Must-Have Power

As David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen state in their book The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, leaders in an abusive religious system “spend a lot of time focused on their own authority and reminding others of it, as well.”[i] Those with true spiritual power walk their talk. Their life is their message. Cain’s life is a lie, a sham, a charade. He must spend all his time telling you how great and powerful he is to cover up the farce.

The control issues in my cainistic church grew stronger and increasingly more destructive over the years. For example, before a person could teach classes in this church, it was mandatory that they complete a two year program to become a licensed instructor. One day Cain boldly announced to all the teachers that starting immediately it was mandatory that they attend every Sunday service, and if their attendance was not in agreement with his new ruling, he would revoke their privilege to teach classes at the church. Everyone must come underneath Cain.

That was the day my friend, Pam (name has been changed to protect her privacy), walked out. Although she had been a member and a licensed instructor for decades, she dropped out of the church never to return.  She did not quibble or protest but prudently walked out of the mire of control and misuse. There would have been no advantage in talking to Cain about his decree because once he made a decision, there was no turning back. Furthermore, nobody questions Cain without paying for it, and he never forgets a dissenter. Even if Pam believed God called her to be a teacher, Cain determined the conditions of that calling. If the instructors taught classes at the church, then they must pay the price of listening to his sermons each and every Sunday.

Likewise, the staff at the cainistic church was overworked and underpaid due to his autocratic leadership. He demanded long hours without complaints. Both burnout and turnover were vast. When fiscal deficit hit the roof, we learned that the staff had received one 3 percent raise in 5 years while the cainistic minister had received a 10 percent raise every year. The monies were unquestionably appropriated to the minister first, and the staff was considered if there was money left over. He also made sure he had a contract, not a salary—all of which exposed his lack of empathy. There was no feeling for others, only for him.

As long as the church board did nothing to prevent this distortion and unfairness, he got away with it. There were nine board members that made business assessments and decisions with Cain. Where were they during all this staff abuse? Why did they blindly follow his dictates without daring to go against his decisions? In short, they complied to avoid being shamed. The shame Cain doled out was so vindictive and nasty at times, it was akin to an emotional crucifixion.

While I was there, the cainistic minister harassed and lost six worship assistants in seven years. One of his dirty little control tricks was to ask where his assistant was during the middle of a Sunday service as if he suddenly needed her to check the thermostat or get him a bottle of water because his throat was dry and he was having trouble speaking.

If she was not in the sanctuary at that moment he called out her name, she caught hell later. I suspected he usually did that after he had already watched her leave the room. He was that devious. Destructive, malignant Cains find enjoyment in seeing others suffer. They are extremely mean-spirited and diabolical, always looking for a reason to lord their power over an Enabler and punish her. After one of the assistants quit, she quietly told me that nothing was ever good enough for him. No matter how hard she tried, he always criticized something about her.

I watched him move from assistant to assistant, heaping spiteful mistreatment on his targets who had once believed in him like I had believed in him, but who turned into nothing more than his battered toys. He picked at their flaws and just before they smacked the proverbial wall, he withdrew the abuse, feigning that he didn’t know what he had done to upset them. They must be supersensitive, he decided. He was always so blameless, so innocent of any wrongdoing.

If he did not know his crime, then he could not be held responsible for it, could he? Like the story of Cain and Abel, even when God tried to show Cain his mistakes by letting the straw smolder rather that burn, Cain refused to admit he made a mistake. Instead, he made one last attempt to deny everything. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” he retorted to God. Heaven forbid that he should stand up and accept responsibility for killing Abel.

Hundreds of demoralized staff, speechless board members, disgruntled congregation and attendees fled when they caught on to the hypocrisy. I asked administration and board members, who were incessantly talking about “building the numbers” (which meant adding more members to the rolls) why they did not talk with the people who left to find out why they had left. It fell on deaf ears. When I left for almost a year, not one person ever contacted me to say they missed me or ask me why I had left the church. Cain knew why, and his administration and followers knew, too. As you might imagine, the numbers dwindled and the door was always swinging.

