What are Red Flags For Spiritual Abuse in Your Church? with Teasi Cannon

we've seen people deconstruct oh yeah many people out of this church it is very difficult for people to separate what is being done in jesus name from who he actually is [Music] welcome to the elisa childers podcast so excited to have you back this time for the continuation of a discussion that we had last time with tc cannon my good friend we talked about her story of walking through spiritual abuse and how we processed that experience together as lovers of the church and as lovers of jesus just our thinking as that went as we walked through that together so if you haven't watched that episode i strongly recommend you go back and listen to that first because it's going to give you some context coming into today's podcast where we're going to talk about more practical elements of spiritual abuse how is that manifesting itself in our churches what can we do about it we're going to talk about red flags to look for we're going to talk about what the bible has to say about what biblical leadership in a church should actually look like because there are qualifications that sometimes we kind of sweep under the rug and we don't pay too much attention to so we're going to talk about all that and more on today's podcast with my good friend tc cannon yeah and and one of the reasons that we wanted to sit down and have this conversation for the benefit of others was to to be able to do something that would be edifying and helpful and maybe help facilitate somebody out there recognizing oh wow this like this explains what i've been going through but i couldn't articulate what it was maybe to facilitate some healing um because like we talked about in the beginning we are pro church right we want everybody to to be restored right this is not like this isn't just a bash your pastor session right right we love this guy we love the people who have been hurt by him we know there's reasons he is you know hurt people hurt people as we know um but i want to maybe give some practical observations that people can think about as they sort of go through their own church situations because i think especially listening to the rise and fall of mars hill podcast um which you know i gave some commentary on i think overall it was very helpful for me to listen to because there were so many similarities to the experience that we walked through but i want to just maybe help people identify some things and so i want to talk about what real biblical leadership is supposed to be okay i want to talk about that i want to talk about some red flags to look for like the bully pulpit uh i want to talk about other red flags that you might bring up for people to say look this is something to watch for that you might have an abusive situation in your church um so the first one let's talk about biblical leadership i'm going to pull my computer out of my handy drawer right here because we pulled up the verses why don't you just give an overview of that and then i want to read three passages of scripture for people who may not be aware that the bible's very specific about who is qualified to lead the church right um which you know i think most of us have read through those verses and have them tucked away i don't understand one of the things i've looked back and reflected upon and and see a lot of times in these these stories is that when and i i include myself i want to say that that a lot of my healing journey has not only been um studying and learning and getting information about what was i what was done to me or what what did i just walk through but also what was in me what have i what was my contribution to it i mean i was there 23 years oh yeah there was a long line of people that went before me yeah which was part of what my husband and i discovered after was oh my gosh oh all those people that were there one day gone tomorrow you know i wonder if they had the same thing and we actually did go back and talk to as many people as we could remember you know or you know sometimes i went alone we went together sometimes and to ask for forgiveness because there was you know not that there was an intentional disregard but we were part of a culture that left them for dead so to speak you know sometimes my words are you know but this is how you feel you know you feel that you've been discarded by the very community that you thought loved you and and then when no one comes looking for you you just don't know how that feels till it happens and then when you know how it feels you want to go ask everybody you can for forgiveness like oh my gosh i can't believe i didn't just come to find out but um back to the biblical leadership thing is that i mean i knew all along that there were requirements for biblical leaders because i you know one thing i studied and you can always feel free to help me if i'm off here which i love about our friendship because you're so articulate and so well studied i when we first met i just remember just feeling like i was just running after you say i read this great book and i'd want to read it and just anyway i just love your friendship i just want to say that um but um i knew that there were biblical qualifications for leadership but for some reason what we end up doing is we we elevate talent or skills over character we and why do we do this i don't you know dynamic preaching over yeah yeah we we begin to you know we we disregard character as if it doesn't matter we look at what is going on on a pulpit and we think about what's being said which sometimes spiritually abusive situations often times what's being said is actually right or close to right like mark driscoll