“The Shattered Soul” with Colleen Ramser, MA
What happens when trauma doesn’t just wound your heart—but your experience of God?
In this deeply thoughtful conversation, Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen welcome therapist and author Colleen Ramser to discuss her remarkable new book, The Shattered Soul: Restoring Wholeness and Rebuilding Your Faith After Spiritual Trauma.
Rather than offering another conversation about “church hurt,” Colleen invites us to consider something far more profound: spiritual trauma doesn’t simply change what we believe. It changes how our bodies experience faith. Through her vision of the “somatic soul,” she explores how trauma fragments us, leaving many people feeling disconnected from the God they once knew. Prayer can become frightening. Worship can feel empty. The very practices that once brought life can begin to feel unsafe, not because faith has disappeared, but because trauma has reshaped our relationship to it.
Together, they explore why the question isn’t whether you’ve deconstructed your faith. Trauma has already done that work of fragmentation. The invitation is toward reconstruction: patiently tending to the wounds that separate us from ourselves, from others, and from God. Along the way, they discuss the posture beneath spiritual abuse, the role of lament, and why healing begins by caring for the wound rather than debating whether it was “bad enough” to count.
This is one of the richest conversations we’ve had on spiritual abuse and religious trauma, offering language, hope, and a deeply embodied vision of healing for anyone seeking to rebuild trust after their faith has been shattered.
About Our Guest:
Colleen Ramser, MA, is an EMDR-certified licensed professional counselor (LPC), speaker, and writer who meets Christ followers at the intersection of trauma and faith. She is a sought-after trauma specialist—particularly on issues of spiritual abuse, domestic abuse, and complex trauma—and she has spent years journeying with souls in the church and within the scope of her clinical practice. Colleen also frequently speaks to pastors, ministry leaders, organizations, and other mental health professionals who desire to help survivors individually and to address systemic harm. She has appeared on podcasts such as The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill and The Slow Work. As a survivor of trauma, Colleen is a compassionate witness on the journey, bringing not only her clinical expertise but also a deep knowing of dark nights and the breath of new mercies. Colleen lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with her husband and two kids and enjoys being swallowed up by God’s beautiful landscapes and catching a good pun.
Visit www.colleenramser.com or find her on Facebook at @colleenramser.
And be sure to check out Colleen Ramser’s book, The Shattered Soul: Restoring Wholeness and Rebuilding Your Faith After Spiritual Trauma, available wherever books are sold.
About the Allender Center Podcast:
For over a decade, the Allender Center Podcast has offered honest, thoughtful conversations about the deep work of healing and transformation. Hosted by Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen, MDiv, this weekly podcast explores the complexities of trauma, abuse recovery, story, relationships, and spiritual formation. Through questions submitted by listeners, stories, interviews, and conversations, we engage the deep places of heartache and hope that are rarely addressed so candidly in our culture today. Join the Allender Center Podcast to uncover meaningful perspectives and support for your path to healing and growth.
At the Allender Center, we value thoughtful dialogue across a wide range of voices, stories, and lived experiences. In that spirit, our podcast features guests and hosts who may hold differing perspectives. The perspectives shared on this podcast by guests and hosts reflect their own experiences and viewpoints and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, or endorsements of the Allender Center and/or The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.
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Episode Transcript:
Rachael: Good people with good bodies. Dan, good to be with you as well.
Dan: Indeed.
Rachael: And as you know, we are deeply compelled to continue engaging the heartache of spiritual abuse and religious trauma here at the Allender Center. And today we are so privileged to have Colleen Ramser with us. Welcome, Colleen.
Colleen: Thank you. It’s an honor. Love being with you all.
