Emotionally healthy spiritual leaders are hard to come by and there is just something about leading a religious flock that draws emotionally vacant, power hungry, and glory seeking manipulators, like moths to a flame.  Just as with many types of abuses, there is a spectrum of intensity and hurt that befalls victims of spiritual abuse, but how can we identify and avoid leaders like these?

If you're reading this post, you most likely know what it's like to doubt your salvation. To feel fear that you might be wrong and that the consequences will be eternal. That to be saved, you can't just repent, believe, and follow Jesus...you have a perpetual checklist that only gets longer. Maybe on some deep hidden level you've hoped your neighbor performs justenough worse than you because otherwise, do you even have a shot?

Anna Kitko is a cult and new religions specialist with Ratio Christi, where she serves as the campus apologist at the University of...

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