The Family Integrated Church is "Errant and Schismatic"?

The Family Integrated Church Movement was deemed "errant and schismatic" by a group of Fundamentalist Baptists because....

• It encourages schism in the local church bodies by encouraging its adherents to change the theology and philosophy of the churches of which they are members.

• It does violence to local church authority, calling on local church members to leave their churches when the church does not bow to the philosophical demands of the movement.

• It espouses an ecclesiology based upon the family that is not based upon the New Testament but rather is an adaptation of Old Testament (Blog host note: ? or pagan Roman ?!) patriarchy.

• It falsely lays the claim that the destruction of the family in the U.S. is solely the fault of age-graded ministries in local churches. We contend that this is a simplistic and therefore false accusation.

• It espouses a post-millennial theology that is contradictory to a dispensational understanding of Scripture.

• It is oddly inclusive, basing fellowship on a particular philosophy of ministry rather than on the great fundamentals of the faith.
  

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"Bounded Choice"

Janja Lalich coins the term Bounded Choice in "Take Back Your Life" and in her book "Bounded Choice." Within the Evangelical groups that embrace what is termed by these groups as "Biblical Patriarchy" (which is neither truly Biblical or patriarchy, IMO), many of those near the subordinate end of the chain of command are required to trust all decisions and the formulation of opinions to their authorities. 

This is a huge, very difficult element of Spiritual Abuse. It’s one of those perspectives that you can barely understand without having a larger vantage or better perspective. Also, because you fail to realize that you’ve been duped, you do not recognize (and are usually reluctant) to acknolwedge that a part of you has been bound and gagged by fear or by the “unthinkable.” Personal choices become organizational choices, and those belong to authorities. (This differs from living in submission to the Word and the Spirit because even God does not ask of us what these groups and relationships ask.) 

In “Take Back Your Life,” Lalich describes this as “bounded choice” of urgent and/or moral imperatives. It defines a closed social system wherein one only appears to have a choice. She says that there are several elements required. 


 Bounded Choice of True Believers (pg 48);

• Charismatic Authority (root cause of a cult; imbalanced power structure)
• Transcendent Belief System (impossible or very difficult to achieve ideals which includes the moral imperatives/standards)
• Systems of Control (demand for transformation)
• Systems of Influence (formula for salvation which is the root cause of ideology) 

 Praise God that He works in us without fear or coercion  He transforms our will and does not crush us with His power. He loves us and transforms us without exerting and forcing His authority as He desires us to yield ourselves in love, freedom and liberty. He gives us THE only formula for salvation through his Grace and Sacrifice. He also bears the penalty for inability to every meet the demands of the transcendent system of belief. He is our transcendence, not a list of ideals.





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Blog Comments:

Cindy Kunsman Says: September 20th, 2007 at 1:06 pm Here’s a quote that may make things a bit more clear: (pg 50 from “Take Back Your Life”) “In other words, neither the charismatic leader nor others in the group need to be present to tell a follower what to do; rather, having internalized the lessons and adapted her outlook, the loyal and true believer knows precisely what she needs to do to stay in the good graces of the all-knowing and all powerful leader. The true believer need only ‘imagine’ what actions to take, knowing full well that she will act within the bounds of the cult reality, for in a sense her self has merged with the leader and the group. What other reality is there? The one thing the devoted adherents cannot imagine is life outside the group. In other words, the cult member is constrained by both external (real or imagined) and internal sanctions. At this point, whatever choices remain are “bounded” ones. They are choices, yes, but not free ones. They are choices of life or death — figuratively, and, in some cases, literally.

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Cookie Cutter Cultic Christianity

A friend named Jean wrote: “Our children are so much more than just someone’s future wife, future mother, future patriarch. It seems like the uniqueness that our Creator delights in, is being erased very systematically. Our Lord did not use cookie cutters, and neither should we.”

This statement brings attention to “patriarchy’s” focus on roles when raising children rather than training them to be Christians hidden in with God in Christ. To quote again from Mark Noll’s “Scandal of the Evangelical Mind,” in the wake of the Second Great Awakening, "wholesome living" was viewed at the "unmediated agency of God."  Placed in context of home and family virtues only, this is very much like Pope Leo XIII's comment (1885) that "a life well spent is the only passport to heaven."

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Differentiating Between *Cult*, *Cultic* and *Spiritual Abuse*

What is the difference between "cult" and "cultic?" (Sociologically Speaking) It’s a matter of degree. Defining terms is vital.


Concerning things "cultic" versus a "cult." If you’re the average guy (or gal) sitting in a church or a concerned significant other of someone in a group, the first thing you generally notice is that something bothers you about the group. This realization is true of any subtle deception or of insidious problems such as something wrong with your car. You hear an unfamiliar noise and the right side of your brain become sensitized and unconsiously starts putting things together (as a built in defense mechanism). It is a general, intuitive and a type of inductive reasoning.

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On Doug Phillips' Cultic "Patriarchy" Movement

Another consideration is that of the artifice and intent of the group and/or leader. For a short period of time, I attended the same church as Doug Phillips, at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in San Antonio, Texas. Concerning Doug Phillips of Vision Forum, when I met him in 1999, I considered him to be “cultic,” demonstrating that I recognized that he was “aberrant” in his behavior (as was Bill Gothard of "Institutes in Basic Life Principles" fame). I would also say that the church that I left was a not necessarily a“cult” (Severn Covenant Church in the DC Baltimore Metro Area) but that the movements that influenced them were “cultic.”

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Antiquated Ideas About Cults

"Cultic" certainly connotates something of lesser degree and threat than does the term “cult,” but as our experience with the terminology concerning the modern concept has grown, the terms have become interchagable. Much also depends on the orientation of the person or organization making the declaration. We now have (validated, statistically solid) tools and inventories for evaluating former cult members that were not available even ten years ago in addition to the information from the field of neurophysiology and brain imaging to aid in the determination of these things.

It is a more exact science, validated by empirical data, and not just soley determined by someone’s very subjective evaluation. It is also no longer governed by avoidance of negative and emotional connotation but has become more understandable. Our understanding of and successes in the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), battered wife syndrome and the Stanford Prison Experiment has greatly contributed to our understanding of cults. Since the TM craze and the days of the People Temple/Jones, we have all the subsequent groups and their histories, some of which have spanned decades. Take for instance the Applewhite group/Heavens Gate cult. The surviviors have provided a twenty-year historical account of the development and decline of the group. The extensive study of the Boston Movement of the International Church of Christ is enlightenting as well.
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