The Sacramento Bee, a major California newspaper, examined the issue of spiritual abuse in a story titled Some Sacramento-area faithful turn backs on pastors, 'spiritual abuse' published today. At least 20 pages of comments followed the story, some revealing other incidents of abuse.
Spiritual abuse is a topic that churches neglect and that secular sources often don't care about or understand.
It is a hopeful development for a major media source like the Bee to take notice and investigate this issue. Spiritual abuse devastates families, destroys faith, hurts other churches that are tainted by neighboring church mistreatment and scandal, and leaves a lot of people disillusioned and lost.
The Bee should be commended for covering the topic. I hope this story opens up an interest by other media. Once the practice is in the open, it may be that churches, most of which are healthy and non-abusive, will stop being afraid to broach the subject, so that church-goers will be prepared if they should ever come across signs of abuse.
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