4 ICSA TODAY 2
This article is based on a chapter from the author’s doctoral dissertation and forthcoming book, In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing From
Spiritual Abuse in the Church, about the recognition of spiritually abusive churches and recovery from the trauma they inflict on members.
When the Walking Wounded
Walk Into Church
By Ken Garrett
T
he members of healthy churches often have a
tough time understanding the concept of an
abusive, Christian church—a church that holds
to correct, orthodox theology, and yet functions
like a cult. Many believe that a church with
“good doctrine” is inoculated against spiritually abusive
conditions. Moreover, recent statistics suggest that only
about two percent of the congregation sitting in a church
on a Sunday morning have experienced spiritual abuse.1
That’s a lot of people, but it’s also few enough spread out
over the 350,000 churches in America to go unrecognized
and unappreciated.
As a result, very few Christians today understand the
experiences and trauma their fellow Christians who have
been spiritually abused have experienced. And because their
wounds are spiritual—invisible—they are not readily noticed.
What are these wounds survivors of spiritual abuse carry with
them when they walk through the doors of a healthy church?
I have asked friends who have shared my experience of
belonging to an abusive church to describe their experiences
of reentry into healthy churches. They speak of loneliness,
insecurity, and the prevailing fear that they are perceived
as spiritually damaged goods when they seek to worship in
healthy churches. I’m not sure if we spiritual-abuse survivors
5 VOLUME 11 |ISSUE 1 |2020
really stick out as prominently as we feel we do—but we do
share that sense of unhealed woundedness that we fear must
be obvious to others. Many of us are compelled to find a good,
healthy church as an issue of obedience to God, but we do so
with a vague, gnawing feeling that our very reason for finding
a good church might be a part of what led us into the abusive
church in the first place. Others among us simply step back,
take a break, and disengage from the whole organized worship
scene. These folks frequently do not receive much patience or
understanding from their fellow Christians, who often believe
that, until a survivor of an abusive church buckles down, bites
the bit, and joins another church—this time a good church—
God won’t have much to do with them.
Those survivors who do choose to enter a church again enter
a community that believes and does many of the very same
things those in the abusive church she left believed and did:
Good churches sing abusive churches sing. Good churches
have powerful, persuasive preachers abusive churches have
powerful, persuasive preachers. Good churches have programs
for the kids abusive churches have programs for the kids. Good
churches open the Bible for answers and direction abusive
churches open the Bible for answers and direction. Good
churches collect money for their support abusive churches
collect money for their support. Good churches notice and
affirm new people and visitors abusive churches notice and
affirm new people.
There are certainly many differences between a good church
and an abusive church. But to a survivor of spiritual abuse
suffered in a church, a whole lot of things may look and feel
the same in both. And now, as she comes into church, she
brings in a lot of pain, and hurt, and brokenness with her. She is
walking, but she is wounded. Let’s take a look at some of these
wounds....
Wounds of the Soul
The trauma inflicted by spiritually abusive churches reaches
deeply into the realms of the psychological, emotional, and
spiritual, and therefore has a profound effect on the self-image
of the survivor and on his most dear relationships. These are the
unseen wounds that ache in a person’s heart. They are wounds
of the soul.
The False Self
Abusive churches unwittingly demand that their members
create a false, church self—one that serves the demands and
expectations of the church about how to speak, act, think,
decide, and be compliant. To comply, the member often builds
a new, false self—one who does and says things that obey the
church, but that simply aren’t him. He’s not himself anymore,
but neither is he the false self. The false self gives more money
than the true self wants to give, spends more time at church
than the true self wants to spend, prioritizes involvement with
the church over time with family, friends, and the things he
used to like to do. The false self is on duty day and night to keep
him out of hot water with church leaders, and this false self
applies layer after layer of inauthentic living that he soon claims
as his true identity.
In fact, the member’s true identity has been highjacked by the
false self, and is hidden away deep in the dark, cold cellar of the
member’s mind. The visible personality, expressed in church-
friendly living, is the one leaders and fellow church members
see. The hidden personality, the one who has been relegated
to the basement and rarely is let out into public, wastes away
in its forced seclusion, but it never dies. The splitting, when the
member speaks and acts on the outside incongruently with
what he believes and desires on the inside, can do horrible
damage to his mental health. Such cognitive dissociation
makes him a type of walking civil war from an emotional-
psychiatric perspective. The battle between these two selves
may form a split personality the member carries with him when
he leaves the church.
But what of the core self, the true, God-given personality each
human being is born with—our souls? I believe that our souls
are a creation of God, and God never relinquishes ownership of
His creation. We can ruin our souls, neglect them, starve them,
ignore them, damage them beyond all recognition—but in the
end, they belong to God.
And as I reflect on my experience of being spiritually abused,
I believe my soul, the inner me, was always working to get
me out of my abusive, cultic church. It nagged me, itched my
conscience, gnawed at my thoughts, and, in the end, like a
whack-a-mole game, simply kept popping up. Finally, it won
out, and I shed the fake me like a snake shedding its skin.
So under such a weight of mental stress, what are some of the
wounds of the soul that members in the spiritually abusive
church may suffer and carry with them when they leave?
Survivors may experience flashbacks when later circumstances,
interactions, and conditions remind them of their experience
in the abusive church. Such episodes may trigger responses
that may seem inappropriate or extreme. An authoritative,
charismatic, talented preacher, for instance, can trigger
survivors into feeling the same emotions and tensions that
they experienced under the preaching of the abusive pastor,
if that pastor was such a preacher. A casual statement from
the new pastor affirming the positive, beneficial results of
regular attendance, financial support, or even the practice
of a healthy spiritual discipline, can trigger survivors into
...very few Christians
today understand the
experiences and trauma
their fellow Christians who
have been spiritually
abused have experienced.
