Originally written January 2013.
EXAMPLES OF HOW THE CHURCH ABUSES US
Again, I cannot say it enough, I do not believe that any one that is preaching and teaching from their hearts intends to cause us harm. While there might be some form of desire to control others on a conscious level, I fully believe that even these types of pastors/priests do this out of a sense of devotion to what they have been taught by the System that drives the Church. (For a fuller understanding of how and why I say this, please see this post.)
These types of people…which is really ALL of us when you get down to it…are living in a “reality” that has been made aware to them thus far. This “reality” might be all they are ever able to see, which is saddening to those of us that are able to move beyond this surfacey “reality”.
Yet, this does not mean that those of us who are/were able to move on beyond this surface “reality” are not called to continue to try to “call out” of hiding those that are living on the surface and those that are preaching “abuse” rather than “love.”
I will get more into the Church and Spiritual abuse next time. But here are some concrete words I have heard, or implied messages I have taken away from my 16 years inside the System of the Church.
- Implied and spoken messages that our bodies lie to us, they are not trustworthy. Our spiritual lives are of more importance than our earthly lives and therefore our bodies – which are simply passing away – in the end do not matter. Our bodies, with their bodily functions, sexual desires and impulses, etc are to be shamed as being “of this world” which we are not supposed to be part of.
- We can trust a god who is external to us more than we can trust ourselves. We should especially trust those in spiritual “authority” over us to know more about this external god than we do and therefore should submit our will to this “god” they preach over our own internal voice that tells us about our internal world. That internal world is not to be trusted.
- It is a sin or at the very least wrong to love yourself, put yourself first or to – heaven forbid – give into or at least listen to your desires both physically, intimately, sexually, emotionally, etc.
- The definition of what it actually means “to love oneself” is defined as selfishness…when the truth is just one degree off. To truly love oneself is the exact opposite of selfishness.
- While I understand that this external God knows us intimately…this still crosses the boundary that someone outside of us can speak to what is right to our internal world and knows us better than we know ourselves. Based on my terminology and basic ways the body/mind are structured, this is a DIRECT violation of the soul. Any time anyone or anything speaks to knowing more than you about your internal world is a direct offense to your boundaries and thus is trying to define your world for you so that you see the world in his/her way…even if this he/she is really “god”. The only way for this to not be a violation of boundaries and therefore not to be abusive in my terminology is for this god to be one and the same with us…which is not my understanding of the “god” preached in the Evangelical Christian Church. Especially since this “god”
- Negative talk
