Dangerous Leadership and the Enabling Church - Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama

Historical and Structural Antecedents 3
THE CHARACTER OF THE DANGEROUS LEADER 6
THE TOOLS OF THE DANGEROUS LEADER 13
Ten Religious Attitudes that Support Dangerous Christian Leadership 23
Targeting the competent 26
Concluding thoughts 26
Final statement 27

This has been an essay nearly thirty years in the making. It has been written in a massive outpouring of words (that badly need an editor) drawn from years of watching Christian organizations and churches actively encourage dysfunctional leadership structures and the wreckage that ensues. This iteration of it started as a reflection on the recently released Christianity Today (CT) podcast about the fall of the Mars Hill Church led by Mark Driscoll, but it very quickly branched out into a discussion of the dysfunctional patterns of leadership that I have witnessed first-hand and seem to arise again and again in Christian and secular organizations alike.

Is it comprehensive? Not at all – the human heart is infinitely creative in its capacity to misuse power and it is, frankly, impossible to catalog the myriad strategies and approaches to abuse and exploitation that occur in our world.

Is it yet another analysis of Mars Hill? No. It may have been prompted by listening to the Mars Hill story, but the reflections and insights are my own and drawn from my own experiences (with all the strengths and weaknesses you would expect to see flowing from that).

Is it a guide to avoiding dangerous leaders? Sadly, it is not. When first, nearly thirty years ago, I began recording my thoughts and experiences (I had been recovering from membership in a destructive religious cult in which I spent my twenty-first birthday) and reflecting on good and bad leadership, I had arrogant hopes of helping the church find a way to avoid the elevation of dangerous leaders. I am much more cynical and considerably less ambitious these days. Instead, I’m sharing these thoughts in the hope that other victims of dangerous leaders will find some comfort in knowing their experience is shared. I’m sharing these thoughts in the hope that they might have some explanatory power and help make sense of some of the experiences they might have had in the clutches of dangerous leaders. And I’m sharing these thoughts to help those who might currently be enmeshed in destructive relationships with such leaders to recognize the warning signs, cut their losses, and abandon these organisations before the toll becomes too great.

As I said, Christianity Today has released a podcast on the rise and fall of the Mars Hill church. It tries to explore theologically, ecclesiologically, and sociologically, what happened to this church and how it happened. As it turns out, the episodes I have listened to so far are far more sociological than theological or ecclesiological (not a big surprise given the non-denominational nature of CT) and, the more I think about it, the more appropriate it seems, since so much of the Mars Hill story really is about sociological departures from theology and ecclesiology.

But, unsurprisingly – given that Mars Hill was established inside mainstream evangelicalism – theology and ecclesiology both play into the disaster that became Mars Hill. As I have listened, I have found myself agreeing and disagreeing, not necessarily with the conclusions drawn, but with some of the historical-explanatory framework being used.

The Australian experience of demographic change and church growth since the 1970s – a circumstance that is admittedly very different from that of the U.S. – can still, I think, add a missing dimension to the rise of Mars Hill.

Historical and Structural Antecedents

In Australia, the 70s saw a seismic shift take place in our culture. Church attendance plummeted. The cultural consensus broke down as younger folk began questioning the moral authority of an establishment that wanted to curb their private freedoms (particularly with regard to sexuality) while sending a generation of young men into the meat-grinder of a war that many felt had little moral justification. The church in the public mind became associated with unwarranted intrusion into the private sphere and uncritical support of social evil in the public sphere. A new social consensus took the place of the old and the church itself, while remaining acutely aware that society had become much more permissive, largely missed what else was taking place around it. Sermons and church meetings went on, largely as they had always done, emphasizing truth, personal piety, individual responsibility, purity, perseverance, and the need for personal salvation, but without recognizing that the cultural understanding of all these concepts had changed and that the Christian sub-culture meant very different things by these terms than wider culture did. The result was a schism, an impassable gulf, in thinking and culture, between the Australian church and the society within which it was situated.

One of the features that arose in response to this was the large church (not yet the mega-church, but certainly containing its roots). The big churches that arose in the 70s weren’t merely a response to the desire of the times for “bigness” and crowds, they were a response to the decline of the church in general. As church attendance declined, Christians clubbed together in larger numbers to insulate themselves from the impact of the declining cultural significance of their institution… and this insulation prevented many (if not most) from seeing the cultural changes taking place around them so that when, eventually, an already changed world turned up demanding cultural accommodation, the church was largely unequipped for any sort of engagement beyond a reactionary response. The conversation in the public sphere had already taken place without the Church contributing anything persuasive or relevant to it – not because the Church had nothing relevant to add, but because the Church had been unaware there was even a conversation to engage in and had been silently huddling in an artificial enclave when it was being held.

The discovery of a vastly changed culture outside the door of the Church has both shocked and disturbed it out of its cultural complacency, but not always with good effect. The insular nature of Australian Christianity and its lack of awareness of the more nuanced changes that were taking place in society since the 70s meant that, by the late 90s and turn of the century, engagement with outside culture had become, effectively, cross-cultural. For some, the sheer magnitude of the difference between church culture and wider culture was a source of shock and fear. Instead of seeing this difference as an invitation to re-engage with a hurting world, culture began to be seen, at least unconsciously, as an enemy to be defeated. The highly adversarial approach of sections of the Christian church in Australia (particularly evident in the language of “war” expressed by the Australian Christian Lobby and its adherents) to culture can be traced in part to a reaction against the discovery of the depth and breadth of social change that took place while large churches insulated Christians from first-hand experience of their world.

With the rise of cultural fears have come the authoritarian “personalities” who claim to be “fighting back”. Large churches have been particularly prone, because of this history, to perceive culture as a threat, and, in response, to venerate powerful/ decisive personalities who speak the language of “war”, who require personal loyalty, who demand “necessary” sacrifice (often of “others” and fellow Christians) to the cause, and who posture an “essential” opposition to “enemies”.

But reaction has not been monolithic. A great deal of accommodation of culture, again, unconscious, has taken place at the same time. The large church and its spiritual offspring, the mega-church, has adapted numerous cultural trappings as a result both of size and insularity that, because of their “success”, have been exported widely into Australian Church Culture as a whole.

Authoritarianism, hierarchy, the gifted and charismatic CEO, corporate structure, cultural reaction disguised as edginess; all these things find their seeds in the “large church” phenomenon and its (surprising) accommodation with wider culture. The church has always tended to ape the structures of the world around it. Today, as much as in Old Testament times, we are wont to cry “give us a CEO that we may be like the most ‘successful’ corporate organizations around us”… and if we can gather around a celebrity founder with the rock-and-roll spirit of a dot com start-up, all the better. When the church has lacked theological and biblical deliberation with regard to its structures, it has always slid into the patterns set by the dominant social structures of its time – and almost always to its detriment. The anti-structure sentiment of the late 80s with its youth driven-desire to escape denominational distinctives set the stage for the proliferation of unaffiliated corporation-style “community” churches that have since popped up. In the absence of deliberate, intentional structure, a vacuum is created that will be unconsciously filled by whatever is culturally familiar, high status, and decisive. In our culture, the corporation is the most familiar, high-status, and decisive institution we have. It is also the structure that, where checks and balances are dismantled or neglected, gives leaders the greatest amount of power and autonomy so it should not come as a surprise that, where structures are viewed with suspicion, church organizations of this type trend towards authoritarianism.

When we put these three things together – fear of the outside, accommodation of popular leadership structures, and the rise of charismatic leaders who speak in the language of “war” and “battle” – the rise of organizations like Mars Hill and leaders like Mark Driscoll become far more intelligible.

