Guest Post: Facing Your Spiritual Abuser

Cindy, at the Under Much Grace blog has so kindly allowed us to re-post this article, entitled:

Facing Your Spiritual Abuser: Index of Posts About the Star Chamber and the Hot Seat

As we have seen in many of the stories here ( Kip's , for example), this is very much a reality.  Please stop over at Cindy's blog...but I must warn you...there is so much good information that you will need to have time on your hands!  Very educational.

For those that have answered A Call for Reconciliation, please take notes!

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Sometimes, members of a high demand group or a spiritually abusive church are called in to sessions of confrontation with their group leadership, pastors, and elders in order to intimidate them and to secure their compliance with group demands. And quite often, when people discover problems with manipulation, doctrine, or exploitation within their spiritually abusive church, they feel responsible to inform their leadership. Many people seek out their leaders to inform their leaders that they are leaving their group, just as a courtesy, to find personal closure, and sometimes, to hopefully make their spiritual abuser aware of the hurtful if not harmful nature of their actions – a personal courtesy to them.

Because of the authoritarian nature of spiritually abusive groups and the dynamics by which the leaders perpetuate control and coercion of the followers, group leaders generally react to this type of confrontation in very predictable ways. Such a system demands compliance with a certain set of dynamics, one of which demands complete perfection of the group, the way it does things, and the decisions made by the leaders. The group defines ultimate truth, so the group leadership speaks on God's behalf. The system demands complete devotion and compliance, requiring unquestioned obedience and complete submission to authority to any of their superiors on their chain of command. Because these dynamics demand that the follower assume fault at all costs, for the purposes of discussion, we have named the sessions of confrontation the “Star Chamber.”

Manipulative groups also make use of shame sessions that demand that the follower confess their faults to the group and the leadership. Deeply personal information elucidated in the “star chamber” can generally be extracted from group members because of the threatening nature of the confrontation sessions, what some high demand groups have formally called “the Hot Seat.”

If you're planning to confront a church leader that you suspect might be spiritually abusive, you will find this series of blog posts quite helpful. If you have advanced knowledge of the nature of a meeting to which you've been summoned, or if you are planning to confront manipulative church leaders, please take advantage of this information in advance. If you are recovering from this aspect of spiritual abuse which often proves to be quite difficult because of the moral questions that arise, you will likely find this information helpful to you as you work through the anger, grief, recovery, moving through your experience into triumph.

The many posts on the subject have been categorized to make them easier to navigate.

Thought Conversion During Confrontations

With a Manipulative Leader

(What is the Church Star Chamber and the Hot Seat?)

• When Persecution Comes and Thought Conversion Results (How the confrontation process can get you to change your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors)
•  When You're Summoned to the Church Star Chamber (Intimidating meetings with many church leaders, usually conducted under the guise of “the Matthew 18 process” as a discipline session)
• Thought Conversion on the Hot Seat (A process of interrogation that generally takes place during “star chamber” confrontation meetings with manipulative leadership – a formal practice in many high demand groups and religions)
• The Violence of Thought Conversion: Wrapped in Gentleness and in Cruelty (Sometimes the process of conversion through confrontation appears to be gentle and benign, though the group demands relinquishing of personal will, history, and ethics in order to meet the demands of the group)

Considerations and Protective Measures to Take

When You Encounter a Hot Seat / Star Chamber Meeting

• What Do You Risk When You Go to a Meeting? (Biderman's Chart of Coercion used as a model to identify and anticipate tactics used to manipulate and intimidate – limited discussion of Sovereign Grace Ministries/Mahaney and Mars Hill Church/Driscoll)
• If You Choose to Go to Star Chamber Confrontations with Ministers, At Least Be Knowledgeable About Abuse (The bare minimum of information to review about thedynamics of thought conversion and abusers when you've willingly chosen confrontation instead of walking away: links to summaries and blog entries)
• Practical Considerations for the Confrontation of a Pastor with Spiritually Abusive Tendencies (Ideas about how you can protect yourself and limit the damage)
  
  
  
  

  Questions About the

  
  

  Hot Seat / Star Chamber Experience

  
  

  • Do I Really See Spiritual Abuse All Around Me?
  • Does My Pastor Deliberately Use Thought Reform?
  • Does Someone Teach Thought Reform To Pastors Under the Guise of Good Christian Practice?
  • Don't Church Leaders Realize Just How Abusive They Really Are?
  • Working for a Religious Group or a Secular Employer Who Uses Manipulative Tactics.

