About Awkward Saints
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This post was written pseudonymously. Learn more about our editorial ethics .
Support and Reporting
This article discusses coercive and abusive behaviours in faith spaces, which some readers may find distressing. Take breaks if needed and seek support if you recognise these patterns.
- Action on Spiritual Abuse (UK)
Survivor-focused support offering structured, medium-term guidance and practical next steps.
- Thirtyone:eight (UK)
Independent safeguarding advice for concerns in church or Christian settings.
Helpline information 0303 003 1111
In an Emergency: If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, or if you believe a criminal offence has been committed, you should contact the police.
Outside the UK, contact a local survivor support service or national abuse helpline in your country.
I'm not sure how to introduce myself without sounding either too modest or accidentally grandiose, so I'll just try to be honest.
I spend far too many hours writing, researching, and maintaining this site. My friends and family probably think I'm a bit obsessed, and they're not entirely wrong. But... I care deeply about the church, and that care has made me protective in ways I didn't expect.
When I started noticing patterns in specific church movements - the subtle ways that discipleship could be bent to become control, how spiritual language gets weaponised, and the systems that silence rather than heal - I couldn't just look away. It may be how my brain works, but once I see these patterns, they become impossible to ignore.
This site exists because I believe the church deserves better. Not perfect, but better. The people who call a church their home deserve leaders who won't manipulate them. Young Christians deserve mentorship that builds them up rather than breaks them down. Families deserve communities that protect rather than exploit.
I write about these things not because I enjoy conflict (I really don't), but because silence feels like complicity. I utilise whatever tools I have - writing, analysis, and sometimes art and culture - to shed light on practices that thrive precisely in the kind of awkwardness that makes even good people look away. Awkward Saints.
This work can seem critical, even harsh. But criticism of harmful systems isn't criticism of faith itself. If anything, it's the opposite. When you love something, you want to protect it. With conviction.
I don't have all the answers. I'm not an expert or an authority. I'm just someone who notices things, cares too much, and happens to have a website. If this work helps even one person recognise unhealthy patterns in their own church community, or helps one leader examine their own practices more honestly, then all those late nights staring at the screen will have been worth it.
The church has always been awkward, full of broken people trying to follow an extraordinary God. That's genuinely beautiful. What's not beautiful is when that brokenness gets systematised, when hurt becomes doctrine, when control masquerades as care.
This is my small attempt to call that out, with as much honesty and humility as I can manage.
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About Daniel Caerwyn
Daniel Caerwyn is a pseudonym – an investigative writer exploring systemic causes of organisational dysfunction. He writes with commitment to the Church and compassion for those within it.
Expertise: