Reclaiming Faith, Hope, and Love after Spiritual Abuse

Faith, hope, and love are beautiful words—but for many of us, they don’t feel simple or safe. When they’ve been wielded to control, silence, or shame, these core concepts can carry weight, confusion, and even fear. In the wake of spiritual abuse, what once promised life can feel distorted or out of reach.

Today, Dan and Rachael step tenderly and courageously into what it means to reclaim faith, hope, and love after harm. 

Rather than treating faith as certainty, hope as optimism, or love as obedience, they reframe these virtues as deeply human, relational realities: faith as trust, hope as imagination for a future shaped by goodness, and love as a force grounded in honor, freedom, and delight. 

Together, they name how spiritual abuse exploits fear and shame to protect power—fracturing our ability to trust ourselves, others, and even God. 

Healing doesn’t begin with forcing a set of dogmatic beliefs, but with safety: learning to listen to our bodies, recover discernment, and engage relationships where difference and nuance are welcomed.

This conversation is for anyone longing to rediscover a faith that makes room for personhood, courage, and love that does not demand fear in return.

About the Allender Center Podcast:

Episode Transcript

Rachael: Good people with good bodies. Today, Dan and I want to take some time to talk a little bit more about some of the realities that we face when we are healing from spiritual abuse. And some of the core categories we engage here at the Allender Center are words that would feel so familiar to all of us. But a lot of times, I think because of some of our spiritual formation, we have a distorted view of what we’re even talking about. But we use these categories of faith, hope, and love. And so much of our kind of methodology of what healing from trauma and abuse looks like. Now, obviously these are very familiar words to anyone who has been formed in a Christian faith and probably to many people outside of a Christian imagination. These faith, hope, and love, the way Paul is talking about them in Corinthians essentially is like, these are very core realities of being human. This is a part of what makes us human. And so I think they are also things that come under great assault in the wake of abuse or in the midst of abuse. And certainly when we’re talking about spiritual abuse. So Dan, I was actually hoping before we jump into like, yeah, what actually, how do they get distorted and disordered and shattered and all of that jazz? I wanted us to have an initial conversation. What are we talking about when we talk about faith, hope and love? Because I know for myself, and maybe you have a different experience. I don’t know, because you did go to seminary at Westminster. But for so long, the way I would’ve talked about at least faith and hope would have been like faith is like ultimate belief. It’s this absence of doubt. And hope is kind of like you’re hoping against hope, so it’s like good will prevail. Maybe even how I thought as a little kid, like I believed in Santa Claus until I was 11. So that just tells you a lot of things you need to know about these categories in my life. But when I came to the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology at the time it was called Mars Hill Graduate School. I had to take a class with you called Faith, Hope, and Love. And I was so excited because I was like, “I get to go to school and take a class called Faith, Hope and Love. This is amazing.” And actually I loved the class, but it was a very different engagement than I was anticipating coming into the class out of my spiritual formation. So I would love to talk a little bit more about what do you mean when you say faith hope, and love?

Dan: It’s such a lovely beginning. But before we jump in, if you don’t mind me just slightly diverting, just slightly. When we step into spiritual abuse, I’m just so curious what it’s like for you because this has been, your wheelhouse has been such a rich, deep, important part of the development of the Allander Center. But I’m just wondering for you as you just begin, as we begin this topic, I know what happens for my body as we do, but I’m curious for you.

Rachael: Well, yeah, I actually think I feel very tender. I also feel very fierce. And if there’s anything that this past season of watching what I think are actually the very explicit tools of abuse, but certainly spiritual abuse playing out from the highest offices of our nation, like the weaponizing of our faith, the weaponizing of fear and shame, the distortion and twisting of things that are meant to be for our good, to be utilized to actually control us and cause harm to other people. I just feel very fierce that we are going to need… Part of why I care so deeply about this work is not because I think people need to like stay in a particular religion. It’s just, I actually think when we’re talking especially about faith, hope and love, if these are part of what make us human and we’re cut off from them, like we need connection with something beyond ourselves in order to be the people we’re going to need to be to make it through the era that we find ourselves in. And we need more than just our own resilience or even the resilience of community. We need access to love, like a kind of creative force of love that will not leave us and that we can’t be separated from. We need access to the parts of us that trust in goodness, that like trust in our sense of identity as beloved. We need access to a kind of hope that is not fragile, is not built on privilege or optimism, but is like imagining the future that we are meant for and are meant to be like co-creating. And so yeah, I do feel very tender and I also feel like very resolute.

