Good post, but what it didn’t mention was gender. Men have largely been the inventors of the ‘thought-terminating' and 'reality-bending’ language’ and they’ve done it to exploit women and children.
Eg Jesus was denouncing MEN for their hardness of heart in Matthew 19:8, but powerful men have elided the gender from that passage and invented a gender-neutral (reality-bending) sentence which stops thought: “Moses allowed divorce for hardness of heart.”
The sentence is then wielded to ascribe hardness of heart to abused wives who are thinking of divorcing their abusive husbands.
Thanks for this insight and bringing it into focus. Gendered dynamics are absolutely part of how these phrases have been used historically and presently.
Beautifully written with terrific insights. As a retired counselor that currently trains lay counselors and lay pastors we focus our training specifically on these kinds of responses. We call them Adverse Advisers and help participants recognize them for themselves and others.
Thanks for offering a uniquevview of these patterns.
Many years ago I was asked to resign from teaching and membership from a church of my historic denomination. At my ‘heresy trial’ I was called a ‘Quaker’ and mystic that just did not fit in the church. My sin was leading Inductive Bible studies that examined passages without the denomination’s theology book to guide me.
I had just moved to a new state and joined what I thought was ‘my denomination’ but got the ‘Left foot of did-fellowship.’
By the way, we had carried out Inductive Studies my entire life in our country church back home.
I’ve experienced the sanctification of harm so, so many times! ….”When harm is sanctified, the nervous system’s alarm is spiritualized into a problem of attitude. The desire for safety can begin to feel like rebellion and protest can feel unfaithful.”
Wade, I love your work. Forgive me if you've already covered this and I've missed it, but I think what would help me and many others is a companion graphic with phrases to push back.
I felt the same when I read Something's Not Right. I loved the deep explanation of institutional tactics. But I was missing deep guidance for counter tactics to push back if you're a survivor, advocate, or concerned church member. I'm thinking along the lines of: "When they do x, you can respond with this..." Would you consider writing another book?! Or a second edition of Something's Not Right that's twice as long?! We need our own playbook! : )
This is really helpful feedback. I've been thinking about how to offer additional language for resistance without oversimplifying and it's something I hope to develop going forward.
I think it's absolutely critical. Often when advocates and survivors go against institutions we are outgunned and it's our first rodeo.
The institution has more resources for attorneys, crisis PR, and pre-existing communications methods (email lists, websites) to shape the narrative with stakeholders that survivors can't access. And while survivors and advocates probably are first timers, institutions may have done this before, or can easily hire experienced experts to advise them.
Unless a survivor wants to pursue a legal case and engage an attorney to advise them, there aren't many resources to help them push back. And there's not much to help advocates who aren't survivors.
We need a playbook with language and strategies to guide survivors and advocates in reclaiming the narrative, exposing truth, demanding accountability, etc.
One example I saw was an institution that was using NDAs, and no one knew they were doing that. At a public meeting, advocates exposed this. Embarrassed, the institution later sent a mass email saying they didn't use NDAs, they used confidentiality agreements, which wasn't true -- they were NDAs. Because the advocates lacked their own mass communication channel, they couldn't challenge that lie. What could the advocates have done in that case?
Any resources you can create to help with counter tactics and language would be so helpful. I am thinking drawing from general principles, and adding example case studies would be really powerful. Thanks.
One of the many phrases used to diminish the needs of my family and yet keep me trapped in "faithfulness" in marriage to my husband who had a traumatic brain injury with amnesia, dementia and agitation requiring 24 hour care, was "Lots of kids are fatherless, Bess". And "God hates divorce" even though the 'divorce' had happened through the death and dysfunction of a wonderful marriage that became a crazy care taking situation of a man unable to function in time or linear reality. For years I navigated with four small children, determined to keep my reputation and family in tact. But the harsh reality of brain injury nearly destroyed us all and when I tried to put legal boundaries in place to protect assets and sanity, I was met at the door of the church with many "we are all watching you." and other silencing tactics. When I spoke out, I was called a slanderer. When i called them a pharisee for their double standards, I was called hysterical and overemotional. Like leaving someone in a deep well, and then chastising them for yelling too loudly, it was a horrible powerlessness I still have trouble believing how it could have happened. No apologies from these leaders. But they have found promotion and protection and project themselves as having deep discernment around spiritual matters. But God has given me the right people and many wonderful graces to continue in my journey of understanding and untangling this damage and detriment. Thank you for calling this out.