Volunteers were treated with the same perfunctory manner.  If the minister felt threatened by a volunteer, he would schedule a mandatory meetings at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning when a volunteer, who was lovingly and willingly giving free time, might have personal activities scheduled or want to sleep in. I once retorted, “You’d think we worked here the way they treat us.”  There are no such thing as personal boundaries when Cain abuses his authority; They are routinely ignored or trampled on.

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[i] Johnson, David, VanVonderen Jeff. The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse. Bethany House Publishers. MN 1991

Appearances Make the Man

Cain is always more interested in appearances than in truth. He is more concerned with how he looks than how he or anyone else feels. He must be right and will not give up until he convinces others to see things his way.

The minister’s wife repeatedly referred to their children as “her” children rather than “their” children. Foolishly, I verbalized this observation to someone at church. I learned later that this person with whom I shared my insight was not a trustworthy friend as I had initially thought, but a mole in the church who told the minister everything. Willing spies in the church gave him an edge on control and punishment.

I was in the church choir. Regular practices were Wednesday nights. Within days after my comment about “her” children verses “their” children, the musical director demanded a 9:00 a.m. compulsory, Saturday morning practice. It would have been hilarious had I not shown up, but being the people-pleasing Enabler that I was at that time, I arrived on Saturday morning as arranged.

About thirty minutes into the practice, the minister waltzed into the room with his young son. He announced to all of us that he was taking his boy to the national league baseball game, but first he wanted to stop by and see how the choir was doing. Presumably, this was all innocent, nonchalant and showed his interest in us and what the church was doing not on the fact that he was an egotist, focused on manipulation, control, and grooming his image and self-interest. As soon as he and his son left the building, the choir director announced that all the sopranos—of which I was one— could leave. My head was whirling. By then it was only 9:30 a.m.

I realized the cainistic minister had maneuvered and manipulated the compulsory choir practice to prove to me and all the choir members that he was, indeed, a loving, involved parent, and that the perception that his wife was the only concerned parent was 100 percent wrong. They were not “her” children but “their” children. Got it?

It did not matter to him that many people’s lives were disrupted that morning by his games. “Acting without feeling, they tend to be seductive and manipulative, striving for power and control,” points out Alexander Lowen, M.D., author of “Narcissism: Denial of the True Self.” What mattered that Saturday morning was that he controlled a positive perceptions of himself. The early morning practice also punished me for speaking the truth out loud. And I had better heed the warning or there might be more punishment ahead.

Cain is always offended if he is perceived as imperfect and will go to vast lengths to prove he is right and others are wrong. Appearances, much more than truth, are most important.

The Signs and Symptoms of Spiritual Abuse

While society recognizes physical and emotional abuse as evil, few consider spiritual abuse and the harm it can cause individuals. Cainistic ministers and their obligatory followers are not disturbed about the impact of their rejection on church attendees. In fact the leader in my church kept his supporters emotionally attached through his approval and disapproval. He claimed to know what the Holy Spirit was saying and was revered as the spiritual authority. One word or look of censure could propel a member into days or weeks of distressing anguish, depending on how long the cainistic leader decided to persecute and ostracize the nonconformist. It was really no different from the Amish custom of shunning except that the rejection was usually short-term, and it was the minister who decided when he would accept you into the fold again.

At first I was elated with my decision to join this church. It seemed like the sermons and classes were like a Christian therapy group, and I felt I was learning a great deal more than I had learned in years of psychotherapy. People at the church mentioned how I “glowed” and I was convinced I had never been happier.

The cainistic reverend represented himself as an ordinary, simple man, modest and vulnerable, obeying the desires of his parishioners. Most everyone found this aspect of his personality adorable. He used self-deprecating humor and told jokes on himself, and we laughed with him over his amiable blunders.

But shockingly this was all part of his cleverly disguised exploitation and manipulation. Sadly, within a year I began seeing disturbing inconsistencies and discrepancies that caused me to lose sleep. Regrettably, his endearing, folksy mannerisms were a facade, disguising his tumultuous need for supremacy.

He started to expect—no demand—special privileges and unfailing support of his opinions and ideas. Moreover, his control issues grew stronger and more destructive. For example, one day he boldly announced that it was mandatory for licensed Christian teachers within the church to attend church every Sunday, and if their attendance was not in agreement, he would revoke their privilege to teach classes at the church. That was the finish for one of my friends. Although she had been a member for decades, she stopped attending services altogether and never returned to the church.

