Trauma in the Church

I understand church trauma because as a young married couple, my husband and I were members of a church whose pastor was a “kind dictator”, a term my parents coined. My mum and dad had the insight of being outside our situation and despaired as they saw us becoming trapped in a cult-like faith. Our leader was an incredible woman with vision, teaching and leading capacity and was blessed with many spiritual gifts, like words of knowledge about complete strangers. We were all rather in awe of her relationship with God, but beneath her confidence and strong leadership lurked unresolved issues and fear.

She started off well, planting a Bible College in Northern Victoria, and starting seven country churches, but as her influence grew, so did her pride and high expectations of her people. Her inner circle contained “yes” people. She almost equated her instructions as those from God, so it was difficult to disagree. She even claimed her church had more truth than others in the denomination. After a few years, members began to be so busy with the activities of the church that they lost significant touch with those outside the movement. To obstruct her was feared and to leave the church was seen as apostasy. Control and fear replaced the excitement of vision and dependence on God.

An Awakening

God is faithful and one day in our searching, He turned on the light. We awakened to see the danger we were in, saw our own insecurity in following this leader and, sadly, how we too had sought to control and manipulate others.

It was a joyful time of becoming free of the fear and confusion at last but also deeply painful because we had some repenting to do and some people of whom we needed to ask forgiveness. The lessons learned in this period of our lives have been advantageous as subsequently we can sense quickly when we come across controlling leadership.

This last of my three posts about trauma and abuse has been the hardest to write. It is because I believe that the Church is God’s beloved, His family through whom He wants to show His love and authority to the world and I don’t want to speak against His family. But the church is filled with people who can sin and hurt others. There has been some unchristlike behaviour coming from the institutional church in the last two years and it has caused considerable pain. In sharing my view of events, I pray that those traumatised by what has happened in churches will find understanding and healing for their hurts, as I seek mine from God.

Read more: Trauma in the Church

Spiritual Abuse

Spiritual abuse happens when spiritual leaders use their position of power to control or dominate the feelings and opinions of others. A leader can apply pressure to get a desired behaviour using God or Scripture as tools of coercion. Victims can feel fear, shame, a sense of inadequacy, or be downright confused about their spiritual standing. Spiritual abuse always leads to trauma.¹

Even before vaccination became an issue, the Victorian government locked people out of church and fellowship for months at a time and when they could attend, the government limited numbers, masked worshipers, and told them they couldn’t even sing in church. They altered the rules so often that congregants and leaders alike were confused. Churches moved to online services, zoom meetings or Facebook catch ups to scramble for connection. Believers encouraged each other to thank God for the internet and the ability to fellowship on-line, all the while hoping that connection in person would resume quickly.

Because of the fear of fines and overstepping their insurance policies, church boards were coerced into following ungodly rules. It was a difficult time to be in leadership. Some leaders asked, “Was it time for the church to go underground and quietly disobey? Weren’t we complying for our safety? What was the truth about the severity of this virus which caused so much fear?” The government claimed they had the truth and the science on their side and it was not to be found elsewhere. Even the PM of New Zealand declared that those who weren’t following the government website weren’t listening to truth. Hadn’t I heard this kind of message earlier in my life?

Not all church leaders complied. Ps Paul Furlong, a minister in Melbourne, was hauled off to prison for a couple of weeks for keeping his church open during an early lockdown. Some may say he was foolish, but no one can doubt his courage. Personally, he inspired me. He even led many to the Lord during his incarceration, his story sounding reminiscent of his namesake, St Paul. He held fast to the precept that we should “not (be) forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching” Heb. 10:25. Should more churches have taken this line?

Frogs in Pots

Sitting as frogs in a pot of cold water, with the heat turned on below us, could we feel the temperature rising? Were we aware that we were being conditioned to accept even more severe measures? The lies about the danger of the disease were rampant, the measures out of proportion to reality, but people’s fears were fuelled by media hype and the misrepresentation of the cases and particular contexts surrounding the pandemic. The government demanded compliance to ‘flatten the curve’ and ‘stop the spread’ for the ‘good of all’. And the same language was adopted by many churches.

Didn’t it sound Christian? “We are thinking of others; we are keeping people safe”. The church mantra and measures were in lockstep with the government to mask, keep 1.5 metres apart and observe all the vacillating lockdown regulations.

The preoccupation with physical safety superseded all other things that keep people safe, such as community activities, face-to-face communication, openly sharing information, freedom to exercise, receiving pastoral care and worshipping together. The temperature was rising and the majority were unaware.

