Cultish: Tactics of Manipulators w/ Michael Foster, Pt 1

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Alright, welcome back. Ladies and gentlemen to cultish entering the kingdom of the

00:05

Colts. My name is Jeremiah Roberts. I Am one of the co -hosts here. I am joined by a beardless super sleuth

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Andrew and Harriman, Utah I was a little concerned. I thought maybe there's a Harriman multiverse where there's like a different is there an imposing agent imposing super sleuth

00:22

Andrew What just tell me real quick. What happened? How'd you lose the beard? Well, you know I lost the beard because as you know birds aren't real

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Beards aren't real. So just this weird thing wasn't working out and my beard just disappeared off my face because there's no such thing as Beards anyways,

00:38

I'm doing great. And this is how I really look This is like how you know, Neo looks super awesome when he's not what when he's in the matrix

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But when he came out he was all plugged in. We've got those tubes on him. This is just the real me I know I feel like I'm meeting the younger

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Andrew from your driver's license. So This would be some getting used to but anyways, oh boy,

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I am super excited We have a very important subject to talk about today It's one of our first series here of the new year in 2022

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So in cultist we have talked a lot about the world of the cults specifically cult leaders the theology

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Behind the theological distortions in regards to cults, but in a lot of times we have consistently

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Talked about Manipulation. This is something that even outside of the world the cults a lot of us are probably

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We're aware of this is just something that resonates with so many people and it's it's just a very important subject to talk about So we're gonna be kind of going into the just the nitty -gritty of the practical application because so many times

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We think of manipulation regards to cults and it's something that's out there But in reality, it's something that's in so much

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Closer proximity to us, but before we introduce our guests also we have Stan with us from apology at church.

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How are you man? Yeah, I'm doing great. I just I got to the studio. I got to leave my job early

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So I'm a teacher and the kids are doing state testing today So I just left them with the sub and I was hoping everything would be just fine and I was like, you know what?

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Awesome. Excellent and so you have I'm glad that you're on with us today because this is you have a lot of interest in this subject at Hand and as we unravel the podcast people will see

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Why you took time out of your day after a long day of work to come over here and be part of this conversation So I'm looking forward to that.

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So our guest today is Michael Foster Mike, how are you? Doing great guys got the beer awesome.

02:33

So just real quick Can you just tell everyone just a little bit about yourself and what why is and just also why is this a passion topic?

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This this issue of not only just manipulation But tactics of manipulation or tactics of manipulators, it's kind of multifaceted

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But just tell us a little about yourself and your passion for the subject that we're going to talk about Sure.

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I'm a pastor. I pastor a church in Batavia, Ohio right outside of Cincinnati, Ohio I'm sure it's about a year old, but I've been in the ministry the bulk of my adult life and I'm married with seven kids four boys three girls.

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We live on a small farm. I Got into researching

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Masculinity a couple years ago and wrote a book that got published by Canon Press called. It's good to be a man and we did a podcast That's like kind of still alive.

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We do episode every once in a while, but and in in researching masculinity,

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I Started to look at these kind of online gurus that these men were

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Going after surrounding, you know listening to all their podcasts read all their books buying like hundred -dollar

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Manuals on how to be a man or whatever little PDFs actually like 50 pages. They're paying like 100 bucks for it and got interested in Why these guys were going to these?

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Kind of guru type guys and then as I did that I saw a lot of the tendencies in these online gurus

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Actually in the leadership of many churches, like I said, I've been In the ministry in one way or another since I've been about 18 years old

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I was a junior high youth pastor a youth pastor or a church planner twice now associate pastor and now senior pastor and Just because of peers in the ministry you hear these stories about these interactions they deal with Elders boards or a particular elder and then as people coming out of your church joining your church transferring

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You hear these stories as well. And a lot of times you can kind of view those through the lens of people always being victims

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Right and playing out like every little every little negative thing ever they exaggerated into some terrible spiritual abuse and spiritual trauma

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And on the flip side you can read through the lens also or like alongside that actually The lens of people just hating authority and anyone that tells them anything that offends them

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They overreact to and call it abuse. But after a while you start to see trends and say, you know what?

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While some of that kind of like racism like a lot of a lot of the people saying things are racist

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They're not actually a racist, but there is real racism, right? And there's a lot of things that people call spiritual abuse

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Which is actually this faithful Christianity buking them telling them to repent of their sins pursue holiness to love

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God To make no provision a provision for the flesh a lot sort of stuff but then there are things that fall into a category of Abuse in that it is an abuse of authority like authority

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All authority is delegated by God to you be used for his purpose in his way and when you go outside the limits of your authority, then you're moving into a

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Into something that's that's not good. That's not godly and I think could rightly be called an abuse you know,

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I was thinking about how to frame this for a Podcast that's on cults.

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Yeah, and here's how I would do. This is from the Westminster Confession and even this is a part that us

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Creative Baptists and pedo -baptists can agree on it says the purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error and some have so Degenerated as to become no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan nevertheless

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There shall always be a church on earth to worship God according to his will so what is saying is that all churches have a mixture of error and And and truth in it and some are so bad.