Likewise, the staff at the cainistic church was overworked and underpaid due to his autocratic leadership. Both burnout and turnover were great. Years later when fiscal deficit hit the roof, we learned that the staff had received one 3% raise in 5 years while the cainistic minister had received a 10% raise every year. The monies were unquestionably appropriated to the minister first, and the staff was considered if there was any capital left over.

Volunteers were treated with the same perfunctory manner. At times mandatory meetings were scheduled at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday when an unpaid assistant might have personal activities scheduled or want to sleep in. I once retorted, “You’d think we worked here the way they treat us.” Personal boundaries were not only ignored but trampled on.

As I questioned the conflicting, dictatorial actions, innocently thinking I had a right to do so, I came face-to-face with the bewildering aspects of spiritual (cainistic) abuse within the church. The more I questioned, the harder those in power came down on me. Often I was shunned and ignored for a specific amount of time.

On the high end you will be massively disappointed in a Cain-led church. At the low end, some people have been so devastated by these inauthentic leaders and institutions, they have suffered mental breakdowns or committed suicide, for in this self-centered place of worship, money, faith, and hope is stolen from you. Some attendees never recover their sense of trust—in God or people—due to this deceit.

Remember Cain is self-serving rather than other-oriented. He satisfies his own needs at the expense of others. Yes, there are men of the cloth wearing sheep’s clothing, and it is demoralizing because it is the one place where honest, decent folks rely on truth and where ministers and their assistants should be held to a higher standard of genuineness and excellence. It is the one place where anyone should be able to go and trust they are not being deceived.

Cain Is A Thief

The cainistic church I attended was large. Subsequently, a widespread criticism was the lack of closeness among members; it was difficult to get to know people if all you did was show up for an hour a week on Sunday. One day a lay person developed a small group program with the hope of creating more intimacy among members in a large church. Keep in mind, Cains are not original thinkers. They pilfer others’ ideas and give little to no credit to the original source.

The church rewrote the program as much as necessary to dub it their own, launching it as a new, fresh church initiative. They involved the originator of the idea enough to give him credit for his proposal and keep him busy doing all the necessary record keeping and paperwork, but unquestionably not enough to make it possible for him to outshine the cainistic minister. The minister had launched the prayer program—which had gone national and put him on the map as a distinctive undertaking (even though that was a borrowed idea, too)—and now he was plagiarizing this small group idea to further his career status and reputation.

Like Abel’s blood, Cain’s need to feel superior cries out from the ground to be acknowledged. Like everything else, this small group enterprise had to be greater, more elaborate, than anything ever created. There were several weeks’ training for leaders and co-leaders with ongoing monthly meetings, monthly celebration meetings, and initially a quarterly meeting for all the groups to come together and celebrate each other.

I began as a co-leader with the lay leader who originally created the idea, but as I became aware that I would never be more than a leader in name only, I started my own group which focused on community outreach. For example, one time we spent an afternoon at a school, helping poverty-stricken children decorate for Thanksgiving. Their favorite activity was decorating sugar cookies to look like turkeys. Not only did the kids have a wonderful time, but the instructors appreciated us because they did not have the time for these kinds of atypical crafts.

However, one of our greatest achievements was when we filled forty-two gift boxes to send to U.S. soldiers, fighting in Iraq, stuffing them with everything from telephone cards to snacks, from writing paper to games, from beauty products to soap goods, from toothpaste to combs and brushes, and so much more.

Yet, from start to finish, it was an uphill battle with the church to get them to cooperate or collaborate with our efforts. In the biblical story God looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but Cain was upset when his brother did well. The cainistic minister was always upset if others skated into the limelight; he was not about to lend a hand to help me and my group succeed in our efforts. That was the only reasonable explanation for his obstinacy and the way he devalued and diminished our group.

