Liberty for Captives

When Someone You Love is in a Cult

Posted by Steve Smith on March 25, 2013 in Uncategorized

The requests break my heart.

I often receive emails from readers asking me to help them extract one of their family members from a cult. Other times, a reader will say: “I think my loved one is in a cult, but I’m not sure. How can I know for certain? Please help!”

Dr. Paul R. Martin, founder of Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center in Albany, Ohio.

One of the best brief articles I’ve read which covers these topics was written by the late Dr. Paul R. Martin, founder of Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center in Albany, Ohio. Dr. Martin’s two-page article answers the following questions:

1.) How can I tell if my loved one is in a cult or cultic relationship?
2.) I think my loved one is in a cult or abusive relationship, what do I do now?
3.) My loved one just left a cult, how can I help him or her?

You can access the article here.

To find Wellspring’s helpful website with links to other articles and books, click here.

For this and other resources, check out the Resources page on this blog.

Tags: Dr. Paul R. Martin, how do I free my loved one from a cult?, how to recognize a cult, I think my loved one is in a cult, Liberty for Captives, Spiritual abuse, wellspring retreat and resource center in albany ohio Permalink

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Broken Cisterns: Cultic Codependency (Part 2 of 2)

Posted by Steve Smith on March 18, 2013 in Uncategorized

Every cult leader practices codependent styles of relating. Every cult member struggles with boundary issues and codependency.

Codependent people may feel hooked by manipulative or controlling leaders. Image courtesy xvmrjfs0 Designs Mag Dot Com

Codependency is the greatest relational dysfunction in cults and unhealthy religious groups. It represents a form of idolatry where we put someone else in the place of God. God calls such relationships “broken cisterns” which cannot meet our soul’s true needs (cf. Jeremiah 2:13).

Remember that according to Christian counselor June Hunt, codependency is “anyone who is dependent on another person to the point of being controlled or manipulated by that person.”

In the previous post on this topic, we looked at the symptoms of codependency. In this post, we will look at some of the roots of codependency, and then focus on biblical steps toward a solution. You can find these points in greater detail in June Hunt’s Biblical Counseling Key on Codependency, which I highly recommend.

Roots of Codependency

Every child has five stages of development they need to navigate in order to attain healthy relationships as an adult. If a child skips a stage or is disallowed to proceed from one step to the next, they may grow up physically but remain underdeveloped emotionally. This can make them susceptible to unhealthy, codependent relationships.

The five stages are:

1.) The Helpless Stage

Babies rely on their parents to meet all of their needs, both physical and emotional. If your parents did not bond with you or meet your needs when you were an infant, you may have grown into an adult who still looks to everyone else to meet your needs.

2.) The Pushing Away Stage

Toddlers learn to explore boundaries and begin to recognize themselves as separate from their parents. If your parents refused to allow you to separate from them during this time, you may develop into a boundary-less adult who manipulates other people in order to feel in control.

3.) The Conflict Stage

Young children need to learn to resolve conflict with their parents as they begin to test their parents’ rules. If your parents stifled you or were pushovers, you may lack conflict-resolution skills. This can make you a push-over for strong, combative, or convincing people.

Children need to grow and explore in healthy ways to develop strong relational patterns.

4.) The Independent Stage

Preadolescent children need to grow in independence even as their parents guide and support them. Children whose parents stifled them may grow into weak, unassertive adults. Such people often look to other apparently strong people to validate them.

5.) The Sharing Stage

Adolescents need to learn how to give-and-take and even sacrifice for other people. If a child does not see their parents modeling such healthy, mutual relating, the child may grow up into a selfish, self-focused adult who uses other people to meet his or her own needs. These types of people gravitate toward unequal relationships.

If a child does not navigate these five stages in a healthy manner, he or she will likely evidence unhealthy emotional and relational patterns which carry into adulthood. Such people have never learned healthy independence or respect for other people’s boundaries. They crave codependent relationships in which they either control someone else in order to meet their own emotional needs—or in which they allow themselves to be controlled in order to feel needed and valued.

Biblical Steps toward a Solution

Cult members who struggle with codependency have a problem with what the Bible calls “idolatry.” Idolatry places something else in the place of God. Codependent people allow their excessive care to compromise their convictions; they allow their excessive loyalty to compromise healthy boundaries; and they allow excessive “love” to say yes when they should say no. Thus they make their cult or group leader a god in their own life.

Paul speaks to these matters in the book of Galatians, particularly in chapter 1, verse 10, and in chapter 6 verses 1-5. In these passages Paul encourages believers to please God rather than other people, and to take healthy responsibility for their own burdens.

June Hunt recommends four steps toward attaining greater relational health. Caveat: I am simply summarizing them—this list is not a substitute for actual counseling. You should check out June’s Biblical Counseling Key on Codependency for greater detail, or seek help from a local Christian counselor or reputable church:

1.) Confront Your Own Codependency

Admit that you are codependent; confront the consequences of your codependency (this means you need to take responsibility for how your past experiences and reactions have hurt your current relationships—including your relationship with God; and you need to take responsibility for how your behavior has also hurt yourself); confront your painful emotions; confront your “secondary addictions” such as sexual sin, compulsive eating, alcohol abuse, etc.; confront your current codependent relationship; learn to disengage from your current codependent relationship; confront what you need to leave in order to receive (i.e. leave your broken childhood, your immaturity, and your fantasy relationships); confront your need to build mature, non-codependent relationships.

2.) Look at Your Past Love Addictions

Write down your history of codependent relationships; write down how you met or were attracted to each person; write down how the relationship was codependent and how you tried to replace your need for God by depending on this other person; write down how the relationship may have replicated your painful childhood experiences; write down how God wants to replace your self-destructive, love-addicted patterns. There is power in story, and writing these experiences down will help you to assimilate and then release these realities.

3.) Develop Interdependent Relationships

Make a goal to develop a healthy, intimate relationship with God; learn to study the Bible for yourself, but also join a healthy Bible study group or small group; memorize scripture which relates to codependency and also healthy relationship with God and others; find a mentor or accountability group who can help you; make a plan to move toward maturity in your relationships; make your relationship with your parents complete (resolve unhealthy patterns of relating, conflict resolution, etc.; refuse to become emotionally enmeshed; identify your family of origin problems and choose to forgive your offender(s) and grieve your losses); become a person of integrity; make maturity, not emotional relationships, your highest goal.

Image from jfa7g675 on Designs Mag Dot Com

4.) Pursue Liberty

Release other people from meeting your needs; confess that you are trying to be like God in the life of another person; forgive those who have hurt you; appropriate your true identity in Christ; set healthy boundaries; exchange your emotional focus for a spiritual focus.

Key Scriptures: Exodus 20:3; John 8:36; Jeremiah 17:5; Colossians 3:13; Jeremiah 17:7; Psalm 62:7; Galatians 6:4-5; Galatians 1:10; Philippians 4:13; 1 Peter 5:7.

Conclusion:

Codependency is a natural response to broken stages of development in childhood. By understanding how certain experiences in our past—and our own reactions to those events—shaped us, we can move toward emotional and relational health. This will make us less susceptible to cult leaders or other unhealthy religious leaders who use codependency to trap emotionally immature people.

Tags: codependent people in churches, cult leaders manipulating followers, cultic codependency, religious codependency, unhealthy emotional dynamics in cults, unhealthy relationships in the church Permalink

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Self-Deprecating Narcissists: Why Some Christian Narcissists Appear Humble

Posted by Steve Smith on March 14, 2013 in Uncategorized

A humble narcissist?

I always wondered how my former pastor could appear so righteous and yet act as a narcissist.

Even after writing a post about narcissism in the church, I still scratched my head.

But no more.

