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Against All Reason: Why I Failed to Leave My Cult

Posted by Steve Smith on November 1, 2012 in Uncategorized

The pale greens of spring in Maine ran like wet paint outside the window, blurring as my eyes welled with tears.

Meanwhile, my pastor neatly summarized my choices: “Either I am God’s servant and everything I have taught you is true, or I am a fraud and everything you have committed to is false,” he said calmly. “There is no middle ground. You are totally invested.”

I sat in his office with tears running down my face. Ferris* had just told me that I idolized my friends at college and that I needed to dial back on my relationships. I had arrived home for the summer earlier that week.

What Ferris said didn’t make any sense. I already had a 4.0 average and was in little danger of tanking academically. And I spent precious little time with my college friends as it was.

But Ferris was unyielding. “Your responsibility is to your academics and to holding fast to what you have learned here,” he said. “You are in danger of becoming friends with the world. I have already noticed that your affected hairstyle is similar to that of your friends. They are influencing you to act like the world.” He pointed at a photo of my two best friends from Taylor University, a small Christian college in Indiana. I had shared the picture with one of Ferris’s adult children, and they dutifully passed it on to their father out of “concern” for me.

The information web within our tiny church was tight and sticky.

Ferris pointed at one of the young men in the picture. He was a muscular football player with long, glorious curls. My hair was straight and short. The other fellow had platinum blond hair with generous cowlicks. For both young men, their hairstyles were natural. Affected? I didn’t understand what Ferris meant.

“Yes, Steve,” Ferris continued, “you have conformed to the pattern of the world and have become friends with the world. These young men claim to be Christians, but a tree is evidenced by its fruit. Their hairstyles give them away. They are fleshly.”

I stared at my pastor, my mind flickering like a television screen between channels. Ferris sat in cool assurance, his precisely parted hair and buttoned-up appearance straight from the 1950s. Isolated in his office, surrounded by a flock of people who submitted to his every pronouncement, he had encountered little of culture in the last twenty years. Perhaps he didn’t realize that the young men in the picture fit well within conservative Christian culture.

I tried to explain.

Ferris frowned and raised his hand.

“You are relying on worldly wisdom,” he said. “It makes sense to you, but you need to trust that God has given me wisdom in these areas. Think of all the biblical knowledge God has taught me over the years. Think of all the marvelous things God has revealed to our little church. How could it be possible that God would speak all those mysteries and reveal all this knowledge, and now suddenly I would speak falsehood? No, Steve, I am God’s servant and you must submit to me. Remember how much you have sacrificed already. Remember how much you have invested. Jesus promises that if you persevere, you will receive a hundred-fold in this life, and in the age to come: eternal life!”

Though I disagreed with his statements about hairstyles, I couldn’t overturn his logic. I believed that our church was the most biblical I had ever encountered, and we were completely invested. We spent nine hours in church each Sunday studying God’s Word. And that was just on Sunday.

Other days of the week we had Men’s Fellowship, a Ladies’ Bible Study, Youth Group, Young Adult Group, and Tree Climbers for the 1st and 2nd graders. We had opportunities to clean the church, mow the church lawn, or clean up the property during a Men’s Work Day. We studied our church sermon notes and reviewed the information we were supposed to memorize about various aspects of the Old Testament. We also listened to church tapes during the week. In fact, I listened to three or four tapes, for a total of three or four hours in addition to Sunday services. We gave 10-20% of our income to the church, not including the numerous special offerings or benevolence offerings which we were expected to give to.

Invested? Completely.

And then there were all the family members we had shunned. If I suddenly believed that Ferris was wrong—that he was a fraud—then that meant that I had been wrong to ostracize my relatives and my twin brother. It would mean that I was the problem, and not them. It would mean that I was misguided and a dupe of Satan, rather than them.

I had invested everything in Ferris’s interpretation of God’s Word and his avowals that we were a specially chosen group of people. I truly believed that I was sacrificing my family and my happiness for the sake of God’s Kingdom. I had invested everything.

If my commitment proved false, I realized, the world would simply turn upside down. Nothing would make sense. I might be wrong in some things, but I couldn’t be wrong in everything, could I? No. That wouldn’t be consistent. I was too sincere, too humble, too plain good. God would never allow me to be deceived like that.

Such deception would be like standing in a packed elevator while smelling someone’s terrible body odor, wrinkling my nose and pointing at the construction worker in the corner, telling everyone in the elevator that the other man stinks and that we should ostracize him, only to realize when I got off the elevator that the odor was actually coming from me. Yes, it would be like that, but at a cosmic level.

No!

My flickering brain suddenly resolved into a sharp picture: Ferris was right. I may not like his statements, but Jesus had said that even he came not to bring peace but a sword. A man’s enemies would be the members of his own household. Ferris was right—I just needed to trust him more.

Click.

And I was suddenly back in the groove, back in my channel of total commitment, back in a life consistent with the worldview in which I had completely invested.

And I was totally wrong.

*Not his real name.

—

In his book Influence, Robert Cialdini, Ph.D. notes that one of the linchpins of influence is commitment and consistency. “Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment. Those pressures will cause us to respond in ways that justify our earlier decision.”

People who remain in cults, as I did, experience doubts just like non cult-members do. The difference is that cult members put up walls against the unbearable logic of these doubts. Against all reason they persist in their commitment. They have so totally invested in the system—which they believe meets their three cosmic needs of assurance of salvation (security), love, and significance—that they will ignore such doubts or explain them away in order to remain consistent with their previous commitment.

As Cialdini alludes, it is not always the act of hard-thinking that discourages cult members from thinking critically about their group, but rather the consequences of such thinking. To admit that one’s group is a cult carries serious consequences: it means that you have been deceived, that you have judged others wrongly, that you have treated disagreeing family members disgracefully, and that you have misunderstood the character of God.

But it also carries enormous benefits: to see the world as it is, not as you wish it to be. To put your hope in Jesus rather than in a smooth-talking or religious-sounding person. To love others well, without fear. And to encounter God as he really is: in all his awesome mystery and unfathomable love and grace, rather than as a stingy, nit-picking legalist who blasts one of his children as soon as they tiptoe off the frozen way of eggshells.

So if you find doubts cropping up about your church, entertain them. Think hard and well about them. Look at what the Bible says. Seek advice.

Then act in a manner consistent with your commitment to truth.

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Personality Disorders in the Church: Narcissistic Personality Disorder (Part 2 of 5)

Posted by Steve Smith on October 18, 2012 in Uncategorized

Author’s Note: Please read “Part 1: Introduction” for the context of this post.

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Part 3: Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
Part 4: Paranoid Personality Disorder
Part 5: How to Handle Personality Disorders in the Church

—

“I know just what it is,” the pediatrician said kindly, smiling at the small boy in front of him. The boy shifted uncomfortably on the table’s crackling white paper and scratched his head.

“Yes,” the doctor continued, “you’ve got all the symptoms: a slight fever; headache; loss of appetite; a rash on your scalp, trunk, and face; and those itchy, flat red spots which are just starting to crust over. It can only mean one thing: chicken pox!”

Diagnosing a Personality Disorder

Wouldn’t it be great if personality disorders were as easy to diagnose as chicken pox? A lot of folks could seek help and a lot of churches would be spared from controlling, self-centered leaders. Indeed, many cult leaders seem to owe their controlling, messianic-type leadership styles to personality disorders.

And yet, personality disorders are diagnosable. It just takes a little more time than a single doctor’s appointment, and a little more psychological and biblical wisdom.

In their book, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in an Age of Entitlement, Jean Twenge, Ph.D., and Keith Campbell, Ph.D., say that “Like a disease, narcissism is caused by certain factors, spreads through particular channels, appears as various symptoms and might be halted by preventive measures and cures.”