Rachael: Colleen is an EMDR certified licensed professional counselor. She’s a speaker. She’s a consultant. She’s now a writer and podcast host and guest, and honestly a pretty prolific person in the realm of this intersection of trauma and faith. And I personally, and I know Dan, you are as well, am thrilled today to have this conversation with Colleen about her newest labor of love that’s been out in the world for a few weeks now called The Shattered Soul: Restoring Wholeness and Rebuilding Your Faith After Spiritual Trauma. Now we’re going to jump in, but before we do, I just want to say emphatically, this is one of the best books I’ve read engaging the heartache of spiritual abuse and spiritual trauma. And in part because so few people have the capacity, and I would say courage to step into the binds that are so intrinsic when the abuse we’ve known has impacted our faith and our spirituality and our attachment to God. And I think you have done the deeply courageous work that can only come when you have known this journey yourself. So I know that this is hard won wisdom and I’m just so deeply grateful for your work. And I mean that with deep sincerity. So thank you for joining us today here on the Allender Center Podcast.
Dan: Before we jump in, just to add that so often my experience with folks who either have experienced or who talk and write about this is a kind of deconstruction that actually froze the reality of what we do believe, what we did believe, what we could believe, out. In other words, people want simple and in one level clear directions and often binaries of, I believe now I don’t. And I think your courage of holding that this is a path not only of deconstruction, but reconstruction, it feels both heartbreaking, but also hopeful. So within that, the other thing is with such a desperately dark topic, it is compelling to have someone not only tell the truth, but write beautifully about it and your work has done so.
Colleen: Wow, that means a lot. As I’ve been getting more feedback about the book, you write a book and you’re kind of in a vacuum for a while and you just don’t know how it’s going to be received. And so it’s been so encouraging to hear people say this is one of the best books they’ve read and how it’s very gentle, it’s very spiritually sensitive, it’s trauma-informed, but it’s inviting people to something more. And it’s so encouraging to be like, what I hope to do is happening, that people don’t feel like they’re getting stuck in these spots and they can go at their own pace, but there’s also this other part of the story that I want for them. I really do.
Rachael: Well, and I think before we jump into some of the deeper waters that I would love to just spend time with you, I really appreciated how you defined spiritual abuse and spiritual trauma because I think I always say it’s one of those things that feels like it’s like water through a colander. It’s like we’re trying to wrap our minds around it. And part of that’s because the word spiritual holds so much in our imagination. It’s very disembodied. It’s very ethereal. In and of itself kind of has a grasp, like you’re trying to grasp it. But would love to just hear a little bit about how you’ve come to define these terms, both in your own being a survivor, but also your work with people.
Colleen: It’s funny, I’ve been telling this story of my editor because she really pushed me in this part of the book because so much of what I work with as a therapist is the aftermath. So she really pushed me to define what is spiritual abuse, to get very particular about it. And as I’ve worked with pastors or ministry leaders, a lot of times what I would experience is they would split hairs about, well, is it spiritual abuse? Is it not? But what I would see is if they didn’t feel like it was sufficient enough, then they wouldn’t do anything. And I’m thinking, why are we doing that? If anything, there’s a wound. So it made me kind of, because I’m a therapist and I’m very embodiment and somatics and things like that, as my editor really pushed me to define this in the book, I just went to posture. Posture was such like a… it’s that moment before your desires become a demand. It’s this, I’m going to do whatever it takes to get what I want. And I think that’s the essence of coercion. And so for me, it was like, it’s either someone’s in power or they’re perceived in a position of power. