We believe that it is important to understand just what ‘Spiritual Abuse’ is. Whether or not it fits with a persons YWAM experience or an individual YWAM Base is not what we are trying to achieve here. Spiritual Abuse is rarely, something that a Christian sets out to do. To be malicious, to manipulate, to demean, etc. are just by products of fervency without proper accountability.
We are sure that you will find the following article helpful.
Courtesy of an article by Major Scott Nicloy
Reasons Christians Commit Spiritual Abuse
For the most part, spiritual abuse is committed by those who sincerely love Jesus, who believe the Bible to be the Word of God and who want to win lost souls for Jesus. Hence, spiritual abuse can often be found, as Ronald Enroth points out, in churches that are doctrinally sound, conservatively Christian, thoroughly Biblical, and zealously maintaining the fundamentals of the Faith. There are several reasons why Christian people of good will and a sincere desire to share Jesus can inflict serious harm and injury upon others in the Name of Jesus. Lack of Empathy. Empathy is the ability to perceive, to understand, to sense, to feel what another person is experiencing. Unfortunately, in witnessing for Jesus many evangelicals talk to people, not with people. It is impossible to truly talk with anyone about Jesus, or anything else for that matter, without knowing the other person. Authentic ministry is based upon knowing a person. There is no point in claiming that Jesus is the answer, when you have not heard the question. A physician who prescribes medicine without knowing the patient is likely to injure the patient. In like manner, evangelicals who try to minister without knowing the sheep in an empathic manner will most likely injure it.
Narcissism. The reason that many Christians have a problem with developing empathy skills is because they have a problem with narcissism. Narcissists are not necessarily bad people. Narcissism simply means that, for whatever reason, the person’s only point of reference in life is himself. For the narcissist only his thoughts, his feelings, his perceptions are fully real. For him the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of others are less real. In the religious context, narcissists simply assume that what they think God thinks, and what they believe is Bible-based. They take it for granted that any idea that jumps into their heads is from the Holy Spirit and that they are only following the promptings of the Holy Spirit whenever they decide to do anything. The fact that other people may see their words as being less than holy, their motives as being less than pure, and their actions as being hurtful and injurious never occurs to them. When you believe that you are right and righteous, then all that you say and do is right and righteous. Any thought to the contrary never enters the picture.
Dichotomous Thinking. Abusive Christians in abusive church fellowships generally exhibit dichotomous (either-or) thinking patterns. With them everything is black/white, this/that, either/or, us/them, good/bad, etc. There are never any weeds among the wheat. When something is good it is all good; when something is bad it is all bad. Of course, dichotomous thinking Christians put themselves in the all-good camp, while others who may not agree with them on some minute detail of theology or Bible interpretation are in the all-bad camp.
With abusive Christians there are no ambiguities, no unanswered questions, no gray areas, no doubts. Everything is sorted, classified, and properly labeled. They are right, others are wrong; they are spiritual, others are not; they truly believe the Scriptures, others do not; they are thoroughly committed to Jesus, others are not; etc., etc. To disagree with them is to disagree with God. They are, of course, the final judge and jury of what the Bible says, regardless of subject matter. They have the exact interpretation of any given particular Scripture text; any other nuance or shade of meaning is considered heresy. Dichotomous thinking Christians believe they have everything all figured out (when they do not) and that they have everything properly classified and labeled, which is often not the case. They have the definitive Bible-based answer for every question, even when they have not understood the question. Dichotomous thinking Christians have a one-size-fits-all hammer for every problem, even when what is needed for a particular problem is a screwdriver.
Dissociation. In the lives of abusive Christians the ideal often exceeds the real. Don Quixote in his rusty armor riding headlong on his broken-down horse runs over and injures many people as he hits a windmill in his quest to glorify God, to right wrong, to rid the world of Satan’s influence, and to defend the honor of his lady (who could not care less that he is alive). The members of one church congregation were exasperated at the fastidious righteousness of one of their church members. Consequently, they met with the pastor to discuss what could be done with this raging righteous, condemning, judging, censoring, damning holier-than-thou church member. After much debate that went nowhere, a deacon finally suggested the obvious solution: hire the guy a prostitute. As the deacon explained, there was nothing wrong with the Bible-quoting saint that a good roll in a haystack with a good prostitute would not cure. The pastor pointed out, however, that church funds did not allow for that kind of therapeutic treatment, as accurate as the diagnosis might have been.
