Letters to and from an abuser, ten years later

[Ezekiel34]

Sorry for breaking in like that, I post only two or three times in a year... and when I finally think of an answer to something I read, discussion has already moved on to another topic.

But there is something "hot" now I am into. My traumatic experiences date from ten years ago. Thanks to God, it was possible to resolve things in peace with many of the leaders involved, and several recognized their earlier mistakes. There are also two or three I had definitely to break relationships with them. But there are still some of them with whom relationships are not clear - no peace, but no clear break neither. Finally, thanks to God, I found now a pastor who witnessed much of what had happened, and who is willing to accompany me as a witness when talking to these leaders. (I will call him pastor Z. from now on.) I am looking forward with peace to almost all of these conversations - except one. This is with the former senior pastor of my home church.

I am posting here the letters that went to and back, for three reasons:

1. It might encourage some of you as an example how things could be expressed.

2. It might encourage some of you to post suggestions how I could do or express some things better than I do now. (I am writing from my present stage of healing, which is not perfect yet.)

3. Some of you might feel praying for me as I am waiting for the answer to the last of these letters.

Some details of my underlying story are mentioned in the last letter. (NEXT THREAD! This forum did not accept my whole post as a whole!) If you are interested to read my whole story, have a look at:
http://www.altisimo.net/ovejas/en/personal.htm

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(July 1998 - this was 4 years after the events)

Dear pastor A,

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

(...) Short ago I learned that you are in (medical) recovery, so I do not want to interrupt you longer than necessary. But I do not know if it will be possible to meet you personally. Therefore, I am sending you again a copy of the letter of the Peruvian churches. You will remember that in 1994, a letter from Peru which supposedly expressed the opinion of the Peruvian leaders, led to your decision to withdraw from me all support from the church. The Peruvian leaders have now revoked that letter, as you see in the attachment. In case you have more questions, pastor Z. will be able to answer them.

If you are willing, in consequence of this information, to talk about a redefinition of the relationship between your church and my person, please inform me. (...)

I wish you a good recovery and God's blessing.

With kind regards,

Ezekiel.

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[i](Note: Pastor Z. is a missionary who knew about my situation and understood what happened, but did then not support me openly for fear of the other leaders.)[i]

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Answer (August 1998):

Dear Ezekiel,

thank you for your letter and the good wishes.

I am suspended froom work until end of September, so it will be difficult to meet.

From my part, there is nothing to define. If you still regard yourself as a member of the church, you are kindly welcome. I suppose you visited already the church in the meantime, although I did not see you last Sunday.

(...)

With kind regards and God's blessing,


pastor A.

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[i](Note: What happened short after this letter, is described in the last letter. In the following years I learned also from the denomination's newsletter, that the national leadership was beginning to work on issues of spiritual abuse. This encouraged me to bring this issue up again in my church when I returned last month, after six years of uninterrupted ministry in Peru. Pastor A. is retired now, but he still preaches sometimes.)[i]

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(October 2004)

Dear pastor A,

since I am in the country now, I would like to talk with you, in order to clear our personal relationship, if possible. Pastor Z. declared his willingness to be present in this conversation as a witness. He suggested that also pastor C. should be present.
(...) Could you suggest some dates, so we can find one when we all have time?

With kind regards,

Ezekiel

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[i](Note: Pastor C. was as a missionary responsible for my expulsion, but he later changed his mind completely and we were able to reconcile.)[i]

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Answer (October 2004):

Dear Ezekiel,

be kindly greeted.

Your lines I received yesterday, astonish me quite a bit.
We have always had very little contact, and I do not know anything about personal problems between us.
If "clearing our personal relationship" is helpful for you, I am willing. But the Biblical way is to do this personally (Matth.18:15-17). If after that you would still not have peace, then the Biblical way is open for you and I would go it with you.
Before meeting between us two, I ask you to inform me in writing about the points which are important to you, since I am often not reachable by phone.

United in Jesus' love,

pastor A.

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(Next and last letter follows in Thread 2, it was not possible to post all together....)

