I might be a teensy bit obsessed with the topic of spiritual abuse --
this post could also be titled Spiritual Abuse Part IV. (If you missed Part
III, you can read it here. No, I still
haven't read the second half of the book yet.) I've discovered that a
spiritually abusive/Pharisaical/extremely self-righteous environment is
basically its own brand of civilization (or lack of civility). It has its own
set of unspoken rules (or rules that are spoken ad nauseam), its own invisible
prison with a need for its own invisible rehab program, its own communicable
disease with a desperation for its own cure and recovery process. Spiritual
abuse is a culture, a way of life that you might not want to leave until you
discover what it is and/or learn how deeply entrenched it could become in every
cell of your heart, soul, and brain. If you were to be attached to a
spiritually abusive system for, say, 36 years, it could take quite a while to
detach, detox, and rebuild.
Speaking of rebuilding, the photo above is a picture of one of my cats
hunched over one of my laundry bags. (Aw, you know I mean business when I post
a cat photo. See how adorably Macho's stripes match my wooden floor? He matches
my wooden guitar, too. I'd love to ramble about how God is the funnest Being in
the universe, and about how He likes to mess with His children in the safest,
most loving, most playful way possible, but I think I've already digressed. My
other cat Choochie also looks wildly adorable if you comb the fur on her head into
a fohawk.) I've known my cats for 12 and 13 years, but the mere concept of a
laundry bag is a novelty to them because I never used a laundry bag before this new
season of my life. I moved into a new apartment about a month ago, and it's
smaller, cozier, and easier to clean than my old apartment. My new apartment
doesn't have washer/dryer connections like my old apartment did (which means
that I don't have to worry about cleaning dryer lint in my bathroom or
kitchen), so I've embarked on a new laundromat adventure. The apartment laundry
centers kinda turned out to be duds, so I'm planning to mainly drive to nearby
coin laundries.
The first time this month that I used one of those beautifully
dilapidated facilities that had the soundtrack to an arcade game playing
incessantly in the background, I dumped my dirty laundry into one of the
machines, plunked in my quarters, and enjoyed a Purex-scented trip down memory
lane. I was delightfully reminded of the first time I was "away from home,"
even if it was in a posh college dorm, and being an adult who was empowered
with the basic ability to do basic things for herself like wash her own laundry
with quarters. Sigh! Freedom smells like fresh linen. In this new season of my
life, instead of lugging my dirty laundry in a plastic basket down a dorm
hallway, I thought I could maintain a bit of privacy by using opaque laundry
bags. To me, it's a meticulously thought-out system. To my cats, it's a new set
of drawstring toys.
Reader, in case you're scratching your head and thinking, "Why is
Tirzah such an overgrown teenager who makes such a big deal about doing her own
laundry? Was she raised by wolves?" I'll solve the mystery for you. I was
raised by Pharisees.
"But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their
phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments. They love the best
places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the
marketplaces, and to be called by men, 'Rabbi, Rabbi.' " (Matthew 23:5-7)
"You eat the fat and clothe yourself with the wool; you slaughter
the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock." (Ezekiel 34:3)
"The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank
You that I am not like other men -- extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even
as this tax collector.' " (Luke 18:11)
"Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside
you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." (Matthew 23:28)
I'm trying to be as honest as I can without outright slandering anybody. I
was raised to be a Pharisee. It is a way of life that may be appealing on the
outside, but those of us who have had an inside look know how gruesome, anxious,
and downright terrifying of an existence it can be. Abusers are basically
bullies. Spiritual abusers are bullies in three-piece suits or shiny-flowered
dresses with a huge Bible in one hand and an invisible gun in the other. They
are people who were more than likely spiritually abused as children, so that's
the only way of life they really know, and so they grew up very insecure. The
quickest fix to insecurity (and it's definitely NOT a fix at ALL) is to puff
yourself up by shooting somebody else down. The result is a tragedy that often
affects multiple lives simultaneously.
Spiritual abusers (whether they abuse on purpose or accidentally)
usually are mainly concerned with looking good in front of other people. Pharisees
especially will suppress, belittle, abuse, and use others to make themselves
look good. Worse yet, they'll make a mockery of Jesus by doing all of their
abuse in His name. Of course, Jesus is NOT cool with this. Matthew 23, for
example, is an entire chapter full of meek, sinless, perfect, gentle Jesus really
letting the Pharisees HAVE IT.
