Passive aggressive people in leadership October 29, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : Spiritual Abuse, Theology , 4commentsHow many times have leaders been termed meek or wise when they are really passive aggressive ?A passive/aggressive personality is one of the most common psychiatric disorders. Its exact prevalence is difficult to estimate because of the number of subclinical and borderline cases and the number of cases with definite disability who fail to seek professional attention. A passive/aggressive person habitually reacts negatively to the express wishes of others, but usually demonstrates this resistance covertly rather than openly. The term “passive/aggressive” implies two assumptions about the cause of this type of recurring negative behavior:
1. The individual is afraid, unable, or unwilling to express aggression openly; or
2. The person has a pervasive feeling of hostility toward others. Passive/aggressive individuals are usually inwardly aggressive. Outwardly, they express their aggressive tendencies through a passive facade. Inwardly, they desire control over the events that affect their lives, but they fear that if they show this desire openly, they will be put down. This fear creates a strong defensiveness and outer phoniness, which eventually turns into anger. However, passive/aggressive individuals fear being vulnerable, so they repress their anger and express it in subtle, nonverbal, crafty ways. The passive/aggressive personality develops when a child is being reared by at least one controlling parent. The second parent is often absent from or inactive in the home. This usually involves a domineering and controlling mother and an absent, weak or passive father (who may exhibit much different traits at work). Such parents overprotect their child, make excessive demands on him, respond to him with mixed reactions of acceptance and hostility and fail to meet his basic trust and dependency needs. All of this fosters a helpless and clinging attitude in the child and inhibits the development of independence. Expecting other people to gratify all his needs, the child grows up dependent on others to protect him and aid him in daily responsibilities. He tends to have a low tolerance for frustration and stress. This personality type develops as an expression of resentment against excessive parental demands. The parents usually do not allow the child to openly express hostility. The child then learns to meet unfulfilled needs and to vent anger and depression through more subtle means of rebellious behavior. Such children soon learn that negative behavior (nail biting, bed-wetting, eating problems, procrastination, pouting, obstructionism, stubbornness and intentional inefficiency) will at least get them attention. Passive/aggressive children also may cause problems at school, violate rules and fight frequently with other students. By their teenage years they may lean toward an antisocial personality, engage in delinquency, drug usage, and theft or other misdemeanors. Often the passive/aggressive assumes a role of chronic submissiveness and compliance, but beneath the unassuming facade may be a great deal of hostility and resentment. They find it difficult to say “no,” and they dislike making major decisions. They catch themselves making excuses for delayed decisions and behavior. Problems surface in their relationships with authority, with society’s demands and with the needs of others in close, personal contacts. Feeling helpless, unwilling to be alone or make decisions, they look to others—usually to just one other person—for direction and to take responsibility on their behalf. They learn to accomplish their goals through passive manipulation. The Balanced Passive/Aggressive
The balanced passive/aggressive tends to serve and submit wholeheartedly and effectively to authority. The Unbalanced Passive/Aggressive
Unbalanced passive/aggressives tend to be stubborn, uncooperative, negativistic and frustrating when others ask something of them. Their favorite phrase is “yes, but . . .” When given advice, they usually set out to show that it won’t work for them by following a “failure script.” Unbalanced passive/aggressives can also be overbearing, inconsiderate, late and careless in their work. They have a basic problem with anger or hostility, outbursts of temper, low self esteem, an unrewarding domestic life, tenuous friendships, little awareness that benefits must be earned and not just received and an ambivalent relationship with their mothers (protective or punitive).
Patterns of Behavior Often Exhibited in Passive/Aggressive Personalities:Obstructionism – A passive/aggressive woman, for example, who is angry at her husband over an incident that happened on Saturday night, may be obstructive on Sunday morning by being late in getting ready for church, especially if her husband is compulsive about being on time. Without being consciously manipulative, she may be unable to find her lipstick or shoes, causing a delay, and passively expressing her aggression toward him. Pouting – After a disagreement, a passive/aggressive person will pout and walk away. Frequently, the only comment will be, “I don’t want to talk about it.”Procrastination – A passive/aggressive son, when asked by his mother to mow the lawn, may express his hostility by putting it off or “dragging his feet.”Intentional Inefficiency – When the son can no longer get by through procrastination, he may exhibit intentional inefficiency, another method of passively expressing aggression. He mows the yard, but intentionally does a poor job. If, as a result of that inefficiency, he is relieved of the task, he has learned how to avoid responsibility. Addictive Behaviors – Rebellious behavior may later come in the form of excessive eating, drinking, smoking or the use of addictive substances. A majority of cases of both drug addiction and alcoholism stem from a passive/aggressive personality disorder. According to research and clinical findings in treating hundreds of alcoholics and drug addicts, more than half have strong passive/aggressive traits. The addictive habits do not have to involve substance abuse. Sometimes they are habits such as eating only certain kinds of food, sleeping more than ten hours a night, spending too much time alone, preoccupation with reading or any introversive activity which prevents them from spending time with others. These all result from the passive/aggressive’s lack of willpower in caring for his personal problems and the resulting dependency on others to solve his problems. A sense of inadequacy and falling short of the traits they believe are needed for approval creates increasing psychological pressure, for which a person eventually will seek an outlet. When a healthy outlet cannot be found, the passive/aggressive will resort to an unhealthy one. People involved in any addictive habit are looking for some type of relief from current or long-term psychological stress. People Pleasing – Because they need so much nurturing and cannot tolerate criticism, passive/aggressives seek to please those on whom they depend. The threat of any loss brings on anxiety. Unable to handle any personal tension, they seek an infantile and blissful state. They suffer anxiety when separated from their parents, sometimes developing a phobia to school and making a fuss to stay home. A passive/aggressive personality is often developed by the youngest child of the family, or by the youngest child of his or her sex. When passive/aggressives grow up, they may perform well when told what to do, but still have difficulty in making decisions. Most of them feel inferior and unable to measure up to standards of independence and make mature choices on their own. They were taught, often unconsciously by their parents, to depend on others to make hard decisions and take action for them. Finding a Balance
All individuals with passive/aggressive tendencies can work on problem areas if they decide they really want to change, genuinely commit their motives to Christ and persevere in relinquishing old patterns. If you are passive/aggressive, you can: Remove Your Blinders – A passive/aggressive needs to acknowledge hidden emotions such as anger, fear and the hidden desire for control. This involves realizing that you are in a battle against deception and denial within yourself. You might find it helpful to memorize Romans 2:16 and Proverbs 28:13. Turn Your Emotions over to God – This invites surrendering your deepest emotional secrets to God and requires the inner searching of the Holy Spirit. Through this you can overcome some of your deepest personal fears and replace them with trust in God. In most cases the barrier to your emotional stability is the desire to control. Because of this, you impose a long inner list of “shoulds” and “oughts” on family and friends. If you can replace the desire for control with the attitude of accepting others as they are, you will diminish your inner personal stress. Turn Actions over to God – It is necessary to allow God to scrutinize every motive and to “coat” every action in your life. Determine how your hidden anger is expressed. It is also healthful to resolve to use your knack for being clever and persuasive in unselfish ways. Become Independent and Learn to Make Your Own Decisions – This involves taking full responsibility for personal behavior and not blaming things on someone else. For example, you can learn to become more tidy and stop expecting others to pick up your messes. Learn to Like and Appreciate Yourself in Christ – You must realize you are created and loved by God and can find happiness and fulfillment through a life-commitment to Him. Learn to Refuse the Easy Way out – You can learn to refuse the easy way out of painful situations and to develop willpower or self discipline rather than setting yourself up to fulfill a “failure script.” God sets a standard for us that is higher than we would ever set for ourselves, and yet He promises that we can attain it by achieving our full potential and allowing Him to use His power through us. Overcome Selfishness – This can be done by helping others and getting involved in their lives.Why Assertiveness?
Why is assertiveness the option of choice in dealing with conflicts in our relationships? First, assertiveness is efficient in getting problems resolved. Of all other options, assertiveness is the most likely choice to get the job done and to enhance the relationship. When we “react” passively, the problem has not been dealt with and the conflict obviously doesn’t go away. When we handle conflict aggressively, the conflict might get “resolved” for the moment, but the way it got resolved (at the expense of another’s feelings and rights) often leads to further rebellion and conflict down the road. Passive/aggressive behavior is also inefficient in solving a conflict because it is indirect and deceitful (Eph. 4: 25, 26, 29, 31 & 32). Second, assertiveness is the only option that helps build self esteem in the relationship. When we handle things passively, aggressively, or passive/aggressively we really aren’t acting in a manner that is worthy of respect. Acting assertively, with each person treated with dignity, raises the self esteem of each person involved. The assertive person’s self esteem rises because he is acting in a manner that is worth respecting, and the person on the receiving end feels better about himself because he is being treated respectfully and as if he really matters. Assertive behavior is the option of choice because it is more efficient and helps to raise the self esteem of everyone involved. It was the behavior that the Lord Jesus Christ manifested in His own life. The paradox, though, is that while assertiveness is the best route to go in dealing with conflict, it is the least practiced. Why? Why Don’t We Act Assertively?
While there are many reasons we avoid being assertive, the main reason is that most of us have a high need for approval. We don’t stand up for ourselves because we feel the person with whom we are being assertive will dislike or reject us in some way. The truth of the matter is that assertiveness will be met with disapproval by others at times. Anytime we dare to stand up for how we feel or what we believe is right, the potential is there for others to resent us for doing so and put us down in some way. The life of Christ is a perfect example of assertiveness. He assertively told His parents He must be about His Father’s business. He assertively confronted the disciples when they got out of line. He often was quite assertive with the rulers and leaders of His time. The assertive style of Christ led to some strong reactions at times, even to the point that He was put to death. But He didn’t back off just because some people didn’t like what he was saying or doing. We need to accept the fact that we will not be liked or accepted by everyone all the time. We can ask the Lord Jesus Christ to make us resilient people. The need for full approval that many of us carry around inside ourselves is a very serious stumbling block to being assertive. Christians especially struggle with this because they have misconstrued the Bible to say that a “true Christian” lets people run over him and does it with a smile. Many Christians have a strong “standing up for yourself is selfish and sinful” tape in their minds that keeps them from being assertive. While meekness is an important Christian trait, boldness is just as Scriptural and is evident in the lives of many Biblical characters. Until we come to grips with why we need approval from others so badly, we are likely to keep “stuffing” what we really feel and fail to be assertive. This leads to feelings of low self worth and confusion about who we really are. The stakes are high. It is important that we work on our need to please everyone all the time and the lack of assertiveness that this creates within us.
7 Ways to Heal after Church Conflict October 4, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : Spiritual Abuse, Theology , add a commentQ: Our congregation recently had a big fight, and we need to heal. How can we do that? Feelings are still very strong—people are avoiding coming to services—but some don’t want to talk about it anymore.
A: “Church fight” seem like two words that can’t possibly go together, so we don’t prepare for disagreement. Not surprisingly, we then don’t handle it well when it comes and don’t heal form it well when it’s over. Having worked with many congregations after conflicts, I can suggest some activities that may help. These seven activities are in no particular order; one strategy would be to try one that seems easy and one that seems more difficult.
1. Pray. Begin with 21 days of prayer for someone with whom you are angry. If that doesn’t help, repeat as needed in 21-day increments. Recording the prayers and your feelings about them on tape or in a journal can help you to see progress or sticking points.
2. Stay purposefully connected. Attend worship. Believe you can reconnect even with those with whom you most disagree. Find olive branches that you can afford to have rejected. Call people who are missing from worship and encourage them to return. We live in a “divorce” culture where people have a tendency to walk away from problems. Disagreements give the congregation an opportunity to be a practice ground for talking things through, even though it may be uncomfortable.
3. Be honest. Share how you feel—not to lay blame, but to give your feelings a name. “I’m fine” is not the right answer if it is not true.
4. Listen for feelings. Guided listening circles can help, especially with facilitation from your denominational staff or outside consultants. Know that some may need more time or may not feel understood. We need two things before we are ready to move on from a conflict: to feel heard and to feel understood.
5. Allow for differences. Humans heal at different rates, both physically and emotionally. Like the grieving cycle, there is a cycle of forgiveness and healing that people move through in their own way. It can help, in understanding this, to read about forgiveness or healing.
6. Find the lessons. Many congregations feel that a conflict is a waste of resources, time, and energy. In fact, it may be a time of essential learning and practice that will affect the rest of our lives, a time that strengthens faith, and a time that builds up the community.
7. Prepare for next time. Building evaluation into the routine life of the congregation, learning an array of tools for working on issues, and studying and practicing as a community of faith are some ways to take healing to the next step—doing better the next time.
10 Rules of a Harmful Faith System October 4, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : Spiritual Abuse, Theology , 1 comment so farRules form the distinct character or culture of the organization & are there to maintain the system & keep members in line. Rules are periodically changed at the whim of the leader.
1. The leader must be in control of every aspect at all times.
2. When problems arise, find a guilty party to blame immediately.
3. Don’t make mistakes.
4. Never point out the reality of a situation.
5. Never express your feelings unless they are positive.
6. Don’t ask questions, especially if they are tough ones.
7. Don’t do anything outside of your role.
8. Don’t trust anyone.
9. Nothing is more important than giving money to the organization.
10. At all costs, keep up the image of the organization or the family.
1. Control
The leader must be in control at all times. When a leader struggles with control on a personal level, he attempts to be in the centre of control in the system & to affect all the outcomes. He must have the final say in every decision, & there is little ability for others to think independently. The more one tries to control the less likely they will be able to maintain a clear vision of the larger issues of balance & focus. We should instead give control to God daily.
2. Blame
When problems arise, find a guilty party to blame immediately. They don’t force the pastor to step down or obtain special help for adultery, but let him instead become more determined than ever to fight Satan. The woman is labeled a seductress. The congregation is blamed for burning the pastor out. By denying & avoiding personal responsibility, he can avoid the reality of needed inner changes.
3. Perfectionism
Don’t make mistakes. They are taught they are an elite system. The priority is avoiding failure, ridicule & criticism, so they can find acceptance, love & belonging. They repress their humanness. A mistake equals fearing faith isn’t strong enough. The motivation is to work harder to compensate for the lack of faith that produced the mistake. To maintain the delusion, they must remove from the system, those who mess up. This expulsion process motivates others to measure up. It is product oriented rather than God oriented. They fear disappointing God.
4. Delusion
Never point out the reality of a situation. They don’t want to know how things are, but rather how they should be. Everyone works together to create the illusion that it’s the way it should be. To talk of reality is to commit organizational suicide. If someone has to break the bad news, they have to figure out how to best present the facts. A messenger with bad news is often identified as the source of the problem. The leader refuses to acknowledge, that it is almost impossible to inform him, without being punished for it.
5. Perpetual Cheerfulness
Never express your feelings unless they are positive. They don’t care about people, how they feel, or what their needs are. They care only about their own feelings. Never reveal what would make the leader feel uncomfortable. The leader wants only affirmation. They have pasted on smiles as if all is well. People with problems are considered outcasts & ostracized accordingly. Every problem is wiped away with a quick “Praise the Lord”. They believe the myth that the truly faithful are free of problems. Problems indicate lack of faith & weakness. They want to live in a world fixed by great sermons or quick prayers.
