Spiritual abuse is often minimized, much to the detriment of those so abused as well as the organization itself.
Rather than having "abuse" as the general heading, with "sexual," "emotional," "physical" and so on arranged below, it may be helpful to see "spiritual abuse" as the general category, and the various other manifestations as subunits of it.
As a close reading of the Fanda Eagles website and these forums will substantiate, it is the damage to the spirits of the victims that lasts. Whether they were inappropriately touched, raped, sodomized, beat, forced to eat their own vomit, ridiculed, humiliated, taunted or ignored, you cannot read the stories of these victims and not hear the agony - the spiritual agony - that has been caused.
Love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13.10). If we love our brothers, we will do them no harm. To do them harm is to fail to love. The one who hates (does not love) his brother is a murderer (I John 3.11-15). Murder, after all, is just the last escalation in personal conflict. All the commandments, after all, are summed up in the one command: Love your neighbor as yourself.
Enduring the abuse that can be inflicted by the people you love and have worked with can be indescribably hard to bear, yet it is often brushed off by others. Charges of "bitterness" and "revenge" are hurled at those who have been hurt as adults, whose lives have been battered and reputations ruined because they did not meet the arbitrary expectations of insecure and insensitive leaders.
More than a philosophy, Mama Mia, there is bad theology at the root of this. And, this isn't just the situation that was present 20+ years ago. It continues to this day.
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