6 ICSA TODAY 4
experiencing the same emotions they did when those personal,
spiritual disciplines were demanded of them in the abusive
church. The simple phrase the Bible says can cause survivors to
brace themselves for the blow to come—as they mistakenly
anticipate the Bible will be used to make demands, exert
control, and strip away their autonomy.
Depression
Survivors often struggle with depression, including persistent
feelings of sadness, anxiety, purposelessness, pessimism,
joylessness, and exhaustion. The level of depression the
survivors of spiritual abuse experience often merits medical and
psychiatric intervention in the form of counseling, medication,
and even physical therapies designed to help them in their
recovery. One of the most harmful results of pastors not
appreciating the phenomena of abusive churches and Christian
cults is that they are slow to refer survivors to the specialized
counseling and medical care that can provide significant
assistance in their recovery.
Self-Medication
Survivors may attempt to self-medicate as they seek to alleviate
emotional pain and stress. They might abuse drugs, whether
prescribed by a doctor or scored on the street. Alcohol can
provide the nightly relaxation they require to be able to sleep
or to take the edge off of their fear of going to work or church.
They might also use sex to distract themselves from emotional
pain, or resort to unhealthy overeating. I often ask those who
have recently exited a high-demand group, abusive church,
or cult if they are self-medicating with alcohol, drugs, or other
harmful behaviors, and if they acknowledge that they are,
suggest they would benefit from a visit to a primary-care
physician. They may have begun self-medicating when they
were in the abusive church, and that may have been tolerated,
encouraged, and even exemplified by its leaders. Abusive
churches do not produce or sustain healthy people.
Guilt
Survivors often struggle with guilt. They may have
compromised personal standards of ethical speech or behavior.
They feel guilty for the things they said and did while they were
in the church. They are sure that, somehow, somewhere deep
down, they must shoulder some blame for their abuse.
Shame
Survivors often struggle with shame. Shame, while closely tied
to guilt, is much worse. It is toxic to the soul of its carrier. Shame
is the result of mixing up what we do with who we are. We feel
guilt over the wrong things we do we feel shame for who we
believe we are. We do something wrong, bad, hurtful, and then
we feel guilty, as we should. But when we do or say something
wrong, deceitful, dishonest, and then surmise that we therefore
are unworthy people—that is shame. We feel we are unworthy
of respect... courtesy... kindness... forgiveness that we deserve
to be hurt and abused by our pastor.... Things like that. Shame
suffocates our souls—pounding into them the message that we
don’t deserve the air we breathe.
Abusive leaders of abusive churches may have shamed
members through public (group) condemnation mock trials
(often with a twisted, ecclesial tone to them) or private, one-
on-one discipleship meetings with a spiritual mentor. Sadly,
although the members may successfully walk away from their
abusive churches, they often carry destructive feelings of
shame for many years after they have left.
Anger and Blame
Survivors of spiritual abuse are often angry. They are offended
and provoked as they come to grips with what the leader
and the group did to them. As time passes, they may better
understand the unstable, vulnerable position they were in
when they were recruited into the church, and how the leaders
took advantage of their condition. But improperly processed,
this anger can be misdirected, resulting in self-loathing and
nastiness toward others, and even God.
When I left the church, I was enraged at God within weeks,
blaming Him for the 12 years there that I accounted for as
wasted and devastating to my family. “So, is THAT the way You
answer the prayers of 22-year-olds who want to serve You?!
THAT’S what You do when they ask You to lead them ...send
them to a CULT?! You are one lousy Father, God,” I railed. “Thanks
a lot!”
While misdirecting our anger can delay recovery from
spiritual abuse, we should not fear it, for something terrible
has happened. As abuse survivors, we were mistreated,
disrespected, and used. Of course, we are angry! The challenge,
for survivors, and for those who wish to help them, is to find
healthy ways to deal with anger, whether through our own
reflection and study, through professional help, or through a
new and nonabusive spiritual community.
Ambiguity
Survivors often struggle to accept the ambiguity of many
theological, faith-related issues. Abusive churches and cults
do not teach their members to tolerate diversity of opinion.
Instead, they insist that there is one way, their way, and that all
other views are simply wrong. In such areas as politics, gender
roles in the church and home—including the relationship
of husbands and wives, education, styles of music, social
Survivors of spiritual abuse
often carry significant
wounds to their faith, as they
reevaluate the core theological
beliefs they held and find them
to be insufficient...
