I gripped the phone in my hand. Hot tears ran down my face.
“I just need some direction,” I whispered. “I don’t know what to do. My marriage is struggling. I’m worried about my children. I can’t sleep. I’m terrified I’m going to hell. I have no one to talk to.”
Silence. Then came the response.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t talk to you about any of this. You need to speak with your leadership. I can’t help you.”
A click, then nothing.
Seventeen years ago, I rode a shuttle to visit my mother. I escaped Texas for a few days with my 3-year-old and 1-year-old, hoping some distance would help me think clearly.
For weeks, I worked up the courage to make that phone call. I desperately needed someone to help me make sense of what I was experiencing.
I had hoped the woman I called would be that person. Instead, the conversation ended before it even began.
As I sat in the back of that van, I felt utterly alone, adrift in a sea of fear and confusion. Why wouldn’t anyone help me?
The source of my pain wasn’t an abusive marriage, but the church environment my husband and I entered three years earlier.
When Church Hurts
Before coming to faith, we lived far from God, immersed in New Age practices and spiritual confusion. When we first walked through the doors of that small church, we were filled with excitement and gratitude.
We were eager to grow, learn, and follow Christ. Somewhere along the way, fear replaced freedom.
I became a shadow of the independent, faith-filled woman I had once been. Now I was anxious, broken, and constantly questioning myself.
The change connected to my tendency to ask questions. Questions about leadership, traditions, and doctrine.
I became labeled as rebellious, unsubmitted, and not right with God.
Questioning equaled rebellion. Fear became a tool for maintaining control. The damage extended beyond church walls.
Those labels followed me through conversations and prayer meetings. Spiritual maturity was measured by outward conformity.
My husband and I could barely discuss what was happening because every conversation turned into an argument about church. Criticizing leadership, even privately, was viewed as a serious spiritual offense.
My spouse was convinced; I was conflicted. We stopped talking, and the divide grew wider.
Recognizing Toxic Church Environments
The Church is intended to be a place where Christ is exalted.
The Church should also be a place of healing, belonging, and peace centered upon Jesus. Toxic church environments don’t foster this, but stir up confusion and pain.
The pressure in a toxic church environment can feel relentless. Pressure to conform, remain silent, and distance ourselves from family members who believe differently.
When people are taught never to question leadership, challenge doctrine, or voice concerns, fear becomes deeply ingrained.
When disagreement is equated with rebellion and loyalty is valued above truth, people learn to protect the system rather than the hurting person standing in front of them.
This is why spiritual abuse can be so difficult to recognize—because it can wear the language of faith.
Toxic church environments aren’t confined to a single denomination or tradition. They can emerge anywhere leadership lacks accountability, where fear and manipulation replace discipleship, and where institutional loyalty supersedes biblical truth.
The consequences are devastating.
How to Help People Recover from Spiritual Abuse
Over the years, we’ve watched families fracture, faith unravel, and people walk away from Christianity altogether because of wounds inflicted in unhealthy church environments.
Ignoring or dismissing those stories doesn’t make them disappear.
When we refuse to listen because the conversation feels uncomfortable, we perpetuate the harm. When we tell wounded people they’re “too sensitive,” we minimize their pain.
When we respond with clichés such as “there’s no perfect church,” we confuse imperfection with abuse. No church is perfect, but every believer should expect a faith community to be safe, accountable, and rooted in Christ.
Scripture holds leaders to a higher standard, not a lower one (Jas 3:1; Heb 13:17). We should have systems in place to ensure church leadership has accountability.
Jesus spent much of His earthly ministry listening to the wounded, confronting hypocrisy, and reaching for those pushed to the margins. His followers should do the same.
For someone carrying deep spiritual wounds, phrases like “just pray about it” or “you need to forgive and move on” aren’t helpful—like standing on a shoreline shouting instructions to a drowning person: “Just swim!” “Try harder!” “Have more faith!”
Instead, we should get in the water. We can walk beside them, listen without rushing to fix them, and offer compassion before correction.
Healing After Spiritual Abuse
I’m no longer the woman sitting in the back of that shuttle. Through God’s grace, I found healing.
My faith survived. My marriage survived. My understanding of God’s character was restored.
But healing didn’t happen overnight.
For a season, I questioned almost everything. I had to learn how to differentiate between God’s voice and the voices who had spoken for Him.
I rediscovered grace apart from fear and rebuilt trust in a healthy Christian community. I struggled to pick up a Bible again for two years because the lens through which I learned to read God’s Word was distorted by toxicity, control, and fear.
Recovery was messy, but little by little I grew to understand God had never been the source of the shame, manipulation, or control I experienced. He waited patiently in the middle of it all and offered the same grace, freedom, and love as always.
If the phone rings and a trembling voice says, “I need some direction. I don’t know what to do,” let’s respond in love.
Let’s stay on the line and listen. Let’s walk alongside those struggling within our church in love and humility.
Katherine Grote
Katherine Grote is a real estate professional, writer, former dance educator, and mother of four. She writes about faith, family, personal growth, and finding God’s grace in life’s unexpected places. She is the author of the blog Conversations with Coconuts.
