The purpose of coercive control, aka abuse, is to intimidate, humiliate, exploit, isolate, control a partner, gain power over a partner, dominate and manipulate.
There are 12 tactics that fall under the umbrella of coercive control. Intimidation, isolation, emotional abuse, threats, using children, financial/economic, using male privilege, minimizing, denying, blaming, non-physical sexual abuse, control, spiritual abuse, physical and sexual abuse.
I want to look at spiritual abuse. Spiritual abuse may be exacted by a believer as well as a non-believer. You may be surprised to hear that the percentages of women being abused in the general population is the same as the percentages of women being abused in the church.
There are five ways coercive control might be executed in the spiritual sense. The first is using the spouse’s or intimate partner’s religious or spiritual beliefs to manipulate them. Sometimes, abusers twist bible verses to make it look like the bible verse supports their poor behavior saying things like marriage is forever, divorce is a sin, or the woman is supposed to submit to her husband.
The second way is by preventing the spouse/partner from practicing their religious or spiritual beliefs. In my case, my abuser first tried coming up with excuses as to why we couldn’t go to church, then he tried to give me alternatives of things to do rather than go to church. Things escalated when the “nice” attempts failed and he would begin fights related to church saying things like, “They are trying to tell me how to be a father and I don’t need anyone telling me that”. Eventually when the previous things didn’t work, he killed my two baby kittens while I was away at church by throwing them against the concrete wall of our garage and smashing in their skulls. When I returned home, he told me in detail about what "I had made him do" by leaving him at home alone, while I went to church.
The third way is by ridiculing the other person’s religious or spiritual beliefs. This may be done by making comments like believing in God is a crutch for the weak minded or referring to you as a sheep or brainwashed.
The fourth way is by forcing the children to be reared in a faith that the partner has not agreed to. They may also not allow your children to be raised in the faith that you feel they should. For example, you may want to raise your children up, going to a Christian church and your partner may instead take them to a Muslim mosque. You may want to raise them up in the Jewish faith, but your partner insists on taking them to Catholic mass. This may be done completely as a way to control what the abuser believes is their posessions/family and not because of a deep held religious belief.
The fifth way of coercively controlling a partner through spiritual abuse is through undermining relationships with the people connected to his/her spiritual community. This could be done by going to the spiritual leader in your faith and telling him lies about you and what you are doing, making them think you are the problem and predisposing them to not believing you if you should ever seek out help from them.
In a relationship, these things often happen so subtly that you don’t realize you are being manipulated. You just slowly begin doubting your own beliefs and thoughts on the matter of what a relationship should be. You may stay somewhere you don’t want to be, for fear of retribution or for fear of failing God. Rest assured, God hates oppression/abuse. There are countless verses in the bible speaking against oppression. Psalm 103:6 says, “The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.” God is also referred to as a loving father. What loving father would want their child to be abused? For years, I thought I could not leave my abusive marriage, because it would be a sin. Somehow over the years I had come to believe that God created the institution of marriage and if you were to divorce, you were dishonoring a vow you made before God and were effectively destroying God’s holy institution. Recently someone put it in words so clear that I couldn’t figure out how it had ever become so twisted in my mind. I was told, “God loves the person more than the institution.” God loves his child more than the marriage. God loves you more than a vow you made with an oppressor. God does not want you to be abused.