Abusing Power In God’s Name
"Every day, men and women who claim to be serving God abuse the power they’ve been trusted with. This is a form of spiritualized abuse, which psychologist Diane Langberg describes as 'God’s people using God’s words to sanction things God hates.'”
Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America
The temptation to accumulate and abuse power is common to humankind. Jesus himself had to resist this during his forty-day fast. Power is not inherently bad. But when it’s used to manipulate, control, subjugate, silence, harass, deceive, or violate others, it becomes a manifestation of evil. Some of Jesus’s harshest words were directed to men who abused power. His rebukes are every bit as applicable and necessary today as they were two thousand years ago.
Power exists in many forms. There’s the tangible, physical power from moving water that gets converted into electricity and runs along grids into our homes. Touching a live wire can result in electrocution or even death. There’s the power that comes from tornadoes or floods, which both possess the capacity to wipe out entire communities.
In Reckoning with Power, David Fitch differentiates two more types of power:
“There is worldly power, which is exerted over persons, and there is godly power, which works relationally with and among persons. Worldly power is coercive. A person or organization takes control of things with worldly power. Worldly power is enforced. It is prone to abuse. God’s power, on the other hand, is never coercive.”1David E. Fitch, Reckoning with Power: Why the Church Fails When It’s on the Wrong Side of Power (Brazos Press, 2024), 11-12.
The main distinctions in Fitch’s conception of power seems to be the source of the power (Where did it originate?) and how it’s deployed (What is the result?).
Worldly power makes most of the headlines. Vladimir Putin advantaged his greater worldly power by invading Ukraine in 2022. Hollywood executive Harvey Weinstein leaned into worldly power by sexually abusing actresses and staffers. Southern Baptist leaders employed worldly power by first committing abuse and then by covering it up. By contrast, Jesus relied on godly power when he healed people and performed miracles.
Abusing Power in God’s Name
Every day, men and women who claim to be serving God abuse the power they’ve been trusted with. This is a form of spiritualized abuse, which psychologist Diane Langberg describes in Redeeming Power as “God’s people us[ing] God’s words to sanction things God hates.”2Diane Langberg, Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church (Brazos Press, 2020), 54.
Spiritualized abuse has many iterations ranging from subtle (such as shame) to overt (such as rape). Spiritualized abuse is more likely to happen when churches or organizations systematically exclude women and People of Color from top leadership positions. Like most sins, the choice to abuse power starts as a thought and inches toward incarnation. Temptations and fantasies are nurtured rather than confessed. Entitlement to another’s body is rationalized. Opportunities are devised. And finally, trust is betrayed.
One of the reasons women are particularly vulnerable in hierarchical, male-led religious spaces is because it’s an ecosystem that requires us to inherently trust men. In fact, the mandate to trust and submit, particularly within patriarchal systems of power, can make it infinitely more difficult for women to create healthy boundaries in both ministry and personal relationships, including marriage.
The Christian faith is not categorically opposed to power or authority, but neither does it advocate misusing power or authority to create hierarchies that enable control or abuse. Yet far too often, that’s exactly what happens, particularly to women. The power for our mics is either never turned on or the volume is never set to the same level as men’s. We are told in so many ways that our insights, our wisdom, our perspectives, and even our bodies are of lesser importance. Heather Matthews writes in Confronting Sexism in the Church, “When power is distorted, as it is with sexism, it causes a diminishing of human dignity, rather than flourishing.”3Heather Matthews, Confronting Sexism in the Church: How We Got Here and What We Can Do About It (InterVarsity Press, 2024), 42.
The abuse of power and the subsequent diminishing happen in both private and public spaces. When Christian men abuse power to control their intimate partners, it’s particularly damaging. Control exists on a continuum. It includes limiting a wife’s input on key decisions, refusing to contribute to household chores, berating and threatening her, demanding sex, or committing physical and sexual abuse.
