Book Review: Spiritual Violence: Religious Phenomena That Defile the Faith by Rev. Alba Onofrio

Rev. Alba Onofrio, with Nadia Arellano and Dr. Judith Bautista Fajardo. Spiritual Violence: Religious Phenomena That Defile the Faith. Soulforce“ 2026. ebook print, ISBN: 9781736126783. Buy now via Bookshop.org

Spiritual Violence: Religious Phenomena That Defile the Faith is an urgent critical intervention in the study of religious nationalism. It gives language to forms of harm that many people know in their bodies long before they can name them. The central thesis is that white Christian Supremacy turns sacred texts, traditions, and institutions into tools of domination. When that happens, religion does not merely fail to protect vulnerable people. It becomes the means through which they are shamed, controlled, isolated, punished, and taught to doubt their own dignity. The book is hopeful in its theological horizon, but not thoughtful in its diagnosis. It insists that faith can heal, but only when communities tell the truth about the ways faith has been weaponized.

One of the things I appreciate about the volume is how it refuses to separate theology from embodied life. Its method is not only theoretical but also pastoral, political, testimonial, and somatic. The authors write from queer, feminist, Latinx, diasporic, and Christian commitments, and they hold these commitments together holistically and intersectionally, foregrounding the whole person. The prologue introduces Lxs Sinvergüenzas as a community of faithful resistance. Sinvergüenza becomes more than a reclaimed epithet. It becomes a theological posture: bold, unashamed, irreverent toward domination, and devoted to healing. Beginning with Lxs Sinvergüenzas, this book reveals its goal: liberation through naming, truth-telling, somatic wisdom, and collective repair.

”The book has five important and heavy chapters: “Spiritual Traum “white Christian Supremac “Spiritual Violenc “Spiritual Terrorism,” and “Religious Abuse.” It then closes with “Closing Thoughts,” a visual analogy of white Christian Supremacy as a weapons factory, and four appendices: a Spiritual Violence Reflective Awareness Tool, healing practices after Spiritual Violence, a Religious Abuse Reflective Awareness Tool, and healing practices after Religious Abuse. It was helpful to me to take breaks between chapters and journal reflecting on my own experience and engagement with the text, allowing myself time to process. This structure is one of the book’s strengths. It begins with the wounds survivors carry, moves backward through the historical and ideological roots of those wounds, then traces the continuum of harm from everyday spiritual injury to systemic terror and intimate abuse.

Chapter 1, “Spiritual Trauma,” starts with enfleshed corporeal bodies. We begin at the site and location of spiritual violence, the body/mind/soul. In refusing to separate the body into a trichotomy, the authors ask a simple yet important question: what happens when religion wounds the spirit? (I paused here to journal. I recommend readers to the same.) Spiritual Violence; defines Spiritual Trauma as the trauma experienced by those subjected to Spiritual Violence, Religious Abuse, or Spiritual Terrorism. Through a careful weaving of survivors’ stories, the authors provide a substantial account of spiritual trauma. Chapter 1 illustrates the harm that occurs when God, sacred texts, or religious authorities become attached to harm; survivors lose not only community but also a source of resilience. Nadia’s courageous account grounds the theology in lived religious experience. The account shows how religious authority can bind together belonging, fear, obedience, and bodily control. Nadia's story and the analytical support for it in the chapter illustrate how spiritual harm is material harm. The spiritual and material worlds are intertwined and inseparable. It does not reduce it to hurt feelings, theological disagreement, or private disappointment. Chapter one illustrates so beautifully and poignantly what Dr. Biko Mandela Gray always tells students, "critique is an act of care." Nadia tells her story with care, and she is held in care by the community of Soulforce.

Chapter 2, “white Christian Supremacy,” provides a historical frame. The chapter argues that Christian hegemony shapes what a society treats as normal and good, even when that society calls itself secular. But the authors distinguish Christian hegemony from white Christian Supremacy. Christian hegemony names the dominance of Christian values and rhythms across social life. white Christian Supremacy names the weaponized form of Christianity that serves conquest, patriarchy, racism, empire, and control. This distinction is valuable because it highlights the contested nature of Christianity. There is not one Christianity but a multiplicity of Christianities, and some of them can be liberative and life-giving, as the authors highlight. However this nuanced and careful analysis does not occlude the powerful critique that Christianity, in the singular (and I would add the plural) has been repeatedly captured by power, violence, and hegemony.

