Major Scott Nicloy      Micronesian Counselor #60 (February 2006) This issue represents a departure from the normal scope of subjects treated in Micronesian Counselor. As broad as the range of topics has been, we have never published anything about religion even though we are a church-based organization. It seems only fair to critique religious practices, as we have economic, social and even political in the past. This article is not intended as an attack on any denomination, but on practices that can be found in any religious group. While pastoring a congregation in an Alaskan native village I unexpectedly received a phone call from the district office of the Presbyterian Church. The Presbyterian pastor and his wife in the village had lost their daughter in a plane crash high up in the Alaskan mountains. In fact, the site of the plane crash was in such an inaccessible region in the mountain range that there was no hope of ever getting the daughter's body off the mountainside. Upon receiving the news I immediately ran over to the parsonage to meet with Pastor Greg and his wife who were, naturally, in a state of shock and deep mourning. A few minutes after I got to the parsonage, the other village pastor showed up at the Presbyterian parsonage throwing out Christian cliches and Scripture texts. I did not have to read Pastor Greg's mind to know what he was thinking. His thoughts about this Bible quoting pastor were written all over his pain filled face. "Get this rude, insensitive boor out of my house," he was thinking. No doubt the saved and sanctified pastor left the Presbyterian parsonage believing that he had ministered to a distraught couple by the mighty moving of the Holy Spirit in a time of great distress. But the distraught couple had another opinion regarding this pastor's Spirit-filled "ministry." The only connection they saw between the pastor, his ministry, and the Bible was the belief that the Bible-quoting pastor was a direct lineal descendant of Balaam's donkey. The next year there was another phone call. This time a son had died of a ruptured aneurysm. Again, I ran over to the Presbyterian parsonage. Again, the same saved, sanctified, Spirit-filled, Bible-quoting pastor showed up at the parsonage throwing out Scripture texts, cliches and mantras. This time the Bible-quoting pastor was also trying to get everyone in the community to come over to his church that night for a real revival meeting to witness the power of God, as if Pastor Greg and his wife could have seriously considered attending a revival meeting that evening after losing a second child in the course of a year. Again, I looked upon the pain filled face of the Presbyterian minister who was in deep mourning for the second time. There was that same expression on his face that was there the year before: "Get this rude, insensitive boor out of my house." Pastor Greg asked me to conduct his son's funeral service on one condition-that the third pastor of the village would not be allowed to have any part in the funeral service. Continued Spiritual Abuse, Page 2