Healing Spiritual Wounds – Understanding Abuse in Faith Spaces with Rachael Clinton Chen

What do you do when the very place that was supposed to nourish your soul becomes a source of deep harm?

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In this deeply moving and necessary conversation, therapist, pastor, and trauma specialist Rachael Clinton Chen joins Dr. Alison to talk about the pain of spiritual abuse—and what it looks like to begin healing from it.

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Whether you’ve experienced overt harm in a religious setting or carry subtle wounds from spiritual messaging that shaped your identity in unhealthy ways, this episode offers a gentle, powerful invitation toward healing, dignity, and reclaiming your voice.

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Rachel shares:

• Her own story of healing from spiritual abuse
  
  
• Why spiritual pain is often so hard to name
  
  
• How systems of control in churches and families silence women and survivors
  
  
• The importance of embodiment and “coming home to yourself” in healing
  
  
• A theological lens for honoring your anger, grief, and truth
  
  

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If you've ever questioned your worth because of how faith was used against you—or wondered how to hold onto your spirituality while confronting the harm—you’re not alone. This episode is full of insight, validation, and hope for your journey.

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📋Spiritual abuse can be hard to recognize, because it’s often the water we’re swimming in. That’s why The Allender Center put together a self-guided checklist designed to help identify signs of spiritual abuse in your own life or the lives of others. You can download it here.

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🖥Take a healing step and start The Spiritual Abuse & Healing Online Course and use code COOK20 for 20% at checkout.

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If this episode speaks to you, you’ll also love:

• ⁠Episode 67⁠ — The Inextricable Link Between Faith & Emotional Healing—Gen Z & A Hidden Search for Meaning with Cindy Gao
  
  
• Episode 153 — Embodied Healing, Spiritual Trauma, and the Journey Home to Your Body with Dr. Hillary McBride
  
  
• ⁠Episode 17⁠ — What Is Church Hurt and How Do I Heal?

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📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here

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💬 Got a question? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.

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Editing by Giulia Hjort

Sound engineering by Kelly Kramarik

Music by Andy Luiten

While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.

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Transcript

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Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Best of You. I'm your host, Dr. Alison, and I'm so honored to bring you today's episode with the incredible Rachael Clinton. Chen Rachel is a trauma practitioner, a pastor, a teacher, and a spiritual abuse expert at the Islander Center, which is housed within the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology.

She holds a master of divinity from the Seattle School, and she spent years [00:02:00] working at the intersection of trauma, faith in healing. Rachel has just a rare gift. It was so fun to talk with her throughout this conversation. She brings theological depth, psychological insight, and just such a real and embodied presence to some of the most complex conversations around harm and healing in the church.

In this episode, Rachel opens up about her own story from an early call to ministry at 12 years old in a system that didn't know what to do with her voice, to the healing journey that led her to reclaim her gifts and help others do the same. You'll hear her story as well as how she began to recognize the impact of spiritual abuse in her own life and why she's so passionate about helping others reclaim a safe and sacred connection with God.

She's also the creator of the Spiritual Abuse & Healing Online Course . This is a compassionate, self-paced resource for anyone navigating the confusing and [00:03:00] often hidden harm that comes through spiritual abuse. This is an extraordinary course. It's deep, it's rich, and it's packed with practical tools and.

You can find the course at www.theallendercenter.org and Rachel has generously extended a 20% discount for you, my podcast listeners. You just use the code COOK 20 at checkout, or head to the link in the show notes to have the discount applied automatically. And because spiritual abuse can be so hard to name, especially when it's been in the water we've been swimming in.

Rachel and the team at the Allender Center have also created a free spiritual abuse checklist to help you begin to name what you may have experienced. It's a powerful tool for self-reflection—you can download it at www.theallendercenter.org/spiritual-abuse-checklist

This conversation is just an incredibly moving and real story about a woman working to claim her [00:04:00] God-given voice. Rachel's words are for anyone who's felt confused, dismissed, or harmed in a spiritual setting. I'm thrilled to bring you my conversation with Rachel Clinton Chen.

INTERVIEW

Alison Well, I'm just so thrilled to have this conversation with you. We've known of each other's work. I've been on your podcast, which has been really amazing. I've known of your work, but just this chance, honestly, selfishly, I love this opportunity to get to connect with people I admire and learn more about your story. So I would love to start there, Rachel, if that's okay with you? 

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah. That's great. 

Alison I did a little internet sleuthing and I found this quote. Someone asked you in an interview what you would say to your younger self. And this is what you wrote. So I'm gonna start us with this. 'cause I would love to know a little more about the story of this younger you you wrote, darling girl, you burn bright and beautiful and your gifts are not an [00:05:00] abomination, disgusting, or too much. So sing the songs of God that shake you. That is. Such a powerful reflection. Can you tell us a little more about this younger version of you who needed to hear those words and how her story has led you to this work?

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah, absolutely. You know, so part of, I mean. Huge part of my story is I was raised in a Southern Baptist tradition and I could honestly say there are some really beautiful good things that came from that. And being a little girl who had I. Speaking gifts. You know, my parents will tell these stories and that's also like an anomaly.

Like my parents were very supportive of my call to ministry even though they were also in this system. So like these [00:06:00] kind of places that just didn't make sense. But I. I started preaching from the time I was like a little girl, and some of those didn't go so well, like quoting scripture at friends when they were having like a fit, you know, like children obey your parents or how I started quoting scripture at them, like when they would give that one to me.

