We Have to Break the Cycle of Shame and Pain in the evangelical Church

by | Oct 18, 2024 | Faith, Parenting Young Kids | 33 comments

Break cycles of abuse and shame in evangelical church

One of the hardest things to do is to break dysfunctional cycles.

Whether it’s in our families or in our churches, being a changemaker is hard.

But it is so, so necessary. It’s the most vital thing that we all need to do.

You can be the top politician in the land; you can run a huge non-profit; you can be in the military trying to bring peace to the world. But if we are not breaking cycles in our own families, that’s going to have ripple effects for generations to come.

Quite frankly, Kristin Du Mez’s documentary For Our Daughters never should have to be made.

I’m very glad she made it. It’s an important work. Please watch and share it! But none of this should have happened in the first place.

Why did it happen?

Because we didn’t break cycles. Because we allowed toxic teachings to permeate the church and continue. We allowed toxic dynamics to flourish.

We thought all of this was normal.

Abuse is often perpetuated because of generational cycles.

Whether it’s abuse in the home or abuse in church, generational cycles play a huge role.

Those who are abused are more likely to become abusers, or to marry abusers. We tend to gravitate towards what we know, and we tend to try to work out our dysfunctional family relationships by recreating similar dynamics through who we marry.

When we don’t deal with childhood trauma, we too easily replicate it.

But other traumas can also perpetuate abuse

Let’s say your parents were abused or neglected as kids. Many Gen X and Boomer parents were–they grew up with parents traumatized by war, depression, immigration, etc.

So let’s say that they weren’t emotionally available for the kids.

Now let’s say those parents grow up in the church, and truly love God. But they don’t know what it means to be securely attached. They had really anxious or avoidant attachment styles with their parents because they never felt safe. So even though they may love their kids and love their spouse, they feel like they’re never quite good enough, like they’re always on a precipice ready to lose it all.

What do they gravitate to, then? Certainty.

They look for formulas in churches that will guarantee them that their kids will grow up loving God and staying in a close family.

And so they end up gravitating to parenting books by Michael and Debi Pearl or by the Ezzos that focus on controlling your child and breaking their will and making sure those kids know their place. They want to raise them up in the fear of the Lord.

But what do they end up recreating? Anxious and avoidant attachment. Those kids don’t feel emotionally safe because the parents tried to control them, rather than connect with them.

These types of attachment styles often gravitate to abusive churches

Think about it: what kinds of people are most likely to cover up abuse; silence victims; believe the perpetrators; and restore the perpetrators? People who are focused not on emotionally healthy relationships, but rather focused on power and hierarchy and having guarantees and certainties. We believe the one in charge and don’t question them. We submit. We follow the formula.

And not just that, but those with anxious or avoidant attachment often try to deal with it by trying to be in control of others. They can’t handle being vulnerable, because their emotional needs (and often their physical safety needs) were not met when they were kids. So as adults, they never want to be in that position. Instead, they gravitate to churches where they can be in control of others.

The men gravitate to churches that preach complementarianism because it gives them an easy way to get control over others–their wives and kids, but often other congregation members too.

The wives gravitate because it gives them a formula and a sense of security (and also they don’t feel like they have a choice, because they’ve been taught that their job is to follow along, and that’s the only way they’ll gain acceptance).

These churches then teach that women must give men whatever they want without the men having to become vulnerable or emotionally healthy. He needs sex to feel loved! So he gets to feel connected through sex without ever having to do the work of connecting. He needs respect like oxygen! He gets to get respect even if he is unworthy of it. He is held up on a pedestal, and his vulnerability never challenged, because of doctrine that perpetuates this.

This is the missing piece we often don’t understand.

Complementarianism covers up for avoidant and anxious attachment. It covers up for childhood wounds and allows them to go untreated. Wives and husbands are given a formula for how to relate to each other which eradicates the need for any emotional growth or vulnerability. Marriage becomes transactional, about using one another (but especially using her). So emotional growth becomes stunted–and then this is perpetuated to the next generation.