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be a pastor per se, but it can be a spouse who you see as an authority has power over you. It could be a friend who’s a spiritual mentor who has some level of power over you. And they do whatever it takes to get their selfish desires met. And so I think of the James verse, you kill and you scheme to get what you want. And so to me it was like, forget splitting hairs. Let’s look at the posture of what’s happening. This person is doing whatever they can to get what they want and to secure that outcome. And so my editor kind of made me. There can be any amount of behaviors or host of behaviors that go along with that, whether it’s manipulation or coercion or using scripture or using even the limiting of spiritual mentorship, like a spiritual neglect that you remove from someone to secure some sort of outcome. So I go in the book and I kind of, well, what does that mean? What does this mean? What does that mean? And so thank her for definitely pushing me to the edge because I was like, no, let’s just go straight to spiritual trauma. Because to me, it’s like I’m seeing a wound, I’m seeing the effects of trauma on someone’s body spiritually. I’m seeing all of that break down the fragmentation. So I was like, well, something needs to happen. Whether we call it spiritual abuse or not, there’s a wound. And how do we move forward in reconciliation to some degree or some sort of repair versus kind of splitting hairs over here? And so obviously everybody, trauma is such a buzzword. Everybody’s talking about trauma. But I think for me, I was seeing for people, and I realized in my own life, who I once was spiritually was impacted. I was no longer the person that I was. And that was terrifying. It felt very confusing, very isolating. And so there was a lasting impact. As everybody knows with trauma, there’s this lasting impact on the body. And so I’d have intrusive thoughts. I would have this avoidance of certain spiritual practices. Same for a lot of people that I work with. It was this kind of either hyperarousal, this sort of anxiety or even anger or rage toward their faith in some way or a hypoarousal, which was sort of the shutdown, this sort of detachment, even feeling kind of numb in the presence of God. Like just felt nothing. And I think I probably went more toward the shutdown. I just sort of felt darkness and nothing for a really long time. And so as you guys know, spiritual trauma or trauma is sort of a trauma response stuck in the body. And so it just keeps replaying in certain ways. There’s an identity crisis. A lot of people feel like they can’t identify with themselves spiritually. A lot of times what I’ve told clients and I realized myself, because sometimes people can be really scared of the word deconstruction. Like, oh no, don’t deconstruct. That’s sinful or bad. But to me, if you think about trauma and the impact of trauma, you’re already deconstructed.
Rachael: That’s right. That’s right.
Colleen: You’re already fragmented. And so from that point on, you’re in a process of reconstruction, whatever that looks like, whether you gravitate toward no faith at all or you’re rebuilding your faith. And so that’s kind of how I began to define those terms and to approach them. Especially it was fueled out of just frustration with the splitting of hairs, but trying to give some language, but also trying to see the forest for the trees. There’s a wound here and something needs to happen.
Rachael: And if you borrowed this language from someone else, you can correct me, but your language of the somatic soul when talking about the wound was so beautiful.
Colleen: That was mine.
Rachael: And such deep. I just want to say thank you for that theological work because I will often say I do story coaching and soul care. And my husband who’s a therapist will be like, “Soul, I don’t like that because you work in people’s bodies.” But in my mind I’m like, “Well, theologically, I understand the soul to be deeply embodied.” So tell us a little bit more about coming to that language of the somatic soul in your work with people, because I think it’s really key and core to healing from spiritual abuse. Yeah.
Colleen: Well, I mean, in my own story, but also as I’ve walked with others, what I would see, and it’s hard sometimes to talk about theologically, I think because some people are like, with trauma, there’s this fragmentation, there’s this separation of parts of yourself, but yet we’re interwoven and together. But perceptually, the way that someone experiences their body and their sense of self, their soul, is there’s this fragmentation and separation that’s happening. And so I was trying to, throughout the book, we’re embodied and we also, our soul is interconnected, but when you experience spiritual trauma, your soul feels far away. It feels fragmented. That spiritual part of you feels like it’s not a part of you anymore. And I know some people can get kind of uncomfortable with that, but I was like, there’s this embodiment piece that we kind of have to address first in relation to the soul to get to the soul, if you will. That’s kind of what I was hoping to do throughout the book. But yeah, it is this sort of we’re together, but we’re also separate because of the way the trauma has impacted how we see ourselves. And so I can’t remember when I came across that term in my mind. I was just like, yeah, the somatic soul. I really love that. Versus I think some people will say we’re embodied, but we also have a soul. But what if we just see ourselves as there’s a physiological aspect to our soul?
Rachael: Well, I mean, if you believe in the resurrection –
Colleen: Yes.
Rachael: Got to go there. Sorry, I’ll stop.