Discrimination

Then came the mandate that staff and volunteers in churches needed to be vaccinated against covid-19 to serve and be on church premises. I was alarmed at the number of mainline churches which adopted these rules. Some continued to meet online or in homes but they were the minority. This is when the spiritual abuse ramped up. I am aware that there have been times in church history, and in certain countries now where the church has been limited by the state or government. The problem wasn’t so much that church members had to follow the rules, but that their leaders mimicked government messaging that these protocols were good and absolutely necessary.

We are all members of Christ’s body, all are called to serve and worship, but suddenly, just like the division the media promoted in society, a lesser class of Christians was formed. Some churches held services for the vaccinated separate to the unvaccinated which shattered the inclusivity of the gospel. Some churches sent out a questionnaire to their members with questions like, “how comfortable do you feel sitting next to the unvaccinated?” James writes “if you show partiality, you commit sin” (see James 2: 1-13), and the wisdom from above is “without partiality” James 3:17. Paul tells us that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”, Galatians 3:28. Apart from church disciplinary reasons we have no biblical basis for refusing someone from celebrating the gospel in community when someone comes seeking or in full faith.

In some churches the media mantra was repeated: unvaccinated meant “selfish”, “sick” or a potential “super spreader”, faint echoes of names that the Nazis used of the Jews in the 1930s. Yet the reality was that the unvaccinated were no more sick or able to spread the corona virus than the vaccinated.

Biblical guidelines and common sense treatment of the ill were abandoned. Contrary to O.T. guidelines, the healthy were separated, not the sick. In addition, the N. T. practice to call for the church elders was abandoned. James 5:14

An unvaccinated missionary friend of mine was called upon to present her family missionary journey in church but unable to stand on the platform to share, due to the State’s covid rules that her denomination applied. They were asked to make a video instead. Here’s the clanger though – they ended up sitting only meters away from the platform that they were prohibited from speaking from while mingling with the congregation afterward. Such demands are not only absurd, but unjust, unbiblical and traumatic.

Censoring Opinion

One sign of abuse is when people are made to feel that no other opinion other than the prescribed one is allowed. Many church leaders censored those opposed to the mandates. They may have declared that all are free to share their opinions, yet coercion was applied to keep people silent and some vocal opponents removed from positions of influence. Highly trained, experienced clear thinking leaders in education, health and human service were lost to the mandates. History shows us how the rise of fascist and communist states deal with the intelligentsia and the voices of conscience in the community. When you remove the dissenting voice, you don’t have unity, you have a dictatorship. Unity is achieved through understanding one another, celebrating difference while maintaining one heart. Paul exhorts us ” to endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” that is “to work” at creating unity, through prayer and discussion. (Eph. 4:3-6). Cutting off voices doesn’t create peace.

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act” said the theologian and dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was martyred by the Nazi regime because of his complicity in the 1944 plot to kill Hitler.

Activism

When there are unjust laws God’s people should rise to speak out against them. Even when Paul stood up to rightly declare himself a Roman citizen, it wasn’t to save his own life but to advance the Gospel. How much more does God want us to advocate for the oppressed. James declares that we should uphold the needs of orphans and widows in their distress, in other words, look after the vulnerable (James 1:27).

As citizens of our supposedly democratic countries, there are ways that we can protest peacefully, yet some would have us believe that a Christian leader can’t be an activist because doing so stirs up anger. This is a very narrow view of activism. Living righteously has always stirred up anger in those who choose to live unrighteously. It shouldn’t be our aim to stir up anger, but it often is a consequence of speaking out, when one is pointing out evil. The pastor, Martin Luther King, stood up for the rights of blacks in America in the 60s. He was incarcerated over 30 times and eventually assassinated. He said, “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” By actively speaking out he brought hope to thousands and inspired them to keep aiming for what is racially right. Godly activism and Biblical leadership are not opposites. There are thousands of doctors (see the AMPS website) world-wide who believe that the draconian pandemic rules, immoral mandates and the covid-19 vaccine push are not based on good science or proper care of the vulnerable and need to be fought against and be spoken out against.

Honour Secular Authorities

Some leaders twisted Scripture frequently during this period. I’d like to examine two of them: obeying our secular authorities and acting for the common good. While our government was breaking and rewriting their own laws and expecting compliance, dismissing our Constitution and Biosecurity Laws along with international codes like the Nuremberg Code, from our pulpits we were being exhorted to obey our secular authorities, using passages from 2 Peter 2:13-17 and Rom 13:1-7 .