Which is not to say that demographics don’t matter. The targeted church-planting methodologies of the Bill Hybels and Rick Warren era owe a lot to being in the right place demographically (as the CT podcast has demonstrated). But Mars Hill may just have been a perfect storm of demographics combined with an unhealthy and insular Christian culture of fear of the “other” and a culturally adopted and embraced structure of charismatic authoritarian corporate leadership. Mars Hill established itself in a bastion of politically progressive and socially libertine America. It postured itself as a “hipper than thou”, edgy alternative to Christian church while providing a place for conservative and fearful Christians, out of step with their wider community culture, to flock together, gain a sense of embattled and threatened identity, and hit back against a culture which refused them the privileges they were used to enjoying elsewhere.

The historic weaknesses of Driscoll’s demographic, combined with his own character issues were the match and tinder necessary to create the dumpster fire that ensued.

But what about the good Mark Driscoll did? It is often difficult for us to see how a good man and a predatory leader can inhabit the same body. The contradiction seems to mitigate and protect such leaders from scrutiny and accountability. This is mostly because we just don’t want to believe the two things can coexist. However, it is quite possible for a predator to be a good man, do good things, work to become better, and leave a trail of human wreckage behind him as a result of predatory practices engaged in through deeply flawed character. I know this first hand because I am an ex-cult member and can add my own witness to the many voices that can affirm “giftedness”, “intelligence”, “warmth”, “generosity”, “a good heart “, and “a desire to accomplish great things for God” is no guarantee that an individual will not also eviscerate, stamp on, injure and severely damage his/her fellow human beings in pursuit of valued goals. The two things can and do coincide… often.

My (highly personal) analysis of Mars Hill, is two-fold – it is concerned with the nature and role of the predators (“wolfs”) within our midst (and also the admixture of good and bad that they bring to the table), and our nature and complicity in following and enabling such individuals within our Churches.

THE CHARACTER OF THE DANGEROUS LEADER

Cancer kills its host. The healthy cells are taken over or killed and the unhealthy, cancerous, cells reproduce until the host can no longer survive. Dangerous leaders are cancerous in their organizations. They drive out healthy opposition and oversight and reproduce junior leaders in their own image. The system of rewards is such that these junior leaders tend not to overstep the limits placed on them by the dangerous leader. Should they happen to get ambitious, they will find themselves discarded with great speed.

What are the characteristics (good and bad) of the dangerous leader, the leader who, like cancer, will spread infection throughout an organization until it can no longer survive? These are just my own thoughts (and certainly not the exclusive preserve of Mars Hill), but many of these traits are evident in the portrait being drawn of Mark Driscoll.

Influence

A dangerous leader, as noted, is often a mixture of the good and bad, but the character flaws at the heart of a dangerous leader ultimately infect the good qualities they possess and the good goals they try to accomplish.

In this age of Christian celebrity, the ability of a leader to attract others and gain their cooperation is seen, often rightly, as a strength. But this quality of influence, of attractiveness and charisma, when it is cut off from character is a massive danger.

Success breeds success. Often, the sight of an effective influencer at work, and the team he/she builds around him/herself is enough for us to be attracted to the organization. We may look upon its apparent success as the seal of its legitimacy. Our culture certainly teaches us that this is the case, venerating organizations for their “bigness” their “incomes”, their “results”, and their “strength”. And just as culture winks at the “crimes” of the “too large to fail”, so too does the Church tend to wink at the failings of the large church and its leaders – at least until the wheels come off entirely.

Flattery

“We want you to become a member of our team. You have unique gifts that we want to utilize. We’re engaged in something significant and you are being called to take part”.

Belonging, recognition, mission, and a calling from the gates of heaven itself, taken in combination, are extremely enticing. Our hubris tends all of us towards believing we are special, that we could be the heroes of our age. The flattery and recognition can be mild and, if we are susceptible (or starved), we will eagerly wait for the next moment of affirmation. But skills are always interchangeable. No person is essential.

The dangerous leader creates and shapes organizational culture to ensure he/she is essential – that an organization cannot survive without him/her. They recruit with a similar message – suggesting that the individual who serves them is also essential, but there is no room for anyone else to be essential in their dysfunctional structures. Usefulness is the only true requirement – and, while skills are important in serving the dangerous leader, they are plentiful once an organization is attracting adherents. What’s more important to the dangerous leader is personal loyalty and unquestioning obedience.

The dangerous leader, when recruiting, will attribute strengths and qualities to the person they are scouting, but aside from the skills they want, they are looking for a tendency towards unquestioning dependency/obedience and not the attributes (independence, strength of character, etc.) they often flatter their recruits with having.

Like the old joke goes, once recruitment is over, reality sets in and the gap between the rhetoric and actuality become visible. There are genuine rewards for behaviors that contribute to the leader’s success and surprising landmines in the path of those who are not natural “yes-men” and followers. Organizations do not willingly recruit threats to their own structure, so those of an independent nature are actively weeded out.

This is all a rather lengthy way of saying, flattery is a tool used by dangerous leaders to recruit, but it should not be mistaken for sincerity.

Energy and industriousness

Dangerous leaders are not necessarily any less industrious than good leaders. They are on the go all the time. They spread their personality around and are always in the thick of things. But unlike good leaders, they “need” to be seen and can run themselves into the ground seeking an expanded platform. Their personal charisma draws people into their orbit to help and enable the growth in their fame and influence. And their success, over time, makes it easy to weed out and replace those who are not sufficiently full-throated and unquestioning in their support.

As time goes by, this energy and industry are seen less and less as a function of mission, and more and more as a function of brand. Even the good things that an organization does, those things that align most with its core mission, are only green-lit in relation to the way they reflect positively on the leadership and reputation of the dangerous leader. “See the homeless shelter we funded? It’s another example of the great work being done by [insert leader’s name here].”

Fragility of ego

Nobody achieves fame, influence, and recognition on their own. There are people who invested in them, who trained them, who supported them, and who partnered with them. When those people disappear from the history of an organization, there is almost certainly a personality cult at work. The dangerous leader demands (and receives) recognition. The cult of personality and its followers actively minimize the contribution of others and attribute their achievements (when they can’t simply be ignored and forgotten) to the wisdom of the leader who allowed them to occur.

In such an environment, the dangerous leader is not interested in truth – only perception. They cannot be challenged because their public image and its perception must be protected. Anyone who would undertake such a challenge is clearly disloyal and a threat to the “great work” the leader is involved in.

The dangerous leader leaves a trail of devastation behind them. The bus analogy is particularly interesting. The bus moves forward and leaves a pile of bodies behind it. These bodies have been “thrown under the bus”, purportedly because they were impediments to the mission. But, while this is a useful cover, you don’t create a mountain of corpses by protecting an organization’s mission. It is frankly, impossible for an organization to be full of people who threaten it to that extent. Something dysfunctional is at work and, to extend the metaphor somewhat, the dysfunction is quite evident since continually running people over is never good for the undercarriage and reveals that there is something very wrong with the driver.

The dangerous leader lacks the character and humility to accept criticism or question their own behavior. Criticism is an attack and certainty is the shield. Being wrong is weakness and cannot be admitted or tolerated. The idiocy of this is unmistakable. You cannot right a ship that is headed towards a reef if you cannot be convinced the reef is actually there. Where an ego is insulated from critical, challenging, or simply diverse sources of information (whether by the individual him/herself or by that individual’s followers) – and the followers usually have been taught by the leader that such information is unwelcome – the results become predictably tragic.

