AN EXPERIENCE
After nearly three years of frustration, in 1987 my church ministry position came to a disappointing and
depressing end. My wife and I were looking for a new church home, but more than that -- we were looking for
answers. I was considering the possibility that God may not have called me to local church ministry, but
perhaps to Christian counseling, or something else. Also: my spiritual life was in decline. I was not the
kind of person that I wanted to be.
There were many plots and sub-plots leading up to, and following our departure from that church. But the most
significant was connected with the fact that I was trying to get counseling help for some people in our
church. A local evangelical pastor referred me to a counseling ministry that sounded promising. He said that
it helped people who had been psychologically abused as children, which sounded like a perfect fit for the
situation I was attempting to help.
After taking the referral and talking to the head of this "counseling ministry," I was confused. The man
didn't seem too helpful, nor did he seem to desire to be helpful in the case I was trying to refer to him.
But he was willing to meet with me, and so I drove over to see him. By the end of our discussion, he had me
considering the possiblity (if not actually convinced) that I was the one who needed counseling. Not that he
denied those other people did as well, but as the reflection of hindsight has shown me, to him I was "a bird
in the hand," which was worth more to him than "two in the bush."
Over several long, gruelling weeks I engaged in "phone counseling" with this man. He said he didn't have time
to meet with me one-on-one, and for some reason at that time he didn't think to mention that he ran counseling
"groups." Over six-to-eight weeks, he gradually stripped me of all the roles that I continued to play in
helping my friends from my former church, or doing any kind of ministry whatsoever, and required me to
introspect (although he called it "asking God") about my spiritual condition. The whole thing was
ultimately designed to get me into one of his groups. Every time I thought I'd found "the answer," he'd
find something wrong with it. When I was fully desperate, he finally invited me to a group.
The very first night that I attended the group, someone made a remark about basing our self-esteem upon
Christ, instead of our own efforts. For some reason -- perhaps because my desperation had carried me to the
edge of hysteria -- I reached out and grabbed this as my "answer," and suddenly the dark cloud over my head
vanished. Perhaps there was something to this "therapy" after all! I did stop and briefly wonder, "If the
answer was this simple, why didn't this supposedly 'great' counselor share it with me at the beginning?" But
I quickly suppressed such thoughts.
I gladly shared my victory with the head of the group, and he quickly responded, "Can you think of any better
place to learn counseling?" Suddenly, the issue had changed. My "crisis" (which hadn't existed until I met
this man) was over. He spotted me at a time when I was vulnerable -- spiritually weak, grieving the loss of
a ministry position, worried about my friends, anxious and depressed. He took advantage to suck me in to his
little group, and he thought he had me. BUT! -- now I no longer needed "counseling." So he had to find
something else to keep me connected: doing some kind of "internship" at his counseling ministry.
I thought it was a wonderful opportunity. Having had a reference from a known evangelical pastor, and seeing
what appeared to be a legitimate board of directors and list of references, I cast in my lot with this little
counseling ministry. There seemed to be much love, concern and warmth in the various groups. The leader
seemed compassionate, but strong. He was a known commodity in the evangelical community. Within a short
time after I joined, I sat in on an interview he gave to a major, nationwide Christian magazine. I know that
I still had problems in my life, but I couldn't BELIEVE how fortunate I was! How many people get such
opportunities?
There were a few "minor red lights" flashing at the front door of this "ministry," which I foolishly ignored.
First: the leader had been excommunicated from a prominent evangelical church in 1986. His board stood with
him through this crisis, and to this day many think he was wronged. Nevertheless, the leader had also been
fired from a well-known youth ministry just a few years before that. There seemed to be a pattern of this man
not being able to get along with people -- most notably, his own wife. Also: the leader was liberal in the
use of profanity. This seemed quite inappropriate for a man who claimed to be a conservative, evangelical
Christian. But I and others rationalized it as part of his "therapeutic background," since some therapy
groups have been well known for giving license to such speech.
To disarm potential criticism, the leader was very up-front about these situations. He put on the appearance
of being open to correction -- but the funny thing was: no one in or outside of the groups could ever
successfully "correct" him. The leader had an amazing way of finding fault and turning the tables on anyone
who questioned whether, perhaps, say -- some of the criticisms against him might be right. Outwardly, he
initially appeared humble, open and reasonable. He even openly confessed some of his past sins! And some of
them were embarrassing! Only gradually did it become obvious how closed-off he was toward anything that might
tarnish his image.
