Perhaps I should feel vindicated.

Five years since my fourteen year old heart was crushed by my church. Five years since my narcissitic pastor was finally fired, after years (possibly a couple decades) of abusing his staff and raising a church that followed him in blind faith. Five years since the shit hit the fan and he was kicked out, only to get another job a few states over, in the same denomination, as he sued my family and put us through a nightmere of pain.

He's held that job. My fear was always that he had excelled. I wondered what his kids must have though. His daughter, who was a good friend of mine, and his son, who I came very close to dating right before everything, probably still think terrible things of my parents and I -- we brought him down, we were the reason he was fired, it was our fault.

But it's happened again. For the third time, this man who caused so much destruction, has been shown the door. What's more, he is barred from the denomination for good.

I should feel vindicated . . . shouldn't I?

I can't help but think of him differently now, five years out. A victim, perhaps, to an evil so intense, so supernatural, yet so close to our own breath.

This pattern of churches is quietly sweeping the nation, is it not? Most who have not actually had this destructive-like church experience that I, my family, and many, many others have may not believe it or hear about it, unless it happens to them or friends of theirs, but it is happening.

What is it? Why is it happening? Maybe I speak too strongly when I say this, but from where I'm standing, so much of this looks almost cult-like anymore. Regardless, the focus has left Christ entirely and has shifted somewhere way off-base, to a religion that is sold and pastors or elders who are worshipped instead of God. It's like the real meaning has been lost in the shuffle.

My question is why is this happening? Why has it become a pattern?

I hate to talk about "spiritual warfare" anymore because of my past experience with this term and the "forces" that it refers to. But I feel as though I almost can't escape it in regards to my ex-pastor.

Is it possible to be blinded by forces outside ourselves? To be so misdirected, we think what we are doing is right and honorable, even if we see the same actions as wron in others? Is it possible that something, some being, in a realm outside our own can have that kind of influence on us? Is it really possible that there is a battle so huge, that it is actually effecting the churches across our nation in the same way?

Or is the problem with my pastor merely a diagnosable narcissistic personality disorder? Is the similarity just some kind of trend, something that would have eventually happened in any church at this stage, like it should have been expected?