Good Books and Resources that Explore Forgiveness

This list is by no means exhaustive but includes some of the best titles that I've encountered on the subject of forgiveness. Most of the books listed here address matters from a Christian perspective with primary authors on the subject listed first (but not in any particular order). Take note of the book lists that already appear here at UnderMuchGrace.com, listed near the bottom of the page, as well as titles concerning manipulative relationships. Enjoy!

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Finding a Counselor to Deal Specifically with the Adult Problems Resulting from Emotional Developmental Deficits During Childhood

In response to the posts concerning the “childhood roots of victimization” (the consequences faced by adults who grow up with parents who fail to respect the characteristics and needs of children), I've received several emails asking for advice about how to find a good counselor.

Given the very promising research and my own positive experience, and though I'm a big fan of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, I really believe that when dealing with trauma and depression, I believe that Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing offers the best alternative.

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Finding Healing Through the Twelve Steps: Recovery from the Emotional Wounds of Childhood (and from Spiritual Abuse)

Once you've realized that you've got emotional wounds left over from your childhood and where they came from, where do you go? I go to the Cross. In terms of the specific problems that arise from the particular emotional wounds that govern the way my flesh tends to act, I show myself responsible to God and others using the framework of the Twelve Steps – the only viable hope of healing that I have to offer anyone.

My Journey of Acceptance

As part of my training as a nurse, and through classes that focused on the primary health problems of adults, I spent time observing care in the clinical settings of drug and alcohol rehab facilities. At the tender age of 19 and 20, this experience taught me a some vital and very moving lessons about my own nature and myself. One day, I was in South Philadelphia observing a group therapy session with addicted teens, and as I listened to their stories, I had a very dramatic epiphany. At the end of the session, I asked the therapist if I could address the group, and he graciously complied. I explained to those teens at an inpatient detox ward that the only real difference that I could see between us was that rather than turn to drugs or alcohol to deal with my own pain, I turned to other things. I turned, primarily, to performance (through work and school) and to religion.

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Journey Out of Shame: A List of Resources

Original post 19Jun08;  Update Jan2012

Almost four years has elapsed since I first developed this list of helpful books and information for coping with shame -- specifically the type of toxic shame in adulthood that results from deficits in emotional development.  If you found the discussion of the characteristics of a child and how immature parenting affects adults, you will benefit greatly from these resources.  Explore the whole series about the childhood roots of victimization HERE.

I've broken down the titles into Christian resources and secular ones.

CHRISTIAN RESOURCES

Concerning Emotional Developmental Deficits and Recovery

From Shame to Glory  by Kathryn Chamberlin, LCSW-C

Buy the Book on Amazon

Audio and Video Presentations

Kathryn attends the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Maryland, a church that is a member of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church denomination, following the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Heidelberg Catechism.

As you are free to note on her webpage, she holds a nursing degree from University of Virginia, a Master's Degree in Social Work from The Catholic University and certification in Biblical Counseling. She practices Christian counseling with the Bethesda Counseling Group, offering services to those in the Baltimore-DC Metro area.

Kathryn's presentation, “From Shame to Glory” is perhaps the best place to start a journey out of shame and into the liberty that is afforded to all believers in Christ Jesus. She has several other audio resources available, and I would also recommend considering these additional presentations as well:

• Shame versus Worth
• The Approval Addict
• The Performance Trap
• Hurt Trail to Idolatry
• The Door Metaphor

Books for Christians in Recovery  (In descending order of importance)

• Love is a Choice.  Hemfelt, Minirth and Meier's book examines the problem of persistent shame in the Christian's life. Christ saves us from the shame of sin and restores us, but for those of us who have been raised in families that were lacking the support we desperately needed, we tend to get stuck in patterns of shame that can prevent us from fully embracing the fullness of our forgiveness and liberty in Christ. Their ten step program teaches about how we can get caught up in repetitive patterns of shame and how we can be liberated from shame.  ** They also offer a companion workbook (which I have not read).

• Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves.  The book that I believe helped me the most during my own recovery has been David Stoop's book, Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves:  Healing Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families.  The aforementioned book (from the same publisher) presents an overview and an introduction to the topic of the less than ideal emotional development of a child, but Stoop's book takes healing to the next level and explains more specific information about how to heal.   I found myself in its pages in a deeper way, amazed at how accurately it described the patterns that I'd lived.

• Boundaries.  As mentioned in recent posat and featured in this blog post concerning a child's characteristic of vulnerability, Townsend and Cloud's book explores the issues concerning boundaries from a Christian perspective.  In addition to their landmark book, you can also find a host of resources and video clips on important topics at Cloud-Townsend Resources online.  The authors also adapted their message about boundaries and authored subsequent books which focused on particular types of relationships, and they are worth considering as well, though I am partial to the first book because it reviews boundaries quite extensively.

• The Lies We Believe and the companion workbook which adds significantly to the material in the book.  The author, Dr. Chris Thurman, explores the false ideas that we hold about the world -- ideas which only serve to set us up for heartache.  I think of this book as a more structured way of looking at spiritual warfare and bringing every thought captive to the truth, but it is focused on the issues of shame and negative emotion.  Through this book, I learned that what healing professions call "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy" or working through negative emotion by exploring unrealistic expectations and false ideas about life was essentially the same thing that the Bible teaches by renewing the mind and bringing thoughts captive to Christ by using the Bible as a standard.  David Stoop also has a similar book dealing with the topic called You Are What You Think, presenting the same approach to right and healthy thinking -- renewing the mind with healthy thoughts and ideas.

• Lewis Smedes' many books on the topic of forgiveness.  I cannot recommend the writings of Smedes more highly enough on one's journey to better understand forgiveness in a healthy way and from a very Christian perspective.  He has a host of titles, and I've found them all equally helpful, even though all of the aforementioned authors and books listed here touch on the subject.

• This is Your Brain on Joy.  If you've followed this series and found a great deal of benefit through the focus on brain as an organ of the body that deserves special care and consideration, I highly recommend reading Earl Henslin's Christian book which presents not only a plan to help balance mood and restore brain health, but also focuses on spiritual growth.  His balanced, Christian approach makes the topic very understandable and practical, taking into consideration the concerns that many Christians have, promoting good stewardship of both mind and body.

• Quivering Daughters (for women).  Though Hillary McFarland's book focuses on the plight of young women who grew up in the radical end of the homeschooling movement, I believe that any young woman who grew up under shame-based and enmeshed parenting as an Evangelical Christian will benefit tremendously from this book.  I am an example of those who can identify with the patterns of enmeshment, though my parents were neither radical conservatives nor was I homeschooled.  The patterns of enmeshment do convey, and I believe that any woman from a background of religious condemnation and shame can glean a great deal from the book.

• Make Anger Your Ally.  Neil Clark Warren's book (published by Focus on the Family) explains anger from a Christian perspective, focusing on the benefits of anger as a protective mechanism and how to deal with the triggers of anger in a healthy way that we might all observe the Apostle Paul's admonishment to "be angry and sin not."  There is also a title on anger in the Minirth Meier/New Life series of books, though I have not read it.  Some might find this helpful, as understanding anger presents a significant challenge for many who were raised in evangelicalism that perceived wrongly that anger itself is sinful.

• The Enmeshed for Jesus blog!  Read many excerpts from these titles on this site's sister blog, which deals directly with the topic of shame-based parenting and enmeshment as it relates to the patriarchy movement.

• Other Christian titles on the subject of emotional developmental deficits. Hurt People Hurt People (Wilson); Families Where Grace is in Place (VanVonderan);  Hiding from Love (Townsend);  The Healing Path and and companion workbook (Allender).

