“Did you get your head screwed on straight yet?”
This was the opening line of the last visit I had with my mom’s dad. I was sixteen.
Until that point I had been a part of the Pentecostal cult, Wednesdays and Sundays and Revival days spent among people who believed that failure to speak in tongues was a mark of damnation. This visit from my grandfather was, on reflection, the last time that I took his or anyone else’s nonsense quietly.
Now I understand that he, like many others, was both a victim and perpetrator of religious abuse. This is the abuse that many know, yet fewer talk about. Today, I’m talking about it.
What is religious Abuse? What is spiritual abuse?
Religious and spiritual abuse is when people use their beliefs to get power or control over another person. This can happen in many kinds of relationships. Parent-child, spouse, preacher-congregant, coworkers, all these kinds of relationships can be a place where religious abuse happens.
In the evangelical cults there are many ways that people abuse each other. It often begins with forcing children to go to church services and indoctrination classes. This act forces children to believe that their parents and religious leaders have the ultimate say in their lives, that their religious and spiritual views are not important.
Another channel used by evangelical cults is appealing to fear. Perhaps you’ve seen or heard people say that people are on their way to punishment eternal, unless they accept this or that religious teaching. Maybe you’ve seen them express the notion that since someone is older they should accept Jesus “just to be safe.”
These kinds of tactics rely on fear, directly or indirectly, to emotionally manipulate people into accepting the abusive tactics as legitimate religious outreach.
For me, I was never given the choice. From a young age I was often taken to Pentecostal services and put in their Sunday School indoctrinations. As I got older I tried to tell my parents that I would rather stay home than be forced to go to church. My mother simply said “You’re not forced to go to church. Now get in the van and let’s go.”
This, of course, reflected the religious abuse she had experienced. Her own thinking and reasoning had been gaslit by her parents and preachers. She had been convinced that reality was what they told her, not what she experienced and knew.
This is the end goal of abuse, and especially religious abuse: you surrender your own control and power to the abuser. No longer is your reality yours. Your reality is controlled by the abuser or abusers.
And that abuse was passed along to me by a victim of religious abuse.
Of course, these are lower-intensity forms of religious abuse. There are also other tactics that are much more destructive. Abuse tactics can be grouped along a spectrum from less obvious to more blatantly harmful.
One odious form of religious abuse is the teaching that God is going to punish you because of Original Sin. The only escape from this punishment is by “accepting God’s gift of salvation”. This is a complex form of abuse; on one level, it threatens punishment for individuality and non-compliance with abuse. On the second level, it gaslights us about the word “gift”. A gift does not involve punishment for rejection. If we are punished for turning down a gift, that’s coercion. Another form of abuse.
This is the basis of the Evangelical Christian faiths, and it drives so much of their evangelism. Their abusers tell them that not only is God ready to punish everyone who rejects their abusive theology, but that God will punish the abuse victims if they don’t go out and “witness” and “testify” to others.
This was the world view that my grandfather, mother, and myself had been indoctrinated into. Failure to uphold the teachings of the religious abusers, even if it required shunning family members who loved them, was grounds for eternal damnation and hellfire. The value of a person was not their humanity and mere existence, no. Existence itself was a reason for punishment.
For these victims and perpetrators of religious abuse, the value of a person existed solely in their acceptance and spreading of the abuse among others.
When my grandfather asked if I had my head “screwed on straight yet”, he was attacking both my refusal to accept his learned abuse tactics and the fact that I was different from him.
My grandfather was using his religion to justify his hatred for homosexual people, and he was trying to target me.
What are examples of religious abuse?
Abuse is, at its core, about having power and the ability to control the behavior, thoughts, and feelings of victims. Abuse tactics are often learned, not explicitly taught; if a class called “How to Abuse” was offered, most people would demand to shut it down. Even people who use abuse tactics!
While there are undoubtedly psychopaths who are very aware of their manipulations and abuses, it seems to me a grave mistake to assume that all abusers are somehow bad or deserving of punishment. To ostracize and deny necessary help to abusers serves to further isolate them from society; this itself is an abuse tactic!
Instead, helping others to learn how to identify abuse tactics is powerful. This decreases the number of potential victims that abusers can successfully overpower and control. The more frequently that abusers are unsuccessful in their abuse attempts, and the more that we call them out, the more pressure is exerted on abusers to get the help available and learn healthy relationship skills.
So, what are spiritual abuse examples?
Keeping in mind that abuse is a pattern of behavior that seeks to get power and control over the behavior, thoughts, and feelings of others, here are some frequent examples of religious abuse:
• Insulting and mocking a person because of their beliefs. This is commonly seen between Evangelicals and atheists having online “flame wars” with each other, though it can also occur when Evangelicals make disrespectful comments about other sects of Christians or different faiths.
