Church Hurt and Spiritual Abuse: A Faith-Affirming Response

After experiencing severe coercion in religious settings as a teen, I wrestled for years with the term spiritual abuse. Here is a look at my personal journey with that term, what I've learned, and why a faith-affirming framework matters.

Art by Sabrina Paredes

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.

For years, I wrestled with a question that felt impossible: If spiritual abuse is real, is there still room for me to hold onto my faith?

I began researching the term spiritual abuse in 2018 after trying to understand my experiences with what many refer to as church hurt.

What I found was both validating and unsettling. Much of what I encountered online described real problems within faith communities, but it left me feeling worse rather than informed. Definitions of spiritual abuse varied widely. There was no shared language. Much of the conversation felt shaped by all-or-nothing thinking.

The broader discussion itself felt very “in process.” The solutions being offered seemed incomplete, often boiling down to a single refrain: leave your toxic, high-demand church.

But that framing didn’t fit my experience.

I had known goodness in the same places where harm had occurred.

If you’d like to understand more about my personal journey of staying faithful and reclaiming my agency, I share that story in a separate post.

Why Naming Spiritual Abuse Without Abandoning Faith Matters

I could understand the charged emotions. Decades of trying to cope with my own made me empathetic. But by then, I needed something different. I needed more of the peace and clarity I'd felt from my Savior as He helped me understand the impact of my experiences.

I needed ministering.

I craved a space where I could understand my experiences without it completely defining communities that had shaped my relationship with God. I continued my search for several years, but found nothing.

One of My First Answers—Jesus Christ

Reading about Jesus' encounters with imperfect behavior in faith-based settings, I felt Him ministering to my needs.

Not only did He eat with “sinners,” He didn’t see anyone as beyond hope. Those who doubted Him, denied Him, broke His laws, or slept while keeping watch were not labeled irredeemable. Instead, everyone kept their place at the table. Seeing Him meet people as they were, then invite them to new ways of thinking and being, I realized that even in this complex and difficult topic of behavior in faith-based relationships, there was space for growth. With Him, individuals and institutions evolved, because in this life, there are no final judgements.

That pattern mattered to me.

It suggested that naming harm, being faithful, and seeing the value in the faith communities that had been so central to my life, didn't have to be at odds. They could co-exist the same way they had in the life of Christ.

Uncomfortable with the term spiritual abuse?

For those of us who are deeply religious, terms like spiritual abuse can create an impossible conflict. How can something good and sacred be paired with a dark and painful word like abuse?

Because most behavior in faith communities is healthy, many have had only positive experiences with religion. That is a good thing. But it can also make it harder for those of us with painful experiences to be understood.

Because I've seen the term spiritual abuse used in ways that feel weaponized and broadly aimed at entire faith communities (rather than specific patterns of harm) I'm cautious about using that term to describe my experience.

Still, naming it has been essential to my happiness and growth. When you don’t know what you’re suffering from, it can be almost impossible to heal.

Though the shame and discomfort surrounding this topic can make it hard to talk about, after wrestling with that, I've learned something important:

Bringing spiritual wounds to Christ isn’t an “even this” situation, where He can "even" help us with this. It is especially this.

This is why a faith-affirming framework matters so deeply to me.

It has brought me more fully to my Savior Jesus Christ.

Our Savior understands spiritual abuse

I’ve heard it said that Jesus Christ could have learned all that we'd suffer in mortality by revelation, but He chose to learn by experience.

Looking at His life, this rings true.

Throughout scripture, we see Him falsely accused, threatened, shamed, and subjected to attempts at coercion meant to force Him to deny who He was.

When that didn’t work, those efforts escalated.

We don’t often describe Christ’s suffering using the language of abuse (because His sacrifice was the will of His Father, and He willingly laid down His life) but that does not erase the reality that He experienced it.

He understands coercion.

This is why He is uniquely able to minister to wounds that are spiritual. This includes everything within the spectrum of church hurt and spiritual abuse, whether it be within families, congregations, or in other relationships tied to faith and belief.

Finding language for church hurt and spiritual abuse that holds both faith and truth

With that understanding, I continued searching for resources that named church hurt and spiritual abuse clearly without requiring me to abandon my faith.

That search eventually led me to the work of ThirtyOneEight (formerly CCPAS), a Christian nonprofit that has spent decades developing evidence-based safeguarding resources across the UK.

What helped me most was their position paper on spiritual abuse. There I found clarity, not polarization. Rather than broad accusations or dismantling faith, the focus was patterns of behavior with an emphasis on prevention and nurturing healthy culture.

