Author Archives: Carol A. Davis

Recognizing Manipulation Techniques: “Appeal to Fear”

09 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by in authoritarian abuse, hypocrisy, spiritual abuse, Uncategorized

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Appeal-to-Fear

A common manipulation technique often used in the Institutional Church is called “appeal to fear.” According to Wikipedia, “An appeal to fear (also called argumentum ad metum or argumentum in terrorem) is a fallacy in which a person attempts to create support for an idea by using deception and propaganda in attempts to increase fear and prejudice toward a competitor.”

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Examples:

  • “If you continue to drink, you will die early as your father did.”
  • “If you cannot graduate from high school, you will live in poverty for the rest of your life.”
  • “Voting for him is the same as voting for the terrorists.”
  • “If you tell a lie, then no one will ever believe what you say again.” 
  • “If we don’t go to war, our country will be destroyed.”

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As I’m sure we all know, the most common use of “appeal to fear” in the Institutional church is in telling people they will go to hell unless they do what they are told. In some of the churches I grew up in, it was a little more subtle and indirect. I suspect the leadership of these churches instinctively knew that this would be too obvious and scare people off. They had to find a smoother way to do it.

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One Sunday at my old church, the preacher said the name of the sermon was “How to Deal with Adversity.” The gist of it was this: bad things will come upon a person if they rebel against God. The pastor is in spiritual authority over the members (an example of the “begging the question” fallacy – they couldn’t prove whether God had actually called that pastor to be over an individual). Since the Bible says that to rebel against authority is to rebel against God himself, if you didn’t do what the pastor asked, you were in rebellion and opening yourself up to potential catastrophes or tragedies.

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He then brought up the church building fund, talking about how the pastor had asked everyone to pledge. Mind you, the majority of the congregation was struggling financially, and they were being required to pledge on top of tithing. We had already had one building fund, and when we reached that goal, the pastor had decided it wasn’t enough and began another one.

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By the end of the sermon, it was clear to me it had never been about how to deal with adversity at all. It had all been carefully constructed to scare people into giving more money – implying that they could get cancer and die, get in a horrible car wreck, lose their house and car, etc., or possibly even go to hell if they didn’t do what they were told.

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In what ways has the “appeal to fear” tactic been used on you?

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Relevant Readings

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Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_fear

Recognizing Manipulation Techniques: “Begging the Question”

07 Thursday Aug 2014

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In propaganda and arguments, people will often use logical fallacies, flawed logic, to win their audience over. It’s a form of manipulation. Logical fallacies are rampant in teachings in the Institutional Church. According to Wikipedia, “A fallacy is an incorrect argument in logic and rhetoric. It gives a result that is not valid or lacks soundness.”

A common one used is called “begging the question,” or “circular reasoning.”

Definition:

Begging the question requires two or more ideas. Each of these ideas may or may not be true. The speaker of these ideas tries to show that one idea is true by saying a second idea proves it, but the second idea is only true if the first idea is true already.

Here’s an example:

Interviewer: “Your resume looks impressive but I need another reference.”

Bill: “Jill can give me a good reference.”

Interviewer: “Good. But how do I know that Jill is trustworthy?”

Bill: “Certainly. I can vouch for her.”

The church I used to attend used this one often as one of many manipulation tactics. They would say that God had appointed your pastor as a spiritual authority over you, and if you didn’t submit to him or her, you weren’t submitting to God. Whenever a visitor came to the church, at the end of the service when the pastor gave the altar call to accept Jesus and/or join the church, he would say, “You’re not here by accident. You are here by divine appointment,” meaning that God had brought them there, and it was His will for them to join – which indirectly meant that if you just happened to be there, you were under the pastor’s “spiritual authority.”

Pastor: (premise) God Himself has called me to be your pastor, which means  (faulty conclusion) you are under my spiritual authority.

 You: But how do I know I am under your authority?

 Pastor: (back to first premise) Because God has called me to be your pastor.

So in order for the conclusion to be true, you pretty much have to assume the premise is true, taking his or her word for it. Churches will also often use emotional manipulation to distract people from this flawed logic. I used to fall for this one all the time. Has you ever had this method used on you?

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Relevant Readings

Sources:

http://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy

http://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

Recognizing Manipulation Techniques: “Cherry Picking the Evidence”

05 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by in authoritarian abuse, charismatic captivation, control freaks, deception, prosperity gospel, pulpit pimps

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by Carol A. Davis

Cherry-picking In religion, leaders will often use “logical fallacies,” logically flawed arguments, to persuade and manipulate churchgoers into doing what they want. According to Wikipedia, “A fallacy is incorrect argument in logic and rhetoric resulting in a lack of validity, or more generally, a lack of soundness.”

A very common fallacy used is called “Cherry-picking the Evidence (also called anecdotal evidence, confirmation bias, biased sample, and proof by example), “… it is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position.”

Here’s an example:

Yeah, I’ve read the health warnings on those cigarette packs and I know about all that health research, but my brother smokes, and he says he’s never been sick a day in his life, so I know smoking can’t really hurt you.

Here is an example of one that was often used at a church I used to attend. They were always pushing members to tithe and “sow more seed” to get that “hundred-fold return.” Often they would have a member stand up before the church to give their testimony of how they finally decided to give tithing a try, and directly after, something really good happened to them. Maybe they received a big settlement they had been waiting on for a long time, received a promotion at work, received a check in the mail that they hadn’t been expecting, got approved for a house or car loan they should not have been eligible for with their credit rating, and things of that nature.

These testimonies would have everyone wanting to give more, because they thought if they did, the same would happen to them. The fact was, for every member who’d had an experience like that, there were many more who had been faithful in tithing and giving offerings for years, but never experienced any kind of windfall or dramatic change in their financial situation. But those people were not going to be asked to testify about it in front of the church, so you weren’t going to hear those stories. They showed you the evidence they wanted you to see and excluded what they didn’t want you to see.

Don’t be fooled by leaders who cherry pick evidence. Anecdotes alone are not enough to support a claim.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking_(fallacy)

http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#AnecdotalEvidence)