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  Cynthia Mullen Kunsman is a nurse (RN, BSN), naturopath (ND) and seminary graduate (MMin) with a wide variety of training and over 20 years of clinical experience. She has used her training in Complementary and Alternative Medicine as a lecturer and liaison to professional scientific and medical groups, in both academic and traditional clinical healthcare settings. She also completed additional studies in the field of thought reform, including the study of hypnotherapy for both chronic pain management as well as its efficacy in the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that is often associated with cultic group involvement. Her nursing experience ranges from intensive care, the training of critical care nurses, hospice care, case management and quality management, though she currently limits her practice to forensic medical record review and evaluation. Most of her professional efforts concern the study of manipulative and coercive evangelical Christian groups, the recovery process from thought reform, and PTSD associated with such involvement.

Kip's Story

My wife and I were faithful members of Mars Hill Church including active in Community Group, Service Ministries, special events, etc.  We were attending an ever increasing CG that would discuss often its need to split.  My CG leader then approached me about considering becoming a leader.  He informed me that I was already considered a ‘leader’ of sorts within the group.  My wife and I prayed and sought wisdom in launching a group of our own.  After lots of prayer and consideration we decided to answer the call for more leaders.  I attended a few training sessions, completed some course material and lead a few CG sessions.

Then it came time for my pastoral interview.  I met my CG leader and a campus pastor early one morning before work at a local coffee shop.  Pastor X’s first question was, “How is the training going so far?”  I proceeded to tell him things were going okay.  I went onto say that I was very humbled by the opportunity to lead a community group but that in some ways I felt inexperienced and under-prepared.  The pastor stopped me and started grilling me on why I felt that way.  He then informed me that I was “not living up to my true potential and everything God has called me to be.”  He went on “do you truly believe God calls people?” “I do” I said.  “Well then you’re not living up to all that God has called you to be.”  “Hmmm,” I thought, okay I imagine that’s true.  The more I answered his questions, the more ammunition it seemed to provide him and the more he would grill me.  I noticed he didn’t really have an agenda or any questions he was reading from and that his only agenda was to confront and attack any ‘sinfulness’ he sensed from my responses.  At one point he stopped and said “I hope you don’t feel like I’m attacking you… because we do this to all of our leaders.”  After an hour or more, the ‘interview’ was over and I had to leave for work.  I left feeling confused and unsure of what had happened.  My wife called to ask how it went, but I could only reply “I don’t know.”  To this day, it is the strangest interview I have ever been to inside or outside the church.  

That Sunday I asked my CG leader how things went.  He would tell me that the pastor has some “concerns” about me and “why” I want to be a CG leader.  He suspected I was doing it simply to ‘please’ man.  I was thoroughly confused but then was reminded back to a conversation I had had with my CG leader months prior about trying not to please others.  I decided to go home and send an email to the pastor asking for further clarification since I was not doing this to please MH.  I also expressed a few concerns about how the interview was conducted.  Because of this experience and other observations, I suspected MH believed in order to build men up, they must bully them and break them down.  His reply came that he had perhaps misrepresented himself and that he wasn’t simply trying to “sin-hunt.”   He asked if we could meet again to get on the same page – which I agreed to.  A day later he says he needs to involve some more pastors for greater accountability.  At this point I decided that perhaps getting further involved wasn’t the right move.  When I tried to rescind my name from the training process and decline to meet further – I was accused of ‘running’ from community and my leaders who were trying to love me.