• Forcing someone to practice a religion against their will. This is usually seen among parent-child relationships, but it can also manifest as a way to control partners. Such things as demanding a partner adopt a religion to continue having a relationship with them or even ending a relationship due to differences in beliefs.
• Using religious or spiritual beliefs to justify other forms of abuse. This can take many forms such as denying vaccinations or medical treatment due to religious beliefs. It is also seen when roles are prescribed to people based on “what the bible says about the right place of a man or woman”.
• Creating shame or guilt with religious or spiritual belief. We often see this among Evangelicals when they attack queer people by calling them sinners. We also see it when they attack non-conservative women as “wicked”, “Jezebel”, “sluts”, or similar language.
• Denying education, especially on the right of the person to their own body, due to religious belief. It may also appear as a distrust or outright hostility to non-religious education; among the Pentecostal cults logic and science were outright called “tools of the Devil”.
I’ve already mentioned being forced to attend religious services against my will. Other forms of religious abuse that I endured was the subtle ostracism and singling out by preachers for being homosexual. Some seemed to take it as a special license to try to perform a public exorcism. Others (like my grandfather) saw it as some kind of spiritual defect that entitled them to disrespect me.
It's very challenging at the time I’m writing this to be charitable in my thoughts to these kinds of people. That is one aspect of religious abuse, the trauma, that creates an immediately hostile state of mind toward both abusers and potential abusers. It creates a sense of “high alert” when openly religious people speak to me.
This creates another opportunity for religious abuse. This wariness and ease toward anger is dismissed by other Evangelicals as “proof” that I either have a spirit of anger that blinds me to the truth of their faith, or they gaslight me by saying that I should forgive those who abused me. My experiences are demeaned, minimized, and dismissed while their own religious teachings are pushed. Abuse of all kinds seeks power and control; in these cases it attempts to make you think your experiences are less important that the ideas and feelings of others.
Let me be clear to you, reader: you do not ever have to forgive those who abuse you, and you have every right to be angry about the abuses others did to you. Abusers often weaponize forgiveness by presenting it as a mark of spiritual maturity; this is simply another form of gaslighting. To borrow a phrase from the Christian world: repentance, in the form of “renouncing and turning away from” abusive behaviors, must happen before forgiveness can be considered. And there is no requirement to forgive even when repentance occurs.
In short: abusers, even if unaware that they were abusive, have no right to remain in your circle of trusted people.
Can you consent to abuse?
Abuse may appear to be consensual, such as when a woman agrees to raise her children in the faith of her wife. The definition of abuse involves patterns of behavior that allow one person to gain power and control over others. This means that consent is not enough to deny abuse is happening. Consent may be part of the abuse; people can agree to the abuser’s demands as a way to avoid further abuse or violence. Indeed, this is often the point of abuse: to get uncritical acceptance of the abuser’s demands and behaviors.
The presence of consent is therefore not enough to dismiss the possibility of religious abuse. Even if a person remains in a cult, we cannot conclude that they are safe nor healthy.
What some warning signs of religious abuse?
My experience is one of religious abuse from a young age. That’s pretty much the norm for your “garden variety” religious abuse, but it’s totally possible that you end up dating something who is religiously abusive. Like most other abusers there are early warning signs.
If you see these behaviors or similar ones, be aware that patterns of these actions can indicate that more intense abuse could be in wait further down the road:
• Guilt: “You’ll go to Hell for that.”
A lot of religious abuse in the USA is based on guilt. Labeling behaviors like drinking, masturbation, queerness, and drug usage as sins worthy of damnation create guilt in people. Abusers then use this guilt to control the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of their targets by promising salvation if the “sinner” follows their rules.
• Manipulation: “Do you think God would approve of that?”
Religious abusers often invoke “God” as a substitute for their own disapproval. By hiding behind their version of “God” they add a layer of make-believe authority to their abuse. This tactic has a stronger effect if the target has accepted the threats of Hell and punishment from the use of guilt.
• Shame: “This isn’t a fantasy novel. That practice is so dumb.”
Yes, many Evangelical faiths practice a form of shaming for differing spiritual practices. They may label them dumb, and they also go further by calling them “demonic”, “Satanic”, or “sinful”. While this is certainly abusive behavior, it’s important to remember that shaming anyone for their (nonviolent, non-abusive) spiritual practices is a form of religious abuse.
• Isolation: “Your friends don’t value your spiritual beliefs. I don’t want you around them.”
This one is more common than we want to accept. It can be subtle, as when parents redirect attention from our friends outside the group to those inside, or blatant. Keep in mind that isolation tactics can also sound like: “They are so worldly!”, “They aren’t true Christians”, or even “Would God approve of you mixing with unbelievers?”
