Agree, even family members, who hold ministerial positions, don’t bother to even listen to an abused & get all the evidence of abuse. PTSD is real ,& only by the grace of God & a serious study of the Sovereign Providence of God, can one come through without a bitter heart & actually forgive. God is very gracious.

What a typically avoidant of acknowledging culpability comment.

The xtian Church has blood on its hands when it comes to complex trauma. Stop pretending youre the cure. Maybe you’re the cancer.

So, Al, you say spiritual abuse should be dealt with only in private? I don’t think so. There are many innocent victims who are suffering in silence. I think things have been hidden far too long. The perpetrators don’t think anyone will ever find out. Why would you want to hide abuse if the victim, himself, or herself, starts healing because they finally speak out, and someone listens. Abusers do their best work in the dark. Look at the Terpins, for example. They were in a sense “spiritual abusers” because they claimed to be Christians, and even had been church members, but in secret holding their own children hostages, chained up like dogs. Imagine the hypocrisy, and how much damage that did, as their parents misrepresented God in the worst possible way to them. What if the young girl that escaped was too ashamed to run for help. What if she didn’t want anyone to know the horrors she and her siblings were living through. What if she was too embarrassed to expose the filthy home they lived in? She and her siblings might still be chained up today…I say it’s time for abusers to be exposed. For too long abusers have gotten away with harboring secrets, and living double lives. If abusers hadn’t abused in the first place, they wouldn’t have to worry about it getting out and going public.

To Ken from Sept 2021
What a disgraceful comment…makes me think you’re an abuser yourself. Maybe not a spiritual abuser, but an abuser nonetheless. I thank God for people like Mike Frost that brings awareness to issues that affect millions of people around the world. Let it happen to you or someone you love and you’d change your tune real fast!

Then things changes dramatically the more you are involved. People start judging and criticise your personality, ability, and everything. Absolutely would beats you to the ground, makes you feels if you are worthless.

I was once very open to make new friends and talk, but since I was open fully to the church people, it really hurts. And now I have trouble making any friends, I just can’t open up even I force myself to.

No, Deborah, I’m not interested in a “cold read” of my alleged tone, in a text-only comment. Not something that can even be measured. I’m fine with my comments, because the complexity of the abuse investigation processes and risks, is EXACTLY why people should be playing ALL if it out privately, not on a blog for casual readers. It’s nothing to do with how pastoral or caring…. unless you accept some weird power or online discussion to convey something deep or impacting? That sounds, well, incoherent

Wrong tone, Al. Your harshness in this post is exactly why someone who goes through this is unlikely to report it. You are part of the problem.

If you have been through this type of abuse, get yourself into a good counseling situation and then report the abuse. Hopefully that will help you navigate the uncaring attitudes like those above. God loves you and if you let Him, He will walk with you through even this difficulty.