And then I would say, what the second verse is, fathers do not exasperate your children. You know, and I mean, in high school I was nominated and most likely to become a motivational speaker. You know, I sang special music at church. Now I'm just a curious okia aficionado, but if you come from a tradition where there was like special music during the offering, I was one of those people.

But I would always set it up like this song, you know, is really talking about this character of God and this scripture. Again, no part of me at that time would've been like, I think I'm called to pastor, or I think I'm called to preach. That would've felt so incredibly. Threatening and honestly disgusting.

Like I already knew. Deep in my [00:07:00] bones, girls are not allowed to do that. This came to a head for me when I was 12. I had a call to ministry at church camp. I got a summer camp, and it was very real for me because by that point I had already decided, you know, I'm gonna be a doctor. I don't wanna struggle with money.

I don't want poverty to be a thing I have to deal with. So like I'm gonna make good money. I have a plan and I'm in this service that, you know, they're doing all the music things and sure, I can like look at all the ways, like some of those, like alter calls could be really manipulative. But there was this one little like extra added invitation.

You know, you could get saved, you could rededicate your life, you could get baptized, and then it was like. You could say yes to a call to ministry. And I was like, no, no way. No. And there was something of this wrestling I did with God. I, I don't know how else to talk about it, that it just felt like my life flashed before my eyes.

And [00:08:00] it wasn't like, oh, if you become a doctor, you're not serving God. It was just very much like, Rachel, I've made you this way and. I want you to trust me. So I, after like me in 10 minutes of like gripping onto that wooden pew, like I'm not going down there. I went running like, okay, you're right. I wanna tease life, like I wanna live.

But when I got down there, I was met by a man, he had a little card, I still have this card. And he was like, you know what? What's your decision today? And I said, I'm called to ministry, thinking he was gonna be so excited. And the look on his face was such. A disappointment, like I don't know how else to say it, or concern, you know?

And so I'm like, okay. So they pulled us into this little side room to have more conversation. And you know, you basically said, well, I just wanna make sure you know that your options for ministry are, you can work with children, you can marry a pastor, or you can go to the mission field. Now, no offense against any of those things, but just for [00:09:00] me, I felt so duped by God.

Like, you know, my genuine response was kinda like, what the hell? This is not what I was imagining in this montage of my life. And I felt such despair, almost like I was such a loyal little person because of my developmental trauma. It was like I said yes to you, so I guess I said yes to you. I went back to my bunk.

I. I sat down on the bunk bed and I did that thing, you know that they say you're not supposed to do. Where I did like roulette with the Bible, like, yeah, yeah. I just need to hear from you. Yeah. Like, I need something. And by whatever grace of God or coincidence, Isaiah 61 popped up and there was something I've just hearing the spirit say, like, I'm the one who anoints and.

This is what I've called you to and I had, I was just an existential kid. Like I had that sense in my bones, like this is gonna be a journey, but I need to remember, I. Whatever it is I'm doing, this is what I'm called to. So, I mean, there were many, [00:10:00] I got kicked out of youth leadership because I was student council president and that was like too secular.

I mean, that was, there's just so many stories. I went to undergrad, started out in nursing 'cause I was like, well I could go to the mission field as a nurse. You know, like I was just trying to find the ways I could bring my gifts. Turns out not supposed to work with bodies at all, like couldn't handle blood.

It was like very like, what are you doing? Switch to biblical studies and sociology at every turn had people saying, keep going, but also like, don't go here 'cause you won't get the same education. So I just think that little girl had so many beautiful gifts that it wasn't until I was 27 and in seminary at the Seattle school that like the first person called me a pastor.

And I just think so much of what she felt was almost like, what's wrong with me? Like, why am I like this? Why do I keep talking when people are like, stop talking. Why do I keep caring so much [00:11:00] about the church or the way people are supposed to be loved, or how the Bible's supposed to be engaged and interpreted so.

Alison Why did God make me this way and give me these gifts and this longing and this desire if I'm not supposed to do it? What a dissonance, you know, for a young body to absorb. Even when you said, you know, I kind of felt my body like a maze where you're like, well, I try to go and then I'd hit a wall. You know, you can't do that, and I wonder as your.

Surfing that dissonance of what you loved. I, I see. Even before we started recording, you said, I'm a pastor at heart and I just, I gotta tell you. Just so you know, I got tears in my eyes 'cause I was at a fork in the road at a point in my life actually. JS Park, I don't know if you're familiar with his work. He's a chaplain and he told me he thinks of himself as a the priest. And I was like, that's it. 

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah, that's it.

Alison I feel like I straddle that line of wanting to pastor people. 'cause I believe in community, I believe in [00:12:00] the body. I believe in systems, but my gifts are a little more in the one-on-one. Space, but I don't think the two are divorced.

And so when you said I'm a pastor at heart, you know, I was just like, oh, everything in me just lit up. Like, oh, how beautiful that you know that. And so I'm curious, what were your breakthrough moments where people came alongside of you and helped you? I could imagine someone never leaning into that with some of the roadblocks that you had.

So someone or some things had to come in into your path that helped unlock that and give you the freedom to just lean into it. 

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah, I mean, I went to Oklahoma Baptist University, which is a Southern Baptist liberal arts school, and I had incredible professors who, you know, the female contingency in the School of religion was very small.

We were very, very small. And they just celebrated our wisdom, like invited us to dream. You know, it was one of my [00:13:00] professors that said, you need to go to seminary, like you're in the right field. But don't go to a Southern Baptist Seminary because you won't get the same education. You will face a lot of obstacles to your gifting, but there are a lot of other places out there.

