Watching a Train Wreck that I Never
Saw Coming
My husband and I left our abusive
church some six months earlier, and people I counted as friends
invited us on an independent foreign missions trip that they'd
organized, returning to the place where they'd once served for years
as missionaries themselves. They needed the
specific skills of both of us for
the effort. We were each invited to serve in a
specific and deeply meaningful capacity. On the heels of feeling
utterly lost, learning through exit counseling that we'd been
“spiritually abused” through the use of thought
reform techniques at our former Shepherding/Discipleship
church, both of us found great encouragement in the idea that we
could be a part of ministry again. We grieved the loss of the
opportunity to minister regularly at our former church, and its
absence left a sad void in us. The preparation for the trip infused
us with hope and a sense of purpose which we found very healing.
The night before our team arrived in
the foreign country, the local church that we intended to work with
toward a specific end “split” due some drama of church politics
that had nothing to do with us. Unfortunately, for some of us, this
church split made certain aspects of the work we went to accomplish
there almost obsolete in some cases. We walked off the plane into a
little bit of confusion, and instead of “hitting the ground
running” to labor at the work we planned to do, we basically had to
reorganize and find new, different opportunities and contributions to
the effort. As Christians, my husband and I believed that God
already orchestrated specific things for each of us to both do and
and learn, a matter that Scripture says is prepared
in advance for us. That belief enabled us to joyfully adapt,
though I must admit that it was not an easy task (for me, anyway).
We did find precious opportunities to minister which we found deeply
rewarding, and they may have actually become more effective and
fruitful than that which we originally intended to do there. We
apparently also went there to learn some painful lessons in life as
we watched group manipulation unfold.
Classic, Basic Spiritual Abuse
Perhaps because of the unforeseen
setbacks that the group faced, our group leadership became very
passive rather quickly, and at times, they behaved as though they
were detached from most everything that was going on around them. In
the absence of strong leadership, the large group comprised of people
from four churches across three different states in the US separated
into three subgroups: 1.) the passive elite who ended up treating
the trip like a “spiritual party” holiday in a tropical paradise,
2.) wealthy, proud people who sought after any and every kind of
power and notoriety they could get at the expense of others which was
geared toward street evangelism and plays in the evenings, 3.) those
who had a more pragmatic agenda within the host church which was task
oriented, the group most heavily affected by the church split.
Subgroup size (people who came from the same group/State/church) and
our accommodations (arranged according to the type of work we came to
do) also helped contribute to some of these divisions, but these
factors didn't excuse what resulted.
Having just exited a church where the
leadership exploited the emotions of their followers and manipulated
church members for personal gain and power, I was shocked that I
“found myself” in a foreign country with people who began to
behave very differently than they did with me when we were back at
home in the States. (Why???!!!)
(How???!!!)
The people who came to do specific work
within the church faced some difficulties as they tried to figure out
what they could do at the local church which largely fell apart
because of the church split faced some serious difficulties. When
they asked for guidance and resources, these people were shocked when
they were told that they had the “wrong spirit,” were shamed for
having needs, and were given condescending moral lectures. A few
were reprimanded verbally. I could barely believe my ears when I
first heard this and witnessed it from the leaders myself. It also
became quite difficult, because the group of assertive people became
aggressive in the absence of strong leadership which was expected
from those who organized the trip. By the second half of the tour
there, this group actually sought to prevent any work by those who
were not members of their subgroup which emerged. They were cruel.
They even excluded others from social activities at the end of the
trip., and the absent leadership did nothing.
The Kangaroo Court Session
Then it happened. One afternoon, I
watched a husband and wife who were a part of the smaller, specific,
and pragmatic ministry subgroup attempt to participate in the
activities of the larger, dominant, and now aggressive group. (It
was like watching a 20/20 Episode expose on human behavior.) The
wife had a particular skill that was useful and needed at a planned
event, and she planned to do what she traveled to another country to
do. My husband and I watched as three aggressive men from the large
group called the woman over to them (while her husband was
elsewhere), all while the former missionary who served there who
orchestrated the missions trip looked onward, listened, and did
absolutely nothing.
We listened to them tell her that she
was under their authority and had overstepped her bounds, primarily
because her part in things that day was not wanted. She was accused
of challenging them, having the “wrong spirit,” and of working
against the team. They then made what I thought were quite
mean-spirited and unwarranted personal criticisms regarding her
actual skills which, frankly, I thought were exceptionally good. We
had only a few more days to endure, and as you may imagine, I'd
already heard one moral lecture myself several days earlier. My
husband and I saw an opportunity to talk with and encourage the woman
being demoralized and shamed, because by then, we were sure that
anything we could possibly say to the aggressors would fall on angry,
deaf ears. We decided to keep our pearls, avoiding the rending that
we were sure would follow. We shared our pearls
of love with her and her husband who knew nothing about our
similar experience earlier in the trip.
