Did you know the purpose of the law is to protect the rights of the individual? Therefore, I think it is important for churches to establish at least unwritten laws concerning the way it treats its individuals.
In any relationship,
those involved need to constantly check to ensure that they are treating the
other fairly, compassionately and justly.
This includes
churches. I’ve come to believe that all churches are prone to spiritual abuse.
In fact, I claim that the abuse of people is the gravitational pull of all
institutions and organisations. So we must be diligent to ensure that they
don’t go there.
I’ve assembled these
10 questions the Church can ask itself to see that it isn’t abusing its people:
1. Do we use guilt,
shame, humiliation, or fear to motivate people?
2. Do we elevate the
church’s well-being over that of its individual members’?
3. Do we employ
peer-pressure to get our members to do things?
4. Do we treat the
truth as though we have it and the people don’t?
5. Do we speak before
we listen?
6. Do we try to
distance our members from their other relationships?
7. Do we punish with
demotion, isolation, or silent-treatment those who differ?
8. Do we trivialise
our members’ feelings?
9. Do we get jealous
when our members seek out other kinds of spiritual guidance or nourishment?
10. Do we always
blame the people for when something goes wrong?
If we have the
courage to ask these questions, I think we will see a dramatic decrease in
spiritual abuse in our communities.
David Hayward is author of Questions are the Answer: nakedpastor
and the search for understanding,
available now in paperback, priced £9.99.
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