Online Recovery Resources (some of which are free!):

• Check the National National Association for Christian Recovery website site for searchable archives, their blog, and list of constantly growing resources
• NACR online video workshops
• Free library of articles from back issues of STEPS magazine
• NACR audio workshops (for a nominal fee)
• Meier Clinics' list of online articles discussing a variety of topics
• The (aforementioned) Cloud Townsend Resources site with topical videos

Devotionals:

• Rooted in God's Love (NACR, available as a book and as a free daily email)
• Meditations for Christians who Try To Be Perfect  (hosted on NACR by Joan Webb (available as a book)
• Northstar Devotional Blog (online resource)
• 12 Step Life Recovery Devotional (Arteburn and Stoop)

Online Forums:

• Christian Recovery International Forums  (Both NACR forum and a spiritual abuse forum)

SECULAR 
RESOURCES

 Depending on how the first two resources minister to you, and depending on the nature of the areas that God begins to heal in your life, I would recommend choosing between a Christian and a secular resource.

Overview,  Introduction, and Healing

If you find yourself very compelled by this series and are at ease exploring secular writings, I would consider reading some secular material concerning shame and recovery. Though any book on the subject of shame or codependency as it was once popularly called would be appropriate, I find that these titles have been very good. These have all been time honored and standards in the area of overcoming shame.

• Codependent No More, Beyond Codependency and Codependent's Guide to the Twelve Steps (Melody Beattie)
  
• Facing Codependence and the companion workbook Breaking Free (Pia Melody)
• Compelled to Control (Miller)

Enmeshment
 

If while reading this series of posts, you identified with the subject and experience of enmeshment and the information on the Overcoming Botkin Syndrome blog, there are titles that specifically deal with that subject.

• The Emotional Incest Syndrome:  What To Do When A Parent's Love Rules Your Life (Patricia Love)
• Facing Love Addiction:  Giving Yourself the Power to Change the Way You Love (Melody)
• Toxic Parents (Forward)
• Silently Seduced. . .Understanding Covert Incest (Adams)
• When He's Married to Mom:  How to Help Mother-Enmeshed Men... (Adams)

Etc.

There are also a host of titles that concern intimacy and specifically delve into issues of parenting.  I cannot begin to list them all, and my personal journey is unique, but I found these secular titles particularly helpful to me in my own journey of recovery.  **Highly recommended**

• **Trapped in the Mirror:  Adult Children of Narcissists and their Struggle for Self (Golomb)
• **Who's Pulling Your Strings (Braiker)
• The Drama of the Gifted Child:  The Search for the True Self (Miller)
• The Gifted Adult (Jacobsen)

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Savvy Sisters and Stylish Blogs

My Savvy Sisters is an online magazine dedicated to providing resources, inspiration and guidance to women that will empower them to survive and thrive in life. We encourage self sufficiency, self love and resourcefulness. The publisher recently contacted me and asked for an interview which was a great joy for me to do.

The effort flourished into three articles, the first of which features the publisher's own account of her spiritual abuse story. Notably, she speaks about the experience that so many others who escape spiritual abuse report: the subtle and not so subtle curses of woe that will befall someone if they a group. Along with the griefs associated with leaving, spiritual leaders often predict that some evil will befall those who leave their group, partly in efforts to keep the member from leaving. For many group leaders, however, I believe that they tell these tales so often that they believe their own bad press. Te-Erika relates her own experience of this feature of spiritual abuse and how she triumphed over it, and she continues to use the wisdom she learned to help others in a new adventure that awaits her.

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A Review of Andersen's "Woman this is War" Part III of III (Concerning Abuse and Insidious Totalitarianism)

Why I Never Bought the Whole of Complementarianism: 

A Review of "Woman This is War:  

Gender, Slavery, and the Evangelical Caste System"

The Kingdom of God Suffers Violence,

and the Violent have Taken Some by Force.

  

Jocelyn Andersen Takes Back Major Ground in her New Book

Read Part I of the Review HERE. 

Read Part II of the Review HERE.

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God Discussion on the topic of Spiritual Abuse on BlogTalk Radio

From GodDiscussion.com about the 05Aug10 Show:

Did a negative religious experience leave you feeling shattered, vulnerable, or ashamed?  You're not alone.