a lot of times would say things that you know what biblically i could agree with you yeah but we're disregarding the behavior and but what i love about the biblical qualifications for leadership is it includes both yeah it talks about sound doctrine and it talks about behavior but we think i don't know why we do this in the church why do we think that leaders deserve a longer rope like we should just justify all their sins because why because they have a their good you know rhetorical skills or they've got a huge platform um it's the cult of personality it is the cult of personality culture is i mean that's not just in the church it's everywhere it's like you you you find the personality yeah that is you know going to represent you it promotes tribalism and you know it's it's um it's definitely a problem and it's not love when you think about it okay to give your pastor or your leader all this rope to keep sinning and being even just being a jerk yeah you know i remember defending him i remember because he he would say things sometimes um that even from the pulpit that in my heart i was like that's not christ-like but i would excuse it because i would i would say oh well peter always was putting this i mean peter hacked off the guy's ear right right you know he's a peter yeah and you you make but but we have to peter was not that guy when he was after the resurrection after the pentecost peter wasn't the guy that hacked off the guys here anymore right you know and so we sometimes you know don't make those connections and it's not that god holds elders to a standard of perfection right but there's a general character qualification and i mean they're well i'm how about i read some of these because there are some very interesting qualifications for biblical leaders i don't think people often consider it yeah very well so this is titus 1 5-9 and titus says uh this is why i left you in crete so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town as i directed you so these are going to be like what we would call pastors these are the people that are going to be leading the church if anyone is above reproach the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination for an overseer as god's steward must be above reproach he must not be arrogant or quick tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain but hospitable a lover of good self-controlled upright holy and disciplined he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it so he's to uphold orthodoxy and teach biblical doctrine correctly and marry that with a pretty i mean it's not like that high of a level of character right you know that his home's in order that he's not verbally abusing people or flying into rages he's not given to you know being a drunk or any of that stuff i mean it's it's not even that high of a standard you know right it's not like he has to you know fast five times a week right um first timothy three one through seven this is paul the saying is trustworthy if anyone aspires to the office of overseer he desires a noble task overseers must be above reproach the husband of one wife sober mind it sounds familiar so reminded self-controlled respectable hospitable able to teach not a drunkard not violent be gentle not quarrelsome not a lover of money he must manage his own household well with all dignity keeping his children submissive for if anyone does not know how to manage his own household how will he care for god's church he must not be a recent convert or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil moreover he must be thought well of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace into the snare of the devil and then this last one is first peter 5 1-4 and this is an exhortation to the elders i exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of christ as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed shepherd the flock of god that is among you exercising oversight not under compulsion but willingly as god would have you not for shameful gain but eagerly not domineering over those in your charge but being examples to the flock when the chief shepherd appears you will receive the unfading crown of glory and and i love i love that we have this and i don't know why in so often we see this moses model of leadership where it's uh it's one person who kind of calls the shots and as long as that you know it might be working okay in a church where the person is really submitted to the lord and is humble and has all these things but um as we know power corrupts people right and so there's a reason that the bible calls for a plurality of elders this is not supposed to just be one guy calling the shots and everybody's submitting to this one person uh and and i it's sad that in so many churches we don't follow these guidelines but right but it does happen and then it can lead to these red flags right and so you kind of touched on the first one that i definitely wanted to touch on and that is that it can create a cultic kind of environment you mentioned people kind of disappearing and kind of falling off the face of the planet and nobody really you kind of just know that you're not supposed to go talk to them yeah and i'll give a perfect example because a few months before we left uh one of a really really high profile person in the church that i worked closely with disappeared just disappeared was gone yeah just gone right and i knew that i was not supposed to follow up on that now nobody said that to me nobody said don't go talk to her um but i remember it really bugged me for now it's not like we weren't like super close friends but we worked together every sunday right closely and i remember um just