Recently, my friends over at “Recovering Grace” re-posted a blog which describes exactly how this behavior happens. Since most Christians frown at obvious narcissism, pastors who struggle with narcissism must cloak their personality disorder with apparent humility. Thus the term “self-deprecating narcissism.”

The article quotes extensively from Jack Watts, who writes about spiritual abuse by evangelical leaders. You will find his insights in this article well worth your time. The author also quotes from Sandy Hotchkiss. I want to read her book, but this snippet quoted in the blog will have to suffice for now:

“Sandy Hotchkiss in her book, Why is It Always About You: The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism, lays out the traits of all narcissists this way. [Emphasis by blogger]

Shamelessness – Shame is the feeling that lurks beneath all unhealthy narcissism, and the inability to process shame in healthy ways.

Magical thinking – Narcissists see themselves as perfect using distortion and illusion known as magical thinking. They also use projection to dump shame onto others.

Arrogance – A narcissist who is feeling deflated may re-inflate by diminishing, debasing, or degrading somebody else.

Envy – A narcissist may secure a sense of superiority in the face of another person’s ability by using contempt to minimize the other person.

Entitlement – Narcissists hold unreasonable expectations of particularly favorable treatment and automatic compliance because they consider themselves special. Failure to comply is considered an attack on their superiority, and the perpetrator is considered an “awkward” or “difficult” person. Defiance of their will is a narcissistic injury that can trigger narcissistic rage.

Exploitation – can take many forms but always involves the exploitation of others without regard for their feelings or interests. Often the other is in a subservient position where resistance would be difficult or even impossible. Sometimes the subservience is not so much real as assumed.

Bad Boundaries – narcissists do not recognize that they have boundaries and that others are separate and are not extensions of themselves. Others either exist to meet their needs or may as well not exist at all. Those who provide narcissistic supply to the narcissist are treated as if they are part of the narcissist and are expected to live up to those expectations. In the mind of a narcissist, there is no boundary between self and other.”

Check out the rest of the post for more explanations of narcissism in the church.

Update, 11/17/15: William E. Krill, Jr., L.P.C., has written an outstanding post about what he calls “Covert Narcissistic Pastors.” It is worth ten minutes to read it. You can find it here.

Tags: can a Christian be a narcissist?, can a narcissist appear humble?, Jack Watts and Spiritual Abuse, narcissism in the church, narcissist pastors, Narcissists in the church, problem of narcissism in the church, Sandy Hotchkiss, self-deprecating narcissist Permalink

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Beware “A Tale of Three Kings” by Gene Edwards

Posted by Steve Smith on March 12, 2013 in Uncategorized

This book is easy to read and memorable. It just isn’t true.

Despite its lop-sided popularity (you can scan a galaxy of 5-star Amazon reviews), A Tale of Three Kings represents an inaccurate and, thus, harmful perspective on spiritual authority and those who have been wounded by its abuse.

Gene Edwards first published A Tale of Three Kings in 1980. It describes three Israelite kings: Saul, David, and Absalom, and how their behaviors supposedly represent Christian responses to authority and rebellion. We should be like David, says Edwards, who refused to touch God’s “anointed” in the person of King Saul. Edwards says that we should also be like David when he refused to do anything to stop Absalom’s rebellion (a questionable assertion we’ll discuss below). Christians who resist abusive leaders or usurpers are acting like Saul and Absalom, says Edwards.

Yikes.

The book served as Edwards’s heart-felt response to spiritually-abused people whom he perceived as leaving the church because they refused to submit to authority (p.ix). Edwards’s solution for these abused and broken people, amazingly, was not healing but rather more brokenness. Hence his subtitle: “A Study in Brokenness.” Being abused? Great, submit to it and you’ll get better.

Written in a historical-fiction approach, the book relies on Edwards’s interpretation of Old Testament Bible stories, his own conjecture, and his belief in the one-to-one application of these stories to contemporary believers.

Before I examine some of the inaccuracies in this book, let me state my motives.

Motive 1: As a follower of Jesus who holds firmly to the inspiration of scripture—and as a graduate of a conservative seminary, as was Edwards—I value adherence to the Word of God. A book may move me to no end, but if the words strung so beautifully together are in fact untrue, then I trust my weight to a fractured chain.

Motive 2: As a survivor of spiritual abuse in a Bible-cult for 25 years, I have a heightened awareness of issues related to spiritual authority and submission. Therefore, when I read a book on this topic my ears perk up and I have a vested interest that the author accurately portrays the salient issues. I personally know people who read books like this as a source of wisdom and insight. I want to make sure these good folk receive true balm, not snake-oil or vinegar.

Exegetical Fallacies in A Tale of Three Kings:

Gene Edwards

Unfortunately, I believe that Edwards’s book commits several major flaws in logic and in hermeneutics (that is, the interpretation of God’s Word). This distorts the truth of scripture in aid of his thesis and makes the book’s premise and its conclusions untrue. I will include one interpretational matter and four logical errors, with the relevant category in parentheses after each point. For a better understanding of these categories, refer to Exegetical Fallacies by D. A. Carson.

1.) Mistaking description for prescription (Hermeneutics). Edwards mistakenly uses Old Testament descriptive passages as a prescription for Christians. What does this mean? It means that Edwards has interpreted narrative portions of scripture to draw out principles which the original authors may never have intended. He treats these stories as if they were doctrinal epistles similar to the book of Ephesians or 2 Timothy. Thus he takes David’s behavior during the rebellion of Absalom as prescriptive for every believer. But the Bible never says that David handled every matter in a godly way which Christians today should emulate. In fact, David made many mistakes in parenting and kingship which a discerning reader can identify. Complicating this is that Edwards freely switches between loose paraphrases of scripture and his own made-up conjecture. He implies that Christians must adhere to his fanciful interpretation and act accordingly. Thus the non-discriminating reader may easily become confused as to what is scripture and what is Edwards’s fiction.

2.) Failure to Recognize Distinctions (Logic). By saying that Christian leaders are like anointed kings, Edwards fails to distinguish critical differences between Israelite kings in a theocracy and Christian leaders today. Most Christians understand that there is a categorical difference between the kings of Israel 3,000 years ago and the local church pastor today. Edwards does not. A question: Can your local church pastor raise an army? Collect taxes? Build a temple? Put congregants to death? No. Then why does Edwards believe that a king and a pastor should be viewed as identical with each other? It doesn’t follow.

Indeed, nowhere in the New Testament are church leaders described as “anointed” leaders, much less kings with divine right to rule. Instead, Christian leaders are selected via a strict qualification process with carefully prescribed prerequisites (cf. I Timothy 3; Titus 1; 1 Peter 5). And leaders who abuse their authority may be called to account via a carefully regulated church discipline process (cf. Matthew 18; I Corinthians 5; 1 Timothy 5:19—this last verse is often cited by abusive leaders who claim that church folk cannot question them. But the verse explicitly says that church members may entertain an accusation against an elder if there are at least two witnesses.)

3.) False Distinctions: An Improper Appeal to the Law of the Excluded Middle (Logic). By setting forth either-or options of conduct, Edwards has committed what logicians call a false distinction. That is, Edwards creates a scenario (King Saul throwing spears at David) and then gives only two options to respond: to throw the spears back (which makes you a bad person), or to do nothing (which makes you a good person). But aren’t there other options? Couldn’t a believer put up a shield, call the king out on his mad behavior, and call other believers to assist in restraining the king’s madness or removing the king from power?

4.) Appeal to selective evidence (Logic). Because Edwards has a thesis to prove, he refers to scripture in a manner which supports his opinion. For example, when he says that David did nothing when Absalom rebelled against him (p.72), Edwards overlooks the rest of the story which shows that David was highly strategic in his response and aggressively assertive with his army when it came time to fight. Ignoring biblical context and citing only favorable scriptures is called proof-texting.

