Spiritual rape

[bliss]

I have been reading a lot about spiritual rape.  What is the connection between spiritual (or even emotional) rape and narcassistic leaders or bosses, or even spouses? 

[Overcomer]

What have you been reading and can you explain the term a bit?

[Poppy Seed]

Are you talking about the stripping away of the "SELF" or the violation of the "SELF"??

Poppy

[Certain Hope]

Dear Bliss,

Welcome to you.

I don't know about the more general context of this topic, but when I was married to Npd-ex, that felt like spiritual rape to me.
He claimed to be a Christian, but I soon came to see that he actually considered himself equal to, if not above, God Himself.
Over the years, I've known some ignorant spiritual leaders, but not blatantly corrupt ones... and none has been more invasive, conniving, or destructive to me personally as that man. In just 3 years, he managed to twist the lovely oneness which God designed for marriage into something... well, emptier than empty. It's an awful violation to turn a person inside out at that level and leave them without any sense of spiritual connection whatsoever. I felt as though I was indelibly shamed, beyond God's reach by the time he was done... tainted.
The sense of violation was so deep that I cut my hair, my fingernails, scrubbed my skin raw... just wanted to eliminate any part of me that'd ever had contact with him.
Then I discovered that Jesus was really the only One who could make me clean.

I hope that you are okay. If you want to talk more about your experience, I'll sure listen.

Carolyn

[bliss]

A physical rape is a violation of the very intimate and most personal level of who you are.  in the same way, our spiriutality is very personal and defines who we believe we are.  When I was spiritually raped, this person left me questioning everything that I believed to be true about God, myself, and life.  I no longer felt like I knew myself.  I felt like my head had just been twisted backwards and there was so much confusion and fear and shame! It takes a long time to heal from such a thing, but in finding out who I am in Christ, I know now that it will never happen again!  I no longer CAN be spiritually raped because I'm very secure in my faith, and in who I am and cannot be systematically and diabolically destroyed as I was once by those kinds of "suggestions" and comments.   I read an article that defined spiritual rape as temptation--- where satan comes in to tempt a person, then when they fall short, they get slimed with all this condemnation.  I don't see that as spiritual rape although that does seem to be cruel and unfair.  To me the way a narcasistic person can twist everything you say, and then discount it, and suddenly turn on you with open fire if you upset them, it leaves one in total confusion, especially if you really adore that person and want to be promoted by them or something.  You both fear them and adore them, and I think that is where they get into your psyche enough to do damage.  When we are torn between love and fear, we are certainly not secure. 

[tempesta]

Ohhh my Goodness Bliss.  What you said is so true!!!!  It took me years to even start to find myself.  I was so beaten up, and I don't mean physically. Ty for posting that.

[Overcomer]

Would that be the same thing as spiritual abuse?  Because I know what that is and I have gone through a bit of that growing up.

[reallyME]

Hey bliss...good topic for discussion!  Much of the problems in my past, were due to that type of thing.  There is a good book about Spiritual Abuse that sort of touches on this topic...CHURCHES THAT ABUSE.  Another one is THE SUBTLE POWER OF SPIRITUAL ABUSE.

I guess the most concerning thing about any sort of abuse, is that, often the abusive people, somtimes pastors, christians, etc,  have read the same books on it that I have, and yet still exhibit the behaviors without qualm or remorse.

go figure

[Overcomer]

I read the second one and maybe why those people do it anyway is because it IS subtle.  Legalism is so prevalent in some churches and they just cannot get over the rules and regulations enough to recognize it!  We have a church here that is so that way that they are almost considered a cult.  The ladies do not but their hair.  They will only read the King James Bible.  They give the church most of their money and live on site.  The people are so devout and yet in bondage!

[Hopalong]

This is an extract from an article that said so much to me and for me about this topic. The URL for the whole article is here:
http://www.uuworld.org/2002/02/feature1a.html
Love,
Hops
-----------------------
"As valuable as social gospel theology is, it does not hold all that religion needs to be able to hold. It fails to take into account that in women's lives the central sin may not be selfishness. It may be just the opposite: a lack of a sense of self.

"Women are culturally conditioned to care for others, but not ourselves. We believe that having needs, feelings, ambitions, or thoughts of our own is not good. In this self-abnegation, we enact a culturally prescribed role that perpetuates sexist social structures. The needs and thoughts of men matter, but not ours. Christian theology presents Jesus as the model of self-sacrificing love and persuades us to believe that sexism is divinely sanctioned. We are tied to the virtue of self-sacrifice, often by hidden social threats of punishment. We keep silent about rape, we deny when we are being abused, and we allow our lives to be consumed by the trivial and by our preoccupation with others. We never claim our lives as our own. We live as though we were not present in our bodies." [....]

"When we aren't present in our own bodies, our closest relationships can become empty. In sexual intimacy, our husband or lover may feel he is embracing an absence. We ourselves may feel we don't really exist. Intimacy ceases being a joy and becomes an unarticulated loss.

"The Bible suggests that sexism marks the fall of humanity. Exiled from the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are cursed with the loss of mutuality. Women will experience their sexuality as a source of pain, and men will lord it over them (Genesis 3: 16). Primordial estrangement from God is manifest in social systems of dominance and submission.

