Sunday, August 17, 2014
Death of a Soul
The psychological scars that are left when a pastor sexually exploits his parishioner are deep, life altering, and lasting. Because of his power, he can manipulate the woman not only psychologically but also morally, inducing spiritual confusion and guilt. The crisis then becomes a crisis of faith by exploiting the sacred trust in him in order to gain sexual pleasure. Sexual abuse is inherently shaming. This shaming is accentuated when the user is a spiritual leader. Because the assault is combined with spirituality, it makes it difficult to feel spiritual, theological, or fully human.- Soul Stealing: Power Relations in Pastoral Sexual Abuse
My concept of a "normal response" to a situation was extremely warped, it still is actually. I see people and desperately wish that I could react to situations like they do. The thought process that I used, as a coping mechanism, drastically changed how I thought and acted with everyone, not just him, and "normal" people frequently asked why I responded the way I did...even now.
I was convinced that I had to accept the guilt so as not to hurt my pastor who I was taught to respect and obey. However, by doing that it battered down my self-esteem even lower and further warped my thinking. He then used his spiritual authority by pleading with me to forgive his “sins” or risk being rejected by God.
This spiritual blackmail can trap women into silence and suffering for years or decades.Because he has redefined what is right and holy based on his own needs, women are left with a deep mistrust of their ability to distinguish right from wrong.
I felt obligated that I had to forgive him. I was WELS as a little girl and learned that it was God’s command to “forgive your neighbor”. But I had no one to explain what “forgive your neighbor” all includes because my own pastor was the one doing it. He was the one that I was suppose to be able to go to for spiritual questions. So that left me alone with no one to ask.
I was too afraid to go to another pastor because what if he was the same way? I couldn't handle the pain that one pastor caused me much less two. I didn't trust my own instincts. I was fooled once and was NOT about to let that happen again. I never thought the first one would do that, so how could I trust my judgement again on a second pastor? The chance that all pastors were the same, and it happening again, was too much of a risk for me to even consider that as an option. Fear is a powerful motivator.
The emotional wounds leave the woman with feelings of anger, betrayal, dismay, desolation, isolation, guilt, and shame. But the spiritual wounds are perhaps the deepest. These impair the woman’s ability to trust—others, as well as God—and to believe that God or others are good and loving. Many women report that not only have they lost their own church, but their trust has been so violated that they cannot go to any church. - Sharon's Rose
I walked away from church for years and never looked back. I hated God. I hated God with a passion. Every day I hated God more for allowing a "Called Pastor of God" to do this to me. I would be driving and literally cry out, "Why God? Why are you letting your pastor do this? Why are you allowing a pastor to kill my soul?" Hell started to appeal to me because it was far from God and pain.
In my eyes, it was God doing this because a Pastor is a representative of God, so if I didn't want the pain, then I needed to be far from God. I surrounded myself with everything I could find about Satan; slowly my mind started embracing it and I convinced myself that was the only way to escape. It's probably lucky that I didn't succeed with suicide during that time or I would be in hell right now.
Pornography and Satan do have one thing in common - they are both extremelyaddictive. Because just how porn was a controlling addiction to him and escalated over time; that was Satan to me. The more I thought about how to be far from God and the pain, the more comforting those Satan thoughts became. At first it was a few thoughts here and there, but soon those thoughts started filling my mind until I was consumed with the thought that hell was peace and God was pain. But now you had a pastor escalating in porn and a woman escalating in Satan. What a lethal combination that proved to be and the longer it continued the more lethal it became.
Most chilling, she fears his retaliation on the spiritual level. It is difficult for others to comprehend the sheer terror that accompanies this form of abuse. But often because of the image of charismatic spiritual power that these men have asserted and fostered, the women's terror is akin to actually being cursed or damned. Victims fear that their very souls will be stolen.Because of the clergyman’s influence on the woman, trusting God enough to even open the Bible again can be a milestone.- Soul Stealing: Power Relations in Pastoral Sexual Abuse
When I walked away from church and God. I threw all my bibles in the garbage. Everything I could find that represented God I put in the trash. I actually sat by the window and waited for the garbage truck to take it away thinking, "good..I'm finally free from the God who causes so much pain". I felt free and fully embraced a life away from God.
