Diane Langberg, PhD

No one is ruined in a crisis whose moral fiber has not already been weakened in private and in the ordinary. Crisis will always reveal character.

— Oswald Chambers

Teach your church that any form of abuse is NEVER acceptable to God, no matter who does it or how important the abuser is. Call your people to holiness in all the corners of their lives.

Trained and licensed counselors with experience in this area are needed so as not to create further damage. Their role is critical. Here are some recommended resources for responding to abuse: www.dianelangberg.com/resources/

Though the church plays a vital and necessary role for those healing from abuse and trauma. So do professionals. The work of healing from the damage of abuse is difficult and often protracted. Churches often have little to no education about these matters.

Prior to a crisis, it is helpful for pastors and churches to look into local professionals with training and experience in abuse and trauma. Meeting with them and asking about their training is a wise way to care for others prior to an emergency.

“Bless the Lord, oh my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name.” Psalm 103:1

When someone is particularly gifted verbally, has a charismatic personality, and is adept with spiritual language, it is very easy for us to assume maturity. Spiritual maturity is measured by character and by the fruit of the Spirit of God in a life.

We are not called to protect our institutions, nor do we protect the God of truth by covering up sin and/or a crime. To do so is to “protect” a cancer—and cancer kills. We honor God by caring for the wounded and by dragging sin to the light and calling it by its right name.

We often trust others in positions of authority because we assume that those with knowledge, intellect, and skill MUST be trustworthy. But that is not always the case. How often have we seen that the power that comes with knowledge, intellect, and skill can be abused?

God longs for you to know deeply that He knit you together, He purposed your existence, and He has bent down, become little, known abuse, and been trashed for your sake.

He knows.

Trauma profoundly impacts our relationship with God, as He is often viewed through a powerfully distorted lens that leads to seeing Him as the evil one.

Trauma brings silence because it feels like there are no words to really describe what happened. Many times people need us to sit with them in silence. It is a way of joining with them so they are not alone in their experience of struggling to find words.

When we choose fame, size, our own comfort, or success, our preferred system—in doing so we say, “Away with Him…crucify Him, kill Him…we have no king but Caesar.” Those who said those words chose earthly power over Christ, and in doing so, they chose their master.

When someone is vulnerable, they are susceptible to attack or injury.  Whenever power is used in a way that wounds the vulnerable or that exploits trust, abuse has occurred.

Systems that cover up abuse through deception, coercion, or abuse of power mimic the perpetrator and re-victimize the victim. Many lives have been sacrificed on the altar of secrecy for the sake of the church or the mission.

Violence and abuse disconnect us from caring relationships. Telling the trauma story gives a place of caring connection that cares for the soul. Trauma recovery requires talking, and as the story is repeated over and over, strength to speak and grasp the truth grows.

Trauma stories do not first come out with a beginning, middle, and end. They come out in broken pieces, disordered and perhaps unclear.

To tolerate sin, pretense, disease, crookedness, or deviation from the truth is to do something other than the work of God, no matter the words used to describe it.

Most people need connection with a caring and patient person to help them have the courage to face the truth of what happened and how it hurt them. A companion in tragedy or difficulty always helps us have courage.

When a body is so broken that it is entirely dependent on the care of others or a mind is basically gone, we are called to give dignity to what remains, for it still houses one created in the image of God.

Self-deception works in concert with temptation so we can convince ourselves of the rightness of actions that are, in fact, wrong. We use deception to say that external circumstances justify reactions. Truth and lies become confused or even reversed.

Deception becomes systemic when we use our collective power to protect what we desire to be true rather than face the destruction and the pain that accompanies the actual truth. Deception functions as a narcotic in protecting us from seeing or feeling that which is painful to us.

We are complicit with ungodliness when we turn a blind eye, support, and protect existing perversions in the name of success or anything else. Examine the longings of the systems you belong to because they make you vulnerable to fulfillment in once unthinkable places.

Faith in God is a struggle in ordinary life. Faith in God when we have seen tragedy and trauma is a massive struggle.  But it is a good fight because it is a fight against those things that tried to destroy us and make us like themselves.

Systemic abuse occurs when a system, such as a family, a government entity, a school, a church, a religious organization, or a political group, enables the abuse of the people it purports to protect.

A toxic leader demands you “reflect back to me the image of myself as being all that I say I am and want to be. And God help you if you fail.” What a burdensome and perilous charade.

The same gifts and abilities that can make a man or woman an effective and powerful leader can hide a dangerous level of self-absorption and hidden insecurities with zero regard for anyone but themselves.

We often confuse the system of Christianity (Christendom) with Christ. But no so-called Christian system is truly God’s work unless it is full of truth and love.

Whenever the body of Christ, through denial or actual choice, ignores the sin of protecting evildoers in its midst, the entire body suffers terribly as a result.

The more vulnerable and needy we feel, the more dangerous our use of power becomes, because we are far more likely to exploit the vulnerable to feed ourselves. Compelled by their own anxieties, fears, and weaknesses, leaders often abuse the power they have been entrusted with.