Some of my more recent articles have been studies concerning religious abuse. Broadly speaking, this could be thought of any kind of non-beneficial – but, more usually, actually harmful – ‘input’ into a person’s life from religious people, which is uninvited, unwanted/unwelcome and/or unexpected. It has considerable overlap with spiritual abuse, and the two are often closely associated. Spiritual abuse, to me, is where someone’s spirit – their personality, their will to live, their enthusiasm for life, all that kind of thing – is damaged by others. And it will come as no surprise, then, that spiritual abuse is very often a result of religious abuse.
So, religious abuse could be anything from the Jehovah’s Witnesses (or other religious types) turning up on your doorstep and giving you grief by disrupting your peace and your privacy; maybe deadly, soul-destroying public shaming and/or criticism; or right up to financial, emotional and/or sexual abuse by leadership or indeed anyone else in a religious group or someone who claims spiritual authority over a person.
Note that spiritual abuse does not have to take place in a religious setting. It can also occur in a toxic marital or friendship scenario; basically the issue is a breach of trust, leading to spiritual damage.
And it’s sickening. On so many levels, it’s sickening.
As part of my background reading while researching this huge topic – researching in general, not with regard to my writing – I picked up an excellent eBook the other day entitled, “Broken Trust: A practical guide to identify and recover from toxic faith, toxic church, and spiritual abuse’ by F. Remy Diederich.
Here are the links for the book on Amazon UK and Amazon USA
(I’ll do a mini-review of the book at the end of this article).
In the book, Remy writes an excellent chapter on how to overcome the anger that the abuse has caused. Embedded in that concept is an excellent section on forgiveness. I have written on forgiveness before, but this post offers you insight into forgiveness in the context of religious/spiritual abuse; this was not specifically covered in my previous article.
So here is Remy’s perspective on forgiveness in the context of religious/spiritual abuse – although of course it can also be applied in other fields too. My thanks to Remy for his kind and gracious permission to quote his work!
Moving to Forgiveness
Once your anger has done its work (i.e. moved you to confront the abuse or flee it), lay it to rest. It’s served its purpose. Let it go. We call that forgiveness.
Sometimes people say, “Don’t forgive too quickly.” I understand what they mean, but this statement tells me they don’t understand biblical forgiveness. Their idea of forgiveness has too much packed into it. Forgiveness simply means to “give up the right to get even,” period. No payback. That can happen immediately with no qualifiers.
Let me clarify what forgiveness is by telling you what it isn’t.
1. Forgiveness isn’t forgetting. Forgiveness requires remembering the wrong that was done to you, not forgetting it. Surprisingly, forgiveness requires blaming your offender. You can’t forgive someone unless you first assign blame for what they did wrong. You can forget minor offenses. But you can’t forget deep wounds. When you’ve been deeply wounded, you need something stronger than forgetfulness. You need forgiveness. Forgiveness is what’s required when you can’t forget what’s been done to you.
2. Forgiveness isn’t excusing. Sometimes your offender will insist that you forgive them for offending them and let it go, implying this is the biblical thing to do. They expect this from you because they have minimized their offense and dismissed it as insignificant. They want you to do the same: act like it never happened. But that’s not forgiveness. Forgiveness means to “give up the right to get even.” [1] You can do that without lessening the seriousness of what your offender did to you. You can forgive and still hold them accountable to make amends. Let them know how much they hurt you and what you expect from them. But you can also let them know that you will not retaliate.
3. Forgiveness isn’t trusting. Offenders often want to quickly smooth things over so you will not withhold anything from them. “Let’s put that behind us and move on,” they say, implying that everything is good now and you can resume the relationship as it was. Forgiveness allows you to put the offence behind you, but trust is necessary to move the relationship forward. Rebuilding trust takes time. It’s important to separate forgiveness from trust. Confusing these two leads to many problems. Abusers will try to guilt you into trusting them prematurely by confusing trust with forgiveness. They’ll say, “You have to trust me. The Bible tells us to forgive.” Forgive, yes. Trust, no. It’s foolish to trust those who have broken trust with you. Jesus told us to be “as wise as serpents and harmless as doves, (Matthew 10:16). To be harmless means we don’t seek revenge, but wisdom tells us not to trust people who haven’t earned it. They are welcome to rebuild our trust, but we shouldn’t offer it for free. Forgiveness is free. Trust is earned. Forgiveness is immediate. Trust takes time. If trust can’t be rebuilt, the relationship must change form. Don’t be intimidated into trusting someone until they’ve earned it.