Mythology

It is always a bad sign when an organization has no history. The lack of history (by which I mean, the lack of an honest memory regarding the who and how of their success) lends itself to myth-making. Like any vacuum, a lack of genuine history begs to be filled. Organizations that don’t maintain a genuine history will replace that history with myth.

In Christian circles, this seems to be a common failing. We recognize the importance of stories as an anchor for our self-perception. The Church is part of the ongoing story of God’s work in the world, pressing forward from the fall in Genesis, through the establishment of God’s chosen people, the redemption wrought by Jesus on the cross, on into the mission of acts, and through to the present in Church history. But all too often, rather than learn from the reality of our failures, we have sanitized and hidden them from view, substituting myths that are frankly distorting of the reality of those who lived through those times.

That we are part of a history is not the failing, our tendency to sanitize and distort that history is. I have worked for more than one organization that has allowed itself to build a false, heroic, narrative around its mission and founding. Where real history is forgotten (or suppressed) heroic mythology tends to take its place, usually in the form of founder myths; stories in which a heroic, individualistic, founding personality either established or innovated a great work, by hand, through great sacrifice, against great obstacles, and has been vindicated by their great success.

Such stories serve to bolster the reputation of the leader, demonstrate his/her infallibility, silence criticism, minimize recognition of others, excuse privilege, and reinforce the notion that the leader is too important to be subjected to question or criticism or simply “too big to be allowed to fail”. What they don’t do, is tell the truth. The real history, remembered by those who were there, generally reveals the myth for what it is, propaganda.

Claims of uniqueness

The Mars Hill church exemplified one of the more common features of the dangerous leader. Leaders who don’t want accountability look for (and find) reasons why their circumstances are so unique that they couldn’t possibly learn from or submit to others. The desire to be independent of denominational and other forms of oversight trends towards a general contempt for that oversight whenever it is suggested. It is also deeply self-protective.

Oversight suggests need and the most dangerous leaders are threatened by the very suggestion that they need anyone or anything. Likewise, they chafe under any suggestion of accountability because it places them in a lower place than they think they belong. Others require oversight. Dangerous leaders are convinced that they do not and that the mere suggestion is an attempt to undermine their legitimate authority. They might give lip service to the need for oversight, so long as it remains toothless, but they will not tolerate any attempt to engage in the real thing and often stack their boards (when it is impossible to avoid their appointment in the first place) with the usual cavalcade of “yes-men” and sycophants. They tend to gravitate towards positions that have the least oversight, demanding levels of autonomy that they would never grant to anyone else.

Enemy lists and the remembrance of grievances

Dangerous leaders are, as discussed above, surprisingly fragile. They hide it well, behind bluster and bombast, but that fragility emerges every time they face opposition (real or imagined) and they are incapable of letting go of a grievance. The dangerous leader has difficulty trusting others. Trust is a function of respect and dangerous leaders tend to see the people around them as tools rather than persons. They don’t trust those who they are surrounded by any more than they might “trust” a band-saw. The self-referential nature of their leadership means they often expect betrayal – after all, they would, and usually have, betrayed the people around them without a moment of hesitation. Their own lack of character forces them to live in a world of heightened surveillance, always on guard against the betrayal they themselves would instigate, and, because of their expectation of underhandedness, they are likely to imagine it wherever they look.

For the dangerous leader, only full-throated approval is acceptable. Anything less is disloyalty and a threat. Every perceived slight is remembered, not just as a grievance, but also as ammunition for use later in excusing the mistreatment to be doled out upon those who have dared to voice dissent (even accidentally or in the imagination of the leader).

The culture of organizations led by dangerous leaders tends to be combative. They tend to see the world outside their walls as being full of enemies. This adversarial approach permeates the organization from center to circumference. It is often touted as healthy competition and/or realism, but such a “reality” is confected, a very deliberate attempt to isolate and divide individuals. People who believe they are pressed upon by enemies are willing to sacrifice their autonomy to leaders who claim they will protect them. Where a lack of trust is encouraged, they will also avoid engaging in cooperation and providing any kind of united opposition to the one in charge.

Organizations where external enemies are discussed often and where enemies are being uncovered within the ranks of the organization regularly are almost always under the control of a dangerous leader.

Blame and Humiliation

The dangerous leader is never in the wrong and very invested in maintaining that illusion. When something does go wrong it is ALWAYS someone else’s fault and needs to be seen as such. This results in very public humiliation and blame being directed toward underlings. The dangerous leader cannot tolerate even the potential that they might be held responsible for a mistake and therefore they make sure that EVERYBODY knows that someone else is responsible for errors – by publicly shaming that individual – preferably as widely as possible.

They see fear as constructive within an organization, so public humiliation also “keeps people on their toes”. No one wants to be the next victim, so the logic works, and will work harder for the personality in charge. What happens, instead, of course, is that people seek to cover up their mistakes, and a culture of secrecy and hiding problems results that proves fertile soil for corruption.

Ruthlessness

There are plenty of folks in life who believe that their candle shines most brightly when they snuff out those belonging to others. These are, at their least sophisticated, the bullies of the playground, and at their most sophisticated, the folks who drop veiled threats and spread slander and gossip to weaken others. Dangerous leaders like to appear strong and, like the man who stands beside someone short to give the appearance of being tall, will happily (and very publicly) attack perceived weakness in order to appear able to make “hard and heroic decisions”. I remember one workplace bully of my acquaintance being described as having “the ability to smell blood in the water”. This capacity to zoom in on the perceived weaknesses of others, usually with the aim of undermining their influence in the organization, is a key feature of dangerous leaders.

Moreover, it is one that dangerous leaders generally take pride in and boast about. It has the appearance of wisdom and strength, since it is cloaked in a commitment to the mission of the organization. It is rare, however, for the organization’s mission to be the true motivation behind ruthless behavior (although, for the bully, such a circumstance when it arises, constitutes the perfect beard behind which to hide their ego-stroking self-indulgence). More often than not, the advantage in looking tough accrues to the leader in terms of image and obedience. To a species as inclined towards hierarchy and pecking order as we are, the posturing of strength tends to attract admiration. And fear of being the next target tends to generate obedience. A reputed (and actual) ruthlessness is often admired by organizations because it contributes to “getting things done”. The ends, cause us to wink at the means and ignore the human cost.

Belief in strength as virtue (and a consequent hiding of weakness)

Dangerous leaders are often bullies. Their contempt for weakness causes them to hide their own flaws and defend themselves against their exposure. The dangerous leader avoids transparency as assiduously as they avoid accountability and oversight. Where their character traits cannot be hidden they will reinterpret them as strengths rather than weaknesses; decisiveness rather than impulsiveness, “strong leadership” rather than cruelty, plain-speaking rather than incivility, etc.

The worship of strength by the dangerous leader is particularly troubling in the Christian context. The increasing secularisation of our society has seen a singular resurgence in the popularity of the “manly” virtues of the Roman and Greek era; strength, courage, ruthlessness, etc. In Greek and Roman society, weakness was an immediate disqualification for participation in public life. In fact, pity, empathy, and weakness were actively to be purged from these warlike societies. Most of us are quite ignorant of how significantly the rise of Christianity has shaped our democratic ideals and changed this.

The dangerous leader wonders why you would ever invite the weak and foolish to the decision-making table. And logically, it is hard to provide such a question with a satisfying answer beyond “you wouldn’t”. But the Christian church radically altered the paradigm of leadership in Western Culture. The belief that God’s image was visible in all people gave a strong basis to the notion of equality and service. The leader directly serves God when he/she serves others (particularly the weak and foolish) and to turn away from such service is to turn away from God. And the Church’s teaching regarding the indwelling of the Holy Spirit means that God can choose to address His people through even the weakest and most foolish of its members. To exclude the weak and foolish from the decision-making table is to potentially exclude the voice of God Himself.

