Spiritual Abuse: When Faith Gets Twisted

Spiritual abuse is one of those things that’s hard to put into words unless you’ve lived it. It’s not always loud or obvious like physical abuse. Sometimes it’s quiet, subtle, wrapped up in Bible verses or church clothes. It’s when people use God, scripture, or religion as a weapon, to control, guilt, manipulate, or shame you into submission. It’s when faith becomes less about love and freedom, and more about fear and power.

I know this firsthand. I grew up with two women; my grandmother and my 'mother' who were what I call “Sunday Morning Christians.” Every Sunday, they put on their church faces, sat in the pews, sang the loudest and played the part, but Monday through Saturday? They were the complete opposite of everything they claimed to believe.

Inside our 'home', there was no gentleness, no patience, no kindness. Instead, I got a heavy dose of guilt-tripping, gaslighting and abuse. If I ever questioned them or noticed the cracks in their behavior, it was somehow my fault. They would twist scripture, twist conversations, and twist reality itself until I doubted my own thoughts and feelings.

That’s the thing about spiritual abuse, it doesn’t just attack your sense of self, it attacks your sense of God. You start to wonder: If this is what God’s people are like, then who is God? Is He cruel too? Is He watching me, waiting for me to slip up?

By the time I was twelve, I’d had enough. I wanted nothing to do with religion, church, or the “god” they preached about. So, I walked away. I called myself agnostic/atheist and stayed that way until I was thirty-seven. For twenty-five years, I carried this deep distrust of anything that looked like church or religion, but here’s the surprising part. When I finally sat down and read the Bible for myself, not filtered through their hypocrisy, not twisted through their manipulation, I found a very different God than the one I had been indoctrinated with.

The God I met in those pages was not cruel or petty. He wasn’t watching me like a hawk, waiting to punish me. He wasn’t about guilt trips or fear tactics. He was merciful, patient & just kind. He was everything they weren’t.That discovery changed me. It healed parts of me I didn’t know were still bleeding, because I realized: what I grew up with wasn’t God, it was spiritual abuse. It was people misusing His name to control me.

If you’ve experienced something similar, I want you to know this: spiritual abuse is real, and it leaves deep scars, but those scars don’t define your faith. God is not the abuser. God is not the hypocrite and sometimes the bravest, most freeing thing you can do is strip away the false version of Him you were handed, and go searching for who He truly is.

Signs of Spiritual Abuse

1. Using God or Scripture as a weapon

• Quoting verses to shame, silence, or control you.

• Twisting scripture to justify abuse or bad behavior.

2. Hypocrisy in action

• Leaders or family members preach holiness but live the opposite.

• “Sunday Christians” who perform at church and abuse at home.

3. Guilt-tripping and fear tactics

• Making you feel responsible for others’ sins or unhappiness.

• Threatening you with hell, curses, or punishment if you don’t obey.

4. Gaslighting in God’s name

• Denying or minimizing harm by saying you misunderstood God.

• Blaming you for abuse by claiming you’re “too sensitive” or “rebellious.”

5. Control over personal choices

• Dictating what you wear, eat, think, read, or who you associate with.

• Shaming you for questioning, doubting, or thinking independently.

6. Conditional love and acceptance

• Withholding affection unless you conform to their rules.

• Treating God’s love as something you must earn.

7. Silencing and suppression

• Discouraging honest questions about faith or leadership.

• Branding anyone who challenges authority as “rebellious” or “demonic.”

8. Shaming natural emotions or needs

• Calling sadness, anger, or trauma a “lack of faith.”

• Punishing or ignoring mental health struggles instead of offering care.

9. False image of God

• Presenting God as harsh, unloving, and impossible to please.

• Teaching that God is watching only to punish, never to heal or restore.

10. Isolation

• Discouraging relationships outside the group/family.

• Cutting you off from support systems that might challenge the abuse.

Remember:

Spiritual abuse makes God look like the abuser, when in reality it’s people misusing His name. A healthy faith environment should reflect love, freedom, humility, and compassion, not fear, shame, or manipulation.