Thank you for sharing. It's a devastating example of how spiritual language can be used to cause further injury on top of an already unbearable loss rather than offer support and care. I'm glad you have support for your journey now. Thank you for reading.
Such excellent and critically important work here. Thank you. 🙏 As a licensed mental/relational health professional and trauma clinician (with a prior M.Div.) who has worked with both victims and perpetrators of abuse for the past 15 years, I’ll be distributing this widely.
Amen! I’ve lived through this sort of reality bending spiritual abuse and it took moving from my hometown and attending a healthy congregation and gaining healthy brothers and sisters willing to simply name the abuse for me. Just a simple “It sounds to me like you were in a cult.” Was the watershed moment. May God purge this kind if abuse from the American church entirely.
Me too. I regret ever having been an “intern” being “discipled” in the church I grew up in. A story too long for a comment section, but it follows a lot of the common beats we all are growing to understand better and better constitutes toxic narcissistic leadership structures.
I didn’t mean to hurt any one and oh I am forgiven so it doesn’t matter what I do. I heard both of these come out of the mouth of two SBC deacons/small group Bible teachers. So in other words I don’t have to held accountable for what I do, so I can be mean and hateful and it doesn’t matter. No need to apologize or make anything right.
"Part of what makes spiritual harm so disorienting is that you are not merely harmed; you are trained to reinterpret the harm until your own perception begins to feel suspect. "
Thanks - very helpful. I wonder if most of these manipulations work better in a framework in which God is seen as powerful, authoritative, hierarchical and to be feared (final retributive judgment), rather than a God whose power is made perfect in weakness, whose nature is love, who forgives freely, who turns the other cheek and loves his enemies. Most of your examples seem to presuppose some fearful authority behind the scenes.
Would you put the phrase "they have a religious spirit" in the "bypassing discernment" category? Since it tries to shut down inquiry and cast the questioner as not only not spiritually mature, but influenced by the demonic?
I especially appreciate how you show that these phrases don’t just “end conversation,” they actively reshape reality in ways that protect power and silence alarm.
Good post, but what it didn’t mention was gender. Men have largely been the inventors of the ‘thought-terminating' and 'reality-bending’ language’ and they’ve done it to exploit women and children.
Eg Jesus was denouncing MEN for their hardness of heart in Matthew 19:8, but powerful men have elided the gender from that passage and invented a gender-neutral (reality-bending) sentence which stops thought: “Moses allowed divorce for hardness of heart.”
The sentence is then wielded to ascribe hardness of heart to abused wives who are thinking of divorcing their abusive husbands.
Testosterone—status seeking hormone—no excuse.
Thanks for this insight and bringing it into focus. Gendered dynamics are absolutely part of how these phrases have been used historically and presently.
Beautifully written with terrific insights. As a retired counselor that currently trains lay counselors and lay pastors we focus our training specifically on these kinds of responses. We call them Adverse Advisers and help participants recognize them for themselves and others.
Thanks for offering a uniquevview of these patterns.
Many years ago I was asked to resign from teaching and membership from a church of my historic denomination. At my ‘heresy trial’ I was called a ‘Quaker’ and mystic that just did not fit in the church. My sin was leading Inductive Bible studies that examined passages without the denomination’s theology book to guide me.
I had just moved to a new state and joined what I thought was ‘my denomination’ but got the ‘Left foot of did-fellowship.’
By the way, we had carried out Inductive Studies my entire life in our country church back home.
Never have I ever had anyone mention Adverse Advisers. That’s a very apt description.
I’ve experienced the sanctification of harm so, so many times! ….”When harm is sanctified, the nervous system’s alarm is spiritualized into a problem of attitude. The desire for safety can begin to feel like rebellion and protest can feel unfaithful.”
Wade, I love your work. Forgive me if you've already covered this and I've missed it, but I think what would help me and many others is a companion graphic with phrases to push back.
I felt the same when I read Something's Not Right. I loved the deep explanation of institutional tactics. But I was missing deep guidance for counter tactics to push back if you're a survivor, advocate, or concerned church member. I'm thinking along the lines of: "When they do x, you can respond with this..." Would you consider writing another book?! Or a second edition of Something's Not Right that's twice as long?! We need our own playbook! : )
This is really helpful feedback. I've been thinking about how to offer additional language for resistance without oversimplifying and it's something I hope to develop going forward.
I think it's absolutely critical. Often when advocates and survivors go against institutions we are outgunned and it's our first rodeo.
