Hey Tabi!

Pastors, Stop Enabling Harm Through Your Silence

• Tabitha • Season 2 • Episode 17

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When pastors teach on marriage, sex, or addiction but fail to mention abuse, survivors in the pews hear a dangerous message: stay, submit, and suffer silently.

In this episode of Hey Tabi, licensed trauma therapist Tabitha Westbrook explains why silence from the pulpit enables harm and how pastors can bring truth, safety, and compassion into conversations about marriage, sexuality, and faith.

You’ll learn:

  • Why abuse and coercive control must be named in sermons on marriage and sex addiction
  • How silence from church leaders can embolden abusers and retraumatize victims
  • What trauma-informed preaching looks like in real life
  • How to protect the vulnerable and promote genuine healing and restoration within the Church

Tabitha draws from her experience as a licensed trauma therapist and international expert in domestic abuse and coercive control, sharing practical ways pastors and Christian leaders can model Christ’s heart for the oppressed.

If you’ve ever wondered why the Church’s silence on abuse causes such deep harm - or how to do better - this episode is essential listening.

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At The Journey and The Process we strive to help you heal. Our therapists are trauma specialists who use evidence-based tools like EMDR, Brainspotting, Somatic Experiencing, and Internal Family Systems to help you heal - mind, soul, and body. Reach out today to start your healing journey. https://thejourneyandtheprocess.com/

 This book is for every Christian woman who has been harmed sexually, whether that happened in childhood, adulthood, or even within your coercive controlling marriage, and you're longing to feel safe in your body again. We talk about the hard stuff, shame, desire, faith, and even questions like, is this sin or is this trauma?

You don't have to untangle it alone. Body & Soul, Healed & Whole is for you. Get a copy here today - https://a.co/d/8Jo3Z4V

🎧 Subscribe to Hey Tabi for more expert conversations on trauma, faith, and healing.

Order Body & Soul, Healed & Whole: An Invitational Guide to Healthy Sexuality After Trauma, Abuse, and Coercive Control

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SPEAKER_00:

When pastors teach on marriage or sex addiction without naming abuse, victims sitting in the pews hear something very different than what the pastor may have intended. They hear stay, pray, obey, and lay. They hear it's my fault. I'm not trying hard enough. I'm not doing the right things. I need to try harder. Perpetrators also hear, see, it is your fault. You just need to fill in the blank, whatever they're thinking. These may not be what you intended, but it is without question what happens. Today is for you, pastors. Whether you intended it or not, your silence or your misstating of abuse enables continued coercive control. It re-traumatizes survivors, and it distorts the gospel. Welcome to Hey Tabby, the podcast where we talk about the hard things out loud with our actual lips. We'll cover all kinds of topics across the mental health spectrum, including how it intersects with the Christian faith. Nothing is off limits here, and we are not take two verses and call me in the morning. I'm Tabitha Westbrook, and I'm a licensed trauma therapist, and I'm not your trauma therapist. I'm an expert in domestic abuse and coercive control and how complex trauma impacts our health and well-being. Our focus here is knowledge and healing. Trauma doesn't have to eat your lunch forever. There is hope. Now, let's get going. So today, this episode is for the pastors. As you can tell, welcome to this week's episode of Hey Tabby. I'm really glad that you're here, and I do hope some pastors are listening. And let me just be clear as I start this off: not all pastors are terrible or missing the mark or any of that. I know absolutely incredible pastors who do a phenomenal job. They are incredible men and women of God that do incredible things. Now, if you are freaking out a little bit because I said men and women, like a lot of people with differing theologies listen to this podcast. And there are a lot of people that will argue that women can in fact be pastors, and they are pastors. So I am just going to put it up front here that this podcast is for anybody that bears the title of pastor, no matter where your theology lies. So if you are on the side of things that say women cannot be pastors or overseers, or you're on the side that women can be pastors or overseers, the same advice and the same feedback here is going to apply. So I am talking to all pastors, anyone that bears the title of pastor or minister or teaches in any sort of public place on the Word of God. And so I am going to talk about that today. So this one is for y'all. I want to start with some statistics here. One in three relationships in your congregation are or will be facing domestic abuse and coercive control. Period. That is the statistic. Whether you like it or you don't like it, it is what it is. That's what the research shows. That means solidly one third of your church, of your congregation, of the relationships in it are or will be in dire need of help. So if you think it's not happening here, then you are not asking the right questions. And that's a whole other podcast episode. And I can refer you to some experts in that that can give you a little more information. But I'm going to tell you it is happening in your church. And again, if you don't know that, then you need to ask better questions. I want to just say abuse is not rare. We think that sometimes we think, oh, this is a problem of the world, but the statistics do not bear that out. They just don't. And so we have to start from the premise of these folks are sitting in my congregation. And I would dare you, when you're standing in your pulpit, start counting off by threes. You know who the couples are for the most part. Even in a very large church, even if you can't quite see all the people there. I know I go to a very large church. I'm certain the pastor cannot count off the entire room full of people, but he could theoretically go, well, if this room seeks a thousand, then I can just divide by three. That would be 333 people in that room affected. 333 people in that room. That's a huge number. That's a huge number. And if you have multiple services, go multiply. So even if you have a church of 75, that's still one-third of 75, which makes it even more egregious and more scary because that is a big piece of your church. So I would invite you, first of all, to just think about it from this perspective, to understand that the numbers are very high. That said, you might think, well, why do I have to always name abuse? If I'm talking about relationships, like what is the point? I can't mention it every single time, but I'm going to tell you why it's super important. First of all, when pastors do not name abuse, you actually end up preaching something you don't intend, or at least I hope you don't intend. Maybe you do intend it. And that again, another podcast. When you preach unconditional submission or when you preach unforgiveness, if you are not giving appropriate caveats and you're not naming coercion, violence, anything like that, abuse, destruction, then you embolden abusers and you actually trap the victims. You're actually putting bars on the cage. For example, if a marriage sermon emphasizes endurance, prayer without saying things that are related to safety language, then you actually end up emboldening the abusers. You aren't allowed to leave. You have to do everything that I say. Even the pastor is saying that you have to submit to me. And that becomes another bar on the cage, another lock on the cage that the victim can't get past. You actually make it worse for the victim in that moment. And when you talk about sex and you do not again give caveats to consent, to no coercion, to a pornified mind, then again, you are saying anything goes in the bedroom and you must be subservient to your spouse. That