What is coercion at church and/or spiritual mistreatment? What can we do about it?

Some interactions at church are more complicated than "getting our feelings hurt." If an interaction is constantly bringing fear and insecurity into the context of our personal spirituality and ability to make decisions, it may be a sign that something needs to change.

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Can we guilt, punish, embarrass, and/or shame each other into loving God or "being faithful?"

No. It doesn't work.

But sometimes, it's what we try to do.

For many who have had mostly positive experiences in their faith communities, "hurt at church" can be easily confused with times we need to practice resiliency with not getting our feelings hurt. The phrase that keeps coming to my mind when talking about the harmful ways we sometimes try to influence each other is "spiritual coercion." But with that phrase, I usually get a blank stare. So, "spiritual mistreatment?" Even though others don't always understand what I'm talking about until further discussion, for me these words have been like turning on a light in the dark. They have brought understanding and healing and the freedom to be my true self. Based on my experiences, I have come up with the following definition:

Spiritual coercion is attempting to "force faith" or faithful actions. It includes manipulating others into complying with religious teachings through the use of anger, threats, humiliation, punishment, guilt and/or fear.

When coercion took place in my faith community growing up, my parents tried to address it but they also didn't have words for it. Though our family had many positive experiences at church, other experiences with faith being coerced through shame, guilt, fear, and/or threats deeply impacted our family. My parents left the church they'd loved and served in their entire lives. Though I joined a new church, when my children became teens it all came back up. If a church member ever said something shaming to or about our teens, I experienced uncontrollable fear. At the same time,

I felt strongly tempted to coerce faithful behavior from them (to avoid feeling shame). Like my parents, I didn't have words for this. I just knew that seeing my teens judged, guilted, shamed, and/or responded to with anger at church made me completely fall apart.

While there will always be times we need to love freely, choose not to take offense, and/or forgive after normal imperfect interactions at church, some things should not be normal. They can be incredibly damaging if we let them continue.

Am I (or is a member of my family) on the receiving end of spiritual coercion and/or mistreatment?

Questions to consider:

• Do I carefully check myself before interactions with a certain person?

• Do our interactions leave me feeling anxious, shamed, and/or afraid?

• Do I feel unheard? Am I given opportunity to express my opinions and feelings?

• Do I act out of a genuine desire to help or is it only to avoid manufactured consequences?

• Do I feel trapped? Am I bullied/manipulated into decisions that are not my own?

• Am I empowered to do what's asked of me? Or do interactions leave me feeling less effective than I once was?
  

Ideas for responding to coercive behavior

Whether our sphere of influence is small or we assume a larger role at church, there are ways we can respond to unhealthy behavior. The first step is to clearly identify what is happening and why it's wrong.

Some ideas:

• (Name incident) "I felt unheard in that situation."

• (Name incident) "That (shunning, gossip, stonewalling, etc) was a manufactured consequence when I didn't do what you wanted. That's not okay. It's a form of coercion and denying agency."

• (Name incident) “This is shaming and not an appropriate way to influence faith."

• (Name incident) “That was hostile, and not an appropriate way to motivate others at church.”

• (Name incident) “That's a threat. It's not okay to try and force faithful behavior.”

I have a wise friend that addresses difficult interactions with zero to no emotion. It's not easy to do (and maybe not always necessary) but when I've seen her in action I've noticed that the other person has nothing to react to other than the truth of what's being said.

When an interaction leaves us feeling fear and/or shame, it can be easy to over-react, blame ourselves, and/or excuse away behavior (for a multitude of reasons). What a confusing mix! Even when the person on the giving end of unhealthy behavior is well-liked, nice, respected, has good intentions, or other positive traits, it is still best to address it. One last thing to keep in mind when things get confusing is that spiritual coercion and mistreatment can be:

• Difficult to identify.

• Interwoven with good and positive experiences.

• Unintentional and come from a place of "good" intentions.

That said, it still needs to be addressed. People feeling safe and respected at church is a core value of most, if not all, faiths!