wanting to reach out to her and just say hey how you know just checking on you how are you doing and i picked up my phone to text her and the thought went into my head what if they find out i texted her yes i know and the second that thought formulated i thought oh my like it was like a light bulb went on and i thought this is really unhealthy and i texted her right away good and i just said yeah just checking on you i want you to know i love you and i miss you and she just wrote back a really sweet thank you and then we ended up you know having lunch and just you know talking a bit more but uh that was a huge aha moment for me when i picked up my phone and that thought came in so that might be a red flag that is a real look yeah and i wanted to say something real quick just about the biblical qualifications of leaders um that i that i you know also includes all the other qualifications for being a follower of christ it's not like that's all right you know it's also behave the way jesus behaved in all things but there's an added level of exhortation for leaders and the reason why is because for many people i mean for all of us really there we look to our um you know we're all meant to be god glorifiers like we are that's the primary purpose of our lives as and but when we look at our spiritual leaders we can't help but associate them even more closely with god himself yeah or with jesus himself yeah and jesus is putting out some guidelines to say hey you're you're representing me in the hearts and to the lives of really vulnerable people i love that the standard there it's not about so we i guess when we look at that and we're reading those scriptures and we're looking at our leaders it's not because we're wanting to like give it to them or they've got some heart it's to protect them so that they don't end up as a leader inadvertently wounding jesus is sheep and burning out and yeah and or burning out or not having accountability this is so beautiful a lot of the horrible thing about spiritual abuse is you know is that it often times because there are so many vulnerable baby christians in churches that just aren't prepared or ready for for the blow um they it absolutely can distort their whole view of jesus and god and the bible we've seen people deconstruct oh yeah many people out of this church yeah out of our church our church and then the broader church yes you know because um it is very difficult for people to separate what is being done in jesus's name from who he actually is that's right and that's why these guidelines are so important for us it's not that we want to stick it to the man or make our leaders put them under a microscope it's because we we want to be a part of the body of christ and we are called to to understand the qualifications of our of our leaders and to be knowledgeable about that where we go um but and i don't know why we've swept those under the rug why do we sweep those under the rug when they're so so important um for guarding our leaders it is not loving to let a leader get away with his sin it is not loving i am watching you can watch because what what and i want to get to the flags but you know what i've what i've seen is that okay what makes a leader become abusive what leads to this cycle it always starts with a measure of self-deception and a small compromise um you know like even you know thinking about the small integrity issues where as elders as as friends of our leaders when we see them doing little white lies or whatever they've somehow justified that you know it started with the self-deception that i'm so tired i deserve this or i i'm doing so many other good things this one thing whatever is going on psychologically the self-deception comes first which leads to the deceiving of others which then leads to the continual you know compromising and the growth where before the slow turn of switching of calling evil you know what is evil is now good you become and i've seen it where you'll see people defending and they believe they're defending righteousness but they're defending something that is so utterly not righteous and the only way we can know whether what we're defending is actually righteousness is to test it according to jesus his nature and what he taught biblically interpreted soundly yeah um but yeah i think the red flags absolutely um because that is that is a a major red flag if because a lot of these abusive cultures have a heavy-handed spoken and unspoken culture of loyalty and you'll find that you do have a fear that big brother is watching how in the world would anyone know if you text you know it'd be like but you have a fear that if i text the wrong people if i'm associated with so and so i'm going to be on the outs yeah you know i can't dare touch the unclean yeah you know then i might or whatever but or i think also like one of the thoughts that went through my or why i wrestled for so long before texting her was you don't want to be a gossip right that's the thing you know i was sitting in the room i wanted to ask people and they're like she's not here anymore does anybody notice yeah but you don't but then i would always hold myself back because well you don't want it to turn into a gossip session so i think for christians it can be kind of confusing because you have all these things that you're wrestling with in the back of your mind and it it can be confusing and the sad part about all of that it is confusing you want to avoid gossip you don't want to bring division you you know there are genuinely biblical principles that have been twisted and distorted in a way that insulates abusers and isolates the broken and i've been a bit i have experienced that