I shared a screenshot of this passage from the book Gospel Powered Parenting on my new Facebook page yesterday (my old one was hacked in August; PLEASE PLEASE follow my new one–more stuff happens there than here!). But get a load of this, published in 2009 by Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing House:

 

When Mom joyfully submits to her husband “as to the Lord” (Eph. 5:22), recognizing that he is her head as Christ is the Head of the church, and that she is his body as the church is the body of Christ, it makes an attractive statement. When she does this for an unworthy husband, not because she trusts him, but because Christ to care for her, it points her children to Christ. Her behavior says, “Christ is trustworthy.” It says, “The Son of God is infinitely good. You can trust Him. My father is very imperfect, but Mom trusts Christ to take care of her. If she can trust Jesus this way, I can also.”

William Farley

Gospel Powered Parenting

I’m not going to deconstruct all that is terribly wrong with that passage here, because I did it yesterday,  and to do so would take the whole rest of this post!

But can you see how that instruction tells the woman to ignore abuse; tells the kids that abuse is normal; and teaches the kids that God is perfectly okay with them being abused? Can you see how these beliefs perpetuate abuse?

But also–can you see how an emotionally healthy person could never, ever have written or published that? Ever?

What if the real crisis in evangelicalism isn’t toxic teachings but rather emotional trauma? 

What if the toxic teachings flow out of that emotional trauma and feed it and perpetuate it? And it’s all one big ugly cycle? 

What if we can’t get rid of toxic teachings entirely until we decide to deal with our wounds and get healing? 

I mean, think about it: Can you see how someone raised in a home marked by corporal punishment where their behavior is trying to be controlled, and then put into a complementarian marriage where everything is prescribed, could easily end up in a church where they overlook sexual abuse?

When we are not emotionally healthy and whole, abuse flourishes.

We’re attracted to doctrines that promote and enable abuse. We’re attracted to communities that are hierarchical and controlling. It’s all a big mess!

Take a look at this clip, for instance, of Joel Webbon, an American pastor who has become famous for being part of the ardent Christian nationalist movement. Here he is, calling for the execution of women who speak out about sexual abuse. 

You can argue that he’s only calling for the execution of those who lied (which really isn’t much better), but that’s not what’s going on here. He says if they are executed, the #metoo movement would end. So his aim is to execute and end ANYONE speaking out about sexual abuse–even if it’s true. 

Would a man who is emotionally healthy say this? Would a man who isn’t afraid to be vulnerable with his wife, and who is confident in himself, want to repeal the right of women to vote (as Webbon also does)? Would a confident man feel the necessity to dictate when his wife goes to the bathroom (as he said in the documentary For Our Daughters)? 

Healthy people don’t do these things or say these things.

How are you going to break the cycle?

When we parent in a way that controls our kids and doesn’t allow themselves to express, understand, or regulate their emotions, or when our kids are abused or neglected, these things will be perpetuated. 

When we do not address our own wounds, we’ll find it difficult to give our kids what they need, and we’ll find it difficult to bond with our spouse in healthy ways. We’ll look for shortcuts, for guarantees. We’ll run away from true intimacy, or end up self-sabotaging.

And too often, we’ll end up in toxic churches.

That’s why I think confronting so much of the evil in the church has to involve dealing with our own emotional health and wounds.

We all need to make this commitment, because our kids, and our churches, need us.

What will it look like for you?

I don’t know what it is that you need, but there’s a starting list.

Our kids deserve better than a sex-abuse-crisis-riddled church. Our kids deserve better than marriages marred by emotional distance, coercion, and control. Our kids deserve better than to be held back by insecurities.

And you do too. 

So, please, let’s break the cycle.

What do you think? Do our emotional wounds contribute to toxic teachings? Let’s talk in the comments!

 

Written by

Sheila Wray Gregoire

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Sheila Wray Gregoire

Author at Bare Marriage

Sheila is determined to help Christians find biblical, healthy, evidence-based help for their marriages. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8

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33 Comments

  1. Nathan

    >> Would a man who is emotionally healthy say this?

    Hopefully I am, so I won’t say that, but I will say that this is horrifying beyond belief. Now, lying about being raped, assaulted, etc. is also terribly wrong. It hurts people and has repercussions far beyond the two people initially involved, but this does NOT rate a capital sentence. And that means a lot from me, since on some chat boards, I’ve been called “Mr. Death Penalty”, but only for people that actually DO horribly violent things. Not for words, although words like this can be very, very hurtful.