[ex-shep]

I am sorry to read of your post. I did glance at your website. Good job!! I am aware of the group and I heard of those who were badly abused at the hands of the leadership and some suspect theology.

I have to get ready for work. I do pray for the best recovey the Lord could offer. You deserve it.

[Ezekiel34]

Thank you very much for your post, ex-shep. Many, many blessings for you too!

It just occurred to me that I should post my last letter to pastor A. in this same thread, for avoiding confusion... so here it is (the previous letters are in the first post of this thread):

My last letter (yesterday, waiting for answer now):

Dear pastor A,

Your lines do no less astonish me than mine do astonish you. Although I can understand that memory weakens with increasing age; and also, that the stronger one is not always fully aware of the instances when he tramples the weaker one under his feet; I am still astonished that you should no longer have any memory of your former behavior towards me. For me, still suffering from the long-term consequences, the perspective is of course different.

In 1993, the elders and pastors of that time sent me unanimously as a missionary candidate to Peru. (Note: Pastor A. was not yet in that church at that time.) One year later, I was expelled from the mission because of false accusations. Pastor B, the leader of the Missions Department of the local church at that time, withdrew then also every support from me, without investigating the accusations against me. Then certain members of the mission in Peru put pressure on the leaders of the Peruvian church (who where very dependant on the missionaries, both psychologically and financially), to expel me also from their church. – All this falls under the term „Spiritual Abuse“, as it has been defined very accurately by Jeff Van Vonderen and others.

That was the situation when I contacted you. I hoped that you, as the senior pastor at that time, would investigate the situation in an unbiased way, find out the truth, and accordingly judge in a just manner. But you did not do this:
- You took from the beginning the side of the mission and based your judgement only on their (false) statements about my person.
- When I asked you to hear the leaders of the Peruvian church as witnesses and take into account their statements, you answered: „I am not interested in the opinions of Peruvians.“
- You allowed silently (and therefore supported) leaders under your leadership to abuse their power.

In a last personal conversation with you, I did no longer ask for a just judgment, but simply for the permission of leaving the church with a written statement that we are separating in peace. But you denied me even this; i.e. you first denied me the spiritual covering of my own church, and then denied me also the possibility of finding help from another church. (This is another mark of spiritual abuse, that members are considered as „property“ and they are denied the possibility of looking for help from people outside the leader’s sphere of power; or they are made feel guilty when they do it. – This means of course also, that since then we are personally no longer in peace with each other.)

You said then: „I cannot give you my blessing“, and you expressed that without this blessing I would experience failure, both personally and in ministry. This was another abuse of your leadership position; psychologically it was manipulation, and spiritually it was a curse you spoke against me and my ministry.

(Note: In spite of that curse and the church’s denial of support, I was able to return soon to Peru and to slowly begin a new ministry.)

In 1998, several incorrect actions committed by the mission were discovered, and the Peruvian leadership of the churches got their due authority back. In consequence, the involved leaders revoked their former letter against me, and declared in writing that that former letter had been the result of pressure from the mission. I sent you this clarifying letter, asking at the same time for a conversation about redefining my relationship with your church. You were still the senior pastor. You denied with the words: „From my part, there is nothing to redefine.“
Some weeks later, pastor B. contacted me on his own; he recognized that his earlier decision about me had been a mistake, and revoked it. (Note: He was still leader of the Missions Department). Thanks to this initiative of pastor B, I can now feel in peace with him and with the church in general. From your part, however, I never received any sign of willingness to talk, even less of acceptance.

So, what I would expect from you, is that you at least would revoke the curses resp. „negative prophecies“ you spoke against me, so we can return to a brotherly relationship. I would of course be glad If you were also willing to change your opinion on some of the other points mentioned.

With these lines I have answered to your first petition, which was informing you about the points which should be cleared.

Your second petition, a conversation under four eyes, I must deny. Such a conversation has already taken place, in 1994, with the unpleasant outcome I described above. Please understand that I will not take this risk again. According to Matthew 18, the second step must now follow, which is a conversation before witnesses.

