An Open Letter to The Gospel Coalition and Trevin Wax

The broken eggshell of a civilization which time has hatched and devoured

If you haven’t read the TGC article, go HERE and read it.

While this is an open letter to TGC and Trevin, I will direct it toward Trevin.

Hi Trevin,

I’d like to start by acknowledging your impressive resume. You’ve written quite a bit and for some really impressive outlets. Your accolades seem to indicate you’re good at what you do. On a macro level, I’ll likely never occupy a platform similar to yours. Ultimately, I’m unimportant and unnoticeable in the circles of influence you occupy. However, on a micro level, I occupy a space very much in the center of what it seems that you’re trying to address in your article: a person’s decision to walk away from “the church.”

Let me introduce myself. My name is Bruce Pagano. I’m a licensed clinical professional counselor (LCPC) and a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional (CCTP), who has chosen to focus my expertise on spiritual harm and religious trauma. Additionally, I have been a pastor on staff at a number of churches and did some pastoral care and “counseling” for several years prior to becoming licensed. My decision to focus on spiritual harm and abuse is largely based on the time I spent in these two roles and my own experience with spiritual harm.

I would like to acknowledge the commitment I see in your writing to Christ and His bride. It seems clear that you’re trying to put words to and make sense of a phenomenon that seems to be plaguing our Christian institutions, specifically the dechurching of America.

With that said, it seems as though, in writing your article, you have conflated the modern model of the institutionalized church organization with the historical record of the gathered Christians called the Church. Throughout the article, you seem to interchange those conceptions of church with little acknowledgment of the differences that exist between early church gatherings and the modern American expression that we see today. I think it was Richard Rohr who said, “Christianity was originally offered in Israel as an experience, moved to Greece and became a philosophy, moved to Rome and became organized religion, moved to Europe and became a culture, and then moved to America and became a business.”

As I read your article, I found myself wondering whether you have known and/or sat with many people who have left church because of the abuse and harm that they either directly experienced or saw in the system. I think you get it partially right when you say, “There may never be a conscious choice to ‘walk away.’” I say partially because eventually, for many, it is a conscious, often excruciatingly difficult, decision.

The other statement I think you get right, but for different reasons than you note, is “…dechurching is the result of personal choices extended over time.” Often, a person’s decision to leave church only happens after years of numerous personal choices. Those choices involve decisions to believe the best in their leadership because “they’re a man of God.” It involves the weighing of the loss of important, often longstanding, relationships and friendships. It involves deciding to stay for their children’s involvement despite adult teachings that don’t always seem in line with what it means to follow Christ. It involves the decision to ignore your gut feeling because we lean not on our own understanding and instead decide to lean on the understanding of the church leader. It often involves the decision to hope for and believe the best about the organizations despite evidence to the contrary.

Sometimes it involves trying just “one more church,” because surely it’s a bug in that specific church structure and not a feature of the model. And then one day, you can’t ignore your own hurt or the hurt you see others enduring anymore. You can no longer continue to sear your own conscience by trading what seems like a clear division between what Christ teaches and what you see in the organization that claims to be His bride.

Over and above all that, your comment that confirms to me that you either don’t talk with dechurched people or don’t fully understand spiritual harm and abuse is, “But most of today’s dechurching is the result of our wayward hearts, not church leader scandals.” I’ll give you that people aren’t leaving because they see all of the “church leader scandals,” but that comment leads me to assume that you grossly misunderstand the subjective nature of spiritual harm and religious trauma. For you to speak so broadly and flippantly about the “waywardness” of a person’s heart who has experienced legitimate hurt at the hands of a religious leader and their institution is offensive to me both personally and professionally. You can not define or dictate the reality of a person’s experience. The moment you do, you lose the credibility to speak in that space.

We are not hearing more about church scandals because “people seek to justify their decision to leave.” We hear more about it because people are gaining the courage to acknowledge their own hurt and call to account those leaders who run the organizations that are supposed to represent Jesus. We’re also hearing more about those cases because people are done being complicit by being silent.

The recent dechurching is not exclusively evidence of people’s desire to simply not go to church or even a representation of their “individualistic context.” Instead, it seems to be a sweeping indictment that the single-leader church model is vulgarly flawed and continues to be a vehicle for abuse and harm, from the 30,000-person megachurch to the 12-person country church. People often leave to cling more tightly to Jesus and look for smaller, more intimate, and safer gatherings.

I would encourage you to reconsider many of your broad, sweeping statements about the people’s reasons for leaving. Maybe spend some time talking to people who have left and seek personal stories. If I could be so bold, it may also be helpful if you delineated between the institution that is the 501c3 organization and a group of people who are gathered around Jesus.