    I would put this on the same level as that one person (I forgot her name) who said that any man who is accused of sexual violence should be assumed guilty and thrown in prison without a trial, guilty or not, to send a “message” to other men.

    Lying, especially about this, is a horrible thing, but people who do it don’t deserve execution.

    Reply
  2. Andrea

    I remember hearing in Christianity Today’s podcast about Mars Hill that the men who were drawn to Mark Driscoll were men who had abusive fathers and that made sense to me.

    Reply
    • Phil

      My brother has this line he uses when he sees broken humans. I have shared it here before. It goes like this: “I wonder what his father did to him?”

      Makes you wonder who did what to Joel Webbon eh? I am telling you that I could not sit through a message like this ever again.

      The last time I sat through a message I couldn’t stand was at a wedding several years back. It was a joint Pastor ceremony with my Pastor and the grooms pastor at a neutral location. The grooms pastors message was hierarchy in nature. I wanted to get up and walk out. The internal struggle to not get up and walk out, out of respect for the couple was quite difficult.

      Today this is where I am at should this ever happen again. I will most certainly get up and walk out on that type of message no matter the circumstances.

      I would do it out of respect for ALL.

      Reply
  3. Phil

    After some thought on my own story, I rephrase it this way:

    My emotional wounds contributed to toxic behavior which intern lead me to teach toxic messages in different ways. Much of what I was teaching was by my actions. What I was teaching was not necessarily toxic biblical messages but rather unbiblical principles altogether in all kinds of areas.

    Now for me, the Youth Pastor who was my child molester told me wrong messages that were supposedly in the bible but I knew what he was telling me was not true. However, his actions towards me certainly did not demonstrate Jesus by any stretch of the imagination. That was fuel for my fire so to speak. Even though I hated what that guy did to me, I repeated some of his message 🤮

    I really like what was written here today. Unfortunately it is a really hard road. It is a crap ton of work to do this. Often folks lay out when things get tough. I am grateful for my own resolve to break the cycle. The job is not finished but the path is laid out.

    Gratitude.

    Reply
  4. Jane Eyre

    “Complementarianism covers up for avoidant and anxious attachment.”

    That makes a painful amount of sense. It aligns with everyone I know who got deep into complementarianism, and the theories line up so well with dysfunctional attachment styles.

    Reply
    • Sheila Wray Gregoire

      I’ve been talking about this at length with some people behind the scenes, and I just think this is the missing piece we haven’t talked about.

      Reply
  5. exwifeofasexaddict

    re: the Webbon quote about controlling when his family goes to the bathroom: He controls 4 people…. so wife and 3 kids I guess? If he “only” has 3 kids they’re probably pretty young. How is toilet training supposed to happen when someone is controlling when they go to the bathroom? It’s a recipe for constipation, and UTI’s and bladder infections… he is doing so much harm to children. They are terrified of him, I’m certain. There’s only one way he could enforce stuff like that… violence. What a sick, disgusting, poor excuse for a man. What kind of person thinks it’s right or appropriate to control another person’s digestive system, from top to bottom? Why??? I hope his wife realizes it’s ok to leave a man like that before it’s too late. smh

    Reply
    • Sheila Wray Gregoire

      I pray so much for the wives of these abusive men to find freedom. There is no way they’re not being harmed. No way.

      Reply
  6. Rebecca

    Thank you for writing this, Shelia, in such a succinct and compelling way. As I’ve extensively studied trauma on my own healing journey out of spiritual abuse, I have come to this conclusion as well. It is downright terrifying that the evangelical church have taken symptoms of trauma, like denial and dissociation and alexythemia (inability to recognize emotions in the body), wrapped them in the language of “godly self-sacrifice” and “calling out the good in your spouse” and “always being joyful in the Lord” while promoting a dangerous power and control dynamic, rife with abuse, and calling it the will of God. The whole evangelical church needs a “come to Jesus meeting”… with fully licensed and trauma-informed therapists.

    Reply
    • Sheila Wray Gregoire

      Oh, that’s so well-written! Exactly!

      Reply
  7. Matt Aggen

    Your recommendation of “How We Love” a couple of years ago was a major turning point in my life in discovering my broken attachment style and how to repair it. That book taught me so much.

    Reply
    • Sheila Wray Gregoire

      Oh, that’s amazing! Yes, that’s a great book.