Dan: No, you’re almost saying that the platonic and neoplatonic structure of separation of soul and body is actually a form of spiritual abuse from the very beginning. So we’ve been living for millennia with a kind of theological philosophical fragmentation. But what you’re describing in the misuse of power, and I often think of the John 10:10 passage, which again, is theft, stealing people’s voice, killing something of their own capacity to hope. In that destruction, marring, a violating of something of the uniqueness. And I think you’ve described, and in one sense, embodied even in the book, ways of talking about what people suffer that they don’t have language for. And that power of bringing language into the body, even if the body in one sense has to experience something of its own reality in and with, but also outside of language, it’s holding both of that. And I think, again, you’ve done so well. I don’t know how to ask it better than what about your own suffering has been the basis of your writing?
Colleen: Yeah. Gosh. So another interesting little fact about this book is it kind of fell into my lap. My name was passed to Tyndale. And I was like, oh, I’m going to write a book by the time I’m 50. And so everything about, seems like so much of what I have done has been sort of God is organizing it and orchestrating it, and then I’m there. And so when I got connected to Tyndale, they were like, we need a proposal. And I thought I was thinking I’m going to write a book when I’m 50. So it was not on my radar at all. And I just began to pray and I was like, “God, what do you want me to write about?” And what I had experienced, what I talk about in the book happened about 10 years ago. There’s other things that I’ve experienced over the last 10 years that even some things that are even a little bit more fresh that I didn’t include in the book, but I just allude to some stuff when I’m on podcast. But God was like. It’s parts that I’m just not ready to talk about publicly. But yeah, God was very clear, I want you to write a book about spiritual abuse and spiritual trauma. And I was like, Jonah and the fish. I’m like, No, I want to write a book about trauma and spiritual formation. That’s my gig. So I was a little hesitant at first because I knew, one, I was going to have to revisit parts of my story. And I was like, ah, I’ve already closed that door. I’ve done my healing. I’ve done what it takes. I was like, I don’t want to look at that anymore. But also there were some parts of my story the last 10 years that I was going to have to visit as well. And so I wrote the proposal, I gave it to Tyndale. They loved the idea. And it kind of sent me on a journey of, how do I say this? You guys are writers, so you’ll get this, but I actually felt my body going a little bit into hypoarousal as I was writing. There was a resistance as I was writing that was just like. It took me three years. After start to finish, as it’s released, it will have been a three-year process from the start of the proposal to now. And there were many, many times that it was like, gosh, that part when I was healing, there’s that part, especially the meaninglessness part, the cynical part. Those two are very strong in life for me when it was very fresh. And so to revisit those parts was just a very tender space for me. It was like, man, I have so much compassion for her. She was pretty cynical. And there was some dark, dark spaces. And so it reengaged those parts of myself, but I think that I had a lot more compassion for her and what she went through. And as you guys know, as you begin to heal and you look back at parts of your story, there’s a lot more insight and awareness about what was happening. I’ll tell this real quick. I had a friend who was on staff with me at the ministry that I was at. And so I sent her a copy of the book. It was like a, hey, here’s my work. And she reached out and texted me and she was just like, gosh, just reading this because she experienced a lot of similar things. And so she was like, “Gosh, Colleen, you aren’t crazy. We were all experiencing this. This was happening. You’re not nuts.” And that was so good for my soul because when you release something so vulnerable, it’s like, oof, gosh, are people going to push back and say, “Well, were you just too sensitive? Well, was it really trauma? Was it really…” So that was really sweet to just hear her years later give me that feedback.
Dan: The interplay, I’d love for you to put words to what you have learned about cynicism, but in many ways, the dilemma for a lot of people I’ve worked with, and I know in my own heart, it’s easier just to go, I don’t care. Which is not, at least with cynicism, you’re defiant. You’re fighting. There’s maybe unaddressed anger, but at least your emotion indifference I find to be even more, shall we say, dark? Yeah. Yeah. Not wanting to commend cynicism, but at least I’ve got movement when there is. But indifference has that kind of, as you put it earlier, the kind of hypo-arousal of –
Colleen: A collapse.