In light of the chapter’s Examination of Christian Hegemony, the examination of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery is especially important. By reading papal bulls such as Dum Diversas, Romanus Pontifex, and Inter Caetera[^1] as theological and jurisprudential technologies of conquest, the book links spiritual harm to land theft, enslavement, genocide, and the denial of Indigenous sovereignty. This is one of the volume’s key contributions, highlighting the past, present, and left unchecked future harms of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery as it continues to be weaponized and used as a tool of Spiritual Violence. It refuses the narrow idea that spiritual violence only happens inside churches or families. The book shows that religion-based violence also organizes law, property, borders, race, gender, and national identity. That makes the concept useful far beyond pastoral care. It belongs in theology, religious studies, ethnic studies, trauma studies, and political education. It Chapter 3, “Spiritual Violence,” is the key contribution of this book, articulating what Spiritual Violence is and how and when it occurs when religious morality or divine authority is used to question or deny the sacred worth and inherent dignity of a person or group. This concept is powerful because it names a wide range of harms without flattening them. Spiritual violence includes physical violence, sexual violence, and discursive forms of violence like jokes, shame, exclusion, proof-texting, family pressure, church discipline, legal discrimination, and internalized self-hatred. The chapter is strongest when it shows how ordinary and intimate this violence can be. The stories of Jelena and Sofia show that spiritual violence often comes through people who think they are protecting faith, family, or morality. The book is careful here. It does not say intent is irrelevant, but it insists that good intentions do not erase harm.

This chapter also makes a major contribution through its account of patriarchy and the weaponizing of the Bible. The authors show how gender hierarchy becomes harder to challenge when it is framed as God’s design. Patriarchy is not only a social system in this account. It becomes a theology of control. The book’s discussion of biblical literalism is useful because it connects interpretation to power. When a text is treated as simple, fixed, and infallible, authority shifts to those who claim the right to interpret it. The chapter then models another way of reading. It points toward feminist, queer, trans, and liberationist approaches that treat Scripture as a site of struggle rather than a weapon already owned by the powerful.

Chapter 4, “Spiritual Terrorism,” expands the scale. Spiritual Terrorism is defined as the systematic mobilization of white Christian supremacist logic and morality against people marked as evil, dangerous, or disposable. The authors distinguish it from Spiritual Violence by scale, scope, and intensity. This is one of the book’s most important conceptual moves. Spiritual Terrorism names what happens when a targeted group faces threats from many directions at once: family, church, school, police, law, media, and the state. The chapter’s examples involving 2SLGBTQIA+ people, migrants, and trans communities show how moral panic becomes a structure of fear. The point is not only that people are harmed. The point is that they are made to live under constant surveillance and threat.

The chapter’s treatment of Christian hegemonic impunity as a type of Spiritual Terrorism illuminates part of the reason so many people are leaving churches today, and that is the lack of accountability and support for survivors of sexual abuse and spiritual abuse. Spiritual Terrorism works because perpetrators believe they are doing the right thing, and because institutions often agree with them, and provide them with theologized impunity coupled with an apathy and refusal to act. Phrases like “following the law,” “defending values,” or “maintaining order“ become moral shields. The story of Yadira and Emilio shows this clearly. In college, one of my professors, Ron Crtichfiled, used to say that "proof-text theology is bad theology." Spiritual Violence highlights how proof-text theology is not only bad theology but also toxic theology. The volume uses the example of how white Christian Supremacy uses Romans 13 to defend family separation at the US border, which becomes an example of how biblical language can legitimate state violence. Through this example, one can see how spiritual violence moves from sermon to statute, from private belief to public cruelty.

Chapter 5, “Religious Abuse,” brings the argument back into the intimate space of churches and spiritual communities. Religious Abuse is presented as a severe form of Spiritual Violence that occurs when a person with religious authority exploits someone under their care for personal benefit or gratification. The chapter is painful but necessary. It explains why abuse in religious communities can be so hard to name. Churches often operate with trust, hospitality, reverence, and emotional closeness. These can be life-giving. But they can also hide coercion when leaders use divine authority to demand obedience. I read this chapter slowly, carefully, taking breaks, as it is practical, insightful, and encouraging of the reader to take time to reflect upon spiritual abuse.