First I sent an email asking if our group could use a room at the church to fill the gift boxes. I probably should have asked him if our group could rent the room for the afternoon as money was an idol in this church. The email was ignored. I waited several weeks, and then asked again. Next, I was told I had to fill out a requisition form asking for a room. Then I had to wait to see if it was approved. Cain’s operations manager let me know it sounded “iffy” based on whether there would be a room available on that particular Saturday afternoon. That seemed very strange indeed, as most all rooms were available on a Saturday unless the church was holding a special event, and since I had given the date, it seemed like he would know whether that was the case or not. Nothing moved forward in this church without the approval of Cain.

I waited some more and still heard nothing. I experienced this kind of treatment regularly. It seemed that those in authority would try to out wait me, hoping I would forget the request and move on. If the event or activity would not advance Cain in some way, it really held no value. But this I was persistent. I followed up a third time.

Finally, I was told that we could use a large room that was divided by an accordion-like door, but were not to open the divider. We were to remain on one side of the room only. There was no explanation as to why this was the case which was mysterious because when we showed up, there was no one else was using the other half of the room. Actually, it wasn’t really a surprise. I saw it as just more of his control issues, always micromanaging what he considered to be his church, especially when he was not the focal point. He was allowing us the room but only if we did exactly as he ordered.

I put out a notice to all the small group leaders, asking if their group would like to participate in the activity and/or make donations for the gift boxes. The response was fantastic, almost overwhelming. Many at the church were in high spirits about the operation and expressed how much they had always wanted this kind of activity at the church. Many asked if we could do more of it. Oh, more would be done but not with the credit or recognition of our group.

On the day we filled the boxes, we found that the room assigned to us was exceedingly small for the activity. People dropped off goods and items all afternoon, and we were cramped for space. When one group member heard that the cainistic minister had ordered us to use only half of the room for our venture, she marched to the middle of the room and without a word, slid open the divider, giving us double the space for our outreach project. We spread out and went to work.

My group members, including my hard-working co-leader, were there the entire time, filling boxes with merchandise and then packaging them as instructed for mail delivery to Iraq. Each box had to have triplicate forms addressed in a prescribed, accurate manner and attached to the boxes. We were exhausted but happy by the end of the day.

My co-leader, who was not privy to the self-absorbed underpinnings of the cainistic church, called me at home that evening, praising me for my skillful management of the project, stating that he was certain that when the church found out how successful the project was, they would want to air it on the local news. Of course, that did not happen because the cainistic minister was not at the center of it, and he was not about to give me and my group any confirmation. When Cain feels jealous, he diminishes and devalues the person or activity toward which he feels jealous. He must be the axis of attention at all time.

We had a dilemma, however. Who would pay for the postage to mail all those gift boxes to the U.S. soldiers? We spread the word and took up a donation. The church was non-responsive. Can you imagine this? An outreach activity for American soldiers fighting in Iraq, completed at the church, and it would not help in any way. No doubt, knowing the punitive attitude of the cainistic minister, he was thinking: you made your bed, now lie in it. We received some money from small group leaders but were short by a couple hundred dollars. Incredibly, my co-leader’s boss, who was of another religion and did not attend our church, heard about our circumstances and paid for the necessary postage. Someone outside the church contributed the funds to get the boxes to the soldiers.

The story doesn’t end there. Our gift boxes to the soldiers were not only totally ignored, but later the idea of performing community outreach was picked up and kicked off as a church event. At that juncture the church had only two organized, community volunteer missions. One was a large Christmas project for an adjacent school, and the other was a Super Bowl Sunday when congregants donated a can of soup or $1 to give to the needy. The latter occurred only because it was a passion of one of the minister’s former assistants, who no longer worked at the church or attended the church, but who came on that week-end with intent to carry out the Souper Bowl event. This included her getting possession of a truck to transport the canned goods. Other than those two projects, if someone volunteered at the church, it benefited the church only, not external agencies or the community.

After we successfully filled gift boxes for U.S. soldiers, and mailed them without any help whatsoever from the church other than allowing us to use the alleged “half” a room for the activity, the minister solicited a different small group leader—one who had gone to Europe on a church trip with him and his family—to head up an outreach program at the church. She worked with various community agencies to develop and supervise monthly volunteer activities, such as filling emergency food boxes (sounds familiar), serving food at shelters, and sorting and organizing clothing for homeless people. Most certainly, he received feedback from various church members—especially donors to our event—that outreach was a positive movement. Once again Cain was lifting an idea that had worked and using it to make himself and his church look good.

