Bullies, bullies everywhere

A reflection on

I really didn’t want to go to church last Sunday morning. This isn’t unusual for me. Since surviving spiritual abuse, attending church is hard. But this time felt inexplicably different.

As I went to bed the night before, I felt so damn cranky at the thought of going to church that I decided I wouldn’t go. I didn’t know why I was angry; all I knew was that the idea of being there made my blood boil.

On Sunday morning I embodied my new favourite German word: Morgenmuffel (literally, “morning grouch”)—a person who wakes up cranky and is slow to start the day. It wasn’t just the foggy, sleep-deprived irritability that makes coffee taste like a personal insult. There was something heavier, unnamed, lodged under my ribs. I was not going to church, and nothing could change my mind.

Except it did. I don’t know why. I rolled out of bed and muttered, “Fine. I’ll go.” I got dressed, drank coffee (hoping it would help), and made my way to church. It didn’t help. I slipped into the back corner with my fiancé, resentful that I was there—until the worship leader stood up.

Standing with his bass guitar, he looked out at the congregation and said, quietly and solemnly, “It really feels like there are bullies everywhere.”

My anger softened. My eyes filled. In one sentence he named the thing I couldn’t: bullies, bullies everywhere.

Alluding to the current political climate, he spoke about how global bullies don’t care. They abuse power to take what they want—Ukraine, Taiwan, Canada, Venezuela. Then he named the uncomfortable truth that the church isn’t immune. We are consumed by the carnage around us and divided along political lines. The church, he said, is being devastated by infighting because we’ve stopped looking to Jesus.

That was it. That was the source of my resentful anger at being there. My eyes streamed, uncontrollably. I realised I wasn’t just angry—I was grieving.

I was grieving the way global Christians are allowing political rupture to infiltrate and form their identity. I was furious watching believers mirror the abusive power-plays of the political leaders they’ve aligned themselves with. My social media feed has become a flood of hate-filled political analysis dressed up as Christian virtue—comment sections that read like playground taunts, only sharper, louder, and baptised in Bible verses.

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Christians are no longer finding their identity in Christ. We are finding it in political allegiances—and then bullying those on the other side.

And for those of us who have survived spiritual abuse, this isn’t just distasteful. It’s destabilising. I am being triggered again and again as I watch the very dynamics that injured me play out everywhere I look: coercive control; mocking; hate speech; gaslighting; aggression; the abuse of Scripture to legitimise cruelty, exclusion, and even criminal behaviour.

This is what illegitimate power looks like in religious clothing. It does not serve. It dominates. It does not shepherd. It consumes. It does not bear the fruit of the Spirit. It produces fear, silence, and obedience extracted under threat.

The church, in these moments, does not resemble a unified body of Christ. So what do we do?

Well I think Paul has a lot to say about this in his letter to the Colossians; a church Paul praises for being united in their faith in Jesus and a love for all God’s people (Col. 1:3-5). Paul writes to them to encourage them so they may remain united to each other in love, and know the full richness of God, and not be swayed by human philosophies that don’t come from God, (Col. 2:2-8) or dare I say political left-right alliances. Those identifying with the church must be brave and ask:

Is your identity found first and foremost in Christ: the author and perfector of our faith? For example, because I follow Jesus, I will care for (insert blank) group of people and I will vote for (blank political party) because I believe this is the best way I can imitate Jesus

Or

Is your identity found in your political alliance first and Christ second? For example, I’m a progressive brand of Christian or I’m a MAGA brand of Christian and anyone with a different opinion can’t be a true Christian.

It’s impossible for the church to be united in faith when that faith is formed first by our political allegiances and Christ second. Moreover, instead of being able to love and care for all God’s people we divide into factions that try to seize illegitimate power to entice others to embrace their ideology while viciously bullying those they oppose, destroying the church’s reputation in the process.

The church is bleeding collectively and individually. This isn’t an innocuous matter. These divisions are traumatising faith.