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They're not churches at all, right? So there is a there's churches that are more pure and less pure and this kind of Improper way of exercising lawful authority that can be called abuse

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Exists in an extreme form in In cults, right? Yeah where but it's still in seed form a present like all sins are in any church

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And so all of us have have this in our church It doesn't mean that the church necessarily is when you should leave

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It doesn't mean that the pastor is evil and an occult leader But there there's a spectrum in which these things exist on and they can get worse and worse and worse to the place where you're

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Dealing with something that maybe it's not a JW or a Mormon or whatever But it is become functionally now a cult and so we need to look for these in ourselves in our own heart that's where you always start with yourself take responsibility for yourself, right these manipulative tactics and and And repent of them.

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And so what what's my passion? My passion is Helping men, but also being godly in my leadership as a pastor

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Like I'm not scared to exercise my authority We've given authority by God to preach the word to minister the sacraments and I'm not backing down that being said there is a right

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Administration of that authority a lawful administration and that I want to do in a way that honors God because I believe that's what he'll bless

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And that's what grows the church and grows Christians. Mm -hmm. No, that's really good I appreciate saying that Michael and uh, one of the things too we want to emphasize is especially

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Defining terms because I totally agree with you. We are in a postmodern society especially, you know you mentioning the word racism that gets thrown around and Especially you're starting to realize that words are starting to lose meaning you think of the

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Kyle Rittenhouse case where people are just you know Screaming out the words racist and these emotional impact turns totally devoid of any any factual reality and we always want to make sure we define our terms in this same way to that a lot of the

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Conversations even the cultural conversations surrounding, you know words like manipulating Gaslighting and these are like these are ten tactics that talk about that But the very they're from a secular point of view.

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So given that we're in a postmodern society you know that whole category and from a secular point of view starts to become very vague and Arbitrary and really there's a lot of like how do you reach with the fog and actually define?

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What that is like who exactly is right? I mean you saw this for example in There's a series that came out in any

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Scientology the aftermath where Leah Remini who was hosting on the hosting the king of Queens She was talking about a lot of the abuses and the manipulation, but she's someone who's not a

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Christian And so you go like how do you give an accounting for that? So You were absolutely correct.

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I would also say that the existence Walter Martin would say that the existence of a counterfeit predicates the authenticity of An original so in the same way how there is a correct way as a pastor to exercise authority that's been given by God That area is definitely abused a lot and that abuse the manipulation especially when it comes to spiritual leadership

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Would stem from that abuse but just real quickly in regards to just defining terms when we just say the word manipulation and Manipulators, what would be an accurate an accurate biblical definition of that?

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How would we define that? So manipulation is a pretty new word Only a couple centuries old and it just meant to shape something with your hands in modern by modern vernacular what we mean by it is it's to exert control or influence in a clever or and or Unfair way and so a manipulator would be someone that's a defining trait

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There's not a one -off or whatever. The OR makes it something that they do all the time and If you think about That someone that exerts control and influence in a clever and unfair way.

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We'll just drop the OR for a moment That that's a good description of what we see on false teachers

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And in the New Testament, you see kind of through I think there's three components that you can easily define or Narrow down there might be more

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But they are they have a self -centered agenda So they draw disciples after themselves think of Acts chapter 20 with the

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Ephesian elders Paul says that Savage wolves will rise up from amongst yourself and they draw them after themselves

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Jude 1 12 says describing false teachers that they care for themselves now in the context there

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It's not like a general care that you provide for yourself. But what it really means is they care only for themselves

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Right, so a manipulator has has an agenda that's tied up with their person They're deceptive with their words.

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So manipulation you can't deal with it on the up -and -up. You can't lay out the straightforward

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Evidence and arguments why you should do something, right? so you have to massage the words and one of the defining characteristics of a false teacher is

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That he uses smooth words. He uses flattery He's a deceiver and you see that again

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And I think it's Jude 1 16 where it says that they flatter you trying to gain an advantage, right?

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And then lastly they're coercive in their tactics This one you got to pull out a little bit

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But if you consider the super apostles and 2nd Corinthians 10 and 11, they're basically saying look

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Paul ain't nothing That's what you're saying guys little he's you know stutters and all this stuff and and they're trying to poison the well

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And say no, we're the only one you should listen to with a real deal You see a similar thing going on in 3rd John where the atrophies is not either receiving the word from John the elder and that probably means he's not receiving the messenger that John sent

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Right in other word and the reason in the reason isn't is a moral reason John doesn't say well because he doesn't believe in the resurrection

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John says because he loves to have the preeminence right must be the top dog So he's trying to I ultimately isolate this congregation under his control

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I think it's likely that the atrophies to have that sort of authority is Probably an elder or teacher or something like an officer in in that church and so that's those are the three things you see a self -centered agenda deceptive with their words and a coercive tactics where They make you feel like they're the only option the only source to truth or whatever and you see all those things in cults

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But they can exist in a lesson we can form You can probably think I can think of when

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I've I've done all those things right in my life, right? This is why I need Jesus is why I'm glad the Holy Spirit and sanctification is incremental, but we're making ground and so yeah

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No, I appreciate that and real quick before we kind of delve into further I want to bring you a bring you and Andrew So just tell me just real quickly just off off the get -go and you can

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I'm sure he does your own little super sleuth in regards to What we're going to talk about and especially we're in the middle right now

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Well, you're in the middle right now of Andrew just a brand new church plan You are the head deacon at Apology of Church, Utah So this is probably an area that you have you will be doing with if you haven't done with it already

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But just tell me you're just off the get -go Andrew. What what makes you excited to be? A part of this conversation just about the topic of manipulation in general.

