Under Much Grace: Facing Your Spiritual Abuser: Index of Posts About the Star Chamber and the Hot Seat

Sometimes, members of a high demand group or a spiritually abusive church are called in to sessions of confrontation with their group leadership, pastors, and elders in order to intimidate them and to secure their compliance with group demands. And quite often, when people discover problems with manipulation, doctrine, or exploitation within their spiritually abusive church, they feel responsible to inform their leadership. Many people seek out their leaders to inform their leaders that they are leaving their group, just as a courtesy, to find personal closure, and sometimes, to hopefully make their spiritual abuser aware of the hurtful if not harmful nature of their actions – a personal courtesy to them.

Because of the authoritarian nature of spiritually abusive groups and the dynamics by which the leaders perpetuate control and coercion of the followers, group leaders generally react to this type of confrontation in very predictable ways. Such a system demands compliance with a certain set of dynamics, one of which demands complete perfection of the group, the way it does things, and the decisions made by the leaders. The group defines ultimate truth, so the group leadership speaks on God's behalf. The system demands complete devotion and compliance, requiring unquestioned obedience and complete submission to authority to any of their superiors on their chain of command. Because these dynamics demand that the follower assume fault at all costs, for the purposes of discussion, we have named the sessions of confrontation the “Star Chamber.”

Manipulative groups also make use of shame sessions that demand that the follower confess their faults to the group and the leadership. Deeply personal information elucidated in the “star chamber” can generally be extracted from group members because of the threatening nature of the confrontation sessions, what some high demand groups have formally called “the Hot Seat.”

If you're planning to confront a church leader that you suspect might be spiritually abusive, you will find this series of blog posts quite helpful. If you have advanced knowledge of the nature of a meeting to which you've been summoned, or if you are planning to confront manipulative church leaders, please take advantage of this information in advance. If you are recovering from this aspect of spiritual abuse which often proves to be quite difficult because of the moral questions that arise, you will likely find this information helpful to you as you work through the anger, grief, recovery, moving through your experience into triumph.

The many posts on the subject have been categorized to make them easier to navigate.

Thought Conversion During Confrontations

With a Manipulative Leader

(What is the Church Star Chamber and the Hot Seat?)

When Persecution Comes and Thought Conversion Results (How the confrontation process can get you to change your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors)
When You're Summoned to the Church Star Chamber (Intimidating meetings with many church leaders, usually conducted under the guise of “the Matthew 18 process” as a discipline session)
Thought Conversion on the Hot Seat (A process of interrogation that generally takes place during “star chamber” confrontation meetings with manipulative leadership – a formal practice in many high demand groups and religions)
The Violence of Thought Conversion: Wrapped in Gentleness and in Cruelty (Sometimes the process of conversion through confrontation appears to be gentle and benign, though the group demands relinquishing of personal will, history, and ethics in order to meet the demands of the group)
Manipulators, Con Artists and Cult Leaders (An index to posts on the topic)

Considerations and Protective Measures to Take

When You Encounter a Hot Seat / Star Chamber Meeting

What Do You Risk When You Go to a Meeting? (Biderman's Chart of Coercion used as a model to identify and anticipate tactics used to manipulate and intimidate – limited discussion of Sovereign Grace Ministries/Mahaney and Mars Hill Church/Driscoll)
If You Choose to Go to Star Chamber Confrontations with Ministers, At Least Be Knowledgeable About Abuse (The bare minimum of information to review about the dynamics of thought conversion and abusers when you've willingly chosen confrontation instead of walking away: links to summaries and blog entries)
Practical Considerations for the Confrontation of a Pastor with Spiritually Abusive Tendencies (Ideas about how you can protect yourself and limit the damage)
How I Confronted My Own Spiritually Abusive Leaders

Confronting Spiritual Abuse:

The Biblical Perspective

Does Scripture Address the Star Chamber Itself? (I think so: Considering Matthew 10 and Romans 14)
Considering the Biblical Model of Examining Behavior to Identify a Spiritual Abuser (Only 10% of the information in the Bible concerning spiritual con artists and abusers talks about doctrine. The rest concerns behavior, fruit and motive.)

Matthew 18