So to prove that we weren’t running, we agreed to meet.  When we arrived a little early to our meeting, Pastor X got frantic and explained that it wasn’t possible until all parties were available.  This was getting more bizarre and we began feeling more intimidated by all of this.  What had I done?  Hadn’t I just pointed out some concerns about their ‘training’ process?  Wasn’t this an ‘open-handed’ issue?   I knew they would probably disagree with my concerns but at least we could shake hands and agree to disagree.  We were brought to their downstairs offices where we sat nervously making chit chat with our CG leader.  Finally the door opens and both pastors usher us into this tiny office with 2 couches facing each other.  The door locks behind us where we find ourselves in a room with black walls and a sword hanging above the couch opposite us.  Pastor X sat back and let the new Pastor Y do all the talking.  He quickly looked over my email and then sized us up by questioning us about attendance, serving, CG participation, etc.  He then asked me what the issue was at which point I did my best to explain what problems I sensed with the training process.  I expressed my concern about building leaders up by breaking them down and that it wasn’t good or healthy for us as a church.  He looked at me and said “Then how would you do it?”  After my concerns were quickly dismissed, the real purpose for the meeting could get underway.   Pastor Y stopped for a second, looked at me intently and said “God is telling me that your real issue is pride.  You have a pride problem that you need to deal with.   You came in here with your fists up ready to fight didn’t you?  Well you now have a chance to respond either in pride or humility – what’s it going to be?”  He must have sensed that I was feeling intimidated, but with 2 pastors and my CG leader staring me down and grilling  – I guess you could say I felt a little defensive.   My CG leader chimed in with a laundry list of items where I had “failed” him both in the training process and outside of.   Pastor Y repeated the question “will you respond in pride or humility?”  Pastor X on the other side yelling “What’s Jesus saying! What’s Jesus saying!”  I started to feel like I was suffocating or like a giant weight was crushing me.   I finally broke.  The tears start running and at once my wife and I and everyone else in the room was relieved that I had admitted my sin.  We were convinced that my concerns were irrelevant because I was prideful…  Everyone patted themselves on the back and we prayed together.   But from the moment we left, I felt sick to my stomach like something wrong had just happened.   What happened there was anything but kind or loving.  To be sure, it was the scariest most divisive most manipulative experience I have ever been through.  It was more of an interrogation than anything.  But to answer their question: “yes” I am prideful and at times need repentance from it and will my whole life.  But does that negate my concerns about their training process?  Or perhaps these things really weren’t open-handed...

Later that week my CG leader calls trying to follow-up with an offer to provide assistance in repenting from my pride.   When I declined his help, it only prompted more calls, emails and text messages.  Things started to get even more awkward and uncomfortable at church.  We decided to stay on the outskirts, find a new community group etc.  They went as far as saying that I needed help in my repentance.  Never mind the ministry and work of the Holy Spirit or verses like Philippians 1:6.  What did they want from me?  I imagined the only thing that would satisfy them was to lie before them and recant.  We couldn’t believe what was happening.  We started to suspect that the Lord may be leading us away from MH.   But we didn’t want to accept it since all of our friends and some of our family attended here.  This was our home.  I demanded they stop harassing me, but it only persisted.  Eventually I received an email from Pastor X entitled “Your Unrepentant Heart” in which he would inform me that I was being placed under church discipline.  Pastor X even went so far as to tell me that even if I left and went to a new church it would follow me as “church discipline is binding in heaven.”   By this point friends were avoiding and deserting us.  We knew it was time to leave. 

I could write much more about the painful trial that ensued but I prefer to make much more about how God faithfully protected and provided for us.  Some days it’s still raw and I have to pray for the Lord's help in not growing bitter.  Two years later we still receive disdainful glances from MH members who either know we left or find out we used to attend.  I’m sure the pastors felt they were doing us a service, but they did so at the cost of abuse.  I would later find out that what we went through is considered by some to be spiritual abuse.

Former MHC Leader on the "Call to Reconciliation"

I was in leadership at MHC but am no longer a member as a result of some other-worldly interactions and meetings with elders & pastors.  

I have many more thoughts, but here are a few. My response to the latest “Call for Reconciliation” was similar to yours in that it felt misleading.  It seems the church’s responses are consistently evasive or misleading, or both.  In one of the first responses, they made it seem that the pastors involved in Andrew’s Church Discipline situation were fired as a result.  This was untrue (which I confirmed by way of the exact timing with Andrew) and I’m glad that the church has clarified this.  Similarly, it feels deceitful when they give numbers about a small percentage of cases that are actually in Church Discipline.  As you mention in your post, there are many of these conversations that occur on an ongoing basis.  Many people who are wiser or more mature choose to remove themselves before they officially get to the status of church discipline.

When I read the statements about MHC’s Theology of Church Discipline I am struck with four thoughts:

1.      Theology and Praxis are two entirely different things.  While their doctrine may be mostly on track, the application of their doctrine is questionable, if not blatantly abusive in some cases.

2.      The level of detail given to determining “true repentance” in their literature is disturbing.  I’ve researched other mainstream church discipline policies and nowhere else do I find this level of a pastoral discretion in determining true repentance on areas that are grey in Scripture.  Clearly, there are ways to determine true repentance in sin areas that are black and white in Scripture.

3.      If we were to apply MHC’s standard of true conviction, confession and repentance to MHC itself, would the church would be under Church Discipline?  And who would administer this discipline?

4.      Any thoughts on why many of these statements that come from the church never come from a particular person?  It seems like one of them initially was authored by a lower level staff but they currently are all authored by “Mars Hill”.  I don’t mean to be cynical, but it seems convenient that the church leadership can call out individuals when they disagree but hide behind the organization of the church when it comes to responsibility and giving a response.  Does the idea of conviction, confession, repentance, restitution & reconciliation get extinguished because we are dealing with the church as an organization and not each instance with each leader/elder/pastor?

My experience from conversations with multiple MHC pastors is that their theology on submitting to your church leaders is the following.  If a leader in this church tells you to do something that is not specifically prohibited by scripture, then you have a responsibility to do it.  In most churches, if a leader tells you (or asks you) to do something, you have a responsibility to obey if it is a black and white issue in Scripture.  At Mars Hill Church, you are considered in rebellion to authority if you don’t obey a church leader’s request, even if that request is a matter of conscience and something you may have resolved alternatively through prayer and counsel.

Judged

Sad but true in so many lives.  We can do better.

Kevin Potts' Story

 I left in 2008 from Mars Hill Church. Their culture of abuse is frightening in its implications. Everything said on your blog [the Wartburg Watch], on Matthew Paul Turner's site, and on the Stranger is alarmingly accurate: the members are not encouraged to stand up to the leadership when it's acting with wrong motivations or wrong actions, they are told to remain quiet and to trust the leadership. There is no body to hold the leadership accountable to, and the church's authority structure is such that the only people to go to if you have an issue with one or more of its pastors is, unsurprisingly, another pastor. I can't imagine this being an environment, for anyone who takes a few moments to consider its implications, where anyone would feel safe expressing concerns about the leadership, let alone about Mark Driscoll.


For myself, my story is perhaps one of their earlier examples. At the time, I had been a member for nearly 8 years, having started at Mars Hill in 2000 and becoming a member just two months later with a much less rigorous membership process (which amounted to a quick 2-hour lesson from Driscoll on church leadership's structure, an indication of what being a member meant, handing out membership covenants to those attending, and letting us decide on our own if we wanted to become members). I had been having misgivings about the growth of the church and the increasing separation between the leadership and the congregation, but had largely kept this to myself.

Driscoll, in 2008, was preparing a sermon series entitled "Ask Anything", the intent being to set up a website where questions could be posted and voted on, with the top 5 questions (those that received the most votes) being the ones that Mark would build his preaching series on. Anonymous comments were allowed due to the software that was being used, and people used this to start bringing up questions about the firing of Paul Petry and probation of Bent Meyer that they felt they couldn't ask in the church itself, since they had been directly instructed by (then) pastor X, in an open letter to the members via the password-protected members' website (The City hadn't yet come into being, though it was close at the time), to remain quiet on the issue while the leadership worked to produce a unified document explaining their actions.

I made one comment on this site under the pseudonym of Kel, and had no further comments published. At the time, one person was using the title of "Concerned" in the comments, and was raising a bit more of a stink, though with some thoughtful and probing questions.

Around this time, I decided to transition away from the main Ballard campus over to the then-titled Wedgwood Campus, as it was geographically closer to where I lived (the campus became the Lake City Campus, which is now closed; its staff were largely absorbed into the Shoreline campus). I was serving as a stage manager in the morning for the Ballard campus, and had an exit interview with the head of the production department, XX. In this exit interview, a discussion of my discomfort with how the Petry/Meyer issue had been handled arose. I made a statement of "I have no interest in causing division. It would be easy to do so with how well connected I am in the church, but I have no interest in doing so."

This was communicated to senior leadership as "Kevin Potts indicated he's going to cause division in the church."

Shortly after that, I received an e-mail from the Pastor of Technology (and creator of The City). He asked me point-blank if I was "Concerned", the poster raising issues on the Ask Anything site. I indicated to him directly that I wasn't. A couple of days later he responded and indicated he thought I was, in fact, "Concerned", as that individual was making statements that echoed my exit interview with XX, as well as a statement I had made on the members' site in response to one member indicating it would be a shame if the leadership had to start tracking IP addresses between member posts and the anonymous comments on Ask Anything in order to figure out who were random posters and who were disgruntled members hiding behind pseudonyms. I indicated this wasn't a course that was wise to take, as there were people upset with the leadership, and such an action wouldn't engender the trust the leadership needed to get Mars Hill through the trying situation at the time.

This, according to Pastor of Tech, was me displaying an "unhealthy distrust for the leadership" at Mars Hill (eerily echoing the accusations levied against Paul Petry and Bent Meyer), and it was indicated that my membership was being put on suspension pending a meeting, as three elders had apparently concluded I was "in sin" (without ever having spoken to me first to hear my side of the story).

