As part of my series on the Problems of Evangelicalism, I’ve already shared what I called ‘Dark Testimonies’ from various people, one of whom was me. I also shared a testimony in my article ‘The Destroyer of Faith‘.

The stories in my testimonies, apart from a few which were simply people making innocent-yet-stupid mistakes, were stories of abuse at the hands of people where it wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been in a church – or, more specifically, an Evangelicalism – setting^[1]. As I said in ‘The Destroyer of Faith‘, this is what’s known as ‘Religious Abuse’.

Well, here’s another story from my catalogue of choice spiritual/religious abuse situations I have been subjected to. I share these stories, and this one in particular, so as to show the variety of ways and scenarios in which abuse can occur, and also to show that it happens – as far as I can tell, anyway – in many churches. Nowhere is safe, it seems; in every church I have ever attended, there has always been someone who wants to use others to push their agenda. But I’m trying to keep this one light and humorous in order to show just how ridiculous some of these people’s posturing really is^[2].

So, a bit of background first. This was in early 2016, about two years after my re-entry into church life after my fifteen-year Dark Night of the Soul. At the church I was part of at the time, we had Lifegroups – no different from the more traditionally-named ‘housegroups’ – and I attended this particular one with my wife Fiona for a couple of months. It was run by a chap who was slightly younger than me – although I don’t have a problem with that – and let’s call him ‘Dennis’ for the purposes of the story.

Dennis’s leadership style was on the one hand gentle, pastoring and caring, and on the other quite rigid and dogmatic. I understand that he was from a Calvary Chapel background, which are fairly well-structured; I also got the whiff of a bit of Brethren there if I recall correctly, but this is nearly ten years ago now so I can’t remember for sure. Anyway, he was essentially hard, rigid and dogmatic under a soft (and I believe genuine) pastoral exterior. He also knew what he believed, and was not interested in hearing anything from anyone that went against that. It seemed Dennis was there to teach, but not to learn, if you see what I mean. I also remember he loved to make me hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream, just because he knew I liked it! A nice bloke, really.

I’m afraid other members of the group saw Dennis as being a bit of a pain, though, but I must emphasise that they really did have good hearts. These were mature Christians; most – and probably all – of them were further along their spiritual walk than Dennis was; they bore with him and genuinely wanted to see him develop as a leader and as a person, so in order to try to support him, they went along with his oddities and just contributed where they could. In essence, the more mature group were trying to help to raise up a younger leader in order to help him fulfil what they assumed he thought of as his calling.

I also remember a couple of occasions, though, where the façade began to crack; one funny, one not so much. These were the occasions where, in retrospect, I can see him trying to advance from the caring pastor to the beginning of the imposition of his will, as it were.

The first one was when he squatted down in front of me in my preferred position sitting on the floor^[3] and said, “Anthony, next week, do you think you could deedle-eedle-diddle” (this last word while doing a sort of typewriter keyboard action with his fingers in front of himself). 🤣🤣🤣

Of course, I knew exactly what he meant; he wanted me to use my keyboard to lead worship. But being an awkward Yorkshire so-and-so, I decided to string him along a bit. “Could I do what?” I asked, simultaneously adopting my most baffled facial expression.

“You know, to bring your keyboard and lead worship”, he clarified.

“Aaaahhhh!”, says I. “Yes, of course I will! No problem!”

“Oh that’s great, thanks for that.”, said Dennis. “Now, I’d like you to lead us in that worship for fourteen minutes and sixteen seconds”.

This time it really was, “What??“, but this time, I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear, I only said it in my head!

But, no, really; that’s what he said. Probably the most odd request I’d ever had^[4]. I think what he’d done was to time the Bible study video he was going to show us during the meeting, and in order to make the worship ‘fit’ into his plan for the evening, he had ‘allocated’ that time to the second. To be fair, a bit of a quirky oddity much in keeping with someone with Autism or similar; I don’t think he was Autistic but I wouldn’t like to judge^[5]. Well in the event I did the worship, yes, but let’s just say that timing constraints didn’t feature in the session!

