Well, we have those who see all discipline as abuse and all confrontation as power come in and double down on the church. Dalrock has a series of articles about the wife of a pastor who claims she was abused… and now wants out. And the commentators there are cynical. With good reason: as I noted previously, claims of abuse when your spouse is jailed in another country stretch belief.

But there are two parts to this which serve as an introduction. The first is that preaching the gospel in Iran will get you jailed. But the second is that the term abuse has become a way to leave anything, It is the modern get out of jail card. And this is being preached by those who skirt apostasy.

j. Lee Grady is an example of this. Writing in Charisma Magazine.

I shared some practical guidelines on how to leave a church gracefully. I wrote this because I hear so many stories about people storming out of churches because their feelings got hurt. But an astute reader also pointed out that my guidelines really don’t apply when the church or its pastor have become abusive.

“Teresa” wrote that in her city, a popular leader of a megachurch was exposed for engaging in secret immoral behavior that affected countless members of his congregation for many years. “Thousands of people have been abused, broken, manipulated and controlled by [the pastor],” she wrote. “He has literally destroyed hundreds of families over the decades.”

So how do you leave a church that is spiritually abusive? What if the pastor or other leaders are guilty of sexual misconduct, unethical or illegal financial activities or controlling behavior? The rules for leaving are different.

Yeah. I’m suspicious. I have very tight rules around my professional behaviour: I was counselling my medical students this week to ensure they had a nurse as a chaperone with them when seeing certain patients because they have a track record of making accusations. Regardless of your behaviour — to clarify, these students are very anxious to be seen as correct. Lee Grady has taken the ideas of the Duluth model and put a pseudospiritual bent on them.

When Jesus Christ came to earth 2,000 years ago, He challenged the religious and cultural rules of a male-dominated culture. While other rabbis believed it was improper to teach women the Bible, Jesus called his disciple Mary to sit at His feet. While other religious leaders refused to go near bleeding women, Jesus healed one. While the Pharisees shunned Samaritans and divorced women, Jesus had compassion on the Samaritan divorcee and commissioned her to be an evangelist.

And while some misguided Christians have distorted the Bible to oppress and restrict women, true Christianity liberates women. The gospel proclaims that men and women are created equal. In the age of the Holy Spirit, both the sons and the daughters are empowered to “prophesy” (Acts 2:17).

As an author and speaker, I am committed to proclaiming this message around the world—through preaching, teaching, conferences, books, tapes and videos. I invite you to join my team, or simply use this site as a place of healing and spiritual refreshing. Enjoy!

The idea that Christ came to fit within a therapeutic model gives me hives. I review the data on the effectiveness of therapy — and some of it is effective for depression, anxiety , and other psychiatric disorders — but applying these techniques in general society is unwise and unwarranted. They are corrections, they are reminders: they are not a life. And I have seen therapists burn out more often than I have seen them fall into those acts which will get you struck off. When this is done in the name of Christ, I no longer get fearful.

I get angry. Because the progressive project steals and destroys: if not our wealth (via the family courts) and the safety of our children (because step boy friends put your kids at risk, women of the West) then by replacing love and trust with fear.

False accusations have utility to these petunias: they want all to fear their sensitivity so the world is a safe space.

So fear them not.

Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

(1 Peter 3:13-4:6 ESV)

I have a suspicion: perhaps I am being uncharitable, but looking at the language from the Mordecai Project the suspicion remains. That this is the Duluth model of violence and abuse writ large in the church. And that model is from the pit. It assumes the man is wrong in all situations, and at all times.

That there is no sin, no grief, no sorrow, no accountability, no repentance. And no salvation. Just social action with a cross stenciled on. May this not be. For these ideas have consequences.

In a time when making any demand or teaching anything hard or that causes us distress is abuse, we need more abuse. Because what is truth is accounted abuse.

There was a time when no one in his right Christian mind would have dreamed to “shack up” and not fear the consequences of an unprovided death. Then the “pastoral” mentality came about, and suddenly more and more people were “provisionally” living together. But you see, thought their parents, they do intend to marry, “if all goes well”! So it’s not really a scandal, is it now? Come on, God would forgive their son or daughter who die in mortal sin because they lurv, surely?

Give it a bit more time, and it is full of people who shack up and do not even plan to marry, because they “don’t believe in marriage”. But you see, will those around them say (including an awful lot of parents, uncles and aunts), they have “their heart in the right place!”. If the Obama hits the fan God would, in His mercy, certainly not punish them! They are even members of the WWF. It would be as cruel as killing a kitten! God is merciful. They will be fine.

There was a time when Baptism was the first thought upon the birth of a child. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born at midnight, and was baptised by ten in the morning the following day. Then came the time of “pastoral care”. Baptisms were postponed more and more, because you see, God being so merciful Baptism is not a priority. And then one is supposed to throw such expensive parties! Let’s make it in three months’ time instead. Or six. Or next year.

Give it a couple of decades, and Baptism is very low in the list of priorities. God would certainly not deny Paradise to a child just because he is unbaptised, would he? How could God be so unmerciful? Well then… Baptism can wait. And hey, is it not the child who should decide what he wants to do when he grows up? Why impose a Baptism on him?

I could make many other examples, but I think these two are obvious enough. They are example of a satanical mercy that helps people to go to hell by willingly and constantly substituting the fear of the Lord for the fluffy feelings so many nowadays call religion.

We will be accused of abuse if we live for Christ. For Christ does not ask from us the easy, but the hard. It is a struggle. Each day we have to confront those habits that hold us back, choose not to indulge, and train for the truth. This is spiritual: this is physical.

And most of the time we do not particularly enjoy it. But truth is more important than our desires. To be effective, we have to be structured, be disciplined.

And those who sit in their destructive habits demanding a safe space need to be told they are greatly in error. Praying for them is not enough. Let the accusations flow. We need to do our duty.