Every day, men and women who claim to serve God abuse the power they’ve been trusted with. This is spiritualized abuse, which psychologist Diane Langberg describes as 'God’s people using God’s words to sanction things God hates.' Share on X
Well-known Bible teacher and author Beth Moore has been on the receiving end of broken power dynamics in church settings for decades. In 2018 she published a letter on her ministry’s website that detailed some of her experiences:
As a woman leader in the conservative Evangelical world, I learned early to show constant pronounced deference…to male leaders and, when placed in situations to serve alongside them, to do so apologetically. I issued disclaimers ad nauseam. I’ve been in team meetings where I was either ignored or made fun of, the latter of which I was expected to understand was all in good fun. I am a laugher. I can take jokes and make jokes. I know good fun when I’m having it and I also know when I’m being dismissed and ridiculed.4Beth Moore, “A Letter to My Brothers,” The LPM Blog, May 3, 2018, https://blog.lproof.org/2018/05/a-letter-to-my-brothers.html.
The following year, a prominent Southern Baptist pastor mocked Moore during the Truth Matters Conference at John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church. MacArthur was asked to respond to a word association by panel host Todd Friel. The prompt was “Beth Moore.” MacArthur’s condescending response: “Go home.”
Others on the platform and many in the audience laughed, cheered, and applauded. Elder Phil Johnson, who was on the stage with MacArthur added, “Narcissistic. This is what it looks like to preach yourself rather than Christ.” MacArthur then chimed in, “Feminists want power, not equality. This is the highest location they can ascend to that power in the evangelical church and overturn what is clearly scriptural.”5Jesse T. Jackson, “Two Years Later, Beth Moore Addresses John MacArthur Telling Her to ‘Go Home’” ChurchLeaders, February 4, 2022. Accessed at https://churchleaders.com/news/416530-two-years-later-beth-moore-addresses-john-macarthur-telling-her-to-go-home.html. Also see Maywood Church, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO9JWqJJmdo.
Perhaps such leaders are projecting their own understanding of power onto Moore. Perhaps they fear sharing “their” power with women because the power they exercise is worldly and finite.
Beth Moore left the SBC in 2021.
The mandate to trust and submit, particularly within patriarchal systems of power, can make it infinitely more difficult for women to create healthy boundaries in both ministry and personal relationships, including marriage. Share on X
Treating women in these ways often coincides with—and sometimes predicts—more widespread and consequential abuses of power that may affect anyone lower in the organization’s hierarchy. Again, this is frequently–and most often–women. Men can also be on the receiving end of abusive power in spiritual settings, but it takes on another dimension for women because we never know if other more consequential lines will be crossed in the future.
Once men have repeatedly tested boundaries and assessed how far they can go without being challenged or stopped, it becomes relatively frictionless for them to sexually harass or abuse women and children. Tragically, this type of abuse is perpetrated within every type of church and religious organization, particularly where power is concentrated at the top of the hierarchy and dissenting voices are muted or silenced.
When misogyny is practiced and upheld in the church, it can be more consequential and damaging than when it shows up in other settings. That’s because most other spaces aren’t claiming to speak for God or fostering trust that they then take advantage of. Misogynistic ideologies and practices don’t simply corrupt the nature of the church, they go against the very reason the Church exists: to overcome brokenness and injustice by reconciling all things. This is why misogyny must be identified and uprooted from any churches or religious organizations that claim to be following Jesus.
The question all of us need to wrestle with—particularly men in positions of power and authority—is what are we willing to do to prevent this from continuing to happen?
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*Editorial Note: Dorothy Littell Greco adapted this article from her new book, For the Love of Women: Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America, which is now available. Copyright © 2025 by Dorothy Littell Greco. Used by permission of Zondervan. ~CK
Misogynistic ideologies and practices don’t simply corrupt the nature of the church, they go against the very reason the Church exists: to overcome brokenness and injustice by reconciling all things. Share on X