Another time, in the Lifegroup meetings, I’d been sharing various things that God had shown me, over the space of a couple of meetings at least, as had other people in the group. These things I shared greatly blessed people and, when combined with the others in the group sharing what God had been showing them too, it was total blessing all around. We all did it. That’s what Lifegroups should be about. Everyone brings something along (1Cor 14:26) for the building-up of others. Anyway, I digress.

One evening, as the meeting was getting together, Dennis took me to one side and told me in no uncertain terms that anything I said that evening (‘and from now on’) would have to be backed up with chapter and verse from the Bible. Ha, he wanted me to proof-text!! My witty repartee was, “Well, I’d like hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream, but I’m afraid there’s no chapter and verse for that one. So what should I do when you ask me what I’d like to drink?” Sad to relate that this flippancy – which I see as a strength! – was completely lost on him; you tend to find that Religious people don’t allow humour in anything to do with God and it all has to be really serious!^[6] Needless to say, from meeting to meeting I carried on sharing what God gave me, and yes I gave chapter and verse (sometimes) when available, but to be honest most of the people there knew their Bibles backwards and so there was no need for Bible references. And anyway I don’t do proof-texting. I was the only person that he took aside in that manner; I don’t know, maybe he found my infectious enthusiasm disturbing or threatening or something. I really don’t know. But what if someone brought something where they didn’t provide such backing? Does that mean that nothing that anyone says in the meeting counts unless it is backed up with chapter and verse? If so, how would a complete newbie get on; how would they be able to contribute since it takes like half a lifetime of Bible study to be able to do that? And how would he know that even I could do that, or indeed anyone else in the group? Fiona was just as spiritual a person as I was but she didn’t have an encyclopaedic memory for Bible verses, in fact to be honest most people don’t!

Maybe he hadn’t really thought that one through…. 😉 😜

Or maybe, for some reason, he saw me as a threat to either his authority or to the purity of how he perceived the group’s doctrines should be. Well, I have never been interested in church leadership positions^[7], so he had no worries on that score. And as for doctrinal positions, maybe he hadn’t learned that everyone in any group will always believe something slightly different from everyone else. This is why groups like that are so important and productive, because everyone brings something that maybe others hadn’t seen before. And so that’s how they learn^[8]. And in any case, it should be the Holy Spirit Who is in charge in directing these kinds of meetings. Always.

In addition, the point about people’s differing doctrinal positions is something that any leader, new or old, has to take into account. You can’t learn things, whether ‘spiritual’ things or practical leadership things, unless you are teachable. And Dennis was so entrenched in his doctrinal rut, at least, that ‘unteachable’ could easily have been his middle name 😉

Well anyway, the meetings continued and I learned a lot, although I’m sad to say, not really from Our Dennis. Even at that stage in my faith walk, although I hadn’t learned the analogy at that point, there is little value in butterflies taking flying lessons from caterpillars. Back then, I was still getting used to the whole idea of walking in Grace and of going out into the deep Oceans waters of faith. And still the group were blessing each other.

I suppose that eventually something had to give; things had to come to a head. For me, the final straw was The Ambush. It’s taken me long enough to get around to the title of this essay, hasn’t it?

Well, this was The Ambush, and here’s how it happened.

I’d decided that it was a good idea to go out for a coffee with Dennis, so we could get to know each other a little better. To keep the conversation about personal things, like hobbies and interest, life stories, that sort of thing. For that reason, when we agreed to meet, I specifically asked him not to bring his Bible and to keep the conversation light, and I promised to do likewise.

Well, we got to McDonalds, and Dennis had a coffee and I had, of course! a hot chocolate. Almost as soon as we’d sat down, and with a fanatical gleam in his eye, Dennis hoicked up from the floor a small satchel which contained – yes, you’ve guessed it! – his Bible. That satchel could have been made-to-measure; it fitted his Bible perfectly! I remember it clearly. So he hauls out this Bible. To his credit, it wasn’t any kind of a mighty tome or grimoire^[9]; it was just a softback one of about A5 size or so.

