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Religious abuse refers to the abuse administered under the guise of religion, including harassment or humiliation, possibly resulting in psychological trauma. Religious abuse may also include misuse of religion for selfish, secular, or ideological ends such as the abuse of a clerical position.[1]
One specific meaning of the term religious abuse refers to psychological manipulation and harm inflicted on a person by using teachings or doctrines of that person’s religion. This is perpetrated by members of the same or similar faith, and includes the use of a position of authority within the religion over another person to inflict such harm.[2] It is most prevalently directed at children and emotionally vulnerable adults, and motivations behind such abuse vary, but can be either well-intentioned or malicious.[3]
Even well-intentioned religious abuse can have long-term psychological consequences. Causing the victim to be intensely fearful can induce that person to develop a specific phobia about the topic they were warned against, or develop a long-lasting depression. They may have an unshakable sense of shame that persists even when they have either grown up or left the religion. The person can also be manipulated into avoiding a beneficial action (such as a medical treatment) or to engage in a harmful behavior.[3]
In his book Religious Abuse, pastor Keith Wright describes an example of such abuse. When he was a child, his Christian Scientist mother became very ill, and eventually was convinced to seek medical treatment at an inpatient facility. Members of the Christian Scientist Church went to the treatment center and convinced her to stop treatment and leave, instead to trust prayer and Christian Scientist methods of treatment. She died shortly thereafter. While the church members may not have had any malicious intent, their interpretation of their religion's teachings to manipulate Wright's mother ultimately resulted in her death.[3]
Religiously based psychological abuse of children is a growing area of interest in the psychological and sociological community. It can take the form of using teachings to subjugate children through fear, or imposing heavy indoctrination such that the child is taught only the beliefs and/or points of view of their particular sect (or even just that of their caregivers) and all other perspectives are stifled or kept from them. The beliefs are taught as absolute truth, with no way of ever questioning them. Psychologist Jill Mytton describes this as crushing the child's chance to form a personal morality and belief system, making them utterly reliant on their religious system and/or parents. They never learn to critically reflect on information they receive. Similarly, the use of fear and a judgmental environment (such as the concept of Hell) to control the child can be traumatic.[4]
Physical religious abuse often takes the form of beatings, illegal confinement/neglect, near drowning or even murder under the belief that the child is possessed by Satan or evil spirits, allegedly practicing evil sorcery or witchcraft, or has committed some kind of sin that warrants such punishment, though there is little evidence for such extreme cases.
In 2012, the United Kingdom's Department for Children, Schools and Families instituted a new action plan to investigate and address the issue of faith-based abuse after several high profile murders occurred, such as the Kristy Bamu case. Over a term of 10 years, Scotland Yard had conducted 83 abuse investigations that had faith-based elements, and feared there were even more that go unreported.[5]
Religious violence and Extremism (also called Communal violence[6]) is a term that covers all phenomena where religion, in any of its forms, is either the subject or object of individual or collective violent behaviour.[7]
Archaeology has uncovered physical evidence of child sacrifice, the ritualistic killing of children in order to please supernatural beings, at several locations.[8] Some of the best attested examples are the diverse rites which were part of the religious practices in Mesoamerica and the Inca Empire.[9][10][11] Alice Miller, Lloyd deMause, psychologist Robert Godwin and other advocates of children's rights have written about pre-Columbian sacrifice within the framework of child abuse.[12][13][14]
Plutarch (ca. 46–120 AD) mentions the practice of the Carthaginian ritual burning of small children, as do Tertullian, Orosius, Diodorus Siculus and Philo. Livy and Polybius do not. The Hebrew Bible also mentions what appears to be child sacrifice practiced at a place called the Tophet (roasting place) by the Canaanites, and by some Israelites.[15]
Throwing children to the sharks was performed in ancient Hawaii.[16]
Sacrificial victims were often infants. "The slaughtering of newborn babies may be considered a common event in many cultures" including "the Eskimos, the Polynesians, the Egyptians, the Chinese, the Scandinavians, the Africans, the American Indians" and up to recent times "the Australian aboriginals".[17]
Artificial deformation of the skull predates written history and dates back as far as 45,000 BCE, as evidenced by two Neanderthal skulls found in Shanidar Cave.[18] It usually began just after birth for the next couple of years until the desired shape had been reached. It may have played a key role in Egyptian and Mayan societies.[19]
In China some boys were castrated. Both penis and scrotum were cut.[20] Other ritual actions have been described by anthropologists. Géza Róheim wrote about initiation rituals performed by Australian natives in which adolescent initiates were forced to drink blood.[21] Ritual rapes, in which young virgins are raped, have been part of shamanistic practices.[22]
In some tribes rituals of Papua New Guinea, an elder "picks out a sharp stick of cane and sticks it deep inside the boy's nostrils until he bleeds profusely into the stream of a pool, an act greeted by loud war cries."[23] Afterwards, when boys are initiated into puberty and manhood, they are expected to perform fellatio to the elders. "Not all initiates will participate in this ceremonial homosexual activity, but in about five days later several will have to perform fellatio several times."[23]
Female genital cutting has also been practiced in ritualized contexts in Sub-Saharan Africa; in some regions of the Middle East and South Asia.
