Church Hurt and Spiritual Abuse: How I Stayed Faithful and Reclaimed My Agency

As a teen, my decision to explore a different Christian denomination was met with unexpected opposition. What unfolded taught me why religious freedom matters and that Jesus Christ heals spiritual wounds. This is my story of church hurt and spiritual abuse, and how I stayed faithful and reclaimed my agency.

I write from lived experience, more than twenty years of working with youth in church settings, and ongoing learning about evidence-based safeguarding that names harm clearly without undermining faith.

A Positive Foundation

Growing up, church was a very big and positive part of my home and school life. With the exception of one painful incident, worshipping weekly with classmates at my K–8 religious school and attending church with my family on Sundays felt meaningful and safe. My teachers were thoughtful. The clergyman who baptized me as a baby met my family and classmates with a huge smile and an even bigger heart. Later, when he visited my seventh-grade classroom to answer questions on theology, what he modeled reflected something I already knew from conversations with my parents: part of having faith was exploring it, and that included asking questions.

Then I became a teenager, and several things shifted at once. I started high school. The clergyman who had shaped much of my early faith passed away, and shortly after, my family changed congregations. What had once felt familiar was suddenly disorienting. There were new, unwritten rules I did not yet understand.

At the same time, the questions I had always discussed with adults became more urgent. I wanted to feel closer to God and better understand Jesus. I wanted to know how faith translated into everyday life. Did it matter if I was mean to my sister? If I cheated on a test? If I snuck behind my parents’ back to go to parties?

But mostly, I wanted to feel what I had felt as a child while singing with my family and a few hundred strangers at church. Or while praying in my bed after a scary movie. I wanted God’s love to feel tangible and real again.

Discovering Options

Around this time, I realized that many of my peers attended different churches than the one affiliated with our high school. To my adolescent mind, this was earth-shattering.

I started attending various Christian denominations with friends. One, in particular, felt like home, even though no one from my school attended it.

At first, that felt more like preference than a difference of opinion. Most of my teachers did not seem concerned. My parents, however, were deeply hurt, though they tried to balance their feelings with something that had always mattered in our home: freedom of thought in matters of faith and belief.

Eventually, they made a proposal. If I continued attending church with our family, I could also attend my new church. If I enrolled in a two-year religious education program at our family’s church, I could participate in a similar one at my new church. That was a lot of time at church for a teenager. I did not love the arrangement, but I felt it was fair because after two years, my parents said I could choose for myself.

When Influence Became Coercion

What I didn’t realize was that other adults at church and school, many of whom I barely knew, also felt a responsibility for me. Some tried to influence me carefully. Others did not.

At first, it was awkward interactions. Then public comments. Then meetings behind closed doors. Throughout my high school years, it escalated. Those meetings became marked by anger, personal attacks, and language no teenager should be subjected to in the name of faith.

For months, a clergy member warned me that if I didn’t reconsider my path, my high school transcripts could “disappear,” and I might not graduate. Then, at a religious retreat, a youth leader locked me out of my dorm all night.

At the time, I assumed each uncomfortable moment would be the last. Years later, when waves of emotion followed imperfect interactions in faith-based relationships, I assumed I was simply too sensitive.

In both cases, I was wrong.

New Resources, New Understanding

What I know now is that not having language or a faith-affirming framework for understanding spiritual abuse allowed it to continue. Unaddressed, it also kept shaping me.

It's difficult to describe what sustained retaliation for your religious convictions feels like.

When I share parts of my experience with those who have only known positive behavior at church or in relationships there, some become uncomfortable. I am often told that the adults involved were “just trying to help,” and that what occurred was not abuse because it was not physical or sexual. (See, What to Say (and Not Say) When Someone Shares Their Church Hurt.)

But abuse is not limited to the body.

One definition from a church handbook for leaders in my faith community states:

“Abuse is the physical, emotional, sexual, or spiritual mistreatment of others. It may not only harm the body, but it can deeply affect the mind and spirit, destroying faith and causing confusion, doubt, mistrust, guilt, and fear.” (Responding to Abuse: Helps for Ecclesiastical Leaders, 1).

That was the aftermath for me.

Repeated experiences involving anger, threats, humiliation, and shame during years when I was forming my view of myself, and of how others in my faith community related to me, had a lasting impact.

The anxiety did not disappear when the behavior stopped. It lingered. Like a low background hum, it shaped how I viewed myself, how I related to others at church, and how I believed God saw me.

I struggled to choose how I wanted to respond in different situations. Overwhelming feelings chose for me. That was what diminished agency felt like. I sensed something deeper was at the root, but I didn’t have words for it.

Why church hurt and spiritual abuse is so hard to name

The years I spent feeling my way through darkness, and the lack of understanding I often encounter, are not without reason. There is still no universally agreed-upon definition of spiritual abuse among churches. This despite the fact that throughout the Gospels we see Jesus at odds with coercive tactics used to influence faith and belief. He ministered to those who were overburdened, threatened, and shamed, just as He has ministered to me. He did not tell His apostles to sanitize those accounts. He allowed them to stand so that, if faced with similar things, we could learn from Him.

Though my experiences later disrupted the peace I felt in the faith I'd chosen for myself in high school, they also brought me closer to Jesus Christ. I began relying on Him more fully, asking why unwanted feelings kept resurfacing and what healing might look like.

He gave me little bursts of courage and hope. Then clarity. Eventually, I came out the other side and reclaimed the joy I'd felt in my new faith from the beginning.

That is why I share my story. Not to shame a faith community or dismantle belief, but to look clearly at behavior, name coercion, and acknowledge that when unchecked, it can escalate into abuse. Understanding these things has strengthened my faith. And my love for my Savior. After seeing coercive tactics used against Him throughout scripture, what I am left with is this: He overcame.

Why Religious Freedom Matters to Me

Religious freedom is not an abstract idea for me. It is about whether a teenager can seek God without intimidation. It is about whether persuasion becomes pressure and whether it leaves room for agency. It is about whether authority reflects Christ and His ways or overrides an individual’s conscience.

I share my experience without naming the mainstream faith community involved because I do not believe in shaming those who shamed me in order to inspire change. From experience, I know that does not work.

I also share my story for those like me who experience triggers and social anxiety at church but remember it was not always that way and they want to know what healing might look like. I share it for those who believe coercion in faith-based relationships is not a problem. For those who use it because they think it works. For those who are confident they would never coerce. And for all of us in between, because I do not think any of us are immune to overstepping.

We can all improve.

More than anything, I hope you leave this post with hope.

Hope that if you once felt joy at church or in your faith-centered family, it can be reclaimed. Hope that our Savior cares deeply about relationships connected to faith and belief, which is why He won't leave us alone to navigate difficulties. Hope that institutions, while imperfect, are increasingly learning to name coercion and prevent abuse.

For those navigating church hurt and spiritual abuse but who still love their faith, I would say this; your hope for healing is real. Healing spiritual wounds with Jesus Christ is possible. He understands every detail.

At the heart of all of this is what is both at stake and restored: agency.

For those who want a clearer framework for understanding the difference between various behaviors in faith-based relationships, I explore Professor Lisa Oakley’s A Spectrum of Behavior in a separate post.