i have seen it firsthand and my journey has always been one of kind of this parallel thing of what i'm walking through and what i realize i was a part of what i walked through what i was a part of and trying to do that well before the lord um and you know one of the hardest things i've shared this with you it's like i look back on all that i've walked through even to this day the hardest part of my healing hasn't been forgiving the people that broke me the hardest part is what do i do with it now how do i honor you and what i've seen and what i what i know and how do i be an advocate for the church and the broken yeah how how do i do that well i'm not perfect i blow it i know um you know no one's motives will ever be 100 pure this side of heaven we you know i can't honestly say i've never just been mad yeah you know i have been mad you know 23 years of investment of my life was just whimsically gone because one person was offended by me yeah one person was offended by me when i in fact was actually trying to love this person in a way that is biblical yeah and then no one you know and then to be left along the sidelines so i guess um you know that was kind of a rabbit trail but that was good you know that heavy-handed environment that culture of loyalty to the system and that tendency to self-protect there are a lot of factors that are going into this mess of why we are choosing subconsciously consciously sometimes to disregard the clear instruction of god's word about church leadership about how we are to to be a defender of the broken how we are to approach the broken and we're just kind of applauding ourselves for the good things that are happening which yes good thing we aren't you know none of us is purely wrong or purely right or evil or good you know yeah even the most hideous people in history probably sent flowers to their wives right you know there are you know even i'm sure hitler had his days not that i'm liking all spiritual leaders to hitler but like surely there was someone who felt really loved by him yeah there is a confusion not only because of the disparity between what's being said and done it's confusing because everybody's individual experience with these people is different if you're famous or wealthy or you're you're contributing to the ecosystem and you're doing you're going to be treated really well you get treated well you're not going to experience the abuse of power um and what we're guilty of i think a lot of times is well i didn't ever experience that so you must be wrong how prideful yeah of us to to think that our own experience of anything is the only possible out you know scenario here that's i want to help people with more red flags because the one that was really big for me was the bully pulpit and so what that looked like from my perspective was uh well right after i left and when people were leaving the social media messaging began to really turn toward bible verses about gossip and tail bearers yeah right contentious people and divisive people i mean isabelle spirit well and that's the thing too well that's what i was going to say okay that's what i was going to say thanks for saving that one that's okay i'll beat you to the punch if you are a woman yeah i'm just going to say look you all know i'm not a feminist i've talked about this but i will tell you if you're a woman and you try to call out any kind of divisive thing or false teaching particularly in a particular stream of christianity right um there's a really good chance that you're going to be labeled with a jezebel spirit and so now so in our case this these were the two bully pulpit sermons that that i i recognized um and this is again it's confusing because nobody they never name names right but two weeks after i left there was a sermon in which it was said you know i want to talk to the apologetics crowd the apologetics crowd are heresy hunters their discernment or doctrinal purists who are just waiting for you to mess up and say the wrong thing so they can point their finger at you um so you know the pastor used the pulpit to basically kind of disparage apologetics yeah well it could be a coincidence that i left two weeks and our whole apologetics ministry kind of fell apart because we all were yeah you know two members of our team left yeah and a third not much after that right um and then and then there was the jezebel sermon this jezebel spirit sermon i think that was shortly after you left was that right or somewhere in there yeah i it's it's hard to remember the exact timing but it was you know the the setting of the narrative from the person in power gets to set the narrative that's right they've got the pulpit they've got the microphone got the pulpit and it's interesting because for a few years before that maybe the two or three years before that i would notice things in sermons where i would it would be so specific that i would be like is that about a person that and i realize now it was probably just the person who ticked him off that week it was you know i've heard that many times over the last several years so you know you know i have heard a lot more stories after leaving because i i made the decision having been the person on the side of the road bleeding out i mean apart from you and a small group of people outside of that system who have been there to love me all along the way all through my whole stages which i can't thank you enough um you know apart from that being um just kind of alone and i totally lost my train of thought what i was just going to say what did you say when we were talking about the jezebel spirit sermon and oh yeah so the other people that have come to me have all had their moment