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Fairfax Underground
Welcome to Fairfax Underground, a project site designed to improve communication among residents of Fairfax County, VA. Feel free to post anything Northern Virginia residents would find interesting.
Welcome to Fairfax Underground, a project site designed to improve communication among residents of Fairfax County, VA. Feel free to post anything Northern Virginia residents would find interesting.
Bob Malm and Grace Episcopal: Good Post on Spiritual Abuse
Posted by:
Eric Bonetti
()
Date: January 04, 2018 12:07AM
Lifted from family blog:
Every January is Spiritual Abuse Awareness Month. In 2015, Episcopal Cafe ran a good article on the topic, located here.
We particularly like the following comment:
The article is very good, but the author leaves out the most common response: exclusion and shunning.
The six (non-) responses he lists are all active attempts to silence the hurt person. They all translate as, "The problem isn't that you were hurt, it's that you are speaking out about it and making us look bad: YOU are the problem." At this point, the hurt person usually leaves the church. If that person continues to speak out, he or she will be silenced by being labeled a malcontent, emotionally unstable, spiritually deficient. He or she will be cut out, ignored, and insulted, if not actually asked or told to leave. When silencing is ineffective, scapegoating and shunning begin.
A dysfunctional church shows the same behavior patterns as a dysfunctional family: secrecy, denial, and scapegoating are its coping mechanisms. Those who offer support to the spiritually wounded will be put under pressure to conform and will have to choose between being scapegoated and being included.
People of faith and courage, both lay and ordained, should listen in depth to the person who has been harmed. They should work to understand how their loyalty to a church may have led them to minimize its problems. They should hold their church to the highest standards of authenticity, transparency, and spiritual care.
Sadly, that courage has been lacking in every case I have seen. The people who help are the ones who have left. The ones still in the institution do whatever they must to preserve their place in it.
The Episcopal Cafe post is based on the excellent article, “What Not to Say to Someone Who Has Been Hurt by Church,” found here. Check out the insightful quote, “Religion will molest you, then accuse you of being bitter about it.”
Bob Malm and Disgrace church in a nutshell.
Every January is Spiritual Abuse Awareness Month. In 2015, Episcopal Cafe ran a good article on the topic, located here.
We particularly like the following comment:
The article is very good, but the author leaves out the most common response: exclusion and shunning.
The six (non-) responses he lists are all active attempts to silence the hurt person. They all translate as, "The problem isn't that you were hurt, it's that you are speaking out about it and making us look bad: YOU are the problem." At this point, the hurt person usually leaves the church. If that person continues to speak out, he or she will be silenced by being labeled a malcontent, emotionally unstable, spiritually deficient. He or she will be cut out, ignored, and insulted, if not actually asked or told to leave. When silencing is ineffective, scapegoating and shunning begin.
A dysfunctional church shows the same behavior patterns as a dysfunctional family: secrecy, denial, and scapegoating are its coping mechanisms. Those who offer support to the spiritually wounded will be put under pressure to conform and will have to choose between being scapegoated and being included.
People of faith and courage, both lay and ordained, should listen in depth to the person who has been harmed. They should work to understand how their loyalty to a church may have led them to minimize its problems. They should hold their church to the highest standards of authenticity, transparency, and spiritual care.
Sadly, that courage has been lacking in every case I have seen. The people who help are the ones who have left. The ones still in the institution do whatever they must to preserve their place in it.
The Episcopal Cafe post is based on the excellent article, “What Not to Say to Someone Who Has Been Hurt by Church,” found here. Check out the insightful quote, “Religion will molest you, then accuse you of being bitter about it.”
Bob Malm and Disgrace church in a nutshell.