I grew up in a small town in Texas and attended a small
church. I loved my church. I loved the jovial pastor, all the men in suits who
rubbed me on the head as I came in and out of the sanctuary, the kind ladies
who always brought us muffins in Sunday School and especially the youth camps
we’d go to over the summers. Church was my second home, and it almost feels
like I spent more time there than in my own home.
One winter, though, our pastor decided to retire. We threw
an enormous party in his honor. I’ll never forget person after person walking
to the microphone to tell stories about the many years he’d shepherded our
congregation. People cried, we sang, we brought gifts, we ate food, we laughed
until late into the night. It took a full month for everybody to say their
goodbyes.
I am eternally grateful the first minister I encountered was
such a good man.
Because the second minister I encountered wasn’t.
A committee was put in place to replace our pastor and the
committee decided to hire a dynamic young man from Louisiana. The man had been
a traveling preacher, moving from church to church to perform revivals, to tell
people about Jesus. He was a tall man and loud. He flailed his arms as he
spoke. He talked about God’s power, about God’s wrath, about God’s love and to
be honest he was quite moving. He was incredible at getting people to respond.
He had a sharp sense of humor, would occasionally say shocking things to test
our loyalty and see if we would turn on him or go with him, he knew the Bible
inside and out and knew how to play human emotions like a fiddle. On any given
Sunday we would experience a range of emotions from guilt and shame to fear and
sometimes joy.
I even remember his first sermon. It was entitled “Appoint
those you trust and trust those you appoint.” That should have been an obvious
sign to everybody. He was saying, without question, if you hire me to be your
pastor, I am the boss. You must never question my authority.
Soon, the entire congregation fell under his spell. We loved
it when he delighted in us but feared screwing up. One Sunday he snapped at the
man working in the sound booth so sharply the man turned red from
embarrassment. The pastor, realizing he’d gone too far, explained, ferociously,
that God is a God of excellence and wouldn’t stand for mistakes, even from
volunteer sound guys. He then quoted a passage about how we were supposed to be
perfect even as Christ is perfect.
Looking back, this was all manipulation. People who care
about the truth understand they are capable of self-deception and surround
themselves with accountability. This pastor got rid of the accountability. He
drove off any elder who wouldn’t submit, once again, quoting scripture and
spinning the Bible so that those questioning his motives looked like infidels.
He even said he felt justified using violence against them, simply because they
refused to trust the leader God had appointed.
What made the situation so difficult is that the church in
fact grew. His off-color sense of humor seemed relevant and even worldly while
his knowledge of Scripture gave the congregation a sense of security. In fact,
I’d say a sense of security is the main reason people were drawn to the church.
Don Riso and Russ Hudson, perhaps the worlds leading experts
on the enneagram, talk about controlling, bully-personalities as being secretly
afraid. Many of them had been molested as children and subconsciously believe
people are out to get them. Determined to never be molested again, they make
themselves big, try to sound tough, try to intimidate people and will never
allow themselves to be vulnerable. They insist that anybody close to them be
submissive and will lie and cheat to protect themselves and their empire, all
the while posing as a righteous hero. When extremely unhealthy, controlling
personalities are stressed, they get great relief and a feeling of power by
dominating others, even sexually. It is thought that many Priests who have
molested young boys did not have a purely sexual motive, but took comfort in
dominating young men to gain a sense of security and power, all the while
acting as a shepherd in the church.
What happens under the spell of a master manipulator is
people unknowingly submit their sense of security to somebody else. They
relinquish the responsibility God has given them to govern their own lives to a
powerful figure who says to them “look, just do what I say and you’ll be fine.”
What they don’t realize is the extremely insecure
manipulator is gaining security from controlling people, not from protecting
them. Being wounded himself, he only wants to surround himself by those who are
weak and who will not question him. He subconsciously considers this his layer
of armor. The manipulated masses are his protection against outside intruders.
Many people came to know Christ under the manipulative
pastors regime. And anytime he was questioned, he used his knowledge of
Scripture statistics about church growth and Christian conversions (though they
were greatly exaggerated) to bolster his case and run off accusers. Most people
were afraid to contend with him because they knew he would attack them ferociously.
