Spiritual Abuse-Lecture One

Course: Spiritual Abuse: An Introduction

Presenter: Jeff VanVonderen

Lecture 1 of 3: Healthy and Abusive Spiritual Dynamics

These presentations are part of a 10-part course entitled "Breaking the Silence on Spiritual Abuse". The series includes presentations by Dave Johnson and Lynn Heitritter.

Spiritual Abuse: Part 4

Spiritual Abuse Part 3

Getting Out and Getting On

If you've been victimized by an abusive pastor or church, I think you'll find this article very helpful.

When I left the abusive apostate church I was in, I was literally crushed in my spirit. I felt I had been betrayed by people I thought I could trust. No, let me rephrase that. I had been betrayed.

I was confused and hurting. At that time there was no one I could turn to that would understand. After all, all my friends were in "church", and wasn't "church" where you were supposed to meet God, and wasn't it ordained that one should not forsake the assembling together with the brethren?

I thought to myself, what brethren? They were all locked into the system, and the system I thought I could trust, the one I'd believed in was a sham, corrupt.


God had been good to me since my conversion, or I should say since my baptism in the Spirit. I had grown in the Word, and the LORD had blessed me in so many ways.

It took a lot of disappointments and more growth in the Word before I began to get my eyes opened to the things in the several churches I've been devoted to, that just plain were not of God.

It took months to even begin to recover physically and emotionally from the trauma I'd suffered from the years in church. But spiritually, I was devastated.

I've learned later that many people who leave an abusive church walk away from God altogether and just try to get on with their lives as best they can. But for me, I had some serious issues that I needed to work out spiritually and wasn't satisfied with walking away from God, because I knew he was real, and my experience was real, and like Peter, I felt, "Where would I go LORD? Only you have the words of truth".

About that time I had been wishing I had a computer. Then, by the grace of God I received one as a gift. It was then I began searching for what others had experienced and found that the doctrines I'd been taught in the churches I'd attended were wrong....what the LORD had been telling me in my spirit all along.

I also found others like myself who were leaving the apostate organized churches for the same reasons. They weren't "backslidders". In fact, they were people who were devoted to God and completely serious in their walk. But they had also eventually seen the abuses and wrong doctrines, and controlling natures of the bird cages they'd been in bondage to.

After you come out of an abusive church or spiritual situation, expect to have some emotional healing to go through. It's not pleasant to be sure, but it's normal. You may look at it as a blessing in disguise because once you're out, you're no longer being under the control and expectations of others to conform to their ways and doctrines.

In a way, it was the biggest weight off my shoulders I've ever felt, even if at the time it felt beyond strange, with Satan laying a guilt trip on me that it was somehow my fault. No, it was not and I've come to accept that. For where the Spirit is there is liberty.

To read the article, Getting Out and Getting On, just click in the title.
And God bless you as you continue your spiritual journey of healing and on to maturity in Christ.

Spiritual Abuse Has Many Forms

If you feel in your heart, a nagging feeling that you may be a victim of spiritual abuse, please remind yourself that spiritual abuse isn't limited to verbal suggestions. It may even include physical abuse in it's worse forms.

However, a spiritually abused person doesn't always recognize on the surface they are being spiritually abused.

Be aware that using scripture to control or dominate you is a tell tale sign of spiritual abuse. No one has the God given right to lord it over another person, controlling them and dominating them through the use of scripture.

In fact, no one has the right, whether in marriage, the pulpit, or group-think to control and dominate you.

If you believe, that indeed, you are being subjected to any form of spiritual abuse, for your own mental, emotional, and spiritual welfare, it is wise to being planning a way of escape, not worrying about what your pastor, mentor, group or even your spouse thinks.

In a way, spiritual abuse can be worse than physical violence because it damages the very inner part of your being, your soul. It should never be a matter of "putting up with it" for the sake of appeasing others. Never! Plan and find your way out of it. There will always be a way of escape, one way or another. Not always easy, but possible.