What Is Spiritual Abuse?
Spiritual abuse is when someone uses religion to control, manipulate, or harm others. It can happen in churches, religious groups, or personal relationships. This can include fear, guilt, shaming, or cutting people off from outside support. Victims often struggle with self-worth, faith, and emotional wounds.
This cartoon on spiritual abuse reveals many of the dynamics of spiritual abuse. You may also like this cartoon illustrating a venn diagram on spiritual abuse
10 Ways Spiritual Abusers Think
- They think they are doing some good or at least what’s necessary.
- They think you are a deficient person.
- They think you should surrender your own personal agency.
- They think they are agents of God’s will.
- They don’t think you can or should guide your own life.
- They don’t think and don’t want you to think you can discern good from evil.
- They don’t want you to trust your own intuition, mind, or body.
- They want you to feel guilt and shame for resisting them.
- They will bully anybody, but especially women.
- They violate your space… physical, spiritual, sexual, etcetera.
Have you experienced this?
I have many times and I know so many others here have too. There are many reasons why we allow abusive leaders to continue. I hope my cartoons illustrating spiritual abuse make you feel seen and remind you that you are not alone in your experience. I wrote a blog post titled, 10 Reasons Why The Church Is The Perfect Culture For Abuse to highlight just how common this is in the church and why.
