The ideal of behaviourism is to eliminate coercion: to apply controls by changing the environment in such a way as to reinforce the kind of behaviour that benefits everyone.
B. F. Skinner
1 Corinthians 2: And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
The Power Dynamics of Language
I’ve forgotten most of the exam questions I’ve ever faced except for one, and it goes all the way back to when I lived in Scotland and first studied theology in preparation for ministry. One of my subjects was the Philosophy of Religion, and the exam was on the Philosophy of Religious Language. The final question in the exam was:
“Last night I dreamed that God spoke to me.” “Last night God spoke to me in a dream.” Discuss.
Before you read any further take a moment to consider your immediate response.
Now that you’ve done that, the short answer for me is that the first statement was possibly made by an evangelical, and the second by a Pentecostal. Evangelicals are more inclined to consider that God may possibly have spoken through a dream, whereas someone more on the Pentecostal end of the theological spectrum would be more inclined to declare with certainty that God spoke to them through a dream. The difference is theological but also in the use of religious language.
Power Dynamics
A more significant examination of the words should revolve around power dynamics. If you confidently declare that God spoke to you in a dream, you assume a position of power and leverage, because you are in possession of a direct revelation from God. It would take a brave person to suggest that God may not have spoken and that it was just a dream. To disagree is in effect to take up a position against God, not you.
Consider that the person who had the dream is a pastor or Christian leader and the dream revelation was about the church needing to commit to a $5 million building project, a radical new departure from the norm for that particular church community, or a specific (and possibly surprising) direction for someone’s life.
I’ll never forget the day a visiting preacher who quite fancied himself as a prophet approached my wife after the conclusion of a service whilst he was walking around the room delivering post-service on-the-spot prophecies and pronounced with great certainty that my wife’s barrenness would be healed! She had to eventually excuse herself from the encounter letting the person know that she needed to pick her kids up from the crèche.
Establishing the perception amongst others that you have proximity to God is the life hack to getting your own way, or more accurately, being able to exercise coercive control over others. This in essence is spiritual abuse. That is a strong term, but we see its prevalence in the church time and time again.
Casual Coercion
A coercive culture hardly ever starts out with blatant power plays and leverage. It’s a bracket creep exercise which starts with small micro-coercions, such as the ubiquitous practise that pastors have adopted requiring people to “turn to the person next to you and [fill in required words, actions or behaviours that are ordered]”. Pastors know that this isn’t appreciated by a fair percentage of the congregation, but this practice persists.
It’s an insensitive and coercive practice, and provides a small insight into the normalisation of coercive behaviour in the church. Like the frog in a kettle cliché, we have over generations become accustomed to extraordinary levels of coercion that goes unchallenged in the church. The last thing we want to be seen as is rude, or going against the grain, so we grin and bear it.
Scripture certainly provides a basis for Christians saying things to one another, Ephesians 5:19: “speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.” The apostles commanded us to even greet one another with a kiss!: (Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26; or “kiss of love,” 1 Peter 5:14).
Long story, which I won’t go into but the cultural context of the ‘kissing’ of that day compared to contemporary times differs greatly depending on what culture you are located in. In short, I’m not arguing that we don’t interact with one another, rather, the nature of how we interact.
I’m quite comfortable with engaging in liturgical expressions with complete strangers such as the Anglican (and others) saying of the ‘peace’ to one another. It’s a well recognised liturgical tradition that requires no self-disclosure. However, don’t force me to go and greet random people in an act of false and coerced ‘friendship’. Please don’t ask me to say something inane during your sermon such as “turn the person next to you and say “you’re beautiful!”, or anything you think is a bright idea that you want to force others to do or participate in.
Please recognise that your congregation may consist of people who suffer from anxiety, trauma, or a range of mental health conditions for whom this micro-coercion is a big deal. Asking people to turn to the person next to them and pray presupposes that they are: comfortable with that; are believers who believe in prayer; and not suffering from any mental health condition that makes that request very uncomfortable.
When you order people to do or say something involuntarily, you are coercing them. You are getting people to say or do what you want to, as opposed to them having agency in the transaction. They can decline to respond in the manner you require, but that results in an awkwardness and embarrassment. Many participate simply because it would look bad if they didn’t. Consensus terrorism takes over and the sheep duly obey, except for objectionable types like myself. I’m done with coercion in the church and I’m done with being forced to say and do things involuntarily.
Spiritual Abuse
Spiritual abuse is the higher level of coercive behaviour found in the church and religious movements. This extends beyond the level where you simply are forcing your will upon people, and graduates to claiming the will of God upon your revelations, ideas, requests, and decisions.