Spiritual abuse pervades many peoples' lives, whether through authoritarian, patriarchal religions, dominionist Christian sects, or even in New Age movements.  We'd love to  hear your story … and hopefully, give you some support and empathy during this week's God Discussion show.

Please join in at the God Discussion Show tonight, Thursday, August 5, 2010, at 7:00 PM Pacific time. (10:00 PM for East Coast night owls!)  The show lasts for 2 hours but has been reserved 3 hours just in extra time will be needed.  If sleep overtakes you, pop in later to listen to the archive of the on demand episodes in the archive, and also revisit the interview, "A Look Inside the Quiverfull Movement" (original air date 08Jul10), with No Longer Quivering's Vyckie Garrison !

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A Review of Andersen's "Woman this is War" Part II of III (Concerning Doctrine and Gender Bias)

Why I Never Bought the Whole of Complementarianism: 

A Review of "Woman This is War:  

Gender, Slavery, and the Evangelical Caste System"

The Kingdom of God Suffers Violence,

and the Violent have Taken Some by Force.

  

Jocelyn Andersen Takes Back Major Ground in her New Book

Read Part I of the Review HERE.

The book also explores the doctrinal problems within Complementarianism in a thought-provoking way, putting far more eloquent words to my greatest criticism of complementarian explanations of Scripture.  I've long wondered whether these scholars ever really understood Jewish culture or Greek culture and how the original language was used in context, particularly concerning the doctrines regarding gender!  I studied Greek with a pastor who converted from Judaism, teaching Greek from the perspective of how the Jews used the Greek language which greatly enriched my understanding of Scripture.  Andersen describes compementarianism's narrow perspective as Gender-Biased-English-Translation-Theology.   This chapter establishes a strong basis for other doctrinal arguments she makes while addressing complementarian teaching.  I'm inclined to state that this is perhaps the most valuable thesis stated in the book, but that does not do justice to the rest of the content of the book.

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Comments Welcome! Discussing "Not of My Making"

Today we are doing something a bit different here on this blog. Please post your comments in the discussion of “Not of My Making: Bullying, Scapegoating and Misconduct in Churches.”

In a previous post, I reviewed the book, and I also summarized the different subjects discussed in the book for those of you who have not read this new book. You can read more about her background at Pluck Press.

I would like to point out for the reader that Dr. Jones now attends an Episcopal Church, but unlike my own background and many of the readers here, she is not from an evangelical Christian background. That proved very insightful for me, for the dynamics of human interaction in groups that are spiritually abusive all operate in the same ways, though there are distinct differences in manner and degree. Approaching things from a Catholic experience as a child, the book outlines involvement in a couple of Unitarian Universalist churches where I find it amusing that the author was censured for being too traditional and Christian. An initial experience in the Evangelical Lutheran Church did not prove to be much safer for her.

The pastor of the ELCA affiliated church that the author attended shared inappropriate and private information with members of the church board and congregation. The Jones family also adopted a foster child, an older young man whom Lutheran Social Services brought from the Sudan, and this situation intensified their problems with the church. The book also describes the legal action that Dr. Jones pursued in an effort to hold the pastor and church accountable for what had happened to her in one too many settings where she was awarded a favorable verdict.

For those who come out of a spiritual abuse situation, I recommend reading several personal accounts, including "Combating Cult Mind Control" by Steve Hassan. Though Hassan's book traces his experience through the "Moonines," it is amazing to read it because his experience does not differ much from that of people in abusive evangelical churches. The trappings of the politics cross all denominational and even religious boundaries.

Join in the discussion and don’t worry about being off topic if we’ve moved on to a new one in what I hope will be an informative discussion about spiritual abuse!

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A Cyber Reminder About Monday's Cyber Guest on a Cyber Book Tour Stop

On Monday, May 4th,

Margaret Jones, PhD

will stop by for a cyber chat to discuss her book

"Not Of My Making:

Bullying, Scapegoating and Misconduct in Churches."