This article is based on a chapter from the author’s doctoral dissertation and forthcoming book, In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing From
Spiritual Abuse in the Church, about the recognition of spiritually abusive churches and recovery from the trauma they inflict on members.
When the Walking Wounded
Walk Into Church
By Ken Garrett
T
he members of healthy churches often have a
tough time understanding the concept of an
abusive, Christian church—a church that holds
to correct, orthodox theology, and yet functions
like a cult. Many believe that a church with
“good doctrine” is inoculated against spiritually abusive
conditions. Moreover, recent statistics suggest that only
about two percent of the congregation sitting in a church
on a Sunday morning have experienced spiritual abuse.1
That’s a lot of people, but it’s also few enough spread out
over the 350,000 churches in America to go unrecognized
and unappreciated.
As a result, very few Christians today understand the
experiences and trauma their fellow Christians who have
been spiritually abused have experienced. And because their
wounds are spiritual—invisible—they are not readily noticed.
What are these wounds survivors of spiritual abuse carry with
them when they walk through the doors of a healthy church?
I have asked friends who have shared my experience of
belonging to an abusive church to describe their experiences
of reentry into healthy churches. They speak of loneliness,
insecurity, and the prevailing fear that they are perceived
as spiritually damaged goods when they seek to worship in
healthy churches. I’m not sure if we spiritual-abuse survivors
5 VOLUME 11 |ISSUE 1 |2020
really stick out as prominently as we feel we do—but we do
share that sense of unhealed woundedness that we fear must
be obvious to others. Many of us are compelled to find a good,
healthy church as an issue of obedience to God, but we do so
with a vague, gnawing feeling that our very reason for finding
a good church might be a part of what led us into the abusive
church in the first place. Others among us simply step back,
take a break, and disengage from the whole organized worship
scene. These folks frequently do not receive much patience or
understanding from their fellow Christians, who often believe
that, until a survivor of an abusive church buckles down, bites
the bit, and joins another church—this time a good church—
God won’t have much to do with them.
Those survivors who do choose to enter a church again enter
a community that believes and does many of the very same
things those in the abusive church she left believed and did:
Good churches sing abusive churches sing. Good churches
have powerful, persuasive preachers abusive churches have
powerful, persuasive preachers. Good churches have programs
for the kids abusive churches have programs for the kids. Good
churches open the Bible for answers and direction abusive
churches open the Bible for answers and direction. Good
churches collect money for their support abusive churches
collect money for their support. Good churches notice and
affirm new people and visitors abusive churches notice and
affirm new people.
There are certainly many differences between a good church
and an abusive church. But to a survivor of spiritual abuse
suffered in a church, a whole lot of things may look and feel
the same in both. And now, as she comes into church, she
brings in a lot of pain, and hurt, and brokenness with her. She is
walking, but she is wounded. Let’s take a look at some of these
wounds....
Wounds of the Soul
The trauma inflicted by spiritually abusive churches reaches
deeply into the realms of the psychological, emotional, and
spiritual, and therefore has a profound effect on the self-image
of the survivor and on his most dear relationships. These are the
unseen wounds that ache in a person’s heart. They are wounds
of the soul.
The False Self
Abusive churches unwittingly demand that their members
create a false, church self—one that serves the demands and
expectations of the church about how to speak, act, think,
decide, and be compliant. To comply, the member often builds
a new, false self—one who does and says things that obey the
church, but that simply aren’t him. He’s not himself anymore,
but neither is he the false self. The false self gives more money
than the true self wants to give, spends more time at church
than the true self wants to spend, prioritizes involvement with
the church over time with family, friends, and the things he
used to like to do. The false self is on duty day and night to keep
him out of hot water with church leaders, and this false self
applies layer after layer of inauthentic living that he soon claims
as his true identity.
In fact, the member’s true identity has been highjacked by the
false self, and is hidden away deep in the dark, cold cellar of the
member’s mind. The visible personality, expressed in church-
friendly living, is the one leaders and fellow church members
see. The hidden personality, the one who has been relegated
to the basement and rarely is let out into public, wastes away
in its forced seclusion, but it never dies. The splitting, when the
member speaks and acts on the outside incongruently with
what he believes and desires on the inside, can do horrible
damage to his mental health. Such cognitive dissociation
makes him a type of walking civil war from an emotional-
psychiatric perspective. The battle between these two selves
may form a split personality the member carries with him when
he leaves the church.
But what of the core self, the true, God-given personality each
human being is born with—our souls? I believe that our souls
are a creation of God, and God never relinquishes ownership of
His creation. We can ruin our souls, neglect them, starve them,
ignore them, damage them beyond all recognition—but in the
end, they belong to God.
And as I reflect on my experience of being spiritually abused,
I believe my soul, the inner me, was always working to get
me out of my abusive, cultic church. It nagged me, itched my
conscience, gnawed at my thoughts, and, in the end, like a
whack-a-mole game, simply kept popping up. Finally, it won
out, and I shed the fake me like a snake shedding its skin.
So under such a weight of mental stress, what are some of the
wounds of the soul that members in the spiritually abusive
church may suffer and carry with them when they leave?
Survivors may experience flashbacks when later circumstances,
interactions, and conditions remind them of their experience
in the abusive church. Such episodes may trigger responses
that may seem inappropriate or extreme. An authoritative,
charismatic, talented preacher, for instance, can trigger
survivors into feeling the same emotions and tensions that
they experienced under the preaching of the abusive pastor,
if that pastor was such a preacher. A casual statement from
the new pastor affirming the positive, beneficial results of
regular attendance, financial support, or even the practice
of a healthy spiritual discipline, can trigger survivors into
...very few Christians
today understand the
experiences and trauma
their fellow Christians who
have been spiritually
abused have experienced.
