#174 | Spiritual Abuse | Michael J. Kruger

What did James MacDonald, Mark Driscoll, and Bill Hybels have in common? They were all guilty of spiritual abuse. We have all heard of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, just to name a few, but spiritual abuse? Spiritual abuse is the most incipient of abuses, but it happens all the time. What exactly is spiritual abuse? What are the signs? How do we differentiate spiritual abuse from true godliness and leadership? Michael J. Kruger has some words of wisdom to help guide us into this very difficult, painful, and confusing subject.

Dr. Michael J. Kruger serves as the President and Samuel C. Patterson Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the Charlotte campus of Reformed Theological Seminary.

Get his book: Bully Pulpit: Confronting the Problem of Spiritual Abuse in the Church (Zondervan, 2022), which won the 2022 “Book of the Year” award from The Gospel Coalition for the ministry category.

Or check out some of his other books:

Surviving Religion 101: Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College (Crossway, 2021), was awarded 2021 “Book of the Year” by the Southwestern Baptist Journal of Theology for the category of Worldview/Apologetics, and Christianity at the Crossroads: How the Second Century Shaped the Future of the Church (SPCK, 2017; IVP Academic, 2018) was awarded 2018 “Book of the Year” by The Gospel Coalition in the category of history and biography.

Other publications include The Gospel of the Savior (Brill, 2005), The Heresy of Orthodoxy (Crossway, 2010, with Andreas Köstenberger), Canon Revisited (Crossway, 2012), and The Question of Canon (IVP Academic, 2013). He is also the editor of and contributor to A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament (Crossway, 2016) and co-editor of The Early Text of the New Testament (Oxford, 2012) and Gospel Fragments (Oxford, 2009).

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