Are You Covering for a Spiritually Abusive Pastor?

Sep 22, 2009 11:53 AM
Are You Covering for a Spiritually Abusive Pastor?
by makestraight

[updated 9/22/09 - 2:45pm]

I found the following post from Pureprovender quite interesting.

Are you covering for a Spiritually Abusive Pastor?

When I used to be at Gracepoint Berkeley, I found myself being quite defensive on behalf of the Gracepoint structure and for Pastor Ed and Kelly.


I think it’s only natural – since Gracepoint essentially is your entire life, you want to defend Gracepoint to justify your own life in a way. At least for me it was. Additionally, since it’s such a tight-knit community [as forced and mandated as it is], you end up developing a strong loyalty to your leaders. After all, they are not 100% wicked. Many times, they do good things [good advice, good meals], but that’s what makes it hard to discern when they do something that’s wrong or unbiblical. But you find your mind justifying away those things and constantly trying to remember the good.

You can only do so much of that until it becomes cognitive dissonance. As Christians, we ought to be committed to the truth first, not loyalty [remember this is what Pastor Ed and Kelly did against Becky, and this was praised].

Sorry for the slight tangent, going back to the topic at hand, I knew deep inside that there was something not right. I knew that Gracepoint was very legalistic, and I knew that Kelly had issues with her character, and I knew that Pastor Ed was quite the savvy politician. I also knew that the church was overly authoritarian in a way that was unbiblical.

But I was very unconfident about my own conscience. So I kept dismissing them or justifying them away with superficial logic. I have to admit, I really didn’t want it to be true.

Furthermore, I was told by my leaders that such frustration was just my own problem, and the blame was placed only upon me. And I learned to constantly blame ONLY myself, rather than acknowledging the truth of the big picture that Gracepoint was ALSO at fault.

I hope to validate your thoughts through this blog so that you won’t be deceived as I was. Yes, our hearts can be deceitful above all things, but God does give us a mind to be able to think critically so that we can ascertain truth. Gracepoint will teach you that it’s all about “trust and obey”. But they are really misusing that to get you to trust and obey the LEADERS mainly, and not GOD himself directly.

So learn to give heed to your conscience and your perceptions when it’s aligned with truth. Be shrewed but innocent.

Matthew 10:16

I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

[Related post: Love and Stockholm Syndrome]