Believe me, it hurts to have ideas stolen from you and credit given to others for your resourcefulness and hard work. Yet, even though the cainistic minister was too miserly to acknowledge my group for the idea of community outreach, I was and still am grateful that community involvement continues yet today at the church even though the cainistic minister is long gone.

Similarly, one specific group leader was recognized each month at our monthly celebration meetings for their ingenuity in developing their small group. Our group was never recognized. The small groups collapsed when the cainistic minister was forced out.

Tithing –The Road to Prosperity or Not

There was a huge focus on tithing in the cainistic church. The implication—almost a perilous warning—was that somehow the worshiper would miss out on God’s blessing without tithing. The church criticized other churches that used guilt tactics to control their people, but this church was no different when it came to tithing, just more covert in the way that it subtlety used guilt.

All my efforts in helping to grow the church were ignored or minimized at best. I gave of my time, ushering two and sometimes three services each Sunday, plus other events. I loved greeting people and making them feel welcome. Repeatedly, attendees told me how they looked forward to seeing my smile each week and how good it made them feel. Many of them came to me and discussed problems. They thought I was a prayer partner, and I would have to let them know I was not.

My usher station was in the middle aisle up front. But then a couple with money wanted those upfront stations, suddenly all usher positions were scheduled by the minister’s secretary. One of the volunteers jingled change in his pocket and said, “Anything can be bought.” That’s when I realized that he had bought the minster so he and his wife could have the usher positions upfront. I left the church for almost a year over that issue, and not one person at the church ever reached out to find out why I was not attending. And I had joined the church. I was a member.

What was clear much later was that my life in that church was no different than the life I had left behind. Again, my only role was to adore, appreciate and applaud cainistic individuals. I was to smile and never contradict him or stand up to him. Once again I was to become invisible, to make no waves so Cain could be happy. Anyone he enticed into the fold embellished his image, leadership and the appearance of a thriving ministry. Like all the others, I was a cardboard cut-out, an object to give him what he wanted—attention and the appearance of success. When I stopped providing cainistic supply, I had no further use. That is the way of all Cains.

This cainistic minister held a condescending attitude toward the laity, giving much more attention and admiration to celebrities who spoke at the church or to leaders outside of the church. This is because celebrities and leaders boosted both his ego and his image. Successful people possessed coattails on which he could ride to success. They made him look special, at least in his eyes.

Even though there was constant pressure on the attendees to tithe, the church, itself, never had any money. I raised a fuss once when the choir director made it mandatory that we buy a 3-ring notebook to hold our music (which we had to return as they usually rented it) because the church couldn’t afford to buy the notebooks. I was a volunteer, showing up faithfully every week for two hours of practice and sometimes more than that to sing in the choir. And the church–a tithing ministry– could not provide a notebook for its choir members? Excuse me?

Steven Lamberts in his book “Charasmatic Capitvation”, explains these kinds of financial practices in a cainistic church. He writes:

“Sadly, most never see past the spiritual smoke and mirrors to realize that the so-called “church” to which they have sworn allegiance and promised their wholehearted and unflagging support, is nothing more than the personal “business” of its leaders, and not only are they free labor, but they actually pay out of their own resources for the privilege of being a participant, i.e., member.”

Everything had to be top drawer and purchased. The Christmas party was not your routine church party with a potluck on the church grounds. Oh, no, that was too ordinary. It was held at a hotel where couples paid $60 for tickets and wore formal attire. When I left the church for a year and was telling those at the new church about the elaborate Christmas parties, one woman said with astonishment, “That’s a church?” Of course, this eliminated many of the congregation from participating in the church parties.

The minister was fond of saying that you could look into your checkbook and see a deficit but that was not the truth. The truth was, you were a child of God and could draw prosperity to you because God wanted you to be prosperous. Whenever he gave sermons on tithing, his familiar phrases included “You can’t out give God” and “What you sow, you reap.”