6. Blind Loyalty
Don’t ask questions, especially if they are tough ones. Tough questions reveal doubts & lack of fruit, & are considered as resistance to the organization. Questions are viewed as a personal affront & threat to perpetrators. .Financial expenditures are beyond the understanding of followers. The big picture is too complex for the common members. The truth is nearly impossible to locate. If people want to move up in the system, they must not ask questions when things don’t add up or make sense. The leader believes ministry should revolve around him. You have no place in the system if you suggest it should revolve around people’s needs.
7. Conformity
Don’t do anything outside your role. Don’t deviate from your role, or you’re rebellious or unstable. The leader doesn’t want individualism, he wants predictability & conformity. Play it safe. Don’t rock the boat or do it differently, we know what’s best for you, just play it safe & do what we tell you. All are guidelines for acceptance. Rejection results, if they don’t behave according to the norm. There is shaming from the top to intimidate back into submission : you’re selfish, in rebellion, a sewer of discord, not committed, not in God’s will, not fulfilling God’s call for your life, you need to learn to be obedient, or learn submission to authority.
8. Mistrust
Don’t trust anyone. People are unable to rely on anyone but the leader. Only the leader can be trusted to prepare for the future. Each is disconnected from the others & depends on the leader. It is so the system maintains allegiance to the leader. The leader changes the rules or perceptions to meet his needs. No one but the leader should be able to interpret or direct what’s going on. Everyone else is unaware of the changes until the leader explains them.
9. Avarice
Nothing is more important than giving money to the organization. Jesus often talked about money because it is such a clear indicator of what is within a person’s heart & what they are like. Harmful faith organizations do not see it as an act of worship, but as a means of funding. Nothing is more important than the organizations continuation. Desperate cries for money are sure signs of depending on manipulation, not on faith in God.
They don’t care about people, they care about their empires & their egos. People are seen as sources of funds to keep the organization going, rather than individuals worthy of service from the organization. They waste money, overextend the resources & then expect you to make up the difference.
10. Spotless Image
At all costs keep up the image of the organization or the family. There is denial of everyone’s humanity. The image of the god-like leader is the foundation of the organization’s growth. They are presented as having a level of perfection that others cannot obtain. They will not admit to problems or ask for forgiveness. They are perceived as the ultimate mate, able to resolve the crises of marriage with godly wisdom no one else could have had. For every problem the leader must appear sacrificial, loving & serving beyond what most people are capable.
Good Resources drawn from in this thesis:
1. The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse : by Jeff VanVonderen & David Johnson
2. Faith that Hurts, Faith that Heals : by Stephen Arterburn & Jack Felton
3. Who is Your Covering : by Frank Viola
4. Social Psychology & Modern Life : by Patricia Middlebrook
Spiritual abuse can be difficult to detect (SA 6) September 6, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : Spiritual Abuse, culture , 1 comment so far
Spiritual abuse can be difficult to detectSpiritual abuse can be difficult to detect at first if you have never encountered it. In a manipulative church, the pastor or senior leaders have subtly positioned themselves to take the place of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives. They may try to put undue influence on the choices that people in their congregation are making. They might try to sway someone’s decision in a matter to keep them under their control, or to keep them from leaving the church. People in a controlling church are often told they cannot leave the church with God’s blessing unless the pastor approves the decision. They are warned that if they don’t follow the pastor’s guidance, not only will God not bless them, but they will also bring a curse upon themselves or their family. Leaving the “covering” of the church and the controlling pastor will result in some sort of calamity. When a pastor tells his congregation that those who leave his church or disobey his authority are in danger of God’s wrath, you can be sure this man is operating in a spirit of control. He is attempting to sow fear as a carnal means of keeping people in his church. “If you leave this church,” he may warn, “the blessing of God will be lifted from your life, and you will miss God’s will. You will be in rebellion, and you will open yourself up to all kinds of calamity. The devil will have freedom to attack you because you have walked away from God’s protection,” that “protection” being the one true church that he happens to pastor. Fear is the motivation behind such comments — not love. You can be sure that this type of reasoning is not from God. Jesus never motivated people out of fear. Fear is a form of manipulation, which the Bible calls witchcraft. Manipulation is sin. Instead of motivating people through love and a call to serve the body of Christ and reach the lost, a spiritually abusive minister will try to motivate through manipulation. The apostle John is called the apostle of love because he wrote so much about our call as Christians to walk in love. ‘There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear,’ he wrote in 1 John 4:18. By keeping people in fear, controlling spiritual leaders work to get good Christian people to build their religious kingdoms — by telling them that they are building the kingdom of God. We see this kind of prophet and priest in the book of Jeremiah. The controlling leaders are focused on their own needs being met, and the needs of the people are ignored. Jesus was more critical of the religious leaders of His day than He was of the sinners, and for good reason. The Jewish leaders put false religious burdens on the people for the sake of their own prosperity.
In this case, as it is in controlling churches today, the people were burdened with rules and regulations that needed to be performed to gain the acceptance of the religious leaders — in that day the Pharisees. Today, it is the manipulative spiritual leader. Many Christians today find themselves bearing the heavy load of the religious baggage in an abusive system. Around the world, hurting churchgoers struggle to earn the favor and approval of a modern-day Pharisee, all the while thinking they are earning the favor of God. The good news is that if you are in Christ, you already have God’s favor! And no amount of work for a spiritually abusive pastor will give you more acceptance than you already have. Jesus recognized the burden that was being placed on sincere believers in His time, who just wanted to do what is right. He saw them as sheep without a shepherd, even though they were involved in the religious rituals in the temple and synagogues.
In his book, Exposing Spiritual Abuse, Mike Fehlauer points out that Jesus saw these dear people as harassed: “This word conveys the idea of some outside force pressing upon the people, causing them to feel weary, distressed and downcast. This outside force was the religious system that placed its emphasis on outward appearances. It was a system that promised peace based on one’s ability to follow the prescribed rules and regulations. If one failed, then there was judgment.” “Not having a shepherd didn’t mean that the people lacked for those who told them what to do,” he continues. “There were plenty of Pharisees willing to do that. It meant they had no one to lead them to spiritual green pastures. A shepherd doesn’t drive his sheep as cattlemen drive their cattle. A shepherd leads his sheep to a safe place where food is plentiful and where they can find rest.” The term shepherd is an Old Testament metaphor as well. Ezekiel 34 contains an exhortation in which the Lord holds the leaders of Israel responsible for failing to care for the flock:
I wonder if these modern-day Pharisees realize that God considers their congregations as sheep without shepherds. Perhaps if they recognized how God viewed the situation, they would change their ways. The Christian seeking guidance from a spiritual leader must also be on the lookout for the dangerous trap of spiritual elitism that can produce an “us-and-them,” or a “fortress” mentality. This is a telltale sign of spiritual abuse. A church or pastor with an elitist attitude teaches, if ever so subtly, that no other church or ministry is preaching the pure gospel — or at least, no one is preaching it the way they should, in other words, the way that he is preaching it. An elitist leader will discourage members from visiting other churches or receiving counsel from anyone who doesn’t attend their church. If anyone breaks this rule, he or she is viewed as rebellious. We see a biblical example of this in 3 John 9–10:
Spiritual elitism is not a new thing in the church, but the apostle John rightly called it “evil.” A healthy spiritual leader, on the other hand, respects and encourages the other churches and ministries in a community, recognizing that there are several different expressions of the body of Christ. A spiritually free pastor realizes that no one denomination or local church can represent the love of Jesus to a city. A healthy church will promote revival in the entire Christian community. It will not promote the idea that it has some kind of doctrinal or spiritual superiority. In a healthy relationship, a spiritual mentor will provide godly counsel from selfless motives. He or she will want God’s will for your life. If that means that you will need to leave the church or ministry, then they will rejoice that you are being sent out to be a blessing in another place. A healthy pastoral relationship should produce peace in the life of the believer — another one of the seven keys of God’s guidance. If the godly counsel that you receive is not giving you peace or rest in your soul, it may not be from the Lord. Because man is a sinner, building healthy spiritual relationships will always be a challenge. Someone once said, “the perfect church stopped being perfect the minute I walked in the door.” God’s intention all along has been for the local church to be healthy, life-giving, serving, encouraging, and Christ-centered. But because He has chosen to use sinful men and women to lead His church, there will always be the possibility that a local congregation can fall into deception or unhealthy spiritual patterns. There must be a balance between humbly seeking guidance from a person of spiritual authority, and subjecting yourself to the manipulative practice of spiritual abuse. Finding that balance is an ongoing process in life. But it is a necessary struggle that will prevent you from becoming weary and worn on one hand, trying to jump through religious hoops that promise God’s acceptance and love — and on the other hand, from becoming an island unto yourself, determining what is right in your eyes alone. Both sides of this spiritual spectrum are dangerous, and should be avoided. Ask God to give you the grace and guidance to walk in the tension of these truths — opening yourself to the input of mature Christian leaders, while avoiding spiritual control. If you find yourself striving to gain the acceptance of spiritual leaders, or if your church constantly requires more and more of your life with no end in sight — and little encouragement along the way — then you may want to re-examine the church you are attending. We can protect ourselves from spiritual abuse by considering all the keys of God’s guidance in every major decision. |
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Discipleship abusers (SA 5) September 6, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : Spiritual Abuse , add a commentOne Source of the Contemporary Problem Where do these false concepts come from, and how have they become so widespread in the church? For evangelical Protestants such as myself, the fact that authoritarianism even exists among us is a supreme irony. The Protestant Reformers rightly argued that only God’s Word has such a place. And yet there are a large number of professing evangelicals today who actively teach that church leaders have not only the right, but also the duty, to impose a very heavy-handed authority system on the church. These people teach that to go against such “authority” is to go against God Himself! And it appears that they all share one thing in common: either directly or indirectly, they have all been influenced by an early 20th century Christian author from China.
