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Why Do People Get Involved in Unhealthy Churches or Cults?
Cults are bad even when they lead you to Jesus. I came to know God in a church which turned out to be a Bible cult. I was raised in this church and I stayed until I was thirty years old. Early on, I...
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Why We Tolerate Psychotic Pastors
Put down your pitchforks. This blog is not about bashing pastors—please hear me. There are many fine Christian leaders who have a pastoral gifting and who live out their lives in sacrificial service to...
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When Abusers Act Like Victims, Victims Get Abused
Abusers of all types act like gods in their houses of horror. But when they get dragged blinking into the light, they often act like victims. I recently read an article about Ariel Castro and his...
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Whelp, there it is: 15 Signs of False Humility
The leader of a Texas sect once wrote a letter to me in which he said that he wished he could open a vein for me in order to save my soul. That sounded quite nice, though I already follow Jesus—a point...
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Fixing a Frankenstein Faith: Ten Distortions of Scripture and How to Correct...
In yellow lamplight I stayed up late the other night talking with my wife, burdened about another church gone to seed in Texas. The sect looks so much like my former church in Maine, a Bible cult which...
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Seven Obnoxious Jesus Jukes (Re-Post from “Mercy not Sacrifice”)
[This was written by Morgan Guyton on August 21, 2013 and originally posted on his blog, "Mercy not Sacrifice" There is something beautiful about re-posting a well-written piece. It's like, "Wow,...
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Frankenstein Faith: Love Thy Neighbor but Hate Thy Parent (Part 1 of 10)
In this series, we’re talking about ten distortions of scripture which lead to spiritual abuse and/or mistreatment of other people. You can read the intro to the series here. This first post (a long...
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10 Questions a Church Should Ask When it Receives Bad Press
In my experience, most churches act in predictable ways when the media accuses them of cult-like behavior. They either huddle up like the three monkeys, or else leap into damage-control and lash out at...
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Frankenstein Faith: “Because I’m Your Pastor, That’s Why!” (Part 2 of 10)
We’re in a ten-part series about scriptural distortions used by cult leaders or those who spiritually abuse others. One of the greatest abuses of scripture is to use Bible passages to make people...
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Frankenstein Faith: Vestigial Organs in the Body? Natural Family vs....
As a four-year-old, I knew enough to realize that my sister was very sick. There was a blur of fluorescent lights in the Emergency Room, the cool swish of long white coats, a beeping of monitors, the...
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How to Rescue Someone from a Cult
Okay, it’s not that simple. You usually can’t just rescue someone from a cult. Put aside images of white horses, commando raids, or black bulletproof sedans. While a few cult converts may walk away...
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Grace-Based vs. Shame-Based Families and Churches
I have to confess that in my mission to confront spiritual abuse with grace and truth, I often write blog posts against aberrant doctrine or practices, rather than casting a vision for what God calls...
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Only Baptists Go to Heaven
When I lived in Maine, I once saw a man leaning off the side of a railroad trestle, ready to jump. It was winter time and I knew if he plunged into the frigid water he would die. I ran over and said,...
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Hard-Core Christian Patriarchy and Abuse
Two outstanding articles—really two of the best I’ve read in the last year—highlight the trouble with hard-line Christian Patriarchy. The first article, “Let Us Prey,” appeared in Chicago magazine in...
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Survey for Victims of Spiritual Abuse
Rarely do I post anything which asks something of my readers. This is an exception, and you’ll see why. The letter below is from Dr. Barb Orlowski, an expert on spiritual abuse whose book is on my...
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The Myth of Biblical Manhood
After a long correspondence, Mark Driscoll, John Piper, Doug Phillips, and John Eldredge decide to meet at a bar to discuss whose view about Biblical Manhood is most biblical. At Driscoll’s urging,...
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Christian Leaders and the “Don’t Talk” Rule
Since I come out of a Bible cult background, I know something about unwritten rules. In cults and spiritually abusive churches there is something called a “Don’t Talk” rule, an unwritten, unspoken rule...
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What’s at Stake in the Gender Debate?
Let’s talk for a moment about fear. Fear frames the gender debate in evangelical America. You can sense it in many of the comments posted on my recent article about “The Myth of Biblical Manhood.” Fear...
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Is It a Sin to Celebrate Christmas?
The bells above the door jangled. Dave looked up from behind the sales counter, his reading glasses perched precariously on his nose. It was a quarter till seven, but the shop didn’t close till ten....
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To Train Up A Child… Abuser (Part 1)
Michael and Debi Pearl are the authors of To Train Up a Child: Turning the Hearts of the Fathers to the Children. The title of the book comes from Proverbs 22:6, which says “Train up a child in the way...
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