Dan: I won’t care. I don’t care. I’m literally blobbish.
Colleen: Yeah. Yeah, that’s so true. And I’ve met people. I think there was a part in my own story where I entered into that, just a dark night where it just felt like I don’t even know if God exists. I mean, I hate to say that out loud. I think what gave me so much hope was realizing how trauma impacts the body spiritually in that way. Yes. That person before, I feel like I was gifted with true faith at 16. And so I knew she existed. I knew she was somewhere in there, but I couldn’t locate her. And so there were periods where I was very cynical, but also very collapsed, just didn’t really try, didn’t read my Bible. And so yeah, I think that the cynical part at least is sort of this fight. And just like I’m sure you guys witnessed as well, it’s so much harder to work with just the flatness or just this nothingness that doesn’t really care. At least with the fight, someone’s alive. Somebody is ready to have agency in some capacity to move. Sometimes you kind of have to titrate that a little. But yeah, it is true. The collapse can be sometimes tough to work with. Not impossible.
Rachael: Well, and you name it. I just think you name so well that part of the tragedy of spiritual abuse is that it really does shatter those sanctuary secure places in our soul of our faith that we have with God. And for many, many people, I would say myself included. I had a genuine faith encounter at four. That saved my life through a lot of chaos. And when I experienced spiritual abuse as a teen and as a young adult, the shattering of that secure attachment with God, it was in some ways more devastating and traumatic to me than some of the trauma of family of origin or other things. Because that at least interior place I could go to with this presence of love, the way I would’ve described it to someone is if you, well, probably Adam and Eve felt leaving the garden. If you had had this beautiful garden that you could always go to, but someone had basically scorched it and put padlocks on the gate and you put padlocks on the gate, I’ll never enter. I don’t want to see anything grow in there ever again. I can’t bear it. And in some ways, because I don’t know if I’ll survive losing God again. And maybe if I just don’t engage God, then I don’t have to risk losing God again. And so I deeply appreciated you doing the work to tie our experiences of faith to also our attachment wounds and our attachment frameworks and bringing the language of trauma bonding even to, in some ways, our spiritual formation. And so I don’t know if you’d want to put a little more words to that, but I’ll just say I love the line, you’re talking about loyalty, you’re talking about maybe some false loyalty that can come in our spiritual formation, in our attachment to God based on our attachment systems to our primary care providers. But you say true loyalty requires knowing the story. And I just loved that language. I know at the Allender Center, we think story is pretty key to healing and to being human and to being in a relationship with God.
Colleen: Yeah. I felt like you, I had a secure attachment with God when I was 16. And if our identity is found in Christ, if our truest self is found in Christ, I think it is probably the most destructive things that can happen to someone because it’s fragmenting that sacred space inside. And so it can be very confusing, very disorienting. And I often felt there was such a grief. I often felt like, gosh, I really miss the overconfident, blissful Colleen who just… I felt so empowered by the Holy Spirit, would just be vulnerable or speak with a lot more confidence in Christ.That was obliterated when I went through what I went through. And for a long time, to me, vulnerability equaled loss. And so it really impacted how I showed up for others and who I was. All of who I was, was impacted because of that secure attachment with God. And so going to story, what you were mentioning, I don’t think that… It’s not necessarily that I think you go to a church and a pastor or whoever it is or whoever’s that sort of a person who is spiritually abusive, that it just is part of your story, the reason why you gravitated toward that person. But I do see a lot of people gravitate toward denominations, toward types of people because of their story. There’s some sort of unresolved, unfinished part of their story. And for me in this ministry, part of my story, which we won’t go into a lot of depth about, but I really struggled growing up with this feeling of incompetence. And so as I was at this ministry on staff, I felt, without sounding prideful, I felt competent in what I was doing. I felt like I knew how to work with the people I was working with. But when this happened, that, I mean, just shattered. I mean, it just really cut to the deep core of that part of my story in ways that I probably didn’t get back up for about seven years. It took me about seven years to really put myself out there again. And so I questioned, did I gravitate toward this ministry leader because she was very powerful, had a very confident presence about her. It was even just certain denominations that I gravitated toward during that time. I questioned what parts of my story were showing up? And I include this part in the book because not just with my own story, but also working with others. I want them to have this online because if I’m trying to help them prevent a potential redo here or gravitating toward the same kind of abusive system, I wanted them to pause and think about what part of my story might be showing up here? Why am I gravitating toward this person? Why do I stay stuck in this marriage or whatever it is? So it was kind of a hope to think about how are we being loyal externally and it’s harmful? And how can we be loyal to the identity of Christ that’s within?
