Gaslighting, Abuse, and Evangelicalism
Recognizing problematic patterns and how to extricate ourselves
Popular culture today has adopted a lot of psychology lingo (for good or for ill… I have some mixed feelings), and words like “gaslighting” and “narcissism” are commonly thrown around, often in regards to people we don’t like. My goals today are twofold: making sure we have a clear understanding of what gaslighting is and isn’t, and also, laying out the ways that evangelicalism or other high-control religions have gaslit people into doubting their own realities.
As I mentioned last post, I took a training last week about gaslighting — so naturally, I want to share what I learned with you all! Dr. Stephanie Sarkis, author of Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People-and Break Free led the one-day training. Much of what I’m sharing with you comes from the workshop and her book, combined with my own spin about evangelicalism.
First, a definition: Gaslighting is a series of manipulative tactics done for the purpose of undermining another person’s sense of reality or self. The ultimate goal of a gaslighter is control and power over another person.
Gaslighting causes another person to question themselves and often makes them wonder “am I crazy??” when they are, in fact, in a crazy-making situation.
One thing I became acutely aware of during the training was how intentional gaslighters are with their behavior. The way Dr. Sarkis described them, gaslighters’ pleasure center of their brains light up when they are engaging in manipulative, coercive tactics — the same way “normal” brains light up when we’re eating ice cream or reading a good book. They crave power and control over others, and they use insidious tactics to achieve this.
When I talk about religious trauma, it’s important to me to point out how religious trauma is actually trauma even when it doesn’t look as obvious as sexual abuse scandals or being part of a group recognized by everyday outsiders as a cult. It can occur in subtle but still harmful ways. Same thing goes with gaslighting. There’s the obvious examples like Donald Trump: he denies facts, calls any reporting he doesn’t like “fake news,” and can get away with whatever he wants by just creating his own reality. But there’s also the subtle ways that our reality can get called into question by people and institutions that *seem* to have our best interest in mind.
Let’s talk about some common behaviors of gaslighters:
Love-Bombing
At the beginning of a relationship, a gaslighter often does what’s known as “love-bombing:” where a person is showered with attention, affection, admiration, gifts, and is generally made to feel special and desirable. (For Ted Lasso fans, Jack was doing this to Keely in season 3). The recipient of this often falls for the gaslighter’s charms, because who doesn’t want to feel this way? Unless, of course, you know it’s a red flag alert.
In evangelicalism, many churches make a lot of effort to draw in new people and talk about how welcoming their church is to newcomers. And of course, they have such a fantastic offering of the “Good News” that will save you from the hell you didn’t know you were going to if you didn’t accept the Good News — what’s not to love about that??
Devaluation
Once the gaslighter has you sufficiently bombed with love and under the heavy influence of their charm, they begin the insidious process of devaluation: slowly breaking you down and making you doubt your reality and your sense of self. If they can break you down enough to where you feel worthless and undesirable by anyone else, it makes it all the more likely that you will stay under their control.
Geez, just writing that gives me a chill how much evangelicalism capitalizes on this strategy. Once you’re hooked in with the concert-like worship, or the caring church community, or the promises of a changed life, the real devaluation begins. You can never be anything without God, and without us! You are a worthless sinner unless you believe the things we believe and remain part of our community. You are incapable of any good on your own; only God (the way we imagine him) can enable you to do any good.
Ugh. But how many of us stayed in evangelicalism for so long because we were devalued to the point where we truly believed we were worthless without this belief system?
Hoovering
I wasn’t familiar with this term until the training, but yes, it comes from the vacuum: Hoovering is the sucking back in of the victim once they start to attempt to leave. Dr. Sarkis described this as the gaslighter needing the victim for their “narcissistic supply,” and doing whatever it took to keep that supply around. I see this in abusive relationships regularly: the person struggles to leave because all of a sudden, the abuser is behaving so well, treating them kindly, telling them how great a person they are and how much the gaslighter wants them in his/her life. It’s a truly frustrating phase because the person may have been so close to realizing they need to leave, but another part of them wants very badly to be loved in this relationship, and they end up getting sucked back in.
Have you ever tried to express dissent with a church or even tried to leave, only to get persuaded to try things again? Churches usually hate losing members, and it might be through roping you in with some volunteering, or meeting up for a “chat over coffee” (i.e. a re-vangelizing session), but the church is not going to let you go without a struggle. The more cult-like the setting, the harder it is to leave.
Leaving a Gaslighting Relationship
An essential part of getting out of a relationship (intimate or religious) where you are being gaslit is beginning to trust your sense of reality again. No, you’re not going crazy and seeing everything through a uniquely distorted lens: your gaslighting partner is doing and saying things to make you feel crazy and unable to trust yourself. Once you can start seeing reality again, you have a chance of extricating yourself from the situation.
Dr. Sarkis emphasized that completely disentangling from the situation is the only way to really get out: going low- or no-contact with the person, ending all communication (or as little as possible, in the case of coparenting). The gaslighter once had power over you, and s/he won’t hesitate to wield that power again.
Cults and Extremist Groups
In her book, Dr. Sarkis devotes a chapter to cults and extremist groups. I don’t disagree with what she says, but I don’t think she is giving enough credence to the nuances of gaslighting in more “mainstream” situations. As I wrote about in a post about cults, evangelicalism in its high-control versions looks an AWFUL lot like a cult! I also think that we need to be more cautious of gaslighting behavior done without purely malicious intent. Most (?) church leaders have a genuine desire to save souls, but that doesn’t make the theology any less supremacist or toxic.
We would do well to be on the lookout for gaslighting behaviors, regardless if the person / organization is intentional and malicious enough to qualify as a gaslighter, under Dr. Sarkis’s terms. And if the person is confronted about gaslighting behaviors, are they open to change? Are they looking out for your best interest, or are they more interested in power and control? Their reactions to feedback, and more importantly, their actual behavioral change, will be the most telling.
Finally, as much as you can, be patient with yourself as you detox your brain from how it was gaslit. You’re doing the hard work of winning back your own sense of reality, and if you’ve had a distorted sense of reality for a long time, it is a slow process to build back trust with yourself. Find people in your life — good friends, mentors, non-authoritarian leaders — who can offer wisdom and act as a good sounding board as you rebuild your relationship with yourself. Eventually, you can find true freedom!
Do you recognize your own experiences in these descriptions of gaslighting? If you want to share, feel free to comment about gaslighting, cycles of emotional abuse, or how you have experienced this in high-control religion! We have an (unofficial) religious trauma support group in the comments; you’re always welcome to take part!
Thank you for laying this all out so clearly. It makes so much sense especially with the love-bombing followed by the devaluation. Evangelicalism draws you in with the message of how much God loves you, then sort of flips it over and says he doesn't actually love you, he can't stand you because you're contaminated with sin and he had to kill his son to even tolerate you in his presence. It makes you question everything: what is love then, if God can't love someone unless they're "justified" before him? That sounds a lot like *conditional* love to me. And I really see it as a theological error, namely the penal substitution atonement theory, but that's getting too detailed for this comment now haha. For me it's just heartbreaking that the entire system of evangelicalism is built on this.
A book I liked that helped me understand gaslighting too was If God Still Breathes, Why Can’t I?: Black Lives Matter and Biblical Authority, by Angela N. Parker. It showed how the doctrines of biblical inerrancy and infallibility are used by white evangelicals to gaslight any interpretation of Scripture that doesn't fit into their supremacist theological framework.
Thanks Christine. Tough subject but important for psychological freedom. I think those of us who are people pleasers may struggle most with gaslighters and manipulators. It helps if we learn our own boundaries and believe in and speak our own truth!