The following is an excerpt from an interview of Jeff VanVonderen, author of The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse. What are your thoughts?
STEPS: Let’s change the focus a bit and talk about how to recover from spiritual abuse. First, what about recovery for perpetrators of spiritual abuse? People in general don’t tend to be very hopeful about perpetrators of any kind of abuse. And for some good reasons. What’s your take on that?
Jeff: I think that pessimism is justified. First of all, in order for someone to recover from something, they have to realize that there is a problem, something to recover from. And when you have so much invested in being “right,” in being the one who “knows,” and you have led so many people down the road—well, it takes us back to the equity issue. Perpetrators of abuse have a major equity investment in the system. It’s hard to lose that. Also, it would have to be a horrifying realization to recognize that many of the things you have been doing for God have really hurt people. There is an incredible amount of equity that would be lost by admitting the need for help in this area. God will always offer grace. That is not the issue. The issue here is whether or not a perpetrator has a capacity to receive grace. Most don’t even think they need it. Grace just bounces off. It’s just like with any other issue. If the person who needs help doesn’t think they need help, then no one can help them.
STEPS: What is it that breaks through these kinds of barriers to receiving grace?
Jeff: It can just be tiredness that finally gets us to the point where we are ready to receive help. Sometimes all the pretense and denial is just too exhausting to continue, and we give it up. My instinct about what Jesus would say to perpetrators is that he would say, “Try harder.” He would say, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Then maybe a few would say, “I can’t.” And there would be hope for those folks. But most would say, “Okay, I can do that.” They would just try hard, try harder, try their hardest to be better, to be more correct. And maybe later they would be tired enough to understand what Jesus was really saying to them.
STEPS: It’s kind of like in early AA when people who came to meetings and were asked, “Have you lost your marriage yet?” or “Have you lost your job yet?” And if the answer was no, some old-timers would say, “Well, you probably still need some more experience with alcohol. Go out and get some more experience.” If you are not yet sick and tired of being sick and tired, then the cure won’t work.
Jeff: Yes. So go do some more, and if you get tired, we’ll still be here to help out. When Jesus interacted with the rich young ruler he told him, “Do everything that the law requires.” And the guy said, “I’ve done that already.” He should have said right away, “I haven’t and there’s no way I can do that.” But he was still deep in denial. So Jesus gave him a task that he couldn’t do: “Give up everything and follow me.” That he couldn’t do. Now some people look at that text and see it as just about selfishness—that the man was too selfish to give up his wealth. But I don’t think that text is about selfishness at all. The man should have answered, “I can’t” to Jesus’ first question. If he had said “I can’t” then there would have been grace. But when he was still that deep in denial, Jesus said in effect, “Well, you must need more experience before you will be ready to receive the help you need.”
STEPS: Just to be clear, you are not pessimistic about recovery for people who have abused others but who recognize what they have done and repent and seek healing.
Jeff: That’s right. I’m not pessimistic about recovery for anybody, for anything. I’m hopeful. That’s why I do what I do. But I am aware of the track record and of how difficult it is for spiritually abusive people to see what’s real and to change that pattern.
STEPS: The effects of spiritual abuse can last for a long time. Decades later it seems like it can still be easy to get triggered back into the abuse stuff.
Jeff: That’s true and it relates to another dynamic that we haven’t talked about yet. Spiritual abuse is talked about mostly in psychological terms. But there is also a spiritual dynamic to it—a dynamic of the spirit. Spiritual abuse is not just something that comes in a spiritual way or comes from spiritual people. In that sense it’s like physical abuse, which is not something that comes only in a physical way. When physical abuse happens, something physical is hurt. And when spiritual abuse happens, your spirit gets hurt. And that has long-lasting consequences.
Recovery is never easy for any of us. But I think that recovery from spiritual abuse is in some ways the most difficult of recovery journeys. One reason is that the person who has the greatest potential for helping us recover from spiritual abuse is the person we feel most alienated from.
Let me explain that a bit. When someone gets physically abused, they don’t necessarily distrust the Department of Social Services. The abuser wasn’t acting as a representative of the Department of Social Services when they abused the person. Similarly, when a woman gets abused sexually, she doesn’t necessarily distrust the person from the women’s shelter who offers to be helpful. She may distrust men in general, but the agency that is designed specifically to help is not necessarily a problem. The abuser was not acting as a representative of the agency designed to help abused people. So the woman who has been abused is not likely to think, If I go to the people who are from the agency that is designed to help me, I’m going to get hurt even worse. In the case of spiritual abuse, however, there is always a major problem with the “agency” that is specifically “designed” to be helpful: God. The fear is that if you go to God, you will get hurt even worse than you have already been hurt. Spiritual abuse always does damage to our relationship with God. It’s the worst. It’s a wound of the spirit. It’s a wound right down at the core of who we are.
STEPS: If you experience an abuser as acting on behalf of God, or speaking for God, or acting as an agent of God, you are really stuck.
Jeff: Abuse always happens in a relationship. And in the case of spiritual abuse, the abuse happens in the context of relationships where someone is in the role of representing God. Later, when the abuse has come to an end and we are looking for healthier relationships in which to recover, we may find other people—even people who may actually be faithfully representing God—but it will be difficult for us to trust in those relationships, difficult to invest again in relationships and difficult to relax.
STEPS: It seems like the struggle to trust people again is a very normal part of the recovery process after any kind of abuse. We usually start slow, risk a little, be vulnerable a little and gradually learn to trust again. But it’s much more difficult to give ourselves permission to have just a little bit of trust when it comes to our relationship with God. We often massively shame ourselves when our faith is hesitant or partial.
Jeff: Yes. One of the messages of the abusive system is that you have to have complete, total trust. So in recovery from spiritual abuse it is really important to give ourselves room to have little bits of faith. And also to learn to pay attention to our spiritual radar and to reconnect with our sense of blessing—and with the God who gives us that sense of blessing.
Jeff VanVonderen is an author and speaker. He is the executive director of Spiritual Abuse Recovery Resources, a ministry of Christian Recovery International. He also provides seminars, consultations and intervention services through the ministry of Innervention Inc. This interview first appeared in STEPS magazine, a publication of the National Association for Christian Recovery. All rights reserved.
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