Confronting the spiritual abuse within the church with Dr. Kruger 

With all my heart thank you Naomi.❤️🦋🇦🇺

I believe leaders really need to have a wake up call. Far too many assume to extensive an authority over the lives of congregants which simply does not belong to them. Heavy shepherding is still rife, worldwide, and it needs to STOP! Many of us have had to walk away for our own good. I, for one, just can't continue to be so depressed and debilitated that I feel I'm breaking down, and worse, and am then unable to function in life. That can't be right. Church and ministry leadership was NEVER intended to be a dictatorship.

Thank you both! As a victim of spiritual abuse in the PCA, this book and interview have been helpful to give words to my experience

Excellent! You ask such wonderful, thoughtful questions, Naomi!

So true about it being a long process...going on two years right now...and still ongoing...

Excellent theological discussion. So very much a needed topic to be addressed in the church. Thank you!

Thank you for this podcast. This was an excellent, grace-filled episode.

This was a good interview. Lots to appreciate in here. I was particularly glad you asked about Matthew 18.

It was a very good book! I just finished it.

Not terribly long ago Francis Chan had a sermon where he chastised people for “attacking the temple” and he said, “oh you wanted to just let us know about some abuse or something that someone did or said that hurt you, oh you poor victim!” See… it is this approach which is simply despicable. It’s quite disgusting really… and while we could just say, “well who is Francis Chan anyway and why does he even matter? What authority does he have to say such things or speak abusively to the Lord’s people?” and we would be right to ask that, but the reality is that men like him and many others are extremely influential. Ultimately we need to be very well aware of who we are in Christ and to just be willing to say that men are flawed and we have one Shepherd. One can’t really read through God’s condemnation of the wicked shepherds in Ezekiel and think that we are now supposed to submit to a whole new gang of shepherds when He clearly says He will establish Christ as our Shepherd. If you want to be able to clearly identify those leaders in the Body who truly love Christ, it is by the way they care for His sheep. Accept no substitutes!!! There is one Christ. There is one Good Shepherd and there is only One Head of One Body.

Abused for bringing to the elders the false teaching coming through the appointed pastor. This was in confidence with elders and by sending well written articles from recognised biblical scholars about the the writer of a book being used to teach in place of the Bible who wrote about non biblical church practices. The elders did not respond appropriately with Scripture to support the perceived false teaching but personally attacking us , labeling us as fault finding and attacking our character and questioning our spiritual state. They focused on me as the wife/woman to the extent my husband was shocked and disturbed. They ended with statements such as despite what we have said we love you and want you to remain in fellowship with us. It was clear we were unable to remain under 'condemnation' week after week and affirm continuing false teaching and practice. We forgive but as you say there is no reconciliation and await an approach from them to reconcile because the wounds run deep but as you say rare repentance and reconciliation are rare. We are now in a church out of our area and healing slowly, but much stronger spiritually from this horrible experience.

We ought to read Matthew 18 again and understand the context intent of it. It has nothing to do with confronting “leadership” but rather dealing with interpersonal situations.

I get red flags all the time and I don’t trust the person in leadership, but then I question myself,and think am I over sensitive?

I've definitely been bullied in church by the pastor and street people who got saved. The same behavior they had in the street they now bring their street mentality of handling people the same way. Gangter behavior for sure. I've contacted an attorney. This woman, and man that's jealous of me came in the church and told lies, they spread through out the church and my name was defamed. It's wrong and cruel. Sometimes I think the church feels like they can't be sued.

Threatening believers in this way is totally NOT of God.

16:43 I don’t believe this is true, that you could forgive someone who has not repented of abuse. We see absolutely zero evidence of this happening in scripture or that we have a command to do this. Note: “Father forgive them…” is Christ praying for His enemies. It is not an example of Jesus forgiving their sin, because He prays that the Father would do it. “… because they do not know what they are doing.” This indicates that the sin itself was done in ignorance. Therefore any example we take from Christ on the cross is A. Praying to the Father, and B. Forgiveness may be extended toward people who have sinned in ignorance. Of course later in Acts this is fulfilled when Peter confronts the Jewish leaders and they say, “what must we do??” And Peter says… ahem… “repent”. So we see that repentance precedes forgiveness. There is never a time when forgiveness happens apart from repentance. Even Jesus says, “if your brother sins against him, confront him and IF HE REPENTS, forgive him.” Here is another example. In fact in Matthew 18 the entire passage that we call “church discipline” completely reserves forgiveness ONLY for the person who is repentant. If we read it again we will see this clearly. Jesus never says, “if someone sins against you just forgive him, but make sure the are disciplined.” Actually we see that discipline can be avoided if the person repents! Isn’t that something. To this of course Peter is troubled and asks how many times he ought to then forgive someone and the answer is essentially, “as many times as they repent.” Of course a man who stands in some office of authority must be dealt with if he has forsaken that one thing, “do you love Me? Then feed My sheep.”

I had vision loss because I left the church I'm considered demonized shund ghosted lied about and everyone that leaves them bad things happen to.? I was said.

Should a leader be both an evangelist and a pastor at the same time.