One of the reasons why we have a major problem with abuse in Christian churches is because we have Christian people who are dissociated. They are mystified. They do not know what they feel, what motivates them, who they are or what they are about. They are divorced from their sexuality, divorced from their feelings, divorced from their real needs, divorced from their authentic selves. They are strangers unto themselves. Jesus said from the Cross, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” Disassociated Christians are people who do not know what they are doing. Abraham Maslow wrote, “The great cause of much psychological illness is the fear of knowing of oneself-of one’s emotions, impulses, memories, capacities, potentialities, of one’s destiny.” Disassociated Christians are people who do not know themselves and are afraid to know themselves.
Zealotry. Obviously, we want people to be passionate about their Faith in Jesus. Unfortunately, in evangelism zealotry often sharpens the claws but dulls the senses. In other words, zealots may have a burning desire to win lost souls for Jesus but they do not have much sense. Consequently, our daily prayer needs to be, “Lord, this day deliver us from your saints.”
Zealots often commit much harm in the Name of Jesus because they have tunnel vision. Their zealotry blinds them from being able to see the big picture. They are myopic. They can only see what is close to them and even that is blurry. They do not mean to hurt people but when people go through life with blinders on they tend to run over others.
I knew a Baptist minister who carried around with him several notebooks containing all the names of people that he had won to the Lord. I went around with him one day on his soul- winning crusade and figured that most his converts accepted Jesus just to get rid of him. Most of his “converts” considered him more of an annoying bombastic pest than an ambassador of salvation. Then there was one zealous Baptist minister who used to sneak into hospitals at night to pass out gospels tracts such as “Are You Ready to Meet Your God?” or “Hell is Hot, Hot, Hot!” The hospitals in that city had to cancel numerous operations because of that guy.
The Power in Being “Holy”
Abusive people in church fellowships have stumbled upon the fact that “holiness”-at least holiness in a legalistic sense-is a way to have power and control over a congregation. For example, I was raised in a church where a woman exercised a great amount of power and control in the fellowship due to her “Holy Ghost convictions.” When a new church building was being planned, Sister Orpha had this Holy Ghost conviction about having no food in the church. According to Sister Orpha’s Holy Ghost conviction, a mouse hiding in the janitor’s closet could not even have a crumb of cheese, as that was dishonoring God’s Holy Spirit. One midweek afternoon the pale white walls of the church flashed a brilliant red when Sister Orpha caught a Sister Alice serving Kool-Aid and cookies to a group of elementary aged children in the basement of the church building.
Sister Alice had deliberately and willfully challenged one of Sister’s Orpha’s Holy Ghost convictions. The challenge to Sister Orpha’s Holy Ghost conviction was reported to the pastor, the church board, and eventually to the denominational headquarters. The bishops of the Free Methodist Church had to take the time to send out a ruling stating that it was okay to eat in the church building, providing there was a door separating the sanctuary from the dining room. Sister Orpha, however, insisted that the Holy Ghost took precedence over the ruling of the Bishops. So, the whole point of contacting denominational headquarters about the matter was meaningless. Sister Orpha defended her stand, while Sister Alice and her husband eventually joined another church fellowship. In the end, the important thing for Sister Orpha was that she had taken her stand for holiness and righteousness. She had defended the standards of holiness and was very proud of it.