4. Forgiveness isn’t reunion. Just because I forgive you, I am under no obligation to resume our relationship. As Lewis Smedes once said, “forgiving has no strings attached… reunion has several strings attached.”[2] That means that if you don’t rebuild trust with me, we will not be able to continue our relationship as it once was.
5. Forgiveness isn’t conditional. Forgiveness shouldn’t be based on what the other person does. For example, saying, “If you jump through my hoops, then I’ll forgive you,” is conditional. Forgiveness is unconditional. That’s important to remember because if your forgiveness is conditional, then your offender has control over you. What I mean is, if you insist on their changing before you forgive them, then what if they refuse to change? They have painted you into a corner. You are stuck, unable to forgive because you set yourself up to fail. Do you really want to give your offender that kind of control over your life? When you forgive unconditionally, no-one can manipulate you anymore. You are free to move on with your life.
6. Forgiveness isn’t an emotion. People often equate forgiveness with a warm and fuzzy emotion. When they don’t have that feeling, they assume they can’t, or shouldn’t, forgive. But forgiveness has nothing to do with your emotions. It’s an act of the will. You choose to forgive because it’s the right thing to do. Sometimes it takes your forgiveness to activate positive emotions.
There we go. Ripped completely out ot its context, of course, but I think the principles expressed in those paragraphs are capable of standing alone, and still have meaning and usefulness.
Thanks again, Remy!
Mini-Review of ‘Broken Trust’ by F. Remy Diederich
Remy’s style is gentle, compassionate, kind and full of Grace. In the book, he addresses virtually all aspects of this important and complex topic, but without making it heavy and unreadable.
In a completely non-judgmental style, extended towards both the victims and the perpetrators, he explores the nature, causes, effects and possible solutions for toxic faith and spiritual abuse.
The four main sections cover:
1: Defining, identifying and recognising toxic faith and spiritual abuse
2: Practical steps to deal with spiritual abuse – confrontation and its implications
3: Recovery from spiritual abuse, covering many factors
4: How to rescue your faith community from spiritual abuse
Within each section, there are chapters addressing specific factors, each of which is dealt with in a concise and practical, yet gentle and understanding manner. Something that is not mentioned in the above section list is that he also offers practical steps on how to find a new fellowship, should the reader wish to do so.
The book addresses, in detail, the personal angle on every topic. So, Remy speaks to the victims, to their immediate family and friends, and to the congregation as a whole. He even speaks constructively to the perpetrators; how they can identify the problems they have had a hand in, how they can make amends, how they can restore trust – or at least make a go of it. And yet I would not say that Remy issues direct advice as such, but more the principles under which the reader can make their own decisions. For some kinds of abuse survivors, their personal autonomy is one of the things they lost during the abuse, and so he helps them make their own decisions rather than offering advice, which would essentially be telling them what to do – and that’s what they are recovering from. This is a subtle and yet vital principle that is held to in this book.
What I’m saying is that I’m aware of no aspect of spiritual abuse that Remy doesn’t address, with the sole exception of Clergy Sexual Abuse (CSA), which he admits he has no experience of dealing with in the situations he has been in. And to me, that adds even more to the book; because he acknowledges his lack of knowledge and experience in dealing with CSA issues, it makes his writing on the areas he does know about all the more credible.
I have to say that I have never read a book quite like this one, which deals with such a potentially painful and sensitive subject in such a practical and gentle way, making it highly effective. Remy’s love for God and for his congregation, along with his deep compassion for his readers, and other unknown victims of spiritual abuse, shines through brilliantly. You are fully aware that you’re in good hands.
In his acknowledgements, Remy thanks his group of abuse survivors who have provided material, comments and anecdotes, and have also provided feedback for him on how to pitch the tone of various parts of the book. And it shows. It’s almost as if it has been written just for those people – which in a way, it has – but because abuse survivors, even though they each have unique stories to tell, also have a lot of experiences in common, the book identifies with the reader/survivor’s situation in a way that I haven’t seen before. And, as I’ve already said, that makes it highly effective.
If you can only afford one book on how to cope with spiritual abuse and toxic churches, then this is the one to buy. I cannot recommend it highly enough.