We watched this beautiful, happy,
strong, woman whose heart ached to contribute – to do what she
spent her own money, time and effort to travel there to accomplish –
turn into a defeated, heartsick, broken person in the blink of an
eye. We listened to her fold up and repent and apologize to her
abusers. The words of Jesus came to mind about the
parable of the sower. This woman was not being challenged about
her doctrine, but the way she lived out and manifested her faith in
the Word of God was being attacked. But like the seed that fell on
soil that was stony and failed to grow roots to keep it stable and
strong, her resolve and her confidence in what God was doing through
her was not deeply rooted, at least not on that particular day. Like
the Word of faith that can spring up in us quickly like seed sown in
stony soil, she didn't have the strength to endure against those who
were jealous of her and the reward of good work she sought to do.
And it struck both my husband and I.
This was the pain of cognitive
dissonance in action and the very same type of breaking that we
saw at our church and didn't want to believe really happened until it
happened to us. We looked at this young woman and saw
ourselves. She was powerless to change the situation, and within
that system and place of isolation (primarily because we were kept
by the group and had no transportation and didn't even have access to
our own plane tickets, several years before 9/11/2001), she had
no options to easily or gracefully exit the confrontation.
None of us had that option, at least not without creating offense
and drama. We were beholden to these people for our basic needs for
the next five days. We saw a picture of ourselves in what this young
woman endured, and we watched spiritual abuse in action.
Cognitive Dissonance and Thought
Conversion
Steve
Hassan describes thought conversion which takes place through the
process of cognitive dissonance as a process that results in
domination of the self. He breaks down individuality by describing
it in terms of an individual's thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
Because we are cohesive and rational beings, our thoughts, emotions,
and behaviors follow one another. We feel the way our thoughts
direct our emotions. Our behavior flows from our emotions and our
thoughts, and these three elements of the self work together. When
one of these factors of self is pulled in another direction, it
creates a great deal of emotional and mental stress for the
individual. Because these factors must work in concert with one
another to maintain the person's cohesive sense of self, manipulating
one aspect becomes a means of manipulation.
In other words, if I want to manipulate
a person to think, feel, and behave in a certain way which is
different from how they are currently thinking, feeling, and
behaving, I need only to dominate one of those aspects of that
person. Because of the cohesive nature of the self, the other
aspects will follow.
For the sake of argument, lets
imagine that a parishioner rejects the doctrine that their new pastor
has just presented to them. The pastor wants the parishioner to
accept, believe and support his newly introduced doctrine, and that
is the pastor's expressed goal. He wants to win the thought and mind
of this person, his follower, but the pastor meets notable
resistance, and the follower is very resistant. What can he do?
Manipulators and nefarious ministers
have learned that if they meet resistance in terms of belief, they
stand an excellent chance of getting their mark to accept their
belief and idea if they can dominate emotions, for example. They can
also do it through behavior, because it is hard to disagree with an
act if you are opposed to complying and carrying out that behavior.
If the manipulator can dominate your emotions (through shame,
embarrassment, greed, pride, desire, etc.), they will have a very
simple time thereafter of getting you, their mark, to accept their
idea. If they can get you to do what they want you to do, even if it
seems like a benign task, they also have a good chance of
manipulating your thoughts and emotions.“Can
everybody raise their hand to God and say 'Amen'?” Those
who do this have just confessed a thought and belief by complying
with the behavior requested of them, and the process results in an
emotion. Behavior follows emotion follows thought follows emotion
follows thought follows behavior...... It is a continual,
self-reinforcing cycle of the continuity of self.
Hassan also adds information into this
mix of the elements of the self which are the ways we express our
individuality, and he puts them all together to form the acronym of
“BITE”
(behavior, information, thought, and emotion) to describe this
dynamic. This process makes thought conversion possible because of
the need for human beings to behave, think and feel in a cohesive
way. In itself, the process represents how we learn and develop,
contributes to moral function and our sense of ethics which result in
behavior, and that can
be healthy. It can, however, result in harm to the individual
when manipulators tap into this aspect of human nature to exploit the
innocent and unsuspecting.
Read more about thought conversion and
cognitive dissonance HERE.
More About Thought Conversion as a
Means of Preserving
Image Consciousness and Suppressing Criticism
In days to come I hope to explore how
individuals can be affected by these types of situations when
manipulators, abusers, and bullies exploit our human nature to get
what they want. I may tell of some more of my personal experiences,
as well as those of my husband and some of my friends – along with
the tactics used to enhance this process used within spiritually
abusive churches.
Manipulators, high demand groups, and
cultic churches alike use these types of techniques as a means of not
only changing thoughts but also as a way of squelching criticism and
hiding their dirty little secrets and, most definitely, as a way of
burying the big ones. The trouble is that wounded sheep get buried
along with them in the process. It looks like Chuckles
Travels recently posted about one such big, buried secret, but
sometimes, justice digs them back up and they come crawling back out
of the ground. May the survivors come forth from their trauma and
pain like Lazarus did from his tomb when Jesus called him forth into
abundant life.
Check back soon for more.
