Spiritual abuse, like physical abuse or sexual abuse is real. While many don't get to hear about it. It's alive & kicking in many churches. Here are a few examples I've encountered:
A middle-age lady fell off her seat in the middle of a church service. She had just blacked-out & lost consciousness. A medical diagnosis later revealed that she had suffered a mild stroke which triggered the black-out. Although it was a mild stroke, it left her incapacitated. She was unable to drive or go anywhere on her own. She went through a course of medical treatment for almost a year. During that time, no one in the church gave her a call or visited her. This lady had served her church faithfully for several years in many areas of ministry. Finally, in a moment of sheer loneliness, she called her pastor to pray for her. After rendering her story, all the pastor had to say was this - “if you're a good & spiritual Christian, you wouldn't have fallen sick. The reason why you're sick must be due to some hidden & unconfessed sins.” - She was stunt by the cold-blooded assessment. Since then, this lady had left her church & had moved on to a more humane church environment.
A young couple had grown fond of each other. With marriage in mind, the young man decided to speak to a church leader about his affections & feelings. He's known this church leader for some years now & felt confident that he would be able to offer some much needed good advice. It was not to be. In their first meeting, the church leader told him abruptly that he should consider someone else as a more worthy life partner than his current girlfriend. The young man was never told why. No long after that, his girlfriend was removed as a member of the church. The young man left shortly after on his own accord. The couple broke up & the girl went on to embrace another religion. Many years later, the young man learned from a close friend that his ex-girlfriend was once married when she was very young. The marriage didn't last long & was broken up. The church leader at that point of time knew about it but was of the opinion that for the young man to marry this girl would be committing an act of adultery. But the church leader felt that this information need not be disclosed. The young man in question need not know.
A married couple went to seek counsel when their marriage was going through some rough weather. The pastor in attendance criticized the couple roundly throughout their meeting, while extolling the virtues of his own happy marriage. By comparison, there's no reason why the couple should fail to experience the same. To make matters worst, the husband of this couple had earlier lost his job due to a corporate restructuring. Throughout the duration of the meeting, the pastor didn't even request for a copy of the husband's CV to be circulated to the other 2,000 members of various professions in the church. Instead, the pastor was ranting about how unsavory the husband's choice of certain words were to the pastor's ears.