is really scary when somebody has a sex addiction. When pastors address pornography or sex addiction without acknowledging trauma, coercive sex within marriage, then the victims internalize that. And instead of finding freedom, they say, Oh, I guess I have to do this. So many pastors say that the woman keeps the man from sinning by having regular sex with him, even if she doesn't want to, or even if he is asking for vile and demeaning things. And despite the fact that makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit, it happens so frequently. I have victims sit across from me all the time and across from other therapists that I know from my other clinicians in my practice and tell us these stories that are utterly harrowing. And you may say, well, that's not in my church, but are you sure? Are you sure none of the assistant pastors are preaching that? Are you sure the lead pastor is not preaching that? Are you sure you're not preaching that in some inadvertent way? You really have to think about what you are saying. I'm like, I would love to say that that doesn't happen in this day and age, but again, my clinical practice and the victims that we serve tells me a very different story. Submission itself is voluntary. If you look at what that word means in the Bible, we are to submit to God, to each other, and then in relationships. You have to be so careful when you are talking about these things. Because if you aren't, then again, you are saying, become a slave. Submission and subjugation are not the same word. Often I hear quoted some verbiage from Tim and Kathy Keller's marriage book. And it goes something like this Sex is the glue that holds marriage together. I love Tim Keller. In a lot of ways, I listened to his sermons while he was alive. Very often I had for decades. And so I am a big fan. However, I think that this is one of the things I would say don't agree with at all. In fact, I couldn't agree less with it, actually. Intercourse is a lovely part of marriage and it can absolutely deepen intimacy and be part of a healthy marriage, but it is not the glue. I think back to Sam Jolman on this podcast saying that 83% of couples will struggle with having sexual intercourse over the course of their marriage. 83%. That means it cannot be the glue that is holding the marriage together. How could that actually be possible? If 83% of people are going to struggle, if that is the sum total of your glue, you are in so much trouble. So much trouble. So it stands to reason that it's not true. I also look at the Gottman research. Now, however you might feel about licensed people doing research, it's just observation. And it's one of my favorite research studies because of the fact that what they did for tens of thousands of couples was just observe them. What worked, what didn't work, what was happening in the relationship. And I can tell you unequivocally that intercourse was not the glue. There's a million other things that make couples masters at relationship and that hold relationships together. Intercourse is not one of them. It is part of a beautiful marriage, and it definitely depicts some beauty between Christ and the church, like the Bible says, but it's not the glue. And when pastors language it that way, it over-inflates the importance of intercourse and it deeply undervalues true, full relational intimacy, being known. That is such an important thing, right? As neuropsychiatrist Kurt Thompson says, we come into the world looking for someone, looking for us. That meets its fullest fulfillment in God, but there is something of that supposed to be met by our spouse. And so when we say that intercourse alone, sex alone, is the glue, then we have narrowed our relationship in a very dangerous way. And so when you are up there from the pulpit saying that, you are telling women who are withholding sex or men who are withholding sex for very good reasons and that they are destroying their relationships. Now, I think it's actually quite different. If someone is withholding sex for a very good reason, like coercive control, demeaning behavior, infidelity, abuse, any of that type of stuff, then they are doing the right thing because they're holding their partner accountable and setting reasonable boundaries. Sounds very godly to me, actually. And those are questions you should be asking in counseling when you are talking to these couples. And again, that's a whole other thing. You should not be counseling couples that are in destructive relationships. I have other podcasts on that topic, and there's a lot to be said about it. We don't have time for that here, but I will tell you abuse is not a marriage problem. It causes marriage problems. And that is a quote from my friend Leslie Varnick. Another one of my favorite quotes is this, and pastors, please, please hear me. What hurts victims most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander. And that is a quote from Holocaust survivor Ellie Weisel. You are complicit when you do not include information or caveats about abuse or destruction in your sermon. You are the bystander. You are complicit. What you are saying to a perpetrator is that you are fine. Keep doing what you're doing. Go on and sin. And what you're saying to the victim is you do not matter. Neither of those things is godly. Neither of them. And I'm just going to say it again: neither of those things is godly. If you as a pastor are just letting someone walk in sin, you're a terrible shepherd. You just are. And if you're letting someone be oppressed, again, you're a terrible shepherd. You are missing your calling completely in that. And look, this isn't hyperbole. Again, your role is a shepherd, caring for the spiritual well-being of the flock. Isn't it terrible that someone might be a goat and they're going, but Lord, Lord, didn't I XYZ? Because I was a big donor, or I did all these things. I did this in your name. And Jesus looks at them and goes, Depart from me, I didn't know you. That should terrify you as a pastor. Absolutely terrifying you. That is not what you want said. You want to be confronting this in someone's life. Hey, I think you're walking off a cliff. Hey, I think you think you're a sheep, but at home, you're goating it right up, buddy. And I don't mean greatest of all time. I mean depart from me, I never knew you goating. That is stuff you should be saying. It shouldn't be limited to some outside counselor. It shouldn't be limited to some care pastor. It should be you. And you have to say that stuff from the pulpit. There are winsome ways to include this. And we'll get to that in just a minute. Another role of the pastor is to teach the word of God. You are supposed to handle it well. You are supposed to teach it. But when you don't talk about the sin that needs to be addressed, or you don't talk about how God hates oppression, then you are leaving stuff off the table. You have to realize that there is a power differential from the pulpit to the pew, or to the padded chair, or to the round table, or to the house church. If you're the leader, you have more power than everybody else. In this modern evangelical church, many parishioners have been conditioned to just trust the man of God or the woman of God who is speaking from the pulpit. By virtue of your position alone, you have more power. And you have to take that seriously. I have yet to meet a pastor who went through seminary and was taught at all about power differentials. Now, maybe your seminary is the exception. Maybe it has started it, and I just don't know. But I've talked to a lot of people over the years, and I have yet to hear anything about that. That means whether you like it or not, your words carry more weight than just about anybody else in that room. By virtue of your position, you have more power. And I just can't say that enough. We see this in scripture in James 3:1. Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. As someone who teaches and teaches women and honestly teaches some in the counseling room, like psychoeducation, this terrifies me. I am constantly putting myself before the Lord and saying, please, Jesus, I want to teach rightly. I want to teach your word rightly, I want to exegete your word rightly. Please, please, please, because this verse fills me with a holy fear. Like fear can be a gift, man. I don't want to be on the wrong side of the living God, and I hope you don't either. And we also can't forget Proverbs 18, 21. The tongue can bring death or life. Those who love to talk will reap the consequences. Are you bringing death or life with what you say or what you don't say? You know, like we talk about sins of commission and omission all the time in the evangelical church. This is a sin of omission when you do not talk about abuse when you should. And I know I'm sounding very passionate because I am, and I'm gonna tell you why. I have sat with too many women in particular. I don't sit with as many men in this position, but I know they exist, who have been in destructive relationships that are coercively controlling and heard from the pulpit condoning what is happening to them in various ways by the pastor not talking about it. Very recently, I was at a teaching where the pastor was talking about working with sexual sin. And in that particular teaching, one of the things that was stated was if you are burning in lust for each other, can't keep your hands off each other, then you need to move the wedding date up. You need to shorten your engagement. And I had a real problem with that because I have sat across from far too many women who were told that, and who were told that you were burning in lust, and so you need to move up your engagement. When in reality, what was happening was sexual coercion. They were being pressured into doing things that they did not want to do. And because they had been told that the man was the leader and they had to submit to him even before they were married to him, that they did not feel like they had a no. And so when they confess to their pastor, it's gone further than I think we should, the pastor goes, Oh, you're burning in lust and doesn't ask that follow-up question. Now I asked the question after this particular teaching of the person that taught it. And he said, Oh, yeah, we ask about abuse. And I said, Well, you really needed to say it from up there. This is what I see. And he said, Oh, no, I don't have to do that. I have a lot of points that I had to make, and I just didn't have space. And I was stunned. And I will tell you that it wasn't long after that I heard stories from women in the room who knew who I was and who sometimes listen to this podcast, that they had gotten counsel like that and had married sexually exploitative men, men who had sex addictions and then sexually abused them over the course of their marriage. And this wasn't just one or two women that I heard from. I heard from at least five in that session alone to not mention it is absolute complicitness. You are complicit when you don't say it. And women are harmed because of it, and men who are in the same situation are harmed because of it. And you are either saying sin is okay without saying sin is okay, or you are heaping coals onto the head of someone who is already embroiled in shame because they think it's their fault, and it's not. And you may know that in your heart of hearts, but when you don't say it out loud, you also embolden every other person in the room. And this was a conference that I was at, and there are many pastors in that room. And without that caveat, many are going to go back to their churches and teach exactly like this. The New King James puts Proverbs 18, 21 this way: Death and life are in the power of the tongue. And if you have never worked in abuse, you don't know how close death is all the time. Oh, but he didn't hit her. There hasn't been physical violence. Well, again, I submit to you that unless you can take your brain out of your body and put it in a jar, it's all physical. I'm fairly certain that's a body part, and there's a fine line between words and actions. So it may be a short period of time until there is physical violence in the way that you're thinking of it. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. What are you bringing? What are you bringing to this as you teach this? Survivors often experience serious spiritual confusion as well after hearing teachings like this that don't include all the things that they need to. You're told to forgive, but they're never told to seek safety. Oh, you have to forgive. We need to reconcile the relationship. Well, no, you don't. First of all, forgiveness and reconciliation, they don't always go together. We can talk about that in another podcast as well. They're often told honor the marriage covenant, but abuse has already broken that covenant. But if you're not asking questions about abuse, then you're heaping coals on the head of someone who is not sinning. They are told to marry fast so they don't burn in lust when what's happening might be sexual coercion or even sex addiction. That's not cool. You know, do you not love your brothers and sisters enough to ask good questions? In my book, Body and Soul, Healed and Whole, I actually talk about how Christian women who have been harmed sexually end up feeling alienated not only from their bodies, but from God Himself. What they say when their suffering is minimized or spiritualized is if this is God, I want nothing to do with him. I cannot tell you how many women have deconstructed right out of the church and don't say they weren't really believers. Don't say that. And it's my hope that they will reconstruct with Jesus. But that harm is so deep, so deep. Trauma creates disconnection from both God and self. And pastors can unintentionally reinforce that disconnect by avoiding this topic. And look, you don't have to put in 14 points on coercive control. There are a few things you can say, and again, I'm gonna get to that in just a minute. What I want to remind you of is that the gospel demands the truth. The gospel is supposed to be the good news. The gospel, Jesus says, My yoke is easy and my burden is light. Abuse is neither of those things. If we're preaching the gospel, then we ought to be preaching real Jesus. Abuse thrives in secrecy. So silence actually protects the coercive controllers and the perpetrators, not the victims. Jesus consistently exposed oppression and restored the dignity of those who were harmed by power. Just read the New Testament. Read the Old Testament. It is literally everywhere. When the church avoids hard truths, it distorts the message of justice, mercy, and restoration. We are supposed to look like Jesus. And when we are not looking like Jesus, then we need to talk about it. We need to talk about it. Pastors have both a moral and a spiritual duty to speak truth that protects the vulnerable and confronts the misuse of power. And there are entire systems that do not understand power and they do not understand how pastors are using power. I will give you Dr. Diane Langberg's quote on this. Jesus did not die for systems, he died for the people in them. To protect the system and to say, this is the way we have always done it is not okay. It's not okay. We may not have talked about abuse like this 20 years ago that we should have been. But now that we are, say something. There's plenty of caveats that you give during sermons on all kinds of things. You can give a couple on destructive relationships. And it's not an excuse that you don't have time. You do manage to put in other sentences that you find important. The reality here is that many pastors don't think it's that important. And that is a problem. If one third of your congregation is struggling with this, whether they are the perpetrator or the victim, then you owe it to your congregation to make sure that you're talking about this. So what can we do? First of all, name it explicitly. It's not that hard when preaching on marriage, include phrases like if your spouse uses control, coercion, fear, harm, this is not God's design. We have people here who can help you. And then you send them over to your advocates that hopefully you have had trained. If you're worried about premarital sex, you can talk about that because yes, let's have a godly sex life. Let's do this well. But also note that if sexual coercion is taking place, if you feel pressured or talked into doing more than you are comfortable with, then that is not appropriate. And that is not your sin. That's the coercer's sin. And that's something that should be stated. A woman is not a man's Suboxone to keep him from getting a hit of porn. Sex addiction is far more complex. And it's not even about the sex. But again, that's another podcast. Integrate some trauma-informed language. Look, you are not being woke or whatever to use appropriate language. This is just when we know more, we say more. When you went to seminary, you didn't know a bunch of words, and now you do. Some of them are in different languages, like Greek or Aramaic. And now you use those words. So I'm going to give you some trauma-informed words, and now you can use those too. So something like if you've experienced coercion or abuse, or if your relationship is destructive, this passage is not a call to endure harm. We do not condone that. There you go. That's it. It's one sentence. I don't