By Magdalena Sanchez 
Two weeks have passed since our first entry in this series, “When faith becomes control: power, abuse, and spiritual healing.” In Blog #1, we reflected on how power can disguise itself as faith, and how certain misinterpreted theologies produce blind obedience that silences conscience and extinguishes inner freedom.
Today we continue with Blog #2, and we do so with open hearts and bare feet, because we are entering sacred and painful ground: when spiritual abuse becomes the prelude to sexual abuse.
From spiritual control to invasion of the body
Spiritual abuse rarely stops at the soul. When a person is trained—through fear, guilt, or religious dependence—not to question a leader’s authority, their will has already been weakened. That is precisely the prelude to sexual abuse: the domestication and submission of both thought and body.
Spiritual manipulation functions as a rehearsal for total domination. The abuser “tests” the victim’s limits, measuring their reactions to commands, touches, or inappropriate confidences. In the name of “pastoral care” or “spiritual direction,” invisible boundaries are crossed, boundaries that later become direct violence.
The theologian Rita Segato explains that “sexual violence is a pedagogy of cruelty” (1). That is, a process in which the body becomes a territory of domination. When faith is used as a tool of submission, the church ceases to be a refuge and becomes a training ground for fear.
The disguise of religious language
Religious power is not always imposed through shouting; it is often disguised as spirituality. The abuser uses verses, prayers, and gestures of apparent holiness to confuse the victim, presenting the abuser’s voice as if it were the voice of God.
Phrases such as “God showed me that you should trust me” or “Your obedience pleases the Lord” are examples of religious mental manipulation—manipulation that leads the victim to doubt their own spiritual discernment.
The theologian Nancy Pineda-Madrid warns that, in religious contexts marked by patriarchy, women’s suffering is spiritualized in order to make it acceptable, which normalizes violence and conceals injustice (2). More specifically, women’s suffering in religious contexts refers to a process by which pain—produced by structures of injustice—is interpreted as something willed, permitted, or even required by God. Thus, instead of recognizing suffering as a consequence of structural sin or abuse of power, it is given religious value and presented as an opportunity to grow in faith, imitate Christ, or prove obedience.
This type of discourse appears spiritual, but in reality, it serves to justify inequality and preserve the patriarchal status quo.
In this way, the female body—and sometimes the male body as well—ceases to be a temple of the Spirit and becomes an object of control. The victim’s voice, silenced in the name of obedience, loses the echo of its own “no.”
When theology becomes complicit
Not all sexual abuse occurs in darkness; some of it is incubated in full view of the altar.
Certain theologies of male power—based on literal interpretations of male authority—create structures in which submission is preached as virtue and control is blessed as leadership.
The theologian María Pilar Aquino denounces that this type of discourse produces an “androcentric and hierarchical” spirituality that dehumanizes both those who dominate and those who obey (3). When churches uncritically repeat theologies that place women in a position of “natural” subordination, they are not only teaching doctrine; they are shaping structures of inequality that enable violence.
The God who denounces, not conceals
Jesus never used faith to dominate. On the contrary, faith in his message liberated people from false intermediaries of religious power. In Matthew 18:6, he warns sternly: “If anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble… it would be better for them to have a millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” And in Luke 4:18–19, he proclaims that his mission is to “proclaim freedom for the oppressed.” The spirituality of Jesus does not demand silence in the face of abuse; it demands denunciation and justice.
In the account of Mark 5:25–34, a sick woman breaks religious rules and touches the hem of Jesus’ cloak. She does not wait for permission from the temple or from a man; she dares to claim her own healing. Jesus does not rebuke her; he publicly restores her dignity: “Daughter, your faith has saved you.” That scene remains a powerful metaphor: authentic faith does not paralyze; it moves, questions, and liberates.
Toward a pastoral practice of integral healing
Speaking about spiritual and sexual abuse within faith contexts is not an attack on the church; it is an act of loyalty to the Gospel. Healing begins when we tell the truth: that behind many cases of sexual abuse there is a prior history of spiritual manipulation, where trust was used as a weapon.
A truly Christian pastoral practice must create spaces where victims are heard, leaders are held accountable, and theology is purified of oppressive power.
As Ivone Gebara says, spiritual healing “is not forgetting, but learning to breathe again without fear” (4).
Conclusion
Spiritual abuse and sexual abuse are not separate issues; they are roots of the same tree of disordered power. As long as the church continues to confuse authority with control, and obedience with submission, it will remain complicit in the suffering of many. But when a community dares to face its shadow, to ask forgiveness, and to restore with justice, then the light of the Gospel truly shines.
References
- Rita Segato, La guerra contra las mujeres (Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños, 2016), 27.
- Nancy Pineda-Madrid, Suffering and Salvation in Ciudad Juárez (Fortress Press, 2011), 84.
- María Pilar Aquino, La teología feminista latinoamericana (Universidad Iberoamericana, 1998), 45.
- Ivone Gebara, Romper el silencio (Editorial Vozes, 2000), 62.