I make no apology for being an advocate against spiritual abuse. So when James writes that “This dynamic [of pathologizing discomfort] is evident throughout the broader Christian subcultures that have embraced a more activist approach to church abuse,” I can only conclude that he is not reading the right advocates.

Samuel D. James has given some additional thoughts on “church abuse activism” generated by books like When Narcissism Comes to Church by Chuck DeGroat. I published a response to James’ prior critique of DeGroat last November, and feel the need to do so again, but with some hesitation. I hesitate, because I believe there are different strands of “abuse activism”, and what I want to defend is probably different than what James wants to critique. His examples come from the milieu of social media. My experience in advocating for abuse survivors comes from flesh and blood experience of witnessing church abuse. If we are careful in distinguishing our dialogue partners, I suspect (or hope, at least) that James and I would have substantial agreement. The danger is in addressing different enemies while arguing as if they are the same. So, caveat lector; or, caveat apologiste: let the apologist beware.
What pushes me past this hesitation is that influential evangelical leaders seem to really like what James has to say about spiritual abuse. Justin Taylor retweeted (twice) James’ initial review and Dane Ortlund praised this second piece.
So, a pastor who as been accused of abusing spiritual authority commends an article on spiritual abuse. Hmmm. That gives me pause. Well, not pause, because I’m taking action by writing. But it’s certainly a red flag for me. Now onto the material itself.
I don’t find a whole lot new in James article. Indeed, it’s strange to me that he hasn’t actually addressed the “pointed pushback” he reports:
“My review of When Narcissism Comes to Church generated some of the more pointed pushback I’ve ever received from those I would consider generally in my theological/political tribe.”
James conveniently passes over the majority of Mike Cosper’s 3,000+ word constructive criticism. For those who like what James has to say, I can only hope that you do the hard work of studying his critics even if he doesn’t. I don’t mean any offense by that. It’s just that Substack is a medium for richer dialogue that social media doesn’t allow, yet James spends more time critiquing social media tweets than he does engaging 3,000+ word responses (including my 3,000+ word response, but that I understand, I don’t realistically expect James to read my writing because I don’t have any kind of online platform). Given the greater potential of long-form writing vs social media, I would welcome some true back-and-forth dialogue with James in a spirit of genuine Christian catholicity.
Given that he presents similar ideas in this second piece, I will be re-using some of my previous responses. Here is how James restates the main point of his first review:
“The decision that DeGroat made to emphasize psycho-therapeutic categories and marginalize concepts like sin and repentance is consistent with the framework he establishes, wherein the definition of a narcissistic, abusive person is highly contextual and depends mostly on how the people around that person feel about him.”
I commend James for softening his critique here. Where he initially said DeGroat “abandoned” theological language of sin (2x in that review), now he says DeGroat “emphasized psychology” and “marginalized Biblical concepts”. Still, emphasizing one domain of discourse does not logically require marginalizing another, and as I pointed out before, DeGroat is quite comfortable and adept at using biblical language and concepts. This means DeGroat does not believe there is an inherent incompatibility between psychology and Scripture. I believe James is reading DeGroat with a presupposition that DeGroat does not share, and charitable reading requires acknowledging those differences.
More to the point, here is how I restated James’ main points from his initial review:
First thesis: Biblical categories are superior to psychological categories, and psychological categories are harmful/heretical.
Second Thesis: Biblical categories allow us to come to true and accurate judgments, whereas experiences and feelings do not.
The rest of James’ article after that quote about emphasis and marginalizing, which was initially behind a paywall, is all about how “we’re seeing a pathologizing of personal discomfort”. But James focuses his attention at “online therapy culture”, whereas my concern is the local church. I am going to skirt that online discussion entirely, except to say that any analysis of cultural influence between social media and church is going to be complex and multifaceted. So, I am wary of any reductionistic assumptions that because “pathologizing of personal discomfort” is happening online, it’s obviously happening in churches.1
This is where I think we are talking about different cultural forces. And I am concerned that pastors will take James’ critique of online spiritual abuse discourse and apply that to their local church in defense of truly abusive behavior. To that I say, anathema.
Theology vs Psychology?
Back to the first thesis. Are Biblical categories really superior to psychological ones? I believe James’ approach suffers from an overworked antithesis principle similar to movements generated by Cornelius Van Til, Jay Adams, and the nouthetic counseling / ACBC movement. That is a big debate, and in a short response I can’t do much better than quote from Eric Johnson:
“In transposition, in order to understand the lower order [e.g. biological, psychological] properly and more comprehensively, the knower interprets the dynamic structures of lower orders from within a higher order of meaning…This process is a hierarchical transposition, by which the meaningfulness of the lower order is redesignated, so that the higher order gives the lower-order information a new depth and significance.”2
This comprehensive perspective, or what Johnson terms “complex theocentrism,” contrasts “simple theocentrism” and “religious dualism.”