The dangerous leader, in the Christian context, has shut his ears to the needs of others and to the voice of God when his/her behavior reveals a posturing of strength, an enjoyment of privilege, and an exclusion of other voices.

Replication and imitation of dysfunction

Dangerous leaders create new leaders in their own image. The example of a dangerous leader is like a yeast that makes its way through the entirety of an organization. If the leader models regular humiliation and shaming of his followers, his junior leaders and those who admire him will do likewise. In organizations with little tolerance for diversity (and dangerous leaders try to ensure as much conformity as possible), the culture of the organization cannot help but reflect the character of the leader (both in strength and weakness).

An experiment was conducted in the U.S. (back in the days when such things were not as regulated as they are now) in which a group of monkeys were placed in an electrified cage. A bunch of bananas were hung from the ceiling and any time a monkey sought to take one of the bananas a shock was put through the entire cage. It reached the point where, to protect themselves from a shock, the other monkeys would immediately attack any monkey who went to take a banana. Then the electrification was disconnected and, over time, the population of the cage was replaced. As each new monkey was introduced, the ritual of attacking any monkey who sought to take a banana was re-enacted by the group. Eventually, none of the original monkeys remained and the original cause for the self-protective violence had been long gone, but the dysfunctional behavior survived, having been replicated and transmitted in the culture of the group.

Dangerous leaders, often without intending to, create a mono-culture after their own image, that, because of their tendency to control others and allow only very specific leadership behaviors to prosper, replicates throughout the organization.

Survivors of dangerous leadership cultures have a surprising tendency to see those cultures in a positive light. While acknowledging the pain inflicted, they may see enduring it as character-forming in some way and seek to replicate it in other contexts. The tendency among those who have gone through abusive organizational cultures to see those cultures as positive and natural (a form of Stockholm Syndrome), in which admiration for the culture of abuse develops, is a particularly disturbing and long-term effect that proceeds from the activities of a dangerous leader, spreading the infection created by the leader well beyond the leader’s tenure.

THE TOOLS OF THE DANGEROUS LEADER

ATTRACTION

Dangerous leaders know how to attract a crowd. They know how to harness and even weaponize their personal charisma and message to draw people into their orbit for use. The dangerous leader, while charming, and flattering, does not see people as anything more than tools to be used in achieving organizational goals (and by extension, building the leader’s reputation). We are very mistaken when we equate personal charm and attractiveness with positive leadership. These traits, when they are not wedded to other elements of good character, can easily become tools of manipulation.

Novelty and disequilibrium

“I’d never heard anyone talk like this before”.

Novelty is a powerful force. New ideas appear far more attractive than the old familiar truths we know well, regardless of their relative merits. When combined with aggressive certainty and projected confidence, a flim-flam artist can make a lot of mileage out of being “new” or “innovative” or by repackaging their message in a way that hasn’t been heard before. We are impressed by voices that have something new and seemingly original to say. An original presentation or approach, particularly one that breaks conventions (adding a little shock value to the mix) draws attention and invites consideration where a familiar presentation can float on by almost unnoticed.

Novelty attracts, but it is in the manufacture of unfamiliar experiences that dangerous leaders really take hold of their followers. When faced with novelty and unfamiliar experience our sense of disequilibrium is heightened – this is a state of discomfort in which the brain looks to interpret and understand a new experience and integrate it into our understanding of the world. Generally speaking, we tend when encountering a new experience to look to the setting in which the new experience has been had for an interpretation and explanation of its meaning. Dangerous leaders are ready with such an explanation. Whether presented as an invitation to embrace destiny, get in on the ground floor of something great, or accept your mission as a member of God’s chosen, the dangerous leader will seek to interpret the experience of novelty as a “sign” that the individual should hitch their wagon to their own “unique” mission, promising that they are delivering something that cannot be found elsewhere.

We are always more likely to accept interpretations of experiences that are provided by “experts” – and the dangerous leader appears to be the expert in his/her own environment. The effects of everything from crowd psychology to hyperventilation will be interpreted for the potential recruit in terms of the organization’s own leadership myth and, without significant information to counter it, we tend to swallow it whole.

Cult leaders make heavy and pragmatic use of this technique, seizing on any novel experience that presents itself in order to recruit individuals to their cause. In my own history, an attack of hyperventilation after a particularly vigorous round of choral singing was interpreted as a touch from God that indicated I was destined to join a cultic group. In the absence of an understanding of the physiology of what was happening to me, I accepted the interpretation of the event provided by the group – to my long-term detriment.

Promise of Meaning and Significance

Another powerful means of attraction (particularly when attached to flattery) is the promise of meaning. We all want to contribute to something bigger than ourselves. The promise of meaning and significance plays, simultaneously, to our egos and one of our deepest needs. It’s no surprise that it forms a significant part of the recruitment repertoire of the dangerous leader.

Finding meaning in our commitments is no bad thing, but dangerous leaders leverage this to extract effort from adherents without any associated cost. Since they see people as tools, they are strongly invested in getting maximum output for minimum input. Emphasising the importance of the mission as a motivation and paying people in “a sense of purpose” are great ways to minimize the need to reward people in other ways. Like offering artists exposure in exchange for their work, this is a means of exploiting the talents of others.

Playing to our fears

Dangerous leaders try to establish external threats to foster unity. They talk a lot about enemies and dangers. Fear and a common enemy are useful tools for forging a sense of committed community. The enemy waits outside the walls, hungry and ready to destroy the adherent, and so is particularly useful for isolating the individual and tying them emotionally to the leader – the one who stands in opposition to this pernicious enemy (whether the enemy exists or not).

Feminism, Marxism, race, the devil, hostile culture – it matters little what the enemy is, so long as it is largely invisible, easy to blame, and likely to stoke any unfocused sense of grievance that the adherent might have.

Life is often dissatisfying, it rarely delivers on its promises. Our culture invests billions of dollars a year in advertising to perpetuate a sense of dissatisfaction with our circumstances in us. We are conditioned to look for causes for this dissatisfaction in circumstances outside ourselves. Contentment is rare, and like any good marketer, the dangerous leader uses manufactured discontent to present him/herself as the solution and divert and harness hostility for political capital.

The best enemies are made of straw, largely invisible, powerless enough to be easy targets, and scary enough to motivate action. If by opposing them we can feel like we are heroically defending tradition or family or culture, then all the better.

Speaking for God

The single most dangerous technique employed by the dangerous religious leader is the claim to speak for God. Perhaps it is through the use of “anointing” – the teaching that God anoints some people to be his special messengers. Perhaps it is through claims to the gift of prophecy – speaking God’s words to his people. Or perhaps it is simply by teaching that God expects his people to exercise submission to the leaders appointed over them. However it is couched, dangerous leaders lay claim to the authority of God to shield them from criticism and demand blind obedience.

The adherent who accepts the premise (that somehow God speaks through the dangerous leader), becomes trapped. God’s infallibility is imputed to the leader and questioning becomes a de-facto sin to be avoided. They voluntarily cooperate in indemnifying the leader against scrutiny.

Modelling a warrior spirit

The Rockstar leader invariably models belligerence, arrogance, and contempt for tradition. They burst egos and lampoon sacred cows. They posture as rebels who stand up to and disrupt the old certainties. This is almost always a sign that the leader is dangerous. Captivated by their own sense of certainty they put their goals above all else and pursue them ruthlessly, pulling down the work of others. Destruction is always easy. But empires built on destruction stand on shaky foundations.