That will welcome you and say Yes again. There will be obstacles because of the world we live in, but there are better options. I mean, at the time I was like, I'm not going to seminary. I'm so tired of thinking about God academically, but I appreciated someone believing in me and yes, yes, yes. 

Alison From inside a culture that didn't necessarily, yes, sanction your gift.

Rachael Clinton Chen That had very explicitly said you cannot, and it would be an abomination for you to do so. Like literally those words, right? Abomination. Kind of imagine you're gonna get like struck by sliding or something. And yeah, so I had professors, not only were they saying those things explicitly, but they were giving us critical thinking skills and opening windows and doors is kind of the way I would think about it.

And I did have like mentors along the way [00:14:00] again. Never a full out saying you need to do these things, but at least affirming we see these really good gifts in you. Like, you know, things got tricky there for a while. 'cause part of how I got to going Baptist University is I was set up in a very abusive relationship with one of my youth leaders who actually was graduating from there.

So it was kind of like, well, I'm gonna go there because he's there. So these weird places that really, I think came out of awful circumstances for me also opened the door. To keep going. And you know, it's funny, I was actually in Rwanda kind of pursuing my mission filled like, well I tried the Parachurch ministry route.

'cause I was like, well they kind have women, but you have to be married to a man in a lot of those contexts. And that didn't work out for me. That's a whole story. So I was in Rwanda kinda doing mission work with the youth group I was working with, and I met this group of Christians from Portland, Oregon, and they were just.

Really normal Christians. I don't [00:15:00] know how to say it other than like they all went to therapy. I had never heard of Christians that went to therapy. They were very affirming of my gifts. They were kind of like, you know, there's some great seminaries in the Pacific Northwest. When I went to the Seattle school, I really considered, I mean that, I think that wrestle for so many people around, like when you have healing tendencies like.

Should I go the therapeutic route? Like I'm really good at this. And I was considering switching to the counseling program and one of my mentors at the school was like, what are your favorite classes? And I was like, hermeneutics Greek and this class on the epistles. And he was like, okay, well I think you need to pay attention to that because most people sitting in a Herman news class aren't like, I love this.

This is amazing. So I did have. These kind of people along the way saying like, keep going. We see these things in you. You're not crazy. You're not grasping for something that's irrational or, 'cause I think there was a [00:16:00] lot of like, oh, you're grasping for power, and it's just like, I don't want. Power. Believe me, I don't want power.

Alison And again, I hear in you just sort of that dissonance between this is how I experienced myself and God, and yet for whatever reason, these people outside of me, I. Have to interpret that in a different way because it, it can't be, and I think of so many, you know, I think of my listeners who maybe didn't have that same calling, but felt like they couldn't lean into the fullness of who God made them to be and, and how painful that is and how that can, in your case, thankfully enough, kind of came in that helped you stay true, but also the pain of how long that took. How easily that could have prompted you to exile those parts of you. 

Rachael Clinton Chen Oh my gosh. And in some ways I did at different seasons, but I know so many people, so many women especially, who like will say to me, man, [00:17:00] I felt that similar calling too. Or I felt like I had similar gifts too, but I just. It was too painful.

Like they didn't have the resources, they didn't have the support, or they experienced enough harm in those contexts that it was like, why would I ever wanna have anything to do with these people or this god? 

Alison That's even more to the point. Just leave all together. This is a little bit of a side note, and everybody probably asks you this, but did you read Beth Moore's memoir?

Rachael Clinton Chen I did because let me tell you, Beth Moore was one of my, I, you know, she was someone I was watching, do what I felt called to do, and also like content. Finding a way to do that within the system that like honored all the rules. And so I was watching going, could I do that? And so then to see just her heartbreak and you know, her prophetic voice to say.

What is happening here? Like is this [00:18:00] who you really are? And then to hear her story…

Alison I think that's why it spoke to so many of us. All of what she was able to do didn't come without a cost to her. 

Rachael Clinton Chen Exactly. And it didn't return The honor that she bestowed was not returned to her.

AD BREAK 1

Alison You share Rachel and part of your own ministry as a pastor is that you encourage people who've been through trauma, you're at the Islander Center, you're working with folks in the trenches. You say you know you will find the healing community that will help you make sense. Of the pain and the trauma you bear, how have you begun to find that community in your own life and not necessarily denominationally, although I'm sure you can share that if you want, but you know, what has it felt like for you?

To reclaim a sense of community, not as a [00:19:00] cutoff from all the pain of the past, but as an integration of, oh, this, this is where I belong, and this is where I feel seen and known and received. 

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah, I think it starts kind of with those people from Portland that I met in Rwanda. I don't know how to explain it other than I was like, I think I need to be in the midst of people who.

I like this. And it started me looking at seminaries in the Pacific Northwest. 'cause as a 23-year-old or 24-year-old, the only way I could imagine leaving Oklahoma with any kind of resourcing was like, well, I guess I gotta go to school. I was looking at fuller extensions, but there wasn't one in Portland, but there was one in Seattle.

And then at the time it was called Marsal Graduate School. And I was such in a place of my trauma kind of reaching its threshold, like my developmental trauma. I still didn't know at the time. I was a traumatized person, like I was very high functioning. I would've said, I'm a really anxious person. I'm a really [00:20:00] fearful person.

I can get a little crazy sometimes, you know, like I. The way that trauma would manifest. You know, I was also reaching the ultimate glass ceiling for me, you know, in my vocation. Like I wasn't being invited to come on staff with this Southern Baptist church I was at because they were looking for men and the mission field.