      Reply
    • Rebecca W

      How We Love was a turning point in our marriage. In addition to the trauma and attachment stuff, it was the first time I started paying attention to my body and its cues and clues toward emotional regulation.

      Reply
  8. EOF

    I’m horrified by the pastor saying that women “falsely claim” to have been sexually assaulted should be executed! Are we leaving that up to men to decide? If you listen to my STB ex-husband, he would tell you all day long that he never did anything to hurt me. The man r*ped me multiple times, coerced me constantly, shouted at me daily at times, put me down countless times, threatened me, constantly did things in the bedroom that I hated (and eventually gave me PSTD), he intimidated me, lied to me constantly, tried to brainwash me, groped me often even though I hated it, made uncomfortable sexual comments about me (even in front of our kids), he prevented me from leaving a room while screaming at me, he held me down to scream in my face, he sat on me, he held me against a wall, he held me against a chair, he called me derogatory names, he shouted that I had to submit to him, he constantly told me that I was not submissive, he financially abused me for decades, he wouldn’t let me drive (would take all the car keys when leaving the house), and I could go on and on. I kid you not, he swears he never did a wrong thing to me and he tells everyone that I’m sinning against him by filing for divorce.

    If men like this get to say whether a woman is “falsely claiming” sexual abuse, we are all doomed.

    Reply
    • Jen

      He is a wolf in sheep clothing. His sheep costume is not a very good one. He can’t hurt you, and he can’t hurt any of the sheep who can see him coming. But he can hurt his family. Pray for them.

      Reply
  9. Jen

    This is stunningly on point, and I believe there’s more to say on this topic.

    Reply
    • Jen

      I think this guy would get along quite well with Aimee Byrd.

      Reply
    • Jen

      A caveat: the word and concept “complementarianism” would need to be detoxed and distinguished from the “headship doctrine” that is promoted by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

      Reply
      • exwifeofasexaddict

        They don’t need to be distinguished. They’re the same thing. The CBMW bros are the ones who popularized the term comp. It’s the same. And even if it were different, it’s still harmful doctrine, just in a prettier wrapper.

        Reply
        • Jen

          Good words shouldn’t make bad people worse. It’s hard to make bad people worse by teaching them the Beatitudes. It’s hard to make sinful people even more sinful by telling them to do unto others as they would have done unto them.

          It’s quite possible to make sinful people more sinful by teaching them that some groups of believers are called by God Himself to submit to other groups of believers. Sure, you can call the self-sacrificial love of the husband of a submissive wife “mutual submission.” You can call the brotherly love of a master “mutual submission.” The problem is that everybody knows love can only ever be voluntary.|

          You can’t tell somebody, “You have to love me,” and expect it to work. On the other hand, everybody realizes that submission can be voluntary but can also be coerced. You can tell somebody, “You have to submit to me,” and it can still work, at least for a while. In the long run, it will render a relationship unsustainable through burn-out.

          Why would somebody do this to the one they promised to love and cherish? Maybe because of the childhood trauma that Sheila writes about. He could have learned in childhood that it’s better to give than to receive cruelty. Maybe he learned he can’t trust another human being unless he can control her.

          Deep down inside, if he’s really a wounded child inside, who can’t be failed by his wife – because that’s what Mom did, fail him – it may not matter how hard his wife tries to please him. He may react inwardly by recoiling to the invitation to become trusting, as in something like, “You’re not going to fool me with that angel act.”

          Sheila is right that being highly controlling of other human beings is not a behavior that comes from a place of strength. The strong earn respect. The strong lead by example. The strong persuade people to trust them and to listen to them. By the time violence is resorted to, it is a sign that the perpetrator of violence has run out of other options to get what they wanted or needed. Or that he lacked the skills to get what he wanted or needed any other way.

          Still I know good men who don’t subscribe to headship doctrine will still persist in calling themselves believers in complementarianism for the simple reason that they believe God created male and female to complement each other.

          Reply
        • Red

          To be fair, the CBMW folks stole the word from equality/mutuality folks and redefined it. Not everyone has gotten the memo that the meaning has drastically changed. Most of us around these parts know that modern “complementarianism” is just patriarchy lite.

