Words Without the Cross

When Religious Formation Loses the Spirit of Christ

“The demons also speak of humility, but they do not possess it.”

— Saying attributed to the Desert Fathers

There is a way of speaking about God that sounds exact and yet is hollow. The words are correct. The phrases are familiar. Scripture is quoted fluently. The language of humility, obedience, discernment, even self-emptying, flows easily. And yet something in the soul recoils. Not because the words are wrong, but because the spirit behind them is not at rest.

Our Lord warns us of this danger with sobering clarity. “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.” He does not say you will know them by their vocabulary, their ascetical rigor, or their confidence. He says you will know them by what their presence produces in others. Does it enlarge the heart or constrict it. Does it lead to repentance or dependency. Does it awaken freedom in Christ or replace it with fear, confusion, and submission to a personality rather than to God.

The desert fathers were relentlessly suspicious of speech that ran ahead of life. Abba Arsenius fled not only the noise of the world but the temptation to be impressive in spiritual matters. He learned that silence exposes whether a word is born of prayer or of self-assertion. The fathers observed that demons are perfectly capable of quoting Scripture and speaking of humility. What they cannot do is bear the fruit of humility. They cannot endure patience. They cannot allow another to stand before God freely. They cannot rejoice when a soul grows without their control.

St Paul writes that “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” There is a spiritual knowledge that does not come from the Cross. It is sharp, confident, and often intoxicating to both speaker and listener. It gives the illusion of depth while quietly shifting the center of gravity away from Christ and toward the one who speaks. Under the guise of obedience, it asks for surrender without trust. Under the name of humility, it diminishes the conscience rather than purifying it. Under the banner of discernment, it subtly replaces the Holy Spirit with its own interpretations.

This is how manipulation often enters religious life without announcing itself. It rarely begins with cruelty. It begins with certainty. With the quiet message that you cannot see clearly without me. The soul is gradually infantilized. Questions are treated as pride. Interior struggle is reframed as disobedience. The person is taught to mistrust the very place where God speaks most intimately—the conscience illumined by prayer. In time, faith in God and trust in the Church are not strengthened but eroded, because both have been filtered through a human mediator who has quietly taken a place he was never meant to occupy.

The fathers were clear that authentic obedience never destroys personhood. Abba Dorotheos teaches that obedience heals the will so that it can move freely toward God, not so that it can be replaced by another’s will. St Isaac the Syrian goes further, saying that coercion, even when clothed in religious language, is foreign to the Spirit of God. Where the Spirit is, there is gentleness. There is patience. There is reverence for the mystery of the other.

Modern elders echo the same warning in a different register. They speak of spiritual abuse not first as a moral failure but as a distortion of the spiritual life itself. When authority is exercised without trembling, when guidance is given without tears, when obedience is demanded without love, something has already gone wrong. The sign is not strictness but the absence of compassion. Not discipline, but the lack of mercy. Not clarity, but the refusal to be questioned.

Christ never manipulated. He never coerced. He spoke with authority, yet people walked away from Him and He let them go. He formed His disciples slowly, allowing misunderstanding, fear, even betrayal, without tightening His grip. His power was revealed not in control but in self-emptying love. Any form of spiritual formation that contradicts this pattern, no matter how eloquent its language, has already departed from the mind of Christ.

This is why the discernment of spirits remains essential. Not every voice that speaks of God speaks from God. Not every call to obedience leads to life. The measure is always the same. Does it lead you more deeply into repentance, humility, and love. Does it increase your freedom before God. Does it anchor you more firmly in Christ and His Church rather than in a single human authority. If it does not, then however religious its language, it must be named for what it is.

The Church is not preserved by precision of speech alone. She is preserved by holiness. By lives hidden in repentance. By leaders who fear God more than they desire influence. By words that arise from silence and return to it. Anything else, however polished, bears watching. For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And where freedom is quietly taken away in God’s name, the spirit at work is not the Spirit of Christ.