When I first read this, it sent chills down my spine. In our spiritually abusive group, Watchman Nee was required reading. Nee’s influence had been exceptionally pervasive in the last half of the 20th century, but I didn’t realize how dangerous it could be until I was indoctrinated in it. I can testify that Ken Blue very accurately represents Nee’s teaching on this topic. Our leader was so enthusiastic about Nee’s teachings that he scanned Nee’s chapter on “delegated authority” into his computer and printed it out for our entire group to read. I’m pretty familiar with Nee’s concepts. It is obvious to me now that we neglected to weigh all of his teachings against the Scriptures, and since our leader was already highly authoritarian, we were actively discouraged from doing so. Since Nee had been a very popular author among many Christians whom we had previously known, and his titles were sold in most Christian bookstores — I had even once heard him cited at length as a trustworthy authority on our local Moody Bible Institute radio station! — we assumed that his books must be alright. And for the most part, perhaps it could be that many of Nee’s books basically are alright. After all, spiritual authority was not the only subject he wrote about. But Nee’s approach to Christianity was highly mystical, and there’s an old saying: “A mystic is never far from a mistake.” This is because, by definition, the teachings of mysticism tend to be very ambiguous, obscure and enigmatic. This makes them capable of more than one interpretation — very often an erroneous one. Mysticism also tends toward the legalistic notion that we are rewarded with a relationship with God on the basis of our works. Webster’s defines “mysticism” as “the doctrine that it is possible to achieve communion with God through contemplation” (p. 898, emphasis mine). Christianity, on the other hand, is the doctrine that it is possible to receive communion with God through simple faith in Jesus Christ. In mysticism, the individual is required to somehow spiritually “ascend” in order to achieve a mystical union with God. In Christianity, God Himself descends through the person of Christ, effectively bringing us true spiritual union with Himself. The ultimate ideal of most mystical systems is an impossible one, for Jesus said:
Mysticism requires something of us that we cannot do. Christianity presents that very thing to us as a gift: intimate, spiritual communion with God. But this leads to another irony: while on the negative side, mysticism tends to lead toward legalism, on the positive side, it tends to lead away from authoritarianism, rather than toward it. This is because mysticism emphasizes the individual’s ability to have a subjectively experienced personal relationship with God. If I can go to God directly, I shouldn’t need an authority figure over me in order to make it happen. So how did Nee’s mysticism become so authoritarian? The answer lies in the fact that Nee’s special brand of mysticism derived from his background in what is called “the Higher Life Movement” (or “Victorious Christian Life Movement;” or “Keswick Movement”). Like other forms of mysticism, it has its own built-in legalistic element: it has tended to teach its own brand of “perfectionism” — the notion that Christians can somehow be sinless in this life. Many Christians are not aware of this when they read Nee. But Higher Life mysticism also had a teaching that lent itself to authoritarian abuse. It taught that before Christians could lead a holy life they needed to be “broken.” This “brokenness” had to be accomplished in the area of the human will. So far, most Christians would agree with this, but with huge qualifications. For one thing, most biblically-informed Christians would quickly add that any “breaking” that takes place is something God does, not something we do. Mysticism, on the other hand, is based on what we do, and the Higher Life movement was essentially mystical. So it was natural for Higher Life teachers to emphasize what we must do, and in doing so, they fell into a grave error: the idea that Christian sanctification is essentially a process of “breaking” ourselves. But Christian sanctification is not essentially a process of “being broken,” let alone “breaking ourselves.” Rather, it is a process of being renewed by God’s Holy Spirit. Any “breaking” that takes place is primarily the breaking of the power of sin, not the breaking of ourselves. But Nee, following his Higher Life mentors, made this “breaking” of one’s self a major part of his ministry. It is only a small step from teaching that we must “break” ourselves, to the notion that others must help in “breaking” us. This small step leads to the worst forms of authoritarianism. And even though mysticism does not usually lend itself to authoritarianism, it almost always lends itself to a “guru mentality” — i.e., the notion that we need someone more experienced than us to act as our guide, because mysticism’s concepts are so far beyond the knowledge or understanding of most people. Nee simply took the inherent logic of the Higher Life Movement to its next natural step, and in the process he also blended it with principles that every Chinese person learned from birth, and which westerners have always found fascinating: the teachings of Confucianism. Confucius had taught that the loyalty of a child to a parent should be so strong, that if necessary, the child should cover up his parent’s misconduct. While not actually teaching that children should turn a blind eye to their parents’ sins, he did teach things that came close to blind obedience:
This concept of authority has been deeply embedded in Chinese culture for over two millennia, and Nee did not escape its influence, despite the fact that it is contrary to the teaching of Christ. Nevertheless, it is probably unfair to Nee to conclude that he would approve of the authoritarianism that spiritual abusers practice in his name. Ken Blue was probably right to say that Nee “unwittingly” contributed to the problem, even though Nee’s teachings on spiritual authority are difficult to misinterpret Watchman Nee’s concept of “spiritual authority” gained a foothold in the church-at-large through three primary avenues:
The primary book in which Nee propagated his teaching was entitled Spiritual Authority. All of Nee’s books have sold remarkably well in western countries, and establishing a direct link between Nee and those who borrowed his concepts is not difficult, because they frequently list him as one of their sources. One individual in particular who listed Nee as a source in his unpublished master’s thesis has a concept of spiritual authority so strikingly similar to Nee’s, and has been so successful in promoting it, that he deserves special attention. His name is Bill Gothard. Bill Gothard is the president of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, which is headquartered in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, Illinois, USA. Since the mid-1960s he has popularized his concept of “Umbrellas of Authority” through an immensely successful seminar ministry which claims more than 2.5 million “alumni.” Gothard insists that every Christians must be under the authority of another Christian — someone “higher up” in a spiritual “Chain of Command,” and to make this idea more palatable, he writes:
The problem here is that the text of 1 Samuel 15:23 does not have anything to do with Gothard’s point. It does not say anything about authority acting like an “umbrella of protection.” Instead of providing us with a Scripture verse that does prove that point, Gothard diverts our attention to another issue entirely: he smoothly glides into a comparison of rebellion to witchcraft. If this was the only example of Gothard trying to use the Bible to prove an unbiblical point, that would be one thing. But it seems that Gothard does this habitually. On the same page in which Gothard cites 1 Samuel 15:23, he also misused two other Bible passages in much the same way. As Ronald B. Allen wrote (when he was Professor of Hebrew Scripture at Western Baptist Seminary in Portland, Oregon),
