top of page
Search
Uphold

To Sin By Silence: The danger of enabling spiritual abuse

Updated: Aug 1, 2022



"Spiritual abuse is a subtle issue, often very hard to pin down. For that reason, church or denominational leaders are wise to move slowly and carefully. But moving slowly and carefully is one thing; not moving at all – or being reluctant to move because polity and structures make action difficult and messy – is something else. And when leaders are called to deal with accusations of spiritual abuse, they should do it with eyes wide open as to the potential seriousness of the situation. “It sounds like a hard situation, but is it really that serious?” If it’s spiritual abuse, then yes, it is that serious. “You can work this out amongst yourselves, can’t you – I mean, everyone experiences conflict!” Yes, conflict is (all too) common – but spiritual abuse belongs in a separate category.


But most simply, and maybe most often, enabling is about doing nothing. If spiritual abuse is (broadly speaking) a sin of commission, enabling is often a sin of omission – failing to speak up, failing to expose sin, failing to take steps to protect those who are vulnerable, failing to trust the Bible’s teaching on disciplining those who continue in unrepentant sin (eg: Matthew 18; 1 Corinthians 5).


I’m reminded of the powerful words of Ella Wheeler Wilcox: “To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men.” Then there’s the statement attributed to Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”


Published at Every Thought Captive geoffrobson.com




15 views0 comments

Yorumlar


bottom of page