There was an implication that you could only be blessed according to the amount of your tithes. Whenever I spoke out against this, saying no one needed to buy God’s love as he blessed everyone by faith, followers would get angry with me. This created too much cognitive dissonance. It was less painful to blame me than to look at the faults of a man in whom they had erroneously put all their faith.

The focus was always on the idea that prosperity equaled money, not other things, such as love, health and other blessings. Because the minister was obsessed to show his followers that he was rich and his life was better than he ever imagined because he was living the spiritual life, he drove an expensive car, dressed impeccably, and traveled the world over, often accompanied by his wife and children. They traveled to such places as Greece, Africa, England, Italy, France, Spain, Florida, New York, Cancun and more.

By time they returned from one trip, they had the next one planned and would boldly announce it during the first Sunday they returned. Only a handful of people in the church could afford to go on long, extravagant trips that frequently, so the minister and his church were catering to a select few, mostly the more wealthy followers. Of course, his absences meant that those who could not afford to travel went without his services. But the congregation continued to tithe.

Without a doubt, cainistic individuals, including Cains in the pulpit, hold a prestige-oriented view toward money and they use it to boost their ego.

One Dimensional Realtionship

Cain loves favors and special treatment from others but cannot reciprocate.

Cain expects people to fawn over him, providing all the attention and admiration he wants, but the relationship is one dimensional. When I was thinking of obtaining my Masters Degree in Spiritual Psychology at the University of Santa Monica, I asked the cainistic minister if he would write a letter of recommendation for me. He would not come through. He told me to write the letter, and he would sign it.

I had faithfully ushered two-to-three services a week for years at the church plus worked at most special events, sang in the choir, took part in the ministry’s visioning team, both attended and taught numerous spiritual classes at the church, led two different small groups, and showered him with praise regarding his sermons…Yet, he could not reciprocate in kind by writing one letter of recommendation for me.

Cain in the Pulpit

A Cain in church “is likely to taunt and torment his followers, heckle and chastise them, humiliate and berate them, abuse them spiritually, or even sexually,” explains a self-proclaimed Cain and author Sam Vakin in his book “Malignant Self Love.”

He goes on to write that parishioners are nothing more than “obedient and unquestioning slaves upon whom to exercise his capricious and wicked mastery. He preys on the gullible. His flock become his hostages.”

A counterfeit church is one in which the religious leader or leaders are fanatical about issuing authoritarian orders rather than serving God.

All Strength, No Weakness

In a cainistic church, the inadequacies, weaknesses, faults, and failings of the leader are diminished or ignored while his strengths are puffed up to the point of worship and adoration. At the church I attended, much of the congregation worshiped the cainistic minister more than they worshiped God. They believed he possessed more insight and spiritual acumen than any other leader they knew.

People were adamant that he, and he alone (forgetting the truth and power of spiritual principles), “saved their lives” or pulled them from despair, depression or suicide. I think the truth lies more in the fact that Enablers, who are drawn to a cainistic church, are often vulnerable, people-pleasers looking for someone confident and strong to solve their problems, failing to believe in their own authority, and the power and grace of God.

Likewise, the staff is extremely dependent on him and seems unable to pull it together when he is absent. Everyone struggles to consider what he would say, think or do, which usually includes lay members or associate pastors, reminiscing about his stories or anecdotes, or re-telling his witticisms, teachings and explanations. Everything is all about him all the time even when he is vacationing in another state or country.

The cainistic personality is so cunning, it takes time—often months or years—to realize that he is haughty, in desperate need of adulation and idolatry, and that his ministry has very little to do with humility or grace. I should have left long before I did, but no one should ever feel like a fool for being bamboozled and deceived by Cain. He is a master player who has spent a lifetime, honing his false personality to get exactly what he wants at any given moment. I can only imagine how exhausting his life must be.

What eventually happens is that the religious community in a cainistic church serves the minister rather than the minister serving his congregation. He expects that his followers will hold the same high opinion of him that he holds of himself. In his mind he is a celebrity and demands to be treated like one. He is never to be criticized or rebuffed in any way. As long as attendees maintain that belief, all runs smoothly.

