Spiritual Abuse: False Unity

by Ron Henzel

The false appeal to "unity" that is invoked by spiritual abusers is technically an example of Manipulation, but it is such an important and universal technique among them that it deserves its own separate treatment.
    Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) is noted for saying that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." Likewise, "unity" is both the first and last refuge of a spiritual abuser. It is a cloak he uses to cover the many ways in which he silences dissent and suffocates any possibility of true spiritual growth among his flock.
    Every totalitarian régime makes "unity" the hallmark of its rhetoric and the cornerstone of its power. Hitler did. Mussolini did. So did Stalin and Mao. Castro still does (as of this writing). And so do spiritual abusers. Unity is their velvet-gloved fist. It is a remarkably effective way of appearing pure, wholesome and righteous, while inflicting evil on people.
    I'll never forget the reaction I had to a particular episode of the TV program Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Two of the main characters in the TV series had discovered a stranded colony of humans on a far-away planet, and soon they ended up stranded with them. They learned that this colony had been totally cut-off from all outside contact for several years, and was being led by a woman who held to a back-to-nature, no-technology belief system. It was just sheer "coincidence" that being stranded on this planet gave this woman the opportunity to test her theory that people are better off just living on what nature provided, apart from the advances of modern science -- or was it? Eventually the two main characters of the program began questioning the controlling influence of this woman's ideology. Matters came to a head when they tried to help a very sick young girl with some modern medicine, instead of trusting in a "natural cure." Some of the members of this stranded colony were also beginning to question their leader's judgment and side with the newcomers, who seemed to be making more sense in this situation. Just when it seemed the woman was losing control over the people, she appealed to their unity. Look what the negative influence these outsiders have had on our unity, she pointed out! And then she reminded them that it had been their unity that had been so important to their survival. She soon had a firm grasp on the situation, and the group was back in her corner.
    Watching this extremely well-written scene gave me an intense feeling of déjà vu, and I knew exactly why. These actors were re-living a page right out of my own spiritually abusive group. One night some of our members began questioning our leader's harsh, capricious tactics -- especially his accusatory spirit. Just when it seemed as though he was about to lose the entire group, he said, "What I'm more concerned about is what this is doing to our unity! Look at what's happened to you people in just a short space of time! Is this all it takes to turn the people in this group against each other?" While the people who were raising the issues did not buy into this reasoning, and eventually left the group, the rest of us were distracted enough by it that it sidetracked us, and we never did get around to resolving the original questions.
    And this is the purpose that the "unity theme" serves in abusive groups: it distracts the group from the issue at hand through a false appeal to a "higher value," i.e., the value of unity.

The shallow appeal to unity is a common ploy of abusive groups. It often works, however, because no one wants to be accused of bringing disunity in the church. We all long for unity in the body of Christ. Even the angels long for it. But as Gene Edwards says, "Beware of the leader bearing an inordinate dose of unity." Abusive leaders often appeal for unity in order to protect themselves from critical examination. A survivor of an abusive group put it this way: "I am tired. Tired of being bullied and seeing others bullied and persecuted all in the name of unity. I'm tired of representing an organization that has such frail faith in itself that it can tolerate no dissension in its ranks, not one bit of constructive criticism of the policies forced upon Christians by a dictatorial group of men."

Any call to unity must be examined critically. Is it true Christian unity or unchristian uniformity that is being called for? Real unity is mutual submission which is freely and voluntarily given moment by moment. It is never coerced. If unity is defined as everyone agreeing with the leader on every issue, we have the uniformity of a dictatorship, not the unity of everyone submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. If the unity called for includes keeping quiet about deep-felt concerns, it is not true Christian unity and we need not submit to it. [Ken Blue, Healing Spiritual Abuse, pp. 75-76. Emphasis mine.]

    The theme of "unity" is the tool-of-choice among spiritual abusers when it comes time to consolidate their power over their groups. It is one of the most effective means of distracting both the opposition, and their potential audience.
    This means that in actuality, what the spiritual abuser is promoting as "unity" is actually a kind of spiritual drug designed to soothe his own insecurities. He is afraid of losing people, so he rallies them around "unity."
    Spiritual abuse is a great "bait-and-switch" game. In this case, the abuser baits people with unity, and when they're not paying attention he switches to uniformity. Spiritual abusers have all sorts of Bible verses they like to quote, always out-of-context, and always with their own unique twist. One of their favorites is the King James (Authorized) translation of 1 Corinthians 1:10:

Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment. (1 Cor. 1:10, KJV)