The chapter’s discussion of clergy power, church ecosystems, religious legalism, prosperity teachings, purity culture, disability, conversion therapy, and theologies of bodily harm is one of the most practical parts of the book. It shows that abuse is not the act of a single bad leader. It often depends on a whole environment: hierarchy, secrecy, gendered authority, unpaid labor, financial dependence, fear of scandal, and teachings that make suffering seem holy. Juliana's story is devastating because it shows how religious reverence can obstruct justice. As one sits with Juliana's story, the chapter also examines how liberative theologies that honor the body, center lived experience, and call communities to material practices of repair serve as a counterpoint to the toxic theologies of religious violence.

The closing visual analogy of a weapons factory brings the book’s concepts together. white Christian Supremacy is the factory. The Bible, doctrine, and tradition are raw materials. The weapons produced include daily Spiritual Violence, Religious Abuse, Spiritual Terrorism, internalized Spiritual Violence, and mass forms of violence such as colonization and genocide. The analogy works because it clarifies scale. A BB gun is not a machine gun, and a handgun is not a nuclear bomb. But all are weapons. Likewise, a shaming joke, a coercive pastoral relationship, a discriminatory law, and a theology that blesses conquest are not identical. But they can come from the same ideological machinery, and they can all cause harm.

The appendices are incredibly helpful and informative for (non)-religious communities, community groups, and collective organizing. The Reflective Awareness Tools help readers identify experiences of Spiritual Violence and Religious Abuse without presenting themselves as clinical diagnostic instruments. The healing practices are practical and grounded: studying history, telling stories, growing in community, responding to violence, practicing disobedience, doing theology, exploring other spiritual paths, changing language, observing the violence we replicate, engaging in activism, focusing on joy, and seeking professional help. These sections matter because the book does not leave readers alone with recognition. It offers steps toward repair. I would encourage reading the appendices first and applying these practices as one reads. I did this the second time I read through the book, and it was incredibly helpful.

The book’s key concepts—Spiritual Trauma, white Christian Supremacy, Spiritual Violence, Spiritual Terrorism, Religious Abuse, Sentipensar, and Sinvergüenza—are important because they give readers a lexicon for articulating and describing these experiences in ways that can be understood by those who have not experienced these abuses. Survivors are often told they are too sensitive, rebellious, sinful, confused, bitter, or faithless. This book says something else: the problem is not your body, your questions, your sexuality, your gender, your anger, or your refusal to submit. The problem is the weaponization of religion by systems of domination. That shift in language is not cosmetic. It changes where responsibility belongs.

The review should also name the book’s hermeneutics of generosity and care. Spiritual Violence is written by people who care enough about faith to reclaim it from domination, as the Soulforce website boldly proclaims, "We are Queer people reclaiming our spirits from weaponized religion." The authors repeatedly distinguish weaponized religion from liberating faith. They name churches and Christians as sources of harm but also of sanctuary, courage, civil disobedience, feminist theology, queer theology, trans theology, abolitionist practice, and communal care. It would be easy and perhaps understandable for the authors to turn to cynicism and despair, but instead, they have put in the work to focus on repair and healing for themselves and their beloveds and beloved communities.

Spiritual Violence is a significant contribution to public theology. Through its reflexive weaving of applied theology, survivor testimony, decolonial history, queer feminist theology, trauma awareness, and practical tools for community education, it provides a representative example of the best of prophetic public theology. Listen closely and hear the loving invitation from Rev. Alba Onofrio to readers who have felt the ache of quietly loving God after being harmed by God’s people to find spaces for repair and healing. For classrooms, churches, activist groups, pastoral training, and survivor-led healing spaces, this book offers a shared vocabulary for addressing Spiritual Violence.

The book’s importance lies in its core invitation: name the violence, trace the system, return to the body, tell the truth, and build communities where faith no longer serves domination. That is a serious task. Spiritual Violence gives readers resources to begin it. For those looking for next steps look at the wounderful resources that Soulforce Resource Library where you can find materials in seven languages.

Footnotes #

[^1]: New translation by Sebastian Modrow and Melissa Smith. Indigenous Values Initiative "Inter Caetera," translated by Sebastian Modrow and Melissa Smith, Doctrine of Discovery Project (13 June 2022), https://doctrineofdiscovery.org/inter-caetera/.