My abuse was intended to save my everlasting soul from the lake of fire.
Even today, with an increased awareness of child abuse and with teachers and public officials sworn to act on anything that even remotely looks like abuse, you don't often hear of religious parents being charged with abuse or neglect until some poor child dies or is starved or beaten to the point of hospitalization or reaches adulthood and brings charges against a parent or church leader.
I talked to lots of people about my abusive parents and was pretty much left to survive it alone until I got a work permit and left home. I was told that they meant well, that I should just "knuckle under" until I was an adult, that they were nice people and honored members of their church so no one would consider my complaints as anything more than being a rebellious child, and of course, the oldest reason in the book, that it was for my own good.
I believe that religious parents that are taught by the church how to systematically break down the will and spirit of children to make them more accepting of a religion are creating easy prey for the molesters, both in the churches and out. Maybe the worst damage of all is the planting of the idea that the kids are somehow bad and need fixing when they are in many cases just cynical of the religious ideas being forced on them or, as in my case, just one hell of a lot smarter than their parents,