The purpose of this blog is to biblically confront and expose the two-sided coin of false teaching and spiritual abuse. Wherever there is spiritual abuse, there you will find false teaching and vice versa. I’ve experienced spiritual abuse in multiple churches and the common thread was there was always false teachers in those churches who were the ones doling out or allowing the abuse. It is the common method of operation for false teachers to abuse and devour the sheep; that’s why they are called wolves in sheep’s clothing. This blog is to help people make biblical connections between the hurt they may have experienced and the false teachings that may have led to that abuse. I’ll begin by giving you a bit of my background and why I’m passionate about these topics.

I grew up in my early teen years attending a Pentecostal church in Canada. It held to the typical doctrines of what is equivalent to the Assembly of God here in the United States. During my later teen years, my family and I began going to a Word of Faith church and we also attended on occasion the Toronto “Outpouring” with John and Carol Arnot. We all quickly delved into these new and fascinating doctrines that focused so highly on the experiential. Later I even attended a Word of Faith Bible College, so enthralled I was with these doctrines. I grew up watching Benny Hinn on TV and even went to one of his crusades. I continued along those same lines for many years after becoming an adult and marrying, finding other preachers to follow like John Bevere, Joyce Myers, Creflo Dollar, Dutch Sheets, Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, and many others that moved in those circles along with those who frequently posted on the Elijah list.

In 1999, I got married to my first husband. He moved our family from Michigan to Panama City in 2004 in order to isolate me from my Canadian family. That year I began attending Cornerstone Family Fellowship, which was another Word of Faith church connected to Rhema Bible Institute out of Tulsa, OK. In 2006, I became their Worship Director, and I was on staff for just over 3 years. Those years were horrific with spiritual abuse and sexual harassment by the pastor. Not to mention that my ex-husband was also, physically, emotionally and sexually abusing me at the same time. But, because of my false doctrines it was wrong for me to confess anything negative or else I was speaking my very real misery into existence and claiming it as true. It was true, but to speak it meant that I was accepting it as true. Hiding the abuse meant that I was “too blessed to be stressed”.

In July of 2009, I miscarried for the 5th time. I miscarried my baby on a Sunday morning. That morning my Pastor told me this, “I understand that you’ve had a difficult morning, but go put a smile on your face and lead the people”. Only by the grace of God did I get through that morning. Two days later I was pulled into the office by my Pastor, his wife and the associate Pastor and I was told, “the Holy Spirit told me to nip this in the bud, but if you get pregnant again, I’ll have no choice but to fire you”. He also proceeded to tell me that because he was an apostle that if I disobeyed him and got pregnant again that I’d be in sin. He claimed that it was my lack of faith and negative confessions that killed my baby. I was devastated! Three months later I finally had the courage to leave that church and that is when my journey out of spiritual abuse and out of false teaching began. The false teaching and abuse permeated every aspect of my life, including my marriage. I was married to a man who was a Christian in name only and after 15 years of horrific abuse, spiritually, sexually, physically and emotionally, I realized that the false teaching that I’d grown up in had kept me in an abusive and adulterous marriage to an unbeliever. I divorced him in 2015. I didn’t realize until after the divorce that my ex-husband had not been a true believer. Fruit was non-existent in his life.

Upon leaving that church God kept leading me to different resources and individuals who had also left the Word of Faith movement along with the New Apostolic Reformation (a movement name coined by C. Peter Wagner). During my research I learned mind boggling things like how Kenneth Hagin plagiarized all of his books from the late E.W Kenyon. I began to see how popular scriptures were being twisted and taken out of context. I remember a particularly egregious teaching on Jude 20 by Kenneth Hagin, which was perpetuated by many other leaders that I followed, that the words building yourself up on your most holy faith, was in the original BIBLICAL Greek, akin to charging a battery. I want you, dear reader, to think about that for a second. When in biblical times were there batteries? How can a word mean something that didn’t yet exist? The more I researched, the more I studied, the more I saw how these men and women, who I’d once held in high regard, as the charlatans that they are. What they preached did not line up with the Word of God when it was in context. Many of them preached that we are little gods, taking that out of context from John 10:34 where Jesus is talking to the unsaved Pharisees. Joyce Myers is one who teaches that believers are little gods because of this one verse. But when we study the bible properly and ask the simple questions, who, what, where, why and when it is super easy to see that Jesus is quoting Psalm 82:6 and this was a condemnation towards the Pharisees for setting themselves up as gods over the people. If you look at Psalm 82:7 the verse says, “Nevertheless you will die like men and fall like any one of the princes.” Those Pharisees knew exactly what Jesus was saying to them! This greatly angered them because if you keep reading in John 10:39 those nasty, overbearing Pharisees were seeking again to seize Him and Jesus eluded their grasp. If Jesus had been declaring some doctrine that we are little gods, like Joyce, Creflo, Hagin, Copeland, Prince, Hagee, Johnson, (the list is a long one) like all these false teachers claim, then why would the pharisees have been so angry? They were angry enough to try and imprison Jesus. These were just a few teachings that God was exposing to me as false. This truly was a journey that God was leading me on in trusting Him and learning to rightly divide His Word.

