Here is an interesting little blurb from a web site called My Savvy Sisters
Her comments below describe perfectly the various leaders of the 700 some splinter cults of Armstrongism.
My Savvy Sisters: How do spiritual leaders benefit from being abusive?
Interesting question! The benefits vary from group to group, and leader to leader. It depends on the end goal of the group and the leaders themselves. Some groups are driven by money, and others by power. Some religious groups also exploit sex as well. Other groups serve to meet the psychological needs of the leader.
The primary group leader of a group generally fits a typical narcissistic profile, what some have termed the Machiavellian Personality after the famed Prince Machiavelli. With only casual contact with such an individual, one would never suspect that they had anything less than the highest moral character, but this is just on the surface. In addition to being very charismatic, charming and keenly shrewd, they never show humility, they believe that ethics apply only to the weak (so they are exempt from moral standards which serves their exaggerated sense of entitlement), and they prefer to be feared (prefer an authoritarian style of control). Despite their capacity for arrogance, they can feign compassion and humility impeccably when it suits their objectives, yet they have a very limited capacity for showing true empathy to others. Those who tend toward this profile demand a great deal of attention and praise, and they thrive on the power others surrender to them.
Your question also speaks to a dynamic found within spiritually abusive groups themselves. The sub-status of a type of “middle management leader” that is bestowed on followers within spiritually abusive groups provides “true believers” with status, prestige, and the rewards of approval and worth. Groups promote an external basis of worth, discouraging individuals to derive confidence and well-being from within themselves. The profoundly powerful sense of reward comes with these positions in middle management within the system, and members lust after them because it offsets the discomfort of the shame-oriented control measures used in such groups to control members.
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Those fun lads at the University of Toronto published the results of their research and found the key to Executive Ability: You must be a successful convincing liar by the age of 5, or you can just forget to be a successful executive.
The ministers and administration of the Churches of God have lied to me for 57 years. Ministers have broken their promises directly to me, manipulated me and practiced deception on me directly. They have done so to all the members of all their congregations as well.
Now other studies have shown that deliberate lying causes direct major brain damage by killing brain cells and rerouting neural pathways. All the lying ministers in all the churches of God have been progressively destroying their own minds for as many years as they have been in office. This is known in Scripture as "searing the conscience with a hot iron" but the scientific explanation should suffice -- and for some be a much better model to understand.
Of course, when people are lied to, when they come to the place where they understand they haved been lied to and can do nothing about it, they become apathetic. If they ever have one shred of hope of getting away with it, they will rebel -- count on it. In the meantime, the liars don't see anything wrong with what they are doing and think they are winning.
This readily explains all of what we see in the exciting Church
Wars currently under way. It is a long drawn out battle causing massive collateral damage to the innocents as well as those directly engaging in the war. Think Star Wars on steroids, where the rebels are as bad as the Evil Empire.
How do spiritual leaders benefit from being abusive?
I hardly think anyone is benefitting from being abusive.
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