Simultaneously, he is an expert at evading responsibility and will never admit failure. If by chance one of his failures is uncovered, he quickly blames it on others. When Cain is caught, he attacks. His verbal assaults can be so brutal and unexpected, that his followers hastily unite to massage his precarious ego, subdue his rage, put a lid on the punishment he doles out and, in general, try to keep him appeased, contented and calm.

The church is no longer about serving the people, but about keeping the minister happy to avoid being his exploited, brow-beaten enemy. It is a house of worship, but the attendees are ultimately worshiping a person, not God. They walk on eggshells to keep the peace.

Audio Post

Cult-Like Obsession in a Cainistic Church

“When you meet the friendliest people you have ever known, who introduce you to the most loving group of people you’ve ever encountered, and you find the leader to be the most inspired, caring, compassionate and understanding person you’ve ever met, and then you learn that the cause of the group is something you never dared hope could be accomplished, and all of this sounds too good to be true it probably is too good to be true! Don’t give up your education, your hopes and ambitions, to follow a rainbow.”

The late Jeannie Mills wrote the above in her book, “Six Years with God” (A&W Publishers: New York, 1979) after she left the infamous cult “The Peoples’ Temple” in South America where more than 900 people took their lives under the direction of cult leader Rev. Jim Jones.

When I read her quote, I shivered. I could have written a similar quote to describe my initial experience in a cainistic church. At first you are “love-bombed.” This practice is a deliberate show of affection, attention and friendship by an individual or group with the purpose to recruit, lure and influence you. It will seem like the most joyous place on earth. No where else have you experienced this kind of love from total strangers.

Rich Damiani in his paper, “Spiritual Abuse within the Church: its Damage and Recovery Process” shares that he was involved in a cult-like church for 19 years, climbing the ladder to leadership before he realized he had been deceived. He refers to it as a “cult of legalism and man-centeredness.”

The question is, how do people like Damiani and me allow ourselves to be deceived and follow blindly? How do cainistic leaders cultivate and maintain this level of abusive power for years or decades? How do the followers in a cainistic church often become co-abusers with Cain and the other leaders? Why don’t people see through the deceit?

The boiling frog story is one explanation. If a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it fails to perceive the danger and will cook to death. At first the practices in a cainistic church feel comforting, almost euphoric. But like the frog, the abuse happens slowly over time so the attendees fail to recognize the abuse. They actually become one with it. That is, until something drastic happens that shocks them or awakens them into seeing the deceit and destruction.

Another reason, points out Damani, is the lust for power in these cainistic, cult-like churches. Blend that with pride, insecurity and an obsessive need to control and a cultist church begins to surface.

When we think of cults, we think of groups that do not claim a Biblical foundation, such as, “The Peoples Temple” with Jim Jones, “Heaven’s Gate” with Marshall Applewhite or the “David Koresh Compound”. I remember how angry my cainistic minister became when someone suggested our Bible-based church was a cult. He was livid and spoke of it with anger from the pulpit, denying it’s truth.

But cults are identified by the use of mind control to recruit and retain their members not on whether they follow the Bible. Christian churches can be cult-obsessed merely by who leads it. Or it can cease to be cult-like if the cainistic leader leaves. According to Damiani, cult-like churches and groups possess the following 6 characteristics:

• 1. An over-emphatic and blind allegiance to a person. That characteristic was so prevalent in my church, that followers actually referred to the church as the minister’s church rather than their own church. He called all the shots and people asked “How high?” when he said “Jump.”

Over 900 people in “The People’s Temple” drank poison because one person—Rev. Jim Jones—told them to.

• 2. Thought Reform otherwise known as “Brainwashing” & “Coercive Persuasion.” Thought reform, explains Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D. is the consistent deployment of psychological and social influence in an organized way within a managed environment. In short, it’s the frog story. Your attitudes and behavior are changed incrementally one step at a time according to a specific plan by those leading the church or group.Science supports “thought reform” as unhealthy.

  The Diagnostics and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) published by the American Psychiatric Association cites “thought reform” as a contributing factor to “Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified” (a diagnosis frequently given to former cult members).