Dangerous leaders gravitate towards a celebrity rock-star style because it gives them freedom and lends itself to a lack of oversight while allowing them to indulge their lack of impulse control. The Rockstar leader can throw a tantrum, be mercurial, keep people off balance, etc. It is almost expected. They can demand to be indulged without indulging others.

But more than this, the dangerous leader wants to be seen as a warrior; an alpha-figure, ruthless, a maker of hard choices, a protector of the weak, an achiever of success, a hardened general and veteran of critical campaigns against the encroachment of deadly enemies.

They have a need to demonstrate their war-like superiority to others, targeting even their close “friends” if it will serve their image. They berate their followers for their weakness while reveling in the dependency they create and loudly proclaiming their capacity to protect them from enemies. They speak the language of war. They identify enemies (real and imagined) and adopt the posture of the military savior and liberator.

However, the dangerous leader tends to, while talking up the danger their opponents represent, pick targets for their war that are of little real consequence. They shout at clouds and pose because such targets are easy to dispel and can be relied on to add to the dangerous leader’s reputation. This does not mean that the dangerous leader is not capable of prosecuting a real war. They often are and the danger this represents is significant, but a real war against a powerful opponent is subject to the real possibility of loss. As a result, the dangerous leader’s preferred war is the one most likely to validate their self-perception – one that is prosecuted against a weak (or non-existent) opponent who could not possibly fight back successfully.

CONTROL

Once the dangerous leader has attracted adherents, fame is usually not enough. They must also engage in control. Numerous tools are employed to control and punish immediate underlings (usually in service of the leader’s ego). Dangerous leaders at middle management levels of organizations and churches tend to use their personal charm and capacity to get things done to hide their mistreatment of those beneath them. I can remember raising the intimidating behavior and mistreatment of staff by a particular middle manager in an organization I worked for with a senior member of staff. When I outlined the behaviors that were taking place, the response was “I haven’t seen that”. And of course, that was true. Being further up the chain, those behaviors were kept well hidden from view. They were reserved for, and most clearly on display to, underlings and hidden behind the individual charm of the bully.

It is worth mentioning that some of the things that dangerous leaders rely on to continue perpetrating acts of bullying and abuse include the unwillingness of leaders further up the chain to doubt the qualifications of those they appointed to junior positions, the general tendency of people to assume that people in authority have achieved their roles legitimately, and the tendency for leaders to identify with (and trust) individuals of their own status.

Likewise, institutions, like people, find it difficult to think ill of themselves and will generally resist attempts to bring the abusive behavior of a leader into the light.

Misuse of doctrine

One of the most interesting and disturbing moments of the CT podcast occurred when a former member described Mark Driscoll’s attitude to enemies and opponents. He considered them “matchsticks” a reference to the notion within Calvinist doctrine that some are elected, predestined, or chosen for damnation.

It was clear that the label gave Mark a theological excuse for dismissing, mistreating, and abusing opponents, and more egregiously, for ignoring and mistreating the image of God in others.

That doctrine (and orthodoxy more generally) could become a means of control is, well… a little terrifying. Mark preached a hard-line view of Calvinism from the pulpit, but one that appears to have been somewhat opportunistic (helping him gain a platform, but something he has personally rejected since leaving Mars Hill).

What opportunities were pregnant in his Calvinism. For a start, it provided him with a means of exclusion. The doctrines, in his hands, allowed him to reinforce notions of exclusivity, chosen-ness, and fear of outsiders, dividing people into those who were chosen and those who are “matchsticks”. Separation from outsiders (and the dependency that follows from it) and fear (that keeps people tied to the leader) is easier to stoke, and a sense of specialness and membership in something unique and difficult to find is easier to engender where a hard line on election is taken. The idea of an eternal election of the damned for damnation made their unmasking in the church functional by stoking fear and creating dependent attachment. “You saw what happened to Bob and Doris. They were in our very midst but they weren’t members of the elect and have been cast out – matchsticks before the wrath of God. They believed they had been chosen but they weren’t. Work hard to ensure that you are not like them, but genuinely chosen to belong to God’s elect… and don’t waste any pity on them, they were never members with us to begin with.”

Using confession

The power of confession has been widely understood in Christian circles. When properly motivated, confession is a means of taking responsibility for one’s actions and beginning the process of restitution and reconciliation, but in a toxic culture, it is a means of creating, through generating intense feelings of shame, an artificial sense of community, pinpointing weakness, and providing ammunition for abuse (and even blackmail).

The Sunk Cost Fallacy

One means by which control is maintained by dangerous leaders is through increasing the individual’s investment in the organization. Corporate cults are particularly well known for doing this. The more a person invests in time, energy, and money within an organization, the less likely they are to question the value of that investment and the more inclined they become to stay the course. Dangerous leaders ask for and expect the maximum possible investment from those around them, not merely because they want the resources on offer, but because people who burn themselves out on behalf of the organization and, by extension, its leader, find it harder to cut their losses and get out. A five-minute investment of time and a five-dollar investment of money is easy to walk away from, but a five-year investment of time and a fifty-thousand-dollar investment of money is much harder to leave behind. The large investments made, in good faith, by followers make escape from a dangerous leader much harder and are one of the reasons that dangerous leaders seek out such investments (despite being fully aware of the negative impacts they have on followers in terms of burn-out).

Strategic Stratification

Human beings tend to stratify. We assign status to different people and groups and adjust our behavior towards them accordingly. Despite Christian teaching that we should not be respecters of position and pedigree, but rather value people fundamentally as created by God, as bearing His image, and as individuals through whom God might choose to speak at any moment, Christians are as prone towards hierarchy as anyone else.

I clearly remember times where I made suggestions in staff meetings among academics and, because I was not one of them (lacking their status), was dismissed out-of-hand only to see the same idea raised by one of their number a few minutes later and adopted.

Status is often used to unconsciously render institutions deaf and blind to the insights, suggestions, and judgements of those who do not belong to the upper echelons of the organization. Organizations that develop and maintain rigid hierarchies have a tendency to be the least capable of hearing or acting on institutional abuse. The powerless can be speaking, loudly, but they are not being heard.

Dangerous leaders have a preference for such hierarchies. In some cases, basic snobbery is at work (“what value is the gardener’s opinion?”) but the dangerous leader senses the opportunity that a rigid hierarchy provides to cover and excuse their more destructive interactions with the powerless and will even construct grievance procedures to emphasize the power disparity (and consequently suggest that victims were given procedural fairness when in fact they were discriminated against by a process that favors those with greater power and status over those without).

Using Scapegoats

People love to see others punished. One of the ugliest features of our nature is this tendency to take joy in seeing others humiliated and punished for their flaws. Dysfunctional organizations have little tolerance for weakness. Strength is demonstrated by stamping on the necks of the weak and dangerous leaders are always on the lookout for targets that they can look strong defeating. They make dragons out of windmills and shout at clouds, but rarely take on evil in any real way. Their own personal evil is covered up, excused, and if forced into the light, is owned up to with tears, self-justification, and a plea for grace. But rarely, if at all, will such a leader bring grace to the treatment of someone else’s weakness. There is too much political capital to be made from appearing strong.

Scapegoats are an effective means of creating a bond between diverse people and are often chosen for their powerlessness. A dangerous leader can point to scapegoats as being the source of all the problems their adherents face. Feminists, leftists, fascists, aggressive women, weak men, progressives, you name it. All these can help create group cohesion by becoming the face of “the enemy”. Paradoxically, the less the scapegoat has any real responsibility for the ills claimed of them – the more powerless they actually are – the more effectively they can be used as a scapegoat.