when they were the one that was the the object a lesson yeah you know when you're sitting there he's talking about me and there i had moments like that where even you know i would sit there and i go he's talking about me yeah and it would be so disheartening for me um what's interesting is part of the bully pulpit too is the the sunday after my meeting with him the one meeting where he told me i was in a fence personal offense and all of you been talking about me and all that the the sunday after that he taught on the golden rule yeah i remember that about how to be kind and and taught about you know defending victims of abuse and and you're sitting there listening going what yeah what in the world you just beat the tar out of me like why aren't you applying that to your own life right so the bully pulpit can be aggressive in tone but it can also just be this that tendency to get in there and begin setting the narrative you can begin to notice a pattern it seems to happen it's a perfect image repair technique yes it's not about true biblical truth or true repentance it's all image repair yes i'm going to get there first i'm going to you know it's like i think about two kids that have been in a fight you know that you always want to get to mom first so you can tell her your version of it so that when the second kid comes the narrative's already tainted and if you happen to be the more powerful kid the more the you know yeah then you have a more you have more power because we can have you know in the church there's all kinds of power there's there's positional power financial power there's intellectual power emotional power and from from the pulpit um you have the position to control behavior you have the position to control ideas and to let you know um with emotions with thought you can control what people think masterful you know rhetorical skills can yeah you can you know even as a musician sure you can bring people to tears sure it is a behind a pulp that you are in a mass or a microphone yeah or a platform you have power well and i'll even know note this as well that as you talked about the little compromises how they can grow into bigger ones right um sometimes that can go on a trajectory from real vague and general to real specific and i'll just you know one of the most specific bully sort of things i saw from behind the microphone from the pastor was um and i'm i'm bringing this up not to bash but to say like this is kind of proof that this really is going on this isn't just in our heads right um there was somebody who had left who has i don't want to protect this person so i'm going to give as little detail as possible but this person has two children have particular struggles and this pastor said something about his enemies on the microphone and then said something like their children and then went into great detail exploiting the very deep you know and um tender struggles these two kids have and it was one of the meanest yeah and honestly most one of the most satanic things i've ever seen from a pastor right because this is a person who already was abused horribly yeah and left for dead on the side of the road and then he exploits the problems uh the pain that they have as a family i mean it was why and what's the motive of that self-protection self-protection get ahead of the story here yeah so that's not jesus no it looks nothing like jesus no i i feel like you know sometimes i want to just say we might need to all just turn off every voice and go back and revisit acts and you know read the gospels immerse yourself in the gospels and look at well you know when you do that you're reminded again of of jesus his heart he was not interested in image repair i mean if there's anything that's really clear in the gospels and he's the perfect example of power in and of itself is not evil or good it can be used one way or the other and jesus gives us the model for using the most power of all power the power of power you know for the for good self sacrificing himself laying down his reputation um running to the least and the lost and the broken you know you think about his three primary audience members you know you had the disciples the crowds and the religious leaders were pretty much always around and you know the disciples he was always instructing you know and and by way of that he's inviting the crowds always inviting them at first they're curious eventually they call for his crucifixion but the religious leaders i just love seeing well i don't love seeing this but it's i it's something to see that he's constantly calling them out for faulty interpretation and abusive application like jesus is never in conflict with scripture or the old testament or the law he's in conflict with the religious leaders abuse of it yeah interesting yeah and i think what are we called to do as his disciples and this is what kind of wraps around to my general prayer every day is we all have the same audience we have we you know we're discipling or we are being discipled we're trying to be disciples of christ we've got crowds around us who are watching they're curious how are we inviting but the religious leaders you know i'm not not saying that we don't we need to love our religious leaders but there's also that role that jesus did model of calling out false doctrine and abuse of doctrine and we we can't know whether it's false or abusive unless we ourselves are students of the word we can't you know if we don't have that ability to determine what is sound which is why that's one of the biblical qualifications of leaders like telling them that they need to be able to teach isn't about your rhetorical skills yeah it's not about being