Dan: Yeah. I love those two words. And that, as Becky and I walked this morning and began collecting, “What are we doing? What are you doing today? What am I doing?” I said, “Well, I’m doing a podcast with Rachael on spiritual abuse.” And it immediately brought up some of the realities of what we would call some of our own experience with spiritual abuse. And again, I’m condensing too quick or too long a conversation too briefly, but what Becky said was we wouldn’t be walking where we are. We would not be actually doing what we’re doing today if we had not had to grapple through the experience of what happened in the context of a church, a particular pastor and the harm we both experienced. And in some sense, what I can say is I probably would have remained a pastor in the context of the Presbyterian denomination I was part of if there had not been, in some sense, the heartache and in some sense the awareness of this is a dangerous world. When we get to the very core of what evil is wishing to do, it is to ruin our capacity to trust. And when we are left with we cannot trust the word of God, we cannot trust the people offering the word of God. We can’t trust the institution and the person offering the word of God. All of a sudden, the complexity of all other forms of abuse, be it sexual, be it emotional, be it physical abuse, somehow comes into its darkest element when we speak of spiritual abuse. So I’m just aware of, I’m glad we prayed beforehand. I’m glad that Becky and I had that chance to prepare our hearts. And I’m glad for those hearing this to know if you’ve experienced this, may there be a growth of great tenderness, and that I love your word, great ferocity. So thank you. A quick way to begin this is just to say that I remember, I don’t know when, but somewhere in my adult years, I heard that the word truth, which we think of as connected with faith, the word of God, trusting in a set of doctrinal statements. I mean, one of the things that Becky and I do every now and then is we read the Nicene creed together and it’s like, I don’t know how many couples do this, but it’s just one of those weird little things and it’s wonderful. So I don’t want to minimize the notion of left brain, cognitive, deductive, intellectual, safe. It’s

Rachael: It’s part of our bodies that we’re gifted with and need.

Dan: But it’s the word trough is actually where we get our word truth and truth as we use it within that word, my betrothed. It is the one I have turned my trust over to. And so you’ve used that word and I just come back to, who do you trust is who you have faith in. And so we trust someone/something and we can begin to play with this. Almost all forms of spiritual abuse are built around the framework of dogmatism that the individuals I know who have perpetrated significant spiritual abuse in my life and others have quarantined truth to a very small set of convictions that you have to align yourself with or you are not just an outsider, you are an enemy and dangerous. So dogmatism has that quality, not just of what you’re asked to believe, but more importantly, how you are meant to believe. And that how is with no room for nuance, for complexity, for in one sense difference of you. And so the worlds where I know we experienced some of our own past abuse had not just a commitment to a certain set of doctrinal statements, but a way of believing that if you differed with, oh my gosh, the cost was you are an outsider and an enemy and dangerous and therefore, oh my gosh, it’s just grievous to me to think how many times I’ve come to believe certain things, not because I’ve really pondered and come to conviction, but because the group think the power of dogmatism made it such that I’m going to experience even more being an enemy and isolated if I don’t.

