Cartoon description: A man asks another man, "Pastor, what's our policy on abuse?" The pastor responds, "Well, we only do spiritual and emotional, but we try to avoid physical and sexual."
This cartoon is thirteen old! I remember how much rage I stirred up to be so blatant about pointing out the accepted prevalence of spiritual abuse. But I also remember the gratitude from so many people who felt seen.
So I kept drawing and talking about it.
Since then, we've heard more and more about abuse in churches. Unfortunately, including physical and sexual. Lots of stories of sexual harassment.
I claim every church should assume it has the potential to abuse its people and have things in place to prevent it and correct it if (when?) it happens.
If you doubt how prevalent it is, just read my posts and the comments from the past week. If you have any empathy at all, you will see that so many of us have been wounded by the Church and its leadership.
Resources on Spiritual Abuse
Here are a list of other blog posts I've written on Spiritual Abuse.
What is Spiritual Abuse? And how to recognize when it is happening to you.
10 Reasons Why The Church Is The Perfect Culture For Abuse
5 Steps to Recover from Spiritual Abuse
10 Questions You Can Ask A Church To See If It's Spiritually Abusive