7 VOLUME 11 |ISSUE 1 |2020
standards, dietary practices, or even a citizen’s obligations
to the government, there is only either/or, in the beliefs and
assumptions of the abusive church—never both/and. It is
very difficult for members who leave such totalist ideology and
teaching to accept that other Christians simply disagree about
some issues that the abusive church considered litmus tests
for the authenticity of faith, and often, salvation itself. And it
can be particularly challenging for those who have left such
monolithic, our-way-or-the-highway thinking to navigate the
waters of today’s pluralistic world.
Conflicting Emotions
The mix of the feelings and attitudes listed previously can
make things pretty messy in a survivor’s head. After leaving my
abusive church, I experienced a bizarre combination of self-
loathing and self-righteousness, especially during the worship
services of the normal churches I attended. I recall sitting in a
Sunday service just months after I had left, inwardly criticizing
the music, the content of the sermon, and the skills of the
preacher. As I thumbed through the worship guide, I judged
what seemed to me the church’s shallow programs and lack of
biblical vision and focus.
But only moments later, I was overcome with excruciating
shame and self-consciousness. I whispered to my wife, Sharon,
“I have got to go. See you at home.”
Five minutes later, there I was, head down, shuffling down the
street, with one step, hating the new church, with the next,
hating myself for criticizing it. It can be tough for the survivors
of abusive churches to simply show up to worship, give
themselves a break, and remain for the whole service.
Sleep Issues
Survivors may experience sleep disorders and nightmares. I
still have dreams, most of which do not rate as out-and-out
nightmares. I think my dreams are a type of self-healing, as my
subconscious is attempting to heal my conscious memories.
Patterns of being back there are common, with me reliving
the horrible stress of the abusive church, but often openly
questioning or criticizing its leaders. I think those dreams are
an attempt to allow me to relive the experiences, only this time
(in the dream) working on making things turn out better than
they did in real life.
Loss of Theological Certainty
Survivors of spiritual abuse often carry significant wounds
to their faith, as they reevaluate the core theological beliefs
they held and find them to be insufficient, illogical, and even
destructive. They suspect, and often fear, that many other of
their tightly held beliefs may also be simply untenable, and
wrong. They are unsure of just how many of those beliefs
they will need to examine and discard, how long that process
might take, and what beliefs might replace them. Often, the
first belief to crumble is that the God they believed in and felt
they were faithfully obeying was predictable and committed to
showing exceptional favor to them. That God doesn’t seem to
exist—and, as survivors, they may find themselves wondering
whether any God exists. Or the idea that a loving God allowed
the deceit, loss, and pain to occur in a community that claimed
to follow Him can deeply unravel survivors’ belief systems.
Survivors also find themselves reevaluating their approach to
the Bible because much of the abuse they suffered was directly
and indirectly validated as being in accordance with biblical
teaching. Finally, survivors of spiritual abuse in a Christian
church cannot be faulted for questioning the validity and
trustworthiness of any church, especially if the doctrinal beliefs
of their abusive church closely correspond to the doctrines
of supposedly healthy churches. Therefore, it is critical that
survivors of abusive churches be shown gracious acceptance
should they choose to stop attending church services, refuse to
become members of a church, or stop identifying as Christian.
I have discussed what I think are the most prominent wounds
of the soul there are. But there also are other wounds, such
as overwhelming, gnawing feelings of isolation, loneliness,
insecurity, lack of confidence, embarrassment, indecisiveness,
and a host of other emotional maladies.
Marriage Wounds
Marriages do not do very well in the abusive church, for
narcissistic pastors are wary and suspicious of the exclusive
loyalty marriage entails. Often, such pastors bear a general
animosity toward all dyadic (two-person) relationships in
their church. Any exclusive, unique relationship between
two people (husband-wife, parent-child, friend-friend, etc.)
constitutes a threat to the pastor’s control, and is therefore
discouraged, ignored, or invaded.
Abusive pastors may demand that no secrets between spouses
are kept from the leader. Spouses are pressured to divulge their
respective mates’ personal issues, failures, and even statements
made in the privacy of the home. In its extreme forms, this
interference with the marriage relationship may even include
abusive leaders prying into the intimate, sexual areas of the
marriage under the guise of counseling, encouragement,
or discipleship, but with the actual intent of unraveling the
intimate safety marriage partners share.
The demand for attendance at the many services and
programs and meetings of the church, along with private
meetings with leaders and teachers, can drain members of the
time needed to relax and enjoy time with a spouse. Survivors
Marriages do not do very well
in the abusive church, for
narcissistic pastors are wary
and suspicious of the exclusive
loyalty marriage entails.