Kind regards, Bruce

Spiritual Warfare is Not Culture Warring

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For Christians today, navigating the various interpretations of scripture can be a challenging task. One idea that’s gained momentum lately is the notion of “spiritual warfare” as a rallying cry for engaging in a culture war. The thought is that we must battle against those with whom we disagree on cultural and political matters. However, it’s crucial to scrutinize this interpretation in light of the teachings of the Apostle Paul. Paul never urged us to fight against people, even those we believe have power. Instead, we must understand that our actual struggle is against the evil and demonic forces that try to sidetrack us from caring for the most vulnerable members of society.

War! What is it Good For

As Christians, we must clearly understand what “spiritual warfare” means. Essentially, it refers to the battle between good and evil in the spiritual realm, which can manifest in various ways in the physical world. However, some Christians mistakenly view this as a battle against their cultural and political “enemies,” which goes against the teachings of Jesus.

This interpretation of spiritual warfare is problematic because it equates the fight against evil with a fight against people who have different opinions. This leads to a self-righteous attitude that is contrary to the teachings of Jesus. Instead, the Apostle Paul urges us to struggle against the evil forces that tempt us to ignore the needs of society’s most vulnerable members.

Paul recognized that the battle against evil is not a physical one but a spiritual one. As he says in Ephesians 6:12, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

In other words, our battle is not against other people but against the spiritual forces that seek to distract us from our mission to care for others. This mission is at the heart of Jesus’s teachings. He frequently emphasized the importance of caring for the poor, the sick, and the marginalized. So let us focus our efforts on battling against the spiritual forces of evil and fulfilling our mission to care for others, just as Jesus taught us to do.



I’m on a Mission from God

As Christians, we must remember that our mission is to follow in Jesus’s footsteps, not engage in a culture war against other people. When we focus on fighting others, we become self-centered and self-righteous, losing sight of the love-driven service that Jesus taught. Jesus emphasizes in Mark 10:43-45 that to be great, we must serve all in the same way that He came to serve.

When we engage in a culture war, we put our will before the needs of others, which is the opposite of true Christianity. The reality is that we are committing a form of spiritual violence that is antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.

Instead, we must resist the temptation to engage in a culture war and direct our energy toward the battle against evil. We must recognize that our struggle is not against other people but against the spiritual forces of evil that distract us from caring for society’s most vulnerable members. We must resist self-centeredness and self-righteousness and strive to follow in Jesus’s footsteps by serving others with love.

Looking Like Jesus

If we genuinely desire to follow Jesus, it is essential to remember that interpreting “spiritual warfare” as a call to engage in a culture war against those who disagree with us is, at a minimum, misguided. Our real battle is against the forces of evil that distract us from caring for those whom Jesus identifies with. By resisting engagement in a culture war and focusing on loving and serving others, we come closer to resembling Jesus and honoring God.

Paul challenges us to fight the good fight of faith and finish the race set before us with our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:1-2). As Christians, our ultimate goal is not to win an earthly battle but to see God’s will done on earth as it is in Heaven, as Jesus invited us to do.

Spiritual Grooming: Culture that Enables Spiritual Harm & Abuse – Pt. 3

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This is part three in a three-part series on spiritual grooming, harm, and abuse. You can read parts one HERE and two HERE.

People Hurt Them, Not the Church

By this post, you might think, “It was people who hurt them, not the church.” That language is the fruit of the teaching I’m talking about. That phrase reveals a lack of accountability by the people involved in the abuse. It also reveals the congregation’s refusal to hold the leader(s) involved accountable. Because the church represents God, when people in the church hurt someone, the church is directly hurting that person. Let’s assume that saying suggests that “People hurt them, not God.” While that’s true, the person experiencing the abuse has likely been taught not to question their “spiritual authority.” Or that they are incapable of understanding or interpreting scripture on their own.

In that setting, it is easy for a victim to connect a pastor’s words and actions to those of God. Because of that, it’s excruciatingly disorienting for a spiritual leader to teach about God (His love, mercy, gentleness, goodness, confession, repentance, etc.) and then continually violate his teaching. This contradiction makes it even more difficult for the victim to believe they should speak up, let alone report, what they initially understood as spiritual abuse or harm. Sadly, it’s common for those who are hurt and victimized to distrust the validity of God and Christianity. This distrust can significantly complicate their healing process. 