5.) Improperly handled syllogisms (Logic). This just means that an argument is flawed because its pieces don’t necessarily follow. For example, Edwards says that if David had resisted Saul, that would equal rebellion (A) which would have been bad (B). Therefore, resistance to any authority figure (C) is also bad (B). In other words, A=B=C. But this doesn’t follow. A Christian is called to stand up for what is right and to call into question unqualified leaders or false teachers who are abusing God’s people, just as Jesus opposed the Pharisees (cf. Matthew 21; 2 Corinthians 11:3-4, 12-15, 20; 12:19-21; Gal. 1:6-10; 2:11-14; 3:1-5; 4:8-12, 15-20; 5:4, 7-26; 6:1; Col. 2:8-23; 2 Tim. 3:1-9, 13).

Potential Harm of the Book:

Because Edwards’s major premises are flawed, his conclusions also represent flawed and simplistic solutions to spiritual abuse.

While his stated goal is to prevent division in the church and to encourage people to submit to spiritual authority, in fact Edwards reinforces unhealthy models of spiritual authority. Chief amongst these is the fallacy that church leaders are unimpeachable; that people who disagree with a spiritual leader should remain silent (the “Don’t Talk” rule of many cults, cf. p.69); that those who are hit by a leader’s “spears” are to blame (blame-shifting, cf. p.19); that critically-minded people are rebels like Korah (p.91) [My own pastor unforgettably cited this passage when deacons called him to account for his spiritually abusive behavior]; and that spiritually abused people should prefer getting “stabbed to death” by an abusive leader rather than to resist an abusive spiritual authority (p.23).

For these reasons, I give A Tale of Three Kings a single star and wish it a quick death or a corrective sequel.

Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Reprint edition 1992 [originally published in 1980] (111 pages)

Update, 1/12/14 – A reader sent me the following link where Gene Edwards talks about the origins of the book: http://www.geneedwards.us I was surprised with what I read, since I interpret the book much differently than Edwards does himself. But I’m glad to hear Edwards’ thoughts and I wish he would pen an afterward or a postscript to clarify what he is and is not saying. Because I still think this book can be misused or misunderstood in such a way that people who are being abused stay in those abusive situations.

Tags: A Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards, Blameshifting, cults, Exegetical Fallacies, legalism, Liberty for Captives, Logic, Spiritual abuse Permalink

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Hail Stones, Strep Throat, and Engine Failure: God’s Punishment, or Occupational Hazards?

Posted by Steve Smith on March 1, 2013 in Uncategorized

On June 13, 2012, a line of severe thunderstorms boiled through east Dallas, just west of Highway 75.

I know, because I was standing beside my car in the uncovered parking lot beside our apartment building at Dallas Seminary. I watched afternoon sunlight turn a weird shade of green. I smelled ozone in the air. Sand stung my face. Empty bottles and plastic Aldi bags whipped by as lightning forked from the clouds. Huge raindrops pelted the pavement.

Then the storm passed and birds sang and I saw the clouds heading east, toward the Lakewood neighborhood. A near miss. I unloaded my groceries and went about my business.

That night, Teresa and I sat on the couch after dinner. I flipped on Channel 6. Breaking news. An attractive reporter stood among piles of wreckage and clumps of ice, breathlessly exclaiming how much damage the storm had done—one of the largest hailstorms of the century. Following her script, the reporter walked sideways as the camera followed in a choreographed display of destruction.

I felt—I’m ashamed to admit it—a warm cocktail of socially-acceptable horror mixed with a smug shot of surprising self-satisfaction.

Self-satisfaction?

Of course. The storm had clearly veered just north of Dallas Theological Seminary. God had protected us. He was watching over his chosen ones.

If that hail storm—with stones the size of baseballs—had hit our wide-open parking lot, every car would be totaled. What a mess. Yes, God had protected his righteous people.

[As a compassionate and enlightened reader, you might naturally ask a question at this point. Something like: “But what about all of the righteous people whose homes and vehicles got totaled?” Alas, I asked no such question at the time. My self-satisfaction reigned unchallenged.]

The next day, I laced up my shoes and headed out for a run down scenic Swiss Avenue. Within eight blocks of my apartment building, blue tarps started to appear over homes. Roofing trucks cluttered the road. Piles of shattered slate tiles littered the ground. Cars parked along the wide boulevard looked like gutted vehicles from Baghdad or Ramadi.

Insurance agents estimated the storm damage at $500 million.

It wasn’t until weeks later, sometime in July, that my conscience pricked. I again ran down Swiss Avenue at the start of a training run for a marathon. I dripped sweat and stopped briefly beneath a weeping willow in front of a white Victorian mansion. Sun beat down. I looked through the heat- shimmer and saw a blue tarp stretched across half the roof. Still damaged.

Something clicked.

What made me think that the storm spared Dallas Seminary because we were righteous? Hadn’t the storm also damaged the homes of many good people? Of course.

Why was my natural reaction to consider averted disaster a sign of God rewarding my own goodness? Did that also mean that if I experienced hardship or disaster of some sort, I felt that God was punishing me?

It did.

What a pagan worldview.

I sat stewing in my sweat on the sidewalk and realized for the first time that I had always considered God similar to the Greek pantheon of deities. Capricious. Somewhat sophomoric. A little vindictive. Able to hurl lightning bolts, hailstones, or a good-sized twister when it came time to punish the transgressions of his people. When it came time for him to punish me.

I imbibed this worldview as a child growing up in a Bible-cult church where we sought to mitigate any unforeseen disasters by living a closed, protected, insular life-style with the lowest risk possible. Many of us believed—tacitly if not overtly—that natural disasters, illnesses, and mechanical dysfunction were signs of our own sin.

But does natural disaster always entail God’s punishment?

Pat Robertson thinks so.

Jerry Falwell believed it.

Westboro Baptist Church thanks God for it.

But is that true?

After all, God sends his rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45). Doesn’t that mean that he also sends tornadoes and hailstones on both alike?

If a tornado hits, or hailstones fall, it stops people in their tracks and it should cause us to acknowledge God (Job 37:1-7). But it doesn’t always mean that each person affected has done something wrong. That they are being punished for their sin.

Instead, it means that they are people living in a broken world—a cursed world (Genesis 3:14-19). You might say that hailstones are an occupational hazard of living under the world-wide curse.

Think of it this way.

Our friends, the Spragues, have a set of young twins, Benjamin and Micah. They visited our house on Sunday night, and the next day poor little Benjamin came down with strep throat. Does this mean that God is punishing Benjamin for his sin, but that Micah is rewarded for his righteousness? Does it mean that before the twins were born—or had a chance to do anything good or bad—that God hated Benjamin but loved Micah? Of course not. Strep is going around, and Benjamin’s immune system has always been weaker.

Or consider this. I used to fear breaking down while driving. It was a constant obsession—if I got a flat tire, or if my battery died, it was proof that God hated me. Or that he was justly punishing me for my sin. But that only showed that I had a big theological problem—I viewed God as a vindictive, blood-thirsty God who got his jollies by hurting his people.

We recently purchased a used 2004 Mazda 6 with 136K miles on it. In the few weeks that we’ve owned it, the vehicle has suffered two or three mechanical problems. Does this mean that we sinned by purchasing the vehicle? Is God judging us? I don’t think so. It’s just part of the occupational hazard of buying a used vehicle with high mileage in a broken world.

Let’s get this straight: hailstorms, strep throat, and faulty engines are not usually part of God’s specific judgment on his people.* God doesn’t punish us—he disciplines us (Heb 12:4-11). His judgment is not punitive, but rather restorative.