While everyone has a particular personality—ways of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and one’s self—a personality disorder occurs when these traits are “maladaptive, inflexible, and cause significant functional impairment or subjective distress” (DSM-IV). To be diagnosed as a personality disorder, such maladaptive traits must evidence several of the following characteristics:

  • stable and long-standing (often beginning in adolescence or early adulthood)
  • deviate significantly from the expectations of the surrounding culture
  • inflexible and pervasive across a wide range of personal and social situations
  • leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning
  • is not accounted for by another mental disorder or chemical substances
  • is diagnosed by evaluating an individual’s long-term patterns of functioning and must be evident by early adulthood
  • is not related to the response to a single situational stressor or transient emotional states

The point of all of this is that no one should ever leap to the conclusion that another person has a personality disorder. Instead, personality disorders become evident over time. Yet personality disorders have great explanatory power when evaluating numerous cult leaders—leaders whose maladaptive personalities and ways of thinking help create environments where people are controlled and manipulated in the name of God.

In this post, we’ll look at the symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, discover what the Bible has to say about these traits, and then conclude with how these traits sometimes manifest in unhealthy leaders in the church.

Symptoms

A brief history lesson: the word “narcissism” comes from the Greek mythological tale of Narcissus. According to myth, Narcissus was a boy who fell in love with his own beautiful reflection in a pond. He stayed gazing at his reflection for years and years until he turned into a flower, the Narcissus.

Modern day clinical psychologists have borrowed the term to describe a particular type of person—a person who adores themselves and thinks that everyone else in the world is meant to serve and admire them. Narcissists make up less than 1% of the general population, and yet they tend to gravitate toward occupations which involve the limelight, so they are often highly visible.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition (DSM-IV), people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder have “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five or more of the following:

  1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
  2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
  3. believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
  4. requires excessive admiration
  5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
  6. is interpersonally exploitive, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
  7. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
  8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
  9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes”

According to Twenge and Campbell, narcissists do not secretly have low self-esteem: “Deep down inside, narcissists think they’re awesome.”

As you can imagine, having a narcissistic personality disorder would be problematic in church leadership.

Does Narcissism Occur in the Bible?

The Bible does not address narcissism using the word “narcissism,” just as it does not talk about dinosaurs, meteors or the Trinity with those exact words. Why? Because all of these terms were invented hundreds of years after the Bible was written. But the modern words describe ancient truths.

What the Bible does do is address the characteristics which describe a narcissistic person: selfishness, selfish ambition, grandiosity, entitlement, lack of empathy, interpersonal exploitation, envy, and arrogance.  Take a look at the following passages:

Romans 2:8 – “But to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, [there will be] wrath and indignation.”

2 Timothy 3:1-2- “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self…”

James 3:14-16 – “But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.”

Philippians 2:3 – “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.”

In Acts 12:21-23, King Herod is struck down by God because he refuses to give glory to God but instead considers himself worthy of deification. In Daniel 4, God punishes King Nebuchadnezzar for praising himself and reveling in his own glory.

Notably, Jesus describes the Pharisees in terms which characterize narcissists. As Israel’s self-righteous religious leaders, many of them unfortunately evidenced the symptoms of narcissism. Here are a few passages:

Matthew 6:1-2 – “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men…”

Luke 18:10-14 – The Pharisee tried to justify himself and thought he was better than other men; the publican humbly admitted his unworthiness and went away justified before God.

Matthew 23:1-12 – The Pharisees did all their deeds to be “noticed by men” (v.5). On the contrary, Jesus says that his followers should be humble: “The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted” (vv.11-12).

Elsewhere, Jesus says that the Gentile rulers “lorded it over” those beneath them (Matthew 20:25), and Peter says that church leaders should not “lord it over” the flock entrusted to their care (1 Peter 5:3).

So the Bible has a lot to say against people who we would describe today as “narcissists,” and especially against religious leaders who have narcissistic personalities.

Narcissism in Church Leadership

Most church leaders today are sincere, hard-working, humble folk who sometimes make mistakes and who admit that they are sinners just like everyone else. This post is not about them.

Instead, even though Narcissistic Personality Disorder occurs in only 1% of the general population, many cult leaders seem to demonstrate symptoms of this condition: they are controlling, domineering people who believe they are specially gifted with unique truth. They have grandiose visions of themselves and believe that God has chosen them as messiah-like leaders who will bring a remnant of chosen people to glory. They refuse correction from other people, throw off alliances with other churches as “unholy,” and promote their own idealization and idolization by their followers. They believe they are right, and that everyone else is wrong.

  1. Grandiose – Presents himself as a hero who stands against Satan. People who oppose him are standing against righteousness, God’s servant, or God’s man. He frequently cites his own credentials, such as the college he graduated from, a book he has written, or his superior intelligence.
  2. Lack of Empathy – May understand human nature very well, but seems to experience a disconnect when trying to empathize with other points of view.
  3. Little Tolerance for Weakness – Cannot understand why other people struggle so much with sin or temptations. Instead of exercising grace and understanding, a narcissistic leader will deal in a draconian manner with struggling people. Advice usually amounts to one of three solutions: submit, repent, or get out!
  4. Paranoia – Narcissists often believe that other people are out to get them, are plotting against them, or trying to destroy their ministry. When people disagree with them, a narcissist may impugn the other person’s character rather than engaging in dialogue or critical thinking. The narcissistic leader tries to convince his or her followers that the world is against them. As Dory Zinkand says, “These suspicions begin to wear thin once the listener realizes the number of people who are said to be ‘out to get him’ is quite large, and the reason for their alleged plotting is unclear or stretches credulity…”
  5. Black and White Thinking – The Narcissist is unable to appreciate other points of view, since he lacks empathy and the truth always seems so clear to him. Because of this, he believes that other teachers are diabolically perverting the truth on purpose.
  6. Craves Attention – Narcissistic leaders want their followers to affirm how wonderful they are, often through public testimonies. A narcissistic leader may read thank-you notes publicly, share private conversations where someone else applauded them, or pat themselves on the back and then say that God gets the glory. Yet in the absence of admiration, any attention will do. What the narcissist fears most is being ignored, so “persecution,” media critiques, or other negative forms of attention give the narcissist his “narcissistic supply” of strong emotional reaction. Indeed, the narcissist may try to prolong such attention by exhaustively critiquing such press and trying to turn it around into martyrdom for righteousness’ sake.

Conclusion

Narcissistic Personality Disorder offers great explanatory power when considering a number of cult leaders in the church today. In the next post, we’ll look at Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, and in the final post of this series we’ll consider how to lovingly—but assertively—relate to narcissistic leaders so that the church is built up rather than torn down.

After all, a diagnosis is of little value unless we can offer the hope of healing.

Update, 11/17/15: Here are two helpful articles and a paper which all shed very helpful light on this topic. I’m encouraged to see these matters addressed more fully by very capable professionals. Praise God.

“Pastors with Covert Narcissistic Personality Disorder” by William E. Krill, Jr., L.P.C.

“Responding to the Narcissistic Personality Disordered Pastor” by William E. Krill, Jr., L.P.C.

“Frequency of Narcissistic Personality Disorder in Pastors: A Preliminary Study” by R. Glenn Ball and Darrell Puls [Spoiler: It’s five times the rate of the general population. Five times!]

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A Sensitive Topic: Personality Disorders in the Church (Part 1 of 5)

Posted by Steve Smith on October 11, 2012 in Uncategorized

Author’s Disclaimer: This is a topic easy to abuse. “Let’s label people with a disorder so we can kick them out of church leadership!” No, that’s not the purpose of this series. But I have found the information I’m sharing here so personally liberating—and so helpful a framework in explaining various cult leaders I have encountered—that I have decided that others might benefit from it, too. I hope everyone who reads this does so with critical thinking, grace, and a desire for truth and restoration rather than finger-pointing.

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Part 3: Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
Part 4: Paranoid Personality Disorder
Part 5: How to Handle Personality Disorders in the Church

—

What is the difference between a real portrait and a caricature? The first is the truth, and the second is a recognizable but silly distortion of the truth.

In the church today we tend to caricature cult leaders. Say the word “cult” and folks conjure up barbed-wire compounds, deadly Kool-Aid, and zombie-like followers. Say the phrase “cult leader” and Jim Jones, David Koresh, or Sun Myung Moon come to mind. Cult leaders are raving lunatics, Hitler-like despots, or sinister manipulators, right?

Sometimes.

But most cult leaders are more subtle than the extreme image presented by the media. So why do we caricature cult leaders?