After my divorce, God brought my wonderful Husband Geoff into my life, and we married in May of 2018. He was instrumental to introducing me to some really solid biblical teachers. He and I went through a severe instance of spiritual abuse at the church we were both attending just weeks prior to our wedding. I had been at that church for a year, and he began going in earnest about eight months prior to our wedding. We were both involved in ministry at this church. I was a worship leader there and he was leading the men’s ministry. Together we ended up confronting both the false teaching and the spiritual abuse that was happening and left that church just three weeks after our wedding.

While we were there, we came to realize that multiple Elders were disqualified from ministry in that church as they were abusive in their speech and conduct. The teaching Elder’s wife was also giving false prophecies to people and having authority where she should not. People actually would joke that it was “the church of (insert her name here)”. I personally received a false prophecy from her telling of my death and destruction if I left the church and didn’t submit to her abusive version of a “restoration process” because she deemed that I had a “seed of division” in me. I had exposed an Elder in their church, with my son as a witness, as abusive after the man had screamed at me and hid his abuse while on a phone call with me. I had put the phone on speaker phone and had my, then 17-year-old son, stand as a biblical witness against this Elder of the church. Since, I had exposed the abuse to the Lead Elder and they all refused to confront the issue, the Lead Elder and his wife determined that I needed to go through a “restoration process”. This process was to be where I was expected to be fully submissive in all decision-making processes as a worship leader to the very Elder who was so abusive to me on the phone. Keep in mind, dear Reader, that I left a very abusive marriage in 2015. I know what abuse is and there’s no mistaking it after living with it for 15 years. There was no mistaking this Elders words as anything other than pure abuse, but that is exactly what the Lead Elder and his wife claimed. They claimed that I had misunderstood his words and intent. His words were wicked, evil and there was no misunderstanding the intent of his words especially when he lied to cover up his abuse. It was clear that this man was a reviler and disqualified for ministry according to 1 Timothy 3:1-7. I had also not been the only individual in the church to make that determination and be subjected to his abuse. Multiple people had come forward, and multiple people had left that church when these men (the Lead Elder and the other Elder) were not removed or even confronted for their sin. Biblical churches have biblical leaders. Abusive churches have abusive leaders who are always false teachers.

It was a few years after leaving that abusive church that Geoff got the call to Pastor a small country church in the panhandle of Florida. We’ve been there for a few years now and those members have become dear to our heart; they are family and my Husband, with my full support, does all he can to protect the little flock that God has entrusted him with. That includes teaching them about false teachers and the false doctrines that they teach. Titus 1:11 shows us a clear principle that false teachers destroy entire families, teaching things they should not for the sake of sordid gain. My husband and I do not ever want to see those who are brothers and sisters in Christ have their lives destroyed by false teaching. If ever you or someone else you know has had to leave an abusive church, you know how devastating that can be. Our very lives become intertwined in our church families and when we have to leave, because of abuse and false teaching, it often feels like a limb severed. We lose friends. We are gossiped about. We may even in some cases lose jobs and livelihoods. We feel alone and heart broken. False teaching destroys lives, and it often takes us years to recover. Some even stop attending church altogether, which leaves their spiritual lives stagnant and stunted in its growth. So, this blog is to connect the two sides of the coin and show you, the reader, the biblical side of things. It will have both personal stories, as well as solid biblical responses.

If you’d like the nitty gritty to my story, you can check out my former blog that I wrote years ago that I no longer have access to. Www.myjourneyfromspiritualabuse.blogspot.com Just keep in mind dear Reader that I was still sorting out many doctrines and it was indeed a journey that God used to bring about correction and sanctification in my life. I’ll forever be grateful to my Lord for that very process that brought me to the truth and the freedom I now have in Christ. Those trials that I went through produced some good fruit that I enjoy today, which includes a God centered marriage. I hope that you enjoy my posts and my biblical insights as I continue this journey with you all.
God Bless,
Malinda