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. This is my story of church hurt and spiritual abuse, and my Savior's ability to heal.

I write from lived experience, more than twenty years of serving as a church youth leader, and ongoing learning about evidence-based safeguarding that names harm without undermining faith.

A Positive Foundation

Growing up, church was a huge part of my home and school life. With the exception of one incident, worshipping weekly with my classmates at my K–8 school and attending church with my family on Sundays was a positive experience. My teachers were thoughtful. The clergyman who baptized me was kind. Later, when he visited my seventh-grade classroom to answer questions on theology, he modeled what 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 things changed. I started high school. The clergyman who had influenced my early faith passed away, and my family switched congregations. Suddenly everything that was familiar felt disorienting. And there were new, unwritten rules I didn't 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?

Aside from that, 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 scary movies. I wanted God’s love to feel tangible and real again.

Discovering Options

I soon realized that many of my classmates 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 personal preference rather than a big difference of opinion. Most of my teachers didn't 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, my parents made a proposal. If I continued attending church with our family, I could 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 didn't love the arrangement, but I knew it was fair because after two years, my parents said I could choose for myself.

When Influence Became Church Hurt and Spiritual Abuse

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 comments in front of my peers. Then meetings behind closed doors. Throughout my last three years of high school, it escalated. The comments and meetings became marked by anger, personal attacks, and language no teenager should be subjected to in the name of faith.

For the majority of my senior year, 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 a youth leader locked me out of my dorm all night at a religious retreat.

At the time, I assumed each uncomfortable moment would be the last. Years later, when waves of emotion followed imperfect interactions at church, I assumed I was 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 really 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, some become uncomfortable. I'm often told that the adults involved were “just trying to help,” or that what occurred was not abuse because it wasn't physical or sexual. See, How to Respond to Church Hurt: What to Say (and Not Say).

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 in religious settings at a time when I was forming my view of myself, and of how others in my faith community related to me, had a lasting impact.

When the abuse stopped, the anxiety did not. Like a low background hum it stayed and continued shaping how I viewed myself, how I related to peers at church, and how I believed God saw me.

As I struggled to choose responses to imperfect interactions at church, but overwhelming feelings chose for me, I sensed something deeper was at the root. But I didn’t have words for it. I felt trapped by emotional triggers at church, not knowing what they were.

What My Savior Taught Me About Spiritual Abuse

The years I spent feeling my way through darkness—and the lack of understanding I often encounter—are not without reason. Currently, there is no universally agreed-upon definition of spiritual abuse among churches. This is despite the fact that throughout the Gospels, we see Jesus at odds with abusive spiritual systems.

In every instance, He ministers to those who were overburdened, threatened, or shamed by coercion, similar to how I felt Him minister to me as a young teen.

He didn't instruct His apostles to sanitize those accounts because they involved church leaders. Later, when He appeared to them after His resurrection, He didn't have them remove from the record that it was one of His own—whom He had called by inspiration—that had betrayed Him. As the source of all truth and light, He allowed the New Testament record to stand with full transparency, rather than protect His image by hiding the failure of a leader.

I believe this was intentional, so that when we would encounter similar realities, we would not be left without a pattern or example set by Christ. Throughout the scriptures, we see imperfect interactions in religious settings, and we see Him respond.

Though my experiences later disrupted the peace I felt in the faith I chose for myself in high school, they also brought me closer to Jesus Christ. Relying on Him, asking why unwanted feelings kept resurfacing and what healing might look like brought little bursts of courage and hope. Then clarity. Eventually, I came out the other side. My Savior has given me back the joy I felt in my faith from the beginning, He has deepened my understanding of Him and the power of His Atonement. After seeing coercive tactics used against Him in the New Testament, I am left with this:

He overcame.

Why Religious Freedom Matters to Me

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

In sharing my experience, I've chosen not to name the mainstream faith community involved because I don't believe in shaming those who shamed in order to inspire change. From experience, I know that doesn't work. My goal is not to dismantle belief; it's to look clearly at behavior, name coercion, and acknowledge how it can escalate to abuse if it goes unchecked.

The reason I share my story is for those like me who experience triggers and social anxiety at church but remember it was not always that way. I share it for those who believe coercion in faith-based relationships isn't 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 who overstep at times, because none of us are immune to behavior that is unhelpful.

More than anything, I share my story to inspire hope that if you once felt joy at church or in a faith-centered family, it can be reclaimed. I also share it to inspire hope that institutions, while imperfect, are increasingly learning to name coercion and prevent abuse. My experiences have taught me this: we are not alone in navigating these problems. Our Savior cares deeply about relationships connected to faith and belief and Him.

For those navigating spiritual abuse or church hurt who love their faith, I would say this: At the heart of this is what is both at stake and what can be restored: agency.

Our Savior knows every detail of our experiences. Healing spiritual wounds is possible with Him.

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