Gothard’s view of authority is foundational to his view of the Christian life. He considers it “The Basis of Achieving Great Faith.” “The size of our God,” he says, “is greatly determined by our ability to see how He is able to work through those in authority over us” (Basic Seminar Textbook, p. 19), and yet he does not even attempt to provide a Bible verse to back up that statement! These words have a nice sound to many people, but one should pause and ask: “If this concept of authority is so basic, why isn’t it taught in the Bible?” Gothard never provides a biblical foundation for his “umbrella” teaching. He simply assumes it, and expects us to do the same. Again we should note that Gothard does not credit Watchman Nee with any of his ideas. Nevertheless, both Gothard’s and Nee’s teachings on authority appear so remarkably similar that it is reasonable to assume that Nee influenced Gothard. On the other hand, those in the charismatic who hold to the “Covering” teaching do sometimes credit Nee with influencing them on the subject of authority, and it is quite interesting to note the parallels between Gothard’s “Umbrellas of Authority” and the charismatic “Covering” doctrine. Gothard teaches that by getting under an “Umbrella of Authority” we accomplish the following purposes:
These three things sound nice, and no one can argue with the fact that they are worthy goals. The only problem is, the Bible does not teach that these are the primary purposes for authority, nor do the Bible verses Gothard quotes support this idea. And notice the parallels between this and the charismatic “Covering” teaching:
But the charismatic “Covering” doctrine has the same basic weakness as Gothard’s “Umbrella of Authority” concept:
The leader of the abusive group to which my wife and I belonged simply assumed that the teachings of Watchman Nee and Bill Gothard (and hence, the “Covering” charismatics) were biblical on the issue of authority. I have spoken with many people, and I have ready the writings of many others who belonged to intensely spiritually abusive groups that were based on these principles. I can testify, along with countless others, that the implications and tendencies that Moriarty describes here are amazingly accurate, and — thanks to Nee’s books, Gothard’s seminars, and the charismatic “Covering” teaching — amazingly pervasive. But the Bible does not teach that spiritual authority consists of some “Chain of Command” that we must follow, or some “Umbrella of Authority” that we must be under. In fact, the Bible teaches precisely the opposite:
Keeping The Baby While Throwing Out the Bathwater In all fairness we should point out that there was another side to Nee, one which Stephen Brown notes (I’ll quote Brown’s entire passage, because all of it is good):
Based on Brown’s quote from Nee, it’s very possible that if he ever witnessed firsthand what today’s spiritual abusers practice, Nee would have disapproved of it. But we’ll never really know in this lifetime. After all: he promoted their authoritarianism so forcefully in principle. And anyway, the damage has been done. The negative impact of Nee’s teachings has far outweighed any good intentions he might have had, and the scarred spiritual lives of countless Christians bear ample testimony to that. As Christians, our first duty is to obey God’s word. The writings of other people may help us do that, if they first help us to correctly understand God’s word. But no matter how good they are, they can never replace God’s word. And yet if we find ourselves turning to books by human authors before turning to the Bible, then we have effectively replaced the Bible with those books. |
Spiritual Terrorists (SA 4) September 6, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : Spiritual Abuse, culture , add a commentOne of the most insidious features of Spiritual Abuse … … is the state of terror in which it leaves so many of its victims.
People who flee Spiritual Abuse are in a double-bind: in the very process of fleeing from the oppression that comes from being part of the group, they are terrorized by the threats of the leadership and various members — threats of dire consequences, punishment from God, and even eternal damnation.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are told that members who leave the Watchtower Society will be destroyed in Armageddon. Members who leave the International Churches of Christ (also known as the Boston Movement) are told that they will be condemned to eternal torment in Hell. In the group I came out of, the leader kept telling us that no one “prospered spiritually” after leaving, and he not-so-subtly implied that many of them were never really Christians in the first place. (Translation: they’re going to Hell.)
In one form or another, to one extent or another, spiritually abusive groups elevate affiliation with their “body of believers” to a requirement for salvation — or at the very least they elevate membership in the group to a requirement for demonstrating that you are a Christian. In either case the result is the same: once you’re in, you can’t leave — at least not safely; at least not without jeopardizing your eternal destiny.
After spending a sufficient amount of time in these groups, escaping members are often totally defenseless when it comes to this kind of spiritual terrorism. They have come to the point where because they are no longer able to endure the very real fear and torment of being in the group, and they are willing to risk the potential fear and torment of being outside the group. But they frequently leave with the sincere conviction that their departure is a sign that they are going to Hell, and they have no idea how they are going to cope with that. For many going through the exit process, fears of eternal damnation become a constant preoccupation. Once they are fully out, the result is almost always severe depression, and they are sometimes suicidal.
As for me: I was too afraid to commit suicide, because all my assurance of salvation had been stripped away by my abusive group, and I didn’t want to arrive in Hell any sooner than I had to. I kept praying to God that He would give me whatever it was that I needed (repentance, more faith, etc.) to be assured of salvation long after I left.
Another woman who left our group before me remembers drawing a deep breath and saying to herself: “Well, this probably means I’m going to Hell … but I can’t stay!” Another former member moved hundreds of miles away to avoid the inevitable, searing condemnation of the members she left behind, some of whom had been old friends before she joined.
Occasionally, someone comes to us
who is terror-stricken in this way. Such a person is being tormented by the idea that God has forsaken them because they have left — or are thinking about leaving — a particular church, a denomination, a small group, a religious organization, or a local fellowship, and this kind of fear has been instilled in them.
Such a person is terrified by the simple fact that they even found this web site. “Perhaps it’s a sign of just how far away from God I’ve fallen!” they might think to themselves. And they sense the tentacles of Satan wrapping around their souls, and the cold hands of death grasping after them.
Such a person feels as though he or she is somehow permanently contaminated, damaged goods, poison to all other true Christians. He or she might look for a big church, and then hide in the shadows — or avoid churches altogether. He or she may have begun to wander numbly through, spiritually aimless, occasionally experiencing deep attacks of dread and panic.
“Does God love me?”
“Does God even care about me?”
“Is it too late for me?”
“Please, God — tell me it’s not too late! Just show me what I have to do to know that you love me!”
“But it was so nice at first …”
Time and time again we hear the same story: “When I first joined they were so loving, so kind, so united. … They treated me special. … I never experienced the kind of things I experienced when I first joined them.” And then?
“It was so gradual, and so subtle,” they tell us. “It was only after many months that I began to dread going to meetings, or getting together with other ‘brothers and sisters,’ or seeing our leader. But by then, it was too late! They had me convinced that this was a special work of God — a special movement of God’s Spirit — a prophetic voice for these times.
“To leave them was to leave God … and yet I knew that I just couldn’t take it anymore! I was always being rebuked for every move I made. I was always either being the object of harsh treatment, or having to stand by and watch as other people endured harsh treatment. If I ever questioned their judgment, they said it indicated that I was rebellious, carnal, unrepentant. It finally came to the point where I couldn’t bring myself to walk through that door anymore …
“But they told me …!” these people say, “They had told me over and over, even from the early days after I first started coming … They told me how spiritually dangerous it was to leave. They told me that people only left because their sinfulness was being confronted in the group, and they didn’t like it, so they left. I remember hoping that I would never be like them — and now I am!
“They told me that if I left …”
My experience was so much like yours. I know what it’s like to go personally through the things I am describing here.