“Religious dualists focus on the highest order of human life—the spiritual—and see it as so much more important than the other orders of the creation that the latter are neglected or seen as unworthy of serious attention, or, in the most extreme versions, are interpreted as being antithetical to the spiritual realm…Christian models of counseling that focus exclusively on God and sin and downplay reference to biological and psychosocial influences may have fallen under a gnostic spell.”3
Johnson calls for “a more profoundly theocentric approach” than dualism:
“Upon greater reflection and in light of Scripture, all the created aspects of human life are recognized as important because they are made by God. Therefore, for God’s glory every aspect must be “given its due,” corresponding to its particular significance in relation to God…Contrary to religious dualism, a more thoroughgoing theocentrism understands that God is honored by an appropriate regard for all that he has done and made, including those created strata of lesser significance.”4
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1 This really isn’t my concern, but it’s also worth noting that James (and many other objectors) missed David Dark’s actual wording, which pointed to Keller’s statement as a reflection of “the language of spiritual abuse.” He did not say, “this is spiritual abuse.” As such, the statement merits dialogue, not dismissal as “gross overreaction”.
David Dark’s Inner Psychic Revolution @DavidDark
This is the language of spiritual abuse.
“Nothing more important for a Christian to do than to read right through the whole Bible over and over and over, at the very least once a year. You have to keep checking and refining your beliefs by immersion in the Scripture.”
2Eric L Johnson. Foundations for Soul Care: A Christian Psychology Proposal. IVP Academic, 2007, p. 366, emphasis original.
3Ibid., p. 357.
4Ibid., p. 359.
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When a woman’s case is twice as likely to be blocked on procedural grounds, it is difficult indeed to perceive “that our system is just.” Based on the data alone, it looks quite unjust. And the men who made that statement were aware that “perception [of justice in the PCA system] is essential to the moral and spiritual force we trust our discipline will have for the good of the church.” Can there be any “moral and spiritual force” for disciplinary processes that appear unjust?

Did you know that PCA church courts are more likely to block complaints from women than those from men? I suspected that to be the case, but didn’t have the data to prove it until digging through the past 49 years of PCA judicial proceedings.[1] I was curious if there is objective support for concerns raised by others in the PCA about how the church courts are serving its members, especially the vulnerable. For example, the PCA magazine byFaith did a write up when the Ad Interim Study Committee on Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault[2] published their report[3] earlier this year. One of the committee members interviewed for that article expressed concerns in particular about help for female church members:
“Women in the PCA must recognize there is more work to be done (a lot of educating to be done!) before they can have assurance their case will be shepherded well.”[4]
That comment raises a question: why would women want or need “assurance [that] their case will be shepherded well”? We could easily answer that question through personal testimony, but in my experience, the testimony of women carries much less weight than men. So consider with me some objective data to see if it answers why women need assurance their cases will be shepherded well.
In the last 50 years the highest court of the Presbyterian Church in America, the General Assembly and its Standing Judicial Committee (SJC), has heard 429 cases.[5] Of those 429 cases, 138 were ruled “out of order” on either administrative or judicial grounds. These out of order (OOO) rulings are based on the requirements of the PCA constitution, the Book of Church Order (BCO). The BCO provides detailed and often complex rules to which a case must conform in order to be adjudicated, including time frames for filing complaints, questions of jurisdiction and which church court is responsible, and who has the right to seek assistance from PCA courts. Once a case is ruled OOO, the church court is essentially done with the matter unless the member objects to the ruling and seek assistance from the next higher court.
So 138 out of 429 cases were determined to be OOO. That is a high percentage (32%), nearly 1/3 of all cases.[6] There has also been an increase over the last 40 years, starting in 1992, in the rate of OOO rulings. If we take the last 10 years since 2011, the average number of OOO rulings is 47.25%.[7] That’s quite a big jump from the overall rate of 32%. With that average and overall increase, one wonders if members of the PCA should expect future cases to have a 50/50 chance of being heard.
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[1] See Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, https://pcahistory.org/pca/ga/index.html. Data from 2022 is not available yet, I plan to update and revise my findings once the 2022 GA Minutes are published.
[2] https://dasacommittee.org
[3] https://dasacommittee.org/committee-report
[4] https://byfaithonline.com/pca-abuse-study-committee-releases-its-report/
[5] Calculating total number of cases is not straightforward. For these statistics I omitted cases that were either abandoned or withdrawn. Additionally, there are often multiple “cases,” “complaints” and “appeals” each year that relate to the same substantial matter. As much as possible, I counted the number of cases in accord with how the SJC reported them, e.g., if they grouped multiple cases together and ruled them as one, it only counted for one case.
[6] This is in the ballpark of a calculation from ruling elder and SJC member Howie Donahoe in a dissenting opinion from 2018: “In the 18 years between June 1997 and June 2015, the SJC rendered out-of-order rulings in 94 cases, i.e., in 36% of the 257 cases it received” (https://pcahistory.org/pca/ga/46th_pcaga_2018.pdf, p. 579).
[7] 2019 and 2021 are anomalous, with 100% and 0% out-of-order rulings respectively. If 2022 likewise had zero cases ruled OOO there might be cause to rethink the overall trend.
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