Church Hurt: Beyond the Surface (Part III)

Author's Note: This is Part III of the Church Hurt Series. If you haven't already, please read Part II here.

The Many Faces of Church Hurt—And What It Does to People

Now that we've cleared up what church hurt isn't, it's time to name what it actually is and what it looks like when it shows up inside a local church community.

Emotional Abuse 

Emotional abuse is probably the most common form of church hurt, and it wears a lot of different masks.

Public humiliation is when a church singles someone out in front of others—calling them out, criticizing them openly, and making an example out of them. The goal, whether stated or not, is usually to shame and silence.

Verbal abuse often hides behind the language of discipline. Insults, belittling comments, and harsh criticism get dressed up as "correction" or "tough love," making it hard for the person on the receiving end to even recognize what's happening to them. The words tend to target who someone is rather than what they've done—which is often a telling sign that something has gone wrong.

Breach of confidentiality is a particular kind of betrayal because it so often disguises itself as care. Someone shares something vulnerable in confidence, and before long it surfaces as a "prayer request." "Jayden asked me not to say anything, but he's been struggling with addiction and feels a lot of shame about it. Let's pray for him." The information gets passed along. The person gets exposed. Trust gets broken.

Gaslighting might be the most insidious form. It's what happens when someone's pain gets dismissed—when they're told they're overreacting, imagining things, or being too sensitive. In the survey I mentioned in the first part of this series, a handful of ministry leaders and pastors argued that people "overreact to the hurt they've experienced" and that "church hurt isn't a thing." That kind of dismissal is gaslighting. And it raises an uncomfortable question: Have some of us been practicing it without even realizing it?

Spiritual Manipulation

Along with emotional abuse can come spiritual manipulation. Spiritual manipulation might look like coercive control, twisting Scripture, making threats of divine punishment, or even spiritual gaslighting.

Coercive control is when individuals are demanded unquestioning obedience and loyalty, and are told that dissent means spiritual failure. Many pastors today practice this amongst their other pastors and elders in board meetings when decisions aren’t made smoothly. Many ministry leaders practice this when they’re given the chance to take the pulpit and will say something like this: “If no one agrees with you, God is not with you!”

Twisting Scripture seems to be prevalent today just as it was in Jesus’s time. If the scribes and Pharisees misinterpreted and misapplied God’s Torah (Matthew 23), we ought not to be surprised that there are preachers out there today who do the same with God’s Word (2 Peter 2:1-4; Matthew 24:11). These kinds of preachers will often misuse biblical texts to justify their abusive behavior or to manipulate members into compliance. They are, as Apostle Paul says, people who have the appearance of godliness but deny its very power (2 Timothy 3:5).

Threats of divine punishment may go hand-in-hand with twisting Scripture. I’ve noticed that such threats are only made when a party doesn’t have their own way. When the church is lacking financially, some pastors will make threats of God’s curse among the congregation for not giving generously. Or maybe you’ve even heard this one, as it’s pretty common in churches rooted in legalism: “If you don’t go to church, you’re going to hell.”

Spiritual gaslighting is when individuals’ life experiences are invalidated and are told they are not faithful enough. Let's take a look at one example. Depression affects many professing believers today. And if you know Charles Surgeon, then you ought to know he suffered from depression as well. Yet, he was one of the most faithful Christians to ever live. Some may see others in their depression and say that if they just had enough faith in God, their depression would end. Having faith in God will not always cure depression, just as it will not always make cancer disappear. And may I add that having faith in God does not make one immune to church hurt, either.  

Sexual Abuse and Misconduct 

This is the hardest category to talk about, and one of the most important.

Inappropriate behavior includes any unwanted physical contact or sexual advances. When someone says no and that "no" is ignored or worked around, something deeply wrong is happening.

Exploitation of power uses authority as leverage. The case of Ravi Zacharias is one of the most painful examples in recent memory—a globally respected apologist whose abuse of multiple women only came to light after his death. He had used his reputation, his position, and even threats of divine punishment to control and harm the people who trusted him.