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What what comes to mind? Why do you think this is an important subject to talk about Andrew? I think this is an extremely important topic topic to talk about because this is something that's happening

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Right now in the church, right like red flags like Jerry you love those red flag clothes. Oh, yeah, you say yes

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There's the guy fixing the toilet at Joel Osteen's Church red flags when six hundred thousand dollars pops out the wall, right?

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Oh, yeah, that's definitely a sign of something that's happening There and I'd say the church is most destroyed not from without but from within right, especially when people are doing

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Manipulating tactics and like brother Michael said here or pastor Michael said here like we all suffer with those things

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But like you also said Jerry You know the counterfeit presupposes an authentic authentic.

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So my question too I want to ask for for Michael real quick is what what in the Bible do we have?

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Shown to us as safeguards given as pastoral eldership is a delegated authority given by God He's also gives like qualifications and requirements

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Like so what what are some of those safeguards that we have in place in Scripture to actually know that something is being done, correct?

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correctly in terms of pastoral leadership Sure. I mean, that's that's a huge topic

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I mean you can look at the qualifications for elders first off in their character first Timothy 3

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Titus chapter 1 first Peter 5 first Peter 5 is a big one, right that you don't lord it over them and So you can look at this sort of one the characteristics of their life their household that these men are

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That's why I saw in the online stuff with masculinity is that these guys were able to posture a sort of Way of being that was not congruent their actual reality and that's they need to go through testing

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So one question is with any leader in a church Where did they get this authority from they just bring it to themselves, you know?

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Who is it? Who do they answer to have the answer to anyone before in their entire life, you know?

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I think about I was thinking about What did Driscoll do wrong, right? Yeah at the time that's recording

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They just finished the rise and fall of Mars Hill podcast and in the last episode was pretty weak

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Though there was obviously a liberal agenda through all of them Yeah but I think the issue of manipulation and the issue of Leadership structural issues and all that's there and part of what

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I saw that I think went wrong with Driscoll It really was like kind of two main things

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One is that he never was accountable to anybody else Really when you get right down to it and the second thing was he started to see himself as the national platform not accountable to his local community and You can kind of trace everything to those two things and they actually identify that I think correctly

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Yeah in that podcast, you know, there's a lot of things wrong about that podcast But there is you know epidemic of narcissistic sort of leaders going on.

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And so what what does the Bible say? Well number one, these are we just we just ordained three elders This week at our church and I was installed

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So I was sent out as a church planner from a nut from a mother church And then I was given certain authority to gather a congregation to serve the sacraments and to start to raise up leaders

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But I I didn't confer I didn't raise up all the leaders of my own They had I had they had to answer to someone else in my my denomination the

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CREC And so when these people are appointed they're appointed by other elders

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And so that's you know, even if you're an independent church, you don't agree with Presbyterian Presbyterianism you still want to know that these men often

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Baptist will put together associations or whatever. I think that's a good practice That there's outside people that look at these people, you know

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So I was gonna have a you know you date before you put a ring on it and and you need to go through that process with churches and So have they have they been?

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Tested and make sure they have those qualifications That's that's where I would start. And so with Driscoll, what do you have?

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You have a guy who just started a church because he wanted to and they went out to get money And that's what he said.

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I mean, those are his words and that's part of the narrative and It should have surprised us that someone as talented

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With such a drive and engine as a guy like that that wasn't Accountable to anyone blew up, you know

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I left actually in 2007 because I told I told my wife I said man Driscoll's angry and he's a powder keg

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He's gonna explode and I don't want to be part of it Now, I didn't know it was gonna go down the way it did like that was pretty surprising to be honest

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But I think we can look at him and instead of like he's a cautionary tale for anyone especially guys like you know like you guys you guys have this podcast and that brings a lot of influence and kind of fanfare and And if you guys are anything like me you get emails where people are pouring their heart out and asking for help

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Right, and if you're not anchored to your local community and have the right things there's a lot of potential to let it go to your head and take advantage of people and in a social media age and in a disembodied internet age

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We have to be very careful about letting this stuff go to our head So have you been trained by people that know you and have you actually gone through all these steps?

19:28

That's that's a good starting spot No, that's really good, I appreciate I definitely appreciate you saying that we also we did a podcast a couple of Probably like a month or two back kind of really kind of reviewing the red the podcast a lot of aspects of the

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I do agree they did They did call some balls and we called balls and strikes on The podcast where they got right and where they fell short and I think even the areas where they did

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You know where they they they called it for what it was They did point out the spirit, you know, the aspects of the spiritual abuse and kind of that narcissistic headship, you know the abuse of authority

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They they didn't really give they didn't give an ultimate point of reference and it's not surprising given our solution

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Right, right You listen that whole podcast that you know, I was thinking about like there is no compelling answer, right?