even think it took a whole second for me to say it. Refer to resources. Mention domestic violence hotlines. Mention your care team if you have one that's got training. Mention resources like call to peace. You can even have things where people can go pick up a flyer after you mention it. You don't even have to have a ton of information that you say from the pulpit, just like, hey, there are organizations to help you. We can get you connected. Avoid implying mutuality and abuse. Abuse, again, is not a relationship problem. It causes them. And abuse is not mutual. It can't be. Abuse cannot be mutual because the coercive controller has the power. They have the power and control. And so it's not mutual. It's not. Abuse is a one-sided misuse of power. It's really important to make sure that you say that. And that you don't mutualize it. It's not a toxic relationship, although that is toxic. It is what it is, and we have to call it what it is. We also want to consult trained advocates or therapists. You can go through the Call to Peace Ministries Church Partnership Program. You get advocates in that case. You get a church partner liaison. It's really helpful in creating policies and having the things that you need. You can also reach out to a local therapist that knows what they're doing. You can reach out to me. I consult with churches all the time. You can do a lot of different things to help get some knowledge, to help get some understanding and to create a system where you are helping people walk in the fullness of God. Right. We're calling perpetrators to repentance and accountability. We are not just leaving their souls up for grabs and we are protecting victims. It sounds like a lot, and in some ways it is, but you can say simple things from the pulpit and set up systems that can actually be really protective. I just want to remind you that abuse, like any sin, doesn't stay stagnant. It escalates. I cannot tell you how many victims have told me it wasn't this bad 25 years ago. Well, of course it wasn't. But unchecked sin is always going to grow. Always. And so you are right and good to call it out. Some abusers also misuse God's word. The sword of the spirit is not meant to wound and stab their spouse. And the thing that can make it hard is that sometimes the perpetrators are people that you like, that you're friends with, that you've known for a long time. You're just not married to them. So you didn't see everything that was happening in the house. And so you have to hold open that things are happening that maybe you don't know about, even with people that you super like, even with people that super maybe tied a lot. And you have to be open more to God's truth than you are to anything else. I really want to invite you to model courage by really naming these things, naming them in every sermon on marriage, every sermon on sex. And you should be preaching those types of sermons. You should be teaching entire ones about harmful things and oppression and calling out that sin. But also when you're teaching on healthy marriage or healthy sex, always have these caveats. They are not hard to add, they are not long to add, but they will protect people far more than you could ever imagine. You cannot shepherd what you refuse to name and what you refuse to see. And God will hold you accountable. I fear that again daily. And I hope that you do too. And I also want to encourage you to listen to survivors. Talk to the ones in your congregation safely and don't tell their business, okay, but do get their experience. Ask them, hey, look, if you've heard sermons that made you feel unseen or that maybe I had a misstep, God sees you, he knows, and he loves you. And can you please tell me what happened? Can you please tell me your impressions of it so I can understand? And you might be thinking, Lord, if I ask that question, then all heck will break loose. And that's not true either. It's just not, it's not true. So I want to encourage you, be bold, be courageous, and actually trust Jesus. And if the Lord is in this and he is not a God of oppression, and the Bible very clearly says he is not, then he is gonna give you what you need to walk through this and he will give you discernment. The book of James also talks about wisdom. And if you are lacking it, you can ask for it, and God will give it to you liberally and without reproach, which means he's gonna give you a bunch and he is not mad about it. I will provide links to Call to Peace Ministries, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and to my book in case it's helpful for you. I really want to encourage you to defend the weak and the fatherless and uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. That's from the Psalms. Thank you for joining me this week on Hey Tabby. I know I said a lot, but it's such important stuff. And I know you may think, well, I can't mention it all the time, but I promise you, you are harming people if you don't. And I can't tell you the number of women that have fallen into my arms after teachings just like this and sobbed and told me stories that would curl your toes. I hope that you choose to love people well, both perpetrators and victims. And that you start saying the things that need to be said from the pulpit. Even if it's just a couple sentences, please don't leave it out. Thank you again for joining me this week. I hope to see you here next time on our next episode of Hey Tabby. Thanks for joining me for today's episode of Hey Tabby. If you're looking for a resource that I mentioned in the show and you want to check out the show notes, head on over to tabithawestbrook.com forward slash hey tabby. That's H-E-Y-T-A-C-I, and you can grab it there. I look forward to seeing you next time.

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