On spiritual manipulation, church service, and learning to tell the difference between obedience to God and pressure from people.
There is one place where the language of “gaslighting” comes up more often than many people would like to admit: religious communities.
Before I go any further, though, I want to make a few things clear.
I am not writing this to attack any particular church or denomination.
I am a Christian, though I was not raised in the faith from birth.
I believe Christianity is more than religion.
I believe Jesus Christ alone is the truth.
And I do not believe truth is something to be negotiated away for the sake of comfort.
Those are the convictions I am writing from.
When Voluntary Service Stops Feeling Voluntary
Churches have professional ministers, of course. But an enormous amount of church life is carried by ordinary people who volunteer their time, energy, gifts, and labor. There is nothing wrong with that. The problem begins when something that is supposed to be voluntary no longer feels voluntary. Encouragement is not the same thing as manipulation. A pastor or leader can ask. A community can invite. Someone can even challenge another believer to consider serving.
But there is a line.
Sometimes the message quietly shifts from: Would you be willing to serve?
to: If you were truly faithful, you would serve.
Or: If you really loved God, you would say yes.
And sometimes Christian service is framed in such a way that refusing a ministry role begins to feel like refusing God Himself. That is where something goes wrong. Because when service becomes proof of faith, people begin building a religion of achievement. And Christianity is not supposed to be about achievement. It is about being overtaken by grace.
The Problem With “Obedience”
There is another form of spiritual manipulation that I think Christians have to talk about carefully. It revolves around one word:
obedience.
We often hear some version of:
A saved believer obeys.
There is truth in that sentence.
And there is also enormous room for abuse.
Because I have questions I have often wanted to ask pastors, ministry leaders, and people in positions of spiritual authority:
Is the obedience you are asking for actually obedience to God?
Do you know God’s will clearly enough to demand that obedience from someone else?
Does another person’s willingness to obey you determine whether that person is truly saved?
I ask because I have watched too many people exhaust themselves serving far beyond what they could sustain, while carrying a strange and crushing guilt that told them they were not allowed to say no.
They were tired.
They had already given more than they had.
And still they felt guilty because they had been taught to associate refusal with disobedience.
A Christian who has been saved by grace should desire to obey God.
But we are all human.
We are all sinners.
And because of that, I do not believe we are entitled to demand unquestioning obedience from one another.
We can pray.
We can counsel.
We can encourage.
But that is different from taking the place of God in another person’s conscience.
A Healthy Faith Is Not Secondhand
I wrote before about the importance of having a healthy sense of self. A healthy sense of self is capable of standing on its own. And I think healthy faith should have that same kind of maturity.
By that, I do not mean independence from God. I mean a faith that is neither blind nor dependent on another person’s approval. In a healthy family, a child eventually grows into an adult who can make decisions independently. If a grown person cannot make even a small choice without a parent deciding for them, we would hesitate to call that healthy development. So why would spiritual maturity look like permanent dependence on another human being?
A dependent sense of self has no stable answer to the question:
Who am I?
It knows only:
Who do other people say I am?
And a dependent faith works the same way. Instead of asking,
Where do I stand before God?
it becomes consumed with:
What do other people think of my faith?
Do they think I serve enough?
Do they think I am obedient enough?
Do they think I am spiritual enough?
That kind of dependence can make a person especially vulnerable to controlling or narcissistic dynamics inside a church.
Harmony within a community matters. Christians are not called to live as isolated individuals who refuse correction or accountability. But harmony with other Christians does not guarantee harmony with God. And obedience to a leader does not automatically mean obedience to God. The only real defense against that confusion is a deeper relationship with God Himself.
When There Is No Joy Left
I also think the complete absence of joy in a life of faith is more serious than we sometimes admit. There are seasons when we serve out of responsibility rather than enthusiasm. There are days when worship feels difficult. That is part of being human.
But sometimes people remain in ministry roles for months or years almost entirely out of obligation and guilt. We can even begin to think that giving up our own joy for other people is proof of noble sacrifice. I lived that way for a long time. Even when there was no joy left in me, I believed that sacrificing myself for the good of someone else must surely be what God wanted.
But there is an important difference. Something can look painful from the outside while there is still a deep joy within. In that kind of sacrifice, I can recognize God at work in me.
But something can also look admirable from the outside while there is nothing inside except resentment, exhaustion, and dread. That is different.
If service supposedly offered for God and for others continually produces nothing in me but complaint and bitterness, I have to be willing to ask whether something has gone wrong.
When joy disappears, gratitude often goes with it.
And when resentment begins to outweigh joy, I think the soul is telling us something. Sometimes we need to know how to stop. Unfortunately, I did not learn that until I felt as though my own spirit had been pushed far beyond its limits.
No Church Can Take Responsibility for My Soul
I have now spent more than half my life as a Christian. And one thing has become very clear to me.
My church cannot take responsibility for my soul.
My pastor cannot.
My leaders cannot.
My ministry partners cannot.
They can help me.
They can pray for me.
They can encourage me.
They can correct me.
They can walk alongside me.
But the life entrusted to me—and the condition of my own faith—is still mine to tend before God. No one else can do that work for me. And no amount of approval from other Christians can replace it.
When Saying No Still Makes Me Feel Guilty
Even now, whenever I have to turn down a request to serve or take on another ministry responsibility, the old guilt returns almost automatically. It is deeply ingrained. Some part of me still whispers:
A good Christian would say yes.
Someone more faithful would make it work. Maybe you are disappointing God. The difference now is that I recognize the guilt for what it is.
I do not have to obey it.
I have had to promise myself that I will not repeat the same mistake forever.
That I will not keep destroying myself simply to maintain the appearance of faithfulness.
That serving without joy, when it has become nothing but guilt and self-erasure, can become a form of spiritual harm. That I do not need to spend my life protecting my reputation as a good Christian.
I would rather become one.
