32. The Person Who Was Abused by a Leader

The Christian Statement

This conversation requires more care than any other in the volume. The person who was sexually, financially, or spiritually abused by a pastor or church leader has been betrayed at the deepest level of trust. Any apologetics that does not begin with the wound, sit with the wound for as long as the wound requires, and acknowledge fully what was done, is not apologetics. It is re-wounding.

Person who left: My pastor raped me. I was sixteen. I told the elders. They told me to forgive him and not to tell anyone outside the church for the sake of the Gospel. I have not been able to say the word "God" in a sentence without feeling sick for fifteen years.

The disciple says nothing theological for a long time. They sit with the person. They acknowledge what was done. They do not rush to defend Jesus, the Gospel, or the church. They do not say "not all Christians are like that." They do not explain that the elders were wrong. Not yet. Not for a long time.

When the time comes - much later, in a relationship that has been established over many conversations - the disciple can offer one thing: the portrait of Jesus who reserved His most severe condemnation for exactly the kind of person who abused this person. "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites" (Matthew 23:13). The Jesus in whose name the abuse occurred is the same Jesus whose anger at the exploitation of the vulnerable was the fiercest thing recorded in the Gospels.

The person who was abused by a church leader and told to be silent for the sake of the Gospel was silenced by exactly the people Jesus most loudly condemned. The Jesus they need to encounter is not the institutional Jesus who failed them. It is the Jesus who said "let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them" - and was indignant at those who prevented it.

★ Disciple Tip: In this conversation above all others: listen first. Acknowledge. Sit with the wound. Do not rush to the apologetic. The wound is not an obstacle to the Gospel conversation. It IS the Gospel conversation. The cross is the God who suffers unjustly. The person who was abused unjustly is in a specific position to understand what the cross actually means - when they are ready. That readiness cannot be rushed.

Additional Disciple Tip: For the Person Still Inside

The guidance above addresses the person who has already left. A different situation requires different pastoral response: the person who is currently inside a community where leadership demands a submission that prevents questioning, isolates members from outside relationships, uses Scripture to establish control rather than to serve the person, or responds to departure with spiritual threat.

This person needs to hear something the volume has not yet said directly: leaving is not sin.

Paul submitted to apostolic authority that was accountable to the teaching of Jesus and the witness of Scripture - and when that authority was not so accountable, he opposed it publicly (Galatians 2:11-14). He did not submit to institutional power that had abandoned its scriptural moorings. The book of Galatians was written to a community being spiritually manipulated by teachers who claimed divine authority for requirements that contradicted the Gospel. Paul's instruction was not "submit more fully and trust the process." It was: "stand firm in the freedom with which Christ has set you free, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1).

The marks of spiritual abuse that warrant departure rather than submission: the authority claims to be beyond question on grounds other than Scripture; Scripture is used to establish the leader's power over the person rather than to serve the person's growth; departure is threatened with spiritual consequences (abandoning God, falling under judgment, losing protection); outside relationships are discouraged or forbidden; the person is made to feel that their perception of harm is itself evidence of spiritual failure.

These marks are not the same as a church that has high standards, confronts sin, or requires genuine accountability. They are the specific dynamics of control that Jesus condemned most severely in the religious leaders of His own day:

"They tie up heavy loads, hard to carry, and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing even to lift a finger to move them."

-- Matthew 23:4 (NET)

The disciple who is walking alongside someone still inside this kind of community: do not rush them. Do not tell them to leave immediately. Help them name what they are experiencing, give them the scriptural language for the distinction between authority that serves and authority that controls, and let the naming do its work. When they are ready to leave, have Galatians 5:1 ready. It was written for them.

Resource: Diane Langberg's Redeeming Power (Brazos Press, 2020) is the most theologically rigorous treatment of spiritual abuse and power dynamics in Christian institutions currently available. It is written by a Christian psychologist with decades of experience working with abuse survivors and is structured around a theology of power rooted in the character of Jesus. It belongs alongside the other resources in Appendix C for any disciple who is regularly in the kinds of conversations this volume describes.