Though I have written a general review of the book (scroll down!), there are many aspects of the book that caught my attention. I identified with several of the topics and with the experience of the author, her autobiography through spiritual abuse. Along the way, the reader introduces many related themes that are not limited to:

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Under Much Grace Plans and Housekeeping

My plans for upcoming posts include finishing a walk through the topics in James Sire's 1980 book "Scripture Twisting" for a review of standard ways that cults and Christians misinterpret the Bible, sometimes intentionally and sometimes just through ignorance.

In a week or two, Dr. Margaret Jones will be stopping by here on her book tour for her work, "Not of My Making." (I may even consider opening up commentary, as she has much experience with the Matthew 18 process.)

I plan to review Doug and Wendy Duncan's recent radio interview discussing spiritual abuse (see below). In addition, I would like to take some sections out of Wendy's book at some point and feature them here, too. And when I finish these tasks, I would like to go through my impressions about Kathryn Joyce's "Quiverfull" book which I have found to be slow going thus far. It is well-written, but I get stuck on some errors in the material and the secular perspective that does not do justice to a balanced Christian perspective, presenting only an unbalanced view of some important Christian concepts.

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Finding An Exit Counselor and Other Help to Help Yourself

How do you find a good exit counselor these days?


Shortly after the Jonestown tragedy in 1978, the Cult Awareness Network (CAN) would refer an interested party to exit counselors or those knowlegable about thought reform for help with the psychological problems that one experiences after leaving a cult or for counsel for concerned loved ones who had family involved in cults. The Church of Scientology found this organization to be quite a threat, and through a complicated series of events, the Scientologists managed to buy CAN in a hostile takeover in 1996. Naturally, if anyone called requesting information or help with a related concern after the takeover, they were then referred to the Church of Scientology for “help.” If you could find someone with an old directory for CAN soon after the hostile takeover, you could potentially find local help for someone seeking counsel. Now a dozen years later, if you can find anyone who still has a copy of the old CAN directory, you may find that the contacts are no longer current. My last several attempts to find help for a variety of people via this route produced disappointing results.

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Book Recommendations: Where To Begin Reading the Exit Literature

Note the list of recommended books below. Though I've listed secular books apart from the Christian books, I believe that it is very beneficial to read both the Christian and the secular literature on the subject. The reading helps to awaken your sleeping discernment, so reading the secular literature greatly helps this process. Cialdini's book, the secular choice in the first row is very important, but you can read a short synopsis HERE. I also believe that reading Steven Hassan's "Combating Cult Mind Control" to be very important, as it includes his personal account of his own experience. It's amazing to me to note how very similar his experience is to the experience that one has in thought reform programs in evangelical Christian and Biblical churches that embrace sola scriptura. It is worth taking the time to read. The Lalich books listed on row #2 presents practical information that helps you with the practical, real-life problems that you experience as a result of group membership. It helps you "unmask the guru" or your group leader, deal with the everyday anxieties of living and it includes important information for those who grew up in groups and know nothing else about life outside the group.

(Note that this is just a suggestion of where to start...)

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From the "Return of the Daughters" to the Liberation of the Daughters of the King: Resources to Combat Botkin Syndrome

The teachings of the Botkin family, including Geoff Botkin and his daughters Elizabeth and Anna Sophia promote many unhealthy patterns of enmeshment and family dysfunction according to the professional addictions and recovery literature. Many who have reviewed their teachings believe that their ideology hinges critically on their misinterpretation and eisegesis concerning Chapter 30 of the Old Testament Book of Numbers. For additional information refuting many of these teachings from the Old Testament using Orthodox Judaism as a contrast, please review this collection of posts from Maurice Lamm's “The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage,” and check with the True Womanhood website for discussions on these matters. 

True Womanhood soon plans to post a new topical index of the discussions on many long threads including the “Visionary Daughters” (the Botkin Sisters) and the 7^th thread discussing the patriocentric oddity known as the “Prairie Muffin Manifesto” for an easier reference to the discussions of their teachings.