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And it's so it's like this is all bad. All these people got hurt. We shouldn't do this. All right, what should we do?

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Repentance is to turn from one thing to another like so in other words It's what you walk away with the real narrative is authorities bad and specially patriarchal male authority, right?

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That's the the under note, you know, you have a when you spray cologne on there's the first smell you have and then your body

20:40

Chemistry kills that you're left with another smell like 30 40 minutes later Well the smell you're left with after listening to that podcast is men bad

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Leaders bad authority bad right and so I don't blame people that are conservatives for not liking it

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I get it. But those of us that have been in leadership or have some sort of social platform Aspects of it resonated with it because the

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Holy Spirit's in us and we do not want to abuse what the Lord has given us No, absolutely.

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And just a real quick you stand just tell what bring what just share with everyone

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What is it about this subject like what what what intrigues you about the subject of manipulation just real quickly before we move forward

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Yeah so I actually had a situation or experience where I was dealing with Manipulation from church leadership.

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So after I completed high school and I moved down to college I was living in Missouri at the time.

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I joined Southern Baptist Convention church that was Calvinist and they had an amazing teaching pastor from the pulpit

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I mean every single Sunday He was preaching straight fire and everybody really looked up to him and thought he was amazing and nobody ever thought that he could do

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Any wrong? I mean this guy seemed to be super solid but then back it was around November December 2018 he randomly disappeared and started giving excuses on why he wasn't showing up to the church saying that family member was ill and he had some other things to take care of and Then that kept on happening for a few months and then he ended up showing back up to the church a few months later

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And he ended up coming before the church at the end of service Sharing that he committed adultery

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And that he was stepping down from his position that he was no longer qualified to be a pastor

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And at the time he held the position that once you are disqualified biblically from being

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Pastor there that you can no longer then like you can't become qualified again that that is it.

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You can't go into that position anymore so After he came before the church and admitted his sin

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He started going through counseling with the other elders of the church and around that time

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He started sending out some very weird emails to some of the members of the church not to the entire church, but to some members trying to Explain his side of things and with the other elders of the church trying to say that they were not listening to him that they were trying to take advantage of Him and put him on full blast

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Instead of trying to deal with his sin correctly and just a whole bunch of craziness came out of this

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Not only just including the emails, but he ended up being excommunicated From the church because of his ongoing sin

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He also ended up creating Facebook page against the church and the elders there as well as slander

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Website for the church and was sending it out and it was just absolutely awful I remember for a time period my name as well as some other people's names were on the website as well

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But we were able to have some of those names taken down because yeah of some work from some lawyers But so I've been very deep into it

23:55

Yeah, and your situation is just indicative of that and in fact anything anytime Michael We've ever posted anything especially in regards to any level of spiritual abuse

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I mean we end up with a pose with hundreds of comments. So I mean, yeah what we're talking about is just Indicative of you know on the receiving end of both both women and women who have received the spiritual abuse and even when it comes

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To authority, I mean, it's not you know, it's not just men who are doing this There's also women in positions of authority who are perfectly capable and perpetrate these tactics of manipulation.

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So regardless of who you are You know whether you're a man or a woman this is these are tactics you need to be wary of and also before you jump

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Jump forward is that I would just say to that you know Walter Martin did have a statement in one of his earlier lectures where he talked about how the cults are the bill are the unpaid bills of the church that every single counterfeit of Christianity especially in the 1800s they all on some level came out of the church and the church was not there to confront it and to squell it and to deal with that and so a lot of the groups like Mormonism and Christian science and a lot of those things are where they are today because The church didn't handle it properly properly and I think especially you know, we are we're all passionate about we will the you know

25:09

We're Christians. We need to confront the kingdom of the cults with the gospel But I think in all in honesty, there is a level almost applying

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You know a real practical application of Matthew 7 where it talks about, you know, taking the plank out of our own eyes so if we we have to look at ourselves and look in -house and say how can we as a church make sure we're not practicing these tactics and especially because most cultists when they come to Christ and they come out of the cults a

25:36

Lot of them are hesitant to get plugged into a healthy church because they've experienced so much abuse so we need to make sure that we take accountability and take ownership for the ways in which we have in which we ways were

25:48

Capable of failing and even practicing these tactics of manipulators so we can be a safe haven

25:54

Did you have any thoughts on that real quickly Michael before we jump? I do actually have quite a few one is You know,

26:00

I'm willing to predict with relative certainty that we're about to experience another explosion in cults

26:06

Not like you had coming out of the burnover district right back in the day. Yeah I think the social setting is is right for it

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I think the breakdown in the family makes people Vulnerable to the offer of a family replacement in the church

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The church is not a replacement for your family. Okay, the natural family is God's design.