For Mark Driscoll, the scapegoats were large, faceless, and conspiratorial – in short perfect “soft” targets. Throughout history scapegoating has been concerned with finding hidden conspiracies that provide (false) explanatory power for the grievances of the present while diverting attention from real sources of grief onto targets that are simply easier to blame and can’t fight back against the slander. Have the powerful moved their factories off-shore? Is life more unstable than it used to be? Then it’s the fault of Jewish Bankers, or foreign refugees stealing your jobs, or women entering the workforce instead of staying in the home. Real power structures don’t come into it because, seeing as they are the focus for real power, they might fight back. A show of strength from “the opposition”, the risk of a real fight, pregnant with the possibility of loss, is not tolerated by a dangerous leader. Scapegoats won’t or can’t fight back.

While scapegoats are “soft” targets for the organization, they become victims of real harm, particularly in cultures that encourage strong divisions between “us” and “them”, promote the idea of “war” with surrounding culture, and demand demonstrations of loyalty and obedience to the core ideology.

A dangerous leader loves to identify weak “enemies” as strong antagonists, not because they exist, but because they give followers something to rally around and allow the leader to posture against. The human wreckage of this has been documented in our history many, many times and, as far as the leader is concerned, is merely the cost of doing business.

Exemplary warnings

Dangerous leaders often use fear as a means of control. They don’t merely make victims out of faceless scapegoats. They “throw their own people under the bus” as a means of creating uncertainty among their followers and “making examples” of those who, by accident or design, provide a focus of criticism against the leader. Because they are interested in interchangeable skills rather than people, it costs little to fire, demonize, cast out, and abuse otherwise loyal individuals. On the positive side of the ledger (from the leader’s point of view) it teaches followers that no one is essential (besides the leader). It stops people getting comfortable and keeps them compliant. It teaches the importance of loyalty above all else. It weakens oversight. And it minimizes dissent and diversity.

Fear of departure is an important element in the dangerous leader’s arsenal. The mythology of dysfunctional church organizations is full of stories of what happened to those who departed the organization; they were judged, had car accidents, were investigated by the police, got cancer, etc. It doesn’t matter that the stories are ludicrous, they serve the function of causing adherents to fear leaving.

Diversity intolerant

Dysfunctional organizations are often diversity intolerant. The only acceptable ideas are the ideas of the leader. The leader’s personality, opinions, and pronouncements form a standard or measuring rod for orthodoxy within the organization. In the worst cases, when the dangerous leader changes his or her mind about something, the followers are forced to retrospectively adjust their thinking to accommodate a false belief that the leader has always thought in these new terms. When Orwell wrote about totalitarian control of history, he wasn’t projecting forward to a possible future, he was extrapolating from behaviors he could already see around him in the present – behaviors that were in evidence in the institutions and governments of his own day.

The actual content of the ideology being used as “the measure” is generally irrelevant. Truth or lies, the function of the ideology is to make a clear distinction between those who are “loyal” (according to the definition of the leader) and the outsider. It helps if the ideological trappings are true, but “truth” is not the goal. The leader is looking for a shibboleth to determine who meets the criteria of full-throated support. Those who deviate, even a little, are under suspicion.

Moving goal posts

A dangerous leader is more interested in serving his or her own ego than the mission of the organization itself. Lots of programs and projects are started. Those that survive expand the leader’s influence. Those that don’t bring the payoff the leader is looking for are quickly shelved. To the outsider, it can be confusing how quickly the organization pivots from one goal to another. But it is quite logical, if the goal is to keep people off balance, maintain dependency, and serve the leader’s fragile ego. The importance of the “mission” is constantly held up as a rallying cry for significant self-sacrifice, a motivation for working above and beyond the call of duty, and a justification for “hard decisions”, fevered activity, and the expenditure of energy – but in practice the dangerous leader’s agenda (best understood as self-aggrandizement) is paramount. Should a program expand the leader’s influence and platform, resources will be directed to it in abundance. However, should a program become successful enough to show signs of independence, or should a junior leader begin to demonstrate a degree of success that distracts attention from the leader, or should a program seem, through slowness or error, to endanger the leader’s reputation, that program will suddenly find itself starved of resources as organizational attention shifts elsewhere. Short-term gain (for the leader’s reputation) becomes a key factor in decision making while significant long-term investment and planning around the organization’s mission take a back seat.

It is not uncommon for dangerous leaders to be workaholics. Their first love being themselves, they are often tireless in pursuing their own fame, adulation, and expanded influence. They often expect others to be equally tireless in pursuit of these goals (on the leader’s behalf, of course). A culture of sacrificial overwork and burnout is encouraged. Followers are interchangeable tools, so their output can be maximized beyond what is healthy with impunity. And an individual who is overworked to the point of burning out in service to the leader strokes the leader’s ego and is unlikely to become a source of competition or opposition to the leader’s goals.

A unique feature of dysfunctional religious organizations becomes evident in the belief that “results” should be supernaturally abundant. Unrealistic expectations abound and the dangerous leader will use “God’s seal of approval” in the form of “abundant harvest” as a means of control. The program didn’t bring in mega-profits (however defined)? It clearly lacked God’s seal of approval. Failure is a tool used by the dangerous leader to both humiliate and spur underlings on to ever greater efforts. The leader him/herself is the measure of abundant success and the “blessing of the Lord”, but the nebulous nature of the leader’s definition of “God’s blessing” means that underlings can, no matter how “successful”, always be made to feel they have come up short. That those around the dangerous leader are failures serves the leader’s need to feel superior. That the definition for “success” is nebulous and constantly shifting, allows the dangerous leader to surround him/herself with competent people who will be made to feel incompetent (and therefore unthreatening) in the eyes of their boss most of the time.

Shame and dependency

Dangerous leaders love adulation and privilege. They want the seats of special importance, the private jet, the trappings of status. They are usually heavily invested in their belief that they deserve them and are easily slighted when they see someone else achieve them. But they do not believe in rewarding others. The dangerous leader wants his/her victims to feel shame – shame for not achieving unrealistic benchmarks and targets, shame for not demonstrating “success” (whether spiritually or materially defined), shame for raising questions. Shame and a sense of unworthiness create a dependency on the leader that dangerous leaders feed on like candy. They love it when others are unwilling to trust their own thoughts and capacities while constantly berating them for this same trait. It allows them to feel superior and justifies their contempt for the tools in their employ.

Victim cooperation

Dangerous leaders don’t secure control without the cooperation of their victims. They prey on their victims’ virtues – their sense of loyalty, their belief that gossip is to be avoided, their work ethic, suspicion of doubt, belief in submission, their willingness to turn the other cheek and endure mistreatment, etc. They take these things and turn them into the means by which their control and dependency are assured.

The person suffering abuse is usually isolated, kept from being able to compare notes with others who have suffered similarly. They are encouraged to view what is happening to them as unique, to see the problem as being with themselves (they failed; they provoked the treatment; the problem is them, not the leader, etc.). They believe the leader has a special calling from God and that opposition to the leader is somehow disloyal to the faith. They are taught that doubt equals disloyalty to the mission. They believe that they are part of an embattled few, facing down an enormous (if amorphous) external threat and that they, therefore, must forego some of their rights (to fair treatment, courtesy, lack of abuse) in light of the larger goals. And to the extent that they internalize these beliefs, they cooperate in becoming the leader’s victims. The dangerous leader would never tolerate such expectations with regard to themselves, but the usefulness of such expectations for controlling others and getting their cooperation in the exercise of self-aggrandizing power is a commonplace strategy they happily employ.