And then he proceeded to try almost to ‘lead me to the Lord’; to ‘convert’ me; to take me along the ‘Romans Road’. The Romans Road is a presentation of the gospel using mainly theological points from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans; it’s presented usually to an unbeliever, which is supposed to bring them to the point where they collapse on their knees in a weeping, repentant heap, at which point they hopefully ‘give their hearts to Jesus’ and get ‘converted’.

I mean, what?

He was really enjoying himself! At one point, he actually exclamed, “This is a great Bible study!” Speak for yourself, Dennis! 😂 But during that ‘Bible study’ – although actually it was more a back-and-forth tossing about of Scripture verses – all the reasons I gave to explain my already-existing hope in Christ were ignored. It was like talking to an online Pharisee troll, but over coffees and hot chocolates (yes we did have a second one each). It was just as if I was an unbeliever. I find it amazing how, despite the depth and obvious Bible knowledge of their victims^[10], Fundamentalist and other ‘on fire’ Christians, like those two evangelists that came to my house that time as related in this article, suddenly forget, in their blind zeal, that you have an already-existing faith which is probably further on than their own, and that you have only. just. this. minute. been giving them Bible verses straight from memory. What kind of unbeliever can do that, to perform that sort of trick? Maybe the whole thing, in these cases, is the well-known phenomenon – at least to those who understand the Stages of Spiritual Growth – whereby those still in ‘Stage 3‘^[11] consider those who have moved ahead with Jesus to be backsliders? Maybe that’s it. Anyway, I went home that night feeling battered and bruised, and, I’m sad to say, completely betrayed. I had trusted Dennis to behave himself and just let us have a normal conversation, over things other than our faith. I trusted him when he agreed to not bring his Bible. I kept my part of the agreement as far as I could; I didn’t bring my Bible, but of course once he’d broken the seals on the religious part, I couldn’t just not respond. And I laugh at this even now, nearly ten years later – I still never found out what his hobbies are, where he was raised, where he went to school, or anything like that. As far as I knew, he was just Dennis with the Bible, who did happen to make a very nice hot chocolate but someone whom I knew I could no longer trust. Trust is usually earned, in most personal or business relationships; in churches, however, I think it’s fair to say that it is almost assumed: this person is a Christian, of course you can trust them. Which is of course mainly why a betrayal of trust like that becomes Religious abuse; they have broken an almost unspoken rule, or at least convention, of implicit trust in your brother or sister.

And maybe that’s one of the main lessons we can learn from this piece: just because someone is a Christian does not in any way mean that you can – or should – trust them on that basis alone. They still have to earn your trust, just like in any other relationship. Their Christianity should not give them a ‘head start’ on the ‘trust curve’.

Of course, though, like any other broken trust, once it’s lost that trust is very difficult, if not impossible, to regain.

During his attack conversation, Dennis had also suggested I adopt attitudes that, of course unbeknownst to him, I had long since sloughed off during my Dark Night; things like feeling the need for a ‘covering’ relationship (which is a popular high-control religious concept where you make yourself answerable to some sort of ‘authority figure’!). He also didn’t appreciate my personal testimonies of God’s blessings either.

But still, I wanted to give him chance; I wanted to explain what his actions had done. That’s what’s called ‘maturity’. It is exercising Grace and extending forgiveness. And I also wanted to actually get him to help us agree on some healthy boundaries. And so I sent him this email:

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Hey Dennis

Thanks for last night, it was good to get to know you a little better!

Although I kind-of enjoyed the ‘Bible study’ we did, in that it reminded me of the fabulous Gospel we believe in, I did feel very uneasy once I got home.

After reflection on what was bothering me, here’s what I came up with.

Firstly, I was particularly concerned about the ‘covering’ bit. First of all, although I don’t really set too much store on things being ‘Biblical’ – because ‘Biblical’ usually means ‘Biblical in the eyes of the person talking’ – the concept of ‘covering’ is in any case not a ‘Biblical’ concept. And I am under no man’s covering; should I choose to make myself accountable to someone, I can do that, but such people are few and far between. There’s nothing personal here, but although I want to honour you as group leader, I do not choose to place myself under your ‘covering’ in the sense I think you meant it, and I ask that you please honour that request.

