I began a short series on Unchained last week with this post. I hope to have guest posts by people who have come out of legalism. Susan is up first. I have grown to know her as a person who not only has quite a story, but deeply cares about others caught in the trap of legalism. She blogs here. It is long but I have chosen to let Susan say what needs to be said (she even chopped it down!). 🙂 Please take the time to read it all.
My name is Susan, and I am a recovering religious addict. I’ve read that certain characteristics in some people may predispose them to religious addiction. First-born people pleasers, like me, who have been raised in dysfunctional authoritarian homes are high on the list. Other personality types are not immune, though; anyone in an emotionally vulnerable place may be gradually sucked into an unhealthy group.
The first time I was aware of the possibility that a pastor might not be right was when a traveling speaker who claimed to be a former warlock came to my church. He was allegedly raising money for a half-way house for people leaving witchcraft. He convinced most of the congregation that certain writers and other well-known celebrities were involved in witchcraft. It ended with a book burning in the church parking lot. C.S. Lewis was one of those writers. He was later proved a fraud.
In Portugal, we attended a church plant pastored by an American missionary. I was suffering from post partum depression one Sunday when I heard my name from the pulpit. The pastor was scolding me for not having a happy face while the congregation was singing. I walked out.
In 1990, we returned to the states. We missed Portugal and I suppose we were looking for someplace stable. We joined a non-denom church in the area in hopes that we might dodge the legalism of the denominational church we left in Portugal. But, we didn’t.
We were dealing with homesickness, and dealing with American culture, so I missed some cues I might have otherwise noticed. Then, I recognized the unspoken code when people who broke the unspoken code were chastised from the pulpit.
Most of the code was clear. Women must wear dresses or skirts. The bus ministry is the most important ministry in the church, and if you are not involved, your loyalty is questionable. If you aren’t in church every time the doors are open, your commitment to God is at stake, and he may take your children away from you.
The pastor used the Bible to teach that interracial marriage is against God’s will, and that any music that made you tap your toes or move any other way is ungodly. In a four-week series he taught that the King James Version of the Bible was the only acceptable translation, and why. He punctuated his sermons by reading excerpts from what he called “Bible perversions” and then tossing them onto the floor in front of the pulpit. He sent the teens to a Bible conference where the speaker emotionally manipulated kids to “get saved” with graphic descriptions of the tortures of hell. My oldest daughter was traumatized about her salvation for several years.
We left after seven years, and tried to find another church home. Then we vacationed in north central Florida where we had met some online friends. The lack of visible legalism refreshed us. We packed up and moved to Florida.
The pastor taught powerfully about the work of the Holy Spirit. Spiritual Warfare was something I’d had little teaching on. (Later I discovered that he used the Spiritual Warfare teaching to keep unruly members in line.) One Sunday morning, he held out as fact something that I was fairly certain was more like conjecture. I requested clarification. He answered me, but when I asked a second question, he said I was wasting his time.
Another Sunday morning he verbally chastised the congregation until someone finally went forward. My husband was concerned that about the lack of financial statements and that there was no board of deacons, nor elders. The pastor alleged that the boards existed as people who performed the work of those offices, but nothing official. Financial statements were available on request – but they were incomplete.
After two years we left the church. On the advice of a friend, we wrote a letter telling the pastor why we were leaving. Mere afterward, someone gave me a copy of a harsh, open letter he had left on the back table of the church to be picked up only by people to whom we had talked about the church. We had talked to only one family, but all letters disappeared. The letter was copied and passed on to others. People called the church saying we had talked about the church when all we had done was greet them.
I was devastated. I couldn’t sleep, and was having panic attacks. I wanted it to be over.
Stockholm syndrome is defined as a victim emotionally bonding with his/her abuser. Three months after that letter was out, I was in that pastor’s office apologizing for causing a problem. My poor husband simply could not understand why I would do that. A few months later, I persuaded him to go back to the church.
For the next six years my goal was to focus on keeping the pastor happy, and solving any problems that might come up. I threw myself into every ministry I could possibly manage, and some I couldn’t. I was home schooling my three children, and in 2003, we moved my mom down here because she needed someone to look after her.
In 2005, I had to go to work. I’d been taught you could not stop doing a ministry once you began, so I tried to keep up. I had become convinced, through the pastor’s teaching, that our church was the only one that had the most truth. I neglected my family, and eventually lost two jobs because I was unable to cope with it all. It seemed to me that God was always frowning at me.
My husband left the church in 2007. I tried, but was terrified and kept going back. The pastor used triangulation, manipulation and whatever he could to keep me there, I still wanted out but was unable to leave. It took another year and a painful experience for the Lord to extricate me completely me.