If you struggle with a view of God which believes that when something bad happens to you, God is punishing you, you have yet to realize God’s huge heart of love for his children.

Bad things do happen to good people. But this shows that we live in a broken world which is not our ultimate home. Let hailstones, strep throat, and cranky engines turn your attention to God with a love and longing for your heavenly home.

In the meantime, try parking in a garage.

*Though on occasion, the Bible says, they can be—cf. 1 Cor. 11:30; James 5:15.

Tags: cults, God's judgment, Is God punishing me?, Jerry Falwell belief that God punishes, legalism, natural disasters and God, Pat Robertson, Spiritual abuse, worldview problems Permalink

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Broken Cisterns: Cultic Codependency (Part 1 of 2)

Posted by Steve Smith on February 26, 2013 in Uncategorized

“Steve, you sound angry,” my pastor said. His voice dripped like brown caramel on my head. The room spun and roared.

Painting by the author.

“No,” I said, but my fists clenched. Ferris* had just told me that I couldn’t go to college yet—I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t spiritually mature enough. Outside, I could see summer sun lean heavily against the pine trees. Somewhere a cricket chirred.

“I think that you do feel angry,” said Ferris. “I think that you feel angry with me. You know that anger against God masquerades as anger against God’s servants, don’t you?”

“I do not feel angry,” I lied. I looked into Ferris’s eyes and it seemed like stepping into a spider’s web.

“I think that you do feel angry,” Ferris said. He smiled at me with dull teeth. “To feel anger against me makes you a rebel. To rebel against me at this point—after so many years of ministry—would indicate that you don’t really want to serve God after all. What a shame, don’t you think? Especially after all that you have suffered… after all your family has suffered.”

I remembered my brother. When he left our church I bricked up my heart against any thought of leaving. I took the plunge to stay within the tight strictures of our hyper-conservative church. Despite my misery I believed that I was right. God was pleased with me for staying, wasn’t he? Wasn’t he? And then I could go to heaven when I died.

I looked at Ferris with unseeing eyes and said, “Yes, to rebel against God’s servant at this point would waste my suffering.”

“Oh Steve!” Ferris said, “My good boy! My son!”

I felt his words like sunrays on a frozen roof but still sat with my head bowed.

Ferris continued: “You cannot pick and choose what you want to believe, Steve. Either I speak as a genuine servant of God and everything I say comes from him, or I lie and you are overly credulous and misguided. However, if you believe that God speaks to me and that he has revealed his words to me then you must believe that he has the ability to correct me. Him alone.”

Beads of sweat crawled like spiders through my hair. I nodded.

Ferris looked at me and smiled paternally. “You must trust me, Steve. Entrust yourself to me completely. God has good plans for you—wonderful plans! You are highly privileged, surely you realize that? Your brother has chosen the way of the world, but God has chosen you for special blessing. You must submit completely to my authority. If you do, you will finally arrive as one of God’s true servants. Only trust me, for I am the wisest man you will ever meet.”

I stared past him. His words made sense. I wanted assurance that God loved me—needed it, even. Ferris offered this assurance with empirical confidence. He had what I wanted.

“All right,” I said, “I trust you.”

“I can tell that you trust me!” he said with delight.

His voice reminded me of the time in second grade when Ben Dreyvan* punched me in the stomach and said, “Now you’re my best friend.” I had kneeled on the brown grass in my yard, the blades tickling my calves, holding my stomach while a thread of spittle wisped from my mouth. “Yup,” Ben had growled, “Now I can come over whenever I want.”

Ferris looked so pleased, like a Boy Scout at a jamboree. “What a special relationship we have, don’t you agree?” He smiled warmly at me. “You are like a son to me. Don’t you love me, too?”

The musty smell of old carpet wafted around me, untangling its ancient pedigree. I saw thick books on Ferris’s shelves, remembered his Ivy League credentials, believed that he was far, far beyond my depth. A Bible scholar par excellence. I looked at him as Catholics must look at the pope, as Frenchmen once looked to Joan of Arc, as Samson had looked at Delilah.

“Yes,” I whispered, “I love you.”

“Oh Stephen!” Ferris said, “Let me embrace you. I know how much you love me—I can see it on your face.” He rose from his gray-green chair and wrapped his bony arms around me. Overhead, the fluorescents buzzed.

I felt the stiff collar of his starched shirt press into my throat and smelled the warm, wet scent of Aqua Velva aftershave. I felt the pressure of Ferris’s arms but in my heart I sank far, far away into a deep cavern undersea.

The dungeon clanged shut and I swallowed the key.

*Not their real names.

—

Pretty sick, huh?

How can two sane people get involved in such an unhealthy relationship? Especially two people who claim to follow God’s Word and rely on his Spirit?

One word: Codependency.

The major unhealthy relational issue involved in cults today is codependency. While spiritual blindness, spiritual warfare, and psychological imbalance also play prominent roles in cult dynamics, codependency is probably the greatest relational bondage within cults.

According to counselor June Hunt, codependency is “anyone who is dependent on another person to the point of being controlled or manipulated by that person.”

Codependency is a relationship addiction, which means that it appears to meet basic psychological, emotional, and spiritual needs of those who practice it, making the pattern hard to break.

There are two sides to the relationship: the person who is dependent, and the codependent enabler who fails to draw proper boundaries and allows themselves to be exclusively needed by the other person.

Why is codependency wrong? Because it attempts to make a god out of a person. The Bible has a name for this: idolatry. Indeed, in Jeremiah 2:11-13, God records this complaint against his people:

“Has a nation changed gods when they were not gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this, and shudder, be very desolate, declares the Lord. For my people have committed two evils: They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

Folks in a codependent relationship use that relationship to try to meet all three of a human being’s fundamental needs: security, love, and significance. But the relationship is a broken cistern. It cannot hold water.

What are some signs that you might be in a codependent relationship? I have borrowed the following checklists from June Hunt’s book on Codependency. Remember: you can be either the dependent person, or the enabler in the relationship.

Ten Signs of Codependency:

I feel responsible for the feelings, needs, and actions of the other person.
I try to fix the problems of this person, even to the detriment of my own well-being.
I feel angry when my help is not wanted.
I tend to be rigid and judgmental in the eyes of others.
I deny my own feelings and needs—so I’ve been told.
I feel guilty when I stand up for myself.
I feel good about giving but have difficulty receiving.
I try to be perfect in order to avoid anger or criticism.
I look for my worth in the approval of others.
I find that I am attracted to needy people and that needy people are attracted to me.

The Codependent relationship profile:

Both feel a loss of personal identity.
Both violate their consciences.
Both have difficulty establishing healthy, intimate relationships.
Both struggle with low self-worth.
Both control and manipulate.
Both have difficulty setting boundaries.
Both become jealous and possessive.
Both fear abandonment.
Both experience extreme ups and downs.
Both are in denial.
Both have a false sense of security.

How many of these attributes can you see in the story above? Quite a few, right?

In part 2, we’ll look at some root causes of codependency and biblical steps toward a solution.

Tags: am I codependent?, Codependency, cults, cults and codependency, legalism, Liberty for Captives, religious codependency, Spiritual abuse Permalink

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Why Spiritually Abused People Should Not Repent… And Why They Should

Posted by Steve Smith on February 23, 2013 in Uncategorized

If you carry around a burden of guilt because you were spiritually abused, this post is for you.

The question is: Do people who have been spiritually abused need to repent for allowing themselves to be abused?

Dr. Stephen Crosby—who himself experienced spiritual abuse in the past—wrote in a recent blog post:

“If you have been seriously damaged in a church situation, I urge you to forgive quickly, take responsibility for your own soul, repent to God for not using the tools he has given you to protect yourself, find people who can love you without agenda, help you find inner healing if you need it, and be restored to a vibrant and healthy kingdom life.”