Dan: Well, the bind that you’re naming is there is a kind of reenactment that we are drawn to a kind of repetition of abusive encounters of the past and the present. And yet we look at, and I don’t want to make just a pale general statement, but there are many in pastoral, and I don’t mean by that pastors only, but I mean in that pastoral influence idea of engagement is a non-consensual hierarchical power structure that in some sense we all crave, but at the same time sets us up for the potential of violation and issues. So you’re not just dealing with individual stories, you’re dealing with a systemic realm, cultural realm as well. So when you have gotten pushback…
Colleen: I haven’t gotten pushback yet, but in some ways I’m in my own little world…
Dan: But you anticipate it though?
Colleen: Oh, sure. I mean, yeah. I’m sure that there’s going to be some pushback with the book for sure. And I think even just where I’m at spiritually in my identity and some level of differentiation, I just kind of don’t care. I hope that it reaches the people it’s supposed to reach. And I think it’s like there’s been a lot coming out with the SBC lately. And some of my friends who are still in that are being really stirred up by it. And I’m saddened by it, but I feel so differentiated from it now that I’m just like, man, the ship’s burning. I feel sad that this ongoing impact is occurring. And I hope maybe they’ll read the book and kind of gain their own differentiation where they feel like, I just don’t believe that way anymore. And there’s something really empowering and grounding about not giving over all of your power to everybody. And I choose and I’m picky about who I’m going to put myself under and who is going to be able to speak into my life. And I talk about that a little bit in the book about what are their fruits? What are we seeing here? I always like to say, “Do they smell like Jesus?” Because I think we all know when someone smells like the shepherd, we want to lay down. We want to experience their wisdom and guidance. And I think when we notice someone who is more forceful, if you set a boundary, they’re not okay with it. You say no to something, in what ways is that replaying your story? I think that even there are times that you can gravitate towards someone and they can be really redemptive in your story. Like God can really use that. And that’s beautiful and wonderful. I think I’m inviting people to be curious. How is their story showing up in the ways that they go to church, the people that they’re around, the relationships that they’re engaging, and how that might replay some of those old wounds? I don’t know if that answered your question, but –
Dan: Well, I just love the reality that the individual work also has to challenge the larger system of how we have defined leadership, what it means to indeed be followers of Jesus, whether that’s within the political realm, spiritual realm, ecclesial realm. We’re in a day of reckoning. And at one point you talk about mourning. It’s not just sadness, but it is a holy reckoning. And then that holy reckoning, to me, the invitation to lament is the acknowledgement of spiritual abuse is not something new.
Colleen: Yeah. It’s not. I wish that wasn’t the case.
Rachael: I know.