So let’s look at some of the things spiritual abusers tell us will happen to us if we leave them:
“They told me that if I left,
I would backslide spiritually.” No matter how many Bible verses they quote, no matter how many examples of what happened to other people spiritually after leaving, this is pure bunk, and you don’t have to believe it.
Many, many groups have a habit of pointing to examples of those who left and went into a spiritual tailspin. But is this a negative reflection on the people who leave, or the group that they left? Much more often than not, when any group can cite a long list of such spiritual casualties, it’s a negative reflection upon them rather than a negative reflection on those who left. And yet how cunningly they twist it around!
Any group that leaves a trail of broken people should be avoided. Unfortunately, we can’t see the broken people who lay strewn all around us as a result of these groups, because typically when people leave spiritually abusive groups, they go into hiding and do not want to be found. So all that we have left is the word of the leaders, who testify at length to how “backslidden” these ex-members are. Perhaps they can even come up with particular “sins” these people are guilty of.
Some abusive leaders do not go into details about the supposed “sins” these ex-members are guilty of. Instead, they are so confident of their hold over remaining members that they are content to let them draw their own conclusions. Why did they leave? a member asks. They fell away, comes the ready response. End of story. After hearing that explanation enough times, remaining members naturally come to equate leaving with “falling away” from God.
But when we examine these ideas under the light of Scripture, that light exposes them for the utter nonsense that they are.
We do not come to God by going to a church, to a group, to an organization, or to any other human being on this earth. We come to God by coming to a person. We come to God by coming to Jesus. Jesus Himself said it:
| … “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” [John 14:6, New American Standard Bible.] |
Since we don’t come to God by coming to one particular group, it follows that we don’t leave God by leaving that group. The only way we can leave God is by leaving Christ, which means renouncing Him, and turning away from the faith.
And when we come to Jesus, we don’t have to come walking on eggshells. We don’t have to wonder if He will accept us. For He also says:
| “… and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.” [John 6:37b, New American Standard Bible.] |
Jesus does not cast people out who come to Him, or drive them away. That is a key difference between Jesus and spiritually abusive leaders. A favorite verse that spiritual abusers like to quote in order to intimidate people is 1 John 2:16:
| They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. [1 John 1:19, New International Version.] |
Spiritual abusers will point to this verse and then point to those who have left their so-called “fellowships” or “churches” or whatever, and say, “See! The Bible says that these people were never really Christians in the first place, or they would have remained with us!” But this is a twisting of Scripture. By saying, “they went out from us,” John is not referring to one particular church body or group of believers. Instead, he is referring to those who have left the faith itself, and have denied that Jesus is the Son of God (as John points out in verse 22).
In fact, the Apostle John is referring to a very specific group of cultists in the early church who were called “Gnostics” (pronounced “NAH-sticks”). These were people who believed that they had “special” spiritual knowledge that other professing Christians did not have — much the same way that spiritual abusers today claim to have “special” knowledge, “special” gifts, or insight, or callings, or integrity, or whatever.
The Gnostics were very self-assured people. They could talk a big talk. They knew how to sound so lofty and spiritual that most people who heard them frankly could not understand them half the time, and they made a practice of questioning the spirituality of Christians in regular churches. Gnostics would sneak into a Christian church, start spreading around a bunch of pseudo-spiritual teachings, and draw little followings around themselves. When people questioned them they would turn-the-tables on them and accuse them of not being “spiritual enough to understand.” This had a tendency to make other Christians feel inferior, and rob them of their assurance, which is why the Apostle John spends so much time in 1 John assuring his readers that they are the ones who are really Christians, and not the Gnostics. Eventually these Gnostics would take their little bands and split off to form a new group. It was that situation that the Apostle John was addressing, not the situation of a believer fleeing an abusive group. In fact, were the Apostle John around today, I am convinced that he would find a lot more in common between the old Gnostics and today’s spiritual abusers than he would find between the Gnostics and people who leave abusive groups.
They told me that if I left,
I would join up with the enemies of God.” The leader of one group in Indianapolis, Indiana (USA) constantly warns his followers about “the web of darkness” that is lying-in-wait just outside their little semi-communal congregation.
He’s not talking about the World Wide Web (although, coincidentally, he discourages his flock from surfing the web because of supposed “spiritual pornography” that is on it, which is supposedly much worse than regular pornography). He’s talking about the informal network of ex-members who have either been kicked out or walked out on their own, and who have begun communicating in order to support each other through the terrible process of exit and re-adjustment to the real world outside their little cult.
People in the group become conditioned to warnings about “the web of darkness” waiting out there to consume them once they leave. One-by-one as members leave or are kicked out, their reputations are smeared and their characters are assassinated by leader. Most of the time, the leader doesn’t have to say hardly anything. The simple fact that he ordered someone to leave is enough to persuade the other members that the person is in some kind of sin. When someone leaves on their own, it is usually preceded by many solemn warnings about “the web of darkness.” Then, when it is discovered through the grapevine that an ex-member has been in contact with other ex-members, the remaining members say to each other and themselves, “See! It’s inevitable: once you leave the ’spiritual protection’ of our group, you fall into ‘the web of darkness!’”
If it were not for the fact that members take this so seriously, and that it causes ex-members many sleepless nights and many bouts with hysteria, we could write it off as perhaps a very bad joke that is in very poor taste.
The goal is obvious: to scare people into staying, and to create a feeling of utter isolation for those who have left or are in the process of leaving. Many people who have leave the group think that while those other people left one day get a phone call from an ex-member, and panic is the inevitable result.
“Oh no!” they shudder to themselves, “It’s true! I’ve fallen into ‘the web of darkness!’ This means that I’m one of them!”
People who have recently left an abusive group have been known to refuse calls from ex-members who had been out for a while because of this very fear. This keeps them isolated and afraid, and more likely to return to the group in order to avoid “God’s wrath.”
In my ex-group, the leader spoke of the “network of sick people” who were outside of our group, ready and waiting for us to leave the group so we could “plug back into them.” Other leaders use various other metaphors and analogies. It is a very common theme. And a very unbiblical one.
There is nothing in the Bible that says you cannot leave one group to join another group of Bible-believing Christians, especially when you have been abused by the group you are leaving.
“They told me that if I left,
they would have nothing more to do with me.”
This can be a very painful experience. Sometimes it involves more than friendships, but also involves families. Some families have more than one generation in an abusive group, or sometimes siblings or other relatives join together. In its most extreme form this is referred to as “shunning.” Several months before writing this, I was standing at the cash register line of a local Christian bookstore. Eventually I noticed that standing only five or six feet to my right was a woman who was still attending the abusive group I left.
A sudden wave of various emotions came over me. Should I try to get her attention? Should I greet her? Should I say anything to her?
For a moment I wasn’t sure it was her, but I stared at her long enough to assure myself that it was — and the sheer length of my stare would have been enough to make anyone on the receiving end of it feel uncomfortable.
And yet, there she stood, standing as straight as a post, her cold, stony face staring straight ahead, refusing to turn to acknowledge my presence.
She was shunning me.
She could hardly have avoided seeing me and my wife standing to her left as she approached the counter. She would have had to walk right by us just to get there.
I began to scan the rest of the store over my shoulder, and sure enough: I saw her husband not that far away, his back strategically turned toward us, looking at some of the merchandise.
Surely at least one of them must have seen us! I thought to myself.
They were shunning us. Just as our abusive ex-leader had warned us.
Of all the painful experiences of my life, this ranked somewhere near the top of my list. But by this time more than four years had past, and God’s healing in my life was working to soften this blow.
It is not simply the pain of being cut off from important relationships that is involved here. What makes it all the more traumatic is that those who shun us also blame us. They say things like, “It is you who are shunning us! We are simply acting toward you physically the way you are acting toward us spiritually.”
They often know how to say just the right thing to confuse us, to turn the tables on us, and to make us feel guilty. But don’t believe it. There’s not one shred of evidence in the Bible to justify them shunning you simply for leaving their group. They are simply misusing the Bible in a vain attempt to justify their own sinful attitude towards you.