8 ICSA TODAY 6
who have experienced such abuse of their marriages often
struggle with trusting their spouses, and they wonder whether
their marriage can be saved, or if it is worth saving.
For those marriages that began in the abusive church,
achieving a healthy marriage is especially difficult because
the only identity that either spouse knows of his or her mate
within the marriage is that of the abusive church member, not
the prechurch individual. But whether their marriage began
before the couple’s membership in the abusive church or
after they joined, the church’s attack on the marriage is often
ruthless, deep, and lasting. making them hesitate to step into a
church again. You can’t really blame them for wanting to step
back from church and instead take a deep breath on Sunday
mornings, relaxing together over a quiet breakfast before
going on a hike.
Parenting Wounds
Regret and guilt can be overwhelming for parents who have
subjected their children to a church that hurt them. Having
believed they were raising their children in the most positive,
spiritually healthy way, they have had to face that they
exposed their dear children to deep, lasting wounds.
For Sharon and me, the church we believed would provide the
best life, spiritual education, and positive experience of our
Christian faith ended up robbing our children of joy and faith
itself.
One autumn evening in 1996, Sharon and I and our three
daughters were at the dinner table, talking about the start
of school for the older girls, Bryn, then 12, and Rachel, then
10. (Our youngest, Grace, was almost 2.) The subject of the
abusive church we had left just weeks earlier came up often
at mealtime. (Did I just write often? It’s really about all we ever
talked about.)
“Do you think we’ll ever go back there?” asked Bryn.
“Yeah,” her 10-year-old sister quietly asked “are we going
back?”
Sharon and I looked at each other with a look that said, Go slow
and easy on this one—they lost all their friends when we left the
church. Our kids were all born while we were members of the
church, and Bryn and Rachel had spent all their young lives in
it, living semicommunally for 6 of the years we were members.
The other children in the church were like siblings to them.
They spent countless hours with the same kids, learning to
walk at the same time, having little-girl tea parties together,
loving the same toys, playing on the same Little League teams,
worshipping the same pop stars, and attending the same
schools. As far as we saw, they led an idyllic life and when we
left the church we also suddenly, forcibly, separated the girls
from their best friends.
With each day of freedom from the church, our certainty that
we would certainly never return only grew. We lived in a nice
little house in the old neighborhood I had grown up in. The
girls had already begun the school year in their new schools
and were enjoying exploring their new neighborhood. Going
back to the church was out of the question. Now, we were
faced with what we believed to be a critical challenge—telling
our daughters we would never return to the church, and to
their dearest friends.
“Well,” I began, “we’re not so sure about it...”
Sharon continued, “Because we’re not sure it’s where we really
want to be, as far as...”
“...what’s best for our family,” I finished.
The table was silent as the girls looked from Sharon’s face to
mine, trying to figure out what might come out of our mouths
next.
“So, no we’re not going to go back. Ever?”
“No, we’re never going back. Ever.”
There, I thought. We said it. After a brief, awkward pause, both
Brynny and Rachel looked at each other, and then got up from
the table. I looked at Sharon, whose face revealed the same
worry that I was feeling. Oh, no, I thought. They are going to run
to their rooms. They’re crushed, disappointed. It’s going to be a
long night. Dad disappoints, yet again.
But they did not run to their rooms. Instead, they giggled,
locked arms, and began swirling around the kitchen floor like
exuberant square dancers, chanting,
“We’re never going back! We’re NEVER going back! We’re NEVER
GOING BACK!”
Sharon and I stared, open-mouthed, both thinking, What
have we done to these kids? There we sat at the kitchen table in
stunned silence, watching the spontaneous, joy-filled dance of
freedom on our kitchen floor, and realizing in yet another way
how we had really gotten it all so wrong. (In the near future, we
would learn what had happened to several of the girls in the
abusive church, and the unrestrained joy of our daughters that
evening would make more sense to us.)
Parents who exposed their children to spiritually abusive
churches may carry crushing guilt for using methods of
discipline that were harsh and painful. They may realize
that they were uninvolved and neglectful, quick to dish
out punishment and correction, slow to shower grace and
unconditional love. They may grieve the degree to which they
granted other, nonrelated adults the authority to correct and
discipline their children, and to act as parental figures.
Parents may grieve over the money, time, and energy that
went to the abusive church and not to their children. As their
Parents who exposed their
children to spiritually
abusive churches may
carry crushing guilt...