As I've discussed before on Under Much Grace Blog, these teachings concerning fathers and daughters not only insert a human intercessor into a woman's relationship with God, but they also correspond to what is hopefully non-sexual but gender related “incest” or the inappropriate using of daughters by the father to meet their own emotional, psychological, spiritual or physical needs. There is however, a widespread usury of children and family inherent in the teachings of the patriocentrics in general, so I have listed resources that address the general problem of family dysfunction here as well.

I also stress the importance of the list of resources in the preceding blog post entitled “The Journey Out of Shame.” Kathryn Chamberlin's “From Shame to Glory” and/or the Christian, Minirth-Meier publication, “Love is a Choice” remain essential resources for anyone seeking to heal from or understand the roots of these inappropriate relationships within families.

Covert or Emotional Incest:

(Non-sexual but gender related inappropriate usury of family members to meet unmet needs or to medicate shame)

• Silently Seduced, When Parents Make Children Partners (Adams)
• Emotional Incest Syndrome (Love)
• Facing Love Addiction (Mellody)
• Trapped in the Mirror (Golomb) [I found this book to be very helpful to me, BTW.]
• (Also note links to online information in this blog post)

Sexual Abuse

• The Wounded Heart (Allender) [Note: This is a Christian book!]

Family Dysfunction and Healthy Parenting

• Children of Trauma, Rediscovering Your Discarded Self (Middelton – Moz)
• Adult Children, The Secrets of Dysfunctional Families (Friel & Friel)
• Compelled to Control (Miller) [I also listed this as a shame resource in the previous blog post.]
• Toxic Parents (Forward)
• Emotional Blackmail (Forward)

Always Daddy's Girl (Wright)

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Great Information About Spiritual Abuse and Mind Control from the Old Geraldo Show

I found a newly available series of videos taken from the old Geraldo Rivera show from the '80s. All the segments are very valuable, but I wanted to draw attention to some specific information first. The first video posted here opens up with a great description of what happens when you experience a high degree of cognitive dissonance.

There are many other elements of spiritual abuse (thought reform and mind control) that the guests on the show the discuss. In the first clip, some of the guests that emerged from fundamentalist Christian groups talk about their experiences in abusive fundamentalist Evangelical groups. It's very interesting to see the Teen Challenge alumni become offended. Since this original broadcast, Teen Challenge has changed leadership and experienced quite a few cultic problems which can be researched on line at sites like FactNet.

Rick Ross made it clear that not all Evangelical groups practice thought reform or mind control, and even Geraldo was kind enough to point this out. The Teen Challenge alumni become quite offended and question the salvation of the young woman who was raped in a cultic Christian church. They accused her of not reading her Bible or of studying the Word of God. This is a common misunderstanding about cults -- knowledge of the Bible provides NO insulation against cultic manipulation. The Teen Challenge folks also challenge the young woman by pointing out her sin of turning to drugs, even though she was born again. (It is the shame mongering that takes place in so many pious churches that I believe turns Christian kids into the world. It was certainly true of my peers and myself in my youth. Discovering that the pastor of the church that ran the Christian School I attended did not help.) Is this not similar to the experiences of so many in the Patriarchy movement?

"It must be your fault." When I eventually post all the videos of the entire program, you will note that she was blamed for her own rape by church staff because they said that her heart was unpure. She brought the rape on herself because she admitted to the desire to have a boyfriend. Wanting a boyfriend at age 16 makes a person at fault if they get raped? In the second segment shown here, Rick Ross (of the Rick Ross Institute listed in the resources on the sidebar of this page) and a counselor from "Fundamentalists Anonymous" compare and contrast "Exit Counseling" versus the antiquated practice of "Deprogramming", even though the Geraldo show identifies exit counseling as deprogramming on their graphics and the guests refer to it in this terminology.

The gentleman from Fundamentalists Anonymous describes contemporary exit counseling, though Rick Ross essentially agrees with him. In the next post on this topic, I will include the segment that contains the testimony of the young woman featured here who was raped by a staff member at her church. (She was at fault primarily "because she was the woman.") I will then post all the segments together in one post for future and easy reference.


