For those who want to know...RULES at my church!

[JaneEyre]

Originally Posted by RandyWayne

The concept of 'spiritual abuse' goes directly against the world view of those who believe in man-made "top down" view of religion. Meaning, pastor and his rules on top and the lay people on the bottom. That is simply "how it is!" to some. The pastor or organization will always be assumed innocent and the lay person will always be assumed guilty.

Well, just as the Catholic Church is dealing with sexual abuse and it's real, I believe that spiritual abuse is just as real. Not many will admit that the body has the problem of spiritual abuse. The thinking is that "if we ignore the problem, it will not go away or if we don't talk about it, it will go away."

Also, I believe that most of the spiritual abuse I have seen has been done through ignorance. It was well-intentioned. This pastor that STS mentioned in her first post probably thought he had to "make the path so straight to line up the folks to keep them on track." His goal may have been to "get them to heaven" his way. Notice the little "h" in his. The path is straight. We're told that in the Bible - but we're not given all of these esoteric rules in the Bible.

People abuse their physical bodies through ignorance - as overeating, not exercising enough, etc. Much of the harm that comes to the body of Christ I believe is through ignorance and not knowing what to do for a healthy Church body.