God, through the work of the Holy Spirit and the people where we now attend church, is healing. He doesn’t frown at me anymore. I am getting a full dose of mercy and grace one day at a time, as needed. And, I am grateful.
Quite a story, won’t you admit? Anyone else have a similar situation? Any thoughts you would like to share?
If you have a story to tell about legalism, and would like to be a part of these posts, contact me at pastoratovcf.org.
Hi Bill,
I definitely can relate to quite a bit of what Susan says here. These pastors? must all be reading the same brainwashing psycology books and materials. The tactics are usually quite similar, although I think some congregation members ‘get it’ worse than others. I think it depends on the leader’s assessment of what he/she can get away with when manipulating a person.
I think there are some pastors who use some of these technics not really realizing what it is that they are doing. They’re just natural controllers. They need their ducks in a row, and need complete control over everything in their lives. It’s a personality default and they usually control those who are vulnerable as Susan states here. Susan was vulnerable, I was vulnerable, my husband was vulnerable.
The name of God and the Bible provides these types of leaders with a scepter so to speak. “I am the ruler”.
What I relate to in Susan’s story is
1. wanted out – but unable to leave.
2. unspoken code or unspoken rules. Also things stated outright that you were to say. ‘If anyone asks you, you can say that we have no rules posted in this church, we are not a legalistic church”.
3. We were the church in our community with the most truth.
4. Susan and her husband are the ‘problem’, they are troublemakers, stay away from them, or you will become disobedient and rebellious toward God too.
4. Loyalty to the pastor and church equated with loyalty or disloyalty to God, depending on how obedient you were to the leadership.
5.This is the church God wants you to come to, otherwise, you would not have been planted here.
5. Giving out their own story and a ‘warning’ that Susan and her husband are telling falsehoods, and so to stay away from them and don’t believe anything that they try to tell you.
6. Joylessness and depression.
7. We were stuck on the KJV of the Bible also. (not that there’s anything wrong with this translation)
8. I can relate to Susan’s ‘terrified’ also. Several people were left terrified when this church’s doors finally closed. I spent alot time by telephone trying to tell some people that they were ok with God. A couple of people got thrown out of the church before it closed. They were devastated, terrified, and undone.
Thanks for a well-thought out comment Linda. It is amazing how wide spread the abuse is. I would only add one thing: many of these pastors know exactly what they are doing. They thrive on the power. Thanks again.
Hi Bill,
I think we may have to say that these kinds of church leadership is more about abuse and control than legalism. Legalism is certainly a big part of this kind of church.
Legalism’s definition in my mind is ‘men trying to walk with God by themselves through their own ideas and methods and not by the Spirit of God’.
We see an example of this in the Pharisees and relifious rulership of the nation of Israel in Jesus’s time. By the time Jesus came on the scene there were hundreds of rules (man made rules) that had to be kept and followed by the Jewish people.
Holiness was equated with washing hands and dishes, wearing long robes and making long prayers in order to be seen and admired. Jesus called these leaders who were representing God ‘whitewashed dead people’s tombs’. Greed, pride, and wickedness was considered ok by the ruling religious elite. As long as a Jew made a sustantial financial? gift to the temple (church) they were absolved of their social responsibility to look after their aging parents. These religious leaders stole widow’s houses out from under them, because they had the power and because they could.
These religious leaders eventually resorted to killing people who were too powerful for them, as they did to Jesus.
I think, from my experience, that they go hand in hand, Linda. Mankind has wanted to be in control from the beginning. I’m thinking of Eve.
Until those kinds of pastors can learn to trust the Holy Spirit to convict and convince, there will be control and legalism. The Holy Spirit does not need their “help.” He is quite able to tailor a way to reach every heart and change lives.
Hi Bill,
I think there is another type of abuse that is likely going on universally throughout Canada and the USA. It’s what was happening to the people of Israel when they were getting messages from false prophets in the OT.
The message being given out from all the false prophets was that all was well. The people of Israel were God’s people and God would save them and protect them. This message was given out by these false prophets at a time when the people of Israel were in idolatry. They were disobeying God. The OT talks about what was happening in the nation in those times. (the people believed a lie)
The true prophets of God such as the prophet Jeremiah, were exhorting the people to repent and turn back to God. Their message was unpopular, and people wanted to get rid of them. They didn’t want to hear this message of truth from God.
What seems to be happening today is that a message is going out throughout the land in our churches that we can live like the world, be greedy, be disobedient and God will save us. We do not need to fear God. We do not have to work out our salvation. We do not have to confess and repent(turn away from and forsake) our sins, etc .
