Part 6 - How All Abuse Was Justified

"You need to honour your mother." My father and youth pastor said this when I or a sibling pointed out that my mother was wrong or lying. Please note: I do not believe my youth pastor knew to what level my mother had gone. It was the reinforcement of his teaching at home that harmed me.

"You need to go back and seek biblical reconciliation." This was what my father said when my mother repeatedly verbally attacked me, and I repeatedly walked away to cool down.

"Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him." This was what my church leaders taught my parents, and they concluded that their vicious, angry spankings were justifiable.

"Jesus said, 'Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.' "This was what my father quoted to me when I told him I never saw him and that I didn't think it was right when they left me alone for the sake of their ministry.

God. Their "God" is what they used against me. It's quite effective, really. Once you make a person believe that if they don't follow you, they aren't following God, you can make them do anything. You can make them fear to even disagree with you, especially when you constantly talk about the wrath of God and the judgment of God. There's a term for this. It's called spiritual abuse, and it's sick. It's how al-Qaeda brainwashes children to strap bombs to themselves and cult leaders convince their congregations to let them sleep with anyone they want. People will do anything--anything!--to avoid angering an all-powerful deity! And who can blame them?

Though there were various church leaders who taught their interpretation of Scripture as being on the same level of Scripture itself, my father was the main spiritual abuser in my life. Few have been testament to his completely unguarded remarks when he hears doctrine that he disagrees with, but all in our family have. I can still see his face as he rejects something--usually as a result of reading a blog post or book that also disagrees with the view and presents it in an obviously biased way. He gets so worked up, even to the point of not comprehending that someone somewhere in the world sees this issue differently than him. He kind of sputters at first, drops whatever he's reading, takes off his glasses and says over and over, "What? WHAT?!" Then, at some point, he'll collect his thoughts and go on about rebellious/liberal the view is or some such nonsense. I adopted some of his mannerisms in this regard for years, and a close friend of mine later told me that my behaviour once when talking about Egalitarianism was so intimidating that she was scared into silence until I finished my raging, even though she agreed with my views. No wise person dares to disagree with someone who has their mind 100% made up and is in attack mode. There's no sense to speak of.
My father used this spiritual abuse to cover up their other forms of abuse, which were emotional (lies, manipulation, emotional/educational neglect, and verbal abuse) and physical abuse (furious physical force and physical neglect). He especially enabled my mother in her other forms of abuse by silencing all disagreement with her as being "disrespect." The consequences of growing up in such a spiritually toxic environment have affected the way I view leaders, myself, and God. As a result, I never felt God's love growing up and I truly believed that God did not value me--but I was even too afraid to admit this!