a dynamic what great image that was a real great object lesson you know i mean i would rather personally at this point i would rather sit on a metal chair in a fluorescent lit room with no nothing just just expose it the scripture for me i don't even need you to give an object lesson yeah i don't even have to start with i'll apply it to my own life like i don't even need a joke yeah i just you know what have you dug in what have you excavated out of you know as a leader as a studyer that's great for me what i determine a good sermon now is so different same yeah i'm not basing it on how many goosebumps i had yeah or what i got out of that it's you know or how unique it was or what a great twist that was i just want it to be truth biblical truth yeah and and that is something i encourage people to be aware of because all the other stuff the the emotional pieces and all that they're beautiful and god uses them but if we're reliant upon the icing as the the foundation then we don't have you know we're we're basically seeking after experiences instead of truth and that can really cultivate an environment where abuse it's right for abuse right so what are some other red flags we talked about sort of the the culture of that that can take on a cultic kind of uh environment where people leave you're not supposed to talk to people and again it's not like it's spoken it's not like official shunning but in a sense you kind of just know you don't really you don't really talk to people who have left and we don't want to do that and then there's the bully pulpit what are what are some other red flags that people can be looking for right well i would say that some of the red flags are just the way you feel like you you mentioned you know just that feeling of guilt or fear now how does somebody discern between maybe just i feel you know i'm just i have a weird feeling because maybe i have brokenness in me and that's not reality how do we test that feeling against reality to know there's justification to say because i knew like when when i knew i wasn't supposed to text her um i knew that wasn't just like oh i have a feeling it was like now i really actually think they would be upset if they knew right and so how do we do how do we go you know take that feeling and measure that against reality well i would say that you might a lot of times people that are um being or in the midst of an abusive or toxic situation won't maybe even have the maturity to do that yet so just acknowledging that you're feeling a lot of fear acknowledging that you are you are conflicted a lot um maybe you you suddenly you loved going to church but you have no passion for it anymore what's meant to be a life-giving environment for you now now you just dread it these are some things that you may not be able to even um articulate why are the reasons they may end up resulting in some something in you that you need you still need sanctification or healing maybe you've got some like unrepentant sin in your life and that's why you don't want to go to church so you know maybe investigate those things right so i wouldn't say that you would take that one red flag and leave or come to even a conclusion yet but when you add all these things together you can begin to think this isn't this isn't what this environment should be um you know there are obviously extremely there's like a big spectrum of what these of what constitutes spiritual abuse and what the experience of that can look like because it can be i don't know if you've seen the new documentary on the way called the way down on the whole remnant church no i don't know i want to say that yeah um that was like an example i was watching that go okay that's an example of what can be very extreme because doctrine and behaviors are so um used to i mean like people were disciplining their children by you know locking them in boxes and things so it can be that or it can be you know so there's a spectrum so there's going to be a spectrum of ability to um go inside and open your own heart to the lord because some people are in such a broken space that they don't even we need to understand that the remedy for some this is what makes me want to cry the remedy is jesus yeah and it's going to involve healing and repentance the remedy is him and what he calls us to but in some spiritually abusive situations the the remedy that there's been a counterfeit jesus that's been used to actually inflict all the wounds so it takes time to get people to come to the real you're not going to be able to just grab them and say hey let's go to jesus and let's reflect on what's going on in your heart you know because jesus is the one they're afraid of and that's why it's so you know yeah i get this the righteous anger i feel most the time is not because of what was done to me personally it's because of the fact that the one i love the most has had his name drug through the rug you know through the mud and that what broken people need the most sometimes it's going to take them a long time to trust enough to get there but that was kind of a tangent too but yeah they're trying to think about well so and also we mentioned biblical leadership but that's a red flag if it's a cult of personality if you have right um you know if you if if nobody shows up on the morning that the big guy is not preaching and it's somebody else you know that's that's i'm not saying that means it's an abusive situation but that's a red flag for unhealth yeah and and uh i so eat that and then you're afraid to yeah and i it kind of goes along with you're afraid to text but even on social media you are constantly tipping your hat you know to make sure you're you appear as