Ways online church attendance can be used to spiritually abuse

A vast majority of churches won’t engage in spiritual abuse, but there are always those who do.  Now that we’re moving into a new day, and that this season of online church is here to stay for at least the short term, we need to tune into the changing landscape of spiritual abuses that will occur.

Those who do this in a day of church closures for the coronavirus may engage in some of the following:

·               checking in on you to determine whether you actually watched the live stream (they have no right to do this)

·               asking you questions to verify whether in fact you did watch — indicating a lack of trust in your word

·               checking in to see if you would electronically tithe, if you would normally put money in the bag or on the plate — especially if they put it into the guise of “it’s easier now than ever to do!”

·               checking who was watching in with you as a means of charting the ‘attendance’ numbers

·               asking whether you watched the whole thing or not, particularly if there are multiple questions about multiple parts of the service

·               using key statements or specific humour to build on after the live stream with which to distance those who didn’t get to watch — in other words, it penalises those who didn’t get to see it (because they were perhaps working or otherwise busy) and it manipulates them into ensuring they do ‘catch up’ — add to this activities during the week that require watching the live stream

·               using live streaming as a way of saying “We’re all over this, and we were planning it anyway,” which can be a cover for, “We’re pretty scared right now of losing numbers, (err revenue).”  If this is the case, it’s a manipulation

·               telling you to share the link on your social media pages — or manipulating you to do it so as to inflate social media traction making it seem especially popular

·               paradoxically, making it hard for certain people to access — a way to exclude people or a group

·               using the new platform, technology or process for church to manipulate you — presumably to force your inclusion or threaten your exclusion

·               Getting you to show them your cache

·               Anything else that I haven’t included?

·               As this is new, I’m hoping there are more examples I can put here

A church that will spiritually abuse congregants won’t stop just because there’s a virus around and there’s no more face-to-face meetings for a while.

Those who do spiritual abuse do so because it’s a heart condition they have.

The heart condition that abuses is a heart set on control.  Any church that controls people is a cult.

Your church may still check in on you genuinely without a spirit of control.  There is a big difference between good and effective pastoral care, which is about your support, and spiritual abuse, which is about them and their control.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash