NOM

This is full of great insights:

http://geekychristian.com/spiritual-abuse/

Here's something I hadn't thought of before:

Insecurity is dangerous thing for a senior pastor.  Insecure leaders typically build a protective structure around themselves to keep themselves safe.  These “yes men” uncritically support their leader.  Those who question, refuse to support the pastor’s needs, or pose a threat to the pastor’s leadership are marginalized within the leadership structure—or placed at the “bottom of the list.”  These pastors are under the delusion that they are doing the right thing—and even believe they have accountability to ensure they stay on track.  But in reality they are inflicting pain and misery on those at the bottom of the pastor’s “list.”  Through the fear of marginalization they train others within the organization to conform to the pastor’s abusive system.

In particular, I'd never thought of ideas like "he who the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies" as enabling abuse, or thought of the lay ministry as enabling it via insecurity. But the above describes the authority structure of the LDS church and some of its effects so well that the author might as well have arrived at these conclusions by studying it.

First, there was coming to the conclusion that, given the fact that domestic violence can result in hospitalization and death, it's immoral to let those situations be mishandled because the married party just happened to have "one of those bishops". This has been happening for a very long time. I think the top brass know they could and should do better, but they don't.

Then comes looking at the whole situation of our doctrine and what is found in our scriptures and one realizes this church is, in fact, abusive. There are doctrines that support, nurture and outright enable (if not teach) it. It's a shocking thing when that dam breaks and one realizes that this church not only doesn't condemn abuse in any form, but actually utlizes and embraces it.

It's a rude, rude shock.