Exposing Spiritual Abuse: How to Rediscover God’s Love When the Church Has Let You Down, Mike Fehlauer. The chapter on “Toxic Love” is about the excessive devotion of people looking for a father-figure. There are two good chapters on positive and negative characteristics to look for in a pastor. Warning Signs of an Unhealthy Church – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 are excerpts from the book.

Note that this book is a recommended reference work on apologeticsindex.org website, see the review of Fehlauer’s work – Exposing Spiritual Abuse on spiritualabuse.org.

Exposing Spiritual Abuse by Mike Fehlauer- From a review on Amazon: “To all those who love God but who do not want to be abused in God’s name by their church leaders, you’ll love this book. If you’ve ever felt you’ve given your best and
didn’t run at the first sign of trouble in a church, but mere came a point when you had been stripped of so much inside mat you had to go, yet you were talked about from the pulpit as if you had given up on God, mis book is for you! …For those who
would try to tell you mat mis book is not from God, remember this—David had a submissive attitude to Saul, when he was in Saul’s house and afterwards. But when Saul tried to kill David because of his own emotional demons, DAVID and
GOD BACKED DAVID! So don’t let church leaders tell you that you’re wrong to leave a church in which abuse is being justified in God’s name.”