Trauma Bonding with false teachers
By Elizabeth Prata
Yesterday I wrote about the ministry of Jenny Weaver Worships, founded by Jenny Weaver and her husband Stephen. Weaver was a runaway, homeless, witchcraft-practicing drug-addicted teen, then a troubled young woman eventually at age 26 jailed for meth use and discovered in jail she was pregnant. She says she got clean in jail, got out, married the father of her baby (Stephen), began singing the scriptures, and got famous. Her ministry has turned into deliverance ministry events and mentorship courses (like a college similar to Bethel) focusing on demons, charismania, and exposing the supernatural realm.
I’d concluded with a warning to avoid her ministry.
Jenny Weaver: Discerning her ‘ministry’
Trauma Bonding
In researching Jenny Weaver, I came across The Honest Youth Pastor (HYP). He gave a ‘sermon review’ of one of Jenny Weaver’s events. He is Michael Moore (no relation to false teacher Beth or former ERLC guy Russell). In his review he shared a perspective I thought was highly interesting and new to me.
He called it “trauma bonding”.
In these current days many people claim to have trauma. It’s a popular buzzword. Everyone seems to be a victim of something.
I don’t deny trauma occurs. Most definitely. What I take issue with is the watering down of the definition of trauma, from something heavy and life-impacting, to merely getting the wrong order at the McDs drive thru.
Jenny Weaver is a singer, entrepreneur, mother, and prophetess. I discussed her theology and lifestyle yesterday. The HYP Michael Moore’s take on Jenny was interesting to me. As I had looked at her theology and lifestyle (1 Timothy 4:16), Moore also looked at the psychology. To be sure, he is not a psychologist, but in general terms, we can see a person’s catalyst for launching into ministry and some things they say and do can be plainly understood.
I do not discount the rough start in life Jenny had. Hers surely was a traumatic life. I feel for her. That she survived as long as she did was amazing. Good for her that she seems to be thriving today. I just wish she wasn’t thriving on making merchandise of her followers by capitalizing on their perceived trauma, and trading on hers.
Here is the perspective I thought was so interesting. The Honest Youth Pastor said of Jenny’s output:
HYP: “Within our day and age there’s a lot of people that have been traumatized through various things in their life. So what she’s [Jenny] really calling on not just with the story that she tells but the illustration she’s giving here, is there’s this broken little child inside of you and you need freed from whatever demon entered at that particular time. She’s going to play on that trauma that occurred in a lot of these ladies’ lives as an entry point to say, ‘hey there’s a scared little child Jesus is protecting and he wants to free you from whatever thing happened’.”
(Editor Note: If this reminds you of how Beth Moore approaches her ministry, you’d be correct.)
Honest Youth Pastor: “There’s a lot of psychological truth behind that in regards to people being traumatized and your brain kind of changing during those moments. Because your brain by God’s grace is designed to try to protect itself. So even in a fallen world your brain operates in a way that God has gloriously designed it to try to and shield you from that.”
It’s true that trauma causes brain changes. From the article Traumatic stress: effects on the brain by J. Douglas Bremner, MD in the National Library of Medicine, we read-
Dr. Bremner looked at how “To understand how traumatic stress occurring at different stages of the life cycle interacts with the developing brain… Brain areas implicated in the stress response include the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex. Traumatic stress can be associated with lasting changes in these brain areas.
The Honest Youth Pastor states at the outset of his reviews that he looks for 3 things in a the person’s speech he is reviewing:
1. Did the person read scripture from the Bible?
2. Did they exegete the scriptures correctly and in context?
3. Did they preach the Gospel?
HYP: “So we were left with a very strange mixture of Deliverance Ministry demonology, and not really not really self-help, but the bringing up of trauma and overcoming that trauma. She did talk about Jesus for sure but she didn’t mention the gospel.”
In the review that the HYP shared on his Youtube channel, no, Jenny Weaver did not read the scriptures, she did not exegete the scripture, and she didn’t preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jenny did talk about Jesus a lot, but the explicit Gospel was absent. The implicit assumption was that everyone there already believed in Jesus and we just need to get these demons out of the way.
HYP: “By the time they left did feel like something had happened, because when you work through trauma, when you talk about trauma, when you actually bring that about there’s a lot of emotions that come up in there. There’s a lot of things that surface. There’s a lot of endorphins that are released.”
HYP: “Sometimes those things are good. Talking about trauma is great. Overcoming trauma is wonderful. What’s more helpful however, and what assists in that process the best is, if you understand that the God that created heaven and earth came in the form of a baby, lived a perfect life that you could not live, died the death you should have died because we’re all Sinners apart from God. Because of Jesus’s life, death and Resurrection we are reconciled to God the Father through Jesus Christ his Son.”
And that is what was absent from jenny’s speech. Jesus was spoken of, but trauma via demons was the main idea.
These false ones connect with you over trauma. They share an emotional story of their own trauma, however they define it, assisted by language designed to pull at the heart, and some sensitive music thrown in. They don’t bond with you over our universal issue of sin and the need to repent. Their connection point is emotionalism through shared trauma.
Honest Youth Pastor review of Jenny Weaver event: https://youtu.be/WfsfP6FjyYE?si=1vBFYaLs_wyZV6pz
It makes sense, because we all have trauma of some kind, and in this day and age, all sorts of definitions of trauma are accepted. It’s a “my truth vs. your truth” sort of idea except it’s “my trauma vs. your trauma.”
That’s a problem, when the call to repent of sin and to worship Jesus is replaced with a call to bust the demon that’s harassing or possessing you by the power of Jesus. In the latter case, Jesus is a vehicle for fleshly temporary relief, not a Savior unto eternal salvation.
Adherents to this type of ‘ministry’ base their belief on the signs, miracles, and healings, not on the One who performed them. Jesus acknowledged this when He said,
Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” (John 4:48)
The post-event resilience that occurs for most of these demon-focused or signs-focused people in Charismatic ministries isn’t the perfect peace of Jesus, it is the psychological feeling that someone finally listened and helped. Of course, this feeling doesn’t last, because no emotion lasts. So the feeling of relief or connection or empathy dissipates, and they need another dose of demon deliverance to make it stick. And on it goes.
My point for the dear reader today is, watch and discern upon which connection point the Bible teacher or pastor uses to connect with his or her audience. See if it is the same connection point he or she uses on a regular basis. If it’s regularly anything other than the person of Jesus, Him for Himself, then begin discerning more deeply and pray it through. Most importantly, avoid these kind of ministries.