Rachael: Yeah. And I think in addition to that, like when I think about faith or in some ways, one of the things that was really powerful to me coming to The Seattle School was these very left brain categories that had usually meant a way of thinking, a way of believing, faith, hope, and love, right, actually got to become more robust with like a relational psychodynamic reality to them that they’re not just left brain, they’re also deeply like nervous system oriented, right? Like the care that we … Like trust is developed even from a very young age through attunement, like that you can anticipate a tiny human’s needs and see them and take care of them and delight in them that they’re like loved. And then also when we think about like more attachment reality, like containment, like that sense of honor really, like personhood. So when we’re talking about dogmatism, we’re talking about a demand to belief and loyalty that actually necessitates you leaving yourself and not having too much of a self because that will be way too threatening, right? So even if we bring this down to like a family system, if you’re a little person being formed in an environment that cannot tolerate difference, that can’t tolerate personhood, will, power. And listen, I’m saying this as someone who was in major conflict with my three-year-old this morning because she didn’t want to wear the outfit we picked out last night. We were running out of time because we got to get her brother to school. And I’m in this moment where, of course, I want to, in theory, honor her personhood and her will and her glorious opinions about what she wears and some of it’s sensory related and some of it’s literally fashion. I mean, she was like, “That dress isn’t as beautiful.” So I’m like, “I don’t know your categories of beauty quite yet, trying to learn.” And also, that’s not the most important virtue, but that’s going to be a lifelong thing that we’re dealing with. So I’m saying this, none of us do this perfectly, right? So it’s not about … And it’s so much more complex than just like your individual is the most important. That’s not what we’re talking about. But when there’s not room for personhood and like you’re saying, you have to conform to the group in a way that massive parts of you are left outside. That is actually not trust, that’s fear, right? That’s a kind of loyalty that’s more based on survival and this kind of promise of belonging, right? Dogmatic communities, we are grasping for certainty. We want certainty. We want someone to just tell us, and this is a lot of what Paul’s talking about with like, in this similar passage, I thought like a child. I craved childish things. I wanted the simplicity of like, just tell me what it is, but we know that that’s actually not how life works. There’s so much of our faith that’s held in tension because suffering exists, because to love is to suffer. I could go on and on and on, but there’s something about spiritual abuse that exploits how we’re wired for care.

Dan: Oh, so well said.

Rachael: It offers attunement, but oftentimes without honor.

Dan: But in that interplay where every human heart is meant to be growing in the capacity to ponder, to reflect, and to in some sense, grow in our ability, as you put it so well, to differentiate, to be who we are, not just in the connection, but in the uniqueness of something of our own story, but what does the person who’s in some sense in charge of spiritual abuse do? It’s where we come back to that term gaslighting and that notion of that your views are not just encountered with kind of like, “Well, I don’t agree with that. Let’s talk.” But it’s more the threat that you will lose the relationship if you continue to think in a way. And I would rather you experience literally a sense of being crazy, of having your ability to think and to engage the world so deeply challenged that you are deflated. So you rest on me because the threat of, if you don’t, you’re in this sea of complexity and you’re going to drown without my kind of care. So if we can begin to then say faith and hope, I’ve always wanted to underscore that in some ways faith and hope are just identical twins. They wear their hair differently a lot, but if you look at the nature of faith, it’s trust. Trust with regard to how the past has given you ground to be able to rely well on the other in that mutual process of care. So we grow in trust through the evidential process of how we interact with one another from the past into the present, but hope is that anticipation of goodness in the days ahead and what is now the realm of the uncertain. So it’s the realm of imagination, it’s the realm of creativity and risk and always requires a certain defiance to not be bound to what has occurred, to be able to make move into what now our world, our situation, or our own maturational process requires of us today. So in so many ways, hope is faith and faith is a degree of hope for the future. So if we can hold those together is where I would go. The nature of almost all spiritual abuse has this sense of the future is so dangerous And all systems are collapsing and there’s enemies at every gate now, I’m the only one you can trust, I’m the only one who can protect you from what’s coming down the road. So if you leave the realm of what we have established as not just what to believe, but how to believe, you’re now threatened to isolation, but isolation in a very, very dangerous world. So what I’ve noted is that most of the people who regularly perpetuate spiritual abuse have this ability to use systems, but also personal interactions to create this sense of you are in danger.