Since they're so skilled at looking polished on the outside, some
Pharisees are difficult to spot unless they have their own "if you don't give
me your money, God will be mad at you" TV show. Pharisees are chameleons.
They're copycats who will mimic other spiritual leaders without giving them
credit. For example, I once heard my pastor preach a sermon about rejection,
and he admitted vulnerably to us that when he feels rejected, "I become a
different person." Sometime later, I was having a conversation with
someone who I now consider to be spiritually abusive, and he said, without any
credits, footnotes, or bibliographies, "If I feel like you're rejecting
me, I become a different person." I'm a writer by profession, so I
understand how serious plagiarism can be, and I don't think verbal plagiarism
is cool, either.
Pharisees/spiritual
abusers create and/or reproduce a culture of shame, distrust, and arrogance
that usually doesn't have any room for love (which, according to 1 Corinthians
13, isn't puffed up, rude, or excited about evil). In a spiritually abusive
environment, all outsiders are usually distrusted, highly criticized, and gossiped
about behind their backs. The spiritual leader of the environment is usually
the head honcho who has accomplished more than his cultish followers or is
simply just shinier than his cultish followers. I say "his" because
most people who are skilled at thumping Bibles don't believe, theoretically, that
women should be the main leaders. And notice
that I didn't say it's an actual, official cult. (Does it have to be?) This head
honcho demands respect from all his cultish followers, or else. He more than
likely grew up as a very insecure little boy, found Jesus (if he's saved at
all), and never grew up emotionally. He expects everybody to agree with him
without asking questions, or if they ask him questions, they should expect to
be debated, and they should expect to be wrong, because he always has to be
right, or else. He more than likely does NOT believe that each person has a
free will, and he more than likely believes that each person must be forced to
follow Jesus, obey God, etc. (Technically, I've been talking about spiritual
abuse within the context of Christianity, although I don't think,
unfortunately, that other religions are exempt from having spiritual abuse.) He
more than likely operates under the delusion that he can force people to make
him look good, or else. He more than likely believes that he can force people
to do whatever he wants. (Interestingly and ironically, he has become his own
god, ¿que no?)
Once his cultish followers have his undying devotion, his unwavering
loyalty, then he can easily fill their heads with his ideas that were more than
likely handed down to him from a previous generation of spiritual abusers. (I
think Jesus referred to this in Matthew 23:15 as being "twice as much a
son of hell as yourselves.") Usually when this happens, basic common sense
flies out the window to make room for more rules. For example, one preacher who
I followed cultishly used to tell us, if I remember correctly, that the
concepts of "self-esteem" and "self-worth" were humanistic
and, therefore, wrong. If I remember correctly, he broke down the phrase
"self-esteem" and said that it's "esteeming self," which is
self-worship and, therefore, sin. It's interesting that I attempted suicide
while I was a member of his church.
Spiritual abuse was a major stumbling block -- or a heavily weighted block
of crap, depending on how you look at it -- to my mental well-being. In addition
to my pastor, the opinions of other Pharisees in my life at the time kept me
from getting the mental-health help that I desperately needed. I had been told
by one of these Pharisees that modern psychology was just secular humanism (I
think he actually could benefit from a few visits to a psychotherapist, quite
frankly), and what would these Pharisees in my life think of me if I got help via
modern psychology? How would I be able to answer to them or face them? Well, if
I had known back then what I know now, that they were Pharisees and not people
who wholeheartedly cared about my mental health, I possibly would have told
them to take their heavily weighted stumbling block and shove it. But I
digress. Ultimately, God is the One who pulled me out of my pit, but by that
time I had deteriorated so badly that I needed modern psychology, modern
medicine, all the King's horses, and all the King's men to put Tirzah back
together again.
