What Grounds Definitions of Spiritual Abuse?
The Broken Road is a place for weary travelers in faith journeys to find rest, camaraderie, and encouragement to continue along the broken road.
Two weeks ago we shared a couple of definitions of spiritual abuse. There are more we could have pointed to. Two interrelated questions come up right away, though: who gets to define spiritual abuse? And on what basis?
I (Abram) wrestle with two possible answers:
1. Spiritual abuse should be defined based on empirical research.
Dr. Karen Roudkovksi, for example, says, “I base my definition on the themes underlying spiritual abuse presented in this book and in the research I conducted.” Her two themes of control and harm (and their 11 total sub-themes) are the focus of her spiritual abuse assessment. She then validated her assessment with a panel of experts, piloted it, and distributed it in a large-scale study.1 The idea here, as I understand it, is to make sure the test is validly measuring what it is testing for: in this case, spiritual abuse.
2. Spiritual abuse should be defined based on lived experience.
This one may be a little trickier. If the first approach is akin to exegesis, is this second approach eisegesis? Is it what biblical scholars would call an interpretation in search of a text? Doesn’t it get messy—or squishy—if we let just ANYONE define spiritual abuse?
I’m not so sure. Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers this hermeneutical principle: “It remains an experience of incomparable value that we have for once learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed and reviled, in short from the perspective of the suffering.”
Maybe spiritual abuse is best defined “from below”: the ones being spiritually maltreated get to define the term.
I have been wrestling through these two methodologies, wondering about a possible tension between them. I’m concerned the first approach could feel overly clinical—yet the rigor of validated research is necessary. I’m concerned that the second approach might not be taken seriously by skeptics for whom “spiritual abuse” is a new (and unproven) concept—yet how can compassionate people of faith NOT take as a starting point the ones who are victimized by abuse?
In the end, I think that definitions of spiritual abuse, and any efforts to measure and address it, need to use both approaches wholeheartedly. In fact, this is one of the gifts of Dr. Roudkovski’s work—she is a grounded researcher who also knows firsthand of what she speaks. Bonhoeffer, too—he successfully defended a doctoral dissertation at age 21 (!!), was as academically rigorous as they come, and still he allowed his (and others’) lived experiences of suffering to infuse his work, even to direct it.
If the view from the peer-reviewed journals and the view from below can remain in conversation with each other, we’ll end up with more robust understandings of spiritual abuse. And not just so we can say we understand it—but so we can better prevent it, respond to it, and offer healing to those who have been so deeply wounded by it.
Thank you for joining us on this journey, as we continue to think on these issues of how to process, address, and ultimately prevent spiritual abuse. This week’s resources stem from some of our favorite thinkers in this area. We are fortunate to have them as guides on our journey.
1. Understanding Spiritual Abuse: What It Is and How to Respond by Karen Roudkovski
Spiritual abuse is a widespread—and often misunderstood—issue. Church leaders may not understand how spiritual abuse manifests and spreads; meanwhile, the impact of spiritual abuse can be devastating to victims, damaging their relationships with themselves, the church, and God.
In Understanding Spiritual Abuse: What It Is and How to Respond, professor and licensed counselor Karen Roudkovski offers wisdom, clarity, and hope for those seeking to understand the nature of spiritual abuse and how to heal. Based on her extensive research and clinical experience, Roudkovski explains:
What spiritual abuse is, how the term arose, and what makes it distinct.
Methods for assessing whether spiritual abuse has occurred, including instructions for the Spiritual Abuse Assessment (9781430086970).
The tactics of spiritual abusers, including control, grooming, deception, and lack of accountability.
The trauma of spiritual abuse, encompassing spiritual, emotional, physical, and relational harm.
Suggestions for spiritual abuse recovery for therapists, survivors, and helpers.
Recommendations for how churches can establish spiritually safe communities.
Roudkovski's Understanding Spiritual Abuse is an essential resource for survivors, church leaders, and mental health professionals. Roudkovski provides a counseling overview of the topic while practically guiding leaders to create safe and supportive environments for victims to recover and rebuild from spiritual abuse and its devastating impact.
