What is spiritual abuse and how common is it? How should Christians handle spiritual abuse in the church?

Our guest today, Dr. Michael Kruger, has written a new book called Bully Pulpit confronting the problem of spiritual

abuse in the church.

I'm your host Sean McDowell.

I'm your co-host Scott Ray.

This is Think Bibically, a podcast brought to by Towell School Theology, Biola University.

Michael, I gotta tell you when I first saw this book, I had two thoughts.

Number one, I was surprised, I thought, wow, a New Testament scholar is weighing into the issue of spiritual abuse.

And then my second thought was, thank God, because every voice that weighs into this thoughtfully is helping to move the ball forward.

So maybe tell us why you as a New Testament professor chose to write this book.

Oh yeah, well you guys, you guys nailed it.

Thanks Sean, thanks Scott, great to be on the show and you're exactly right.

This is not a book that is in the topic of my normal repertoire.

Normally, as perhaps some of your listeners know,

I'm in the field of canon in text

and in New Testament studies.

And so this is actually a book that I sort of wrote in a way because I felt like it needed to be written and I felt like

okay if perhaps God is opening the door for me to write it maybe I need to write it and perhaps by doing so because I'm so outside of the box maybe

I could gain a hearing from some people that wouldn't otherwise listen about

the importance of this question and I think that probably says a lot about our

cultural moment I think you probably says a lot about our cultural moment. I think, you know,

the listeners probably know I'm not the first one to talk about this issue, but many of the

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