Abel, in the biblical story of Cain and Abel, was very concerned that his sacrifice be special to God. He didn’t question the request. He gave his prized possession because it was important to him to do what God had asked. That’s what Enablers do in a cainistic church. Foolishly, they give their best because Cain asks for it. Likewise, they are easily influenced by “thought reform” and do what they’ve been subtly programmed to do.

Of course, any one of them will tell you that’s not true, that they alone make their own decisions. But speaking from experience, I can assure you that people in a cainistic church are so caught up in pleasing Cain and being part of a group that feels like a family, they are oblivious to all the ways they are being masterminded to do what Cain wants of them.

• 3. A boundless dependency on the leader or leaders of the group. Obedience to the leader is like obedience to God. Enraptured by Cain’s charismatic personality and caught up in the high energy needs of the group, you defend your allegiance to the church and leaders if anyone dares to speak negatively about it.
• 4. The church has all the answers. The group’s truth is the only way and everything else is dispensable. Whenever a cainistic administrator from my church visited another church, for example, if they went on vacation, they would come back and tell us “They don’t have what we have here.” We were bombarded with the idea that we had the market on truth. For that matter, on everything. All other groups and churches were inferior. A cult-like church is an arrogant place to be. If something doesn’t fit with the principles, the baby is tossed out with the bath water to make it appear that the church has all the answers.
• 5. Fear of leaving the group. Cain decides who emotionally lives and dies within the church. If you break the unspoken rules, you will be emotionally assassinated and shunned by the members. Shame is the ruling force that keeps you in line. The church often prompted us to share very personal information in classes and groups. If you leave, what you told in confidence will be broken. You’re afraid if you leave, your reputation will be smeared or obliterated. Fear usually keeps people in a cainistic, cult-obsessed church or group. “Almost no language is too strong and no amount of anger too great in condemning those who dare to question the group or leave,” points out Damiani.
• 6. Legalism is the way of the church. According to Merriam-Webster online Dictionary, legalism is defined as: strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law , or to a religious or moral code which restricts free choice.This means there is an over-emphasis on discipline of conduct which takes precedence over the Grace of God. Instead, the emphasis is on performance. You are barraged with sermons about giving of your tithes, time, services and gifts.

  In my cainistic church, we were told that we would be blessed tenfold when we gave. The more you tithed or gave, the more you were blessed. A favorite line was, “You can’t outgive God.” All of which left attendees feeling that they would not be blessed unless they tithed and performed. Or if they didn’t believe that fully, they suffered anxiety about its possibility. Could it be true? Will God not bless me? You can never rest in God and feel content that God loves you just because you exist. You must always prove your worth. As Rev. Richard L. Dowhower, writes in Recovery From Cults, (W.W. Norton and Company), “Cults view money as an end or as a means toward achieving power or the selfish goals of the leader.”

  And, of course if you break the laws, punishment will follow. The biblical Cain was punished for his disobedience. The modern-day cainistic leader, like the Old Testament God, is only to eager to sit with a big stick, waiting to hit you if you mess up. Legalism, points out Damiani, “is one of the clearest and the most damaging aspects of a cultic Christian group.” Sooner or later your emotions will be pulverized in this kind of unhealthy setting,

  Damani suffered through 3 years of deep depression, nine months of them suicidal after leaving his cult-like church. His family went through various stages of recovery and blackness. He writes: “My entire world collapsed and I was emotionally ruined. Even now, flashbacks of that time are deeply distressing. In one sense one never fully recovers for there is a part of our lives that can never be recaptured.”

  And sadly, because cult-obsessed groups are controlled by cainistic leaders who lack empathy, your emotional pain means absolutely nothing to them. They absolutely have no feeling about it unless you confront them about their lack of emotion and then they show anger as a way to threaten, control and manipulate you to drop the subject.

  But healing and hope can return. Remember, those legalistic laws are not God’s laws. They were created and dispersed to control you by a power-hungry leadership with an insatiable appetite for greed and authority. Now, you must find a church that is very different from your old cainistic church. One that does not require you to perform but believes that God loves you just as you are. You can once again find a church or group that brings joy and peace into your life. Remember, scripture tells us that God’s work is to be accomplished “not by might nor by power but by my Spirit” (Zech. 4:6).

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