one of the loyal or yeah make sure your like is seen yeah you're like and you know you would never want to be seen commenting on so-and-so's page or um the shunning the disappearing of people honestly i think we all feel the red flag maybe not all of us but there are so many things that happen that were like you feel that little that didn't seem christ-like or that's weird that's off most people when they look back can say i had a lot of red flags but i constantly just one at a time justified them by for many reasons one of them is well there's so many good things being done here so but you know what when does jesus ever say that we test things by how the good outweighs the bad because you could have a completely secular organization that does great work with homeless and and relief work and stuff unity is another big word that everyone throws around and uses and you know we're not ever called to unify for unity's sake that's right we're called to unify with biblical unify around the real gospel yeah around jesus and the real gospel and the real good news yeah and we can't know what that is unless we are students of it and it requires a lot of hey that's not this so that has to go out right and you know this teaching is not what we're supposed to unify that needs to go right and and so yeah i think unity is a hugely misunderstood thing and it's often wielded as a weapon sometimes too right you know oh if you bring up you know a concern you're being divisive you're you're disrupting the unity and that can be um a tactic that's used in an abusive situation it's really shaming to people that are walking through because i love what you and i have gone back and forth because i'm able to say yeah but this is what it feels like from this side and you're i love what you've you always helped me too and but and you helped keep me engaged like you know you helped keep me engaged with what what's actually happening just in in different ways that i was able to help but i don't know i'm just like bubbling along and i just feel so thankful but um it's amazing now that i've walked through this and i still am and i'm not i haven't haven't arrived i'm always learning but what i've learned from experience of what continue how you know in that word victim you know people actually are victims but then they're survivors you know they they overcome but in the moment but there are things that we do as the body of christ that continue to re-victimize the most broken it is so tragic to me that of the people that rush most quickly to the broken in the church you know are the churches thrown out sheep you know the bloody sheep by the side of the road we're so worried about protecting our own image and oh my gosh and you know or we've been indoctrinated to think it's more spiritual to ignore them it's more spiritual to mind my own business and ignore this broken person over here or we're we're holding the broken to a standard that we don't hold the leader to oh this is something i was guilty of like i would look and see oh i remember this and i've asked god to forgive me and i've asked people to forgive me but i remember some of the people that were gone mysteriously before me you know i maybe see posts of them getting together for christmas or whatever and i just have this thought oh it's the embittered few getting together to lick their wounds together and now i know oh no that's not what it is yeah that's not what it is at all that's a bunch of sorry it's just a bunch of bloody sheep who found each other and no one else is coming no one else is coming so they're they're doing the best they can as broken people to help one another yeah and then they get love from people who aren't even in the church and that's the confusion of the culture of it or they can get swept up into something like a progressive type of christianity that's you know feels very um feels very safe because they're not going to hold you to any standard and that feels good and i can understand that like if you've just been beat up and you got somebody saying it's okay just rest here for a minute why would you not do that right and somebody that just sits with you and wants to have anything to do with you when the church often times i've even had people tell me that you know i you know they were more disappointed you know the couple times i've dared to reach out to initiate a conversation like hey um i've had people actually say to me that they were more disappointed with the way i was talking about spiritual abuse online they're so disappointed with the way i'm talking about it because i've made the decision to be to share my heart in that is because when i see something that i'm bumping into or that's broken or whatever i just like to turn on light switches i'm just trying to help people and some people don't like it and some people it helps but people are more upset about the fact that i'm saying something than they are with the fact that it happened to me or that how's your heart and that's what i hope we can get better at is learning to always approach this with compassion and curiosity with the ability to triage because you know what there are going to be some people that are saying they're abused when you when you dig in and get more information about that you might find that they just didn't have all the facts or you know and i look at people that like might pound out a comment about you on social media who've never met you in their life they'll never know you personally those kind of comments we all need to know you know what yeah it's really more the people that have access to both your words and behavior we need to give voice to them in our lives like you said i want