Healing Spiritual Abuse & Religious Addiction

by Matthew Linn

Book Overview

Discusses the realities of spiritual abuse and religious addiction, how they are defined, the reasons they exist and how people can move beyond vulnerable life patterns in order to enjoy a more... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809134888
• ISBN13: 9780809134885
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Paulist Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

A gentle look at spiritual abuse; recommended primer for newbies to healing from spiritual abuse, re

I say PRIMER because you won't get anything deep here. And that's exactly what the Linns want. Healing, while not easy, doesn't have to be entrenched in all sorts of psychological analysis- at least not if you're doing it on your own. Anyway, the first part of this book demonstrates what spiritual abuse/religious addiction is and how it manifested itself in the Linns' lives. (As a woman, I really related with Sheila's graduate school years- I too attached myself to a reverend who could show what Christianity is- something I did not receive as a child.) The second part discusses the good and bad of each child's personality. Children are assigned to one of four roles: Responsible Pharisee, Rebel Samaritan, Lost Essene, Distractor Sadducee. The problem here is that one can find him/herself in each of these types. Many people change- when they are five, they might be Essenes, at sixteen Sadducees, etc. I really appreciated the chapter "Generational Healing of Spiritual Abuse". I've known many Christians who seek to break the bonds of family problems through prayer. "I believe that the experiences of our ancestors, especially unresolved traumatic experiences such as religious persecution and spiritual abuse, are passed on to us in some mysterious way that we do not yet understand." (p. 102) Like the other reviewer stated, the last chapters offer treatment without the diagnosis. I was disappointed, hence the four star rating. Overall, this book makes a great gift for someone who needs to heal for religious abuse and spiritual addiction, but doesn't know where to start. It is my hope that the reader will pull what he or she needs from the text and then explore those points in more detail. For example, I will be studying more about healing generation problems.

Two half books under a single cover

The first 48 pages of this tome deal with the title subject, and are insightful and worthwhile. Yet the remaining 100 pages seem more of a rehash of birth order determinants set in a biblical melieu: the responsible child (#1=Pharisee); the rebel child (#2=Samaritan); the lost child (the Essene); and the comedian/clown/distractor (the Sadducee). Each of these vignettes is portrayed in an open and instructive manner, yet the nexus between spiritual addiction (1st 48 pages) and this child-order hypothesis seems lacking. The chapters on Scripture & Spiritual Abuse, and What Would Jesus Do, seem to offer diagnosis without treatment. Notwithstanding, this book can be recommended. The notion of Spiritual Addiction, particularly by those called to the clerical life, is present in this book, and if we are content that this is a valid first cut at a significant problem, then the recommendation stands. Much more needs to be done on and with this topic. The authors' seminal book --"Good Goats: Healing Our Image of God" attacks the problem of spiritual addiction much better. "Good Goats" offers diagnosis and treatment of the root factors in spiritual addiction.(5 stars).