We do not see this teaching in examples given to us from the OT. We should see these types of things happening with the nation of Israel. What we do see however, is that God did not continue to protect his people, he abandoned his people and sent them into captivity.
What we see in Jesus’ day with the Pharisees (who were decendants of the OT nation of Israel, was that God left them to their own devices and their own end. Jesus said the Pharisee’s father was the devil. The Pharisees said that their father was Abraham. Jesus said ‘no’ Abraham isn’t your father.
It is not abusive to preach the Word of God from the pulpit. Truth must be preached, otherwise people will perish. People must understand and know what is required of them by God.
The Bible says that God’s people are to have faith and beliefs that are separate from the world’s views, desires, goals, heart, mind, conduct etc. etc.
Christians are to be living in the world but not of the world.
This teaching is not legalism or control or abusive. God is not abusive. God’s word is not abusive or controlling or manipulative. The teachings of the Bible have to be taught, regardless of whether people want to hear them or not.
This is a true prophet. Being a prophet is not an easy job. You have to say the hard things. You have to exhort, rebuke, encourage, etc. This is the preacher’s job. This is loving and helping toward God’s people.
Many preachers today skirt around God’s word trying to avoid the difficult stuff. They only want to preach uplifting and postive messages when they speak. The problem is, all of God’s Word is uplifting and positive, even the hard stuff.
What is abusive(in my mind) is a preacher who has little skill in the area of conviction and exhortation. He/she does not have the potential or the ability to save souls and save lives.
Just more thoughts.
Thank you for sharing your experience, Linda. One of the hardest things for me to remember is how invested I was in the whole thing, and how I in turn hurt other people along the way.
This story just leaves me speechless. There’s nothing really I can say about the magnitude of religious sewage that flowed downhill on this woman.
My sentiments when I read it also. A very courageous woman in my book.
Thank you, Jason. There are numbers of people who have been in worse situations than what I have been delivered from.
I agree with Jason. It’s unfortunate that there’s so much of stuff like this out there. Thanks for sharing your story, Susan.
Took courage I believe to do that.
Thank you, Loren.
Oh wow. I am so sorry you had to go through that.
The good thing is she is healing and helping others.
Michael, it isn’t something I would have chosen to go through, but God is using it in ways the only He could use such a mess. He’s good at that.
I’m thankful that you are healing and that God is pulling you through all of this.
Agreed.
He is able, Rob.
Well, first of all, like the rest of you, it makes me mad. I know several churches that would fall into that category (got thrown out of one of them). There are a couple of things that come to mind. Once you are saved, you must continue your spiritual education so you will be able to recognize false doctrine. Second, it is true there are some translations which should never have been printed, you must do some research of your own to know which ones.
One of the other things I would stress is to not go to the other extreme and develop an “anything goes” attitude. The so-called seeker friendly churches are a good example of this. Susan seems to be recovering nicely, but many do not.
As for all of those who have made legalism their “god”, quit going to church, you’re giving the rest of us a bad name.
It can be very subtle, John, and it can creep up on people. I don’t think anyone would just walk in and ask to drink the Kool-Aid. And even people who have studied the Bible for years can be caught up given the right circumstances. Me, for instance. I have a B.S.in Bible from an accredited conservative Bible College.
Powerful story! Thank you for sharing!
You are an encourager, Jim.
Thank you for sharing your testimony. Courageous and helpful to others. Praying for Christ’s love and power to free those in bondage.
Thank you for the encouragement, Tom.
I don’t have words.
The torment that is preached from pulpits really hurts the heart of God. I’m convinced of that. So glad that you’ve found a church family where you can rest, heal, and just soak in the presence of God. Thank you for being willing to share Susan.
Thank you, Craig. I am very thankful for the various channels that God has used to encourage and heal.
Wow, just wow. All I can say is that this gets me angry. Thank you for coming out and sharing that.
Grace is never that hard.
Grace is so hard for those kinds of people to understand. It’s as though they believe that Grace saves us, but that we have to work to be sanctified. It’s all God’s grace.
This is indeed quite a story. It really sheds light and how gross the church can be when we let Satan in and mess it up. I’m so happy,Susan, that you’re experiencing that “full dose of mercy and grace.” May you rest in that peace, and never again allow people in power to hold guilt and shame over you in order to make you do what they want. Thanks so much for sharing your story!
Thank you Stephen. I’m still healing. It’s been three years since I walked out for the last time. I’ve heard it takes about seven years to get over serious trauma, so I’ve still got a ways to go. But it is so much better than what it was.