After much prayer and consideration, I chose to conclude my membership at Mars Hill Church. I sent an e-mail to XXX, as well as the then-head pastor of the campus I was transferring to. No "discipline contracts" were offered to me, as I don't think they'd have thought of something like that at the time. Some momentary communiques occurred between me and Pastor Q (who is now a Mars Hill pastor at their Albuquerque campus in New Mexico) shortly after both the Stranger and the Seattle Times had gotten ahold of me, as my name was on a list someone had circulated to those papers as people of interest to speak with regarding the truth, as we understood it, behind Paul and Bent's dismissals.

When I had spoken with Jonah Spangenthal-Lee from the Stranger, and Janet Tu from the Seattle Times, I had indicated in both instances that I didn't want my name used in their articles. I was still, at the time, living in a house owned by Mark Driscoll in Montlake, and didn't want my living situation jeopardized, as I didn't trust Mark or his assistant to do the right thing in light of this. In both discussions with the reporters, I only confirmed what they already knew, referring them to Mars Hill Church and Bent Meyer and Paul Petry for further discussion. Q eventually called me to find out if I was, in fact, the person who had spoken with the Stranger and the Seattle Times (and I doubt I was the only one who had), and I confirmed it for him, at which point he proceeded to lay a guilt trip on me, indicating I needed to go to the church and ask the forgiveness of the people I had harmed in talking with The Stranger (who he was sure to note to me "was no friend of Mars Hill, and no friend of Christ") and the Seattle Times.

Keep in mind I was already no longer a member at Mars Hill at this time, and yet he thought that he could still control me to the point of having me apologize to people I was no longer involved with in an attempt to repent of sin that it seemed he was the only one accusing me of, he and those he represented.

At a later point, Molly Worthen from the New York Times Sunday Magazine spoke with me. At that point all ties with Mars Hill were severed for me, and I would have suffered no ill consequences for speaking with her. I gave her my full permission to use my name in her article, which can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11punk-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=4 Curiously, she chose not to use my name, though on the 4th page of the article in the link I gave you, I'm the member she referenced in the third paragraph, the member who "complained on an online message board and instantly found his membership privileges suspended".

I was able to get out before they implemented the kind of behavior that Andrew is now experiencing. I'm horrified to hear he's experiencing it. Feel free to use my name and my story here (though you may want to remove the pastors' names, as I have no ability to authorize their use) in a blog post if it would be remotely helpful to anyone else who's going through the horrors of attempting to separate from Mars Hill Church.

Our Story

Here is are easy links to our story:

Sophia's Story

UnReformed's Story

Redirected to Jesus...Step in the Right Direction?

I have to confess, it is very easy to get on a witch hunt with Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill.  I am guilty of losing focus on helping others like me and focusing too much on Mark's every move and then criticizing it.  My original intention in starting this blog was to create a safe haven for people who have been hurt by Mars Hill.  It was to collect all the stories in one place, so that someone who is questioning what they are experiencing can easily locate them.  It is my hope to help people, not harm people, and that includes Mark Driscoll and my former campus pastors and elders. 

It is important to tell our stories, and I hope that by telling how the authoritarian structure and gender gospel at Mars Hill has hurt me, and is hurting others, both those with stories and those involved in the stories will be helped.  I would LOVE for Mars Hill to repent, change the way the church is "governed", and seek to apologize to those who have been hurt.  I have many people (though they no longer speak to me) who are still there and who I care about very much.

Yesterday, I was posting a comment on a blog and attempted to re-link to the doctrinal statement that I referenced in my story.  To my surprise, the page redirected here:

http://marshill.com/about/a-word-on-our-doctrinal-statement

and here:

http://marshill.com/pages/jesus

Does this mean that the concerns are being heard?  One of the main concerns I had was the following statement from the doctrinal statement:

"We also believe that particular spiritual gift(s) are neither essential, nor prove the presence of the Holy Spirit, nor are an indication of deep spiritual experience (1 Corinthians 12:7, 11, 13; Ephesians 4:7–8). We believe that God does hear and answer the prayer of faith, in accordance with His own will, for the sick and afflicted (John 15:7; 1 John 5:14, 15). We believe that it is the privilege and responsibility of every believer to minister according to the gift(s) and grace of God that is given to him"

This concerned me because it basically says, “just because you think you are being led by the Holy Spirit doesn’t mean you actually are”. It is my greatest hope that they are reevaluating the doctrinal statement.  Being redirected to JESUS is awesome.