*Disclosure: The Broken Road is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
2. Some Churches Call Clergy Sexual Misconduct an ‘Affair.’ Survivors Are Fighting to Make It Against the Law, By Rebecca Hopkins
“If a victim of adult clergy sexual abuse comes forward, there’s a strong likelihood that that person is going to be blamed as somebody who is ruining the pastor’s career and [told] this is something that is purely an ‘affair,’” said Boz Tchividjian, an advocate and attorney who is helping with the effort. “The question is, if a pastor or a faith leader uses their spiritual position to identify, groom, and ultimately sexualize a relationship with a person under their care or supervision, is that really a consensual relationship?”
Tchividjian, who has been advocating for survivors for decades, said he gets more calls from survivors of adult clergy sexual abuse than any other type of victim. In most cases, they’ve never told anyone. They are often not even sure whether or not they are victims of abuse and are consumed with shame and guilt.
“This is something that is very different from child sexual abuse,” Tchividjian said.
3. Podcast: Dr. Diane Langberg: Understanding Adult Clergy Abuse
From the transcript:
JULIE ROYS 04:46
So what distinguishes clergy sexual abuse or sexual abuse, you know, in general, I mean, from just your regular run of the mill seduction?DR. DIANE LANGBERG 04:59
It’s a power differential, and usually a pretty big one. So a professor in a school, a pastor in a pulpit, the head of a company, the boss, the teacher in the classroom, you know, all of those people are in positions of authority and power. And we pretty much want and do typically trust them. You know, my teacher is going to do good things. My pastor is going to do good things. And so there’s not vigilance there. So when something happens that seems inappropriate, like a touch of some kind that was inappropriate, we are confused. Unfortunately, that renders people more vulnerable.
4. Twitter: Russell Moore
5. K.J. Ramsey: Exerpt posted on Instagram from her book The Lord is My Courage
Spiritual abuse braces our bodies for harm where there should be help. It twists the sacred into a sword, leaving us subconsciously on alert in case Scripture or a sermon or a small group interaction suddenly becomes sinister.
Psychologist Diane Langberg agrees: “Spiritual abuse involves using the sacred to harm or deceive the soul of another.”
Spiritual abuse ruptures
our bodies’ sense of trust
that being in the Body
won’t brutalize our souls.
We might not have scars on our skin, but we bear them in the structures of our brains and the depths of our souls.
Your scars matter, even if no one else can see them.
👉🏼 The trauma of spiritual abuse often paves our nervous systems into patterns of hypervigilance.
Religious trauma survivors like myself often have a heightened radar to danger in religious settings.
If being in church hurts, if you can't listen to a sermon without squirming, if worship music you used to love now mostly makes you cringe, if Scripture that used to comfort you now confuses you, if you aren't sure whom to trust or how to trust, hear this:
Honoring how your trust was shattered
and the way the shards still speak
through your body's sense of hypervigilance
is the way you will find your way home
to freedom, safety, and even joy.
Restoration cannot be rushed. Hypervigilance isn't healed through trying harder. Trust grows as we practice being trustworthy friends to our own bodies, believing their cries, responding to their reactions, and giving them room to experience new safety spiritually over time.
The shards of our old spirituality
will become a mosaic of grace.
—@kjramseywrites | parts of this are from my latest book, #TheLordIsMyCourage. I hope it can be a kind companion to you as you heal. 🙏🏼
*Disclosure: The Broken Road is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
6. Additional Resources
These and additional resources are available on our “Broken Road” website, which is a growing collection of resources that we have found helpful. Feel free to take time to browse - just as you would a library or bookstore. We hope to develop this into a more user-friendly and searchable system in the future.
For integrity purposes, we won’t include a resource unless we have personally read, watched, engaged, or have relationships with the resources we list.
And we want to hear from you. What resources have you found helpful in processing and healing from pain in faith communities? You can reach us at brokenroad@readfarandwide.com.
She details all this in the Appendix to her Understanding Spiritual Abuse, linked in this post.