Wow, this is an amazing and heartbreaking story. Thanks for sharing. There are many of us out there who have never experienced anything like this. It is important for us to hear this and realize that these things do exist in the world. I praise God for giving you the courage to share this with all of us. This makes me realize that there are those that are still “lost” even though they think that they have “found” a church.
Thank you, Sele. It was a woman who, like you, had never experienced a dysfunctional family or church situation whom God used to hold my hand over the two to three years it took me to get out of there. Thanks for responding.
Susan, you’re a brave soul…thanks for sharing your story. Praying that God heals and restores all in you…you are His daughter and a jewel in His kingdom.
Jay, I don’t think that I am brave. I just knew that I was supposed to write it. It’s been over two years, and I was surprised how I was shaking after writing the first draft. Thank you for praying.
Hi Beautiful Susan,
I am so glad we found each other while we walked similar paths and that we’ve been able to see God’s healing hand of grace washed over us.
You are a mighty warrior for Christ, helping others to know a God of love and hope and healing. Love you dearly friend.
Julie, God has used you more than you know in the healing process. I love you, too. Wish you lived closer. 🙂
My heart breaks for the part of your life manipulated by supposed men of God. To use God as a way to control and manipulate people is a form of taking God’s name in vain. What they did doesn’t resemble, “A life more abundant” at all.
I also believe God will now use you and the wisdom gained to effectively tear down the barriers built by the flesh of men that keep others away from sharing a true life of grace that only comes through God.
God bless you for sharing and continued prayers in your healing.
Thank you for your encouragement, Floyd. God bless you.
Susan I have known you through some of this and known about a little of the rest. I hurt with you. You know about some of my own bouts with this sort of thing.
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Father please continue to set Susan free and deliver her from anything in her – experience conditioning etc. That makes her vulnerable to this pattern of attacks from the enemy. Thank You that You are her shield and her rereward and the lifter of her head.
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I don’t want anyone to see that prayer as blaming the victim. I believe Susan knows me better than that but others here don’t. Please let me explain. Wrestlers go for any hurt place on the opponent to try and make it worse. The devil does that too. But God can make the weak places super strong and help us not to be vulnerable to the attacks. Crab grass has roots so do emotional and spiritual hurts. God showed me that I was vulnerable to certain attacks because there were roots and hurts in me that that the evil and abuse could latch onto. The abusers were very wrong of course but I needed and still need God’s help for there not t be anything in me for the abuse to grab onto and hurt me once again. My guess and it is only a guess is that the abusers are often the result of their own conditioning they have been taught that this is what a church, a pastor, a teacher, is supposed to be like and may well be as wounded and as separated from the Lord as are their victims.
I love you sis and I will keep praying. Please pray or us too.
Thank you, Ann, and yes, I do understand exactly what you are praying for and about. The Lord has been strengthening me, and has been giving me wisdom. Sometimes, you just gotta close some doors and not let (whoever whatever) it is. You are one of the ones with healing hands that God has put into my life
You are a very strong woman, not only for going through all of that, but for coming out & sharing your story. It made me so sad for you as I was reading, I could just feel your pain, I pray you are healing from this abuse. Thank you for sharing this painful story. I am praying for you.
Jan, you are an amazing sister in the Lord. Thank you for praying. I’m two plus years out, and counting. They say seven years to heal from trauma. But unless God does the healing, it won’t get done.
This is one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard. I can’t understand how these would call themselves pastors and not have any fear of the Lord. I know so many that have given up on Church and Christians for much less so I applaud that you have stuck it out and found a true home and family. Lord, help us to embrace love, grace, and truth as leaders and not fall prey to the schemes and destructive systems of the enemy.
Thank you Susan and thanks Bill.
Thank you for praying and for the encouragement, Jason. The worst thing about these situations is that people are misrepresenting God, and making people dependent on themselves.
All three of my siblings walked away; one has come back to God, but he can’t sit in church anymore. And, I will admit that I have Sundays when I panic and can’t make myself go to church. Not as frequently as it was in the beginning, but it happens.
To all: it tells me there are 29 comments so far. most of them are from you to Susan or from her back to you. I am humbled and honored that first, Susan would agree to do this. Second, that you would visit this site. Third, that you would express your opinion and overwhelmingly be sympathetic and also shocked/outraged/disgusted/etc at the treatment Susan received. Many have no clue what really goes in on some so-called churches. This is just the tip of the iceberg for such type of abuse. I am thrilled that Susan was bold enough to share her story. May it serve as a catalyst for healing for Susan and for maybe even you, or someone you know. Thanks for being a loving community to Susan.
I have been truly blessed by the outpouring of encouragement and affirmation, and the prayers of this community.
Thank you, Bill, for having a safe place for hurting people to be heard, and ministered to. You and your family are in my prayers.