Within 18 months (by the end of 1988) after I joined, much had changed. The original board of directors had
resigned in frustration with trying to deal with the leader and hold him accountable. We received only very
sketchy details at best -- some of which were deceptions. The original list of references was being pared
down, because the leader could not accept criticism when these people found out how the organization was
actually being run.
The inner workings of the groups gradually went from warm and loving, to confrontational and controlling.
Within a few months, the leader began hammering us repeatedly with the requirement to verbally confess our
sins in the group. He kept repeating verses in the Bible which seemed to justify his requirements. He began
using humiliation -- he compared us unfavorably to secular "12-step" groups, by reminding us that the people
in those groups were "more honest" than we were. Sometimes people would make fledgling efforts to begin
confessing, and the leader would storm out in anger because he was dissatisfied.
The leader claimed to be offering us a place were we could be "real" and yet "safe." This seemed to resonate
within us. TRUE fellowship, where we could share EVERYTHING. Yet we didn't seem to see the contradiction
between the leader's promise of "safety," and his own UNSAFE behavior -- his outbursts of anger; his use of
humiliation; his role-playing scare-tactics. We were so drawn to the utopian promise that we blinded
ourselves to how disqualified this man was to be our utopian leader.
True, he had a way of seeing people. He called it, "the gift of discernment." God gave it to him, he said.
God told him things. He would recite long accounts of all the people who had informed him of his "great
discernment" over the years, accompanied by equally long accounts of how THESE SAME PEOPLE turned away from
him when he HAD to tell them what God wanted them to know: i.e., about the evil in their hearts. We couldn't
see that his ability to "see inside of people" was a set-up. He never used it merely to help other people by
giving them insight into themselves. He ALWAYS used it as a preamble for getting people to turn over their
decision-making powers to him.
This was one of many, many internal contradictions in our group. For example: the leader claimed that
weight problems were indicative that people had "issues they refused to deal with," and yet he himself was
quite overweight. On the one hand, the leader would loudly declare: "I don't tell you people what to do! I
don't run your lives!" And then, in practically the next breath, he would tell a married couple to stop
having sex, tell an adult to break off contact with his parents, etc. Some people couldn't handle all the
mounting tension that resulted. Many, many people left from 1987 to 1990, so that by that time the groups
were so small that they had to be consolidated into one. That resulted in a strange development: instead of
three groups that each met once-a-week, there was now one group which met three times a week! In other words:
as the demanding nature of the groups drove people away, the demands that the resulting group made on people's
time and energy actually INCREASED! It was gradually beginning to be clear -- although we all suppressed our
awareness of it -- that NOTHING would ever be ENOUGH!
The leader had us all reading "Recovery Movement" literature, because many of these books advised their
readers of two primary things: 1.) just about EVERYBODY comes from a "dysfunctional" ("sick") family, and 2.)
an important method of "recovering" from "dysfunction" is to separate yourself from your "family of origin,"
which is responsible for passing the "dysfunction" on to you. Some of these books were written by evangelical
Christians, most weren't. But the fact that some Christian authors were involved gave us confidence in what
we were reading. None of them said for exactly how long one might need to separate from their family, but by
1990 just about EVERYBODY in the group had cut off all family ties and were at the mercy of the group leader.
Most of us separated for a VERY long time. I cut off communication with my family for three years. Others
cut off for longer periods of time.
There was never any solid, Biblical reason for doing this. But there was a typical scenario: a.) a member
would come to "realize" how "dysfunctional" he or she was; b.) the member would also be convinced that the
"dysfunction" came from his or her "family of origin;" c.) the member would try to either separate from his
or her family in order to "heal," or set-up family counseling with the leader in charge; d.) when the family
figured out what was up, and that they were about to be raked over the coals by the leader, the family would
back out; e.) this enabled the leader to label the "dysfunctional family" as truly "evil" (a la "People of
the Lie," by M. Scott Peck) and further justified the member's separation from the family. Sometimes the
member's families truly had committed sin. But instead of the leader teaching the members how to forgive and
move on with life, the leader instead taught the members how to resurrect past offenses, refuse forgiveness
until complete satisfaction was made by the "offending" family, and thus harbor grudges -- all in the supposed
name of "healing" and even "reconciliation." (Imagine that!)
The same "logic" came to be applied to our churches. Eventually, since all evangelical churches (as well as
others) were clearly too "sick" for us to belong to, we all ended up making our group the equivalent of our
"church." At about the same time I cut off ties with my family, my wife and I also stopped attending Willow
Creek Community Church, which we had been faithful to since leaving our previous church.