          But anyone who *hasn’t* spent the last ~4 years hanging out on pages like Bare Marriage or Julie Roys and seeing the conversation around guys like Piper and Gruden and all the rest… ya know. The kind of Christian who isn’t terminally online (this is a self-dig)? Those folks genuinely may not realize that the terms have shifted.

          And in terms of “men and women are created to complement each other the way blue and orange complement each other, as equals that showcase the strengths and buoy up the weak places in each other” the word still has merit. It’s not OUR fault that the headship crowd deliberately stole the word.

          If we really wanted to, we could reclaim it, though tbh I’m not sure it’s worth the fight.

          Reply
  10. College Student

    To give some hope for the next generation, I want to mention that my Christian university held a screening of For Our Daughters last Friday. I know not much of our student body saw it- I myself had an appointment, thankfully my women’s lit professor has given me a way to watch it on my own- but it was held, and at least some people went to it. Same thing when we had Beth Allison Barr last year. Not everyone, but enough that it hopefully made a difference.

    Reply
    • Sheila Wray Gregoire

      That’s great to know!

      Reply
  11. Lyndall

    There’s a brilliant quote from Emily Joy Allison in #ChurchToo: “. . .one of the most important lessons I have learned about trauma is this: The only people who will betray you are people who regularly, consistently betray themselves. If you don’t want to be the kind of person that betrays other people, then you have to do the work of learning how not to betray yourself.”

    The only people who will betray you are people who regularly, consistently betray themselves. I think about that a lot.

    Reply
  12. Jane King

    “Our kids deserve better than to be held back by insecurities.” I think most parents want this for their children, at least on some level. But, even with the best of intentions, we are often doomed to repeat these cycles without the proper tools. Thank you for providing us with many of these tools and pointing us to others.

    Reply
  13. Rebecca W

    Yes, this is so true. Excellent article!

    In addition to Marissa Burt’s parenting research, I have also found Janyne McConnaughey’s book, Trauma in the Pews: The Impact on Spiritual Practice very helpful in understanding ways that the church (often unintentionally?) harms trauma survivors.

    This recent Carey Nieuwhof podcast episode also has an interesting episode on the impact of childhood trauma on leaders in the church. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-carey-nieuwhof-leadership-podcast/id912753163?i=1000673144210

    Reply
  14. Taylor

    I’m curious. Would this guy also say that a good way to stop sexual abuse is to publicly execute some sexual abusers? Or is it only lying women/false accusers who get this treatment?

    Reply
    • Lisa Johns

      He doesn’t go there, does he? No, his answer to the “problem” presented by #metoo is all too horrifyingly pointed at women.

      Reply
      • Jo R

        Of course he doesn’t. Men, and married men especially, are all just like Christ: omnipotent and sinless. No improvements necessary.

        🙄

        Reply
      • Jen

        Wow, just when you think you’ve found the bottom of how low they can go.

        Take heart. Jesus pronounced seven woes on the scribes and pharisees in His Sermon on the Mount.

        These men aren’t just bullying weaker women and children. They’re blasphemously attaching the name of God Almighty to their false and hateful preaching and teaching.

        They’ve picked a fight they can’t win.

        All we can do as disciples is continue to support the victims as they come out of the woodwork and continue to warn the flock about the wolves in sheep clothing. Support ministries that offer better alternatives.

        It will do no good to try to persuade the wolves to become sheep or to feel bad that they won’t do it.

        Eventually the seven woes will come upon the contemporary scribes and pharisees. Historically the Catholic church lost most of its land and political power immediately after it had seemed to win a decisive battle once and for all against the Reformers. God’s pattern is to wait until the full measure of the cup of sin has been filled up.

        Reply
  15. Jen

    I was just thinking about the self-defeating aspect of the wolves in sheep clothing, in that they are driving young women out of the churches in greater numbers than young men. There will not be enough submissive wives to go around. What will all those body-less heads do then?

    Then I found this:

    U.S. child marriage: one step forward, two steps back
    https://www.freedomunited.org/news/us-child-marriage-prevention-act/

    “So far, only 13 states have outlawed child marriage without exception, which means that marriage under the age of 18 is still legal in 37 states. Now, Sen. Dick Durbin has introduced a new bill that threatens to roll back child marriage protections in over half the states by allowing minors from around the world to obtain spousal visas to the U.S.”

    Reply

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