Thursday, March 27, 2008

What EXACTLY is spiritual abuse?


People have been emailing me privately, "hey, what is spiritual abuse?"

It seems that they want to know before they keep reading my posts about it. One woman actually said, "i don't want to find out that the church i am in for the past 25 years is one i need to leave- or that you have found proof that Jesus is a hoax because I NEED to believe in order to wake up each day".

So let me interject here that I do not believe that all churches or religions are spiritually abusive. I do not believe that spiritual abuse is limited to one group or cult. I do not believe that christianity is by itself spiritually abusive.

For me personally, spiritual abuse was when I allowed other persons to control the decisions that I was making for my life because I came to a place where I believed I was submitting to authority in the name of Jesus.

For me, I loved Jesus with all my heart and needed to know that I was worthy in His eyes. This need allowed me to trust people that "came in His name" with decisions about my time, money, relationships and belief system.

I don't blame people for this accumulation nearly as much as I blame myself. I have spent my life dedicated to eradicating abuse in people's lives- especially in the areas of child abuse, sexual abuse, and spousel abuse so it was quite a surprise to me to one day realize that I was allowing myself to partake in the cycle of spiritual abuse.

When you read my stories about the people in my life, know that most of them, I love. Know that in my perspective most of them are also victims (is that even the right word?) of the cultural norms of our society and in particular to the times that they are living within this society. (for example people post war world 2 are going to have similar beliefs to each other that may differ greatly from the teenagers growing up in the 1960s).

I write my stories not to judge the people or blame them......just to release what ever it is that has a hold on me and to educate others so that they don't fall into similar traps.

FREEDOM is what I seek and freedom isn't truely freedom unless we take others with us.

Wikepedia defines Spiritual abuse really well, so I am not going to redefine it. I just simply want to explain where my perspective is going with this.


thanks for listening in........

2 comments:

Jayne said...

I think it's easy for people to fall prey to being abused spiritually, for it's a normal thing to want to prove you are trying to walk the walk and that you are worthy. The danger comes when human beings put the rules on this and grace somehow never enters the picture. Power breeds corruption many times, and keeping people subjugated makes some feel they are "doing the Lord's work." I applaud your delving into this subject and hope there is ultimate healing within.

Anonymous said...

did you see:

www.wickedshepherds.com

??