Failure to address allegations compounds the original wound. When reports of abuse are buried, dismissed, or quietly managed to protect the institution, victims are harmed twice. The Southern Baptist Convention's sexual abuse scandal is a devastating example of what happens when protection of the abuser takes priority over care for the survivor.

Victim blaming shifts the weight of the abuse onto the person who was hurt, suggesting they provoked it, invited it, or somehow deserved it. No position of authority—whether it be pastoral, ministerial, or otherwise—should exempt anyone from accountability. The tragedy is sharpest when the place meant to offer the most safety becomes the place where the deepest scars are formed.

Financial Exploitation 

Money can be an issue within the church. Financial exploitation is identifiable when there is pressure to give financially and misuse of funds. 

Pressure to give looks like members being coerced to give more money than they can afford, using guilt or promises of spiritual rewards in Heaven as leverage. Pastors or church authorities may twist Scripture and even leverage their position of authority unjustly to achieve such means. And if they have to, they will threaten God’s curse upon the members as well. 

Misuse of funds occurs when leaders misappropriate church funds for personal use, which can lead to a breach of trust. Sometimes, it may include unethical financial practices that benefit a few at the expense of the congregation. 

Exclusion and Marginalization 

The church is meant to be a community where believers belong. That vision is real and so is the gap between it and what many people actually experience.

Discrimination shows up in churches more than we'd like to admit. Growing up in the Hmong church community, I watched a quiet but persistent stigma play out: Hmong Christians who chose to join multicultural congregations were sometimes treated as if they'd betrayed their own people. Non-Hmong visitors to Hmong services often felt unwelcome without a word being said. Race, gender, and socioeconomic status all shape who feels at home in a given church—and who doesn't.

Favoritism exists in every church. Certain people consistently get the leadership opportunities, the "stage" time, the recognition, the resources, the fun and fellowship. Others are perpetually on the outside looking in.

Social exclusion is when someone gets quietly written off—because of their past, their family's reputation, or even a theological disagreement that someone has decided is more important than it is. It's a painful thing to show up to a community and feel defined by your worst moment, or excluded because of a theological conviction that belongs on the secondary shelf, not the primary one.

What Church Hurt Does to People

The types of church hurt matter. So does understanding what they actually cost the people who experience them.

Loss of trust is often the first casualty. When a community that was supposed to model the love, forgiveness, and faithfulness of Christ fails that standard—sometimes even catastrophically—something breaks. It might become hard to trust any church, any leader, any community again.

Mental and emotional damage follows. Anxiety, depression, isolation, something that can feel a lot like PTSD. Sunday mornings start to feel like a threat. The church that used to feel like home now carries weight that's hard to describe.

Strained relationships extend beyond the church walls. Victim blaming, in particular, can shatter someone's reputation—leaving their own family uncertain of who to believe, or their community closed to them.

A distorted view of God may be the deepest wound of all. If God's people are not loving, how can God be love? If the church causes this kind of pain, is the whole Christianity thing a fraud? These aren't shallow questions—they're the honest cries of people who were handed a distorted picture of Christ by the very people who were supposed to represent Him. I especially know because I've wrestled with them too.

We Can't Look Away

If we claim to follow Christ, we carry a responsibility to represent Him well. We've been entrusted with His gospel and called to reflect His character through the Spirit's power (Acts 1:8; Galatians 5:25). We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). We forgive because He first forgave (Ephesians 4:32). That means we cannot keep sweeping church hurt under the rug and calling it faithfulness.

And one more thing worth saying: pastors experience church hurt too. Relentless criticism, loneliness, the crushing weight of unrealistic expectations—these quietly wear down the people in the pulpit as well. Church hurt is not just something that flows downward from leaders to members. It moves in every direction. Which is all the more reason to take it seriously, together.

Continue reading the Church Hurt Series here.