David Kowalksi: “I have spent hundreds of hours over the past several years conversing with “emerging Christians” as I have listened to them and tried to convince them of their need to embrace true, biblical faith and historical orthodoxy.

As a result of this experience I have learned that despite the diversity in the emergent movement there is a behavioral culture to the emerging church movement as a whole and I have learned to adapt my communication strategies for most effectively interacting with its participants. “
» Full Entry

Timeline covering the birth through the latest arrest, Sep. 2008, of Tony Alamo.
» Full Entry

While mainstream evangelical churches have always encouraged a life of holiness before the Lord and urged moderation in dress and other aspects of life-style, authoritarian churches demonstrate an excessive focus on such concerns. The restricted life-style and limits on personal freedom that follow are just other examples of the need to control that all abusive churches exemplify.

If life-style rigidity is a characteristic of most abusive churches, the role of subjective experience is equally crucial in understanding how such groups drift toward religious marginality.
» Full Entry

The spiritual elitism of abusive churches can be seen in some of the terminology they use to refer to themselves:

“God’s Green Berets,” “God’s End-Time Army,” the “faithful remnant,” the special “move of God.” As one ex-member put it, “We believed we were on the cutting edge of what God was doing in the world. I looked down on people who left our movement; they didn’t have what it took. They were not faithful to their commitment. When everyone else got with God’s program, they would be involved in shepherding just like we were.”

A former member of a group known as The Assembly (headquartered in Fullerton, California, and discussed later in this book) said, “Although we didn’t come right out and ’say it, in our innermost hearts we really felt that there was no place in the world like our assembly. We thought the rest of Christianity was out to lunch.”
» Full Entry

Traditional evangelical churches value and respect individual differences. For the most part, they encourage people to become unique persons in their own right, not mere photocopies of someone else.

Authoritarian, manipulative fringe groups, on the other hand, encourage clones and promote cookie-cutter life-styles.

Flavil Yeakley, in his book The Discipling Dilemma, suggests that such groups value conformity, not diversity. “They tend to make people over after the image of a group leader, the group norm, or what the group regards as the ideal personality …. They are made to feel guilty for being what they are and inferior for not being what the group wants them to be.”
» Full Entry

“Why does your site include inappropriate ads? The Bible says freely you have received, freely give. I think it is inappropriate to try and make money with the Gospel.”
» Full Entry

Should Apologetics Index include no statements of opinion?
» Full Entry

How do the publishers of Apologetics Index decide which topics to include?
» Full Entry

Unhealthy, authoritarian leadership encourages people to place their pastors on pedestals. This is illustrated by the comments of one ex-member of a church located in a major mid-western city. “Little by little this man became the standard by which we all sought to live. The wisdom that poured forth from his lips left us in awe.”

An ex-member of an east-coast fringe group commented that her tiny church was believed to be the full expression of God and had the mind of Christ. “When the leadership said something, it was taken very seriously as the absolute truth. I was part of what I totally believed was a sold out, godly, and committed church. However, after I left the church, my life was totally shattered.”
» Full Entry

Now, as in the past, spiritual power holders exert strong control-oriented leadership and exercise immense influence in the day-to-day lives of adherents.

In the present, like the past, Christian groups claim new divine revelation through inspired prophets or preachers who “receive a word from the Lord” regularly.

Like those in the past, today’s movements express the conviction they alone are the repository of “truth,” or that they have been chosen by God to restore a lost or dormant spiritual vitality. In short, the narrative of churches that abuse has important beginnings in our past.
» Full Entry

Brothers of White Warriors: white supremacist prison gang.
» Full Entry

Todd Bentley’s so-called ‘revival’ was controversial from the start. Stories about angelic encounters, unverifiable ‘miracles,’ violent behavior, and false teachings accompanied the ‘Outpouring.’

Then came the news that Bentley was separating from his wife. Three days later more information emerges.
» Full Entry

Research resources on Todd Bentley, Fresh Fire Ministries, and the Lakeland/Florida ‘revival.’
» Full Entry

It has been said that commitment without careful reflection is fanaticism in action.

In Chapter 2 of his book Churches That Abuse, Dr. Ronald Enroth describes a church where people — thinking that they were placing their allegiance in the Word of God — were actually placing their allegiance in a man and his interpretation of the Word of God. That is crucial to understanding why people were so easily deceived.

They thought that they were really obeying the Word of God.
» Full Entry

Research resources on the teachings of Eckhart Tolle
» Full Entry

When does a church cross the line between conventional church status and fringe status? What is the nature of the process by which any given group devolves into a fringe church or movement? What are some of the signs or indicators that a given group is becoming abusive of its members and is headed for the margins? When should a member consider bailing out?

Churches That Abuse answers these and other important questions about abusive churches.
» Full Entry

Important notice regarding the content and formatting of the online version of Churches That Abuse
» Full Entry

List of Chapters in Chuches That Abuse, by Ronald M. Enroth
» Full Entry

Information about the printed edition of Churches That Abuse, by Ronald M. Enroth
» Full Entry

“This has been a difficult book to write because it is a book that is critical of other Christians. One always runs the risk of being misunderstood and labeled “judgmental” or arrogant when you make evaluative statements regarding Christian believers and organizations outside your own immediate circle. The book is about churches and other Christian organizations that inflict psychological and spiritual abuse upon members through the use of fear, guilt, and intimidation.”
» Full Entry

...Nobody joins a cult. You join a self-help group a religious movement a political organization.

They change so gradually, by the time you realize you're entrapped - and almost everybody does - you can't figure a safe way back out....
- Deborah Layton, Survivor of Jim Jones' Peoples Temple

» Use these headlines on your blog or website