Two reasons:

  1. First, caricaturing a person is easier than painting an accurate portrait of them. That’s why we love political cartoons so much: because the artist has already done the work of boiling down a complex candidate into a funny-looking man or woman with big ears and a gap-toothed grin. It takes time, energy, and fair-mindedness to think carefully about the many nuances of a person’s personality and beliefs. People are more complex than a caricature.
  2. Second, I think it is because we like to remove the idea of “cult” and “cult leader” to a comfortable arm’s-length distance from our own experience. It is scary to think that our leader might be a cult leader, because that would mean that we are in a cult. All cult leaders have red horns and pointy goatees, don’t they? Even the women. So we’re okay.

The reality is more subtle.

Instead, most cult leaders are unintentionally malicious or controlling. They really do believe that they have the truth and that people are better off for being under their leadership. They really do believe that they are serving God and that the church at large is going to hell in a hand-basket. Their patterns of manipulation only grow more clear over time. Like the proverbial frog in the kettle, members of these groups may not even recognize what is happening until the symptoms become extreme. And the cult leader is usually the last person to think there is a problem. Why?

The Explanatory Power of Personality Disorder

In my research on cults—and in my own experience as a former cult member—I have learned that many cult leaders evidence traits of undiagnosed personality disorders.

What is a personality disorder?

According to the Mayo Clinic:

A personality disorder is a type of mental illness in which you have trouble perceiving and relating to situations and to people — including yourself. There are many specific types of personality disorders.

In general, having a personality disorder means you have a rigid and unhealthy pattern of thinking and behaving no matter what the situation. This leads to significant problems and limitations in relationships, social encounters, work and school.

In some cases, you may not realize that you have a personality disorder because your way of thinking and behaving seems natural to you, and you may blame others for the challenges you face.

Many cult leaders evidence the characteristics of particular personality disorders. The most common among cult leaders seem to be Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, and Paranoid Personality Disorder. These disorders help promote the desire for messianic leadership and being in control. While these undoubtedly couple with spiritual warfare issues and the hardening of heart that the Bible says false teachers and false prophets experience, Personality Disorders are worth examining in their own right. Otherwise we run the danger of being simplistic and caricaturing all cult leaders with horns and hooves.

What’s the road map for this five-part series?

Parts Two through Four

In the second, third, and fourth posts, we’ll talk about how to recognize the three disorders mentioned above: Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, and Paranoid Personality Disorder. Since cult leaders usually baptize their personalities as the best way to live—or claim that the way they do things and relate to other people is the way God wants everyone else to function—it is legitimate to discern whether their personality is truly holy and healthy or instead shows signs of being unhealthy.

Warning: This is a sensitive subject. The point here is not to initiate a witch-hunt where we assault the pulpit with pitchforks and torches, nor to give grumbling church-members ammunition against an unpopular leader. After all, each of us may demonstrate some of these characteristics to a greater or lesser degree, right? Most church leaders do not fit into these categories.

Instead, the purpose of these posts is three-fold:

  1. First, to educate church laypeople and leaders about a psychological reality which occurs in only 1% to 5% of the general population, and which may sometimes help to explain the behavior of a controlling and manipulative leader. You won’t have to think hard about whether someone fits into one of these categories. If they do, the profile should fit like a glove and it will be like a light-bulb turning on in your mind.
  2. A second purpose is to strip away the caricature which says that all cult leaders are raving lunatics. Instead, we will present a more accurate portrait, taking into account the subtleties of personality disorder.
  3. The third purpose is to expose the lie of cult leaders when they say that they are more holy or healthy than their followers. If they have a personality disorder, it would be better for everyone to know it so that they can get help. This brings liberty to people who live in psychological or spiritual captivity beneath an unhealthy leader, and it may bring great healing to the leader’s life.

Part Five

In the final post of this series, we’ll conclude with how churches and congregations can lovingly—but assertively—help leaders who struggle with personality disorders. There is hope for both churches and leaders. The goal of Christians should be to build up the church, not tear it down.

Anything less is a caricature.

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Lies that Bind

Posted by Steve Smith on October 9, 2012 in Uncategorized

Behind my parents’ house in Southern Maine sprawls a large stand of blackberry bushes. You can go there in August and fill a pail with blackberries the size of your thumb.

If you go, you’ll see last year’s brown, thorn-studded canes jutting like broken arms among today’s giraffes of greener growth. I used to spend many a summer evening cutting paths between those briars. Thorns tugged at my sleeves or swiped like cat claws across my back. The tang of crushed berries mingled with the scents of earth and mown grass. Intoxicating.

But this bucolic scene masks a graveyard. In the morning—when the sun lies low in the east—dew sparkles on the leaves and you can see spider webs hung like fishing nets between the brambles. Large black garden spiders stalk the edges of these flattened chandeliers. Each pretty web holds its midnight catch of silk-wrapped flies.

—

Lies that bind.

Every cult has its deadly web. Deceptive threads that stick and make it hard to leave.

Cult leaders often insinuate themselves into an environment where people seem young and naïve, or are looking for cosmic significance and assurance of relationship with God.

Perhaps the leader uses seminary credentials to woo and to wow the people. They incarnate the assurance and power of God into their own person. They learn to speak with unquestioned, unhesitating authority. The clarion call of their doctrine and the charisma of their presence seem to create a cocoon from the chaos of the world.

A cult leader believes that he or she is right—believes it with a sincere arrogance that begs no question. He convinces his followers that God has anointed him with a special spirit of wisdom so rare that he alone has unfettered access to the truth. She weaves a web of doctrinal deception stronger than steel. Then she casts it wide and lets it fall to one side or the other of the truth—a little to the left or a little to the right—since the truth of God’s Word is her counterfeit’s best bait.

Sincere people hit these tangled teachings: they hit, stick, and struggle. The cult leader soothes them with layers of silk; wraps their souls in gauze so strong they cannot break free. The leader lets them see the light of God’s Word and makes them forget about the web. People tangle together until young and old, families and singles, are all caught in the same interpretive framework of deception. Some will immediately cease to kick. Others may require more biblical threads to soothe their troubled minds.

For the few who keep struggling, the cult leader injects a little venom. He mixes silk with poison and lets his followers feel his teeth. Perhaps the cult leader calls questioning followers rebellious or heretical. He might preach early and often on spiritual authority—according to his own distorted conception of it.

One struggling soul can send tremors through the whole web. For this reason, cult leaders despise dissenters. If “rebels” will not be silent, the leader cuts them loose from the web. That way, the troublemaker will no longer infect others with their resistance.

After the cult leader has quelled dissent, he or she will remain unchallenged—a gorged spider surrounded by mummified souls.

She will suck the life out of them at her leisure—they will feed her ego for years.

—

Lies that bind.

Do you feel caught in a web of lies? Is your life berries by day and spider-silk by night? Ask God to shine his light on your beliefs–to expose any lies or distorted thinking–and to help you break free from the lies that bind.

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“Crock-Pot” Trauma: Spiritual Abuse and Recovery

Posted by Steve Smith on October 4, 2012 in Uncategorized

Snow melted from my boots and formed a spreading stain on the carpet.

Outside, a foot of fresh powder lay untroubled by tracks. The University had cancelled classes for the day but I had several time-sensitive matters to attend to. So I drove in on slush-greased roads to my basement office in southern Maine. A few necessary emails, a handful of critical documents, and I would be gone.

I booted up my computer and looked at my inbox. Oh yes. A local restaurant owner was supposed to stop by to pick up a deposit check for an upcoming event. But since the University was closed, I knew the check wouldn’t be ready. I emailed the man to stop by later in the week. Then I proceeded to triage the stack of papers in front of me.

An hour passed. One more email and I’ll get out of here, I thought happily.

From my periphery vision I saw legs pass in front of the basement window—a sudden flash of dark then light—and I heard the outside door open. Only one person would be here on a snow-day: the restaurant owner looking for his check.

Panic struck. I felt unprepared and deathly afraid. If the man discovered the check wasn’t ready, he would punish me. Punish me!

Without thinking, I leaped from my desk and hid behind a Chinese screen in the office. In a split second I had gone from a 27-year-old working professional to a frightened child.

There came a knock at the locked door and a man’s rough voice: “Anyone here?”

My heart thumped so loudly that I was sure the man could hear me from the other side of the door. Despite the cold day, rivulets of sweat coursed down my back.

Another knock, louder than the first: “Anybody here? I thought I saw a light.”

I wanted to scream. I burrowed behind a stack of ancient files, their labels clearly visible in faded purple. If I could have, I would have sunk into the floor. Instead, my thighs doubled under me as I crouched smaller and smaller. My haunches pressed against my wet boots.

Why was I hiding?

I didn’t know.

All I knew was that if this man found me, bad things would happen.

“Crock-Pot” Trauma

This post is not intended to be clinically authoritative. There are books and manuals for that.

Instead, it is permission and empowerment.

Permission to name the hurt that has happened to you.

And empowerment to start the healing process.

One aspect of spiritual abuse that sometimes gets overlooked is the trauma of it. Most folks associate trauma with a catastrophic event.

Let’s be crystal clear: Not all trauma is the result of a sudden catastrophic incident such as rape, kidnapping, or combat. While these events certainly cause trauma, there is also another cause.

I call it “crock-pot” trauma.

Crock-pot trauma is trauma which occurs slowly and systematically, just like a crock-pot slowly cooks meat and vegetables. This type of trauma may take months or years to produce, and it involves eight ingredients which produce a recipe for trauma:

  1. Authoritarian leader(s)
  2. Enforced powerlessness
  3. Denial of personhood
  4. Imposition of an ascetic lifestyle
  5. Forced isolation
  6. Psychological bullying
  7. Suppression of emotions
  8. Metaphysical “stoning” of a person’s soul

This type of trauma is similar to that described by POWs from World War II and Vietnam. It is trauma that results from being powerless and abused day after day, year after year, whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually. While spiritual abuse victims may or may not suffer physical abuse, their souls are torn and bleeding. It is the proverbial “death by a thousand cuts.”

Built into all spiritual abuse is the low-grade trauma and ongoing damage done to the psyche of the followers involved. There is attrition of spiritual health that results in emaciated souls every bit as sick as POWs. And there are the verbal and spiritual beatings that Dale Wolery from the Clergy Recovery Network calls “metaphysical stoning.”

It is trauma caused by the Word of God used like the thrust of a spear, the constant threat of God’s displeasure and eternal damnation, and the death of dreams and relationships. This is real trauma: the trauma of the soul.

Post-Traumatic Stress

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) classifies and describes various anxiety disorders, one of which is post traumatic stress. Part of the classification of post traumatic stress is the reaction to the traumatic event:

  • Triggered panic attacks
  • Agoraphobia (fear of being trapped, or loss of control around people)
  • Avoidance of places or people which remind us of the traumatic event or situation
  • Restricted expression of affect (difficulty feeling happy or loved)
  • Depression
  • Irritability
  • Trouble with nightmares or lack of sleep
  • Hyper-vigilance
  • Exaggerated startle response
  • Flashbacks
  • Inability to function in relationships
  • Sense of a foreshortened future
  • Feeling trapped, detached or estranged from other people.

While not every spiritual abuse victim suffers these symptoms, some do. I have experienced all of these symptoms during the past five years—and I know folks from my former church and other cult-like groups who have experienced similar symptoms. Indeed, the church consulting agency that helped our church disband recommended that the church be shut down entirely. They did this because almost every member of the congregation was traumatized when they entered the church building. In a manner of speaking, we were all spiritual POWs now set free. Yet many of us still carry psychological chains.

Sometimes it takes very little to rattle those chains. Situations which trigger my feelings of panic include: seeing a police car turn on its lights behind me; reading the same translation of the Bible that my former pastor favored; being late to an event by even one minute; encountering an authority figure; hearing the old hymns that my former church used to play; walking into a congregation of less than 100 people; participating in an event which has a formalized dress code; grocery shopping; and flossing my teeth. Yes, in my former church we even had a theology of flossing. Our pastor equated flossing with spiritual maturity.

Each of these things, though non-threatening at face value, triggers in me memories of spiritual abuse. That’s why when the restaurant owner appeared unexpectedly at my workplace, I had a panic attack: I was unprepared for his visit and felt alone and vulnerable. In my former church, being unprepared was a punishable offense. I have had to give myself permission to call this constellation of symptoms what it is: post traumatic stress.

And I have had to start the empowering process of healing from it.

Healing Spiritual Trauma

The healing process begins by exiting the abusive environment where crock-pot trauma occurs. It continues by seeking out safe people who can love and affirm you and listen to your story. It will probably include sessions with a licensed counselor who can help facilitate your healing.

Trauma specialist Linda Marten describes the steps to healing after a loss. I apply these same principles to healing from trauma:

  1. Take time to feel. Part of the trauma of a spiritually abusive environment is the suppression and denial of emotions. Since emotions are one of the keys of personhood, this amounts to denial of your worth and value as a person. Feeling the full spectrum of emotions is a wonderful way to re-enter the land of the living.
  2. Confide in someone. Much healing is in the telling. God is a God of story and relationship. Find someone safe to tell your story to—whether a trained counselor, a mature friend or relative, or a healthy religious leader. You will be amazed at how healing the act of storytelling can be.
  3. Allow yourself to change. For some folks, a spiritually abusive environment is all they’ve ever known. Give yourself permission to change and grow in ways that were never allowed in your former group. This may feel scary or “wrong,” but in reality it is a sign of health and liberty.
  4. Practice your faith. It is not your pastor’s faith anymore, or your parents’ faith: it is your faith. Believing that God is good and that he works all things for the good of those who love him (Rom 8:28) is a huge step of faith. God can redeem your past. He can. Trust him.
  5. Reconnect with God’s gifts. Part of healing for me has involved enjoying nature. And ice cream. I also love to write and paint and work with wood. I’m training for a marathon. What gifts has God given you? What makes you feel fully alive? How do you reconnect with God? Do those things.
  6. Maintain a daily routine. One of the symptoms of trauma is depression. Maintaining order in your life can help pull you out of those feelings of purposelessness and sadness. This is not a coping mechanism: it is choosing by faith to establish healthy patterns whether you feel like it or not.
  7. Exercise. Humans are mind-body-spirit totalities. God made us that way. Besides keeping us physically fit, the act of exercise releases endorphins in the body which helps us feel better.
  8. Release anger (forgive). There is an old saying that “Unforgiveness is like us drinking poison, hoping that the other person will die.” Your feelings of anger against the person or people who abused you are legitimate. But God says that you must forgive them, even as he forgave you (Col 3:12-17). Besides obeying God, forgiveness frees us from the chains of anger and hurt. A lot of trauma dissolves through the process of forgiveness. But it takes time.
  9. Avoid self-medicating through chemicals. Alcohol and drugs mask the symptoms of pain: they don’t solve the deep-rooted causes. Avoid this trap.
  10. Help the body and mind work together (integration). Much spiritual abuse focuses on asceticism and forced self-denial. Remembering that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19-20) gives us permission to take care of ourselves and do things which we enjoy.

According to Marten, healing takes time and energy. We must be patient with ourselves and others. We must resist trying to measure up to the “oughts” and expectations of others. We must give as much grace to ourselves as we would give to someone else who has experienced a trauma.

And this all takes time.

When I visited Mammoth Cave in Kentucky with some college friends, we followed a bearded ranger into the middle of the cavern. When we reached the deepest point, the ranger said, “Six miles in, six miles out.” By this, he meant that there was no shortcut back to the surface.

Trauma is like that. If you have spent years in an environment of “crock-pot” trauma, you can expect that it will take years to regain health.

But in this case, you have the comfort of knowing that you are walking in the right direction.

Let’s walk together toward the light.

—

Author’s Update, 11/5/12: Post-Cult Trauma Syndrome is a recognized condition. Visit the Cult Help and Information website here to learn more about it.

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Identifying Religious Brainwashing: Doctrine Over Person (Part 7 of 8)

Posted by Steve Smith on September 21, 2012 in Uncategorized

This is the seventh in an eight-part series on how to identify brainwashing in a destructive group or cult. It is based off of Dr. Robert Jay Lifton’s “Eight-Point Model of Thought Reform” and borrows from several other authorities on the topic of religious mind-control.*

1.) Part One: Milieu Control
2.) Part Two: Mystical Manipulation
3.) Part Three: The Demand for Purity
4.) Part Four: The Cult of Confession
5.) Part Five: The “Sacred Science”
6.) Part Six: Loading the Language
7.) Part Seven: Doctrine Over Person
8.) Part Eight: The Dispensing of Existence

*Stephen Martin’s book, The Heresy of Mind Control, and Margaret Singer’s Cults in Our Midst.

—

“Hey there Spike!” my pastor said as I walked tentatively into his office. Outside of the church the air was cool, but now I felt my cheeks burn. I was 19, and for several years I had worn my hair tousled with hair gel as the fashion went. I may not have been Jason Priestly, but the hairstyle felt comfortable. It fit.

Jason Priestly set the trends when I was in high school.

“Steve,” my pastor continued, “I’ve noticed that you favor a trendy hairstyle and designer glasses. The Lord wants you to know that he frowns on such trendiness. You don’t see me with spiked hair, do you?”

“No,” I whispered.

“Right. And that’s because God’s servants are outside of time and are not to be influenced by fashion trends,” Ferris* said. “See, God wants you to look more like me. I’m a mature man, and he wants you to model my behavior and appearance. You obviously have a hard time doing this on your own, so God has told me to help you.” He smiled.

I flinched. “What help?”

“Steve, God has directed me to give you $500 for new clothes that look more like mine [here he suggested several brand names] and he also wants you to go to my barber on Main Street. Tell him that you want your hair cut just like Ferris, okay?” He grinned paternally. “We’ll make a pastor out of you yet!”

—

“Doctrine Over Person” means that a group leader puts his or her interpretation of scripture above the needs of the people in the group. While this may sound good at first—after all, God’s Word should be our highest priority, shouldn’t it?—in reality this practice is harmful because the leader’s interpretation is not the same as scripture. The result is a cloning of the leader’s personality and opinions.

Leaders who emphasize “Doctrine Over Person” usually have dominant personalities and rigidly interpret biblical commands. Thus, while their language sounds spiritual, in fact they merely enforce their own preferences about how to live life. The Pharisees were skilled at changing God’s commands into man-made rules (cf. Mark 7:7). Cult leaders also have this dubious talent.

How do they create a congregation of clones?

1.)    Fitting the Mold

Turn over a pack of Crayons or a pair of swimming goggles or your newest i-thingy. What does it say? Made in Taiwan, or China, or USA, right? These items are mass-produced in factories by machines tooled to very fine margins of error. The result is that every Crayon or goggle or i-thing looks exactly alike. And for textiles or electronics that’s good.

The problem is when leaders of unhealthy religious groups try to mass-produce people to look just like themselves. Leaders of such groups often have personality pathologies such as narcissism or obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (we’ll talk about these in a future post) which prevent them from seeing the harm they cause others when they try to fit them into their own mold.

For example, my former pastor used to say, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ,” a quote from the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:1. So far so good. But my pastor interpreted this to mean that since he was enormously spiritual, every person in the congregation should dress the way he dressed, talk the way he talked, and enjoy the same things he enjoyed.

The result was that our entire congregation turned to cardboard. We affected certain ways of speaking, froze our faces into acceptable forms of expression during worship, and bought clothes with the same brand-names as everyone else in the church. You could pick us out of a crowd. We all had a family-resemblance, but instead of looking like Christ we just looked like our pastor. When Paul said, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ,” he meant to imitate his maturity and godly character, not his own personality or gifting.

God never designed people to look the same or act the same. Instead, he created a Body (Romans 12; 1 Cor 12 and 14; Eph 4) where each person represents a different part, with different gifts and talents. Not everyone is an eye, a hand, or a mouth. Even my identical twin brother and I possess different gifts and interests. He was a Marine infantry officer who mastered weapons and tactics. I’m lucky if I hit center-mass on a paper target at 15 yards. My brother is a mouth, a brain, and a bicep; I’m more like a thalamus. We may look the same, but it would be a mistake to fit us into a common mold.

2.)    Redefining Your Emotions and Conscience

Leaders of unhealthy religious groups are experts at manufacturing emotions. For example, in some unhealthy groups people are told that if they don’t experience ecstatic utterances or swooning emotions they are less than spiritual. New members—especially those who are introverts—may feel little emotional ecstasy during worship times, but they fake a response in order to fit in with the crowd. Eventually, they may convince themselves that their manufactured emotions are real. The point of this example is not to criticize charismatic groups, but rather to point out the dangers of mandating a certain emotional response for each person.

In a similar way, a domineering leader may also redefine your conscience to fit his or her interpretation of life. A popular method of controlling a congregation is for the leader to redefine feelings of guilt. He or she does this by labeling certain normal activities as “wrong” or “fleshly,” thus creating guilt in the minds of followers. Such followers develop overly-active consciences and experience low-level false-guilt all the time.

The result of this is that group members feel guilty and ashamed for indulging in everyday pleasures which God designed for their enjoyment, and they lose sight of the wrong things the leader does. By redefining their emotions and consciences, the leader has thrown out a decoy level of living which distracts his or her followers from evaluating the leader’s own misbehavior.

Stephen Martin describes the two sides to this sword:

“Reinterpreting of one’s conscience is a major theme of brainwashing or thought reform, not only creating guilt for normal enjoyments, but reinterpreting one’s conscience and feelings about legitimate concerns in regard to what the controller is doing and teaching, and in regard to happenings in the group.”

3.)    Redefining Your History

A third area of “Doctrine Over Person” is the reinterpretation of group members’ personal histories. Totalitarian leaders attempt to make a black-or-white canvas of a person’s life. Prior to joining the group, members are told, their lives were filled with sin and darkness. Upon joining the group, they have seen the light of life and are walking in the truth. Even if their life prior to joining the group wasn’t too bad–especially if they were already a Christian–they are called to focus on their most blatant sins and self-flagellate until they feel despondent over their previous way of life. Then they are told to think about how wonderful life in the group is and where would they be if God had not called them to follow the humble example of the group leader.

While it is easy for an outsider to see how simplistic this approach is—after all, most of us can recall happy times prior to joining our current church, and we can identify struggles in our current life as a Christian—members of unhealthy religious groups are unable to maintain such a nuanced perspective.

The Bible does talk about a clear demarcation from living life “dead in our sins and trespasses” to “entering the kingdom of light.” Yet the reason for this demarcation is the presence of the Holy Spirit in our life and not because we joined a particular church or followed a particular religious leader. The problem with unhealthy religious groups is that the emphasis is shifted from what Jesus has done to what the group can do for you. And that is idolatry.

4.)    The “Botox” Effect: Denial and Suppression

Earlier we said that unhealthy religious groups brainwash followers by redefining their emotions and consciences. But that’s not all. Cult leaders also cultivate emotion-denial and suppression in order to make their followers conform to certain standards of “acceptable” expression and behavior. They say that to express anger, doubt, or depression shows a lack of faith. Sound familiar?

I call this the “Botox” effect. Do you know about Botox? It’s a toxin that plastic surgeons inject into a person’s facial muscles to paralyze them and thus smooth out wrinkles. In a similar way, leaders of unhealthy religious groups inject a constant dose of verbal “Botox” into their followers by saying that certain emotions are “wrinkly,” i.e., unacceptable. These “wrinkly” emotions often include anger, disappointment, sadness, frustration, or depression. The result is a congregation of smiling people with flat affect and paralyzed emotions. Indeed, people in these groups may seem almost too happy! And they are: they’re in denial.

The Bible knows nothing of suppressing or denying emotions. God himself is called a jealous God (Ex. 20:5) who expresses anger towards sin (like when Jesus made a whip of cords and turned over the money-changing tables in the temple, cf. Jn 2:13-17) and hypocrisy (cf. Matthew 23). The whole book of Psalms is an expression of the full gamut of healthy emotions, which sometimes include despair (Ps. 88), anger and doubt (Psalm 55), and sadness (Psalm 137). Suppression or denial of these emotions is a simplistic strategy of control which harms people from experiencing God’s answers to their true needs.