My concept of a "normal response" to a situation was extremely warped, it still is actually. I see people and desperately wish that I could react to situations like they do. The thought process that I used, as a coping mechanism, drastically changed how I thought and acted with everyone, not just him, and "normal" people frequently asked why I responded the way I did...even now.
I was convinced that I had to accept the guilt so as not to hurt my pastor who I was taught to respect and obey. However, by doing that it battered down my self-esteem even lower and further warped my thinking. He then used his spiritual authority by pleading with me to forgive his “sins” or risk being rejected by God.
This spiritual blackmail can trap women into silence and suffering for years or decades.Because he has redefined what is right and holy based on his own needs, women are left with a deep mistrust of their ability to distinguish right from wrong.
I felt obligated that I had to forgive him. I was WELS as a little girl and learned that it was God’s command to “forgive your neighbor”. But I had no one to explain what “forgive your neighbor” all includes because my own pastor was the one doing it. He was the one that I was suppose to be able to go to for spiritual questions. So that left me alone with no one to ask.
I was too afraid to go to another pastor because what if he was the same way? I couldn't handle the pain that one pastor caused me much less two. I didn't trust my own instincts. I was fooled once and was NOT about to let that happen again. I never thought the first one would do that, so how could I trust my judgement again on a second pastor? The chance that all pastors were the same, and it happening again, was too much of a risk for me to even consider that as an option. Fear is a powerful motivator.
The emotional wounds leave the woman with feelings of anger, betrayal, dismay, desolation, isolation, guilt, and shame. But the spiritual wounds are perhaps the deepest. These impair the woman’s ability to trust—others, as well as God—and to believe that God or others are good and loving. Many women report that not only have they lost their own church, but their trust has been so violated that they cannot go to any church. - Sharon's Rose
I walked away from church for years and never looked back. I hated God. I hated God with a passion. Every day I hated God more for allowing a "Called Pastor of God" to do this to me. I would be driving and literally cry out, "Why God? Why are you letting your pastor do this? Why are you allowing a pastor to kill my soul?" Hell started to appeal to me because it was far from God and pain.
In my eyes, it was God doing this because a Pastor is a representative of God, so if I didn't want the pain, then I needed to be far from God. I surrounded myself with everything I could find about Satan; slowly my mind started embracing it and I convinced myself that was the only way to escape. It's probably lucky that I didn't succeed with suicide during that time or I would be in hell right now.
Pornography and Satan do have one thing in common - they are both extremelyaddictive. Because just how porn was a controlling addiction to him and escalated over time; that was Satan to me. The more I thought about how to be far from God and the pain, the more comforting those Satan thoughts became. At first it was a few thoughts here and there, but soon those thoughts started filling my mind until I was consumed with the thought that hell was peace and God was pain. But now you had a pastor escalating in porn and a woman escalating in Satan. What a lethal combination that proved to be and the longer it continued the more lethal it became.
Most chilling, she fears his retaliation on the spiritual level. It is difficult for others to comprehend the sheer terror that accompanies this form of abuse. But often because of the image of charismatic spiritual power that these men have asserted and fostered, the women's terror is akin to actually being cursed or damned. Victims fear that their very souls will be stolen.Because of the clergyman’s influence on the woman, trusting God enough to even open the Bible again can be a milestone.- Soul Stealing: Power Relations in Pastoral Sexual Abuse
When I walked away from church and God. I threw all my bibles in the garbage. Everything I could find that represented God I put in the trash. I actually sat by the window and waited for the garbage truck to take it away thinking, "good..I'm finally free from the God who causes so much pain". I felt free and fully embraced a life away from God.
***
GJ - Does anyone wonder why WELS, the ELS, and the LCMS work so frantically to cover up these scandals?
Sig Becker, when he moved from the LCMS to WELS, told Herman Otten he was shocked at the extent of alcoholism and adultery among the WELS clergy.
One layman, who traveled all over the US, said the WELS clergy are the crudest and most immoral of all the clergy he met - and he met them from all the denominations. Of the three sects of the Synodical Conferance, WELS is the most fanatical about UOJ.
The synodical leaders have a monetary reason to kill the lawsuits and silence the critics. They were eager to preach Marvin Schwan into heaven, even though he left his wife for his manager's wife. Ending two marriages, they briefly legitimized their relationship until he met His maker. "Treat the world kindly and be worthy of grace. Remember one day you will meet God face to face." (Judith Durham, My Father's Last Words)