Spiritual and Pastoral Abuse: Issues in Theology and Practice

An invitation to London School of Theology’s Research Conference: Tuesday 8^th – Wednesday 9^th April 2025

The recent resignation of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury over the John Smyth scandal has drawn further attention to the phenomenon known as spiritual or pastoral abuse. While Smyth’s victims and survivors endured sadistic physical beatings at his hands, many have also testified to the lasting psychological and emotional damage his actions caused them. The fact that this harm was perpetrated by someone who claimed divine and scriptural authority for his abuse potentially imposed further guilt and shame on those who might have hesitated to succumb to it, or to question it. The same analysis has been applied to other high-profile cases in recent years, where significant damage has been done at the level of faith and belief, whether physical or sexual abuse has also been involved or not. This religious or spiritual dimension has come to be seen by many as such a distinctive or ‘aggravating factor’ in the psychological and emotional trauma suffered by victims and survivors in these contexts that it has developed its own more specific terminology—hence ‘spiritual’ or ‘pastoral’ abuse.

While ‘spiritual abuse’ has become the more commonly used term, ‘pastoral abuse’ appears in the very earliest work on this topic from the 1990s by writers like Ken Blue, David Johnson and Jeff Van Vonderen. Some prefer it to ‘spiritual abuse’ because while spiritual abuse suggests a special category of harm reserved only for religious people, ‘pastoral care’ and ‘pastoral teams’ can include non-religious personnel who might still violate the duty of care they bear to others they are meant to serve, with betrayals of trust that are at least on a continuum with those imposed by religious abusers. Thus, while ‘spiritual abuse’ emphasises the distinctively religious nature of the abuse, ‘pastoral abuse’ highlights the fact that religious abusers are subject to investigation and sanction for wrongdoing along with all other abusers, on the basis that ‘all have sinned’ and ‘all are equal under the law’. While spiritual and pastoral abuse are not, in fact, specific criminal or civil offences, some have argued that they might be defined as crimes linked to the already-recognised offence of Coercion and Control in domestic settings—itself a form of criminal Psychological or Emotional Abuse.

Since the early 2010s, academic study of spiritual and pastoral abuse has been advanced by Lisa Oakley, Kathryn Kinmond and others. It has also informed the work of statutory safeguarding bodies and safeguarding charities such as Thirty-One: Eight, with whose CEO, Justin Humphreys, Lisa Oakley co-authored the book, Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse (SPCK). In 2018, the Evangelical Alliance’s Theological Advisory Group published an important report on the subject, and in 2021 the first major scholarly conference on this form of abuse took place at Chester University, albeit as a fully online event due the Covid pandemic.

An invitation to join in the Discussion.  

With increasing attention being paid to this whole area of abuse, the London School of Theology (LST) has organised a research conference on 8-9 April that will be both in-person and online under the heading ‘Spiritual and Pastoral Abuse: Issues in Theology and Practice’. Plenary speakers will include Lisa Oakley herself, and David Hilborn, who chaired the Evangelical Alliance’s Theological Advisory Group from 2016-2024 and is Academic Dean at LST.

This conference will examine various aspects of spiritual or pastoral Abuse within Evangelical-Charismatic, broader Christian and other faith settings. From her perspective as Professor of Safeguarding and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Chester, Lisa Oakley will draw on her extensive published work and interaction with victims and survivors to examine the effects this form of abuse, while as a prominent Evangelical-Charismatic theologian David Hilborn will present a new taxonomy for the phenomena concerned, while seeking to deepen specifically theological understandings of them, and of antidotes to them. Other speakers to be confirmed shortly will represent a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives on this pressing concern for faith communities, and for society as a whole.

The conference will take place at London School of Theology’s campus in Northwood, London from 10am on Tuesday 8^th April to 4pm Wednesday 9^th. Accommodation is available for those who wish to stay on campus; day visitor access is also available, along with online participation. For details of fees and further information about the programme and logistics, see the following link: www.lst.ac.uk/research25 

About London School of Theology

The London School of Theology was founded in 1943 as an evangelical Christian learning community committed to academic excellence and missional service. Its work and ministry are centred on a vision of ‘Forming Disciples, Resourcing Churches, Impacting Society’. More information on its wide range of programmes and activities can be found at: https://lst.ac.uk/