I would like to add here that in cases of abuse, the victim is always in need of protection. Therefore, from considerations of counselling and care, even the first conversation should take place before witnesses. (In the same way as it is not proper to have a victim of rape talk with her abuser under four eyes.) Sadly, your letter is still speaking the language of abuse (for which I was forced to develop a skilled ear in the meantime). I would like to paraphrase your statements, in the way they reach my understanding:

„Dear Ezekiel, I want you to do things in the Biblical way. Since I am the leader, I define what exactly is the Biblical way in a given situation. If you do not accept this, you are rebelling against me, and therefore against God, since I am God’s representative. I do not like our problem to be exposed before witnesses, since this is uneasy for me and I prefer to maintain an appearance of peace towards the outside. If you still want to talk, then I would like to have first an opportunity of working personally upon you, so you will be less rebellious. I want an opportunity of convincing you that in reality there is no problem, but that just you with your talk about „clearing relationships“ are causing a problem. If you are against my suggestion, then I will simply prove you wrong by the fact that you are not doing things the Biblical way.“

For the mentioned reasons, I maintain that our conversation must include pastor Z. as a witness.

With kind regards,

Ezekiel

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Note: It may be possible (although not very probable) that I am over-interpreting pastor A's letter. Therefore I qualified my statement with "in the way they reach my understanding". Even though, I felt necessary to "decode" this "coded" language very directly - especially for pastor Z. (who got a copy) to open his eyes for the "game" which was being played.

Now I am waiting if pastor A. keeps refusing to talk with witnesses...

[Doug64]

Hi Ezekiel:

If pastor A refuses to meet with you and a witness, it seems to me he is resisting any type of reconciliation. His comment that He is a representative of God, and therefore if you don't see things his way you are rebelling against God is a classic cultish practice of control.

Hope you get a favorable answer.

Doug :cool:

[Florence]

I looked over your web site this morning and wanted to thank you for putting your experience, insight, and information out there. When I went through the abuse at my first church, very few people even had home computers so if it hadn't been for "The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse" I would have had nothing to keep a grip on my sanity.

Reading through Chapter 3, I was able to see so much of myself over the past few years as I went through some difficult experiences at my church now. I could see how in my already-beaten-down state, my wounds kept being opened afresh - all those rules but in a more subtle manner than my earlier church: don't talk; if you point out the problem, you are the problem; grow some thicker skin; you aren't worthy, etc. And the results - being afraid to trust, needing to be perfect, avoiding personal interaction (I can say anything in an email, but I turn into a frightened mouse when I am approached personally), being critical, and making vows that keep me from being able to experience true healing.

One of my vows over the past couple of weeks has been to not initiate communication between me and the senior pastor. I am contemplating whether I should continue to make an effort to communicate, to try to help him understand what he and his people are doing to people me and others. I so do not want what I see and have experienced that echoes of the abuse I suffered at my previous church to continue to escalate and to hurt others. I so want to discover that the senior pastor's heart is truly pure and that he has made these mistakes out of ignorance. I know that if I continue to pursue this and it truly is an abusive situation, I am taking a huge risk that will probably not end well for me.

I wonder if these promptings to speak up are from God - not letting the 'can't talk' rule get in the way, not allowing the very thing that could help bring healing - loving communication - to be thwarted by fear. In my other church, it wouldn't have mattered what I did or did not do - it would have been seen as the wrong thing. So, trying to decide what is right this time is so hard - because it could be that nothing that I do will be the right thing here as well.

Why is it that I feel that I am always the one who is trying to do the right thing, make the first move, offer grace? Why can't, just once, someone else say, "Hey, let's talk - let's reconcile - let's find healing together"? Just once . . .

[Ezekiel34]

Florence,

you hit a point here I feel prompted to answer: Decision making was a trouble for me for a long time. I had to practise a lot before I discovered slowly what was really "me" (my preferences, my wishes, my needs). I would suggest that you practise decision making first in areas of lesser importance (what clothes to buy, what to do in your spare time, etc.), before you get to decisions which will affect you more personally. Just a thought. God bless you!

Ezekiel