I was like, no. And so, yeah, I thought I'm gonna go to this school. Because they seem to be able to help people with relationships. And there was something in me that was like, I want vulnerability. I want authenticity. But I still was going because I was going to help people. Like it was still like, of course I'm gonna go get these skills Exactly so I can help other people. Same. And I really just think, yeah.

Alison Same. And then, and then almost toward the end of my program, having my own personal breakdown. It's very unfortunately kind of cliche, but true for many of us.

Rachael Clinton Chen It's so textbook, right? I know. So I went to this counseling psychology school that had an MD program. 'cause I was like, I'm gonna go to them D [00:21:00] program at the counseling psychology school.

You know, like I'll get some really good tools. In my tool belt. And there was something about not just the school, which certainly felt like really fertile soil for me to begin to understand how much healing I needed, but it was also the culture of Seattle. I think when you grow up in the Bible belt to live somewhere, that's like, what?

What's the Bible belt? Or like, what's that like? You know? It's just a very almost post-Christian context. A lot of spiritual but not religious people. And there was something very healing for me, being in a context that just didn't require me. To try to figure out what's real or what's not real. Like if people were going to church on Sunday in Seattle, it wasn't like just culturally Christian.

It was like they went because it was a value to them and they really wanted to go. 

Alison I had the same experience in Boston because the reality for folks who come out of more Christian culture, like the Bible Belt that I came out of a small rural town, but. It's exactly [00:22:00] what you say. For some of us it's just like, oh, well.

And also because there are so many fewer Christians and because there is more of an authenticity, it has to be very real. People are less picky about the details about, about the miners of what you believe. They're just so happy that you have faith, you know? So there's so much more tolerance around some of the, well, and it's just like so refreshing.

Rachael Clinton Chen It was, there was just something. Also, it's beautiful. Seattle's beautiful. The nature and the water and the mountains, everything felt so big. It's almost like whatever mess I had or whatever chaos I was dealing with internally, it just felt like this was a spacious place and very quickly into my program, it was kind of like.

I had sociology, I had theology and biblical studies and philosophy, and I had all these frameworks. Anthropology have been so helpful for me, making sense of like my experience and the human experience, but I did not have psychology, and it was like the missing piece of the frame that then [00:23:00] all of a sudden rapid.

Healing opportunities. Someone invited me to think about the past as a helpful interpretive frame. It was like they were using my language like this could be you. There's some hermeneutic shifts you need to make, right? Yeah, totally. Like there's ways you're making meaning. 'cause that's what hermeneutics means, like how we interpret the art of reading, the art of meaning making.

And so it was like there are ways that you understood yourself. Are actually cut off from your context and that context will help you understand how these things came to be. And yeah, so not only did I get to pursue pretty rapid healing, that was not just therapeutic. It was like I talk about this on the Allen Center podcast, like things I didn't expect when healing from trauma.

And it was just kind of all these funny stories of like. All the body care, I had to tend to my gut sleep and you know, 'cause Seattle's one of those contexts where it's like, [00:24:00] oh, who's your acupuncturist? Not like, do you go to acupuncture? You know, it's like, who's your naturopath? Like, it was kind of just like very normal to have this very holistic care, which when you're healing from trauma and you've been in a more hyper religious context that says all those things.

You don't meet and if you do need them, you're not faithful or like they could be dangerous. It was just such a kind context. But I also think getting more tools, like I said, with the different education I had gotten to actually understand God to come back to the text, to imagine like what is a community of people?

Trying to follow in the way of Jesus. What could it look like? What's it meant to look like? Like being in an MIP program that said you have to take trauma seriously. We have to take the human experience seriously. We have to take our context seriously. Was also like deeply healing and restorative to [00:25:00] me to get to play in not just deconstruction, which I did, but to also be invited to imagine.

A way forward that didn't have to just be reactionary. 

Alison I love the word imagination, right? That imagining a whole different way of being with God and really in my mind is more biblical, more rooted in good theology, which is all. Who I am is invited into this process of wholeness. Right? I always talk about this, but I love the idea that soso, the word that we think of as salvation, that so gets so myopically, interpreted as sort of a one and done is actually more readily translated as healing. The work of healing. It's holistic, right? It's the moment at which we begin the healing journey. 

Rachael Clinton Chen And it has like a quantum reality to it, right? Like it's happening. It's is. It will continue to happen. 

Alison Yes, yes. Yeah. I love that. All of [00:26:00] this leads to Rachel, your work now, and thank you for kind of giving us that context, right?

Because I do think our work. Develops out of our contexts. To your point, this term spiritual abuse that we, I think more people are becoming familiar with. It's more talked about, but also many people maybe don't really understand what it means. And isn't that really a part of my journey? Isn't that for those extreme cases.

Of, you know, severe abuse or violence in the church. Kind of a very one dimensional view of what that means. How do you think about it? What are some common ways it shows up in churches, in faith communities? Help us segue a little bit about how you view spiritual abuse. 

Rachael Clinton Chen It's a great question, and I'm actually gonna start with one of your quotes because you recently posted something on Instagram that I think [00:27:00] actually captures the core of what spiritual abuse is.

You said all trauma causes you to question your worth, but spiritual trauma adds the terrorizing layer that God might question your worth too. I think at its core, spiritual abuse is such an attachment wound. It's a faith wound, it's a trust wound. I think the most simple way to think about spiritual abuse is this misuse or abuse of spiritual authority or power to harm, to control, to manipulate, to exploit, and like doing it in God's name.