Susan: thanks for telling your story. I stated above how I feel about today. And for the record to all: it was written long before Susan began responding to comments and even wrote the one to me. I am honored and humbled that God has chosen this place for people to find safety and love.
Wow, Susan… Thanks for sharing your story. I cannot even begin to imagine what it would be like if I were in your shoes. And I am glad that you finally found a real Church family.
*Hug*
And I still have to ask: C.S.Lewis books? Burned? Really?
My thoughts exactly Zee on Lewis. Must have been The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Or maybe the whole chronicles. 🙁 I was amazed.
Well, obviously they haven’t read those…
A pastor’s wife (not my pastor’s) once told me off for having a poster with Lord of the Rings… because supposedly those were satanic books and movies. *Sigh* (Granted, they did not let their kids read anything but the Bible and Christian literature – which is tragical in Russian – besides the simple fact that there’s almost NO normal Russian Christian literature… The kids didn’t even read what they studied at school… Not sure how that worked, but even my mom conseded to the fact that it’s ridiculous.)
Reckon I must be a warlock then since I love LOTR. ‘Course I have only watched the movies. 🙂 That makes me even more of a heathen. lol
You haven’t read the books????? I guess that was my most multilingual series. I’ve read the books in Russian and English, then watched the movies in Russian, English, and funny-Russian (they did a translation into Russian, but called it “Goblin translation” because it was full of slang and local lingo… It’s hilarious.)
Yes, Zee. C.S. Lewis’s books. The preacher said that Lewis was a warlock. I had been reading the Chronicles of Narnia to my fourth grade class in the church’s Christian school. The principal’s wife subbed for me one day when I was under the weather, and she told the church leadership about it. We were about 2/3 of the way through The Last Battle, and I was told I could not read Lewis to the class anymore. On a lighter note, within a week or two most of the kids in the class had pestered their parents to get the books for them.
None of it was good, but what really bothered me was that even after it came out that he wasn’t honest, no apology came from the church leadership.
Thank you for your kind thoughts. 🙂
Heh… whenever my pastor starts telling me about Potter (he can’t stand the series, I love them and have written extensively on my blog about the lessons we can learn from there) – that there’s magic so it’s bad right away – I mention Narnia to him… I know the two aren’t exactly the same (Lewis writing for Christians, mainly and Rowling writing for general public), but there is so much in common (and Narnia series are Rowling’s favorite series).
C.S. Lewis, a warlock… Wow…
Does sort of boggle the mind doesn’t it?
My sentiments exactly, Zee. I think Rowling’s faith really shows up in the last few books of the Potter series.
I’ve read LOTR four or five times – three of them aloud: once to my dad, and two different times to my kids. Bill, you need to read the books. (As if you didn’t have enough to do!) 🙂
It surely boggled my mind when it happened, Bill.
I smell a gang-up-on-Bill moment here. 🙂
Susan’s case is typical of cultish types of religion operations. Sadly, it can happen in any denomination.
I went through a lower key less obvious cultish religion a couple of years back that used this type of tactics. However, Being a bit of a non conformist rebel, I was easily able to spot the thought process of this church which went against the scriptures.
It didn’t take me but a few visits to discern what this church really was ( a manipulative cult).
It is rather sad that so called pastors have the ability to manipulate their flocks to their own agenda.
If it is not exactly as it is written in scriptures, then it is not from God so beware.
Glad you were able to discern and get out Larry. Unfortunately, there are some who aren’t or can’t. Your last line holds true in a big way. Thanks.
Yes, the last one was the worst. The pastor of the church had been “burnt” by some other churches, and by some people, and so he put what he thought were fail-safe “fences” around himself. The stories I could (but won’t) tell. Thanks for taking time to reply.
Susan, thank you for sharing your story with us. It is so sad that things like this take place, but I’m thankful that you finally were able to break free from it. And I believe that God can use (and is using) your story to help others.
Amen on can and is using her. Thanks jenn.
Thank you, Jenn. It is sad, but I’ve been inoculated, and I doubt it would be easy to mess with me again. I know my kids (who are now all married) feel the same way. And that was the compelling reason why I shared what I did: people need to know about it, and other people in those situations need to know they aren’t crazy, because it really is an unhealthy community.
Thank you so much for sharing your story Susan…I know that it can’t be easy, but I believe that God is using you. It makes me sad to hear the things that you and your family went through, but I’m glad you’ve found a place where you can experience healing.
Looking forward to reading yours Jon.
Thank you, Jon, for your encouragement. I think we are stronger for having been through it, but I keep thinking there must be an easier way.
Many of the most popular books among Christians today, should not be.