“They told me that if I left,
I would bring evil into the lives of those around me.”
Abusive groups are very good at making their members feel like worms on the undersides of slimy rocks. They spend a lot of time and energy working on tearing down any positive or hopeful thoughts that members may have about themselves in order to foster dependence on the leader. It is their association with the group (and ultimately with the leader) that must provide them with feelings of self-worth and adequacy, or the leaders fear they will lose control. Therefore, the leaders tell their members that leaving the group is proof that they never really “cleaned up their act,” never really “repented of their sins,” never really “saw the Kingdom,” never really “understood the Gospel,” and so on. This arouses all the conditioning and training to think of themselves as scum-buckets that they received in the group.
As a final ploy, if the confession of personal sins was emphasized in the group, the leaders are often known to bring up these past sins, throwing them in the faces of those attempting to leave.
As a result, people leave abusive groups with a pervasive feeling of being spiritually contaminated, of being some kind of “spiritual poison” to others, of being “damaged goods.” Ex-members who have received this kind of treatment are often known to become reclusive. They may visit other churches, but remain in the shadows to avoid all personal contact with others.
Sometimes the leader will even contact the church to which the ex-member has fled, and make all kinds of accusations against the ex-members character. This is what happened in my case. In a letter from my ex-leader to my new pastor in December 1992, my ex-leader made all kinds of false accusations against me, knowing that the group would back up anything he said. The letter even advised my new church to “return” me to the group for “correction!”
Fortunately I had a pastor who wasn’t born yesterday. He spoke with my ex-leader on the phone, questioned him very carefully, and finally said to him, “So far you have not mentioned anything that would justify Biblical church discipline.” My new pastor concluded (correctly) that the real issue was one of disagreement between me and my ex-leader, which my ex-leader was trying to trump up into over-inflated charges of spiritual and moral waywardness.
My new pastor told the truth. He accurately appraised the situation, and called it for what it was. This comforted me somewhat, but not entirely, because over the course of my 5-1/2-year involvement in the group, my ex-leader had portrayed almost every pastor outside of his influence as being either “corrupt,” or “spiritually immature.” What if he was right, and this was just one more pastor who didn’t know what he was talking about, and should have listened to my ex-leader? What if I really was some kind of backslidden Christian who needed to be disciplined?
Recovering from Spiritual Abuse is not simply recovering from a single issue, but recovering from a whole complex of issues that all connect to each other. It takes time to track down each one and disconnect it from your thinking, but over time you can do it. Meanwhile: when they tell you that by leaving their group you will hurt others, just remember how much they hurt you. Would Jesus treat you that way? I don’t think so.
“They told me that if I left, something terrible would happen to me.”
In one group, the leader spends a great deal of time recounting unfortunate incidents that overtook ex-members after they left his group. Some of them got into car accidents. One man broke his arm. All of these things were supposed to be “God’s wake-up calls,” warning these people to return. In another group, an ex-member reported that she had been viciously assaulted. A short while later she received a letter from the group which said, in summary: “What did you expect? You left the spiritual protection of the group!”
This is yet another ungodly threat that spiritual abusers use to manipulate people and try to keep them under their control. Satan and his demons are out there waiting, lurking, seeking out people to devour — and if you leave this group, God is going to let he get you! This is a gross and cruel distortion of Biblical truth. Yes, Satan is out there. And yes, he’s pretty hungry for Christians (and others) to spiritually devour — not necessarily physically. Satan’s primary goal is to turn us against God, not to make us sick, injured or dead. Anyone who says otherwise is ignorant of Scripture.
But let me ask you something: do you believe that Jesus is God in human flesh (John 1:1), and that he died for your sins and rose again (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)? If that’s the case, then you are a person who is indwelt by God’s Holy Spirit (John 14:17). God is in you — and as the Apostle John teaches us, this means that we do not need to live in fear of Satan:
| You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. [1 John 4:4, New International Version of the Bible.] |
In order for Satan to do serious spiritual harm to a believer, it would take far more than that believer to leave some group. God would have to leave the believer — and that will never happen, for the Bible says:
| … God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” [Hebrews 13:5b, New International Version of the Bible.] |
If some professing Christian leader or anyone else tells you that if you leave their group Satan is going to get you — tell them to buzz off!
“They told me that if I left, I would go to Hell.”
This list of things that they tell us when we leave all began with the threat that we would backslide if we left our spiritually abusive group. The other threats on this list are those that frequently follow the first threat: that they would shun us, that God would “get” us, and now, finally, that we’ll probably end up in Hell. But have you noticed how the first threat (of backsliding) is reinforced by the other threats? Ask yourself the question: if you were being shunned by your Christian friends who told you that God was about to whomp on you and send you to Hell — wouldn’t that increase your chances of backsliding?
Now, no Christian should ever desire for his or her brother or sister to backslide into sin, and yet that’s exactly the kind of system that spiritual abusers set up — one designed to encourage those who leave the group to backslide! They remove every spiritual support, and inform their victims that they will fail. It’s obvious that they are treating the person who leaves like an enemy (at least by any Biblical standard), and yet that’s not exactly how the Bible tells us we are supposed to treat our enemies.
Spiritual Abuse sets up a system in which members become totally dependent upon the leadership. Therefore it is impossible for the leadership to endorse any kind of independence on the part of the membership. So when one of his members starts displaying independence, the leader has to find some explanation — either the person is just going through a rebellious phase and will eventually come back (after a lot of scolding and threats, of course), or the person is really lost forever.
Often a leader will go through a whole list of “warnings,” similar to the ones listed above, and if those do not produce the desired response, the leader tells his flock, “Well, if we were really dealing with a Christian here, he would have listened to my warnings. Since he hasn’t listened, he must be a doomed reprobate.” (Translation: he’s going to Hell.)
Threat of eternal damnation is, of course, the ultimate weapon in the spiritual abuser’s arsenal. If that doesn’t work, what will? Probably nothing, and he knows it. But it is a weapon that is not so much designed to bring you back, as it is to keep others from leaving.
Remember: the spiritual abuser tries to frighten you because he is frightened. He lives in constant fear of exposure. He desperately wants to avoid being exposed to outside scrutiny, but he also wants to avoid being discovered as a fraud by his own flock. He dreads the day when they will discover that the emperor has no clothes. Consigning you to the flames is his way of trying to bar the doors against any further escapes from his control.
Not every abusive leader uses this weapon to the same extent. The more clever the abuser, the more he will save it for strategic occasions. For example: if someone was especially high up in the pecking order of the group, and that person leaves, the leader is more likely to pronounce the judgment of Hell.
But the simple fact is — Biblically speaking — you don’t have to put up with it.
“They didn’t tell me that if I left …” There are some things that some abusive groups (not all of them) do that they do not warn you about. They do these things to cause further confusion in the minds of people who are leaving them.
Sometimes they assign a member to call you on the phone and ask you to come back. This is confusing because this kind of phone call often comes on the heals of repeated attacks on the character of the departing member. There have even been occasions when someone has been consigned to Hell by the leader, and afterwards they get one of these pleading phone calls.
Sometimes the ex-members will encounter their ex-leader, or other group members, and actually have a pleasant experience. The ex-leader may say something that sounds encouraging, and they may exchange hugs. The ex-leader may even admit to some wrongdoing — although it is usually a very non-specific admission.
I have received two letters of apology from my ex-leader since leaving my abusive group. After receiving the first letter, the wrote me again to tell me that when he apologized the first time, he didn’t have anything specific in mind. After receiving the second letter of apology, the leader renewed his personal attacks on me via the Internet
Guilt trip (SA 3) September 6, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : Spiritual Abuse, culture , add a commentGuilt-Tripping
Spiritually abusive leaders and groups feed on the guilt of their members. They also continually recycle it, and even create it where it did not previously exist.