5.)    Bring in the Clones!

Finally, controlling leaders often try to make each follower forsake their own gifting and talents in order to become more like the leader. Instead of acknowledging God-given differences in personality and calling, such leaders impose their own standards and preferences on other people. The result is a clone-like environment where everyone becomes more and more like the leader in appearance, utterance, and thinking.

In my former church, our pastor decided that it was God’s will for every young man to aspire to full-time Christian ministry. It sounded reasonable at the time—what could be better than serving God full-time? But there was a two-fold problem: First, our pastor made an unbiblical distinction between serving God in secular ministry and serving him in sacred ministry. In reality, God wants all of our work to be sacred. And second, in order to do this, each young man was supposed to follow the exact same route to pastoral ministry as our pastor had: a history major and Greek minor in undergrad, a seminary education focusing on the biblical languages (preferably at his own alma mater), and eventually full-time ministry.

Problematic with this, of course, was that God had gifted each young man differently and had put different career goals in their minds. Unswayed by arguments to the contrary, our pastor decreed that any young man who chose anything other than full-time Christian ministry was out of God’s will. He tried to fit every person into a narrow mold which would make them look like him.

God loves diversity. He has created an infinite variety of people who help express his own multi-faceted personality and perfect range of gifts. Embrace your own giftedness and use your personality and talents to serve God wherever you are.

Only Satan makes clones.

—

*Not his real name.

Related Post: One Who Got Away: Libby Phelps Alvarez, Religious Brainwashing, and the Westboro Baptist Church

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Redeeming the Years of the Locust

Posted by Steve Smith on September 14, 2012 in Uncategorized

“I will make up to you for the years that the locust has eaten.” – Joel 2:25

Joplin, Missouri.

I stand transfixed in the hot July parking lot watching a brown grasshopper chew grass. Trucks roar by on I-44 and puffy clouds stack overhead. But the real drama happens in front of me, on the brittle bit of lawn next to the checkered floor of what used to be a Steak-n-Shake.

Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw. Munch, munch, munch. The grasshopper’s strong jaws make quick work of one blade of grass. He reaches for another. In the spray of clover by a red fire hydrant another locust dines. I see another, and then another. Their legs work back and forth like jagged violin bows all covered with scales. Fiddling a tuneless song, their timing seems all wrong.

Fresh utility poles sprout in melancholic lines down Main Street. I can smell their creosote. The tornado has left total destruction. For miles nothing remains but empty basements and bending weeds.

Within me, something twangs.

—

What do I do with the years the locust has eaten?

I think about my life in a cult. Twenty-five years, all told. Years of total devotion.

When my church suddenly blew apart I came blinking out into the light. Disoriented by the storm of my own misguided belief I sat quietly in the rubble of my life. My soul felt beaten, but free.

It has taken some time to recover.

South Main Street, Joplin, Missouri. July 2012. Photo by author.

Unlike a returning veteran, society holds no honor for an ex-cult member. There is pity, perhaps, and sorrow. But there is also the cloying shame and gnawing guilt and unspoken questions: What is it about me that made me stay in a cult? How could I have followed so blindly? And the verdict: What a fool.

Perhaps.

I sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind and now the storm has gone and I stand in the parking lot of my life and watch the grasshoppers dine.

But the storm has passed and I am still alive.

Still alive.

So I say again, what do I do with the years the locust has eaten?

What can I do? Those years are gone. They are no more. Gnawed into oblivion. Blasted with a whirlwind.

But God is not done.

I look around at my life and see the outlines of a city. The one I built is gone, of course, but there is still time for another.

Rebuilding in Joplin. Photo by author.

A different hand must build it, sure. And a different cornerstone must be laid. Grace will be the foundation of this city, and truth will shape its walls.

And when all is said and done it won’t matter very much about those 25-years of locusts. God will redeem them.

Sometimes he just needs a bare spot to start a better work.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11

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Sheep Gone Wild: How to Identify Christians Who Bite, Abandon, or Cling

Posted by Steve Smith on September 3, 2012 in Uncategorized

I’ve been there—have you?

My cell phone rings and my heart sinks. It’s Jasmine*–poor Jasmine. In need of yet another short-term loan as she lives in perpetual crisis.

Or it’s Trevor, asking for help at the last minute. Again. His poor planning has become a standard joke in our young adult group.

Or maybe it’s Trinity, who wants to tell me all about Susan and how she isn’t qualified to lead the children’s ministry.

Or it’s Pastor Surefire—judgmental Surefire, for whom I never seem good enough.

Or it’s Charlie. Please Lord, not Charlie. He has the strangest way of giving me spiritual advice—a “prophetic” word, he calls it—and yet making me feel just two-inches tall.

Do any of these people sound like one of your friends? Or maybe you are that person. Yikes.

Each of us probably has at least one Christian acquaintance who drains our energy, gives us wounds, or talks behind our backs. That’s common to man. As one pastor friend tells me, “Sheep bite.”

As long as we recognize unsafe people and draw firm boundaries with them, we can minimize the pain they cause us and perhaps help them move forward in their own process of growth.

But people who get involved with unhealthy religious groups often have very poor powers of discernment. They also often lack healthy boundaries. I sure did. The result is a constellation of relationships which cause pain, sorrow, and guilt.

How can we recognize an unsafe person?

It is important to realize that there are different types of unsafe people. Some are abandoners—they start a relationship but can’t finish it. Others are critics—they act like a parent to everyone, judge others, speak the truth without love, and know little about grace or forgiveness. Still others are irresponsible—they fail to follow through on commitments, act like children, rarely delay gratification, and can take care of neither themselves nor others.

People like this are unsafe. They harm people around them through their words and actions. Christians who want to relate to these people must erect healthy boundaries to keep from enabling them and to avoid getting bitten by “sheep gone wild.”

Here are two lists to help determine whether someone in your life is a “safe” or “unsafe” person. These criteria come from the book Safe People by Christian psychologists Henry Cloud and John Townsend. If you struggle with poor discernment and lack of boundaries in relationships, I highly recommend that you add this book to your personal library.

I.) Unsafe People

A.) Personal Traits of Unsafe People

  1. Think they have it all together instead of admitting their weaknesses.
  2. Are religious instead of spiritual.
  3. Are defensive instead of open to feedback.
  4. Are self-righteous instead of humble.
  5. Only apologize instead of changing their behavior.
  6. Avoid working on their problems instead of dealing with them.
  7. Demand trust, instead of earning it.
  8. Believe they are perfect instead of admitting their faults.
  9. Blame others instead of taking responsibility.
  10. Lie instead of telling the truth.
  11. Are stagnant instead of growing.

B.) Interpersonal Traits of Unsafe People

  1. Avoid closeness instead of connecting.
  2. Are only concerned about “I” instead of “we.”
  3. Resist freedom instead of encouraging it.
  4. Flatter us instead of confronting us.
  5. Condemn us instead of forgiving us.
  6. Stay in parent/child roles instead of relating as equals.
  7. Are unstable over time instead of being consistent.
  8. Are a negative influence on us, rather than a positive one.
  9. Gossip instead of keeping secrets.

If these traits define one or several people in your life, perhaps you need to draw some healthy boundaries with these folks in order to avoid them taking advantage of you. Townsend and Cloud’s book, Boundaries, can help you do this.

Remember that Romans 12:21 says, “Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.” It is not enough to identify unsafe people—we also want to surround ourselves with safe people who can spur us on toward love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:23-25).

II.) Safe People

  1. Draw us closer to God.
  2. Draw us closer to other people.
  3. Help us become the real person God created us to be.
  4. Abide with us in a manner that shows they are present, connected, and empathic.
  5. Show much grace. This means you will not be “shamed or incur wrath” for whatever you are experiencing.
  6. Walk in—and speak—truth. Safe people not only show us grace, they also confront us in a loving manner with the truth of God.

While these lists provide a bare-bones outline of safe and unsafe people, there are also qualities about us that may cause us to gravitate toward unsafe people. In a future post, we will look at what characteristics make us vulnerable to unsafe people.

—

*Not their real names.

