Spiritual Abuse/Religious Trauma
Spiritual abuse and religious trauma are epidemic. The church has lost credibility; indeed, the whole of Christianity and virtually every other expression of organized religion are suspect. For those who have somehow escaped the epidemic, this blog will attempt to offer two ways (there are more than two ways) to understand the origins and causes of the mental and emotional pain. Hopefully, some empathy can be found and exercised. For those whose lives are tormented by the epidemic, I hope to offer a word of encouragement without making it worse by seeming to pressure you to respond in any specific way. I write in the spirit of the 1927 poem by Max Ehrmann, “Desiderata,” with which I will close. There is a perceived lack of integrity on the part of some of the most vocal and most prominent leaders of Christianity. When television became widespread in the 1950s and 60s, the cat was out of the bag. They preach a Jesus who, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but...