The post set off a minor fire-storm on other blogs as folks debated whether or not they needed to repent for being spiritually abused. Crosby later clarified in the comments section of his post that perhaps the word “repent” was too strong. His definition of “repent” varied from many other folks’ definition. Yet the topic struck such a nerve that the discussion kept rolling.

The gist of Crosby’s article—with which I fully agree—is that folks who have been spiritually abused need to admit that there was something broken about themselves which functioned as a “hook” to the Velcro of a spiritually abusive leader. You can check out his original post here.

In a nutshell, Crosby says that there was some brokenness in us that contributed to making us susceptible to staying in an abusive environment. And I can’t disagree. We all have brokenness. We all are responsible for our own souls (Ezekiel 18). And the sooner we can take responsibility for our spiritual and emotional life, the faster we will heal. I agree with 98% of Dr. Crosby’s article.

And yet…

There’s that word “repent.”

Is it true that folks who have been spiritually abused should repent for allowing themselves to be spiritually abused? Regret, yes. Taking responsibility for themselves? Of course. But repent?

No.

Before I explain my answer, let’s define our terms, shall we?

1.) What does “Repent” mean?

“Repentance” in the New Testament comes from the Greek verb metanoeo which refers to “changing one’s mind.” At least, that’s what the first definition says in my Greek-English dictionary. The problem is that this definition only occurs in non-biblical writers (you can look it up for yourself in the authoritative Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament by Frederick William Danker, p.640).

The second definition, which occurs often in the Bible, refers to “feeling remorse, repent, be converted” (p.640). To use a biblical term properly, however, we must use it in a way that corresponds with the sense of the biblical context. A word can’t mean whatever we want it to mean. Context defines proper usage. And if you look at the context for all of the verses where this term is used in the New Testament, it refers to a person who is guilty of sin—or who is unregenerate—and who must confess their guilt and turn away from their sin. The noun form, metanoia, has the same definition: “repentance, turning about, conversion,” always in the context of salvation or sin.

With that definition of “repentance” in mind, I say that…

2.) No, we do not need to repent of being spiritually abused

Let me be crystal clear: allowing yourself to be spiritually abused is not a sin—so long as you do not realize that it is spiritual abuse in the first place.

It’s not a sin.

It is not a sin of commission, because you have done nothing wrong. It’s the other person who has sinned against you. You may have been spiritually immature, but that’s not a sin—God is very patient with spiritual infants, though he does exhort us to move on to maturity (Eph. 4:14; Heb. 6:1; 1 Peter 2:2-3).

And it’s not a sin of omission (James 4:17), because you don’t know that what is happening is wrong. In order to be a sin of omission, you would need to know that you were being spiritually abused.

But in most cases of spiritual abuse, the person being abused doesn’t know it until afterwards. You do not say, “My goodness! I am being spiritually abused. I think I will let this person continue to abuse me.” Rather, you believe that the treatment you receive is right according to the Bible, and you submit to it accordingly. This is the subtle power of spiritual abuse.

Allowing yourself to be spiritually abused is not a sin, and you don’t need to feel guilty for it. There are plenty of other sins you may be guilty of, but allowing yourself to be spiritually abused is not one of them.

It is no more a sin than a child who “allows” himself to be sexually abused, or a wife who “allows” herself to be physically abused. In each of these cases, the abuse happens because there is a power differential where a powerful figure takes advantage of a weaker person through manipulation, deception, or force. There may be brokenness, or vulnerability, or psychological or spiritual weakness, but those things are not sin.

Let’s be crystal clear again: allowing yourself to be spiritually abused is not a sin, unless you know that you are being abused and you refuse to seek help or get out of the situation. In that case, you are aiding and abetting in your own abuse. You would be committing a sin of omission: knowing what is good (to seek help), and not doing it.

Evidence from the Gospels

Does the Bible have anything to say about this?

If you look in the Gospels, you’ll find examples of people who were being spiritually abused. Does God call them to repent for allowing themselves to be spiritually abused? I wasn’t able to find any instances.

For example, the Pharisees were spiritually abusive religious leaders. Jesus never criticized the people whom they abused for allowing themselves to be abused, but rather he called down woes on the ones who did the abusing (cf. Matthew 23). Jesus did call the people to repentance, but not because they were allowing themselves to be abused by the religious leaders. [If you can find an exception, by all means post it in the comments section below—we can all learn together.]

Instead, Jesus regarded the Jewish people as shepherdless sheep (Matthew 9:35-36), spiritual infants (Matthew 11:25-30), blinded (Matthew 15:1-14), little children (Matthew 18:1-7), and as people held in bondage (Luke 4:18-19). He told the Pharisees in John 9:40 that if they were blind they would not be guilty of sin, but since they claimed not to be blind, they were guilty of sin.

The tone you get from Jesus is one of great compassion for people who were being harassed and deceptively put into spiritual bondage by religious leaders. He didn’t blame them. He didn’t call their being deceived a sin from which they needed to repent. Instead, “a battered reed he will not break off, and a smoldering wick he will not put out” (Matthew 12:20). Jesus’ heart broke for the abused.

Evidence from Paul and the Book of Hebrews

Okay, so we see that Jesus had compassion for the spiritually abused during his earthly ministry. But did things change after Pentecost (Acts 2) when the Holy Spirit came to dwell in all believers? Are Christians guilty of sin if they allow themselves to be spiritually abused? Should they repent if they have not used all the resources God has given them for spiritual insight and freedom (2 Peter 1:3-4)?

I don’t think so. Spiritual abuse is a subtle, spiritually deceptive system which masquerades as a genuine work of God. Its perpetrators are obvious to outsiders, but not to those within the system who sincerely believe that God has anointed the leader as a spiritual authority.

I submit that God’s attitude toward spiritually abused people did not change after Pentecost: he still holds the abusers accountable for their sin, and he looks with compassion upon those who are being abused.

Paul, for his part, warned his readers time after time against false teachers. He saved his harshest rhetoric for those who were leading others into spiritual bondage (cf. Gal 5:12 for a scathing example).

While there are plenty of examples of Paul exhorting his readers not to follow false teachers or turn back to the weak and miserable practices of legalism (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:3-4, 12-15, 20; 12:19-21; Gal. 1:6-10; 2:11-14; 3:1-5; 4:8-12, 15-20; 5:4, 7-26; 6:1; Col. 2:8-23; 2 Tim. 3:1-9, 13), I cannot find an instance where Paul calls his readers to repent because they have been spiritually abused. Indeed, the author of Hebrews encourages believers to “strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed” (Heb 12:12-13).

I repeat: Allowing yourself to be spiritually abused is not a sin. Therefore, you are not guilty and you do not need to repent.

And yet, that does not make us innocent.

Because those who have been spiritually abused often need to repent of other things.

3.) Yes, we do need to repent for sins we committed

This section is small, but the point is large: any sin that you committed while in your cult or unhealthy church is your responsibility. God will forgive you (1 John 1:9), but don’t duck your responsibility or try to blame someone else for what you did.

Does this sound contradictory to the section above? I hope not. The point above was that being spiritually abused is not a sin on the part of the person who was spiritually abused.

The point here is that any sin you did commit is your responsibility. Did you cut off relationships with family members because your cult leader told you to? That’s sin. Did you judge other people because they weren’t part of your church? That’s sin. Did you use the Bible like the thrust of a spear to harm other people? That’s sin.

After I left my cult—with my head still spinning—I wanted nothing more than to blame my former pastor for everything bad in my life. But what I discovered was that God held me responsible for every sinful word, action, and thought that I had entertained or committed during my 25 years in the cult.

