Israelites, Pharisees & Sadducees In The 21st Century Church

The FACTNet definition is useful:
"Mind control" refers to all coercive psychological systems, such as brainwashing,
thought reform, and coercive persuasion. Mind control is the shaping of a person's
attitudes, beliefs, and personality without the person's knowledge or consent. Mind
control employs deceptive and surreptitious manipulation, usually in a group setting, for
the financial or political [or religious!] profit of the manipulator.
Notice this further statement from the above document:
"Mind control works by gradually exerting increasing CONTROL over individuals
through a variety of techniques..."
Ronald Enroth (author of "Churches That Abuse") has this to say about dysfunctional
churches:
"What are the hallmarks of unhealthy, aberrant churches? The key indicator is control
oriented leadership, ministers who have a need to "lord it over the flock." Abusive leaders
demand submission and unquestioning loyalty. The person who raises uncomfortable
questions or does not "get with the program" is cast aside. Guilt, fear, and intimidation
are used to manipulate and control vulnerable members, especially those who have been
taught to believe that questioning their pastor is comparable to questioning God. ... How
can we recognize a healthy church? In addition to matters of appropriate doctrine, a
healthy church is reconciling and restorative, not adversarial and elitist. Members of
healthy churches seek to deepen and strengthen their family commitments. Legitimate
leaders will welcome dissent and hard questions from members without threat of reprisal.
Trustworthy leaders will encourage accountability and they will establish checks and
balances."
Therefore, mind-control techniques are totally at odds with genuine Christian teaching.
God makes his appeal to the mind and heart of a person without pressure, coercion or
control. God asks for a thoughtful, reasoned, perceptive response to his truths, not the
knee-jerk reaction of a slave.
Only man is interested in creating automatons that are programmed to act, think and
believe alike, and are forbidden to exercise their critical faculties. Only man is interested
in dominating others for his own benefit. Only man will turn to domination, threat, control
or secretive mental techniques to alter the minds of his listeners. These are not the
methods that God uses!
What are the differences between genuine teaching or evangelism and thought-reform,
or mind-control? These paragraphs come from a FACTNet document:
"A coercive persuasion program is a behavioral change technology applied to cause the
"learning" and "adoption" of a set of behaviors or an ideology under certain conditions. It
is distinguished from other forms of benign social learning or peaceful persuasion by the
conditions under which it is conducted and by the techniques of environmental and
interpersonal manipulation employed to suppress particular behaviors and to train others.
Over time, coercive persuasion, a psychological force akin in some ways to our legal
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