Wanting to understand their framework more fully, I enrolled in several of their training courses. The experience was consistent throughout: the information was evidence-based, the resources were thoughtful and non-weaponized, and I walked away with more of the clarity and peace I'd felt from my Savior. I also felt better equipped to contribute to a healthier culture within my own faith community.

What struck me most was not just the definitions themselves, but the tone. The focus was not dismantling faith, but strengthening it. For the first time, I felt I didn’t have to choose between clarity and loyalty, or between naming harm and staying rooted in Christ.

Insights from ThirtyOneEight’s Position Paper and Training on Spiritual Abuse

Safeguarding strengthens faith communities.

A faith-affirming approach to spiritual abuse strengthens faith communities from within. Harmful behavior is named so it can be prevented and addressed.

Not everything is spiritual abuse.

Research and safeguarding data consistently indicate that most behavior in faith communities is healthy. Spiritual abuse is not the norm.

Church hurt may include behavior that is unhelpful, unhealthy, or both. In safeguarding work, spiritual abuse is described more narrowly as a pattern of coercive control within a religious context that overrides a person’s agency and dignity, causing psychological harm. In my own faith community’s youth protection training, coercion is similarly defined as compelling others through religious authority or language that implies spiritual obligation, intimidation, or threat rather than in Christlike ways (with long-suffering, gentleness, and love unfeigned).

Not every uncomfortable experience at church is spiritual abuse. But when psychological harm is ongoing and intertwined with faith, it deserves to be named.

That clarity brought relief. It allowed me to take my experiences seriously without assuming the worst about every imperfect interaction.

The focus on behavior patterns, not doctrine.

It is not spiritually abusive for faith communities to hold doctrines rooted in scripture. The concern arises when religious language, authority, or relational leverage are used in ways that override an individual’s agency or dignity.

That distinction helped me separate eternal principles from human delivery. It gave me language for identifying harmful behavior without feeling disloyal to my faith.

Understanding unhealthy behavior outside of leadership roles.

While many stories involve leaders harming those they lead, coercive behavior can occur within families, marriages, friendships, college roommates, missionary companionships, or among church members. Church leaders may also experience manipulation, gossip, pressure, or control from individuals or groups within a congregation.

Influence does not come from titles alone. It can come from money, legacy, social standing, or relational leverage. Harmful behavior can occur whenever any form of power within a religious context is used coercively.

Seeing this broadened my understanding. It helped me recognize that safeguarding is not about targeting leaders; it is about protecting agency wherever power exists.

Giving room for both authority and agency

Exercising divine or entrusted authority is not, in itself, coercion. Teaching, guiding, and correcting are part of religious life.

Healthy authority teaches truth with humility, extends loving invitations, and preserves dignity and agency. Christ modeled this pattern. He invited rather than pressured, corrected without shaming, and allowed space for growth.

The issue, then, is not faith, belief, or divinely appointed roles. It is the misuse of authority within those roles.

Good and harm can be experienced in the same place.

Many carry both faith-building experiences and painful wounds from the same community. Naming harm does not erase what was meaningful.

Intent matters, but so does impact.

Harm often grows out of unmanaged emotions or unhealthy culture rather than malicious intent. That said, harm is still harm. The impact must be taken seriously.

That distinction freed me from trying to judge motives. I could acknowledge that someone may not have intended to harm me while still recognizing the need for accountability and healing.

For those who want a clearer framework for distinguishing between various categories of behavior connected to faith and belief, I explore Professor Lisa Oakley’s A Spectrum of Behavior in a separate post.

A Faith-Affirming Response to Church Hurt and Spiritual Abuse: Closing Thoughts

My journey with the term spiritual abuse has taught me that language matters. But ministering matters more.

How we talk about spiritual wounds — how we listen, how we allow room for complexity — shapes whether those who are hurting feel safe enough to stay or whether they quietly leave.

This topic has a way of dividing Christians, which is why the apostle Paul’s counsel feels especially relevant:

“If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit… let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” (Philippians 2:1–4)

When it is difficult to understand another person’s experience, we do not have to choose between defending faith and acknowledging pain. Instead of rushing to protect what we love, we can slow down and “look also on the things of others.” We can sit with discomfort and find consolation in Christ together.

That is what a faith-affirming response to church hurt and spiritual abuse means to me. Rather than abandoning faith, we name harmful behavior clearly and invite Jesus Christ into situations that would otherwise leave us in the dark. With His light, we move beyond describing problems to responding well. Sometimes that means letting petty behavior go. Other times it means peacefully standing up. Either way, agency is restored.

My hope is that conversations like these remain centered on Jesus Christ.

He is the One who understands.

The One we can trust.

The One who teaches us how to minister with persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness, and love unfeigned.

I’ve written more about how to respond wisely and compassionately when someone shares their church hurt.