Dear Friends,
In the mid-90's our Watchman Fellowship Profile on Spiritual Abuse was published. After that I began to get calls for help from many people and places. As time went by, I met with or advised a number of individuals or groups whom I call dissidents, to educate them on abuse dynamics and put them on a path toward spiritual recovery.
I’d been dealing with high control groups in other ways for many years, but seeing believers turn from confusion and fear to hope and excitement in situations like this has become the most fulfilling aspect of my ministry.
The First Call
The initial call came from a couple involved in a group here in Georgia. Let’s call them the xyz group.
The wife described a spiritual leader who was a controlling type personality who showed no mercy, forbearance, or grace. He would doggedly pursue any perceived disloyalty, questioning of leadership, or lack of attendance. He even pursued her husband to his job site to confront him about some disobedience.
I asked the caller if there were others experiencing the same sort of control. She said, “Yes, there are lots of people who have left over similar things.” Later she indicated a couple dozen people were interested in meeting with me.
How should this meeting be conducted?
It occurred to me that because the xyz group in question was essentially orthodox in its doctrine I might create the impression that Watchman Fellowship, a ministry to cults, was now going after Christian groups that, for some reason, we didn’t like. That perception, though totally wrong, could close doors to our wider ministry. So, the question I faced was how to deal with the abusive spiritual control of people without being perceived as “working against” an otherwise Christian group.
It is extremely important when ministering to those who have been spiritually abused to understand their mental and emotional condition.
Continued in Part 2 …
October 7, 2022 E-Letter
Website: www.watchman-ga.org
Email: dhenkewatchman@gmail.com (If you would like to receive David’s current e-letters, request them here.)
Addendum by Make Sure Ministries
A religious group can be considered a cult, a high-demand, authoritarian religion, based on one or both of two overarching attributes:
Seriously aberrant or even heretical doctrine which sets it apart from the orthodox, historical belief system it purports to represent. (This can be within Christianity, Judaism, Islam etc.)
Sociological/psychological contol and abuse
Most groups, but not all, meet both criteria.