So I often say like. Spiritual abuse can really, I mean, there's a bunch of people who say this, the Reclamation Collective, the Religious Trauma Institute, but this sense of like spiritual abuse can happen in any kind of relationship where there's a power differential and trust is being exploited. Where there's this sense of.

I have some spiritual authority. It can happen in a [00:28:00] family system. We see this a lot with the Bill Goard methodology of shining happy people like that was playing out a lot in family systems. Like the whole point was like the family system is like God's house is the church. It can happen in school settings, it can happen in nonprofit settings.

It could certainly obviously happen in churches. It really can range from the subtle to the extreme. So for the most part, yeah, when we think about spiritual abuse, we'll be like, oh, well someone escaped a cult Like that was clearly religious trauma. But it can also happen in like maybe you, I. We're a part of the nineties and the eighties and the two thousands purity culture movement, where you took in a certain ideology about your body, about your sexuality, that the more research that's coming out is showing that actually had very spiritually abusive harm because it tied a certain sense of morality and sexuality with salvation and worthiness of God.

Right? Like this question of like, does God. [00:29:00] Question my worthiness, like, am I beloved in God's eyes? 

Alison I think that's a really helpful framing, and I wanna just speak to the listener. I think sometimes one of the reasons when we're naming something, when we name something like spiritual abuse, we are not necessarily imputing abuser to the person.

Who, the context in which that happened. The reason I wanna say it, sometimes it is, sometimes there are context in which, and I, I think it's important, I'm gonna try to distinguish this because there's an important naming of, oh, this was an abusive environment. Maybe the people involved in this environment, if we separate out the really extreme cases, kind of believe some bad theology, and I know this in my own case, like.

I think there were good people who believed some bad theology, just like I did have at certain points in my life. And that doesn't take away from [00:30:00] that toxicity to my own inner system. And when we're talking about naming things, sometimes we can shy away from these words like abuse or trauma. Because it's like, well, that means I have to sort of throw out the baby with the bath water.

And I think that happens. I think people do do that. They start calling everything abuse or trauma, when in fact, what we're trying to do is name a reality. That's why I love how you talk about it. This is something that harmed my sense of God made worth in the name of God. That is inherently abusive regardless of the intentions.

I'm trying to find this nuance from the social media world.

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah, it's hard. The social media world is really hard. One of my colleagues, Rebecca Vickery, she's a therapist, she's a part of the Purity Culture Research Collaborative. She's brought these frames to us in our work at the Allender Center, and I just think it's been so helpful and actually like exactly what we were speaking [00:31:00] to.

She brought these categories of abuse. They're like types of abuse, and so she talks about narcissistic abuse. Obviously we can look at that and go, there's some intentionality to that sadistic abuse. We know we're in the category of very explicit abuse and reenactment abuse. So she's talking about like, there may not actually be an intentionality to the abuse, like the intentionality might be really good.

It's where people are actually reenacting their own trauma. So where you have someone who comes from a very traumatic environment, a lot of chaos, they're gonna be really drawn to high dogma. Fight control context because it promises a lot of certainty. It promises clear boundaries. It promises belonging and goodness if you abide by the rules.

And so a lot of people have experienced spiritual abuse. Maybe their parents found themselves in a certain system because they really wanted something different for their children than what they had. They wanted something different for themselves, [00:32:00] and it's like. Spiritual abusive systems use a lot of grooming, use a lot of gaslighting.

So you get so far into this belonging before you realize, oh, maybe there's some things happening here that aren't that great, or maybe this system is actually perpetuating other forms of abuse because hierarchical structures might invite a narcissistic abuser. Or a sadistic abuser into the midst. So I think absolutely you're right.

It can get so tricky. It's that sense of like exactly what you said. It's not always about intention, it's about the impact. And so how do we reckon with the impact and honor our experience in our bodies and like. The trauma that needs to be tended to that might not always need to like point to a narcissistic abuser or a sadistic abuser in order to feel like our experience is valid or worthy of good care.

And that could be really confusing. And I do think we have a very kind of [00:33:00] reactionary social media culture that is, is actually moves more towards splitting, you know, as like a therapeutic frame than actually. Reclamation and recovery and a maybe more restorative justice that has imagination. And that has nuance and that has, it's not just a quick label, it's a, oh my goodness.

What I experienced was, regardless of context, I would say naming starts with yourself. All this, this was damaging to my soul and to my lived experience of myself as an image bearer. And then part of that reclaiming and that recovery process is also part two. Oh my gosh. That was a narcissistic culture, or oh my gosh, that was a sadistic culture.

Or oh my gosh, those were people that were caught up in something that they didn't even know they were caught up in. Right. There's, there's different ways to frame it and also, and [00:34:00] most of us who have experienced spiritual abuse also perpetrated, like spiritually abusive harm. Right? Because you're part of the system.

Like one of my colleagues talks about this with regard to purity culture, how she in her fear towards a friend who came out to her just. Pushed away and exiled. And how many of us hold stories where in order to stay in the belonging, we were harmful to other people, we, we might be a part of their stories.

And so how do we step into this place where the part of the healing is not just individual, it does move toward more of a collective, you know, restoration and repair. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I love how you're just. In this very real conversation speaking to that 'cause I also think that's where backlash can happen when we see people online who we know like, great thing you're calling all this out now, but I remember when you were the one doing all of this.

Right? And that can sort of do damage to some of this very important work of [00:35:00] naming. So yeah, I just appreciate how you are describing it even out of your own experience. Something happened here that did harm. And maybe some of those people didn't mean to hurt me. Maybe some of them did. It doesn't matter.