Scot McKnight, summarising the definition of spiritual abuse created by Lisa Oakley and Justin Humphrey’s in their important study of spiritual abuse called Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse: Creating healthy Christian cultures [2] writes:
“Spiritual abuse can have a deeply damaging impact on those who experience it. This abuse may include: manipulation and exploitation, enforced accountability, censorship of decision-making, requirements for secrecy and silence, coercion to conform, [inability to ask questions]control through the use of sacred texts or teaching, requirement of obedience to the abuser, the suggestion that the abuser has a ‘divine’ position, isolation as a means of punishment, and superiority and elitism.” [1]
To my mind spiritual abuse tries to achieve some important outcomes:
- A perception that they are co-located with God. This gives power to their ideas, words, and wishes (commands).
- The ability to get people to do whatever you want them to, because they believe you are co-located with God. The ability to get your own way.
- The ability to bypass the usual processes of convincing people with logic, wisdom, or theology. “God told me”.
- The ability to claim the imprimatur of God upon your ideas, opinions or wishes.
- The ability to be untouchable “don’t touch God’s anointed!”
Spiritual Abuse Methodologies – The God-man
A few years ago I witnessed a new pastor arriving at a church and assiduously building a perception of co-location with God. In his very first sermon, he told a wonderful story of God’s work in his life over the last 20 years and how this will be the blueprint of what he teaches the church. Normally the blueprint would be scripture, but I guess the work of God in his life was a new and powerful enough revelation to replace the usual basis of teaching.
He also pointed to a ‘new move of God’ where the church will do things they’ve never done before, going deeper in their walk with God, including raising the dead. Code for “all your previous pastors were deadbeats, watch me light this place up people!”
A few weeks later in an aside during a sermon, he claimed that he had given “over 10000 confirmed words of knowledge” during his ministry. Apart from questions surrounding how on earth you could possibly document and verify 10000 words of knowledge, and why, the key question is why you would say that, other than pure spiritual abuse. He was positioning himself as a Shaman, a God-man, someone co-located with God.
A few weeks later in a sermon, he said that if you are in a church service and the Holy Spirit is ‘doing things’ and you step back to think about what is going on, God can no longer speak to you because you are using your mind. The rationale given was that God is Spirit and therefore he communicates with us through our spirit, and if we try to process or analyse it with our minds, God can longer speak to us. The subtext of course is ‘don’t question anything’.
A few weeks later he announced at the start of a service that he had a revelation for 3 people about their futures. He hadn’t consulted with them before, so they found out what their new life would be like at the same time as everyone else. The people concerned were obviously shocked and embarrassed. The whole thing seemed done to build on the growing picture of the God-man and lacking in pastoral sensitivity.
It all ended within 2 years with the church damaged beyond repair, and recriminations all round. His supporters blamed stiff-necked people for the debacle, whilst others blamed his modus operandi. Either way, it’s hard to see God glorified when churches implode.
Spiritual Abuse Methodologies – Secret Knowledge
One of my most memorable encounters with the ‘secret knowledge’ approach was when I received a request from a parishioner to come and see me. Once the small talk was over, the real reason for the visit was revealed. The parishioner had been shown some secret knowledge about myself, that I couldn’t see, but had been revealed to them. The secret knowledge was prefaced with a water tight non-get out clause; namely, that I had no way of knowing this myself and therefore any denials would be pointless. I needed to accept what was said at face value.
This parishioner also claimed to have such a close relationship with God that they conversed every day, audibly. They claimed to have daily audible conversations in the same manner that we do with other people. This burnished their credentials to deliver the secret knowledge even further. It is a matter of great regret that they haven’t ever thought of recording these daily conversations with God on video for the benefit of the rest of us. Can you imagine how the TikTok channel would blow up if we were able to film such a phenomenon on a daily basis?
The ‘secret’ knowledge was just a grab bag of claims about unresolved anger, etc that I didn’t relate to at all. I did the usual Baptist pastor thing and thanked my abuser for caring enough to come and insult and spiritually abuse me, and carried on with my day, as you do.
I’ve given up counting how many Christian leaders I’ve heard during my 40 years in the faith claiming to have secret knowledge of a ‘third wave of revival’. This particular button is an effective one to push with Baptists and Pentecostals alike. We are hard wired to be excited about revival, for all the good reasons.
Sadly, nobody in the prophetic world was able to tell us about Covid, one of the single most global events to happen in my lifetime. When the time came to show some genuine secret knowledge all those people who ‘walk in the prophetic’ where missing in action.
Spiritual Abuse Methodologies – The God Short-cut
A technique I’ve found in Baptist leadership circles often is the good old “Well brother, this is just how the Lord is leading.” I’ve had that pulled on me a few times when seeking to question decisions from senior leaders that seem bizarre and require too much confusing spin to explain. After a few exchanges, you hear the inevitable words. They are expressed with great sincerity and spirituality, but are still a blunt force instrument.