Surprise!

I was not guilt-free just because I was in a counterfeit system under a false teacher.

Instead, I had to take responsibility for my own soul and apologize to God and to people whom I had sinned against. I had always had God’s Word and God’s Spirit at my disposal, and yet too often I had acted in a manner contrary to God’s commands.

I recall one tearful session where I apologized to a young lady whom I had treated very badly. My previous sinful actions had been in direct obedience to my former pastor’s paranoid and draconian commands, but I was the one who did them. I was responsible. And my guilt was real before God. It felt awful, and I was so ashamed. But it was also an important part of my healing process.

You won’t fully heal until you take responsibility for the sins that you committed and you reconcile with God and people. Don’t blame someone else.

4.) And we need to recognize our psychological brokenness and how we have failed to attain to the full measure of spiritual maturity

I am in full agreement with the bulk of Dr. Crosby’s article that we need to recognize areas of immaturity, brokenness, and codependency which made us especially susceptible to spiritual abuse. God has so much more for us—all the spiritual riches in Christ. Please read his article for the details.

Conclusion:

This was a long post. I decided not to split it in two because I don’t want folks to misunderstand the point. Being spiritually abused is not a sin. Don’t shoulder guilt that is not yours to bear.

But any sin that you did commit while in a cult is your responsibility, no matter how convinced you were that you were right, and no matter how forceful or deceptive your cult leader was. Confess your sin and God will forgive you.

Let him carry that burden.

—

The fine print: By citing Dr. Crosby’s article, I also need to include his copyright info below:

Copyright 2013, Dr. Stephen R. Crosby, http://www.swordofthekingdom.com. Permission is granted to copy, forward, or distribute this article for non-commercial use only, as long as this copyright byline, in totality, is maintained in all duplications, copies, and link references. For reprint permission for any commercial use, in any form of media, please contact stephcros9@aol.com.

Tags: cults, Dr. Stephen Crosby, False Guilt, legalism, Power Differential, Should Spiritually Abused People Repent?, Spiritual abuse, Who is responsible for spiritual abuse? Permalink

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Should We Repent for Allowing Ourselves to be Spiritually Abused?

Posted by Steve Smith on February 19, 2013 in Uncategorized

Should we repent for allowing ourselves to be spiritually abused? Yikes.

I am re-posting the following article in its entirety from my friend Julie Anne Smith’s blog, Spiritual Sounding Board. It refers to an original post by Dr. Stephen Crosby. This article will make you think.

Julie Anne Smith, author of the “Spiritual Sounding Board” blog

I came across an article on spiritual abuse Spiritual Abuse: It takes “Two to Tango” written by Stephen Crosby. I noticed a TWW reader mentioned it, causing a little uproar as the reader challenged “survivor blogs”, and it was also referenced at SGMSurvivor site as a good resource for spiritual abuse survivors. In the comment section of Crosby’s bio, he responds to a reader:

I have experienced the abuse myself and understand it spiritually, theologically, relationally, and psychologically; I help people recover, or perhaps discover for the first time, the reality of their sonship and relationship to their Father, rather than relationship to the church or Christian religion.

It sounds like Crosby spends a significant amount of his time helping people and he clearly has an understanding of spiritual abuse. Here’s the part of the article that intrigued me the most, in particular the third paragraph (the bold parts were from the article, not by me):

I have dealt with literally hundreds of people who have been legitimately abused in unhealthy church environments. I am very sympathetic to their pain and have my own hair-curling horror stories I could tell of the things that have been done to me, my wife, and my children by “leaders” in the name of Jesus. I GET IT.

However, I’ve noticed a difference between those who are restored to spiritual health quickly, and those who remain in reactionary woundedness for years or decades. Those who recover quickly admit that there was something broken or unwhole in themselves that was a “hook” for controllers and abusers to play on. They do not just blame the perpetrators of the injustice against them. Healthy, whole, functional, adults–especially fully resourced believers (2 Pet. 1:3)–are not easy to control and abuse.

As legitimate as the mistreatment may have been, somewhere the abused individuals (assuming adults–not children or minors) failed to exercise their God-given abilities to protect themselves. God has given every mentally whole adult the “power of no” to protect ourselves. How much more so believers who have the indwelling Spirit? The trouble is, we are often not whole and we often ignore the Spirit’s prompting because of the emotional cost of following what He says to us. Being Spirit-led takes more courage than people normally think, but then again, courage is one of the first evidences of being a regenerated, Spirit-filled, human being (Acts 1-4).

This is a recurring comment we have seen here when discussing spiritual abuse – that we are partly responsible for the abuse we incurred, we should have seen the faulty doctrine, the signs, the fruit in the leaders’ lives, etc. Here’s more from the article:

Folks could have said “no” to leaders. Why didn’t they? Could be lots of reasons for that. What was the “hook” in the soul that folks could not say “no”? Folks can leave a ministry or church. They don’t. Why? Could be lots of reasons, some very difficult to face. They could have confronted.

What about wives in a complementarian or especially patriarchal environment? Do you think they need to own their part of allowing the abuse when their marriage may in fact be a system where women have no voice? In SGM-like churches and my former church, husbands are called the priest of the home. They are responsible for the family spiritually. Women are many times left out of the process.

Towards the end of my time at the abusive church I had to make the choice to “sin.” I remember feeling strongly that I was in deep sin by doing what I was doing: telling my husband I no longer could go to THAT church, that it was killing me mentally, spiritually. Somehow I had the wherewithal to say, “enough is enough,” but there was a personal cost and a cost to the family. I felt so guilty for saying I could not go back to that church and would be going somewhere else without the family. I was completely bucking this religious system I was part of and had no idea what would happen next. I was saying NO to my spiritual head.

I had difficulty reading parts of Crosby’s article. Spiritual abusers are masterful manipulators. They can pull the wool over people’s eyes. I get confused wondering what I could have done differently. And then the guilt comes again. Am I supposed to be asking God to forgive me for obeying my husband by going to the church he led our family to?

The article then goes on to discuss that many of us had psychological needs met by our abusers and that’s why we chose to remain. Ouch! I think there may be some truth to that in some instances, but again, what about wives in patriarchal families where the father makes these decisions for his family?

The final paragraph:

If you have been seriously damaged in a church situation, I urge you to forgive quickly, take responsibility for your own soul, repent to God for not using the tools he has given you to protect yourself, find people who can love you without agenda, help you find inner healing if you need it, and be restored to a vibrant and healthy kingdom life.

Am I supposed to repent to God for not using the tools He gave me? Again, ouch. I think there is good information in this article, but for me, it was difficult to read on the emotional level – no warm fuzzies, that’s for sure.

[End of Julie’s post.]

—

A very thought-provoking post, is it not?

I had some questions, so I read Dr. Crosby’s entire original article and then asked him to clarify several points. He graciously took the time to do so, and we developed a fruitful exchange. I’m still thinking this all through, but I believe some helpful definition of terms is in order, as well as some more nuance. I will post my position–that is, what I think the Bible teaches–in a follow-up article. In the meantime, what do you think? I welcome your comments on this topic.

You can see Dr. Crosby’s original article here. Please note the following copyright info:

Tags: cults, Dr. Stephen Crosby, Julie Anne Smith, legalism, Liberty for Captives, religious brainwashing, repenting of spiritual abuse, Spiritual abuse, Spiritual Sounding Board, Sword of the Kingdom, victims of spiritual abuse Permalink

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Fifteen Feathers of a Legalist (Part 2 of 2)

Posted by Steve Smith on February 12, 2013 in Uncategorized

Legalism is a human system which counterfeits the work of God. It settles for religion when God actually calls us into relationship.