The institution has more resources for attorneys, crisis PR, and pre-existing communications methods (email lists, websites) to shape the narrative with stakeholders that survivors can't access. And while survivors and advocates probably are first timers, institutions may have done this before, or can easily hire experienced experts to advise them.
Unless a survivor wants to pursue a legal case and engage an attorney to advise them, there aren't many resources to help them push back. And there's not much to help advocates who aren't survivors.
We need a playbook with language and strategies to guide survivors and advocates in reclaiming the narrative, exposing truth, demanding accountability, etc.
One example I saw was an institution that was using NDAs, and no one knew they were doing that. At a public meeting, advocates exposed this. Embarrassed, the institution later sent a mass email saying they didn't use NDAs, they used confidentiality agreements, which wasn't true -- they were NDAs. Because the advocates lacked their own mass communication channel, they couldn't challenge that lie. What could the advocates have done in that case?
Any resources you can create to help with counter tactics and language would be so helpful. I am thinking drawing from general principles, and adding example case studies would be really powerful. Thanks.
One of the many phrases used to diminish the needs of my family and yet keep me trapped in "faithfulness" in marriage to my husband who had a traumatic brain injury with amnesia, dementia and agitation requiring 24 hour care, was "Lots of kids are fatherless, Bess". And "God hates divorce" even though the 'divorce' had happened through the death and dysfunction of a wonderful marriage that became a crazy care taking situation of a man unable to function in time or linear reality. For years I navigated with four small children, determined to keep my reputation and family in tact. But the harsh reality of brain injury nearly destroyed us all and when I tried to put legal boundaries in place to protect assets and sanity, I was met at the door of the church with many "we are all watching you." and other silencing tactics. When I spoke out, I was called a slanderer. When i called them a pharisee for their double standards, I was called hysterical and overemotional. Like leaving someone in a deep well, and then chastising them for yelling too loudly, it was a horrible powerlessness I still have trouble believing how it could have happened. No apologies from these leaders. But they have found promotion and protection and project themselves as having deep discernment around spiritual matters. But God has given me the right people and many wonderful graces to continue in my journey of understanding and untangling this damage and detriment. Thank you for calling this out.
Thank you for sharing. It's a devastating example of how spiritual language can be used to cause further injury on top of an already unbearable loss rather than offer support and care. I'm glad you have support for your journey now. Thank you for reading.
This wheel is so helpful in identifying spiritually manipulative statements. Thank you.
Such excellent and critically important work here. Thank you. 🙏 As a licensed mental/relational health professional and trauma clinician (with a prior M.Div.) who has worked with both victims and perpetrators of abuse for the past 15 years, I’ll be distributing this widely.
Amen! I’ve lived through this sort of reality bending spiritual abuse and it took moving from my hometown and attending a healthy congregation and gaining healthy brothers and sisters willing to simply name the abuse for me. Just a simple “It sounds to me like you were in a cult.” Was the watershed moment. May God purge this kind if abuse from the American church entirely.
I'm really glad you had people who had eyes to see and could name what you experienced. That kind of simple clarity can be so important.
Me too. I regret ever having been an “intern” being “discipled” in the church I grew up in. A story too long for a comment section, but it follows a lot of the common beats we all are growing to understand better and better constitutes toxic narcissistic leadership structures.
These phrases could be added:
I didn’t mean to hurt any one and oh I am forgiven so it doesn’t matter what I do. I heard both of these come out of the mouth of two SBC deacons/small group Bible teachers. So in other words I don’t have to held accountable for what I do, so I can be mean and hateful and it doesn’t matter. No need to apologize or make anything right.
Yes, these are powerful examples of how forgiveness language can be weaponized to avoid accountability. Thank you for naming them.
"Part of what makes spiritual harm so disorienting is that you are not merely harmed; you are trained to reinterpret the harm until your own perception begins to feel suspect. "
Thanks - very helpful. I wonder if most of these manipulations work better in a framework in which God is seen as powerful, authoritative, hierarchical and to be feared (final retributive judgment), rather than a God whose power is made perfect in weakness, whose nature is love, who forgives freely, who turns the other cheek and loves his enemies. Most of your examples seem to presuppose some fearful authority behind the scenes.
Would you put the phrase "they have a religious spirit" in the "bypassing discernment" category? Since it tries to shut down inquiry and cast the questioner as not only not spiritually mature, but influenced by the demonic?
I especially appreciate how you show that these phrases don’t just “end conversation,” they actively reshape reality in ways that protect power and silence alarm.
Thank you