Particularly dangerous leaders encourage their followers to engage in constant surveillance. They encourage their adherents to constantly check themselves and others for seditious thoughts, inappropriate emotions, and potentially “disruptive” behaviors. Self-awareness and a willingness to engage in self-examination and soul-searching is a good thing and its neglect by dangerous leaders has obvious negative repercussions, but what is being referred to here isn’t honest self-examination, it is a distorted self-examination that has as its aim the elimination of critical thinking and originality. Adherents are encouraged to see doubts about the activities of the organization as “sin” and “sedition”. They are encouraged to stop these thoughts at their root and eliminate them as a danger to the mission of the organization. In this way, they are trained to never entertain critical thoughts, questions, feelings or actions that might in some way threaten the perception of the person in charge.

Information control

Dangerous leaders have plenty to hide. But even if they didn’t, the use of information as a tool of power leads them to carefully limit its dissemination. Dangerous leaders limit the sharing of information within organizations in order to ensure that they remain essential (no one else can be allowed to have anything other than a fragmented view of the organization; the big picture is the exclusive preserve of the “leader”).

Information silos create information security, but also lend themselves to abuse. No one knows to what degree and to what end information will be put to use – to help direct the next stage of the organization’s plan or to orchestrate the ousting of a colleague; to provide information to stakeholders, or to facilitate a cover-up.

Where information is kept confidential, people cannot organize in their own defense. Organizations have been very quick to assert their right to control speech and communication between employees. I have been in numerous Christian organizations that have felt my terms of employment have granted them the right to control my public pronouncements regarding the organization and to control my private discussions with other members of staff. Confidentiality clauses and non-disclosure agreements are tools used far too often by the powerful to prevent embarrassment rather than protect intellectual property or important proprietary business information. Attempts to enforce secrecy or control freedom of speech and communication require rigorous justification and are always a warning sign of potential dysfunction, especially within a Christian organization. In my experience, every time an organization has asked me to maintain confidentiality, it has been to protect itself from criticism, not to protect its staff and mission.

EXPLOITATION

Throughout this essay, two features of dangerous leaders should be obvious. Their gifts and rhetoric speak to the importance of mission. Their behaviors, on the other hand, exploit people in the service of stroking their ego. Everything is aimed at serving the ego of the leader and his/her reputation. The influence they wield, the programs they greenlight, the rhetoric they employ, the enemies they identify, the protections they enact, the abuse they inflict, the way they employ truth and falsehood – in every case, the promotion of their own celebrity and legend is the goal. Those who do not serve this goal become the first victims, but victims are sought out and made, even from supporters, in service to the goal of stroking a dangerous leader’s insatiable ego. The leader may be genuinely capable and achieve good things, but, even there, the motivation is to stroke their personal sense of self. The dangerous leader leverages their strengths, their genuine accomplishments, their ability to influence others towards the great and the good, primarily to meet their own needs. Because of this, they are rarely immediately obvious to outside observers. They seem a huge asset to the organization. But they treat people as tools and sacrifice them for their own needs without any sense of guilt. As the mound of bodies rises behind them, however, the dysfunctional patterns become more readily obvious and the true nature of the dangerous leader becomes obvious. At this point, their continued “success” is due to the willful ignorance of those whose job it is to hold such leaders to account.

The next part of this essay looks at reasons why Christians in particular, as followers, so easily become complicit with dangerous leaders in the destruction they wreak.

Ten Religious Attitudes that Support Dangerous Christian Leadership

Attitude 1:

“I want God to do something dramatic in my life so I can be sure that he loves me/ he exists/ I am saved etc.”

Many Christians feel insecure because they are living fairly mundane lives when compared with the amazing testimonies that a few unusual individuals can give. They secretly feel that there is something wrong with them because their lives are not filled with miracles and magic. Because of this inaccurate picture of the Christian life they are easy prey to those who can manufacture or provide intense experiences of one kind or another. Their very desire to gain God’s seal of approval through some kind of experience makes them unlikely to critically evaluate the content of any experience they do encounter.

If I need a manufactured experience in order to feel saved then I will not question its validity when provided because that would mean I must also question the basis of my assurance.

Attitude 2:

“Life is so complicated. I wish God would just tell me what he wants me to do with my life.”

In today’s world, we are faced with more choices than ever before. Many of life’s biggest decisions (what career to enter, who to marry, whether to marry, etc) would have been made for us in the past, but are now in our own hands. For some Christians fear of making a bad choice significantly inhibits their ability to make decisions. Some other Christians are very laissez-faire, feeling certain that God will work it all out in the end. Both of these attitudes can, where they are an expression of the desire to avoid taking responsibility for our lives and the decisions we make, play into the hands of manipulators who will happily tell us what they think God wants for us (inevitably to our great cost).

Attitude 3:

“I secretly want to be one of the inner elite, one of the chosen few. I am pleased that I am no longer like other people, still sunk low in sin.”

This attitude is not one people will readily admit to. It is an obvious case of arrogant pride. Where it exists (and pride lurks very near the surface in most of us) we are easy prey to flatterers who will tell us we can be members of God’s inner circle, the chosen few saved from amongst the damned and doomed of this sinful world.

Attitude 4:

“I am an unlovable monster. My sins are so great I want to punish myself and pay for my sins through hard work and self-denial.”

Strangely, this attitude is also a manifestation of pride. One of the hardest things to let go of as Christians is our desire to earn our own salvation. Legalism and reliance upon works is an attempt to save ourselves. Even Christians who realize they are saved by Grace may fall into the trap of subtly trying to maintain God’s love through works. Manipulators will happily play upon our insecurities and try to entice us with sure-fire methods of pleasing God through works.

Attitude 5:

“I believe that the Church in general and many other Christians of my acquaintance are cowardly, compromised, unloving, and hypocritical. I think that God will one day judge the Church for its complacency.”

Again this is a form of pride. To judge the church with a standard you would not dare apply to yourself (since we are all less than perfect) is hypocritical and leaves us open to groups and individuals who will exploit our prejudices and reinforce our sense of superiority. It is especially dangerous to sit in judgment upon other Christians since we have no real way to measure the state of their hearts or how they live when they are not under our immediate scrutiny. When coupled with exclusiveness, this belief can be used by unscrupulous religious leaders to isolate us from the wider church, our friends, and family. It is very useful in separating people from those things which would help keep them from being dominated in an unhealthy way.

Attitude 6:

“The Church should be perfect and I feel angry and betrayed when it is not.”

Most of the books of the new testament contain reprimands from the apostles to the Churches to whom they were writing. It has never been the case that the church has been anything but fallible. It is made from imperfect human beings and as a result, demonstrates all of those fallibilities. The hunt for the perfect church, aside from its basis in unrealistic expectations, results in our separating ourselves from other Christians and cultivating a judgmental attitude. Cults exploit this desire by carefully hiding their seamier side in order to entice converts. They are often very good at it. By contrast, the church, when it is animated by the Holy Spirit, is honest and open about its flaws.

Attitude 7:

“Intellectualism and critical thinking are a waste of time. I get annoyed when Christians demand proof. They aren’t letting the Holy Spirit do his work. I know God is real because I feel him with me, I don’t need anything else. All you really need is faith”.

Many Christians are afraid to ask questions and think critically about their faith. This is the number one reason Christians get sucked into cults. They do not have the intellectual equipment to interpret and discern the nature of the experiences they have in religious circles.