Secondly, I did express a desire not to be proof-texted, but it seemed you couldn’t resist! Granted, I went along with it, but that I found very uncomfortable. Here’s why. As I said yesterday, I have done loads of encouragement work on Christian forums, being a voice for the broken and downtrodden (ask Jason [A mutual friend at the Church – Ed]; he has seen me in action) and I am currently having an extended sabbatical from that activity (http://tinyurl.com/gwbgd85). The main reason is because of harsh Christians Scripture-bombing me on those forums, and although I try to be thick-skinned, that has done me deep harm. I have to say that last night I felt just like I was back in battle on those forums. I respectfully asked that you not proof-text at me, and usually when I make a request like that I have a very good reason which you may not (and in this case did not) know about – but now you do.

So, please could you in future respect my desire not to do proof-texting.

Also, I am sorry but I am now also hesitant to share personal blessing testimonies with you – such as those precious prophecies I shared – because they got dissected. I appreciate that, as you explained, you have had reservations about prophecy from past experience, and I respect that. But that which I shared was precious and it felt rather like ‘pearls before swine’, I’m afraid.

This may all come as a shock to you, I realise. We did agree on much, but rather than agreeing to differ on points of difference, I felt you tried to bomb me into submission!

I do want to maintain good relationship with you; I really feel for you as the group leader and I would not want your job for any money. That’s partly why I want to honour you as group leader, and this email is intended to be constructive. Unless I name the problems, you will never know about them! I don’t want to upset you, and please be assured I forgive you! If this has upset you, then I ask that you please forgive me too!

So I need to ask you these questions:

1) What do you see is the point of the group, and then
2) What do you see as your role in the group?
3) What do you see others’ roles as in the group?
4) Can you define our relationship?
5) What’s your vision for the group – your goals and dreams for the group?
6) Are you happy with people bringing spiritual gifts in Lifegroup?

These questions may also help you to think out your ideas a bit more too.

You are a kind, gentle, pastoring guy and you have a good heart. I respect you for that 🙂 ^[12]

Thanks for listening

Anthony

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Except – he didn’t listen. He told me that he hadn’t even read it, although I doubt that very much^[13]. He said to me (in person) some mumbled story about him not liking to communicate in writing, preferring face-to-face. Which I can understand, but as Lifegroup leader he had a duty to make allowances for those who don’t quite have the same facility with face-to-face interactions as he does^[14]. And to be honest, he wasn’t good at face-to-face anyway, lol 😉 And remember this was while Fiona was still alive; I was working full time and also being a Carer for my terminally ill wife. And he didn’t care; all he cared about was his agenda. Sorry for the language, but that really was a dick thing to do.

And so, we resigned from that Lifegroup and were accepted into a different group in that church, one in which we received nothing but blessing, love, hope and just general LIFE. One in which we were accepted the way we were. We stayed in that Lifegroup right up to Fiona’s passing, and I stayed in it after that terrible event. And it was in that Lifegroup that I was asked the question, ‘How can you lead worship like that, even after all you’ve been through?’, to which my answer was ‘How can I not?'^[15]

Well, that’s the end of the story. I hope you got some laughs out of it! And maybe learned a lesson or two as well 😀

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Before I finish, please let me reiterate what I said at the beginning of the piece: I share these stories in order to illustrate the different types of religious abuse, and scenarios in which they happen. I’m not criticising others’ faiths; what I am doing is to expose the ways in which they choose to inflict those beliefs on others, and to use those beliefs to justify their often horrendous actions. This arms my readers with information which they can then use to either recognise the risk in religious situations and thereby avoid them, or to recognise the signs when they happen. Because it’s often insidious and can creep up on you, and before you know it, you’re hooked. These people think nothing^[16] of using these tactics to inflict their beliefs and requirements on others, and their potential victims need to be aware of this.

Grace and Peace to you.

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Header picture depicts two Polish soldiers preparing an ambush position. At least, I assume there’s two of them; there could always be more of them concealed in-frame! It is an ambush, after all….