It’s easier to take the God short cut than explain the inexplicable. When you take this option any difference of opinion can be shut down by introducing the God leverage – to continue challenging the person on their decisions is to challenge God. Few people will be brave enough to call people out on it.
The Bases of Power
Social psychologists John French and Betram Raven studies power and in 1959 developed a framework to understand social power. They identified those five bases of power as coercive, reward, legitimate, referent, and expert [3]. A sixth separate and distinct base of power: informational power, was added by Raven in 1965. This framework has stood the test of time and is still used commonly to understand the nature of power is exercised. It’s worth considering this framework when it comes to the church.
The reality of the church is that power is exercised all the time. There is no getting away from that. Sometimes it exercised responsibly and appropriately and other times not. As the people of God, we need to examine how we exercise power to ensure that we don’t use power wrongly. Church history is littered with examples of when the church has developed and used power in a manner that is antithetical to our biblical values.
Although ‘coercive’ power is only one of six bases that French and Raven outlined, all power used wrongly is coercion in my book. As you read through this list, try and apply it to your church context.
Coercive power
This comes from the belief that a person can punish others for noncompliance. Leaders in all realms can exercise this power and is related to position and power to punish. For example, a good friend of mine, acting in my best interest, encouraged me to delete my blog because I was ‘marking my papers’. This is code for upsetting the power people. This power is common in denominational circles, where getting on the wrong side of the power clique can lead to negative consequences.
Reward Power
This results from one person’s ability to compensate others for compliance. Pastors and Christian leaders can lean on this form of power heavily. Reward may come in the form of being included in the inner circle. Failure to please the leader may lead to being frozen out or ignored. Denominational leaders are very good at this form of power.
Denominational structures are pyramids of potential patronage, where hundreds of thousands, if not millions are dispensed through salaries and other financial benefits.
Within the ministry side of the denomination alone there are plenty of jobs, and when you take into consideration the associated entities such as aged care the dollar amount concerned runs into many millions. All this money means power. This power can be exercised honourably, or it can be used to cultivate a culture of compliance.
This power leverage has a big downside for leaders – it insulates them from criticism of their decisions. The end result is an emperor with no clothes; a distasteful outcome in ecclesiastical circles if there ever was one.
Legitimate Power
This comes from the belief that a person has the formal right to make demands, and to expect others to be compliant and obedient. The ubiquitous acquiescence to the ‘turn-to-the-person-next-to-you’ coercion stems from this social contract. For many of course it doesn’t, and they are more motivated by fear of being seen as being seperate from the group.
The natural respect accorded to pastors by parishioners leads to a fair degree of latitude, which can be used well, or misused to increase the capacity for coercion.
Expert Power
This is based on a person’s high level of knowledge and skill. Respect and the resulting power flow naturally from this strength. This is where I naturally give leaders a fair degree of latitude to have a big say in my life. I respect competency and I am happy to serve under honourable and competent leaders.
Referent Power
This is the result of a person’s perceived attractiveness, worthiness and respect. This is where the cool people hang out. We watched this happening all through our schooling and in many other spheres of life. Referent power may not be indexed to particular skills or content, it’s all in the perception of how people rate their likeability. Telegenic people have an advantage with this kind of power, our society affords beautiful people an extraordinary position of importance.
Informational Power
This flows from a person’s ability to control information that others need to accomplish something, or to have the ‘keys’ to getting things done. I employed a manager for one of my businesses and tried to develop a manual for any staff to be able fulfil their most important managerial tasks in order that they could enjoy time off without any phone calls requesting information.
It became a struggle as the manager didn’t want to lose their position of informational power. I won in the end, because I had the ultimate power -I was the owner and paid his salary. Bit by bit I extracted procedures out of him in order to create an easy-to-follow manual that other staff could use with ease. The manager felt threatened by his leverage being diluted.
Summary
The Apostle Paul had choices to make about how he used power. He was a man on a mission, to spread the message of the Gospel to many different people. He summarised his preferred method in his letter to the Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 2: And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
Ultimately, the primary power we need to hunger for in the church isn’t one derived from the naturally occurring phenomena of power structures, or power derived from spiritual leverage but rather the power of God, exercised to achieve God’s aims and not our particular personal goals.
As for the micro-coercions you experience in church, if you don’t feel comfortable with them, don’t feel obliged to participate. Feel free to make your concerns known to your pastors as well. Use it as a learning opportunity for them to understand the full width and breadth of the human condition in their church. Help them understand the consequences of what they sometimes think is fun for people who feel like getting swallowed up by the ground.
For pastors who can’t help themselves, at least add a preface to your attempts at coercion that allows people a way out, such as “If you feel comfortable, turn the person next to you…”
References
[2] Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse: Creating healthy Christian cultures
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