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Identifying Religious Brainwashing: Loading the Language (Part 6 of 8)

Posted by Steve Smith on August 30, 2012 in Uncategorized

This is the sixth in an eight-part series on how to identify brainwashing in a destructive group or cult. It is based off of Dr. Robert Jay Lifton’s “Eight-Point Model of Thought Reform” and borrows from several other authorities on the topic of religious mind-control.*

1.) Part One: Milieu Control
2.) Part Two: Mystical Manipulation
3.) Part Three: The Demand for Purity
4.) Part Four: The Cult of Confession
5.) Part Five: The “Sacred Science”
6.) Part Six: Loading the Language
7.) Part Seven: Doctrine Over Person
8.) Part Eight: The Dispensing of Existence

*Stephen Martin’s book, The Heresy of Mind Control, and Margaret Singer’s Cults in Our Midst.

—

For folks outside of cults it may seem unbelievable how cult members can submit to spiritual abuse. Can’t they see how manipulative and controlling the group leader is?

No, they can’t.

The reason they can’t see is because they are blinded by religious brainwashing. And while each cult member bears responsibility for his or her own soul, cult leaders bear responsibility for deceiving them.

How can a manipulative leader deceive sincere Christians in a manner that causes them to submit completely to his or her control? One of the primary ways is by “loading” religious-sounding words with twisted meaning.

“Loading the language” according to cult-expert Stephen Martin means to manipulate “words and phrases to produce ‘thought-terminating clichés’” which results in a “narrowing and constriction of thought processes.”

Here’s how cult leaders play the language game.

1.)    Over-Active Mental Filters

In order to isolate their followers from outside influences, leaders of unhealthy groups create buzzwords which shut the door on truth and outside input.

For example, such leaders define any negative feedback about their group as “persecution,” and they call the source of such feedback a “slanderer.” Instead of stopping to consider whether the criticism is true, group members are taught to treat negative comments about the group leader as a threat.

An analogy might help. I attended a Christian university in Indiana which installed strict filtering software on Internet search results. While the filters prevented exposure to much filth, they also sometimes blocked legitimate sites or helpful terms.

In a similar way, members of cults are trained to put up stiff filters against any suggestion that their group may be unhealthy. They call any negative feedback “slander.” In reality, slander is defined as something which is untrue. But to the group members, any criticism about their group is untrue. Thus their minds function like the hyper-active filtering software in my college’s computers.

Mary Alice Chrnalogar, in her book Twisted Scriptures describes such an environment:

“What if the group labels those who give you that negative information as ‘the enemy,’ or tells you that these persons are persecutors? You can be persuaded to project hatred towards these people and to denounce outside influences. Under these conditions, it is nearly impossible for you to objectively evaluate the dissenting comments. You are on a merry-go-round, and you must get off in order to study the information away from the influence of the group.”

The only reason to call all outside criticism “slander” or “persecution” is in order for the group leader to more fully control his or her members. Healthy groups, on the other hand, are open to outside input, consider carefully charges against leaders, and wisely discern truth from error.

2.)    Thought Suppression

Once cult leaders have labeled outside influences “evil,” they can then suppress the thinking of their followers inside the group. They do this by loading certain words or phrases with a twisted meaning which causes their followers to shut down mentally. It is really a form of verbal hypnosis.

For example, cult leaders create verbal formulas to manipulate the minds of their followers. They use a form of mental algebra which works something like this: asking questions (a) = rebellion (b) = sin (c), therefore, asking questions (a) = sin (c). In this case, the leader has taken a biblical term, “sin,” and equated it with asking questions. But in reality “a” does not equal “c.” It is all just a verbal game the leader plays in order to control his or her followers.

Leaders of unhealthy groups also use what Dr. Lifton calls “thought-terminating clichés.” These are phrases which have been hijacked by the group leader, stripped of their true meaning, and clothed in a counterfeit meaning.

For example, the group leader may call hobbies “fleshly” pursuits, with “fleshly” meaning “sinful” or “of the Devil.” If a follower wants to play a tennis match on a Saturday, but the match conflicts with a group activity, the cult leader may say, “Sally, you’re just being fleshly here. The Apostle Paul said that his spirit and his flesh were in conflict. You know that God wants you to be spiritual and to crucify the desires of your flesh. Remember that Jesus said if we are to be his true disciples we must deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him. Stop being fleshly.”

Do you see what the group leader has done? He or she has just equated playing tennis with a “fleshly” pursuit, and “fleshly” implies sinful rather than spiritual. Sally therefore feels that she has only one choice (though in reality she can also choose to think for herself): she must forsake the tennis match in order to take up her cross and follow Christ.

Leaders of unhealthy groups may also use what Dr. Lifton calls “all-encompassing jargon.” This occurs when a term which may technically describe one behavior is universalized to describe almost any behavior.

For example, in my former church, one of my pastor’s favorite terms was “inappropriate.” By this he meant that something was sinful. If children were running outside after church, he might pull them aside and say, “Now kids, you know that it is inappropriate to run on the Lord’s Day.” Or he might say, “That movie is inappropriate,” or “To wear sandals in church is inappropriate.” The term “inappropriate” was so broad that it was hard to define. Was running outside really a sin? We weren’t sure. We only knew that it was “inappropriate” and so we had to stop or else we would offend God.

Mary Chrnalogar says:

“Deeply programmed disciples are subject to a form of instant amnesia. A discipler who fears that questioning might show the cracks in his twisted Scriptures has only to say, ‘That is doubt.’ Click! The disciple’s mind shuts out the question because the disciple doesn’t want to commit a sin. That’s how it works—much as the stage hypnotist’s trigger-word puts his subject into a state of unconsciousness, the discipler has trigger words, too.”

In groups like this, leaders are constantly loading biblical terms with unbiblical meanings. But the group members respond like programmed computers to shut down their brains at the slightest mention of a trigger word.

3.)    Attitudinal Sins

Another way that cult leaders load the language of their group in order to control members is by focusing incessantly on sins of attitude rather than behavior. This is subtle, but catch it. While the Bible does talk about attitudinal sins such as pride and selfishness, cult leaders invest these words with a whole new range of meaning.

For example, a cult leader may convey the message that to be “committed” to Christ means to attend every single group activity, even if it leads to exhaustion. The Bible never says that commitment to Christ demands attendance at every group activity, but cult members come to believe that it does.

Or again, the group leader may equate asking questions with being “proud” and “rebellious.” Thus if a follower comes to the group leader with honest (and probably accurate) doubts, the group leader says, “Todd, you’re just being proud and rebellious. The Bible says to obey your leaders and submit to their authority, not to question them.” Todd instantly feels guilty about his supposed “rebellion” (though his guilt is false guilt), and his mind shuts down in penitence.

Other words that cult leaders imbue with their own range of meaning are: insubordination, independence, uncooperative, selfish, troublemaker, gossip, slanderer, unsubmissive and immature. Do you see how many of these terms relate to aspects of authority and submission? That’s no accident. Group leaders try to eliminate any questions about their abuse of authority by squelching critical thinking and labeling question-askers as rebels.

Conclusion

Where does “loading the language” lead? It leads to enforced dependence on the group leader, a focus on uniformity rather than unity based on truth, and ultimately to controlled behavior.

Dependence. Leaders of unhealthy groups love to create a climate of enforced dependence. Dr. Lifton calls this a regressive childlike state known as “abnormal dependency disorder.” Whereas healthy group leaders try to lead their followers to maturity in Christ (1 Pet 2:2-3), unhealthy group leaders foster infantilism and co-dependent relationships. This gives them a sense of power and self-esteem.

Uniformity. By loading the language, cult leaders emphasize outward uniformity instead of unity based on the truth of God. While Jesus prayed that all of his followers would be one (Jn 17:21), that unity is based on the truth of God as revealed in the Word of God (Jn 17:17). The author of Hebrews tells us that scripture “divides” like a two-edged sword (Heb 4:12-13). And the heart of God rejoices in diversity of culture and personality (cf. Rev 7:9ff; Rom 14-15; 1 Cor 8; Acts 17:24-28).

Controlled Behavior. The ultimate goal of cult leaders is to control the behavior of their followers. They use loaded language to brainwash their followers in order to keep them subservient, beaten down with fear, and lacking critical thinking skills.