Rachael: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s such a weaponizing of fear and I would say also shame and all in the service of power, which is ultimately the opposite of love and what we’re really called to. We can get to that, but it’s where, yeah, hope is not found in Jesus, but in safety and exclusion, in being right, and certainly in defending power. And what gets tricky, I think, about spiritual abuse is it is so much about the misuse and abuse of power. It’s a distortion and exploitation of God’s power and authority to manipulate, to control, to harm. And therefore, there are massive systems in our world that we participate in that have been propped up and supported by theological assumptions. You think about the Doctrine of Discovery or different things that have supported theologically things like colonization and genocide, supremacy systems like White supremacy or patriarchy or any of these systems that position one person or one person’s body over another. These are spiritually abusive systems, especially in the United States because so many of them, again, have been like the propaganda has come from certain readings of scripture or certain theological assumptions. And so I think it can feel overwhelming when we start to wake up to this because it’s not just that maybe we encountered … So of course there are systems that kind of protect abusers at times because again, it’s most at its core concerned with protecting power. So it’s why you hear things like, “Well, we need to forgive this person because if this comes out, think about how much damage it will do to the ministry.” It’s why the victim is often pushed to move toward a kind of, I think actually false forgiveness, which is a kind of diminishment and a gaslighting because a truly restorative process would take a lot of time and it would take many people being committed to repair and accountability and actually seeding power and trusting all these things we say we believe that like when we are weak God’s power is made perfect, not using that to distort, which I think is what often happens. So yeah, when you’re weaponizing fear and telling people, if you don’t believe this way or if you don’t behave this way, all these horrible things will happen to you, will happen to your way of life and it’s actually distorting kingdom imagination because ultimately the way of life we’re called to, if we’re baptized as followers of Jesus, is to be people who know that love is the most powerful force in the universe, powerful enough to actually undo the powers of death.

Dan: Yes.

Rachael: It’s an abundant kingdom where we can share our resources even in the midst of scarcity. And it’s like, I’m saying this and I know even in myself, these are things I’m like, I believe, help my unbelief. I’m living into and I’m not living into because I’m also in these systems as well. And so yeah, it feels almost ridiculous in a spiritually abusive system to have hope in the unseen, to have hope that loving your neighbor, that being generous with your resources, that telling the truth when there has been harm could bring any kind of goodness because you’re so afraid. And I think in fact, what I’ve seen happen with so many people I love and know is that if you were to actually ask a lot of people who are promoting some of the most spiritually abusive ideologies of our time, if they go to church, many of them would say no, because certain political correspondents became the preachers they were almost listening to who knew that fear was a very powerful motivator to keep listeners, to make money for media companies. So again, when we have this distortion, and I think when you get down to like, let’s say you’ve experienced clergy abuse or there’s so many like spiritual leaders who have harmed children and young people and young adults sexually, like sexual abuse, this war with hope just gets even more profound. When the virtues and values and like realities of God have been mitigated through humans who harm and distort, it’s very devastating and I do not think that toxic theologies or wicked abusers get to claim our capacity for trust, our desire to belong to something meaningful, to belong in community. And so I think we got to talk a little bit about love.

Dan: Well, and before we step into that, a good example is, and I have obviously am changing enough details, et cetera, et cetera, but a woman that I worked with at some point in my life, 252 years ago, had a husband who was very respected in the context of their church, well to do and given leadership power and place. And in that context, he was often demeaning and degrading and there were several incidents in which physical threat followed into a violence and the particular details, let’s just say he physically harmed her, but not in a way that would show bruises and evidence. So in one sense, he was a brilliant abuser, enough to be able to shape and control, but on the other hand, never enough that even if she were to call 911, there would be actually anything but his word, her word. So here’s the context where he began to acknowledge, I’m wrong and I’m sorry, but with no sense of conviction or accountability or actually openness to addressing the violence within him and he simply put his wife in this position of, “You need to forgive me.” And then the phrase, “You’ll be forgiven to the degree you forgive and the measure by which you forgive will be the measure by which you’re forgiven.” Again, that’s scripture, but as it’s weaponized to diminish the capacity of choice, and when I said to her that you do have grounds minimally to bring this man into the context of the legal process, but also the community of God and the context of responsibility of elders to care for this man. So when she eventually brought the abuse and the cruelty into the context of the church, she chose that first. What occurred was, first of all, they commanded her to in no way bring legal processes. Second, they put the dominion of forgiveness as the framework for indeed, even though he had been clearly wrong, in so many ways, her absence of care and forgiveness was probably part of the reason that these unbecoming events were at least precipitated. They didn’t go so far as to say she caused it, but many ways there was that sense of, so you’re responsible for the harm, you’re responsible to resolve the harm, and you can’t bring any other, shall we say, community process to do with this, but the small demand of the elders. So you can imagine what occurred. There was a period of time in which she had a hard time truly trusting, which only for him intensified his rage, which then eventuated in another form of violence. The church again came back to her and said, “You’re responsible because you’re not forgiving.” The systems, again, of blindness, patriarchy, commitment to not honoring that this kind of cancer will never be addressed by, in one sense, taking on supplements and aspirin. It’s surgery, it’s chemotherapy, it’s radiation … In other words, radical treatment to deal with deep disease, this church, this community, I think at one level of protecting men, protecting power, and in some sense, protecting money would have preferred for her to be the one to endure. So this, I tell the story because it’s so common, and it’s almost a meme as to how forgiveness becomes a weapon for the cruelty of not only not addressing the wound of his people, but actually creating even more harm.