When the new church building was being built, there were no plans to have a kitchen in the building because it violated one of Sister Orpha’s Holy Ghost convictions. Of course, Sister Orpha had so many Holy Ghost convictions that it was pretty hard for the church fellowship to get through a week without a couple of those Holy Ghost convictions being violated. Anyway, one Saturday morning while the church was being built, my dad snuck down to the church building site and secretly installed the plumbing for a kitchen, hiding it underneath the flooring. Years later, when the church board finally decided that they had enough of Sister Orpha’s Holy Ghost convictions, they voted to install a kitchen. When someone opposed the idea because no plumbing had been installed in the foundation of the church during construction, my dad tore up a piece of the floor without a word. There was the plumbing needed for a new kitchen.
Dad and Sister Orpha had their problems. He was teaching the teenage Sunday School class one Sunday morning when Sister Orpha came into the classroom and commenced a long scolding lecture. Sister Orpha found out that one of the young ladies in the class had been hired as a waitress at a local restaurant where alcohol was served in a bar, which was off to the side of the restaurant. Upon being informed of this travesty against holiness, Sister Orpha barged into the teens’ class and started to lecture the teenagers on the sins and evils of the world. Although Sister Orpha never named names, it was obvious to all present that the young lady in question was being singled out and attacked. When Sister Orpha finally came up for air in her long scolding lecture on the sin of being a waitress in a restaurant where alcohol was sold, my dad piped up and said, “Nehemiah was a bartender.” Sister Orpha was not amused. (Actually, Nehemiah was the cupbearer for the king of Persia, which for all practical purposes made him a bartender.)
Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Abusive Righteousness
It should not be surprising that much of the spiritual abuse that we see in our churches often involves people with substance abuse in their past. In reality, the raging drunk that becomes a raging saint is still a raging addict. Naturally, the fact that a saved and sanctified saint of God has not touched a drop of alcohol for five, ten, fifteen or however many years really means nothing in terms of recovery and healing. Exchanging a substance abuse addiction for a religious addiction is not recovery. Often when listening to people testifying to how they have been delivered from addiction “by the mighty moving of God’s Holy Spirit,” I have had to bite my tongue hard to keep from saying, “You are still an addict.”
Abstinence does not mean that a person is recovered. Abstinence does not mean that the person is healed. Abstinence does not mean that the person is delivered from alcoholism. Abstinence may only mean that the person is not drinking alcohol. In every other way he may just as much be an alcoholic as the guy who is passed out on skid row.
We have saints running around testifying to a complete and total deliverance from alcoholism when they are still alcoholics. They think like alcoholics. They act like alcoholics. In fact, some of these dry drunk saints do more harm while sober than they did while being wet drunk sinners. At least, when they were wet drunk sinners everyone knew to stay out of their way. Many times when an alcoholic has “found Jesus” family members deliberately try to get them drinking again, since handling a raging drunk is much easier than handling a raging saint. When it comes to dry drunk saints, cognitively their thinking patterns are dichotomous, emotionally they are disassociated, physically they are in a state of protracted withdrawal, and spiritually they are quixotic.
Obviously, a person who is obsessing on Jesus is still obsessing. The person who is compulsively quoting Scripture is still compulsive. The person who is mood altering by hypnotically singing worship choruses over and over again is still mood altering. The quixotic person fighting the forces of hell is still quixotic. The person with a narcissistic personality disorder is still a narcissist. Changing one’s addiction garb is not recovery.
Because of this, a sober non-drinking alcoholic should not be involved in Christian pastoral counseling ministry for about five years after the last drink. The originators of the Twelve Step program saw that a major component of the treatment for alcoholism was the need to share one’s spiritual awakening and message of healing with other people. Sharing one’s recovery process with others, however, is not the same as counseling others. Sharing one’s life experience with another is based upon the principle of equality-one beggar telling another where to find bread. On the other hand, providing pastoral counsel implies a position of power, influence, and authority in reference to the one being counseled. Alcoholics tend to be co-dependent, as the development of their relational skills was interrupted when they started drinking. Therefore, co-dependency issues often impede their ability to acquire the empathic skills so vital in providing pastoral counseling. People lacking empathic skills may be sincere, but they may be sincerely abusive.
http://www.micsem.org/pubs/counselor/frames/spiritabuse.htm