"The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins
souls is wise." (Proverbs 11:30)
"But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every
way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached." (Philippians
1:18a, NIV)
Reader, I normally don't like to rate my blog posts, but I will need to
make at least the following two paragraphs rated PG-13. Pardon my French, but I
don't think I can express what I'm about to say without being a bit vulgar. If
I exist in a spiritually abusive environment, I am expected to be evangelism's
bitch. I don't mean any disrespect toward my heavenly Father by saying that,
and I certainly don't have anything against evangelism. (Why else would I be
rambling about how much I like my Jesus? He's my Friend. He's my King. He's my
Lord. But people have made Him look bad. I want you to know what He's really
like.) I mean to communicate the demeaning connotation that a "bitch"
is a second-class creature who is expected to wait on her master hand and foot,
and she's only good for one thing. You know what I mean. If a head honcho tells
his subordinate, "Come here, bitch," she better come here and do
exactly as she is told, or else. That is almost exactly how I felt when I lived
in a spiritually abusive/Pharisee-controlled environment. At almost every
church meeting, there had to be publically shared testimonies of people getting
saved, or else. Yes, people need to get saved, and they need to follow Jesus!
But God created them with a free will, so we can't force people to follow
Jesus. We can't make people get saved. We can't save people ourselves, period.
Yes, we Christians need to share our faith, because we have access to the only
Way to know God, but we can't shove truth down people's throats. That isn't
loving people.
Those two Bible verses I quoted above were often misquoted in spiritually
abusive environments where I felt like I was evangelism's bitch. I couldn't
enjoy a movie in my own apartment without feeling guilty about not being out on
the street sharing the gospel like a good little bitch. I couldn't even take a
day off and observe an actual Sabbath because I was always thinking that I
needed to waste my life on Jesus like a good little bitch. My citizenship was
in heaven (and it still is, by the way, and it always will be), and while I was
on earth, the only thing I was good for was recruiting other people to come
with me and become bitches like me. Doing anything else at all besides
evangelism -- including normal everyday HEALTHY things such as laundry -- was
seen as worldly and a waste of time, unless you used your activity as a
platform for evangelism. Yes, as a follower of Jesus, His life needs to
permeate everything I do, and in that sense, of course I need to be an
evangelist everywhere I go. And yes, especially if He tells me to speak up, I
better speak up. But I don't hear the doom of "or else" in my head
anymore. I don't think Jesus went through the trouble of being born of a
virgin, living a real life here on earth, dying on the cross in my place, and
getting raised from the dead just so that He could preach a wussy, immature
little "you better do this or else, and I'm going to make you obey"
gospel through me. Yes, He's the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life,
and He's totally my Lord. I believe, very honestly, that anyone who wants to
stay away from eternal hell and live in eternal heaven needs to believe in
Jesus, or else. But I don't think Jesus would ever force anyone to believe in
Him, and I don't think He would ever call me a bitch. How effective do you
think I was at winning souls if I was constantly tied up with misplaced guilt?
The expert soul-winners were raising missionary support so they could go do
their thang in a foreign country. The head-honcho soul-winners were sitting on
their high-and-mighty seats of authoritative superiority. And I was a measly
little worship leader.
What do you think this type of thinking did to my self-esteem, my sense
of self-worth, my sense of identity as a human being altogether? It's a miracle
that people like me are still alive.
This is why walking to a semi-flooded apartment laundromat on a
semi-rainy morning with an opaque laundry bag is a beautiful thing to me. It's
beautiful because I chose to do it myself. It's beautiful because I wasn't
oppressed into a submissive little corner while any Pharisee head honchos barked
orders at me that I needed to obey "or else." It's beautiful because my
decision to get rid of my washer and dryer wasn't micromanaged by a spiritually
abusive person who believes they can control me by pointing a guilt-loaded
invisible gun at my head. It's beautiful because I understand now more than
ever that I'm a maturing human being who knows how to clean up her own messes
and is fully capable of taking care of herself. It's beautiful because I know
now that human beings aren't being secular or humanistic when they do "worldly"
things like do their own laundry -- they're healthy, civilized human beings. And
yes, I don't care how crazy you think I am, but I like to talk to my God about
teensy little things like laundry quarters and dryer sheets and Purex. And He
likes to hear me talk to Him. In fact, that's one of the main reasons why He
saved me in the first place -- so I could be His. He doesn't need me to make
Him look good, and He doesn't need to verbally beat me into submission. He
loved me first, and now I love Him. This is the God that I will gladly
introduce to anyone who wants to know Him.
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