Leaders, Stop the “Grooming”

So, what do we, as a Church, do about this? Firstly, Christian leaders and pastors must stop dismissing the demonization of entire groups of people. That begins with correcting church members who misuse terms like grooming based on their own fear, hate, and disgust. Failing to do so makes those leaders complicit in the hate and violence directed toward the Queer community. While there is no single answer, this is a leadership issue and must be acknowledged and addressed at that level. As a licensed counselor, previous pastor, and current leader in a small missional movement gathering, I’ve had the opportunity to consider this issue from various perspectives. 

A Way Forward

Healthy Conflict

From a counseling and mental health perspective, leaders need to engage in conflict in a way that repairs and resolves. I work with many couples, none of whom like having conflict in their marriage. Regardless of varying comfort levels and willingness to engage in conflict resolution, I never teach couples how to avoid it. Instead, I help them form new habits for managing conflict and how to repair it when it escalates. Pastors/leaders need to seek out and learn new tools and languages for handling conflict. This will enable them to approach congregants who misuse terms like grooming in a way that maintains relationships, promotes positive spiritual growth, and seeks healthy resolution. It may also be beneficial to consider embracing a trauma-informed approach to ministry. This will help create an environment aimed at caring for people at every level of the church.

Responsibility

From a pastoral perspective, speaking the language of responsibility is a great place to start. I once attended a marriage conference where one of the speaking pastors, with his wife sitting next to him, made a comment that compared his pet dog to his wife. He differentiated them by saying, “there’s only one thing I can do with my wife that I can’t with my dog.” He was talking about sex. The comment and session were so offensive that another pastor’s wife got up and walked out of the room. I did speak to the lead pastor of the hosting church, voicing my anger, disgust, and disappointment about the session. Later I found out that others spoke with him as well. I was hopeful that it would be addressed to the congregation or even just to those in attendance. The pastor never said a word; no email, no announcement, nothing.

All I could think about was the compounding damage that a message like that would have on those in attendance. I thought about newly married couples, wives who already struggled with the restraining and traumatizing culture of “duty/obligation” sex, and men who wrestled with communicating their desires in a way that honored their wives. Was the disgusting thing the pastor said the fault of the hosting pastor? It wasn’t. But could the hosting pastor have taken responsibility for inviting that pastor? Could he have corrected the toxic, damaging, and harmful teaching the visiting pastor delivered? One hundred times, yes.

Not only could he have addressed it, but he should have addressed it. And you might think that I can’t know if the leadership took appropriate action. I was a volunteer staff member of the hosting church at that time, so I know the church leadership didn’t address it. If the lead pastor had taken the opportunity to address it, he would have demonstrated openness, transparency, and the importance of responsibility and accountability in a way that communicated our church was safe. 

Team Leadership

From a leadership perspective, I’m currently participating in a small missional community church movement, and we are implementing pluralistic leadership. This leadership model differs from the single lead pastor supported by an elder board model in that it recognizes various leadership giftings in a way that brings us together in mutual submission to each other within a co-discipleship framework. There is no “boss,” and leadership team members are equal. This structure helps to ensure that a single person doesn’t rise to a place of unquestionable authority. It also relieves a single person from being the sole vision bearer and prevents padding elder boards with “yes men.”

Furthermore, the addition and prioritization of women and people of color within the leadership structure allow for differing perspectives, thereby extending the team’s ability to recognize potential harm and abuse that may or is occurring. Does that mean that the team will always remain approachable by the congregation? Not necessarily, but it extends the checks and balances further; hopefully, it also serves as a visual representation of healthy mutual submission and helps develop a mutuality practice throughout the community.

Go Ahead, Go.

Lastly, if you attend a church that doesn’t allow for questions or negative conversations, consider why those things aren’t allowed. While your leaders may not overtly prohibit you from asking questions or offering critique, these restrictions may unintentionally cultivate an environment that enables spiritual grooming and allows abuse to occur unchallenged and unquestioned. If that’s the case, and you’re dismissed or told that you “misunderstand,” you may want to consider leaving.

        While these are not the only solutions to this issue, they may be a good place to start growing your awareness about what grooming is and how particular teachings and behaviors can unintentionally be spiritual grooming and cultivate an environment that allows and enables spiritual harm, abuse, and trauma.


If you’re unsure if you’ve experienced spiritual harm or abuse, you can find more information through the research of Dan Koch and take his self-screener.

If you or someone you know has experienced spiritual harm, abuse, or religious trauma, you can find help and resources through the Reclamation Collective

This is part three in a three-part series on spiritual grooming, harm, and abuse. You can read part one HERE and two HERE.

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