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The church is a spiritual family They're similar they overlap in lots of ways But always I'm not my people's dad

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I have fatherly duties as a pastor a father exercise authority cares for people in his family and there's a sense in which a

26:43

Pastor does that but it's still not a one -for -one thing, right? Yeah, and I think we're gonna see a ton of that moving forward

26:51

Another way, I'll demonstrate just how bad this is. Is that the pandemic? revealed

26:58

How messed up we are in our way? We lead people when I notice what happened in the pandemic.

27:05

So my church has grown rapidly through the pandemic You know, we went from zero to 200 200 plus members.

27:11

I got 40 baptisms to do in January in February You know, it's just getting nuts And you know,

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I heard everyone's stories as they came through here and I was watching these large Churches around my town kind of implode these

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Evie free churches that 10 15 years ago We're fantastic churches, right?

27:30

I mean there as churches go. They're really good. They taught the Bible They're kind of like soft complimentary and it's still still good churches

27:37

You could send your friend to you couldn't find like some really reformed church or whatever Anyhow, so then the pandemic happens and These guys don't know how to react to the mask mandate to the vaccine mandates to social distancing and to being commanded to shut down and all that and Regardless of where you fall on it

27:56

What was was interesting is that these guys who have never ever played the authority card in their entire life as pastors?

28:04

Yeah, I like you must submit to my authority, right? It's like suddenly like these guys who had never ever been like that a sort of tyrannical side came out

28:14

Yeah, right and that's because they weren't ready. They they're like kind of middle management guys, right?

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Like they're not entrepreneurs. They're not innovative. They're not like fiery profit like bold leaders that start things

28:27

There are people that maintain a structure maintain rules and churches need that churches have a lot of times are started by kind of like strong Gifted sort of individuals that are good at creating things

28:39

But sometimes maybe not the best at managing the day -to -day functions right that in churches Well, these guys right away would started like guilty and everybody look you if you love your neighbor, you'll do what

28:51

I tell you You know, like yeah, and you see some of these manipulative tendencies that it's in the water man

28:58

It's in the air. This isn't about us all being victims. It's about us saying like hey the way we deal with Relationships in the way we lead and manage people there is something wrong because we've gone away from God's Design for the family

29:14

God's design for the church and it's and everything is sometimes it's cool Everything's cool until you know that there's some sort of dilemma and then it really really shows itself and manipulators

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You know the the really bad ones love a good crisis, but you'll see it come out of people people that are normally

29:33

Level -headed folks suddenly get nutty and start gaslighting you and Projecting their motives onto you and all that sort of language that sexual language.

29:43

You're like, no This is a pretty decent description of what's happening right now so I think it's something we should be concerned about and get ahead of it and prepare our people because people are gonna move for Jobs are gonna leave our churches and we want them to find a good church and man

29:57

I wish it could just be by denomination or the creed they post on their church

30:02

Yeah Frankly that just doesn't cut it like you're gonna have to go and see the spiritual life of that church and exercise a level of discernment on whether or not you're gonna join that church and be a member and submit to that leadership because you should you should join a

30:16

Church and submit to that leadership but right now like Whether it's SPC or PCA or CREC or whatever all bets are off.

30:24

Mm -hmm, like, you know, there's no safe haven and Wish there was and we have to start equipping people to exercise some discernment so they can put their family in a place and grow and in grace

30:36

Okay, good. Good. Those are some really good points. Andrew. Do you have a thought on that real quickly? Yeah, I want to ask how do you think our

30:42

Nate our nation got there? Is it a lack of like biblical manhood? Is it a lack of fathers in the home?

30:47

Like what led to our nation having this type of epidemic at church?

30:52

You know, you know what I mean? Like sure doing things pastorally biblically So think of think of authority as energy energy can neither be created nor destroyed

31:04

Okay, so God has a set amount of authority. This is like an example God delegates authority and he delegates it kind of simply stated to three institutions church family the magistrate right, that's that goes back to Calvin Luther a lot of people use that idea and Maybe it's not precise but it's enough to help us think about things

31:24

So you have heads of the state heads of the family heads of the church when one of those fails to exercise authority rightly

31:33

Then someone's got to step in so dad does not take care of his kids His kids grow up to be criminals and they do bad things

31:39

Well, then the church has to discipline them Excommunicate them or at least try to lead him this one and then the state's got to come in and punish their their crimes

31:47

Right, and that's because dad failed to do that Now when that one institution fails to exercise their delegated authority

31:56

What happens another institution gobbles it up, right? They absorb because the authorities got to go somewhere.

32:03

Someone's got to step in and take care of this And so what we've had happened slowly, but surely for a variety of reasons whether it's the second great awakening a bunch of different things like that that kind of Eviscerated the family and changed the nature of the church the the government became a nanny state, right?

32:20

and gobbled up all that authority and And now it's like we have to start re -establishing

32:28

Right authority in the family, but what happens the guys that get that authority like I'll say this on here, you know

32:34

I'm deep. I'm patriarchal. I'm not complimentary. I think commentary and first off is hard to spell and it sounds stupid

32:41

Okay Secondly, it's a new word that they're created to try not to sound like big meanies, right?

