Fundamentally Wrong Abuses in "The Church"

I was recently a contributor to this blog, published by The God Article, a point of view piece based on this video. My original writing is below.

 

As a person who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian setting, spiritual abuses in the Church are of great concern to me because many of my peers who grew up in the same setting were abused as children and teens. Many of them became suicidal or began a life of self-harm. What troubles me even more is this spiritual abuse is still happening at an alarming rate, as evidenced by this video and by other stories surfacing on nearly a weekly basis, including the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist scandal in Hammond, Indiana which has gained national attention in the past year.

More and more, churches and pastors are being exposed as abusers and often times children and teens are the victims. Our society questions why good Christians are leaving the church in droves -- well, this is one very evident reason for it. Scriptures are frequently taken out of context, as the Fairhaven pastor has done with the "he who spareth the rod spoileth his child" verse, which is clearly meant as a directive for parents, not a verse endorsing public humiliation and church community corporal punishment. This activity is not of God and these people are deceived. Using scripture to verbally abuse and humiliate is a form of spiritual and emotional abuse. Indeed, it is a form of bullying which destroys instead of heals.

If you are in a situation where you suspect that you or your child are being bullied in a church environment, please seek counsel outside of the church to verify your suspicions. God is not an abusive bully nor should His representatives be. There are plenty of pastors and churches that do not practice this style of abusive, fundamentalist "churchianity".

As the evolution of the Body of Christ continues, we will see more and more of the desperate and dysfunctional branches dying off, in the process people will be exposed for their abuses against the flock. There are still good and loving bodies of believers where healing and wholeness are possible and God's love is practiced. May we all be vigilant to speak up against this insidious spiritual abuse of God's children.