Spiritual Abuse Definition Debated by UK Christians
last month, the board of Acts 29 voted to remove Steve Timmis as CEO of the global church planting network, following an investigation into his “abusive leadership.” Timmis then resigned as elder of The Crowded House, Sheffield, where he was also accused of spiritual abuse.
While there remains no legal definition of spiritual abuse, in 2018 a Church of England vicar was the first to be found guilty of it for his inappropriate actions against a teenage boy in Abingdon. This case, and that of Timmis, have caused consternation over where to draw the line between exhortation and coercion—between a challenging message and a toxic culture of control.
Oakley and Humphreys—who recently publishedEscaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse: Creating Healthy Christian Cultures—define spiritual abuse as “a form of emotional and psychological abuse … characterized by a systematic pattern of coercive and controlling...
