Spiritual Abuse Roundtable

The Religious Studies Project

Over the past few years, a number of religious studies scholars have collaborated on events on the theme of ‘spiritual abuse’. While this has been a topic of research and debate for some time, these events have worked especially hard to bring together survivors, researchers, practitioners and pastoral workers in respectful dialogue. This roundtable brings together a few of those scholars, in the wake of the Spiritual Abuse conference at the University of Chester, and a series of online seminars for INFORM. Join host Theo Wildcroft and panelists Wendy Dossett, Dawn Llewellyn, Suzanne Newcombe, and Lisa Oakley as they discuss the difficulties and opportunities of such events, where they might develop next, interdisciplinary boundaries, and the limits of professional commitments to justice. Is this perhaps the start of an ‘ethical turn’ in the study of religion?