Building Healthy Communities: Why Spiritual Spaces Must Be Held to the Same Standards as Workplaces and Homes

In almost every area of society, we’ve recognised that bullying, coercion, and harassment are not okay. In schools, we have anti-bullying policies. In the workplace, we have the Fair Work Act and workplace safety laws that prohibit harassment, intimidation, and psychological abuse. In homes, legislation around domestic and family violence now includes forms of non-physical abuse, such as coercive control.

So why is it that religious communities—spaces that claim to nurture the soul—are still allowed to operate in ways that would be unacceptable anywhere else?

As the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into religious coercion and control unfolds, it’s becoming increasingly clear: we’ve failed to apply the same standards of care and accountability to spiritual communities that we expect in other areas of life.

The Hypocrisy of Immunity

Imagine a manager at work telling an employee they’re sinful and unworthy if they don’t follow orders without question. Imagine that same manager isolating that employee from friends and family, demanding unpaid labour under threat of eternal damnation, and insisting they can’t leave without risking their soul.

In any other setting, this type of abuse would trigger formal complaints, legal action, and likely a workplace investigation. Yet in some religious groups, this kind of control is dismissed as “faith” or “discipleship.”

We cannot allow spiritual language to mask abuse.

Religious freedom is vital—but it should never mean freedom to harm. When churches, sects, or spiritual leaders use faith to exert psychological pressure, social exclusion, and manipulative authority, they are not above scrutiny. They are operating in the exact same terrain as workplace bullying and domestic abuse—but with even more impunity, because their power often claims divine legitimacy.

What Does a Healthy Community Look Like?

Requesting that all environments are safe, respectful, and accountable is not a big ask. Healthy communities—religious or otherwise—share some common traits:

• Consent and transparency: People should know what they’re joining, and be free to leave without consequence.

• Boundaries and autonomy: No one should have their choices dictated by fear of social exclusion or eternal punishment.

• Accountability: Leaders should be open to critique, not immune from it.

• Inclusion, not isolation: A healthy community strengthens a person’s wider life—it doesn’t sever them from it.

• Diversity of thought: Difference and doubt should be welcomed, not punished.

Spiritual communities have the potential to be some of the most powerful sources of healing, connection, and purpose. But when they become authoritarian echo chambers, they can do immense damage. The difference lies in whether the community respects freedom—or demands submission.

Faith Shouldn’t Be the Exception to the Rule

It’s time to stop giving harmful religious structures a free pass.

If Fair Work Australia can acknowledge psychological injury in the workplace, and if family courts now recognise coercive control as a form of abuse in intimate relationships, then we must apply the same insight to spiritual settings.

Religious groups should not be exempt from basic standards of human decency, respect, and autonomy. When abuse is enabled by the very systems meant to guide and comfort us, the damage is deep—and the betrayal, profound.

Accountability is not persecution. It’s protection.

A Call to Action

This is not about attacking religion. It’s about calling it to its highest ideals. Faith, when it is real, is not afraid of transparency. It does not need to coerce to be powerful. The strongest communities are those that people choose freely, stay in freely, and leave freely.

Let’s build spiritual spaces that mirror the same protections we expect at work and at home.

Because when our communities are healthy, everything else—our families, our faith, and our futures—have a chance to thrive.

If you found this blog helpful, feel free to share it in your group chats of communities–and subscribe to stay updated on the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into religious coercion and ongoing coercive control in extremist and fringe groups, aka, cults.