Your friends won't want to help you

What I wish someone had told me about abuse in the church

It felt like drowning in front of an audience, an audience filled with all the people I loved and trusted most.

Any one of them could’ve reached out to help me. They were so close.

But no one was willing to risk it. Instead, they shouted at me from their deck chairs. Some tried to encourage me, then got angry because they thought I wasn’t following their advice.

A few were talking about jumping in to pull me out, until the pastors stepped in to block them. She’s fine, they said. It’s her fault she’s in there, anyway.

I was struggling and sinking under an abusive church discipline process. I was thrown overboard, so to speak, by anonymous accusers who decided I was “divisive and power hungry,” and by the pastors who shielded these accusers while publicly shaming me.

Photo by Karan Picture on Unsplash

I learned a lot through my experience of spiritual abuse, and I’m still learning. But there’s one thing in particular I wish I’d known beforehand: Your friends will almost certainly leave you to suffer alone. This isn’t because they’re “bad” people. In an unhealthy community, there’s immense pressure to conform, to appease the leaders. Very few are able to resist.

In unhealthy churches, ‘community’ is an illusion

When it all started, I had the impression I was surrounded by support. Dozens of people reached out with encouragement, sharing their frustration with how I was being treated. Some of them confronted the pastor and elders. But within a couple months, only a few were still making an effort to stay in touch.

Every friend who dropped out of our lives broke my shattered heart into ever-smaller fragments. And I was left reeling, again and again, by people who suddenly and angrily started blaming me as they chose to side with the pastors.

I didn’t understand how inevitable this was.

Some of you may have suffered through an experience like this. Perhaps you’re in the middle of one now. My goal is to point out some patterns that allow abuse to flourish in church communities, to help other survivors process their experience, and to encourage bystanders to step in and speak out.

“The key dynamic of abuse is the inappropriate assignment of responsibility.”

When I first came across this quote by counselor and author Bob Hamp, it felt like all the parts of my story clicked together into a coherent whole. Inappropriate assignment of responsibility.

Here’s how Hamp explains the process:

“First the victim is made responsible to carry the anger, control, or sexual impulse of their abuser … Second, the victim is then blamed for the “incidents” and made “responsible” for the choices and behavior of the abuser. “I wonder what their part was...?” Third, they are made responsible for the reputation of the abuser, as both the abuser and others deceived by the abuser accuse the victim of ruining the person's reputation, instead of recognizing that the abuser has a problem that needs to be addressed.”

This outline fits neatly over my story (and most stories of abuse I’ve heard). Our lead pastor directed his anger and control at me in increasingly forceful ways over a period of about a year. He refused to take responsibility for any of his actions, including lying to me. Instead, the problem was always what I did, what I said, or how I said it.¹

Eventually, he created some “charges” and pushed other elders to remove me from my role, launching a witch-hunt style investigation.² He lied about and bullied me in a series of group meetings, but my reactions to this — arguing to defend myself, frustration or anger — were framed as the problem. Finally, I was accused of being “divisive” and gossiping because I asked for help from friends in the church. The problem wasn’t what the pastors did; it was that I was talking about it.

This inappropriate assignment of responsibility started with the lead pastor, and his blame-shifting gradually shifted out through concentric circles of power: the elders, the staff and other leaders, and finally our friends. As the pastors continued to insist I was the bad guy, people who initially came to my defense began to shift positions.

“You’re going to come through this shining like gold,” one friend told me early on. She’d worked closely with me for years and was confident there was nothing to the accusations. But the pastors didn’t listen to her when she raised concerns. As the process dragged out, I heard from her less and less, then not at all. When I called to let her know we were selling our house and moving to another state, she made a point of distancing herself. “I don’t want to hear anything more about the pastors,” she said.

I hadn’t even started to tell her.

Many friends were more aggressive. Over and over, I heard people turn the responsibility for abuse back on me. As I asked for prayer and support, they told me I was the one with the problem:

“You’ve got to move on and forgive.”

“We want to give the pastors the benefit of the doubt.” “You were too angry.”

“I don’t want to hear about this anymore.” “You need to meet with them again.”

“You should just follow the process.”

To return to the opening metaphor: I’d been thrown overboard by church leadership, but when I begged for someone to toss me a lifeline, church members fixated on the words I used to call for help. “How dare you suggest the pastors would harm someone?” “You’re being way too loud right now!” “If you just admit you jumped in by yourself, we could give you a hand.”

It’s easier to stay on the boat

I believed that our friends — people who loved us, loved Jesus, and loved the church — cared about truth, justice, and integrity. I trusted people we’d known for years would take time to understand what was happening, would want to make sure the church reflected Jesus’ love. I was naive.

Instead, friend after friend quietly drifted out of our lives, or else angrily turned against me, telling me to quiet down, to quit fighting to keep my head above water. I was so hurt and confused: What was wrong with these people? What was I doing wrong?

I couldn’t see the invisible pressures. In any abusive system, bystanders have powerful motives to stay on the sidelines. The abusers are the ones with the power to control and/or punish, and to shape the narrative about what’s happening. The pastors had identified me as the problem in our church, and made it clear that questioning their actions was unwelcome, even sinful. Hanging quietly over our heads was the threat of being cut off from relationships, losing a place of belonging.

What price will we pay to belong?

Each person was being presented with a choice, unspoken but emotionally potent: they could choose to stay within the community by upholding the pastors and their power, or they could challenge leadership and suffer the consequences.

Our church had become a perfect example of what Chuck deGroat writes about:

“Narcissistic systems exist for themselves, even though their mission statements and theological beliefs may be filled with the language of service, selflessness, justice, and care. Those within the system find this contradiction exhausting. This is why many who get close to the epicenter of leadership either forfeit their integrity or resign.” (When Narcissism Comes to Church, pg 24)

The people involved in my story found themselves shaken and disoriented by what it revealed about our church. This place had been “family” for so many of us; now there was conflict, confusion, claims that leaders were in sin. No wonder so many chose to forfeit their integrity and believe what the pastors told them: everything and everyone here is ok, except for Joy.

Each person had to decide what they believed our church to be. Were we on a pirate ship where the captain would toss you overboard if you stepped out of line? Or were we all on a lovely cruise together, where safety was guaranteed?

If you thought something might be wrong, you’d be obligated to stand up and draw attention to yourself, an awkward and risky situation.

It was much easier to assume everything was ok. Surely no one could end up overboard unless they made foolish decisions! And if you wanted to stay safe and comfortable, all you had to do was … nothing.

The easiest choice is always to sit back down in a deck chair and close your eyes.

In Part 2 of this post, I’ll share some examples of how these dynamics work — in biblical and modern times — and offer a few suggestions for how to respond when bystanders try to victim-blame.

1. He even interpreted my genuine care for him as an attack. When I realized he had lied and was acting in unhealthy ways, I gently asked if he might be tired or burned out (this was early 2021, and you all know what 2020 did to churches and pastors). He told me I was trying to “emotionally manipulate” him and later challenged me to bring charges against him.

2. If you want to hear an overview of my story, you can find it on the Bodies Behind the Bus podcast. (Part 1 and Part 2)