Do you have stories about being abused or burned by church? How has it affected your view of religion?

I wrote in great length about this here:   For those who would rather not read through it I'll summarize.   I was basically made to feel unwelcome after my first meeting as the new Youth Leader. I was never spoken to by those who engineered my ousting.   To this day I have a deep and abiding mistrust for organized Christianity.   I'd like to think that my relationship with my Lord and Savior hasn't been affected but it has. I don't pray as often as I should. I don't spend as much time actively considering what God's path is for me.   I love God. I don't care much for his followers though.

I have been luckily spared from these types of conflicts, generally.  I would suggest this is about five related issues: Lack of humility Power/ego (temptation) Lack of conflict resolution skills (inability to see or identify common ground).  Not focusing enough on community and unity, etc... Too much either/or thinking Lack of empathy/lack of compassion.  Misguided desire to "accomplish" some end while not understanding how it would effect stakeholders in a negative way (aka means, process, spiritual collateral damage).

There is always a danger with unaccountable power. I don't blame the church for this it is just about human failings. Churches are casually abusive, although it is the extreme end that gets noticed. I've lost some friends to religion, who do nothing more than define someone's social circle. If you aren't prepared to join the club you are an outsider and viewed as a threat. For abuse it used to be a lot more common than is admitted. My cousin was stalked by a priest, who took an unhealthy interest in her "moral well-being" by following her about from place to place. Literally everywhere she went he would be nearby and make his presence known. Corruption wasn't unknown, my niece was refused Baptism on the grounds of her parent's atheism, until a donation to the Church was made. People don't generally speak about what happened in church, but that amount of unaccountable power is bound to lead to abuse. I didn't suffer any abuse personally, but the whispers abounded. You aren't as a kid ever going to testify against a priest and no one is going to believe you.

I have remarked on other questions about this. Excommunicated after three, three hour trials from being a Mormon priest. It became a farce. I had long before lost the woo, woo part but was still doing the family thing. The doctrine, especially the exclusiveness bothered me from the first time my mother introduced it when I was 11. I never bought the story as fact. But the family process is pretty second to none. Joy is prevalent in most of the families.

Being precocious I asked the Sunday school teacher who had just shown a room of children (all under the age of 10) a rather traumatic movie (made in the early 80's) about the apocalypse, in order to create an environment conducive to inspiring children to accept Jesus Christ into their hearts, "What about babies who die?  They can't even understand talking and they don't know Jesus. Do they go to hell?"  The teacher's response was, "Yes, but its a less hot section of hell."  I called bullshit (literally, cursed at the Sunday school teacher) and that I am not a fan of organized religion.

There are people quietly doing good things in quiet corners of the world. So many of them that we'll never know of. Unless they come one day to prominence. Like Mother Theresa or Pope Francis. Meantime, it heartens me to know that there are unseen good people doing good. There are also unseen evil people doing evil in quiet places, and they'll remain unknown unless they someday come to prominence. By which time, their evil would have been able to harm a lot more people. Time and the size of the organisation are leverage for good or evil. Political manoeuvring. Slander. Character assassination. Control over relationships. Financial manipulation. Just some things I've experienced. The Bible, which many of these transgressors put on a pedestal (failing to see themselves accurately in it), is full of shady, evil, fallen, comic people. I'm talking about the fathers of the faith, not a pointy eared caricature of the devil. Some of these ended ignominiously. Some of these ended redemptively. In other words, just like in real life.

I'm a Catholic Freemason.  I haven't been abused or burned by any church, but some of the more ... "enthusiastic" and terminally undereducated or mentally challenged members have had issues with that. Hasn't changed my faith, hasn't changed my view of the Church, God, or people in general.  I'm still a Catholic.  I'm still a Freemason.  ...and I'm still a Knight Templar, too.

Mission churches that chew up and spit out vicars like gum. Not known from personal experience...just know that each (arch)diocese/synod/conference has a couple of troubled congregations that can lay some heavy spiritual abuse on their (often temporary) clergy.

I have had some bad experiences in churches. Especially when I was practicing poverty on purpose. Even though I helped the church in a lot of ways, one particular one just didn't like me. It could be that I asked them to raise the bar in service to others and felt there were financial irregularities. I had a security guard, peep at me in the bathroom. I was yelled at for eating food at one of the banquets, even though my manners are quite good. So even though I was just playing a role, I was labeled by some. We were asked to contribute ideas for the church and it was just another mess. They didn't want to hear anything to their loss got in trouble for praying in an empty church. I was told that I was scaring people. In general I figure if you wanted to get anything done in a church you have to be the right wallet size. I wonder how many other people have been treated similarly. It hurts because there was no way to vent. And because I felt that I should have been supported by friends and family in my Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment.