Thank you for your courage Sarabeth. While my own circumstances are different than yours, there are so so many parallels in my own life to what you went through. My family suffered at an spiritually abusive Bible-based church that can also be labeled as a cult, a high-control authoritarian group which had bad theology and taught false interpretations of scripture used to serve the leaders own agenda. I’ve learned so much through suffering and seeing others from that place go through similar things. It’s hard to not want to throw out all the good that God did do in my life despite the harm and hurt (for me over 16 years). Then bouncing to other churches that just don’t know how to speak to what we went through or what to do to help someone like me. I sought biblical counseling, pastoral counseling, study and prayer, and finally a licensed mental health professional and am starting to finally process all the years and unravel the knots. What is most difficult is trust. Trusting the Lord He sees my pain, wants me to be whole again and that I can trust Him to lead me to solid ground, to good pasture and trust church authority again, fellowship again. I’ve learned Jesus never leaves us while we venture through all the muck, He didn’t then and won’t now. I still hope there is a place where I can find community where people truly exemplify the love of Christ, His sacrificial and unconditional love where truth is not compromised and scripture is taught in context and is life-giving and isn’t used as a weapon to injure. A place where the hurting are accepted and not told to just get it together. My Faith in Christ has been tried through the fire so to speak but I still hope despite it all.
I really appreciate this, Sarabeth, and I look forward to seeing where you are headed in more detail. I wholeheartedly agree that our hermeneutic is a key component of both the harm and the healing in spiritual abuse. I’m actually working on a message on that subject for a conference next week, and thought I’d mention it since you quoted Peter’s words in John 6. While we cannot let trauma be our hermeneutic for the Bible, we must be able to see trauma *in* the Bible in order to learn a hermeneutic that is truly healing. I believe the Gospel of John teaches that hermeneutic, because the original audience of John re-read the story of Jesus as a hermeneutic for their own trauma. Everything changes once we see that. At least it did for me.
It has been comforting to me often to think of how Jesus suffered, and therefore He understands my pain. I think that it's important that keep a high view of Christ as the God-Man and Savior and keep in mind that while he did experience trauma, He reacted perfectly to it, and we don't do that because we can't. It is so hopeful to have a Savior who understands us completely, and did what we could not do!
(Fair warning, I was reading your posts on this, and wrestling through on the idea of Jesus having hypervigilance, and I have decided that I do not agree with that assessment of Jesus. I don't think he was ever out of balance in His reactions... I will write more about it perhaps, but mostly I want to provide those struggling with their faith hope by pointing them to God's words, so I might not be able to get into a technical back and forth about that, as much as I have been thinking about that idea!)
I appreciate the follow up and honest response, Sarabeth! I don’t expect a back-and-forth, but for what it’s worth I do have additional thoughts on how to nuance my suggestion on Jesus’ experience of trauma within orthodox christology :-). Your response is a good and helpful challenge. Thanks for pointing us to the Word!
I really enjoy discussing this, and I am looking forward to reading more of your thoughts. I think nuance is really important in these discussions, and also acknowledging that there is mystery in the doctrine of the Trinity and the incarnation of Christ that makes this very difficult to completely understand. (We won't on this side, that is for sure!)
Thank you for your courage Sarabeth. While my own circumstances are different than yours, there are so so many parallels in my own life to what you went through. My family suffered at an spiritually abusive Bible-based church that can also be labeled as a cult, a high-control authoritarian group which had bad theology and taught false interpretations of scripture used to serve the leaders own agenda. I’ve learned so much through suffering and seeing others from that place go through similar things. It’s hard to not want to throw out all the good that God did do in my life despite the harm and hurt (for me over 16 years). Then bouncing to other churches that just don’t know how to speak to what we went through or what to do to help someone like me. I sought biblical counseling, pastoral counseling, study and prayer, and finally a licensed mental health professional and am starting to finally process all the years and unravel the knots. What is most difficult is trust. Trusting the Lord He sees my pain, wants me to be whole again and that I can trust Him to lead me to solid ground, to good pasture and trust church authority again, fellowship again. I’ve learned Jesus never leaves us while we venture through all the muck, He didn’t then and won’t now. I still hope there is a place where I can find community where people truly exemplify the love of Christ, His sacrificial and unconditional love where truth is not compromised and scripture is taught in context and is life-giving and isn’t used as a weapon to injure. A place where the hurting are accepted and not told to just get it together. My Faith in Christ has been tried through the fire so to speak but I still hope despite it all.
Thank you for sharing, Crystal! I pray you find community as well!
Thank you so much, Sarabeth.
I really appreciate this, Sarabeth, and I look forward to seeing where you are headed in more detail. I wholeheartedly agree that our hermeneutic is a key component of both the harm and the healing in spiritual abuse. I’m actually working on a message on that subject for a conference next week, and thought I’d mention it since you quoted Peter’s words in John 6. While we cannot let trauma be our hermeneutic for the Bible, we must be able to see trauma *in* the Bible in order to learn a hermeneutic that is truly healing. I believe the Gospel of John teaches that hermeneutic, because the original audience of John re-read the story of Jesus as a hermeneutic for their own trauma. Everything changes once we see that. At least it did for me.
It has been comforting to me often to think of how Jesus suffered, and therefore He understands my pain. I think that it's important that keep a high view of Christ as the God-Man and Savior and keep in mind that while he did experience trauma, He reacted perfectly to it, and we don't do that because we can't. It is so hopeful to have a Savior who understands us completely, and did what we could not do!
(Fair warning, I was reading your posts on this, and wrestling through on the idea of Jesus having hypervigilance, and I have decided that I do not agree with that assessment of Jesus. I don't think he was ever out of balance in His reactions... I will write more about it perhaps, but mostly I want to provide those struggling with their faith hope by pointing them to God's words, so I might not be able to get into a technical back and forth about that, as much as I have been thinking about that idea!)
Thanks for reading and commenting!
I appreciate the follow up and honest response, Sarabeth! I don’t expect a back-and-forth, but for what it’s worth I do have additional thoughts on how to nuance my suggestion on Jesus’ experience of trauma within orthodox christology :-). Your response is a good and helpful challenge. Thanks for pointing us to the Word!
I really enjoy discussing this, and I am looking forward to reading more of your thoughts. I think nuance is really important in these discussions, and also acknowledging that there is mystery in the doctrine of the Trinity and the incarnation of Christ that makes this very difficult to completely understand. (We won't on this side, that is for sure!)