In the old comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes,” cartoonist Bill Waterson created a precocious 6-year-old boy named Calvin and his stuffed tiger named Hobbes. Calvin and Hobbes often played a game called “Calvinball,” whose only rule was that there were no permanent rules. Thus both players could shout out rule-changes at any time, and the one who thought more quickly could win the game by defining his own rules.

Cults are like that, except the only person allowed to change the rules is the group leader. When a group leader “loads the language” and redefines all of the terms, he or she wins the game of control every time.

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Related Post: One Who Got Away: Libby Phelps Alvarez, Religious Brainwashing, and the Westboro Baptist Church

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Hebrews 13:17: Spiritual Authority’s Most Abused Verse

Posted by Steve Smith on August 24, 2012 in Uncategorized

Grab your shovel.

We’re about to excavate a much-misunderstood Bible verse.

There is one biblical text above all others which authoritarian leaders cite to compel obedience among their followers: Hebrews 13:17.

Poor Hebrews 13:17.

My former pastor often used this verse. He cited it to support his concept of spiritual authority as a relationship between an authority figure who has positional power and a follower who must obey them. The beginning of this verse is usually translated, “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority…” (as in the NIV). My pastor would quote it to me whenever something bad was about to happen–whenever I was supposed to put my brain on a shelf and simply obey, no questions asked.

But we–he and I–misunderstood the verse. This blog post is to ensure that you avoid the mistake we made.

The problem with the traditional translation is that without additional interpretation or nuance it seems to imply that Christians must submit unquestioningly or blindly to spiritual leaders—pastors, elders, deacons—without critically thinking about the nature of the leadership being exercised.

But Christians must always ask two questions in regard to spiritual authority:

  1. Is this leader telling the truth?
  2. Is this leader trustworthy?

Contextually, we see the principles of truth and trustworthiness just ten verses earlier in Hebrews 13:7: “Remember those who led you, who spoke the Word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.” We see the same concepts in Hebrews 13:9, where the author tells the Hebrews to evaluate teaching and not to be carried away by strange teaching, i.e. they should be critically-minded.

Yet in Hebrews 13:17 it suddenly appears that people should uncritically obey spiritual leaders simply because they are in the position of leadership. This interpretation is due to a mistranslation of the text. To accurately understand this passage we need to look at the primary Greek words in the authoritative Greek lexicon by Walter Bauer (cited hereafter as BAGD). Still have your shovel? Great–this is where we get dirty.

[Disclaimer: Sometimes abusive spiritual leaders cite Greek and Hebrew in order to convince their followers of their own intelligence. Their abuse of the biblical languages does not invalidate the usefulness of understanding Greek and Hebrew. My purpose in using Greek here is not to “wow” readers with Greek words, but rather to show how an understanding of the original biblical text can clarify the most abused verse related to spiritual authority. I welcome comments from more knowledgeable students of Greek.]

In the case of Hebrews 13:17, the word translated “obey” is peitho in the middle voice. According to BAGD, this should better be translated as “allow yourselves to be persuaded by,” rather than “obey.” This translation fits the lexical possibility, fits the context of the book of Hebrews, and also fits the biblical theology of the basis for spiritual authority being persuasion based on truth and trust, not position.

What about the word often translated “leaders” in this verse? The Greek word is the present participle ageomai, which means “to be in a supervisory capacity, lead, guide.” The idea is of a person who guides others on a path; a leading person among peers. This is a different nuance than the noun-form of the word, agemon, which means “one who rules, especially in a preeminent position, ruler” as in Mt 2:6, or “head imperial provincial administrator, governor” as in Mt 10:18; 27:2, which refer to secular authorities who wielded undisputed positional power.

Finally, the word for “submit” is not the common word used elsewhere in the New Testament for submission. Instead, it is upeiko, which is hard to define because it occurs only here in the New Testament. BAGD says it should best be translated “to yield to someone’s authority, yield, give way, submit.”

When all of these nuances are taken into account, Hebrews 13:17 could better be nuanced:

“Allow yourselves to be persuaded by your leaders who guide you; they alertly care for your souls as people who must fulfill their responsibilities and give an account; allow yourselves to be persuaded so that their work might be a joy, not a burden; for that would be of no advantage to you.”

This nuanced translation avoids the mistake of oversimplification which can lead to spiritual abuse.

Hebrews 13:17 does not imply blind obedience to spiritual authorities, nor should it ever be invoked by a spiritual leader in order to coerce or compel people to obey them.

Instead, it is a reminder that spiritual leaders in the church who are trustworthy and who proclaim the truth are in a place of persuasive guidance that fellow believers should yield to. If leaders demonstrate these criteria, we should allow ourselves to be persuaded by them for our own good on the rocky path of life.

For a PDF which further details the Greek behind Hebrews 13:17, click Hebrews 13:17 in the Greek.

Case Study of Persuasive Spiritual Authority: The Apostle Paul

The Apostle Paul provides a model for how persuasive spiritual authority should be exercised. Paul, though an apostle, had a keen sense that his authority was based not on position or the power to punish but rather on two things: first, the truth of the message which was revealed to him from God; and secondly, the evidence of his godly character.

Time and time again in his epistles Paul refuses to appeal to his position as an apostle or to the potential power to punish to substantiate his claim to authority. Instead, he uses words like “urge,” “appeal,” and “you know” to persuade his readers to obey him based on the truth and his own trustworthiness.

Paul understood that his authority came first from the truth of his message. Paul commended himself to men via truth (2 Cor. 4:1-2). He defended the truth of his ministry by saying it was based on the revelation of God (Gal 1:11-24). In Ephesians 3:1-3, Paul appealed to the truth of his ministry via revelation. He also set forth the test for the legitimacy of spiritual authority in the book of Titus (cf. Titus 1:1-4).

Paul also understood that his authority rested on the trustworthiness of his own godly character and his willingness to serve and to suffer for Christ. 2 Corinthians provides many instances of Paul defending his authority, and in every case he appeals to his truth and trustworthiness. For example, in 1:12-18 he appeals to his own integrity. In 3:1-6 he says that his competence and commendation come from God. In 4:5 he says that he is a bondservant of the Corinthians for Jesus’ sake. In 6:3-10 he is commended by his character and actions. In 10:1 he says that he was meek and gentle in person with the Corinthians. In 10:8 he boasts about his authority to build up, not to tear down, but even then he doesn’t want to terrify or intimidate the Corinthians with his letters (2 Cor. 10:9).

Paul says also that leaders should not boast in themselves but in the Lord, “For it is not he who commends himself that is approved, but he whom the Lord commends” (2 Cor. 10:18). In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul defends his apostolic ministry through testifying to his suffering. In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul explains openly about his weakness so that Christ might be glorified. In 2 Cor. 12:17-18, Paul testifies that he has taken advantage of no one. Elsewhere, he says that he has not even exercised many of his apostolic rights for support or marriage (1 Cor 9:5). In Galatians 6:17, Paul appeals to his suffering as a mark of character and trustworthiness.

Paul also acknowledges that he owed accountability in his ministry. He says that he had to give primary account to God, “In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy” (1 Cor. 4:2). He says later, “my conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent; for the one who examines me is the Lord” (1 Cor 4:4). He also acknowledges his peer accountability by saying that he had taken his gospel message to the other apostles in Jerusalem in order to ensure that he was not in error (Galatians 2:1-10).

The one epistle where Paul does refer to his ability to command another person to do something—the book of Philemon—is in fact his most masterful example of persuasive authority. Instead of commanding Philemon to take back his slave Onesimus and to treat him kindly, Paul says: “Though I now have enough confidence in Christ to order you to do what is proper, yet for love’s sake I rather appeal to you… I appeal to you for my child Onesimus… without your consent I did not want to do anything, so that your goodness would not be, in effect, by compulsion but of your own free will.” With such diplomatic persuasion Paul appeals to Philemon to do what is right.

Paul’s example is the perfect model of persuasive leadership based on truth and trustworthiness. Spiritual leaders in the church who wish to avoid spiritually abusing their followers would do well to emulate him.

Related Post: A Biblical Perspective on Spiritual Authority and Critical Thinking

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