Rachael: That’s right. And I think Jesus is actually, there’s very few times in his ministry, at least according to the gospels, where he brings harsh judgmental language or be warned kind of language. But where we see it again and again is when he is speaking to religious leaders in power who are harming people, exploiting people, or doing what you’re saying, doing very little to actually address the root of the problem and therefore keeping heavier burdens on victimized burden of people. I mean, when you hear Jesus use language, it would be better for you to have a stone wrapped around your neck and thrown into a lake than to cause any one of these little ones to stumble. There’s a great case for that sense of little ones, just meaning the vulnerable ones, vulnerable people. And I, for one, take that very, very seriously. One of my professors in undergrad, he had this very wise way of helping us. How do we stand on the promises of God, but take seriously the warnings? And how do we live in that tension? And so yeah, I mean, to me, I can understand why so many people’s response to these abusive systems and abusive people that are utilizing spiritual imagination are utilizing scripture or utilizing and twisting and distorting values and virtues that are meant to shape us into people who bring about the possibilities of the kingdom of God in the here and now. Why so many people feel the only option is to… And I’m not meaning walk away. I’m not talking about walking away from the church or walking away from faith or God. I’m talking about walking away from core parts of being human That feel way too threatening because one of the most devastating realities of spiritual abuse to me is that you don’t trust yourself. So therefore, how could you ever trust others or trust God? You don’t trust your own imagination. And I think so much a part of the healing work is getting into the stories where you have known betrayal of trust before, because likely it didn’t first happen in a faith community. You’ve known what it is to trust someone who’s telling you they’re trustworthy, AKA, or they have the power and authority to be trustworthy like a parent or a teacher or someone who’s supposed to be for your good, but who exploits that trust to do harm. I think it’s why we have to hold very tenderly like these parts of us that we want to just split off because usually what happens if we just like, let’s say we split off the trusting parts of us or we split off and by splitting off, I just mean it’s kind of like we banish them, exile them. So I don’t want to have anything to do with them. If we split off the more hopeful meaning making, wanting to belong to something, if we say, “Oh, anyone who has anything to do with this can’t possibly love,” we usually end up in a different kind of fundamentalism. That’s very reactionary. And again, sometimes that’s a part of the journey, right? It might be a stop along the way. So I’m not saying at all, don’t do these things because sometimes it’s such a trauma knee jerk reaction, like a nervous system fight, flight or freeze response that we can’t help it. But it’s kind of like the example I like to use for this is, this is kind of vulnerable, but I’m going to share it anyway. If you’ve listened to the podcast for any length of time, you would know that part of my story is that I was set up in a dating relationship with one of my youth leaders when I was 16 and he was 21 or 22. And so that was my very first dating relationship, very first formative relationship. I mean, I had boyfriends in fifth grade where you hold hands and you write notes at school and then you find out you’re not in a relationship anymore from like someone, especially in the ’80s and ’90s because we didn’t have cell phones. It was like, you wrote notes and you saw each other at school. But it was my formative dating relationship. And then I had a few others with Christian men that were equally devastating in different ways and actually involved some elements of spiritual abuse. And so I moved to Seattle and I was like, “I’m not dating Christian men. I’m only dating atheists or agnostics.” Again, there were a lot of good relationships that actually were very healing for me in that because they weren’t typically threatened by me as like a pastor woman. They were kind of like, “Cool, you do you. Also, I don’t know about Jesus.” I mean, it had other elements, but because so much of this had to do with actually my family of origin as well, one of my most devastating dating relationships was actually like one of the most toxic, but it was like I felt great about it because it was the total opposite of anything someone else would’ve chosen for me. And at the time I remember feeling like, “I am so liberated. I am so free.” He drinks, he cusses, whatever, it’s fine. And I remember my therapist being like, “Do you actually feel free because it seems like you’re still dating in connection. You’re still trying to do something to get back at these people over here. That doesn’t feel very free. And you’re doing something that’s actually really harmful for you because in that season I was also having to contend with like, oh man, I have my own addiction. I have massive codependency. I am in a relationship with an addict. I feel proud about it, first of all, because I’m kind of like sticking it to the man, whoever I perceive the man to be, but also I was severely addicted to this relationship as well. And I think that’s what I mean sometimes in our reaction to get away from harm, which logically makes a lot of sense, we end up in environments that only double down on reinforcing the very tools, weaponization of fear and shame. This is the way you’re supposed to believe. These are the people we’re scapegoating. I think you can hear that could play out in a political way or any kind of way, right? Where we still feel most comfortable in an environment that’s telling us who’s right and who’s wrong, who’s good and who’s bad, what are the rules of engagement to belong? And they’re typically pretty rigid. Who’s the people we scapegoat? And again, I’m not equating, let’s say a kind of political fundamentalism, maybe a more like liberal political fundamentalism with like spiritual abuse. I don’t think that there’s like a one-to-one correlation. I don’t think the same kind of harm is happening, but it’s still similar tools. It’s not going to lead to the kind of repair, the kind of transformation, the kind of healing that we’re most meant for. And so-

