The Sacramento Bee, a major California newspaper, examined the issue of spiritual abuse in a story titled Some Sacramento-area faithful turn backs on pastors, 'spiritual abuse' published today. At least 20 pages of comments followed the story, some revealing other incidents of abuse.
Spiritual abuse is a topic that churches neglect and that secular sources often don't care about or understand.
It is a hopeful development for a major media source like the Bee to take notice and investigate this issue. Spiritual abuse devastates families, destroys faith, hurts other churches that are tainted by neighboring church mistreatment and scandal, and leaves a lot of people disillusioned and lost.
The Bee should be commended for covering the topic. I hope this story opens up an interest by other media. Once the practice is in the open, it may be that churches, most of which are healthy and non-abusive, will stop being afraid to broach the subject, so that church-goers will be prepared if they should ever come across signs of abuse.
A clearinghouse of sources on spiritual abuse and cult-like practices in groups and churches
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Newspaper in California covers spiritual abuse
Posted by Provender at Saturday, December 12, 2009
Labels: abusive pastors, church manipulation, media, newspaper, religious domination, Sacramento Bee, spiritual abuse
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
5 comments:
I do commend the Sacramento Bee for voicing anything about this issue, for bringing some attention to it, and for giving some of those who have been hurt a voice.
As a Christian I do have a concern though about stories like this. Everything we say and do presents Christ to the world. As many who commented on the story expressed what came across through this story was brokenness, tragedy, hurt, abuse, and lack of hope. I don't know that the author is a believer so I don't hold an expectation that she would present Christ's good news.
One of the tragedies of spiritual abuse is the lack of resolution. Those hurt by the church and by leaders are not finding healing with their abusers, and many of those abusing stay in their churches, are not held accountable, suffer no consequences, and the victims have no power or voice. At one time this was true of child abuse victims too. That has now changed and abusers are held accountable. I am not saying we should move to a point of criminal persecution for every spiritual abuse case, but I do hope that awareness, definition of incorrect actions, and some voice/empowerment for victims is put into place so that these abusive and hurtful behaviors will cease. I also hope that more and more testimonies of hope, resolution, healing, encouragement, and Christ's incredible good news in the face of these tragedies will begin to be spoken.
awesome news-thanks for sharing--i might link this on my blog eventually--been trying to get my local papers, and bigger cities around me to write something and no one wants too--maybe this will help.
wen
I agree with you, restoringtheheart. I hope that a little light shining in these dark corners will scatter the creepy crawlies eventually. As for the argument that everything we say and do presents Christ to the world, that's true. Unfortunately, this is one argument abusers use too often to keep their manipulation and abuse secret: they appeal to the victim's desire not to make Christ look bad to keep things hush, hush. Jesus said He was the way the TRUTH and the life. Any time you tell the truth, I think it's going to have a good result and he will sweep up any crumbs about His reputation. Pretty sure anyway. Thanks for the great insights.
I noticed that the Bee story was able to do a story on abuse without naming names. This is effective. They don't incur the cost of a libel suit (even one that they might win still costs). But they bring the issue out. Someone posting anonymously tried to provide the name of one of the pastors and churches, but since I have no way of verifying this info, I'm going to pass. Sorry.
I agree about keeping things a secret. I think from another prominent news story lately we can clearly see that deception, hiding things, and concealment doesn't work. As Christians we should be living lives where we have nothing to hide. We shouldn't have to worry about our actions, words, finances, emails, etc. being found out. If we are, or if others are asking us to keep things a secret we need to ask some hard questions about the situation. Scripture says the truth will set us free, and my own personal experience is testimony to that.
Post a Comment