It’s been over a year since I talked here with Barnabas International’s Josh Beck about member care and cross-cultural workers. At the time, he mentioned “emotional and spiritual abuse” as a “pressure point” that Barnabas was beginning to look at and said he’d know more on the topic in six months.

While it took me longer than I’d planned on, I recently reached out to him again to follow up. (How time flies!) Josh said that Barnabas staff had come across abuse situations when providing member care, so they first decided to look at themselves to make sure they weren’t fostering any systems that could lead to abuse in their own organization.

This evaluation took the form of a spiritual-abuse audit, led by Silas West, an adult TCK and former cross-cultural worker in Nepal and member-care professional, who now works as a licensed mental-health counselor in the US. Josh suggested I contact Silas, and Silas kindly agreed to add his voice to our discussion. Following is our conversation, which took place over email.

Thanks, Silas, for talking with me about such an important topic. First off, what do you see as the characteristics of spiritual abuse, and how have you seen it take place in the world of cross-cultural work?

Thanks for asking this question and for making this issue known in a broader way. So specifically, you asked about the characteristics of spiritual abuse. The first characteristic is that spiritual abuse often occurs as a misuse of power. An individual or group with greater power causes harm (intentionally or unintentionally) to someone with less power. For abuse to be spiritual abuse, there must be a religious, sacred, or spiritual (faith-based) context.

This does not mean it has to only be within a church. It can take place in para-church organizations or faith-based organizations. It occurs in marriages or parenting where faith, Scripture, or fear of God is used to coerce or manipulate, and it can happen in a mentoring or discipleship setting or in a small group . . . anywhere where the sacred or faith is the context of the abuse.

It can be committed by an individual or by a group or system. It is not always committed by a leader. A pastor, leader, director, elder, or missionary team leader may be abusive. But so can a member of a congregation or team. If that member can wield the opinion of the group, even if that member is technically an equal in power sharing, practically, they hold power over the one being abused because they control the opinion or perspective of the group over the victim. Power is not just in the rank or role held. It can be real or perceived.

Spiritual abuse utilizes various methods to control, coerce, manipulate, or otherwise influence. Scripture is often used to persuade someone toward an outcome that the abuser wants. Theological teaching, fear of the eternal, or position in the group (like how the group may reject them if they disclose wrongdoing) are also used.

And one of the key characteristics of spiritual abuse is that it is not always intentional. In fact, I would say in the majority of abuse situations I work with, it happens unintentionally. But this is why it is often missed. Because those committing the abuse are usually in positions of authority or greater power, they get to dictate the narrative of what happened, which is filtered through the lens of their intentions.

What is essential to truly understand if abuse is occurring or not is the impact, not the intention. This means centering the victim when deciding when abuse has occurred. Whether it was intended or not, victims experience holistic spiritual, emotional, and psychological harm.

Spiritual abuse may include manipulation, exploitation, enforced accountability, censorship in decision making, requirements for secrecy and silence, pressure to conform, shaming, misuse of Scripture or the pulpit or leadership roles to control behavior, condemning language, requiring obedience, suggesting the abuser has a divine position, isolation from others, and more.

Read the rest of my interview with Silas at A Life Overseas. . . .

[photo: “Broken Glass,” by Rene Mensen, used under a Creative Commons license]