Don't Let Nashville Tell You Who You Are

(Disclaimer: I am already an outspoken critic of CBMW and the Danvers Statement. I wish that there had been this much of a response to this as there has been to the new Nashville Statement. Please visit the FreeCWC Channel on Vimeo or YouTube for more. CBMW sows the ideological seeds that foster domestic abuse of women.)

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There's a great phrase in the first Matrix film when the protagonist ponders his life before he figured out what the real world looked like. He asks what it means if he liked the noodles at a restaurant that was only computer code in a program that created a dream. His companion says that it means that he still had a unique identity, and even the deception of a dream could not tell him or make him who he really was. It was the part of himself that was wholly his own.

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The Many Elements of Spiritual Abuse

David Henke defined Spiritual Abuse by listing five specific characteristics that are found within churches that manifest the
phenomenon.




From Watchman Fellowship's Profile of Spiritual Abuse

• Authoritarian Systems and leaders over-emphasize authority
• Image Conscious Maintains high standards to validate specialness to God
• Suppresses Criticism No questioning of doctrine or leadership is permitted
• Perfectionistic Blessings come through performance and noncompliance is punished.
• Unbalanced Abusive religions must distinguish themselves from all other religions so they can claim to be distinctive and therefore special to God. They become unbalanced in their focus on peripheral or intramural doctrines of the faith that eventually eclipse the essential doctrines.

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Resisting Influence: Scarcity and Competition

Cialdini’s Principles of Social Influence

Scarcity
[Context: Competition]
People assign more value to opportunities when they are less available—if there are fewer resources and less time to get them, we want it more

The Basics

Principle holds true for two reasons:

• Things that are difficult to attain are typically more valuable – availability of item can serve as a shortcut heuristic cue to its quality
• As things become less accessible, we lose freedoms – respond to loss of freedoms by wanting to have them more than before

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Resisting Influence: Authority and Credibility

Cialdini’s Principles of Social Influence

Authority
[Context: Credibility]

People naturally respond to authority with compliance

The Basics

• Milgram’s studies of obedience provide evidence of a strong pressure for compliance with the requests of authority figures
• Strength of tendency to obey comes from systematic socialization of society members that obedience constitutes correct conduct
• Frequently adaptive to obey dictates of genuine authorities because such individuals usually possess high levels of knowledge, wisdom, and power
• Deference to authorities can occur in a mindless fashion as a decision-making shortcut
• Tendency to respond to "symbols and signs of authority" rather than to its substance
• Failure to distinguish between Just and Unjust Authority

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Resisting Influence: Liking and Friendship

Cialdini’s Principles of Social Influence

Liking

[Context: Friendship] We want people to like us and

we like those who show that they like us

The Basics

• People prefer to say “yes” to individuals they know and like

How It's Exploited

Persuasion experts manipulate common factors that influence their likeability.

• Physical attractiveness – engender “halo” effect that extends to favorable impressions of other traits such as talent, kindness, and intelligence – attractive people usually more successful in changing attitudes and getting requests granted
• Similarity – we like people who are like us; we more willing to say “yes” to them, often in an unthinking manner
• Praise – compliments generally enhance liking and compliance; although can backfire if used excessively and transparently
• Familiarity – repeated contact with a person or thing normally facilitates liking; holds when contact takes place under positive, not negative circumstances
• Association – making connections to positive things, profiteers seek to share positivity through process of association
• Shadowing- influence agent exhibits non-verbal behaviors that match those of the target individual, creates a pseudo-comparability

Best Defense

• Resist this principle by developing a special sensitivity to suspicious and undue liking from the requester
• Separate the requester from the request, and make compliance decisions based solely on the merits of the offer – not your emotions about the requester.

Prepared by Philip Zimbardo and Cindy X. Wang

©2006-2007, Philip G. Zimbardo

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Resisting Influence: Social Proof

Cialdini’s Principles of Social Influence

Social Proof
[Context: Consensus]

A means to determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct.

A person tends to view behavior as more correct in a given context (to the degree that one sees others performing it)

The Basics

• Principle can be used to stimulate a person’s compliance by informing the individual that many other individuals have been complying (unanimous compliance and compliance by famous or authoritative people is most effective)
• Provides us with a shortcut for determining how to behave – while at the same time, makes one vulnerable to persuasion experts
• Most influential under two conditions:
  Uncertainty – situation is ambiguous; become more likely to attend to the actions of others and accept those actions as more correct
  Similarity – people are inclined to follow the lead of similar others
  

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Resisting Influence: Consistency

Cialdini’s Principles of Social Influence


Consistency
[Context: Commitments]

People desire to look consistent

within their words, beliefs, attitudes, and deeds

The Basics

• Good personal consistency is highly valued by society
• Consistent conduct provides a beneficial approach to daily life
• Affords a valuable shortcut through complex decision-making; being consistent with earlier decisions reduces need to process relevant information in future decisions

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Resisting Influence: Reciprocity and Contexts of Obligation

Cialdini’s Principles of Social Influence

Reciprocity
[Context: Obligation]

The rule of reciprocity requires that one person try to repay, in kind,

what another person has provided

The Basics

• Supports the giving of favors since repayment is expected from the recipient
• Sense of future obligation makes it possible to develop continuing relationships, transactions, and exchanges in society
• Members of society are trained from childhood to abide by the reciprocity rule or suffer social disapproval

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How We are Influenced and Persuaded

Robert Cialdini's

"Weapons of Influence"

When in new situations, all we human beings cope in similar ways. New circumstances bombard us with information, all ideas that we must put into perspective, so we trust impressions and “rules of thumb” to make the many decisions that new situations demand of us. Especially in today’s information driven world, we find the need to take these “shortcuts,” especially when we are bombarded with new, complex ideas in new settings.