What's true is this was harmful. Yeah. And I mean for me, I think in 2018, Dan was like, would you wanna do a, a podcast with me on spiritual abuse? And I was like, that's a really weird term. Sure. We had done some stuff on like. Spiritual warfare, which I was like, that's crazy. But yeah, let's talk about it because that's been weaponized for people.

And also there's a place and a power in like contending with spiritual energy in the metaphysical world. So spiritual abuse to me was like, I kind of understand what you're talking about, but let's talk about it. And it was in the middle of this podcast where I was sharing about this. Experience being set up in a relationship with this youth leader.

I was sharing about this particular church we were at, which was so much more [00:36:00] fundamentalist than any other church we had been a part of, and how quickly the secure attachment I had with God that had always sustained me, even in the midst of so much developmental trauma, had always been this safe sanctuary started.

To get twisted and distorted and became so much more anxious and you know, like I couldn't fail. Failure became so much more, not an option with God. Whereas before that felt like the boundary lines were so much more expansive and it was like in the business conversation that all of a sudden I was like passionate about people.

Who have been harmed by the church or who have been harmed by religious authorities getting to have access back to God. That's how I would've talked about, like my sense of what drives me in this work with the Lander Center, and I'm in the midst of this conversation and all of a sudden I'm having that realization that's like, oh my gosh, like I'm passionate about it because it's my story.

[00:37:00] I want people to have liberation and reconnection and healing. Because that's what I needed in order to recover and reclaim this kind of sacred birthright, which is like this connection to the divine or to God that gets to exist in our bodies, in our mind, in our soul, and so. I think for me it was kind of like this is a new level of understanding, because I could have said, I've experienced clergy abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, these different things, but I had not seen the spiritually abusive elements at play that made the setup even more profound, that the impact got intensified and began to contaminate your attachment with God.

Alison Which is to use how you and Dan talk about spiritual warfare, which I love in the realm of evil.[00:38:00] 

AD BREAK 2

Rachel, for someone listening who maybe like you is kind of sensing something's off, but doesn't know how to give language to it in their spiritual environment. What are some internal cues or even some external red flags you encourage people to look for?

Rachael Clinton Chen Well, I will just name that we did create a very simple, it's not exhaustive resource at the Allender Center because of this, right?

Because in many ways, like spiritual abuse is, is hard to recognize 'cause it's the water we're swimming in. And also I would just say there are people. We're probably even more activated right now because I actually think we're seeing spiritually abusive power really amplified right now on a national stage, this fusion of religion with like political power that's actually very dehumanizing in many ways, and that's very confusing, right?

Because it's [00:39:00] supposed to be good things. You know, we're hearing this conversation like empathy is a sin, right? Like there's. Very confusing things at play from a national stage that are incorporating Christian religion and spirituality, Christian language, Christian symbols. So I, I say that more like if people are feeling like an extra activation right now and trying to make sense of why I.

Maybe there could be some grace and mercy to your body because it's pretty pervasive right now and very like in our face. But we created a self-guided checklist that is really just kind of to help you identify some science of the impact of spiritual abuse, maybe on your life or other people's life.

And you can download it at the Allender Center. I think you'll have the link in the show notes if something people want to check out, but it's kind of just taking you through. Different ways that maybe you might be experiencing spiritual abuse. And for me, one of the top signs that I'm always looking for is, do I feel safe when I'm thinking about talking to [00:40:00] God?

Do I feel permission to bring my full, authentic self? Or am I having to hide parts of myself? Now that gets tricky 'cause some of that's just in the realm of like bad theology, right? And would we say, oh, like that was intentional spiritual. I just think it's spiritually abusive to encounter bad theology.

It's assaulting the core of who you are and your relationship with God. Fair enough? Right? So I don't know if we have to make it as big of a thing, but, but notice. I remember for me vividly even recently, just being in a space where I was like, I need a code switch. It's not safe. I don't know what was happening, but I felt it.

It's different. In my mind that is a little different from being in a space where I'm like, I don't agree with everything that's being said here, but I'm connected to myself. I'm connected to God. I can hold on to myself. We can disagree about some of these things. Zen. It's not safe here. It is not safe here for me to be a woman with doctor in front of my name, or it is not safe here [00:41:00] for me to mention that I like this author.

You know, whatever the thing might be. And that's exactly what you're talking about, right? Like for you, you have more resourcing so you can code switch. But that sense of like, yeah, you are gonna be. Facing threats or coercion or you know, you might be cut off or scapegoated if you don't fit within these rigid boundary lines, or if you attempt to leave or you bring questions or doubts, right?

So where is fear and shame being exploited in ways that actually feel abusive, where you can't ask questions, you can't have doubts. If you aren't loyal to someone, then you're evil, right? Where there's just this kind of. Switch. Can you trust your gut? Do you have permission to have an internal wisdom or do you have to seek an authoritative.

Voice to make decisions like you may be in the midst of a spiritually abusive relationship or environment. Are you being subjected to other [00:42:00] forms of abuse but being told it's okay because the person in authority is good and they're really twisting their access to your care, right? So this kind of exploitation of care that's really grooming, right?

Grooming is ultimately attuning really well. To you and your needs, but without honor as a way to manipulate or exploit or get access to build trust, but then that gaslighting comes in, right? That kind of twists the truth or makes you question your own sense of reality. So for me, when I'm thinking about how we're trying to make sense of like, have I been experiencing spiritual abuse, is when I'm questioning my sense of reality, I'm struggling to trust my own body.