Almost everyone in the group was very well-educated. Several people had masters degrees. There was one Ph.D.
One was the son of a respected theologian. Nearly everyone was raised in a Christian home. I had even been
involved in counter-cult/apologetics ministry prior to my church ministry experience. How could such people
be so misled?
For me, the answer is that the leader -- who had an undergraduate degree in psychology, and a graduate degree
in communications (which carries heavy doses of group psychology) -- understood human conditioning processes.
He understood how to attract people, how to get people to commit to something, and how to gradually influence
people over time. He had a very behavioristic approach which didn't work on everybody, but worked on enough
people to satisfy him. Those people it didn't "work" on it usually left very confused and hurting.
The leader knew how to create credibility, plausibility, and to command respect. He knew how to organize
these dynamics in a sequential process, so that eventually, all these well-educated and intelligent people
were convinced that the leader knew the way. He had the discernment. He could read people's hearts. He knew
if we were truly sincere in our faith and our repentance. He knew if we were making progress in being cured
of our "dysfunction."
The requirement to confess sins in the group became stricter. Whereas in the beginning, the leader had stated
that sins we had confessed to God privately and "dealt with" did not need to be confessed before the group, he
was now contradicting himself. EVERYTHING must be brought out before the group! That he could get away with
such blatant contradictions indicates how much control he exercised over us.
This burdensome confession requirement caused some people to drop-out, and then "drop-back-in" ... including
me. But I eventually confessed deeply embarrassing sins I thought I'd take with me to my grave! What I
discovered was that sins confessed were NEVER forgotten! They became your "ID Card" in the group. You would
always be "the person who did [such-and-such]." Whenever you questioned the leader, he would haul it out and
throw it back in your face! We could never be free. Our sense of forgiveness could be snatched from us at a
moment's notice.
When there was no more to confess, the leader wanted more. So he had to create more. This came in the form
of accusations against our consciences, our motives, our attitudes, our desires -- ANYTHING that the leader
thought he could "discern" (translate: "dream up"). If people showed up in the group wearing slightly unusual
clothing, the leader accused them of pride, or even of "trying to seduce." If a woman made a suggestion to a
man that the leader thought was too forceful, she was accused of "castrating" the man. The leader always had
plenty of "reserve ammo" in the form of previous confessions we had made. He could always find a way of
justifying these new accusations as methods of "getting us to confess" things we were now hiding, even though
we'd previously admitted to being guilty of them. By confessing our most embarrassing sins, we had handed to
him the very weapons he would continue to use to keep us in bondage to himself.
If we ever objected to an accusation from the leader, he would throw a previous confession in our faces.
"Aren't you the same person who ... ?" Then he'd just stare at us in silence. Sometimes he'd start screaming
at us, cursing and swearing. Whenever he used such extreme harshness, he claimed it was "necessary" because
he had to counter the "power" we were supposedly projecting. He thought this justified his clear and
deliberate violation of the example of Christ's meekness. He would also complain loudly and extensively about
how we "hurt" him and "grieved" him by "forcing" him to act in such a manner. We had clearly descended into
an abusive-parent/child relationship with him, although we couldn't see it. Since we couldn't see it, we
couldn't figure out how to escape.
Over a period of four years I watched as the leader elevated a single woman in the group to the status of his
near-equal, only to eventually find fault with her and then to spiritually pulverize her until she could
quite literally barely crawl away in utter despair! He spent literally scores of hours on the phone with her
each month -- which I now see as a questionable enterprise in light of his own extremely poor relationship
with his wife. This was all done so that he could "mentor" her, but when the ground suddenly shifted and the
leader began to question her sincerity, the phone calls turned ugly. So did her treatment in the group. He
would call her names in front of the rest of us. Names like "seducer," "slut," and "the ultimate deciever."
One day, in the middle of the hysteria that the leader had induced in her, she put her little blind son in his
wagon and steered it to the leader's house, only a few blocks away. He later accused her of coming over in
order "to sexually seduce him." She had no such intention!
The exact nature of her supposed "sins" were never made clear. She was required to "see" them and repent of
them. It was enough that the leader had "discerned" them. This pattern was also played-out on other group
members. No one in the group dared to stand up or question. We knew from vast experience that the tables
would be thus turned on US as well. The standard method was to accuse anyone who came to anyone else's
defense of "rescuing behavior." "Rescusing behavior" was always interepreted as indicating that the
motives of the "rescuer" was to protect the accused because the "rescuer" was guilty of the same sins.
