We continued with our discussion surrounding spiritual abuse in Dr. Dale Ryan's class and I wanted to post some of the notes that I took. This section introduced some characteristics of spiritually abusive communities. Characteristics of Spiritually Abusive Communities (From Johnson and VanVonderen, The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse.)
-Power Posturing
Leaders spend a lot of time focusing on their own authority and reminding others of it as well.
-Performance Preoccupation
Individual worth contingent on compliance with authority.
-Unspoken Rules
You don’t find out the rules until you have broken them.
-Lack of Balance
Extreme subjectivism or objectivism.
-Paranoia
Others will not understand what we’re all about, so let’s not let them know—that way they won’t be able to ridicule or persecute us.
-Misplaced Loyalty
Loyalty to leadership justified by uniqueness of leaders. Intimidation, humiliation and/or threats to the disloyal
-Secretive
One reason spiritually abusive people are so secret bc they are so image conscious. They can’t live up to their own performance standards, so they have to hide what is real.
A common effect of spiritual abuse is spiritual anorexia... THe following are some characteristic of spiritual anorexia. Dr. Ryan used metaphors that paralleled anorexia as an eating disorder.
-Characteristics of Spiritual Anorexia
-Resistance to spiritual nurture.
Food is the enemy or the problem.
It can be intellectualized as atheism or agnostic.
People who have been giving all their life and therefore unable to receive.
-Distorted self-concept
Just like someone who is anorexic, this person thinks that he or she is worse that he or she really is.
We are beautiful people.
-Control issues
Who controls what goes into my body?
Who controls what my spiritual life is like?
As I have been processing all of this information from this class I have been coming to realize that many of the authors that were the strongest voices in my life prior to coming to California (Brian McLaren, Donald Miller, Rob Bell, Leonard Sweet) all were very senstive to people that had been spiritually abused. All of these authors seem to be advocates for those that have experienced this type of abuse and want the spiritually abused to encounter the reality of God. Also involved in the encounter of God seems to be the process of unlearning the toxic content of the god that was associated with the spiritual abuse that they recieved. MUCH OF THE MINISTRY THAT WILL BE DONE OVER THE NEXT GENERATIONS WITH BE ENCOURAGING THE CIRCULAR PROCESS OF UNLEARNING god AND LEARNING God.
Mini Putt
2 comments:
Wow, this sounds like transitional study. It seems to rebuke a good deal of the last centuries experience, to the benefit of the "new" religion. Does this teaching allow for the fact that the Holy Spirit has been alive and well in MANY of the active Christians thru every century and that abuse was only one of the actual experiences of Christians in the 2oth Century.
As you may well know I do appreciate McLaren and his ilk. I, on the other hand, was exposed to a large amount of freedom of tho't since the 70's when "a new wind blew" across this earth.
Some in that era became legalists in their own interpretation of what had happened, but many of us were set free to grasp a far larger picture of who Jesus truly was/is and what he taught/teaches.
You express that all of the mentioned authors seem-- to be advocates for those that have experienced this type of abuse and want the spiritually abused to encounter the reality of God.
Let us be careful not to "throw the baby out with the bath water".
Have you not heard the expression, or does it confuse you that I used it here? Let me know.
I believe there is much good to be gleaned from the lives of those Christians who learned, early on, to allow the presense of the Holy Spirit to be guide. Do you agree?
To many Christians were given harsh understanding of the "rules of play" for a "TRUE Believer",and simply left religion entirely.
However there are many who walked away from religion--to come into faith filled relationship with our Lord through their encounters with men like CSLewis, Lyman Coleman,
Hal Edwards, Morton Kelsey, Bruce Larson, John Powell, Henry Nouwen. (some of my mentors)
There have been in every era, children of God who received the freeing message of hope.
It is MOST important today that we in the Kingdom recapture the spirit of brotherhood and bring some of the wounded back into the richness of Grace.
I believe all of today's "new" thinkers have been fired up to do the work of "recapture" and to give anyone unexposed to life in the Kingdom an opportunity to grow in their understanding of our connectedness--with Christ--and one another.
This is a worthy mission when acknowledged by the truth that they are carrying on work that came before them. The only author of the free spirit and loving soul is our Lord who gifts the people of today with a desire to serve.
God Bless. see you soon GM
Nick I clicked to leave a comment of affirmation that even though I was taught the words of a hope filled God full of love and grace and peace, I didn't experience that, I think that I am satill figuring out what that looks like in my life. Then I read your GM comment and I think maybe it was me who missed it, or me who didn't pursue it. I thin that my relationship with God for years has been one of convenience and that I have perpetuated the same god who I was shown all those years ago by the people in power and authority in my youth and history. I love that I have read and soaked up experience and knowledge from the authors from the 70's and now today and I feel like they all have been inspired to write similar things in different ways.
WAKE UP MY PEOPLE, MY CHILDREN WHOM I LOVE AND LOOK AROUND YOU. FIND HEAVEN AND SHARE IT. STOP PLAYING IN THE MUD AND THE MIRE THINKING YOU HAVE FOUND LIFE, I HAVE SO MUCH MORE PLANNED FOR YOU.
by the way I see that your gift of depth/teaching/intelligence is inherited.
Thanks for your posts here.
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