Dan: Again, I hear you and I agree, but what I would say is all forms of dogmatism has its own inherent hatred of true faith and hope. And if that’s the case, then it isn’t just religious organizations that perpetuate spiritual abuse. I think in some sense, any organization, any system that quarantines you into a certain set of core convictions that require obedience, but also when you tie in what we’ve underscored that spiritual abuse almost always involves this sense of fear. If you depart, you will drown. And in that, now we’re really getting to that core issue of the brilliance of spiritual abuse is it’s all about love and you will not be loved if you depart. If you are no longer part of this church, this community, this set of convictions, you now become, again, back to that notion of enemy, the cancer, those who have fallen away. So care in most of these communities depends upon obedience. And in that, there will be sizable portions of honor and delight to a degree, but all built on your performance. But yet what I’ve noted is, and this is where the overlap from my standpoint to a lot of spiritual abuse and sexual abuse, that there will be this weaving of arousal, touch, pleasure that’s actually very legitimate and honorable, but then crosses some line. And even if it’s what appears to be not that significant, it’s sort of a touch, a hug that lasts just too long, a hand that slips down to a buttock, things that may not be clearly violating in the sense of touch of primary sexual or secondary sexual body parts, but there is something of a bond that becomes bondage. And in that physicality of engagement, there’s often then this weaving in of, you are special, we need you, I couldn’t do this without you, but then some degree of diminishment and degradation, but then repair, somehow even ownership of, I’m so sorry for having touched you this way, that will not happen again. And then it happens again and again and again to the point where the victim is immersed, bound into the structure of, this is where I am getting a level of care and delight and some degree of honor and goodness, often in a way that I don’t experience in any other context, this is the killer because where faith is lost, there is a sense of hypervigilance where hope is lost is a sense of despair and some sense set up for addiction and dissociation. But the core issue here is it’s where shame, that sense of, I somehow was complicit in this process.

Rachael: Why did I stay? Why did I allow that to happen? Why didn’t I? Yes. I mean, oh my gosh, I’ve felt it in my own story and numerous people I’ve worked with, the way that shame manifests when love has been distorted and weaponized and exploited. And so I think, Dan, when we’re … I’m just laughing because I named this podcast episode, reclaiming faith, hope, and love. It takes a while to talk about what it is, what’s happening to it in context of abuse. But I think how then in, again, healing is not like a destination or even a finality. It’s nonlinear. It’s something we get to participate in over time. And I do believe it’s possible or I wouldn’t be having this conversation. I wouldn’t want to get close to touching any of these things if I didn’t think healing was not only possible, but something we get to experience and participate in. But when we’re thinking about everything you just named, how do we begin to pick up the pieces and disrupt despair, to disrupt shame, to disrupt a profound sense of like, “I can’t trust anyone, let alone myself.” What are some of the movements towards a reclamation of faith and hope and love that we get to participate in and imagine might be possible for us?