to ask my husband is this true please let me know when i have a blind spot but um anyway i just my heart you know you you realize a lot as you walk through that khali man we just want to be more like jesus he he didn't ever shun broken people yeah and you know i hope that we can learn to and i'm getting better just taking a claim of abuse and be willing to just say i need to triage instead of i don't agree or i do don't like i don't ever want to hear anybody's abuse story everybody they're just oh they're just a bunch of bitter people um no they might not be we won't know and not every story is ours to delve into well that's what i was just gonna say like you don't have to go and follow all the uh the people with view stories on twitter no but if there's somebody in your life yeah that you know you're connected to in some meaningful way right um you're allowed to hear their story right you know it's not divisive or how horrible to say that going and listening to a broken person is gossip right and also the whole thing that that's crazy to me is well it didn't happen to me so all right well then we would never advocate for anybody right you know i've never been sold into sex slavery right okay so what does that mean i don't need to get involved ever right i don't it just doesn't even logically compute as a christian yeah no that's good well in a moment here we're going to be going to the patreon only segment of our broadcast where we have a sweet little community of people on facebook on our patreon group where you get to ask the questions for our sort of after interview hangout time um this has been kind of a heavy topic so i won't call it an after party like i sometimes do but um but you know just if you have d further questions you can ask those you can go to patreon.com alisa childers take a look at the different tiers there's different benefits for each tier but on one of the tiers we get a little extra episode of hangout time with our guest so we're going to do that in a moment but as we uh close out this segment of our discussion today tc uh what you know we've talked a long time through your story about practical things that people can take away what do you want to leave everybody with why don't you just share your heart on uh on what you would just leave everybody with today i i think that you know at this point my my biggest heart for everyone involved because there's multiple players there's the the the leaders there's the the people that have been abused are being abused there's people that are just watching trying to learn and you know that would be that our ultimate desire would be to to really know jesus and reflect him and and and how we live and what we do and to understand i guess seeking understanding is just so important for all situations to to to be willing to listen to be willing to lean in and i guess my biggest heart too you know i can fumble around with all this because i have so much it's just so deeply personal for me but as someone who has survived multiple types of abuse jesus is the only answer for me and the gospel isn't always easy you know it doesn't always feel good and so i don't define abuse by what feels good you know abuse is as a misuse of something but the gospel is the only hope and jesus has loved me and cleansed me and given meaning to my pain and value to my life and um his word his heart his life and flourishing so i would hope that you know for religious leaders who have blown it for people who have been victimized that we would all continue to try to find the real and not not settle for the counterfeit not judge christianity by its abuses not judge people by their worst days either but golly wouldn't it be so great like my biggest prayer would be to see god glorified in true reconciliation in any any of these stories yeah where and you can forgiveness is me one person involved in forgiveness i can do all i can to forgive but i can't reconcile without the other person yeah what my heart aches for is the beauty of how much it glorifies him when two parties are willing to admit their brokenness before the lord and own their own part of repentance and repent that means i confess my sin and i turn from it it's not perfect it doesn't always look beautiful but if we're all just if we would lay aside our desire to protect our own reputation and worry more about his what a beautiful thing could happen what a witness to the world you know they will know us by our love not by our false unity or a fake love love that does this would be huge and that's i guess my goal in prayer that's awesome well i want to thank my guest tc cannon for this really frank and open and vulnerable discussion today on spiritual abuse uh if you are experiencing spiritual abuse or you are maybe seeing some of these red flags at your church i encourage you to follow tc on social media just at tc canon yes on facebook and twitter and instagram uh and there's also some resources she can offer to you on those platforms too she recommends a lot of great books and a lot of people that can help with some of this stuff so anyway thank you so much for watching if you're watching on youtube subscribing and liking leaving comments all that helps with algorithms if you're listening on audio platforms like itones and spotify leaving five star reviews and sharing this with your friends if you see this posted on social media you know sharing it out it helps just get the word out to as many people as possible so thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Alisa Childers

Views: 65,004

Keywords: apologetics

Id: suiB7_MUv2I

Length: 48min 45sec (2925 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 14 2021