Here are the primary shortcuts that we fearfully and wonderfully made creatures use to cut through the information:

• Reciprocity (Tendency to repay others in kind.)
• Commitment and Consistency (Tendency to portray themselves ad consistent examples in word, deed, beliefs and attitudes. It is a mechanism of commitment to one’s personality and self-understanding.)
• Social Proof (Investigation of truth by observing and/or complying with consensus.)
• Liking (Seeking to be liked and want to be treated as though they are liked.)
• Authority (Tendency to respond and submit to authority.)
• Scarcity (Tendency to value items or opportunities that are limited.)

Under reasonable circumstances, these otherwise practical techniques serve us to cut through the processing of information; however, these “shortcuts” can provide a foothold for our manipulation. Learning how these tendencies work can help us resist undue influence and make better decisions.

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Elements of Spiritual Abuse: Part V of V

Unbalanced

Abusive religions must distinguish themselves from all other religions so they can claim to be distinctive and therefore special to God.

• This is usually done by majoring on minor issues such as prophecy, carrying biblical law to extremes, or using strange methods of biblical interpretation.
• The imbalanced spiritual hobby-horse thus produced represents unique knowledge or practices which seem to validate the group's claim to special status with God.

Excerpt from The Watchman Fellowship's Profile of Spiritual Abuse

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Elements of Spiritual Abuse: Part IV of V

Perfectionistic

A most natural assumption is that a person does not get something for nothing. Apart from the express declarations of salvation by grace through faith God has given in the scriptures, it would be natural to think that one must earn salvation, or at least work to keep it.

Thus, in abusive religions all blessings come through

performance of spiritual requirements.

• Failure is strongly condemned so there is only one alternative, perfection.


• So long as he thinks he is succeeding in his observation of the rules, the follower typically exhibits pride, elitism, and arrogance. However, when reality and failure eventually set in, the result is the person experiences spiritual burnout, or even shipwreck of his faith.


• Those who fail in their efforts are labeled as apostates, weak, or some other such term so that they can be discarded by the system.

Excerpt from The Watchman Fellowship's Profile of Spiritual Abuse

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Elements of Spiritual Abuse: Part III of V

Suppresses Criticism

Because the religious system is not based on the truth,

it cannot allow questions, dissent, or open discussions about issues.

• The person who dissents becomes the problem rather than the issue he raised.


• The truth about any issue is settled and handed down from the top of the hierarchy.


• Questioning anything is considered a challenge to authority.


• Thinking for oneself is suppressed by pointing out that it leads to doubts. This is portrayed as unbelief in God and His anointed leaders.

Thus the follower controls his own thoughts by fear of doubting God.

Excerpt from The Watchman Fellowship's Profile of Spiritual Abuse

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Elements of Spiritual Abuse: Part II of V

Image Conscious

The abusive religious system is scrupulous to maintain an image of righteousness. The organization's history is often misrepresented in the effort to demonstrate the organization's special relationship to God.

• The mistaken judgements and character flaws of its leaders are denied or covered up in order to validate their authority.


• Impossibly high legalistic standards of thought and behavior may be imposed on the members.


• Their failure to live up to these standards is a constant reminder of the follower's inferiority to his leaders, and the necessity of submission to them.

Abusive religion is, at heart, legalism.

Abusive religion is also paranoid.

• Because the truth about the abusive religious system would be quickly rejected if recognized, outsiders are shown only a positive image of the group. This is rationalized by assuming that the religion would not be understood by "worldly" people; therefore they have no right to know.


• This attitude leads to members being secretive about some doctrines and the inner policies and proceedures of the group. Leaders, especially, will keep secrets from their members.


• This secrecy is rooted in a basic distrust of others because the belief system is false and can not stand scrutiny.

Excerpt from The Watchman Fellowship's Profile of Spiritual Abuse

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Elements of Spiritual Abuse: Part I of V

Authoritarian
The most distinctive characteristic of a spiritually abusive religious system, or leader, is the over-emphasis on authority. Because a group claims to have been established by God Himself the leaders in this system claim the right to command their followers.

• This authority supposedly comes from the position they occupy. In Matthew 23:1-2 Jesus said the Scribes and Pharisees "sit in Moses' seat," a position of spiritual authority. Many names are used but in the abusive system this is a position of power, not moral authority.


• The assumption is that God operates among His people through a hierarchy, or "chain of command."


• In this abusive system unconditional submission is often called a "covering," or "umbrella of protection" which will provide some spiritual blessing to those who fully submit.


• Followers may be told that God will bless their submission even if the leadship is wrong. It is not their place to judge or correct the leadership - God will see to that.

Excerpt from The Watchman Fellowship's Profile of Spiritual Abuse

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