32:46

I understand that patriarchy is associated with bad things. I think there's an evil patriarchy I think Satan is a father right and he has sons and so I don't there is a patriarchy that I mean the smash

32:56

There's another patriarchy that flows from God the father From which all fatherhood gets his name that I want to be part of my whole life

33:03

Now I have seen those that name patriarchy as their position who are terrible fathers

33:10

Who really don't educate their daughters they grow and they dress them up like they're extras off little house on the prairie.

33:16

Yeah, and And these guys are kind of like fake macho men, right and they posture

33:25

They posture the status that that authority should be Coupled with but they don't have the actual mastery in their life

33:33

And so where we're at right now is we have people that are trying to you know, here's a good better example for it

33:38

I know a lot of girls who shave their head real short hair and wear real tight clothes and they get convicted and they associated

33:45

That stuff with feminism. Yeah, right. So they grow their hair out and they start wearing dresses, but they still have a brash attitude

33:52

Right. They still have the attitude of feminists and I rather than have short hair and pants and have a gentle and quiet spirit

33:58

Then have long hair and dresses and have this brash ungodly attitude Well, these guys they put the trappings of masculinity on beard shooting guns whatnot, and they don't actually exercise the authority and so now we're like in this weird corrective like the authority balances all off in between the institutions and We're in the rubble and this is gonna it's gonna take a little while to you know

34:23

This is a big ball of Christmas lights all wound up and pull this thing out It's gonna take a lot of us working together

34:29

And if you want to like those if you go to the spiritual abuse sounding boards there's a bunch of whiny victims and not all of them are telling the truth, but I Read some and I actually figured out

34:41

I knew those girls and I'm like, you know what that girl's not lying She was really abused like that.

34:46

That really did happen in patriarchal home And I think well what was called a patriarchal home, and I think she's just in in being suspicious

34:57

I don't blame her. I would be too if I was in her position Yeah, and I don't happen because I love the the

35:02

God -given gift of patriarchy the God -given gift of authority in the church That's why we have to hate the counterfeit.

35:09

We have to hate it. It's on to us to say that's not real That's not what I'm doing. And so what you what we're talking about here.

35:15

I think it's very important as we are in the age of Rebuilding of reclaiming of kind of getting the balances out and we we don't we can't just focus on authority

35:25

But we have to focus on responsibility in the limits of responsibility in the limits of authority

35:31

Yeah, I can tell people what type of people they can marry. You can't marry a non -christian

35:36

I cannot tell my people who they can marry right? That's that's that's shepherding doctrine or whatever that over shepherding

35:43

Yeah, we have to start making distinctions like that. No, that's that's really good. In fact, we would I've Andrew we were in we reason we're on the road

35:53

We talked to someone a couple who had come I believe the spouse had come from like a very a background of you know, being like an over -the -top

36:03

Abusive patriarchal system where the father had way too much control and giving kind of given the examples that you were given

36:09

It was one of those things where I was telling her to The same thing because that you experienced something that was counterfeit and you can't throw out the original as far as that concerns

36:18

I really appreciate you say appreciate you saying that Nothing. I want to just ask you real quick before we kind of get into the nitty -gritty as far as the tactics are concerned so you're kind of we're talking about the issues of church government having a proper a proper view a patriarchal view of authority because a lot of these aspects in the church come from an abuse or distortion

36:38

Initially of what authority actually is or maybe are misusing it but it's when you think about just manipulation and in those tactics, but really just culture at large outside of Outside of the church when you just look at just the world in general.

36:56

In fact, you just Released but new book called it's good to be a man I actually got it on Kindle and so I just been through it in time for the podcast really enjoyed a fantastic book

37:06

But in it, you know, you say your five -star review on Amazon. Yeah Yes.

37:12

Oh, yeah definitely, but it was It was really good and I think you did give some good examples of just cultural implications of where the culture is at large

37:23

But just in regards to the subject of manipulation where we are at in 2021 and especially just kind of given the postmodern culture.

37:32

There's the breakdown of gender There's a breakdown if any aspect of really we're in a post -christian society as far as America is concerned

37:40

But what is about this the cultural arts that makes? Really a precipice for manipulation just kind of given people's just deal with the zeitgeist of the age

37:50

Like what is it about the culture that would make? Manipulation such a potential tactic to be in all of us

37:57

It's a good question. I Think when you don't have respect for truth

38:03

You're going to where everything becomes about method and technique and not objective truth

38:10

Right and that seems to be where we're at right now if I can get the right data and the right technique

38:17

I can fix anything as opposed to Having the right

38:23

God the right truth and then you speak the truth and kind of let the chips fall where they may people in that and so there's that there's a lack of Love for truth and so then it's always about presentation of ideas not the intrinsic

38:42

Rightness of those ideas but about how they're presented how they're massaged or whatever you see that quite a bit the other thing is when you don't grow up in a healthy family you don't learn boundaries and I Kind of annoyed by the word word boundaries because it's been used by so many so much psychobabble oh, yeah, but boundaries is another another way of saying limits, right and And limits of authority is the old way of talking about this topic

39:11

Whether you're gonna go if you're gonna go look at like Charles Hodges Exposition on the fifth commandment of systematic theology or in the larger catechisms

39:21

Exposition on the fifth commandment obey your father and mother or honor your father and mother but They talk about limits and inferior superior sort of relationships and all that and so we don't know

39:34

How to manage relationships in a healthy way that leads to the sort of manipulation like even the way that parents like disciplined kids is

39:47

Very manipulative and this is regardless if you spank them or don't spank them, right?