 

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Video on Spiritual Abuse and Mind Control

All seven segments of the Geraldo Rivera Show discussing Mind Control and Spiritual Abuse in Evangelical Fundamentalist churches.

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"Why Was It My Fault? Because I Was The Lady."

Four minutes into this video, a young woman describes her experience in an Evangelical church where she, at age 16, was raped by a member of the church staff. She refused to go to law enforcement at her mothers encouragement and went to her pastor instead. Hoping to find someone who would be a caring shepherd, an advocate and a protector, her pastor told her to "keep her mouth shut."

She describes how she was found to be at fault for her own rape because she desired to have a boyfriend. (It sounds so reminiscent of the things that I heard Bill Gothard say and the types of immature arguements offered by those who followed Gothard's teachings.)




As I mentioned in a recent post, in my former cultic church, whenever there was an issue in a marriage, leadership percieved issues of sin in the lives of husbands to be a response to the wife's refusal of his authority or her lack of care for his needs. If there was a marital problem and a wife approached the elders to confront her husband, it was incumbent upon that woman to prove that she had not created a situation that caused her husband to sin.

I also recall Jen Epstein's account of her experience at Boerne Christian Assembly where it was always assumed that a wife was "the squeaky wheel" in the relationship. I know this to be sadly true based on my observations in my own, Gothard and Shepherding/Discipleship influenced church.

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Audio & Video Resources Discussing Spiritual Abuse

AUDIO

Thatmom's Podcast Series on Spiritual Abuse:
(Series of interviews with Cindy Kunsman)

All podcasts can be downloaded by linking HERE.

Link to the separate online blog discussions following each podcast:

• Part I: What is spiritual abuse, what does the Bible say about it and how does it affect homeschooling families?

• Part II: Henke’s spiritual abuse model, an introduction to Robert Lifton and thought reform techniques.
• Part III: More on thought reform techniques, sales techniques in the church and an introduction to Cialdini’s “Weapons of Influence”
• Part IV: Conclusion of Cialdini discussion, and considerations for resisting influence and manipulation.
• Part V: Speaking out against patriocentricity, problematic teachings about the Trinity in complementarianism and the reaction to the online Patriarchy Workshop Video.
• Part VI: Examples of thought reform and Henke’s spiritual abuse at play in the examples of patriarchy and hard complementarian organizations.
• Part VII: Extending love, nurture and spiritual care to self and others after spiritual abuse.

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Not of My Making: Bullying, Scapgoating and Misconduct in Churches -- A Review

-->

The Universality of the Experience

of Spiritual Abuse

I highly recommend Margaret Jones’ “Not of My Making: Bullying, Scapegoating and Misconduct in Churches” for those who are working through a spiritual abuse experience as they sort out and sort through the good and the bad that the process brings. The author carries us into her world and with her through the personal aspects of spiritual abuse, taking us into those aspects of her life that were touched by church bullying and all those aspects of her life that likely paved the way for it. I appreciate the readability of the book but also how she introduces her professional perspective in a way that will not intimidate the layperson because the presentation is so honest. I enjoyed that little glimpse into how a mental health professional approached the experience, communicating to the reader that we are all souls that are vulnerable to manipulation and disappointment whenever we pursue idealistic ends. Neither professional expertise in human behavior nor the principles of the Bible itself can protect us from the cruel aspects of human politics, something we always risk when we cooperate in a community.

As is true of all of these types of personal accounts with psychological manipulation in religious systems, I found myself meditating on how alike we all are as human beings. We basically all desire love, acceptance and transcendence, yet we all experience the fear of taking risks. Doing right often requires a risk, and regretfully, even religious leaders can shrink back from the challenge. I drew much encouragement from the honest moments of choice narrated in the book that are so much a part of walking through the spiritual abuse experience, providing a glimpse into the struggle of deciding to follow what is healthy rather than the path of least resistance. Too many books gloss over the moments of struggle of choice between doing what is healthy and good as opposed to the familiar paths that provide us the opportunity to escape our pain. Some of us drink, some of quit trying, and some of us go fishing to escape the pain of facing our fears and our risk of further rejection for making the mature choices needful for our healing. The author takes us right into many of those painful and critical moments along with her, part of what makes this book so helpful.