To be an unquestioning “follower” is to put yourself in danger of walking unquestioningly into a trap that you could have avoided if you had employed a little common sense. Because Christianity is true it will stand up to scrutiny. Faith must have its foundation in the facts of the gospel. These facts are historical, not emotional. If your faith is based on transitory experiences its strength will rise and fall with your emotional state. You will also find it very difficult to withstand the enticements of people who can manufacture similar experiences and feelings for you. You won’t have the skills to tell the difference.

Attitude 8:

“I must submit to the leaders, authorities etc. placed over me even when I strongly disagree with them. They have been appointed by God and if I don’t submit I am being neither humble nor obedient.”

This particular attitude causes a great many problems (Mars Hill being only the most recent example). This is essentially because almost everyone seems to think that it is appropriate. This attitude is incorrect. God does not ask us to commit sin and God does not ask us to commit intellectual suicide. If I make the mistake of believing the word of a charlatan this attitude will keep me trapped indefinitely. I will be kept from questioning whether I am really in the will of God because I believe I must submit without questioning. I can be manipulated into committing or submitting to all manner of sin, crime, and abuse. No leader stands in the place of God. No leader has absolute command in God’s name. If you have lost your independence of action to some other personality to the point where you can no longer stand up to them and assert an independent opinion, the submission you are being asked to provide is unhealthy.

Attitude 9:

“I rarely take the time to look objectively at my behavior. I know I am a sinner, but I don’t like to look at my individual sins, and I resent it when they are pointed out to me. I am scared to, or merely don’t make a habit of, self-examination.”

If you have not cultivated the habit of honest self-examination you will find it very difficult to accurately assess whether the group you are involved with is on the right track or not. Many of us find it very hard to believe ill of ourselves, especially if the admission will leave us embarrassed. Con men depend on this to ensure the cooperation of their victims.

Attitude 10:

“I don’t like making decisions and will happily let others make decisions for me in small and big matters.”

People who do not like to make their own decisions are particularly susceptible to the manipulation of those who enjoy control. For every person who doesn’t want to make a decision, there is another who will be only too happy to step in and take control.

Targeting the competent

In an odd contradiction to the above, dangerous leaders don’t just target those who seem “weak”. They also, often, choose the strong to be the targets of their particular attention. The motivation to prove themselves by dousing the flames of other people’s candles can make highly capable and confident people very tempting targets – particularly if they try to engage with a dangerous leader in good faith.

The special joy that a dangerous leader gets from crushing the light of someone who was potentially more competent and capable than they are should never be underestimated. Many victims of these predatory leaders are left devastated and lacking confidence, wondering what went wrong – not because of any failing in themselves, but because they were targeted, specifically, so that the dangerous leader could feel superior standing in the shadow of the failure he/she engineered.

Concluding thoughts

This essay is in no way a complete or comprehensive examination of dysfunctional and abusive leadership. It has roamed far beyond the things that were in evidence at Mars Hill to discuss traits I have seen, first hand, in numerous Church settings and organizations, large and small.

In lots of ways, I feel a little ill after cataloging all these faults and foibles surrounding leadership and its expression. As stated, I have seen most of these behaviors first hand. The writing of these 12,000 words has brought up lots of bad memories. My sense of outrage is inflamed at the thought of these “wolves” hiding within the flock, of their mistreatment of myself and other staff that they deemed weak or soft targets, of their continued presence in ministry and organizations despite the destruction they have wrought along the way. I wish I could name names without fear of becoming a target for legal action and retribution, but I doubt it would provide any real consolation.

When these figures appear in Christian organizations they do so as a failure of theology and practice. They aren’t merely an example of immature leadership, they are features of outright dysfunction and flawed character that will not be easily repaired. Some capable people are, by nature, abusers in sheep’s clothing sliding through the world in search of a personal payoff that comes from inflicting harm on others. They want all the kudos, the fame, the admiration, and sense of destiny, and the privilege, that comes with “success” but their motivation is personal. They are not servants. They are not concerned for the development of others. They gather adulation and privilege around them and lord it over their peers. They refuse supervision and accountability. Mark Driscoll was a monster. He’s not the first and he won’t be the last. I hope we’ll learn something from the Mars Hill experience, but I’ve seen too many mini-Marks hiding behind personal charm and an ability to “get things done”. Most of them, despite doing real harm, still hold their positions of influence within the Church. I’ve seen too many people, who should know better, pass over the warning signs and signals because of the personal charm and capability they see in evidence. They maintain their silence or their wilful blindness or both. In short, I have seen Mars Hill in microcosm happen too many times to believe it won’t happen again… and again… and again. If the conditions are right, another Mars Hill is inevitable, not because Big Churches are especially susceptible, but because we allow the seeds to be sown in small churches Australia-wide and throughout the world – waiting for the circumstances that create bigness to line up. The dysfunction of dangerous leadership is not a phenomenon unique to “bigness” – it is a phenomenon directly traceable to our sin and weakness and unwillingness to speak truth to power or place limits on celebrity and ego.

Final statement

I can’t finish without making a personal statement. I’m a Christian. I have been for a long time. I was raised inside the Christian faith, became an atheist, and found my way back into the fold. There have been more than a few occasions when the naivete of my family of faith, the willingness to entertain nonsense, the casual cruelty expressed by the institutional church, its insularity, and unwillingness to engage a vulnerable and hurting world with equal vulnerability and honesty, has left me in despair. My faith gives me a reason, despite the weakness of its adherents (among whom I am counted), to persist in seeking a better world than the one we find ourselves in. It teaches me to oppose evil, yet meet weakness and human frailty with mercy and compassion. Hope for a better world grows out of the upside-down kingdom values of my faith. We are strong when we respect and protect weakness. We are exalted when we seek the well-being of others ahead of ourselves. And we fail when we distort the Church into a success-driven temple to human ego rather than allowing it to be a hospital aiming to meet the deepest of human needs.

I haven’t abandoned my faith, though severely tempted at times, despite the many failings, and scandals, and abuses I have witnessed in the institutional Church. This world is thoroughly broken. I don’t expect the church to be immune to that brokenness. The cross remains for me a symbol of human evil enacted on a cosmic scale. It is the judicial murder of God, willingly submitted to by Him, in order to purchase my innocence. The God who rescued me remains the God who gives me hope that, in the end, evil will not prevail. The Friday of crucifixion was followed by the Sunday of resurrection. Evil did not win the day. When I look at injustice and human evil and feel my mind revolt, a part of me is reminded that I am ultimately on God’s side. When I look in the mirror and see my own tendencies toward cruelty and selfishness I am reminded of my own need for forgiveness. I remain a Christian despite the evils without and within. My faith is as essential as breathing, for without it, I would not have this hope. In the end, the monsters that inhabit our world will fail. Sunday is coming both for the church and the world. Evil will eventually know defeat.

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2 thoughts on “Dangerous Leadership and the Enabling Church”

Naomi says:
October 29, 2021 at 11:47 pm
This is a belated comment to thank you for writing and publishing this, Craig. I can’t add much beyond saying it’s excellent in its comprehesiveness and the pattern you explain has really enlightened me. It’s also been consoling as I hadn’t realised how still partially blamed myself for my bad experiences with these sorts of people until now. Although not religious, I have seen many of these traits in various leaders, sometimes as isolated flaws and sometimes as the complete package. It horrifies me how prevalent they are and it’s sad that any good traits they have are lost to their bad motives, which they often can’t even perceive in themselves. I’ll be sharing this with others when they have bad experiences. It seems our only way to combat this is through education and support, and your writing can do much to further that, I believe.
1. Philip Robotham says:
  October 30, 2021 at 12:27 am
  Thanks for the kind words. I’m so glad the article has been helpful.