Other people trusting God. Certainly if you feel like you can't trust religious authority, you may have experienced some harm in a religious context. That's like a very good reason why you don't trust religious authority if decision making is really hard, because you [00:43:00] haven't really been given permission to have an internal compass or autonomy or a sense of agency.

So I think a lot of it has to do with a sense of personhood and trust. Yeah.

Alison Yeah. We'll link in the show notes to this free resource you guys have created, but it's, I'm listening to you going, that's what's so hard about it, is it's intentionally designed to be disorienting and so it's hard. The cues can't even be tricky and subtle to notice.

Rachael Clinton Chen It is, and that's part of why. It's really important to get closer to your own story and the particularities of what happened to you because you and I could have very similar experiences of like, let's say a theological system, you know, or a denominational theology, but we were in a relationship with different people.

We had different. Families and different nervous systems.

Alison And one [00:44:00] person based on their family experience, their nervous system just says, Ew, I'm outta here. Yeah. And another person, I have signs for red flags, like, yeah. And then another person's nervous system recognizes harm as, oh, this is very familiar to me.

This is what I'm used to. Even though it's not healthy for me, I do believe the soul has a bent toward healing. God designed it, and so there will be that dissonance. There will be that. Just that everything in me is saying, I know, even though my mind can't compute that, even just that dissonance that something doesn't add up is something in your soul that's a cue to notice and talk to somebody. Outside of the system about,

Rachael Clinton Chen yeah. And again, like what can be so painful is that this plays out not for everybody. Sometimes it plays out in a relationship with a clergy member or a family member, but [00:45:00] usually within a system that you have found some sense of belonging. And so that dissonance is gonna feel really threatening to the belonging if you are in a spiritually abusive system because you've seen other people act on their dissonance.

It has not gone well for them, right? They've either been scapegoated as problematic or bad, or they've been completely cut off or exiled, or they left because it got so painful, but you kind of feel like you can't be in a relationship with them because you know there might be something bad about them, why they leave the system.

So I just, there has to be a lot of grace and mercy to what we don't see when we're not ready to see it, because it maybe feels too threatening to. Some sense of goodness or belonging that we found. And so what happens for a lot of people that dissonance comes because either A, the dissonance gets loud enough or their sense of justice on behalf of another person starts to rise up.

Their children, a [00:46:00] friend, someone in the community actually facing abuse, that that comes to light or the system stops benefiting. It starts becoming more punitive, and then all of a sudden that sense of belonging you had. It's not enough to, you know, sustain you when you actually feel like you can't do anything, right?

Alison The rear view mirror -- I just want the listener to hear -- when you start to taste, you start to move toward goodness, and you start to move toward belonging where your differences are honored and where there's freedom, you just see it so much more clearly. In the rear view mirror. And so again, thinking of the listener who's maybe in that messy middle, right, of still trying to piece it together and still like, you know, I kind of like these people.

They know my kids and, and yet I don't feel like I can connect to God and I do feel this just isn't right. Some of what's happening or I do feel like I'm have to hide. Certain things.

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah. I mean I do [00:47:00] actually think that there's something about in an environment where your sense of like human right-sizeness, right?

So whether that's being a person with a full range of emotions or being a person who in the midst of your faith, that's great. Honoring questions of God's character. You know, by the way, theologians from the beginning of time have been wrestling with great, deep questions that are worthy of wrestling with.

That's a very good thing, right? As parents, when we don't have all the answers, we don't just tell our kids like, well just stop asking questions. Like we get in it with them and what's the question bringing up and what's it connected to? So it's, I just think when I use the language of human size, for me that was a way to make sense of my complexity as a human, because so much of the spiritual abuse I experienced was my trauma that was manifesting only being seen and interpreted as sin.

So my anxiety being named a failure of faith, right? [00:48:00] Like you're just fearful and you know, the number one spoken. Phrase in the Bible is, do not be afraid. What I actually needed was merciful care to my body. I was getting, again, often from well-intentioned people, things being weaponized against me. So human sizeism for me is just a way to honor like we're humans and if we're in a A system where we're starting to see, this may not be a place I wanna be, but there's a lot of life connected there, I think.

There's no demand to move one way or the other as long as you are reclaiming a sense of your agency, not dismissing the truths that you see. So not deceiving yourself, because sometimes when we've been in a really fundamentalist environment. We can move out of that environment into a different kind of fundamentalism.

Right? We see that a lot. That's part of what you're speaking to on social media. We're seeing like a different brand of fundamentalism [00:49:00] that feels comfortable because you, here's who's in and who's out. I just, I do think for anyone listening who is starting to question their sense of like what they've been experiencing, starting to see more clearly, some things make connections.

If you're not under threat, you know, there's no shame in. Really trying to discern what kind of belonging you want to give up or not, right? Like I'm just a huge fan of like, there will come times where we have to make really courageous decisions. That might mean leaving a certain environment, or it might mean cutting off relationship with certain people who aren't willing to repair in a way that like they're still doing harm and we need to set some boundaries.

Or we have to step into more mystery than we've actually been spiritually formed to be able to tolerate like. There's no demand that we have to jump into these things until something necessitates that. So in the meantime, how do we [00:50:00] get to practice building muscles? So maybe you wanna stay in the community, but you wanna start bringing your critical thinking skills to what you're learning.

And maybe you're not ready to start like directly asking questions of the leadership, but you're making note of your dissonance in a way that's not dismissing it or silencing it. Those are like. Faithful acts in the small that have a huge dividend like Brene Brown's Trust. Trust Jar is kind of one of those, like it's a way that you're restoring trust within yourself, reclaiming parts of your mind that just.

