The agony of seeing spiritual abuse for what it is

On a forum post, a Harold Camping follower rides the spiritual roller coaster so many spiritual abuse victims find themselves on: defending their abusive leader and then condemning him, back and forth, trying to make sense of what's happened to him. By looking at his post as he tries to come to grips with the spiritual disillusionment so often left behind in such abusive situations, you can see how the mind works when a victim confronts the unwanted information that a leader is flawed, dangerous and hurtful.

Covering your Pastor's Nakedness

In Predators in the Pulpit, Chris Efinda, on the Bereans blog, talks about the doctrine of covering your father's nakedness. In spiritually abusive groups, sins of the father are routinely covered up by the "sons," the enablers of abuse.
Efinda says that it becomes a spiritual test, "When a spiritual son happens to witness his dad in a sinful act, he needs to treat the incident as a divine test of his own loyalty and must promptly cover dad’s nakedness."
This justifies the perpetuation of abuse in churches and groups and gives a scriptural veneer to the most atrocious acts of the clergy.
 Those who help abusive pastors, then, think they are doing something noble, when in reality they cement in place abusive church leaders.