• Assault: “What I did was acceptable because it says so in our founding doctrine.”
Assault can be physical or verbal. It can look like physical violence (punching, beating, refusing water and food) or verbal abuse (calling you a heretic, a sinner, damned, worthy of hellfire). Performing an exorcism can also be a form of assault (verbal assault, restraint, continuing to perform the ritual after you change your mind). Abuse is always wrong, and when scriptures or religious teachings are used as the excuse for doing it, the abuser is committing religious abuse.
If these things are done to you, please understand that you may be getting groomed to accept further, more destructive forms of abuse.
In my life I’ve experienced a lot of guilting, shaming, and manipulation. Religious people have called me a sinner, a heretic, demonic, Satanic, damned to hell, and demon-possessed for the simple act of saying “I don’t agree with you.” I’ve experienced friends and loved ones be physically assaulted by religious abusers for simply being queer.
Thankfully, my grandfather never talked to me again after that last day of religious abuse. I got my head screwed on straight, and he chose a life without the presence and support of the only grandchild who understood spirituality. He died without a spiritual successor, but I think that is a beneficial thing for society.
Cycles of abuse must end if we are to make the world a better place.
How do I handle spiritual and religious abuse?
Years and years passed while I was full of rage and spite towards religion in general. I still have wariness around Christianity because I’m hyperaware of the tendency it has towards abuse.
I continued in my spirituality though. I credit a solid faith in the relationship I have with the divine with saving me from extreme drug abuse and self-destruction. Yes, I had my struggles like many do. Yes, I went through a time of anti-religious feeling. Yes, I still call Evangelical Christianity a dangerous and controlling set of cults.
There has been some release of anger though. I began to feel a certain exhaustion from carrying rage constantly. It felt like I was constantly chafing whenever God or Christianity was mentioned.
Coping with spiritual and religious abuse can fall on a spectrum of ease. On one side you may be able to simply leave the situation and never return. On another extreme you may find yourself in physical danger for trying to leave the situation.
If you are in physical danger, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is one resource to begin getting help. You can call them at 1-800-799-7233. You can also text “START” to 88788. Emergency services can be called at 911. Abuse is abuse, never love. No amount of gaslighting changes the fact that a violent situation is a violent situation. Everyone deserves good things in life.
If possible, it’s important to distance yourself from the abuser. This may mean changing places of worship, finding new spiritual guidance, establishing boundaries with family or friends who are displaying patterns of abuse, leaving intimate partner relationships, contacting HR (if religious abuse is happening at work), contacting guidance counselors at your school, or even refusing to interact with those who show no desire to stop being abusive.
After you have established boundaries and put distance between yourself and abusers, you may find yourself questioning your beliefs or even feeling disconnected from your spirituality. If you find yourself in this situation, allow yourself to feel your feelings while acknowledging that it’s an opportunity to reconnect with your higher power. Give yourself time, no rushing! Depending on the severity of the abuse, you may need quite some time to sort out your feelings and thoughts. This is okay!
During this time you may find it helpful to review those texts you find meaningful and important. Perhaps finding another person you trust to talk about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts can help you. Remember that spiritual/religious abuse often involves skewing ideas and scriptures in ways that cause harm, so it may help your recovery to explore those ideas in an open-minded, open-hearted way.
It's also okay to find a professional helper. A trusted counselor, therapist, or other trained and experienced helper can be a potent ally in the recovery process. If you find yourself hesitant to reach out due to what you were told in your religious or spiritual environment, remember that creating a mental barrier to asking for help is one of the potent abuse tactics that religious abusers use to keep power and control over their victims.
In my life, I found that exploring heterodox spirituality allowed great healing. Eventually I found a spiritual path that gave me space to create the beliefs I now hold, a tradition that embraces open-mindedness, self-development, self-mastery, education, and spiritual individuality. Through this spirituality I have found the space to release most of the venom I held, while allowing me the space to keep a little venom without shaming or guilting me for the results of religious abuse.
This may be what works for you. It may turn out that leaving spirituality altogether is what you need. Sometimes you just need a break. It’s all valid, it’s all good.
Religious abuse, being about power and control, centers on making you doubt yourself. Religious abuse has the goal of centering everything on the thoughts and feelings of others, especially religious leaders. Healing from this involves becoming comfortable with putting your thoughts, your feelings, and your beliefs first in your life.
Remember this: abuse is abuse, period. No amount of gaslighting makes abuse into love.
Stay safe out there.
-Prof. Torrentus
References
https://psychcentral.com/health/spiritual-abuse#examples
https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/identifying-abuse/what-is-spiritual-abuse#google_vignette