The church, then, became a revolving door. More than half
the people who visited smelled him out and went away, and the pastor didn’t
mind this at all. He only wanted the submissive, those who would allow him,
using scripture, to guide and command every aspect of their lives. He even
posted the names of tithing and non-tithing members in the lobby. Those who
disagreed with him were written up as insubordinates to God in letters sent to
the entire congregation, humiliating them and running them off for good. He
even went as far as to threaten lawsuits.
And yet, as said previously, the church grew, filled with
submissive people. The more intuitive walked away rolling their eyes.
The pastor, of course, grew more and more controlling. He
told the congregation what they could and couldn’t read, what they could and
couldn’t watch on television, what they could and couldn’t see at the movies
and even who they could and couldn’t vote for.
Things grew very dark, however, one evening when the pastor
found out one of the elders he wanted to get rid of had visited a bar on the
edge of town. The man and his wife had gone on a double date with some friends
and went out to the bar to hear a band. Somebody informed the pastor and he had
the elder paged and told him to meet him at his office. What unfolded was
nothing short of a scolding and a witch hunt. The pastor embarrassed the elder
and belittled him and informed the church he’d asked for his resignation from
the elder board. The elder hadn’t so much as sipped a beer, but the pastor
wanted to get rid of him anyway.
Within a few weeks, the elder took a gun from his gun
cabinet, and took his life.
The pastor, of course, felt no remorse, blaming the event on
the elders secret life in which he visited bars.
Ultimately, the power-mongering was too much and too many
people began to leave. Manipulators, however, do not care to restore anything
and will gladly take the ship down with them. They need to feel their power,
whether that is to raise somebody up or tear them down. This pastor needed to
destroy the church before he left. He slowly fired every member of the staff,
then resigned to start a non—profit that mobilized Christians to take up
conservative political causes and fight the democrats.
Shortly after he left the church, the pastors own daughter
committed suicide in the bathroom their family home. He had one other child, a
college-bound freshman. To this day, his son will not speak to him, and the
pastor does not speak of his children. His wife is thought of as a kept woman.
The church, some twenty years later, has not recovered from
the destruction. There will never be restoration or reconciliation because the
manipulator will never repent.
Repentance, is, after all, an act of vulnerability.
Manipulators will not put themselves in a place of vulnerability for fear they
will once again be abused. They do not trust anybody. Instead, they demand
trust from everybody around them. Those who do not submit are considered
enemies.
The devastation from a manipulator goes beyond the loss of
life. Too many to count walked away from their faiths because of his tactics.
Manipulators are skillful movers of people, so we often see their many
accomplishments, but they are even more skilled at hiding the devastation
caused behind the scenes. Christian leaders who are manipulators bring people
to Christ at the expense of pushing many, many more people away.
Here’s how to smell out a manipulator in a religious
setting:
A Christian leader or Pastor who has manipulative will:
• Never be truly vulnerable. They will never tell stories
about their weaknesses. If they do, those stories will be about how they are
too strong, too devout and too many other things that are more or less humble
brags.
• Always have the true answer, and truth is truth because
they said it. The truth is the Bible is complex, but a manipulator knows they
can’t get you to submit if they don’t have ALL the answers. Certainly trained
pastors have answers, but nobody has all the answers. Manipulators do. They want
to tell you how to live.
• They make you jump through hoops. If you want to get
married, you must go through hours of classes so they can approve. If you want
to be a member, you must sign a contract or a statement of theological belief.
Now many wonderful churches do this sort of thing, but when there is a
manipulative leader, you’ll normally find an endless number of hurdles to jump
over. They want to test you, over and over, to make sure you’re being
submissive.
• They will never let you off the hook. A manipulative
leader can never, ever let you be fully free in Christ. There must always be
something wrong with you or else you will no longer need them and will no
longer have to submit.
If you’re in a church with a manipulative leader creating
the culture, I believe you should leave. The only way a manipulator stops
manipulating is when the manipulation stops working, and by staying, you’re
saying to the manipulator that it’s working. If you fight them, you’ll lose.
Written by Donald Miller
Donald Miller has been telling his story for more than a
decade, now he wants to help you tell yours. He’s helped over 1,000 companies
clarify their message through the StoryBrand Workshops. For an introduction to
what he’s doing now, check out the 5 Minute Marketing Makeover.He can be
reached through www.storylineblog.com
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