Colleen: And I think one thing that I would see, not just in my own experience, but witnessing with clients was it was hard for people to go to the depths with me because it was dark. There was some very dark, dark thoughts. And it is a very dark space when you’re in that lament. And I think so often, as you all know and talk about on this podcast, people just want to put bows on things because it’s uncomfortable. They really want to just kind of lace it with a scripture or theologically try to slap some sort of statement or cliche statement on it. But what I found was, one, God was with me in the depths. I realized that later. It was hard for me to realize it while I’m in it. And God is with my clients in those depths. And I truly believe the darkness is not going to overcome. And that if I’m willing to go there, because I have to go there. It’s not that I want to get sort of caught up in despair and never ending despair, but there is an element that I believe has to happen with lament in order to heal. You have to go to that space and say, “I am truly not okay. And what has happened has truly impacted me and I’m not sure what the future looks like.” And so I really wanted to invite that part of people to feel the freedom to be there, that I don’t have any bows. I’m not giving you any bows because some of this, there really isn’t a bow. I didn’t get a bow. There wasn’t any reconciliation. That was probably one of the hardest parts in the healing process was to grieve so long to the point of releasing the bow that will never come. The reconciliation, the apology, from what I understand, this ministry leader is still running people over. And so that was difficult. It was really hard to hold that. I think about it in my chest. It was hard to hold it in my chest because it was just a churning that never got that relief. And eventually I had to just let it go.
Rachael: Part of even how you organized the book, I was really struck by. There’s such a wisdom to it because I think so many people –
Colleen: It’s very strategic.
Rachael: So many people start with the descending of like, well, you got to go… and it’s like you’re acknowledging the protector parts and your IFS training comes through in really beautiful ways. Your attention to the impact of trauma on the body, the fragmentation, the division that no, there’s a gentleness to this process. There’s a finding language for what the heck is happening that we have to be oriented. Yeah, attending to the multiple guardians that we have in trauma, that sense of coming back online, even if coming back online is being angry or different emotions. And yes, that there is still an attention to the depths and to the grief and to when you talk about the dark night of the soul, allowing what is no longer working to be transformed or die. And the reality is, even as Christians, we claim to be people of resurrection. We are much more interested in resuscitation. We’re like, no, just give me something that can keep going even if my heart’s not really working, then you can just give me some medicine. And I don’t want to have to acknowledge that there has been a death. And I know for so many of us, well acquainted with trauma, but then you add spiritual trauma, that attempts to try to get back to what was that the horror and terror and just heartache of like, oh yeah, innocent Rachael who knew a lot of heartache, but believed God could do anything. And that was always a certainty she could stand on. Not that I don’t get to reclaim parts of my innocence, not that I don’t get to reclaim a deep, secure relationship with God, but that part of me that didn’t have to reckon with mystery, that didn’t have to –
Colleen: It’s a tough one.
Rachael: Know that in some ways suffering mourning lament will be an. When you mentioned the SBC, I was raised in the SBC. I went to Oklahoma Baptist University. I left the SBC when they were like, “We don’t want you.” But I didn’t leave, “Screw you, I’ll show you.” I left with a lot of sadness and kind of that sense of, I don’t think I’ll ever go back, but maybe someday they’ll grow. And so this latest kind of declaration of not only do we not want women leading, we don’t want to hear anything from you, you can’t preach. It was like I had to allow my heart to enter that morning again because another option is indifference, which again feels safer to me. I’m not going to lie. But I have too many relational connections, too much history of goodness that also formed me in the midst of what I would say, the belly of the beast. I just deeply appreciate your language around there being mercy in the mystery. And I think part of healing and wholeness is being able to hold complexity that can’t be resolved without there being some presence of mystery, but you pointing that toward the mysterious one was a step that felt so soothing to my soul of it’s not just the mystery and the unknown, but actually finding belonging and solace with the one who is more mysterious than we could ever hope to imagine even as he’s constantly revealing himself.
Colleen: Yeah, that was some tough stuff for me as well. I think it seems like I really relate to your story in a lot of ways, even though you were four and I was 16. And I think that if I’m honest, there was sort of this idealized view of Christianity, of the church. I mean, I read the Bible, but I don’t think I comprehended that Christians can do such harm. And some I question whether or not they are Christians. But that whole concept really blew my mind when I went through what I went through and even some things that I’ve gone through since that to be honest, I felt like going through this process has made me a lot, how can I say this? A lot more accepting of humanity. Accepting but not. I’m still angry and it’s like I’m angry that what’s going on with the SBC, but I’m not surprised. I’m angry when a spouse does things to their wife. And some of the things that they say, I’m not shocked, but I’m angry. And some people ask me, “Well, how do you do this work? How do you sit all day long and hear about churches?” And there’s sort of a discontent that I have, but also the reality of what this world is and what occurs. And so in some weird way, it’s made me tolerate the uncertainty better, if I could say that. I’ve found some sort of comfort in the mystery and the uncertainty of life and people and evil and how it plays out. Not to say that I don’t like it or that I like it in some way. I still have discontent with it and anger, but I’m not surprised by it.