"We don't need to be saved from the wrath of God or the sin of selfishness. We need to be saved from the gender socialization that teaches women to abnegate selfhood and teaches men to depend on the service of subordinates. The dynamic of dominance and submission in human relations is the heart of sin. What will save us from this?

"Does Jesus' self-sacrifice on the cross end dominance and submission? No. Jesus' crucifixion was a consequence of domination, not its cure. An oppressive system killed him to silence him and to threaten others who might follow him. Domination still operates in our world and has left many lives bereft of intimacy and joy."

[bliss]

Certain Hope, I've had that experience as well where someone I loved seemed to think they were more godly than God Himself, or that their opinion is fact, when I knew it was not.   


Hops, that is an odd viewpoint (in my opinion) and not where I was going at all.  Oh well you have a right to your view even if it's not the same as mine.  When discussing Jesus, I tend to lean more to those things that are biblical rather than an opinion of man (or woman as the case may be).  LOL. 

[Certain Hope]

Dear Bliss,

To me, what you've described here is unique to dealings with the personality disordered... particulary NPD and Borderlines.

I found that the more deeply invested I was in the other individual (codependently enmeshed) the more devastating the consequences.

With NPD-ex, it was much like Job's experience with his "friends" (who were no friends at all)...
... or maybe more similar to Job's wife, who suggested that he curse God and die...

except that I was being told to curse myself and die into (merge with) the abuser, who alone determined my value.

Interesting that with these manipulative, disordered individuals, your very worth as a human being is solely dependent
on whether or not they find you acceptable. Want to measure up? Thou shalt agree with them wholeheartedly in every way.
To disagree... to exhibit a single characteristic of possessing a life apart from him/her... is to be viewed as entirely evil in his/her sight.

You wrote:  I read an article that defined spiritual rape as temptation---
where satan comes in to tempt a person, then when they fall short,
they get slimed with all this condemnation. 
I don't see that as spiritual rape although that does seem to be cruel and unfair.

For me, it went something very much like the above, plus this added feature:
After being slimed with all that condemnation and owning up to my own personal lacks and shortcomings and asserting
that I had only to turn to Christ in repentance, I was told that was not sufficient... that it would never be enough...
that my only option was not my relationship with God, but my willingness to submit to the abuser (the devil's witness).
What I see is just how cautious we must be toward those who quote the Word of God, because the devil himself is a master at it... with his typical twists and turns, of course,
just as he used it against Jesus in the wilderness. The key as I see it is - the true Word, used properly - rightly divided - will bring conviction and a change of heart.
It is never to be used in condemnation and when someone attempts to wound with it in that way, they are speaking for their father the devil,
and not a bit through the Holy Spirit.

You wrote:  To me the way a narcasistic person can twist everything you say,
and then discount it, and suddenly turn on you with open fire if you upset them,
it leaves one in total confusion, especially if you really adore that person and want to be promoted by them or something.  You both fear them and adore them,
and I think that is where they get into your psyche enough to do damage. 
When we are torn between love and fear, we are certainly not secure.

Exactly. Which to me is just exactly why the fear of man (people pleasing) must be put aside, so that only the fear of the Lord remains.
Not a tormenting religious fear, but an awe and respect and deep reverence for God who made the ultimate sacrifice for us.
When our security is not firmly established in the Lord who bought us, we are open to victimization at the deepest levels, and often wind up carrying
loads which we were never intended to bear. Old scars don't mend until we learn to direct our vision vertically, instead of horizontally... in my experience.

Thanks for bringing this thread back up, Bliss. I was glad to read it with fresher eyes and be able to comment further.

With love,
Carolyn 

[Hopalong]

Thanks, Bliss. I appreciate your tolerance. My theology isn't traditional Christian, so I can understand why you call it odd.

In my own experience around spiritual rape (grandfather a fundamentalist preacher who sexually abused his daughters, i.e., rape; my own upbringing in a mainstream liberal Protestant denomination), the baby (Christianity) got tossed out with the bathwater. For a very long time I had no way to articulate why I couldn't approach faith through the bible any more. I was thinking in the direction that these co-authors go, but my thinking was more reactive and shallow than what they have accomplished. Which to me is remarkable. They remind me of Carlton Pearson, whom I admire enormously. His work moves me and helps me access some of my earliest, purest religious experience.

This probably wasn't the best extract to paste here, it's a long article and describes each author's personal experience of abuse and how that was a catalyst for a sea change in their theological thinking. I found it radical in the same way that Jesus was radical.

love,
Hops

[tempesta]

Well geeee, I wasn't really clear was I, lol?  That is what I get for being tired.  Are were asking the connection between the two right?  I was thinking in terms of when we are emotionally beaten down by these bullies, it strips us of our true self.  I think I was thinking on the same level as Poppyseed.  My Sis in Law was really emotionally mess with her husband.  He doesn't beat her anymore, but he still loves to play the mind games.  I don't let him pull that crap with me.  The rest of the family doesn't put up with him at all.  He has mellowed out with age, but I still don't care for him at all.