39:53

It seems to be that it's like they're holding back their love or their affirmation or whatever

39:59

It's not restorative like trying to correct a heart and behavior But it's more about an adversarial relationship between a parent and their kid, right?

40:08

Not you as their parent wanting to lead them to love the Lord, but them to respect your authority

40:14

You know that sort of stuff and it becomes very adversarial So people grow up with that and they grow up in homes that everything's managed by manipulation, right?

40:23

Well son, if you really loved me you would do this right as opposed to son God has put me over you and I love you and this is what you need to do

40:32

This is the right way to honor God. This is what the Bible says There's a right way to treat your neighbor and you need to do that, you know, and so I think we grew up in a world

40:44

Where there wasn't rightly ordered relationships and out of that comes disorder and manipulations

40:49

Disorder you go look at worldly wisdom in James chapter 3 Selfish ambition all that sensuality.

40:58

It leads to disorder is what James says right there And so and and I think the converse would be true disorder leads to that so I think what manipulations round around because we don't know what

41:12

Right limits and relationships look like because we haven't seen it like many of us come from very broken homes

41:20

Yeah, and and let's say we come from a decent nuclear family because you know

41:25

Mom and dad met Jesus and they got serious when we were little or before we were born Often there still isn't a

41:32

Christian grandmother and grandfather and when the Bible talks about family like One way you can understand the biblical household is looking at 1st

41:41

Timothy chapter 5 where it's talking about our Responsibility to take care of our family. Well, who are they talking about?

41:48

We're not talking about your kids and wives They're talking about like widows. So we're talking about like these are sons taking care of their mom

41:56

And so the family in Scripture is an extended family very few of us have an extended Christian family

42:02

So we're kind of like trying to figure this stuff out. So I think manipulation is just happens when there's not right understanding of identity and roles and responsibilities and And I think that's you learn that stuff in the household and that's why if someone wants to be an elder in the church

42:20

He must manage his own household. Well, because if he can't take care of that How's he gonna take care of the church and that's something we don't even focus on we think that just means his kids like sit

42:30

Quietly during worship service, right? That's not what that meant in the first century not what it meant at all

42:36

It was much richer than that. And so that's why I think we see so much manipulation So much using kind of crazy emotional leverage to get people to do things.

42:47

I mean how many pastors deal with conflict? This is one of my this isn't of my tactics post

42:53

But I know so many pastors that get mad at some guy if I'm mad at you here's what's gonna happen

42:58

I'm gonna call you up and say hey, I'm mad about this thing. What's going on, right? That's how it's gonna happen. I know a lot of guys are like like I know some people it's like their

43:07

Sunday sermon I know some people that do things like yada yada yada and they're talking about you they haven't talked to you and now you are an illustration in their sermon and This is how they're dealing with the conflict that they have with you passive -aggressive very passive -aggressive because they don't know how to deal with conflict and And you learn how to deal with conflict by watching your dad and other men

43:30

Argue it out and not beat the crap out of each other, right learn to like disagree and people, you know

43:37

I think a lot of people that here that are like the heresy hunters. I think they hate conflict I think they want to stop fire out.

43:43

Everyone thinks you're looking for it. I think they don't know how to deal with tension in life and when you don't you have to have this sort of Dad or father figure or other men in your life that show you how to deal with disagreements like you know the surprise meeting sort of thing like where you lead people into a meeting and then you like jump on them and let

44:03

Them know all the things you're mad about, you know The way I deal with that is I call someone up and say

44:09

I'm concerned about your marriage. Here's why Can we get together and talk? I don't want them thinking for five days

44:14

Wonder what Michaels thinking about and like building up this like getting all anxious coming into a meeting

44:20

I want them to know exactly because then if they don't show up then like well Then it's probably worse than I thought it was

44:25

But at least you know So these guys haven't been taught how to deal with conflict and so they they're they manipulate because it's all they know

44:33

I think you know, so that's why I don't want to give too much. I know where you're gonna go in the show That's why

44:38

I don't think all manipulators even know they're doing it, right, right It's not like it's not super strategic

44:45

It's more like if I hit your knee with a little hammer your foot kicks every action. There's a reaction basic reaction.