We are all guilty. None of us is without sin. All of us have at least one or two secrets that we do not want anyone else to know about. Once we become Christians, our awareness of personal guilt is sharpened and deepened. As we progress in Christian maturity, the persistent power of sin becomes more obvious to us. We come to realize what a difficult struggle it is to overcome a sinful habit or tendency, and this causes us to long for freedom from the things that are holding us back. All of this means that Christians devote a tremendous amount of spiritual energy to dealing with sin and guilt — by trying to avoid actions which lead to sin and guilt, and by seeking forgiveness and strength from God in the battle against sin and guilt. Spiritual abusers are experts at tapping into this spiritual drive that all Christians have and manipulting it for their own purposes. What Steven Hassan writes concerning cult members is also a far too accurate portrayal of many people in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of churches and fellowships:
| The cult member comes to live within a narrow corridor of fear, guilt, and shame. Problems are always the fault of the member, and are due to his weak faith, his lack of understanding, “bad ancestors,” evil spirits, and so forth. He perpetually feels guilty for not meeting standards. … [Steven Hassan, Combatting Cult Mind Control, p. 82.] |
Most of us relate to guilt primarily as a feeling — a very unpleasant feeling. Webster’s second definition for guilt is: “a painful feeling of self-reproach resulting from a belief that one has done something wrong or immoral” (New World Dictionary, Third College Edition, 1988, p. 600). Of course, plain old objective guilt is “the state of having done a wrong or committed an offense” (ibid.), and that can exist whether or not it produces a painful feeling within us.
We can be objectively guilty and not feel anything, because of spiritual dullness, or what Scripture calls a “seared conscience.“ And we can also be not guilty, but feel as though we are. This called “false guilt.”
Knowing this, the spiritual abuser seeks to inflict the feeling of guilt as often as possible on his followers, regardless of whether they are actually guilty of anything. This is done in a variety of ways:
- The leader accuses members of improper attitudes.
- The leader accuses members of false motives.
- The leader accuses members of sins of omission.
What these three types of accusation have in common is that they are difficult to defend against. How do you prove that you do not harbor ain improper attitude, a false motive, or that you did everything you could have done to avoid a sin of omission? Sometimes it is impossible to prove; usually it is very difficult.
In addition, if a spiritual abuser is good at quoting Scripture, he will most likely use Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (KJV) He will try to get you to admit that you cannot even “know” your own heart, and to persuade you that — given his “spiritual authority,” or “spiritual gifts,” or “spiritual discernment” (or whatever he calls it) — he knows your heart better than you do. In this way, the abuser uses guilt to manipulate you, but not only you, but the people around you who hear the accusation against you as well.
To accuse someone in front of others takes a lot of nerve. Many of us mistake this nerve for something called “guts.” While often we can barely tolerate people who “have a lot of nerve,” we tend to respect people with “guts.” If someone in our midst decides to go out on a limb and accuse another person in our midst of something, a typical reaction on the part of others in the group would be to sit back and see how it plays out. If the accuser can get the other person to back down, then the accuser often gains the respect of the group. Spiritual abusers are usually good enough at manipulation that the number of times they get others to back down is impressive.
They are also good at teaching their followers to use the same accusatory methods, as one victim testified:
| “Community adults would decide what my sin was, [and] then just lay into me … I wasn’t allowed to speak to my father when he phoned; they told me it was the Lord’s will that I not speak with him. … The way I was making beds looked ‘rebellious’ to them, so I was assigned to scrub the bathrooms. Each day I’d get yelled at and forced to scrub them again.” [By Hook or By Crook: How Cults Lure Christians, by Harold Bussell. (New York: McCracken Press, 1993), p. 52. Previously published as Unholy Devotion: Why Cults Lure Christians, (Zondervan, 1983).] |
This description is remarkably similar to the experiences my wife and I had in our ex-group.
When a so-called Christian leader works to ensure that the atmosphere of his group is constantly riddled with guilt, his purpose is not to help anyone spiritually, but to control people. As Stephen Shoemaker has said:
| Cult religion traffics in guilt and shame. It preys upon people with heavy guilt and shame and offers a false solution: total commitment to the cult. Guilt and shame, when healthy, move us to life-changing behavior which leads us to a happier and healthier life. But they can be manipulated to promote unhealthy allegiance to a leader or group. [From the sermon, “Ten Marks of Cult Religion,” by Dr. Stephen Shoemaker.] |
People can be manipulated into responding out of guilt feelings either because they have residual guilt feelings from past sins, or because their consciences have been made overly sensitive by false guilt. Either way, as Ken Blue points out in his description of “Guilt Manipulation,” there is no shortage of guilt-feelings among Christians:
| Rob and Bev were only seventeen years old when they got married. They wedded young because Bev was pregnant. Both sets of parents supported their marriage but felt shamed by it too. They expressed their disapointment with rebuke: “How could you treat us like this? After all, we trusted you.” Bev and Rob worked hard to succeed in their marriage, partly (they admitted) to make it up to their disappointed parents. In their early twenties, Rob and Bev joined a family-oriented fundamentalist church. They quickly caught the attention of the pastor, who, over time, offered them leadership roles in the Sunday school and the maintenance of the church buildings. The young couple eagerly responded to the pastor’s expression of trust in them and threw themselves into their ministries.
But as the extent of their responsibilities became apparent to them, they realized they had taken on too much. They were each spending more than twenty-five hours per week on church-related business. This was clearly more than the young couple and their now three children could afford. Their ministries gave them status and made them feel like responsible adults, so giving up one or both of their positions was difficult to consider. Nevertheless, they made an appointment with their pastor to discuss their dilemma. After hearing their story, the pastor slumped disappointedly in his chair and said, “How could you let me down like this? I trusted you.” Stricken by these words–the same they had heard from their parents–Bev and Rob vowed to rededicate themselves to their ministries. They will most likely burn out in a few months and then have a second major failure to live down. In many churches guilt manipulation is less obvious than this, but its purpose is the same–the control of vulnerable people. … [Ken Blue, Healing Spiritual Abuse, pp. 54-55.] |
This story leads naturally into a description of one particular brand of guilt trip that spiritual abusers commonly use which would be comical if it were not so devastatingly effective. I call it the “Leader-as-Martyr” technique. It was a favorite ploy of the leader of my former group.
At strategic moments our leader would inform us of all the sacrifices he had made to provide this “ministry” for us.
“You people don’t realize what I gave up to do this for you,” he would say. “I could have made big money out in the world!”
When a woman in the group could no longer take the abusive treatment she was receiving from him, the leader pulled out a long list of all the things he had done for her. Some of the things on the list were actually impressive. He had treated this woman rather special, which alone should have raised questions in our minds. But now these favors became weapons in his hands. “Look at all the time, all the money, all the effort I spent on you!” he whined.
When people questioned him, the leader accused them of “attacking” him. He would use the most extreme language to describe those who crossed him in any way. “My blood is all over this room!” he would shout. “Look at how you’re killing me!” People who responded in anger to his abuse were characterized as “violent.” (He liked to use a lot of extreme, metaphorical language.)
People who spend a lot of time pointing out the sacrifices and hardships they have endured on your behalf, and respond bitterly when you confront them with their sins, really have only one goal: to control you. Consider the following quote from just such a self-appointed martyr:
| In these three decades only love for my people and loyalty to my people have guided me in all my thoughts, actions, and life. They gave me the strength to make the most difficult decisions, such as no mortal has yet had to face. I have exhausted my time, my working energy, and my health in these three decades. |
Wow! What an amazing example of selfless sacrifice! Right? Three decades of utterly devoted service, facing “difficult decisions, such as no mortal has yet had to face!” And all for the love of his people! What an example for us to follow!
The source of these inspiring words for us to live by?
Adolph Hitler. (Quoted in Nasty People, by