I know. I was a legalist for 25 years.

In this two-part series, we’re looking at the fifteen “feathers” which help identify a legalist. You can read the first post here, which explains feathers 1-7. Let’s conclude with feathers 8-15.

Are you a legalist? Try these “feathers” on for size:

8.) Security: You prefer simplistic security rather than an adult challenge. Part of the appeal of legalism is a warm-fuzzy environment in which you appear to gain cosmic assurance based on the pronouncements of a spiritual leader. This requires little of you except to obey and submit. It reminds me of the scene in The Shawshank Redemption when one of the prisoners can’t handle freedom after so many years of lock-up and prison routine, so he commits suicide. Legalists prefer a harsh but predictable system to the unpredictability and bracing responsibility of liberty.

Solution: Accept God’s requirement that when you become a spiritual adult you must make decisions for yourself; sometimes these are very difficult decisions. But you are responsible for your decisions, not your pastor, not your elder, and not John Piper or some other public Christian figure. The Bible considers faith a stewardship which requires personal faithfulness (1 Cor 4:2). Each person is responsible for his or her own soul (Ezekiel 18).

9.) Correctness: You try very hard to do what is right, to think what is right, and to feel what is right. Legalists toe the line, study the letter of the law, and construct elaborate extrapolations of scripture in order to avoid stepping out of line. Many people who struggle with legalism can quote scripture letter-perfect but misunderstand both its interpretation and spiritual application. The Pharisees obeyed the letter of the Old Testament Law, but failed to grasp the character or spirit of the law (Matthew 23:23). By focusing on “rightness” and “oughtness,” a legalist very often misses the entire purpose of God’s commands, which is love.

Solution: God focuses on what is good, not on what is right. “Rightness” has to do with matters of law; “goodness” has to do with character. Jesus recognized that God alone is truly “good” (Luke 18:19). Paul expresses this distinction when he says that few people would choose to die on behalf of a righteous person (that is, someone who is punctilious about matters of the law); but that someone might possibly dare to die for a truly good person (that is, a morally upright person who demonstrates godly character). God, however, expressed his love for us by dying for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:7-8). If you want to be good—not just “right”—then you must reflect the character of God by showing mercy and grace to undeserving sinners.

Legalism makes Christians unbalanced as they practice a hideously distorted gospel, not unlike this Gargoyle.

10.) Trite and Unbalanced: You focus on secondary matters instead of primary matters. Legalists confuse the unimportant with the most important. They believe that every matter of faith or Christian living is of equal value. They also believe that every verse in scripture is equally important. To support this, they quote 2 Timothy 3:16-17. But they misunderstand that while all scripture is inspired by God and has value, some scriptures are more valuable than others. For example, the genealogical charts in 1 Chronicles 1-9 are not as salvifically practical to Christians as the Gospels, the Book of Romans, or Ephesians 2. Anyone who claims that all of scripture is equally applicable to modern Christians has lost any sort of biblical perspective and makes God out to be a fool—or an unbalanced tyrant. Instead of being perfectly balanced as a result of trying to hold all scripture at the same level of importance, legalists are actually doctrinal Gargoyles. They practice a hideously distorted, out-of-proportion faith which results in misinformed and harmful practices.

Solution: Put first things first. Paul explains the core doctrines of the faith: the Person and work of Christ, repentance from sin, faith in God, baptisms, the laying on of hands (possibly related to spiritual gifts and commissioning by church leadership), and final judgment (Hebrews 6:1-2). If Paul recognizes a hierarchy of doctrine, we would do well to avoid a simplistic avowal that every verse in scripture is equally applicable or important. They are not. They are equally inspired, and that is a different matter altogether.

11.) Legislation/Control: You prefer that an authority figure mandates matters so that you no longer have to think for yourself. This relates to the idea of security explained above. Legislation makes life seem more simple and orderly. If you can have the heart of God spelled out in black and white, then you can control the Almighty and manage him in predictable ways. This means that no matter how many songs you sing about God ruling over all, you still remain in control of your own life and eternal destiny. Legislation of God’s commands attempts to remove God from his throne in favor of your own meticulous obedience and merited rewards.

Solution: Grace. Legalists must come to see that when the Bible speaks of grace, it means unmerited favor. We encountered this earlier when we referred to Romans 5:8. There is nothing we can do as human beings to deserve God’s salvation. Repentance doesn’t make him save us. And an obsessively rigorous approach to living morally does not make him bless us. We cannot control God, no matter how hard we try or how punctilious our lifestyle appears. Grace is messy and blasts our narrow categories of merit.

12.) Simplistic: You ignore the complexities of life and prefer black and white thinking. Legalists are difficult to dialogue with because they try to reduce mysterious matters into polarized categories. For example, a legalist may camp forever on the sovereignty of God without acknowledging that the Bible also speaks of human responsibility. They cheerfully quote verses about God hardening Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 9:12) without remembering that the Bible also says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart as he exercised psychological liberty (Exodus 8:32), and that Pharaoh admitted his sin, thus accepting responsibility for his own actions (Exodus 9:27; 10:16). A legalist rarely exercises critical thinking, preferring the apparent security of one-dimensional living. This means that when a legalist sees a Bible verse which warns against drunkenness, he or she might make a false application which disallows drinking any alcohol ever. Rather than exercising self-control and moderation, legalists find it easier to write off the entire category of alcoholic beverages altogether.

Solution: Recognize that there are a wide range of “gray” matters in which the Bible demands critical thinking and grants freedom for diverging opinions and practices (Romans 14-15; 1 Corinthians 8). Accept that part of God’s “God-ness” is his unfathomable mystery (Judges 13:18). He does things beyond understanding (Isaiah 55:8-9) because he is beyond our understanding. Healthy Christians embrace a good deal of tension and mystery in life as they walk along in dependence on the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Heresy, not faith, removes most of the tension in life.

13.) Materialistic and 14.) Religious: You focus endlessly on things you can quantify, measure, handle, taste, touch, etc. (Colossians 2:20-23). Because legalism is fundamentally a human system, it must deal fundamentally with the five human senses. This means that while legalists talk about God all the time, in reality they spend their lives obsessed with physical matters. Just look at the questions legalists ask: Is it okay for me to go for a run on Sunday? To use a piano at church? To wear blue jeans in the sanctuary? To drink a beer? To play cards? To dance? To wear my hair below the ears? To sing a contemporary worship song with a 2-4 beat? To use the NIV instead of the KJV? Legalists profess God but obsess over stuff.

Solution: Embrace the ministry of the Holy Spirit as you live focused on what Christ has done for you. While an obsession with physical things and an ascetic approach to life appears religious, in reality it is living life in accordance with the basic principles of this world:

“Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

“Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.” (Colossians 2:16-23)

15.) Idolatrous: Finally, you place someone or something else in the place of God in your life. Someone: By this, I mean that you often exalt a particular teacher or preacher as the authority on spiritual matters in your life. This fixation on authority figures usually traps legalists in an idolatrous relationship, putting a man or woman in the place of God. In my former church, our pastor acted as the mediator between us and God. We gave him this power over us. Something: Alternatively, a legalist may exalt scripture to the place of Godhood. There is a term for this: “bibliolatry.” Bibliolatry refers to worship of the Bible itself. Many legalists are experts at quoting scripture. They believe that simply quoting a Bible verse can magically solve a relational problem, break a spiritual bondage, or simplify a complex moral matter. Unfortunately, there is no difference between this behavior and the chanting of a witch doctor. Satan himself quotes scripture, but without the power of true interpretation or application which comes only through the Holy Spirit. It is not the reciting of Bible words alone which has power, but rather the understanding of those words through spiritual discernment which is received by a humble, wise heart in dependence upon the Spirit of God.