Therefore, to even stand up in anyone else's defense was considered tantamount to an admission of guilt. The
leader could therefore make any accusation he wanted without fear of being overturned.
After this woman barely escaped our group with her sanity, the leader re-created the same scenario with me.
He set me up in a position of leadership, and then knocked me down. Before I myself could escape, the leader
would accuse me of "committing adultery" because I had a 20-second phone conversation with a woman. The
nature of that conversation? She asked me how I was doing, and I told her. There was no sexual content
whatsoever. There was no attraction between me and that woman. There was no relationship other than that
which had been created by our membership in the group. I was very happy with my wife, not looking around for
anyone else, and frankly not attracted to this other woman. It didn't matter. The fact that the leader made
the accusation was enough for himself and the group, and so began nine months of utter hell for me.
I thought I was the only one in the group who was so evil as to be "unable to see his sin." I prayed and
BEGGED to God that he show it to me! I must be truly reprobate to be so blind! I TRIED to see this sin, but
in the midst of gruelling introspection and pleading before God, the leader kept hurling other accusations
against me, until I no longer knew whether I had EVER been a Christian! For much of the summer of 1992, I was
allowed to come to the group meetings for only the first 15 minutes, and share what "progress" I had made, and
then go home. I was "under discipline" until August, when the leadership was persuaded that I was truly
"repentant." And I was. As repentant as I could be of a sin I was not guilty of! I was MORE than repentant!
During that one brief period of respite, when there was no more talk of "discipline," and I could stay in the
group meetings as long as everyone else, I became aware that I had not been the only one who was going through
hell. It became obvious to me from listening to others that EVERYONE around me was in bondage! I had to get
out somehow! I thought, "Maybe I just need a 'time-out;' get away for a while, get my head together, and come
back when God shows me how it all fits together." I requested and received permission from the leader on the
last Monday in October. The following Friday, he called me at work and rescinded his permission -- FOR NO
REASON! -- and demanded my presence at that night's group meeting. I refused.
My wife was still in the group. Over the next few months, the leader used every deceitful trick and lie he
could think up to intimidate me into either remaining totally silent, or coming back to the group. He worked
HARD to drive a wedge between my wife and I, and only ended up driving her away. He concocted many lies about
me, and gleefully violated my confidence by sharing the embarrassing sins I had confessed in the group with my
new friends outside the group. For many months I was devastated, and wanted to do something about it. I can
very clearly relate to others who speak of feeling "spiritually raped" after these kinds of experiences. The
humiliation and total loss of spiritual and emotional orientation is difficult to describe.
But I needed to go through it. I needed to see how low my former leader would stoop to protect himself by
destroying me. I needed to receive those letters in the mail, which he copied to others, and in which he made
all kinds of fresh unfounded accusations against my character, and also told outright lies. I needed to see
him for what he was -- and as far as I know remains: a pathetic, self-absorbed, control-freak, Pharisaical,
lying loser. I know that sounds harsh. I don't want it to be. Perhaps the emphasis should be on "pathetic,"
rather than on all those other adjectives. Calling him "pathetic" emphasizes the fact that I mean him no
harm. A person who's pathetic can only harm you if you believe in his lies. But therein lies the danger: a
pathetic person CAN, nonetheless, harm you -- and you need to be aware of just HOW that person can do it. He
can do it if you IGNORE his self-absorption, his controlling nature, his Pharisaical condemning spirit, his
lies, and his "loser-mentality," i.e., his tendency to blame everyone else for his own problems. We, in the
group, ignored those aspects of his personality. We made excuses for him. We fell into his trap of blaming
others. And so we set ourselves up to be abused by him the way he had abused countless others before us.
When I first came out of my abusive group, I was EXTREMELY protective of my ex-leader. I even defended him!
I thought he was misunderstood. Only after I repeatedly tried to straighten things out with him did I come
face-to-face with his true nature. I've also learned that many, many people take a long time to go
through the process of "disillusioning" themselves -- i.e., dropping all the comforting illusions about
their abusive ex-leaders. It's a common phenomenon. It's been over three years now, and I'm FINALLY able to
completely identify him for who he is: a spiritual abuser on the order of the "brutal shepherds" of Ezekiel
34, and the Pharisees of Matthew 23. Spiritual abuse is nothing new. It is thousands of years old.
rhenzel@wheaton.edu
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