When Religion Hurts: Survivors, Hypocrisy, and the True Heart of Jesus

For survivors of abuse — especially ritual abuse — the deepest wounds are not only physical and emotional, but spiritual.
Many were forced into ceremonies where God, Jesus, Satan, and Lucifer were all invoked in ways that twisted truth and left deep scars. Prayer, Scripture, and “faith” were weaponized to control and silence. Survivors learned to fear the very Name that was meant to set them free.

And yet, when survivors finally find the courage to reach for help, too often they encounter the same rigid religiosity that mirrors their abuse: judgment instead of compassion, rules instead of relationship, demands instead of dignity. Faith-based organizations, though well-intentioned, can sometimes embody a religious spirit that looks like Christianity but misses the heart of Christ. Survivors are expected to conform immediately, to pray in ways that trigger them, or to believe a certain theology — or else they are seen as “in the wrong.”
This is not the way of Jesus.

Survivors Need a Safe Space, Not Another Cage
Survivors already carry voices of condemnation: “You’re evil. You’re dirty. You’ll never measure up. Don’t talk. Don’t tell. No one will believe you.” When faith-based helpers pile on with more judgment or rigid expectations, it doesn’t heal, it retraumatizes. Jesus never demanded people be “fixed” before He welcomed them. He didn’t wait until the broken conformed. He sat with the outcast. He touched the untouchable. He dignified the shamed. True healing begins not with religion but with the gospel lived out: compassion, mercy, patience, and the assurance that your voice matters, your story matters, you are loved right where you are.

The Religious Spirit vs. The Spirit of Christ
Here is the contrast survivors often experience, and why it matters so deeply:

• The religious spirit says: “Conform or be cast out.”
  The Spirit of Christ says: “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

• The religious spirit demands: “Say the right prayer, use the right words, believe the right doctrine immediately.”
  The Spirit of Christ whispers: “Even when you can’t pray, even when words fail you, the Spirit intercedes with groans too deep for words.”

• The religious spirit says: “Don’t question. Don’t feel. Don’t doubt. Don’t talk about your pain.”
  The Spirit of Christ says: “Pour out your complaint before Me. I have collected every tear in My bottle. I will never silence you.”

• The religious spirit looks at survivors through suspicion, judgment, and rigid rules.
  The Spirit of Christ sees them as beloved sons and daughters, shattered but priceless, worth the cross.

• The religious spirit says: “You’re still tainted. You’re still too messy. You don’t belong until you clean yourself up.”
  The Spirit of Christ kneels in the dirt with the broken, saying: “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.”

• The religious spirit uses Scripture as a weapon, cutting people down.
  The Spirit of Christ uses truth as a balm, binding wounds and setting captives free.

• The religious spirit retraumatizes survivors by forcing them back into the same patterns of control, silencing, and shame they endured in abuse.
  The Spirit of Christ breaks programming, cuts through fear, and gently restores a survivor’s dignity, voice, and choice.

• The religious spirit says: “If you don’t believe like we do, you’re in the wrong.”
  The Spirit of Christ says: “I will walk with you as you heal, I will not leave you or forsake you, and I will lead you into truth with love, not coercion.”
  

When Help Feels Like Harm
Despite what many organizations know about survivors of satanic ritual abuse, the depth of trauma, the triggers around Scripture and prayer, the fragile steps it takes to even enter a “Christian” space again, some still insist that survivors must start a group with prayer, accept bible verses immediately or expect them to believe exactly as they do. Survivors who cannot meet these rigid standards are judged, labeled, or even cast aside as “wrong” or “evil.” This is not ministry. It is another form of betrayal.
To survivors, this kind of posture does not look like the love of Christ. It looks like the same spiritual abuse they fought so hard to escape. It echoes the commands of their abusers: “Do as you’re told. Believe what we say. You don’t have a choice.” Instead of offering freedom, it chains them again in fear and shame.When a survivor is told that their discomfort with prayer or Scripture means they lack faith… When they are told they are “in the wrong” unless they conform to a specific theology… When their honest, painful reactions are dismissed as rebellion……it is not the Spirit of Christ at work. It is a religious spirit that crushes rather than heals.

Healing Requires the Heart of the Gospel
Survivors were told what to do, what to believe, what to feel; commanded, demanded, forced into silence. Their voices were robbed, stolen, and crushed under programming that said daily: “Don’t talk. Don’t tell. No one will listen. No one will believe you.” Talking — choosing their own words, telling their own story — is what breaks the conditioning. It is the way to reclaim the voice God gave them. This is why true peer support matters so deeply: not being talked to, but being heard. Not forced into rigid rules, but invited into freedom. There will be no recovery without compassion. There will be no freedom without seeing survivors as God sees them: broken, hurting, terrified, and yet infinitely loved. Survivors are not projects to be fixed or voices to be silenced. They are image-bearers whose trust has been shattered. What heals is not religion — it is the radical love of Jesus that cuts through programming, dismantles fear, and gathers the brokenhearted close.

A Call to the Church
To every survivor: your fear, your questions, your triggers, your journey matter. Jesus is not afraid of where you are. He meets you there. To every faith-based leader: beware of mistaking rigid religion for righteousness. The gospel is not rules — it is relationship. Survivors will not find freedom in judgment, but they will find it in the presence of Christ who weeps with them, believes them, and calls them His own. Survivors need to feel the love of Jesus, to know that God loves them just the way they are and allow the Holy Spirit to do what only He can do, transform them, save them and give them true freedom. Perfect love casts out fear. Survivors have been marinated in fear and have been through torture, sadistic forms of rape, abuse, and dehumanization all in the name of love that was twisted and used as a weapon. For survivors to have true healing and freedom they need to go from fear to love and then to freedom.
When faith-based groups expect survivors to drop all the doctrine they were brainwashed with overnight, or to accept prayer the very way it was weaponized against them, they miss the heart of Christ. Healing takes time, safety, and choice. Survivors who were forced into cult systems like LDS, Catholicism, or other abusive structures cannot simply shed years of indoctrination in a moment. They need space to breathe, to question, to find their own way into the arms of Jesus.
The church must decide: will we embody the love that heals, or the hypocrisy that harms? Survivors deserve nothing less than the true heart of Jesus.