Ritualistic abuse may also involve children accused, and beaten, for being purported witches in some Central African areas, for example a young niece may be blamed for the illness of a relative.[24] Other examples include Ghana, where "witches" were banished to refugee camps[25] and beating and isolation of child witches in Angola.[26]
A minority of academics subscribe to a school of thought named psychohistory. They attribute the abusive rituals to the psychopathological projection of the perpetrators, especially of the parents.[12][13]
This psychohistorical model makes several claims: that childrearing in tribal societies included child sacrifice or high infanticide rates, incest, body mutilation, child rape and tortures, and that such activities were culturally acceptable.[27][28]
Spiritual abuse includes:
The term "spiritual abuse" was purportedly coined in the late twentieth century to refer to alleged misuse and abuse of authority by church leaders.[32] Albeit, some scholars and historians would dispute that claim, citing prior literary appearances of the term in historical religion and psychology literature. Lambert defines spiritual abuse as "a type of psychological predomination that could be rightly termed — religious enslavement."[33] He further identifies "religious enslavement" as being a product of what is termed in the Bible "witchcraft," or "sorcery."[34]
Ronald Enroth in Churches That Abuse identifies five categories:
Agnes and John Lawless argue in The Drift into Deception that there are eight characteristics of spiritual abuse, and some of these clearly overlap with Enroth's criteria. They list the eight marks of spiritual abuse as comprising:
The author of Charismatic Captivation[35] in a post on the book's website delineates "33 Signs of Spiritual Abuse", a few of which are:
Regarding these signs and symptoms of spiritual abuse, Lambert, poignantly synopsizes the problem:
Flavil Yeakley's team of researchers conducted field-tests with members of the Boston Church of Christ using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. In The Discipling Dilemma Yeakley reports that the members tested "showed a high level of change in psychological type scores", with a "clear pattern of convergence in a single type".[36] The same tests were conducted on five mainline denominations and with six groups that are popularly labeled as cults or manipulative sects. Yeakley's test results showed that the pattern in the Boston Church "was not found among other churches of Christ or among members of five mainline denominations, but that it was found in studies of six manipulative sects."[37] The research did not show that the Boston Church was "attracting people with a psychological need for high levels of control", but Yeakley concluded that "they are producing conformity in psychological type" which he deemed to be "unnatural, unhealthy, and dangerous."[38]
This was not a longitudinal study, but instead relied on asking participants to answer the survey three times: once as they imagined they might answer five years prior, once as their present selves, and once as they imagined they might answer after five years of influence in the sect. The author insists that, despite this, "any significant changes in the pattern of these perceptions would indicate some kind of group pressure. A high degree of change and a convergence in a single type would be convincing proof that the Boston Church of Christ has some kind of group dynamic operating that tends to produce conformity to the group norm." However it could instead indicate a desire on the part of the respondents to change in the direction indicated. To determine actual changes in MBTI results would require a longitudinal study, since the methodology here was inherently suggestive of its conclusion. This is also amply born out in its instructions: "The instructions stated clearly that no one was telling them that their answers ought to change. The instructions said that the purpose of the study was simply to find out if there were any changes and, if so, what those changes might indicate."[39]
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