We look to religion – that something idealistic and greater than ourselves – in order to make us better people as individuals and to find a sense of community wherein we can contribute with other like-minded people who want to do what we can to make the world a little better. We expect a higher standard and ethical code within those idealistic systems, as well we should. It continues to amaze me how common the experience of disappointment, scapegoating and what is often akin to schoolyard bullying proves to be for the survivor when religious people and systems fall short of that reasonable and high expectation. (Some people never mature beyond the schoolyard playground, a realization that the idealistic and innocent person often fails to recognize until they’ve walked through this disappointment as an adult.) I am amazed that Dr. Jones echoes the common words and expressions that I have heard from others and voiced myself – statements and feelings that must be unique to the experience of “suffering wounds in the house of one’s friends.” Though it may be a right of passage into wisdom, perseverance, and religious maturity as a person of faith, I’m continually amazed at the commonality of the process of the realization of that disappointment. And it is inspiring to see the “Maggie” that the reader comes to know realize some sweet victory and validation, too, giving hope to those who also identify with her struggle and pain.

Sometimes I do not know if this is a result of my own similar experiences rising to the surface, as I felt what I might describe as a sigh of exasperation that prompted me to set the book aside for more than a week before I was able to finish it. I share the experience of childhood sexual abuse and some past struggles of self-destructive behavior that are similar to those described by the author, though these very vivid glimpses into experiences that are carved into her life are not the aspects of the book that I found to be heavy. I felt avoidance and a resistance of the “next shoe dropping” that I anticipated as I read, but this is also a very real part of the PTSD and pessimism that accompany spiritual abuse. The details of the book become a little messy in my mind, calling for my short break from the book, but I also know well how such details become a very real part of the messy experience of traversing this church abuse territory. My own life lacked momentum in the midst of the pressures of my own similar experience, and I would have loved to have laid them down for a respite, too, just as I laid down the book. Perhaps the detail presents an aspect of “pushing and powering through” spiritual abuse to get equity out of the pain might be otherwise unavoidable when writing such an account? In any case, I had to put the book down for a breather and break, but I found that finishing the book was well worth the effort of picking it back up. Ultimately, this adds to the honesty of the account.

I strongly recommend this book for the spiritually abused but also for clergy who might need a broader perspective of this topic from a new vantage. As the author takes us into the process of finding meaning in her disappointment, she looks to the literature on bullying. She points out that when a bully pressures a victim, too often the bystanders say and do nothing to support the victim, perpetuating the bad situation. Studies show that one vocal bystander can often put an end to the situation or can provide enough validation for the victim so that the whole situation can result in a far more favorable outcome for all involved. I found myself thinking of Dr. Zimbardo’s “everyday hero” concept as describes in his book, The Lucifer Effect and Everyday Hero Project effort. Systems can loose balance and promote silence, and we must look to develop our good characters and willingness to be those everyday heroes who will stand up against injustice. “Not of My Making” is such a book that encourages and reminds us that we are all people with the same basic aspirations, pains and fears in life. That should encourage us to all take the deep breath, braving the often unknown pressures from the crowd and the status quo, in order to make a difference for what is good and right.

There are no innocent bystanders in spiritual abuse, and the whole of the group suffers whenever bullying, scapegoating and misconduct takes place in our churches. We just don’t always see the wounds.

My only other note: Be forewarned of some objectionable language noted on page 200, 254, and 317 that occurs as part of the narrative.

Stop by here at the Under Much Grace Blog on May 4th

for a cyber chat with

Dr. Margaret Jones,

the author of "Not Of My Making"

to learn more about the book and about her experience with the

"Matthew 18 Process."

(I will open up moderated comments for the day! Please come by and participate.)

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