Has a huge impact when we might be faced with decisions that feel so much more costly. That's so good. It's sort of cumulative. I love how you're describing that. You're sort of practicing the muscle of, I'm just gonna try small ways of honoring my own humanity. I think there's real wisdom in that, just noticing in that awareness and that attunement.

Alison I do think healing often comes in those micro. Movements that eventually might [00:51:00] lead to a major breakthrough or a major leave or a major. But it's starting right where you are. Just honoring even just inside of yourself or to one other safe person. I recently was with a handful of all Christians, new people.

I didn't know them. And one of the things that surprised me outta my own journey in this is what felt healthy to me. It is still a little bit like, wow, this is so healthy that I have to recalibrate it. But in my body, what feels like health is. Gosh, there was differences. People weren't self-censoring.

Different people, I could tell were coming from different denominations, different church backgrounds had different ideas about what's happening. Nobody was defaulting to easy labels. Everything was really nuanced and it was so interesting 'cause we had so much fun. We were laughing. I found myself being myself.

Maybe not unlike that group of people you encountered in Rwanda where you're just like. Gosh, what a delightful group of people. And then later going, I don't know where any of these people stand on any of these things. I just know, right? [00:52:00]  that everybody was being real and I felt safe, and we could say things and we could have real conversation and we could dig in.

And so you can kind of back your way into health and be like, wow, that I think is what health is. Because I think sometimes when we know what we're. Aiming for it can help us find it. What gives you hope today and how do you conceptualize a healthy spiritual system?

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah, I mean, at the core, I imagine health as like you knowing and the depth of your being that you are beloved to God and that you can rest in that promise, that there's literally nothing you could do.

No power. That could separate you from that. Love that there's just some sense of like that is the truth. And yeah, I mean, a healthy spirituality to me really just feels mature when I think about development. It feels like there's [00:53:00] enough secure attachment for people in their relationship with God.

There's enough sense of feeling at home in your body, in yourself, that again, it's not the absence of activation or triggering, right? Like we know that healing from trauma is not, oh, we exile these parts of us, that they go away. It's like we radically welcome them in to where we just have a lot more choice when we get activated.

We have resources to tend, we have a capacity to come back. Into our prefrontal cortex and make decisions to have choice to have agency that we could listen to someone. We could say, oh, there's a lot of wisdom here. I'm gonna take this in. But if they bring things that we don't align with or agree with, we can say, Hmm, I'm gonna hold that.

I don't have to like throw it out, but I don't have to also like take everything in as like straight from the voice of God. So again, like a. A restoration of, or maybe even a development for the first time, right. A [00:54:00] capacity to critically think and to discern what your meant. You know, Aundi Kolber, I love how she says, take what you need because implied in that is like, and leave what you don't.

And I think some sense of being able to do that in spiritual environments and religious environments. For me is a part of what health and what we're meant for.

Alison Yeah, and back to your point about practicing, that's where if you're in a new environment, practice, put out a little breadcrumb to see what happens before you've dove into commitment.

You know, what happens if you say, I'm not sure about that, or I think about it a little differently. And again, that takes some core strength, but to see how that is responded to. Is that kind of way of showing up honored in that setting?

Rachael Clinton Chen Yeah. And how are power structures negotiated? Is there a transparency?

Is there a commitment to transformation and healing? Are there processes for repair when things don't go well? Because we are human and they won't always go perfectly are questions [00:55:00] welcome? You know, for me, Micah six, eight will forever be a rubric. Like, are we doing justice? Are we loving mercy? And is there a sense of humility?

And that's a more high level kind of philosophical frame, but I think for me, ultimately that is a measure of like, is this a healthy enough spiritual environment, theology or relationship?

Alison That's beautifully stated, Rachel, toward that end, boy, I just feel like you and I swim in so many of the same waters.

I feel like I could just have this conversation with you forever. You've got some really neat, really cool, and we talked about it at the top of the episode, but just tell people how to find more about what you guys are doing in this area for folks to help resource folks.

Rachael Clinton Chen We are, you know, you could find us theallendercenter.org, but we've really been trying to build out some spiritual abuse resources.

So we have some webinars that you can access. We have an online course that really was my love letter to like, how can I get a team of seasoned people who are also survivors to [00:56:00] together to provide a bunch of resources for people who wanna move at their own pace, in their own time? With reflection questions, with a robust resource guide, which you are a part of.

There are so many people committed to creating healing context, and so just wanting people to feel less alone. We have some workshops where you can come do some story work in person. There's also trainings if you're kind of finding like, oh, I wanna actually be more trauma informed. Obviously we have our own podcasts.

We've done some episodes, so you can find all of that . But mostly I'm just grateful to be a part of a larger community, committed to this work for various forms of harm. And what I find with healing is that healing from abuse is healing from abuse. Healing from trauma is healing from trauma, and we can pull and borrow from resources tending to really nuance particular things.

Alison So, so grateful for you and your work, and it's been such a. [00:57:00] Delights to talk with you. You're just a delight. It's about a really hard topic. I know, and that's what I love about what you're saying. There's so much joy in your presence and I love just that I'm a pastor at heart. You just Right. That was one of the first thing, and I feel that delight coming out of you and.

I'm just so grateful that you stayed true to how God made you, and now look at you creating all of these resources for people. I love what you guys are doing over there, and thank you for giving us so much of your time today. Rachel.

OUTRO

Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of The Best of You, it would mean so much If you take a moment to subscribe, you can go to Apple, Spotify, Amazon music, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and click the plus or follow button that will ensure you don't miss an episode, and it helps get the word out to others while you're there.

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