44:51

Yeah, exactly Yeah, because I mean sometimes to like a lot of people will I mean we'll go into this as we uncover that the tactics specifically

44:59

But a lot of them have to do a lot of the tactics come from a reaction to confrontation

45:06

So and some of that may be just like very Tactical when you talk tactics of manipulator, but some of it just may be almost

45:15

Unconsciously like a knee -jerk reaction for sure So I could definitely see that being in play Before we kind of jump into the tactics real quick you stand is anything come to mind about what he's talked about Just comes to mind kind of given your experience and what

45:27

Michaels been talking about so far. Yeah. Well, Michael you brought up James 3

45:33

There I believe you brought up verse 16 there for where jealousy and selfish ambition exists

45:39

There will be disorder in every battle practice my mind up actually what James 3 went right above it

45:45

To where that passage starts where it says who is wise and understanding among you by his good conduct

45:51

Let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts do not boast and be false to the truth

46:00

This is not the wisdom that comes down from above but is earthly Unspiritual Demonic so my mind like a lot of times whenever it comes to these leaders who are inside of the church who are being

46:12

Manipulative a lot of times. I'm like trying to think here how much of this here is just like purifying them are

46:20

How much is it is? unspiritual like demonic Stuff that's actually coming in to if you wanted to speak on that at all

46:29

Yeah, I mean so all of its sensual right sensual means of the earth is talking about a lack of Control of the body or the temperament and all that that's exactly what's going on in in these cases of passive aggression these cases of manipulation

46:47

We're using improper leverage It's in demonic in that it's of it's very similar to the methods of demons of the devil

46:58

Who's a liar and manipulated right manipulated Eve like did God really say that? I mean, that's a form of manipulation like it's a way of like creating doubt in their mind about the truth, right?

47:08

It's kind of gaslighting to some degree And so it's demonic in that way if there's actual possession going on I don't know if that's what it's saying in every case.

47:16

I think it's saying that it's like that. I don't have a problem with it necessarily being literally demonic in like some sort of Direct demonic activity, but it's certainly like the father of lies, right?

47:31

It's certainly like a roaring lion that's looking for someone to devour Manipulator to like false teachers where they use people for their agendas

47:39

So false teachers when we say false teachers were more or less talking about heretic someone that's damned not a believer

47:45

I don't want to say that everyone that manipulates or even a manipulator necessarily is is equal to a true heretic

47:53

You know but they are like acting In that direction and like that and it's it's why you know

48:04

You know, we live in a time Where we are okay with quarrelsome spirits because we've reacted to the soft liberal sissy tone police and Now we let people this argue about every little dumb thing on Facebook we think it's manly

48:23

But the servant of the Lord isn't quarrelsome. He cracks gently and slowly. He's a patient man, right and What we see in a lot of these people is a sort of quarrelsome manipulative spirit and that's not of God man

48:37

That's not of God. And so yeah, I see all those things that play there I think there's a great passage to study to say

48:45

As we look at ministries we listen to how they reason let's very carefully

48:50

You know, I thought again in the rise and fall of Marcel podcast now

48:57

They had so much content to go through to put together. Whatever narrative they wanted, right? He's like Driscoll has so many hours

49:04

You could but but they are we're pretty good at getting to some of the underlying psychology of the things he was saying

49:10

I do think we should listen to What a pastor appeals to and one point they made is that mark often appealed to himself as the hero

49:18

Right as the guy that did everything, right? Well, look, I think that's actually that's kind of true and certainly

49:24

I've seen that in a lot of preaching and my one of my elders He's been a good friend for many years, but he'll tell me you've talked about yourself too much

49:36

Yeah, and praise God for someone that will say, you know, cuz you don't want to make yourself the hero

49:41

Every time like it's if you every once while you mentioned something from your life where you had a win Because of the grace of God, right?

49:47

There's nothing wrong with that I don't want to be weird about it But where you every sermon you end up being the hero and you do everything right and everyone's measured to your standards

49:56

Yeah, well, that's not good either man That's like bending people to your agenda and making their faith about a personality and even if you're a good man and get hit by A car right and die the next day, you know

50:08

Then what can a pastor ever replace them? And I remember once I preached I did pulpit supply at this church and I was young and There was very old blue Harris there and I came out and there was literally

50:22

I kid you not a bronze statue of the founder of the church and I told her

50:27

I told the the daughter of this guy the pastor who's now like 68 or something trying to find a replacement.

50:35

I said if you want a replacement for this church Get rid of that bronze statue because I tell you right now

50:40

I would never take a call here not not with that bronze statue man And so what we have is manipulators build a bronze statue of themselves through their sermon illustrations

50:51

And then you become the all you know Everything's about you on this earth and not the heavenly wisdom pointing people towards God That's where a persuader persuades people towards the agenda of God, right?

51:03

Catechism number one the chief purpose of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That's persuasion

51:09

You're moving in towards God's agenda and and not you're even your particular application of it. Okay?

51:15

That's that's really good. I think this what we kind of did in this first episode is that many at times, you know people

51:22

They they well, we're when you guys actually gonna talk about the tactics Well, I would say that many of times like you think of those memes that show like the iceberg

51:31

The tip of the iceberg that's like floating above and then it shows like the foundation of like how deep the iceberg is

51:37

So I think what we did in this first episode we kind of laid a real Holistic really biblical foundation of how we practically think about this hopefully getting an understanding of what the culture is of within the in the church and the church at large and Then what we're gonna do in the second episode.

51:55

We're actually gonna go into the tactics So we're gonna leave a little bit of a cliffhanger, but next week they hang around we're gonna go get we're gonna go deep into the tactics of them of manipulate of Manipulators understanding how people manipulate and actually how to a deal and how to address it