Book Review: In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse in Christian Churches

Book Review: In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse in Christian Churches by Kenneth Garrett

In the House of Friends Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse in Christian Churches

    Is the church safe? If it isn’t, what would make church safe? Kenneth Garrett seeks to answer those questions in his book, In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse in Christian Churches.
    Garret describes through a conversation that just because a church is doctrinally orthodox in its stated beliefs, that it cannot also be a cult, or in Garret’s terminology, an abusive church. The term “cult” can and has been overused in modern society to (rightly) describe a wide variety of heretical and oppressive organizations. In his definition of a cult/abusive church, Garret writes, “[Cult] is powerful but poorly defined, and, in the minds of many, never to be suggested of a Christian church.”[1] A cult has historically been defined as an organization or a group that does not hold to an historical and biblical understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Garrett pushes the definitional boundaries to include organizations and groups that sounds great from a doctrinal perspective, but inwardly devour the weak sheep in their midst.
Garrett continues by describing five instances of spiritual abuse recorded in Scripture: Hophni and Phineas in 1 Samuel 3; David in 2 Samuel 11; Yahweh condemning corrupt Israelite leadership in Ezekiel 34; Jesus condemning the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23; and the Apostle Paul and his writings in the Pastoral Epistles to Timothy and Titus.
    When reading the above accounts in light of the concept of spiritual abuse (taking advantage of another    individual or group under the guise of spiritual authority), one can immediately see how this problem of spiritual abuse in the Christian context is not a new phenomenon. In fact, one being taken advantage of another for their own twisted, evil ends goes as far back as the serpent’s temptation of Adam and Eve in Eden.
    Garrett describes “the most powerful tool of the spiritual abuser—a tool that becomes a weapon used against the members of his church: his speech.”[2] Garrett writes, “We are often fixated on the horrible things we hear of religious phonies doing…however, not every type of spiritual abuser misbehaves or indulges in the more sensual types of sin. Some lead very disciplined, outwardly moral lives while they rule over those who follow them with an iron fist.”[3] For abuse to happen, there must be a power differential between the abuser and the abused, and abuse generally comes from a pastor or someone else in spiritual authority in the church. Garrett lists out “three solid indicators of predatory pastors: their mindset, their speech, and their extraction of material, physical, and spiritual resources from those who follow them.”[4]
    OK, so now what? How does one heal from a traumatic spiritual experience? Garrett writes, “I believe recovery from spiritual abuse—and all of its torturous subcategories of abuse, is more an issue of choosing what to undo than it is trying to figure out what to do.”[5] Garrett offers three helpful actions to aid the healing process: “empathetic friends, kindness to self, and exploration of solid, fact-based teaching on spiritual abuse—are three powerful resources that can start the healing process within hours of your leaving the abusive church.”[6] For this reviewer, all three of those steps have been a source of grace and peace from God. It can feel a bit obsessive to always have spiritual abuse on the brain, but knowing what spiritual abuse is and giving oneself grace in a community of understanding friendship is healing.
For churches that desire to be refugee camps for those leaving abusive churches, Garrett offers some advice for ministering to survivors. “Survivors of abusive churches and pastors struggle with overwhelming, gnawing feelings of isolation, loneliness, insecurity, lack of confidence, embarrassment, indecisiveness, and a host of other emotional maladies.”[7] Survivors of spiritual abuse have crises of faith, wounded souls, marriage and parenting wounds, all of which make a maelstrom of doubt and despair that can make it easy to ignore the wounded. One of the more controversial points, but in the opinion of this reviewer correct, that Garrett makes is as follows:

    It is critical that survivors of abusive churches be shown gracious acceptance should they choose to stop
    attending church services, refuse to become a member of a church, or stop identifying as Christian. (If that
    last point seems excessive, inappropriate, or simply unfaithful, then you may not be grasping the
    depth of the pain and loss that those who have been abused in the church have experienced.)[8]
 
    In all of this, God’s grace for the hurting can shine brightly through a loving, accepting church. There will likely be fallout from leaving an abusive church or pastor. It may result in loss of faith altogether, but God’s grace is greater, there is hope for the hurting.
    Along the same lines, Garrett writes to pastors who want to be safe, tying safety in a pastor (shepherd) with how well they emulate Jesus as the Great Shepherd.

    Most pastors feel they are ill equipped to respond to the needs of the survivors of abusive churches. Aside
    from the broad discussion of those religious groups historically deemed cults by orthodox, evangelical
    Christianity, seminaries do   not provide extensive training in how to address the phenomenon of churches
    that abuse their members with a cultish fanaticism and arrogance. But just as  the proper care of a
    physical wound is necessary for successful healing and recovery, a proper response to the wounds of the
    survivors of spiritual abuse have experienced is indispensable.[9]
 
    Garrett calls believers in all walks of life to care for those hurt in the name of Christ. How glorious would it be if those who claimed to follow Christ lived like they believed they were? We have prayed for revival in Western Christianity, maybe the exposure of sin and the opportunity to lament and repent from it are a gift from God.
    Overall, In the House of Friends is a helpful and encouraging book for both those who have endured and survived abusive spiritual organizations and those who seek to love and help those survivors. Kenneth Garrett has provided the church a helpful guide for not only escaping abusive churches but also helping those escaping. The book is highly recommended for members who suspect they are in an abusive church, pastors, church members and leaders, and friends and family of abuse survivors.


[1] Kenneth J. Garrett, In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse
 in Christian Churches, (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2020), 4.

[2] Garrett, 12.

[3] Ibid., 15.

[4] Ibid., 15.

[5] Ibid., 57.

[6] Ibid., 62.

[7] Ibid., 70.

[8] Ibid., 71.

[9] Ibid., 81.

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