9 VOLUME 11 |ISSUE 1 |2020
Note
[1] Langone, M. D. “Research Survey on Spiritual Abuse” (n.d.). (A ”Paper
Pilot Test—Preliminary Report.“) Available online at
https://sites.google.com/icsahome.com/icsa/articles/research-survey-
on-spiritual-abuse
About the Author
Rev. Ken Garrett, DMin, is senior pastor
of Grace Church, located in his hometown
of Portland, Oregon. After a 20-year career
as a paramedic, he completed seminary
studies and transitioned to the pastorate.
For 12 years, Ken and his wife Sharon
belonged to a high-demand, abusive
church whose members lived communally, practicing an
overbearing, extreme form of the Christian faith. Ken and
Sharon made a painful exit from the church in 1996 with
their three daughters. They now enjoy many opportunities
to counsel and care for survivors of abusive churches from
the Portland metro area and have begun a quarterly Spiritual
Abuse Forum for Education to promote friendship and
education for survivors of spiritual abuse. Ken has earned a
Doctor of Ministry degree, with a dissertation focusing on
the recognition of spiritually abusive churches and recovery
from the trauma they inflict on members. Ken loves reading,
traveling, and hiking in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. n
children begin to believe they truly are free of the abusive
church, they may begin to relate to their parents what life was
really like for them, including examples of emotional, physical,
and in some cases, sexual abuse. Parents’ confidence may
wither as they realize how extensive the effect of the spiritually
abusive church was on their children, who memorized verse
after verse of the Bible while also memorizing whom to obey,
and whom to fear in the church.
There is perhaps no greater responsibility in life than that
of parenting a child. It is a bitter thing to grasp the fact that
your kids, who had no choice in the matter, were abused in
the church that Mom and Dad raised them in. This is a burden
that loving, understanding, empathetic friends, pastors, and
extended family members can help to bear in caring for
parents who survive abusive churches.
Economic Wounds
Abusive churches do not exist to make people happy,
satisfied, and spiritually healthy. Rather, they exist to serve
and support their leaders. A prime example of this is how
members are persuaded to give up their money. Once we
had left our church, we realized that what were presented as
“opportunities” to support the work of the church were simply
ways for more of our hard-earned money to make its way into
the hands of the pastor of our small church. And besides the
loss of actual wealth members suffer, there is often the loss
of potential wealth if members fulfill the expectation of near-
perfect attendance at church programs, ministries, and special
events. The time they might have spent working, developing
businesses, or taking on odd jobs is sacrificed to the church
instead.
The survivors of abusive churches often are struggling
financially, and fighting, scrimping, and saving to regain
financial stability. Some are at a stage of life when they
expected they would own homes, be secure in their
professions, and have retirement savings but they often have
none of those resources and are starting over to build wealth.
Even now, it still pains me to think of the lost income, both real
and potential, of those 12 years we were under the domination
of an abusive pastor. I suppose anyone can make bad financial
decisions and end up with fewer dollars in the bank. But the
feeling of being ripped off, deceived, and squeezed in the
name of Jesus stings, and it takes a while to get over that.
Educational and Professional Wounds
Many survivors have neglected or been actively dissuaded
from pursuing educational and professional goals. They will
feel that they have lost opportunities for advancement in the
workplace and have left their dreams and goals on the altar of
loyalty to the abusive churches and pastors. Some may have
put career plans on hold, having been told by their abusive
leaders that they instead should be investing their time and
energies in the abusive church. They may have been told that,
as the church grew, there would be opportunities for paid
service, perhaps even as pastors themselves, if they would only
hold on and keep on giving to the church. And they gave and
gave—and left with nothing.
Survivors of spiritually abusive churches often walk through
the doors of healthy churches feeling like professional and
academic failures. They feel like unfortunate, spiritual gamblers
who have cast the dice in a bid for greater meaning and
productivity as Christians and thrown snake eyes.
These are just some of the main areas of trauma and
woundedness that the survivors of spiritual abuse may bear.
They don’t leave these wounds at home on Sunday when they
seek a healthy church in which to worship, and they don’t
leave them in the car in the parking lot either. The wounds of
spiritual abuse come right through the door with the survivors
and are, in fact, the wounds that they hope to find care for in
the healthy church. n
The wounds of spiritual abuse
come right through the door
with the survivors and are,
in fact, the wounds that they
hope to find care for in the
healthy church.