As I read these passages, we are exhorted to do good and not to plot any kind of evil against authorities just because we don’t like them or because they have made some bad decisions. Paul encouraged the believers of his day to continue to be an example of good and to enable the authorities to do what God calls them to do, uphold the good and punish the evil doer. But these verses do not exhort us to lie down and let injustice roll on.

Not for personal self-interest but for the good of all, there is a time for civil disobedience. The early disciples in Acts told the religious leaders of their day, that they would not stop sharing the gospel. The rulers, elders and scribes called the apostles and “commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus”. But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” Acts 4:18-20

Daniel, a prophet in exile, chose to pray in a manner that he had always practiced, even though a death penalty was hanging over his head if he didn’t comply (Dan 6). He knew the consequences, yet chose to honour God and pray as usual. He said to King Darius, “O king, I have done no wrong before you” (verse 22b).

What happened to our regular habits of weekly worship, prayer meetings and the like?” Did we confuse our absolute submission to God with that of secular authorities? What was really motivating church decisions? Was it arrived at by an honest search for truth or just out of fear of what might happen to the non-compliant? The question, When does obedience to secular authority become disobedience to God? still needs to be answered today.

The Common Good

One of the most hurtful misuses of Scripture has been the one about doing what is best “for the common good”. Many so called believers were using this phrase to exhort others to get vaccinated. Many were being shamed into compliance, both in religious and secular circles. But was the vaccination really for our “good”? Biblical truth seemed to match: “You are selfish if you don’t get vaccinated”. “You might be okay, but what about if you pass on the disease to vulnerable and frail people?” “You aren’t loving your neighbours as yourself (Mark 12:30-31); Are you “in humility valu(ing) others above yourselves…” as Paul exhorted the believers in Philippi (Phil 2:3)?

The problem with this twist of theology is that it shows a misunderstanding of biblical love. Love lays down its life for the sake of truth and the furtherance of the gospel. It doesn’t serve a lie. Love and truth go together. Love is based on truth and one thing sadly missing in the vaccine debate has been an authentic open search for the truth. Robust scientific discussion has been missing. Doctors are still being censored and deregistered for advising against the covid vaccines and embalmers are vilified if they speak out on what they are seeing in the blood of vaccinated corpses.

Genuine love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth (1 Cor. 13:6). “If civil authorities mandate wrongdoing, then to defy them is to love your neighbour,” says David Schrock. It is also a way for loving the tyrant. Love does not coerce. It does not terminate your employment because of an experimental therapy or prevent healthy people from worshipping together or working to support your family.

Love is sacrificial. One of my reasons not to get jabbed was that I wanted to be an example to others, even if it meant losing my job, to be bold and stand against injustice at my school for being coerced to take a vaccine to remain employed. I wanted to be a strength for all those who were wavering in the face of an evil regime that was threatening their livelihoods. I wanted to serve God with my body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit and to obey him when He told me, not once but twice, not to take the vaccine. Whatever the consequences, I believed that He would watch over me and He has.

Time to Arise

In August 2021, I believe God showed me a picture of a boulder rolling down a steep incline. His hand was up against it stopping it from its descent. Insect-sized creatures were escaping to the sides, out of the crush. Next thing I knew, my little hand was next to God’s and I understood that He wanted me to be a part of His work in pushing back against the lies and corruption. Following that pathway has led to trauma for me and for many I know. There have been a number of times this year that I have been discouraged and felt sorry for myself, letting my hand fall from the boulder. I have needed to find God’s comfort and strength again in order to stand in the gap for others.

Maybe you have been hurt by a church or Christians during this “pandemic” era. I would encourage you to seek like-minded believers who can support you on your journey of healing. See my post on Collective Trauma for keys on how to find validation and healing. It can seem natural to transpose the hurt experienced from a church or a Christian on to God, but I pray you will not blame Him for the work of the enemy in deceiving many. Paul warned that people, in the last days, would be deceived because they didn’t love the truth (2 Thess. 2:10-12).

I began this post with my experience about being in a controlling church. I was the one needing an awakening. Let the hurt draw us closer to Jesus and so strengthen us that in due course we can continue to pray for those who are still asleep. In due time we will be able to offer those who arise from their comatose state, the healing and forgiveness that they will desperately need.

¹ Andrew and Lynda Boutros of True Success: Lecture on “Emotional Health in Ministry”, 23.3.22, Encompass Church, Bundoora, Vic.