Dan: It’s a brilliant, but we can also underscore, look, 70, 60, 70, 80% of the battle is naming what we’ve named so far. So we may be just naming the problem, but that’s not true. And the naming of the problem is the ownership of, I’ve been betrayed, but I have lost my ability to in once sense trust. I have refused to trust. And I think the brilliance of what you put words to earlier is you got to begin with trusting yourself. You got to begin with that ownership of, I don’t like what I’m hearing and how I’m hearing it. And I may be wrong, but for the moment I’m going to step away, honoring the need to step away in order to begin to get space to learn how to trust one’s own sense, one’s own body. And then that ownership is also an ownership of, “Well, wait a minute, what have I done to deaden, kill the sensitivity I might have had before?” And you put it so brilliantly earlier in terms of most of us who have been in the context of spiritual abuse, have also had their own longer history of having trust and hope, having something of the violence of shame in our own story of love. So we can’t just deal with spiritual abuse. We’ve got to be willing to deal with what’s the rooted system that enabled us to be more unwilling to name what was happening. So I’m not at fault for the harm, but I also have to own what was the log in my own eye that kept me from being able to see with greater clarity.

Rachael: Well, yeah, maybe I would reframe log in my own eye because I understand where you’re going, but I would say maybe what were some of the vulnerabilities or the wounds that you already had in your body that would then make you more vulnerable too? And also, so for so many of us, maybe not, I know Dan, yours experience was a little different, but for so many of us, our spiritual formation wasn’t our … We didn’t necessarily get to choose as children what context we’re in. And sometimes though that generational reality of trauma is playing out in like if our parents were in a really chaotic situation, they might be drawn to more dogmatic, their wounds and vulnerabilities might have been part of the setup for how we were formed. So I do think like getting to get into the layers and the stories of how did we come to be people who would be really drawn in by a kind of delight and a kind of belonging and a kind of certainty that feels good. And a lot of times that is interacting with our stories. Maybe we ourselves had really chaotic environments and it felt reassuring to be in a place where it’s like, we know how to get love. So I say that more like…

Dan: Well, go back to this point, the log is anything that blinds you. And so often what has blinded us is the fragility that we grew into and understanding of our world. Even that log has to be taken out so often…

Rachael: Sure. I’m just speaking to people who have experienced spiritual abuse, that passage has been used and I hear what … I love how you reframe that. I just think if where you start is like, what did I do wrong or what am I not seeing? I actually think you have to find some kind of safety to begin to do that work, right?

Dan: See, right now, what we’re working through together is in one sense that the hard labor of getting a sense of how to move through this will require tension of coming to passages that have been so wickedly misused and then beginning that process of take your step back, make sure that you’re not joining a structure of accusation and in some ways diminishment degradation because that’s been the power of spiritual abuse.

Rachael: Yeah. Or maybe spend some time with passages no one ever brought to you about how you’re loved by God and there’s nothing that could shake that or that when you don’t know how to pray … I’m going back to Romans 8, which I always go back to. I’m not saying don’t go to the passages that trigger you. I’m just going to tell you, I don’t think that’s an effective place to start because all it will do is reinforce this is not safe. And so I know that I’ve gotten to work with you enough to know that absolutely is part of the healing work. And when we’re dealing with spiritual abuse or any form of abuse, the places we are most bound are the places we feel complicit in the harm. And the way we get to kind of disrupt and loosen the binds of that feeling of complicity is to actually get more closer to the tender parts of us that were vulnerable. So I think we’re both saying the same thing.

Dan: But we’ll go back to one more core phrase and that is, you need someone to be able to dialogue with that you can trust, you can differ with, in one sense…

Rachael: You can have full range of emotionality with and they won’t move away in some ways.

Dan: Indeed, indeed. I love this. Thank you.