On the surface, and considered apart from its context, this verse sounds as though Paul taught that Christians should agree on every little detail, not only of the Christians faith, but of everything else as well! But if this were the case, then Paul would be flatly contradicting what he said elsewhere about Christians tolerating differences of opinion on "disputable matters" (Rom. 14:1-6, NIV; KJV has "doubtful matters; NASB has "opinions"). Paul acknowledged that there are such things as matters of opinion in various areas of the Christian faith, and that no one should try to enforce his own opinions in these areas on his fellow Christians -- even if it means that on the surface we are not all alike, and seem to disagree! Different believers would practice the faith differently, even doing things that some other believers would find "sinful," such as eating certain kinds of meat, and not observing "holy days." If this is the case, then Paul could hardly be demanding complete uniformity between all believers on all matters in 1 Corinthians 1:10 -- and yet, in practice, that's how spiritual abusers use this text.
It is also interesting that spiritual abusers will always quote the King James translation 1 Corinthians 1:10. This is because that translation of this verse furthers the confusion of modern readers in two ways:

It renders the phrase with stilted literalism; "speak the same thing" simply means "agree" (as in the NIV and NASB). This definitely does not mean that we should parrot each other's words, and yet that's how it sounds to modern readers, and spiritual abusers take advantage of that.
It makes it seem as though "speak the same thing" is something in addition to "that there be no divisions among you," when in fact they were probably two aspects of the same thing: in other words, Paul was teaching a level of agreement that would avoid division, not necessarily absolute agreement.

On the home page of one spiritual abuser (with whom the author is all too familiar), the leader quotes only 1 Corinthians 1:10 in the KJV, and all the other verses in modern translations -- each translation carefully selected for maximum effect in "proving" his point. This is a willful misuse of Scripture.
Ultimately the matter is settled when we consider the context, because Paul makes his meaning clear as he goes on. As it is with the cults, spiritual abusers create confusion by taking verses out of context. You can usually discover the trick they are pulling when you read the surrounding verses. In this case, since Paul starts a new thought in verse 10, we can simply read what follows that verse:

I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? (1 Corinthians 1:10-13, NIV, emphasis mine.)

Reading this context in the NIV helps us in two ways:

The NIV properly renders "that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you," rather than "and that there be no divisions among you," bringing out the true meaning of verse 10; and
The phrase, "What I mean is this" (v. 12, NIV; NASB: "Now I mean this;" KJV: "Now this I say") highlights the fact that Paul is not pushing uniformity on his readers, but addressing another problem that spiritual abusers coincidentally have: the sin of Elitism. (Could this be another reason why spiritual abusers do not want us to read the context?)

Paul is not commanding uniformity. He is rebuking sinful, elitist factionalism.
    True unity between believers does not require agreement on "every jot and tittle." It is something that God provides through His Holy Spirit, and it is a healthy thing. It exists independently of our efforts. While we can damage the attitude of unity that we subjectively experience, there is no way that we can destroy the actual unity that God has created. Understanding this will make us feel secure. Unity is not something we have to worry will slip through our fingers, evaporate in the wind, or blow away like sand. It can survive disagreements on church practices. It is stronger than doctrinal differences. We will never lose it.
    But the false "unity" of Spiritual Abuse is not a healthy thing. The leader may claim that he does not require absolute agreement -- until you disagree on some finer point with him! The demand for absolutely uniform opinions and practices reflects a spirit of judgmentalism (see Rom. 14). It is based on the leader's insecurity, and it is served up in that spirit. He needs to keep his followers feeling as insecure about "unity" as he is. And since it is a counterfeit of true unity, it is spiritually worthless, and so the leader needs more and more of it to be satisfied. Unlike true unity, this "unity" is subject to "the law of diminishing returns." The more he gets, the more he wants.
    Suddenly, it is not enough to have "unity." Now the leader must have "transparency," and ever-deepening levels of "intimacy." After a while, the spiritually abusive leader starts pushing his group into forms of "sharing" and "confessing" and protracted times of meeting together that they never imagined, and which are not taught in the Bible. Sometimes physical touching of one sort or another becomes involved.
    This leads to something that catches most members of spiritually abusive groups off-guard, because their leaders are so expert at the gradual art of manipulation: false unity is one of two areas in a spiritually abusive group where the leadership's preoccupation with sex, or sexual themes, usually appears. (The other area is Coercive Confession.) The leader is not really interested in Biblical unity, but in some form of personal gratification. And the forms that such gratification can take have at times been truly bizarre:

"Connections" and "intimate dancing" [at Community Chapel] nearly caused Robin to have a mental breakdown. Instituted between 1983 and 1985, the "dancing before the Lord" evolved into a teaching with specific rules that encouraged members to find a "connection," or dance partner. Soon partners were instructed to stare into one another's eyes, eventually known as "connecting." Partners were told they would see Jesus in each other's eyes, and that they were to love their spiritual connection in order to express the love of Jesus. During the week, both in church and outside the church, members were encouraged to spend time with their spiritual connections in a kind of quasi-dating relationship. As might naturally be expected, physical intimacy often accompanied these "spiritual" connections. "Connection love" was supposedly more intense, and even more desirable, than marital love.

