be allowed to be this happy.

Some days I have the bones of a bird but I can’t tell you about all the mornings that I wake up with a sandbag in my chest. I can’t explain why but I’m doing better than I have been in years and years and years, I would never take away anything that has ever happened to me because everything in the world is beautiful.

And you know I had a moment in the green and the blue while I was walking under that bridge in Iceland, an insane trust in God that has been more solid and enduring than any trust I’ve had in Him before, despite the sunlight on the walls in that window-filled room and despite naps in the park and a firestorm in my brain just last weekend, there have been hands on my head and a peace in my heart as I’m kneeling on my deep blue sheets every single night, but now I think I get that You love me as I am, because for the longest time it’s been I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry, but you know that right now it’s just thank you thank you thank you.

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The UnBoxing Project: Racquel’s story

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 7, 2015 as part of a series.

Continued from Why did you call it the UnBoxing Project?

Content Note: religious manipulation, forced starvation

*Eleanor and Racquel hiking the Incline near Colorado Springs in fall 2013. | Photo: Eleanor Skelton*

Racquel grew up attending the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs, now known as Heritage Pentecostal Church. This is Racquel’s story, in her own words.

Somehow I never imagined that the inner peace and joy I felt as a 5-year-old girl after being filled with the Holy Ghost would later disgust and scare me.

I am writing this because I believe my voice should be heard. I hope that by telling my story it will help my healing and others with similar stories as well as prevent more stories like mine from happening.

The music was loud, and the atmosphere was pulsing with energy.

I wanted to show how much I loved God, so I went up to the front of the sanctuary and danced with all my might, letting my tears flow. I had been taught that I should dance before the Lord and not let anyone’s opinion stop me.

Often, I was the first one or the only one at the front of the church.

This was good. It meant I was a leader, and that I was fighting spiritual warfare. It would also show my pastor, who was God’s voice in my life, how my walk with God was and what a good apostolic young person I was.

I remember night after night where this was my mindset.

*Racquel (far left, wearing an orange dress) speaks in tongues on the front row during Heritage Youth Conference, fall 2011. | Photo: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs*

I was isolated from other members of the youth group because I would refuse to do things that the pastor had commanded us not to, like riding in a car with a guy unless it was approved or unless a married approved chaperone was in the car.

However, there were also the many, many times where I sat or knelt at the altar, weeping and feeling the guilt of my many sins when I simply failed to uphold the standards because I had listened to unchristian music, watched a TV show, or could not stick to a daily prayer life.

For years, I went through a cycle of getting in trouble with my best friend, Ashley, for questioning the pastoral authority and why we held to some of our standards, sometimes completely disregarding the rules, and then being told that my best friend and I should not talk or hang out because our personalities did not complement each other.

Meanwhile, I stood by as she was abused in so many ways by both the pastoral authority and her parents. The only thing I could do was be there for her.

In January 2013, my best friend and I had come to the conclusion that we did not and could not agree with the church. However, we were discovered yet again and ripped apart.

This time, the pastor lied to both of us, trying to turn us against each other by saying that the other one had ratted us out.

At the direction and guidance of the pastor, Ashley’s parents were punishing her for not losing weight because it was said that God could not use her unless she lost the weight. Because of her inability to meet their demands, she had begun starving herself.

I texted her one night in compassion and frustration that she should “F*** (written politely as $@##) what they think” to drive home to Ashley that starving herself was not the answer, and that her parents and pastor were wrong.

During one of the long sessions in the pastor’s office after getting caught, I discovered the pastor had hacked into my best friend’s phone and found my text.

I was questioned about my lack of respect for authority.

My hands were tied as I seethed in anger not able to tell the pastor the context of the text, lest the abuse she suffered would increase, because the pastor was part the abuse.

Back then, Ashley was too scared of losing her parents and being kicked out to do anything other than play along with them. When she was 19 years old, her parents and the pastor stripped every form of communication, transportation and even her ability to go to college from her.

She was not even allowed to be alone in her own home at any time.

Racquel (far right) singing in the choir. Apostolic churches consider leading worship to be a privilege called being “on the platform.” Anyone who questions authority or church beliefs may be removed from the platform as form of social shaming. | *Photo: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs*

In March, the deception worked, and the pressure finally broke me to the point that I gave in and did exactly as the church and the pastor wanted me to do. I felt helpless and that the reason for these crazy feelings must be because I was not submitted to them.

I continued to not talk to my best friend and tried to force myself into the mold they had created for me with my approved Christian friends and guilt-ridden prayer life.

I still had all of the same questions.

Why must a man my pastor dictate to me what God wants and God not talk to me directly? Why must I not be allowed to talk to my best friend who was still the most important person in my life?

How could so many injustices and abuse be what a loving god wanted?

So when my little sister decided to leave suddenly and move in with a guy I had never met, and I had no idea were she was or if she was safe, when my approved friends failed, I reached out to the one person I knew who would be there: Ashley.

Within two weeks of resuming secret communication, we had both discussed in detail what we saw wrong with the church, and had stated that no matter what we were going to keep communicating, even if it had to be hidden.

10553500_802766489755823_1022764128682957679_n — Ashley, Eleanor and Racquel in August 2013 | Photo: Eleanor Skelton

Almost immediately, she started to date a coworker.

On December 15, 2013, her dad followed her to her boyfriend’s house, and that night he kicked her out.

I received a text that said: “They know everything can you come and get me.” I immediately drove to her house and picked her up.

After that, we stayed in Eleanor’s apartment. She had also recently escaped an abusive fundamentalist home.

There has been a lot of healing and learning since then and now. Learning to live outside of the box has not been easy, nor do I think it ever will.

I now have the wonderful freedom of choice, and with that comes what I would describe as both the beauty of a rainbow and the burden of the rain cloud.

Making these choices is the scariest and most exhilarating thing that I have ever done. I have learned and accepted more of who I am.

I can only hope that healing will come in time, and the scars will become less painful.

Racquel graduated with a bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs in May 2014. She struggled with undereducation from inadequate homeschooling and Christian private education in her church throughout her time in college. Racquel hopes to pursue a graduate degree in counseling and mental health, and her current job involves assisting troubled teens.

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