Rachael: I just will say, then Dan, I’ll turn to you. I think in that there can be a greater invitation to be the people who are supposed to be joining the Spirit in that sacred groaning and discontent. Instead of just sitting back passively, we actually have to reckon with our own responsibility to be the people participating. I will step out, Dan.
Dan: No, again, this is one of those discussions where I just have to admit that not coming to faith until much later in life and also bearing a degree of… I never thought the church was a safe place. I think coming in some sense later into a relationship with Jesus, the church always struck me as an insane place that I still wonder what I’m doing in it. But in all that, I still want to come back to many of the people I have worked with would not talk about what they experienced as spiritual abuse because what they experienced was the seduction of a spiritual leader. Again, it could be a pastor, but could be a youth leader, could be just an elder, could just be a believer in the church where sexuality then becomes the more primary experience. And yet within that realm of sexual violation of some form, it just sears to the deepest parts of us, not just as an erotic violation, sexual violation, but the holding of sexual and spiritual violation. But before we end, I just want to hear you talk about how you’re engaging all of that.
Colleen: Yeah. I do think, obviously, as you guys know, the sexual component, well, along with the spiritual component, when there is spiritual abuse, but it’s within the context of a sexual behavior and coercion, somebody in power, whoever it is, exploits another. And I think even I talk about this in the book about in loyalties that my vulnerability, my story was exploited by a therapist. And my need for connection and a father figure and someone to be safe for me was exploited. And so I think that sexual abuse has even a deeper impact for people and what healing looks like to kind of untangle that physiologically can be quite a process. And a lot of people can feel, especially people I’ve worked with, that maybe a pastor raped them or there was some sort of even somebody who was maybe a youth pastor and it was somebody who wasn’t quite of age, but very close. And they liked the person, they wanted to be with the person, and they can often feel like, “Gosh, this is my fault. I consented to this.” And we often have to kind of peel back and say, but they were in a position of power. It’s just like as I’m a therapist, I have a position in the room. I have got to pay attention to the weight of that and that I do no harm, whatever it takes. And that’s why therapists acting out on their client is so profoundly destructive. You’re saying, “Hey, I’m the safe one. Here’s the safe space for you to be vulnerable and for you to grow spiritually. And now I’m going to exploit it and take advantage of it.” It’s like, no, it doesn’t matter. If you have a position of power or even perceived power, you have to hold that weight very carefully. And you have to think about how you use that power with somebody who. I think sometimes even pastors and ministry leaders, I want to do a whole training that’s about power and transparence and countertransparence because I’m like, guys, you’ve got to realize this. We understand it as therapists. We have to be aware of it. But if you have any place of power in someone’s life, there’s so much soil there for trauma. There’s so much grounds there, fertilization there for spiritual abuse or some sort of abusive behavior.
Dan: I think it’s why you’re connecting the somatic soul allows for that engagement that in not dividing the reality of our body and our soul, you’re then able to name that every sexual violation is a form of spiritual abuse. But also every form of spiritual abuse has a way of connecting you in an erotic bond that in that violation creates, shall we say, even greater complexity and even greater demand to enter that realm of shame. So I think where we are as we come to an ending of our time is this is a labor of great love, but also a labor of great lament. And in that you have held lament and love with such goodness for the one who is our redeemer, but also the one who invites us to a level of honesty that God is not afraid of. It’s a sweet gift to the kingdom for your labor.
Colleen: Thank you. Thanks.