God has more for us as Christians than the tangled thickets of legalism. He wants us to soar like eagles.

Solution: Recognize that all men are sinners (Romans 3:23); worship God and serve him only (Luke 4:8). There is only one mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5). Remember that each Christian is now a priest who has access to God directly, without the need for a human mediator (1 Peter 2:9). Remember that God’s Word is a sword which only has power when it is animated by the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 4:12-13).

These are the fifteen “feathers” of a legalist. Understand them so that you can identify them in your life or in others’ lives. God has so much more for us as Christians than for us to flock together in legalistic, human-based systems or churches.

Let’s fly out of the thickets and upward on eagle’s wings (Isaiah 40:28-31).

Tags: cults, how do I know if I'm a legalist?, identifying legalists, legalism, Liberty for Captives, Spiritual abuse Permalink

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Fifteen Feathers of a Legalist (Part 1 of 2)

Posted by Steve Smith on February 9, 2013 in Uncategorized

Birds of a feather flock together.

Ornithologists identify flickers of movement in a thicket as a particular bird. They do so by catching characteristics peculiar to a certain species. Wing feathers, tail feathers, and head or throat feathers all serve identifying purposes.

In the two posts in this series you will find fifteen “feathers” to help you identify a legalist. But first, a definition.

By “legalist” I have a particular definition in mind. David Miller, author of Breaking Free: Rescuing Families from the Clutches of Legalism, says that:

“Legalists are people who add personal preference to accepted doctrinal teaching, accept these additions as having equal weight with doctrinal teaching, and apply these additions in the judging of others.”

The Tenth Edition of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines legalism as:

“Strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious moral code.”

In other words, legalists follow the letter of the law with rigid compunction, ignoring the original spiritual motive and loving intent of the instruction. They are so fearful of breaking the law that they add their own “hedges” of rules around the original commands. They then judge other people based on both the original law and their own man-made laws.

I like Mark Buchanan’s summary of legalism in The Rest of God:

“Legalism is the reduction of life to mere technicalities. It substitutes code for conscience, ritual for worship, rectitude for holiness, morality for purity.”

Biblical Evidence: Primary biblical citations which discuss legalism are the following: Isaiah 28:10, 13; Matthew 12:9-14; 15:1-14; 23:1-33; Acts 15:1-31; Romans 14:1-23; 15:1-9; 1 Corinthians 8-9; Galatians 2:11-21; 3:1-29; 4:1-11; 5:1, 25; Colossians 2:8, 20-23; and Titus 3:5.

Some readers might wonder if I had a specific person in mind when I created this list. Allow me to dispel your fears: I did.

Me.

A few years ago, if you looked up “legalist” on Wikipedia, my name and picture would have appeared. I believe I can write with some authority on the matter of legalism because I was first on the medals podium in the hidden Olympics of legislation. Since I came out of my Bible cult God has changed my worldview. He has helped me to see some of the dynamics that made me a champion legalist.

Are you a legalist? Try on these “feathers” for size:

1.) Fearful: You live primarily in fear. Legalists spend most of their time worrying. They worry about displeasing God, about their own sin, about falling into temptation, about how other people perceive them.

Solution: Cultivate love and thanksgiving. Love overcomes a multitude of sins and casts out fear, since fear has to do with punishment. The person who lives in fear has not been made perfect in love. And love is the name of the game (1 Corinthians 13:4-11; 1 John 4:8). Thanksgiving also casts out fear, because it puts the focus back on the Provider of all things: God (Philippians 4:6-7; 1 Thess 5:16-18).

2.) Divisive: You spend concerted effort trying to convince other people that your interpretation of God’s Word is correct, often leading to quarrels over words or disputing. You love to stir up controversy, accuse other people of sin, and paint people with a broad brush of condemnation. You believe that divisions must exist in order to show who is approved by God.

A man with a megaphone protesting the Houston Sidewalk Art Show, October 2011. As a Christian enjoying the show, I felt ashamed of my more legalistic brethren on the other side of the fence. How does this promote the Gospel? Photo by the author.

A man with a megaphone protests the Houston Sidewalk Art Festival, October 2011. As a Christian enjoying the show with three other Christians, I felt ashamed of my more legalistic brethren shouting invective from the other side of the fence. I struggle to understand how such in-your-face, broad-brush condemnation mirrors the gospel of Christ. Photo by the author.

Solution: Avoid foolish and stupid arguments. Recognize core doctrines vs. peripheral interpretations. Practice intellectual charity. (1 Corinthians 11:19; 1 Timothy 6:4; 2 Timothy 2:23; Romans 14:1-4).

3.) Masochistic: You view salvation as a rigorous, painful, and hard-to-achieve event. You also view sanctification as a continuous struggle which involves much sober reflection, ascetic living, and the forsaking of most pleasures. You believe that taking up your cross resigns you to a life of depression, wearing scratchy clothing and blocky shoes, and forsaking pleasures both small and great.

Solution: Recognize the simplicity of the gospel which is an exclusive work of God, received as an unearned gift by faith alone (Ephesians 2:8-10; Romans 5:8). A godly saint once said, “My salvation was a partnership between me and God: God worked and I resisted.” It is all God’s work. Also recognize that peace and joy are an evidence of God’s saving work in your life (Romans 8:1).

4.) Conformist: You value conformity and uniformity. Instead of granting other people and cultures the grace to express Christianity in a way that reflects their own life, personality, or system, you demand that everyone else look just like you. You stifle creativity and demand outward rigidity.

Solution: God loves diversity, not conformity, and unity, not uniformity (Acts 2:1-13; 10:9-16; Galatians 2; Revelation 7:9-10).

5.) Scandalized: You get easily offended. Legalists work themselves up over other expressions of Christianity which vary from their own. The word “scandal” comes from the Greek word scandalon, which originally meant a stumbling block. Legalists are scandalized by other expressions of Christianity and allow themselves to stumble over minor differences related to music styles, worship services, apparel, Bible translations, and a host of other incidentals.

Solution: Judge nothing before the appointed time (1 Corinthians 4:5; Romans 14:1). Be slow to anger (James 1:19-20). Recognize that perhaps it is the freedom, foolishness, and grace of the gospel which you are stumbling over, rather than doctrinal matters (1 Corinthians 1:18-31).

6.) Separatist: You fear engaging with the world. Instead, you put up walls and boundaries against non-Christians or other Christians who you think are contaminated by worldly or fleshly values. You are so afraid of contamination that you live a castle-like life, cut off by moats of fear and judgment from anyone different than yourself.

Solution: Remember that Jesus came into the world incarnationally to save sinners, of whom you are the worst (1 Timothy 1:15). It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick (Mark 2:17). Therefore, practice mercy which triumphs over judgment (James 2:13). Incarnational ministry means meeting people where they are, remembering that to the pure all things are pure (Titus 1:15), becoming all things to all men in order to save them winsomely (1 Corinthians 9:19-23), and living a holy life in the midst of the world, not just within the four walls of your church.

7.) Cosmetic: You place primary emphasis on external appearance and behavior. You believe that a person’s soul is best evidenced by his or her clothing, hair-length, leisure-time activities, and taste of music. You enscripturate your own personal preferences and interpretation of certain “principles.” You find it inconceivable that a person could be saved who looks different than you. Different is sinful.

Solution: People look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). And remember, other people are judging you based on your appearance: your anachronistic lifestyle, your lack of love, your simplistic orientation to life, and your love of division and argument. Since Jesus said that Christians are known by their love (John 13:34-35), and since he said that by the measure you use to judge someone else, you too will be judged (Matthew 7:2), how do you think you will fare at the judgment of God?

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Next Post: “Feathers” 8-15 of a Legalist