Robin graphically describes what it was like at church during sessions of intimate dancing. "Picture your typical forty-year-old wife who's out of shape and has six kids. There she is watching her husband dancing with this little twenty-year-old perfect beauty--long blonde hair, big bust, little waist--in his arms, gazing at her for hours. And meanwhile the wife is going insane." Spouses were taught that they had to "release their mates unto the Lord" if they experienced feelings of jealousy. At the same time, Pastor Barnett made clear from the pulpit, they were not to be viewed with the eyes of the "flesh." "What's happening is they're having spiritual union," said the pastor. "It just looks the same on the outside, but what's really occuring is spiritual, so don't judge them or their motives."

God, it was said, was using the connections to break down the barriers and inhibitions within the congregation in order to bring about greater "unity within the body." ...

Those considered most spiritual were invited to dance in the front of the church with Barnett. All his connections were described as "beautiful, well-endowed, and young." ... [Ronald M. Enroth, Churches That Abuse, pp. 42-43. Emphasis mine.]

(Notice the gradual way that this teaching "evolved." Spiritual abusers realize that they must slowly adjust their members to the outrageous demands they make upon them, or risk losing them in large numbers. If Barnett had suddenly introduced this teaching near the beginning of his "ministry," how many would have stayed? Instead, he waited until he had some level of confidence in the degree of his control over the group. But then, this actually falls under the topic of Manipulation.)
The Bible makes it clear that one of the signs of a false teacher is sexual sin (2 Tim 3:6-8; 2 Pet. 2:14-18; Jude 4,16). Since Spiritual Abuse is a form of false teaching, it should not surprise us that sexual aberrations are commonplace in spiritually abusive settings. While these aberrations may not express themselves in physical sexual acts, they will at least involve some form of fixation on sexual topics, or practices which cause sexual confusion in the group (as described above). Jude 16 shows us that we can expect to find this as one of the accompanying features of the other characteristics of Spiritual Abuse:

These men are grumblers and faultfinders

[Denunciation of Outsiders/Legalism]

; they follow their own evil desires

[literally "lusts;" hence False Unity, see v.12]

; they boast about themselves

[Elitism]

and flatter others for their own advantage

[Manipulation]

. (Jude 16, NIV)

    The characteristics of Spiritual Abuse never travel alone when real Spiritual Abuse is taking place. While some spiritually abusive groups may not manifest all the characteristics of Spiritual Abuse, they all manifest more than one -- usually several. And the ones listed by Jude in verse 16 of his epistle all have a common effect when they are allowed free rein in a group: they tend to isolate the members around the leader. This isolation is discussed in greater detail in the context of Elitism, but a word about it is appropriate here.
    When people belong to groups that are supposed to be Christian, and yet engage in questionable sexual practices -- even if those practices do not result in actual sex -- it has the net effect of isolating them from the outside world. The members of the group know they are different, they know they are engaged in practices which are considered very strange for Christians (to say the least), and they realize that neither the world nor the church will understand them. This is what the leadership wants, because the more isolated the group is, the easier it is to control.
    Preoccupation with sex does not always manifest itself as licentiousness, however. Sometimes it takes precisely the opposite form: asceticism. Asceticism technically falls under the heading of Legalism, but it also involves an inappropriate fixation on sex, and it is also promoted as a means of preserving "unity." Where licentiousness either flirts with sexual immorality or openly flaunts it, asceticism denies or severely controls even appropriate sexual expression within marriage.
    Some groups are extremely double-minded in this area. The one I belonged to for 5-1/2 years was one of them. Our leader vascillated between satisfying his voyeuristic appetites by inquiring into the marital intimacies of members, and then other times he placed heavy restrictions on the sex lives of those same married couples. This pendulum-swing between inappropriate openness and inappropriate strictness kept us forever off-balance, in a near-constant state of emotional disruption, and again, easier to control. And all of this was done in the name of "unity."
    But our spiritually abusive group never provided true unity for us. Our leader never fulfilled his promise. Since our group also manifested the other characteristics of Spiritual Abuse (Authoritarianism, Excessive Discipline, Spiritual Intimidation, etc.), we always walked on eggshells around the leader, and we always knew that at any given time either he or any other member of the group could level any accusation he or she pleased against us (in the spirit of "openness," "unity," "Christian love," and "concern for our souls," of course).
    When people could no longer take the harsh treatment, and would leave, where was the unity then? Wouldn't a group with true unity visibly mourn the departure of someone they had shared true unity with? We didn't. I never once saw a tear of sadness fall. I heard anger from the leader, because one more had escaped, and could now tell outsiders what was really going on in our group. I heard symapathy for the leader on the part of the group members. But no sadness over the loss. The leader actually warned people who left not to try to contact those who remained. Why not? Because it would spoil our "unity." So those who left often experienced the worst isolation of their lives!
    If you have left a group like this, and you are wondering why you feel so alone, and so spiritually disoriented, this is probably a major reason why. I wish I could say that recovery from this is simply a matter of re-adjusting your thinking. That isn't always the case, however. Renewing your mind according to the Scriptures is important, and I don't want to minimize that. But wounds have been inflicted on your soul in the name of "unity" that time alone may heal. You need to give yourself that time.

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