The Risk of Small Group Manipulation

Dallas Roark, expounding on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's view of confession as that which is to be made to God, writes:

"If there is to be confession, let it be before God. This may serve as a needed corrective to the bent toward spiritual stripteases that occur in sensitivity groups and related psychologically oriented movements in evangelical Christianity." Dallas Roark

I find this quote to speak directly to the small group movement in churches, religious youth groups and on Christian college and seminary campuses where the coaxing and forcing of a person into a posture of "vulnerability" for the sole purpose of outing their secret struggle with a particular sin has become a litmus test for whether or not one is "all in" for Jesus and the "community of believers."

I once was manipulated into this sort of "confession" in the months leading up to a mission trip I was to participate in with the church I attended at the time.

The assistant pastor, who would lead the mission trip, held numerous "get real with each other" sessions in the months leading up to the trip, causing me to question if helping to build a church in Mexico, or these "tell-all" gatherings, was what I had signed up for. Had I known I was going to be required to spill my guts with total strangers as a way to "bond before going to Mexico" I would never have signed up.

In another instance, a youth at a Christian summer camp admitted to me that they actually made "bad" stuff up so as to measure up to other "authentically" sharing and confessing Christians during campfire devotionals.

While the Bible does say to confess our sins one to another, this is not in the context of rote, find-something-to-confess-for-Thursday-night-small-group, or to look more impressively spiritual to one's Christian brothers and sisters.

I point this out because the teaching that we must "love-on each other and live in community via frequent heart-to-hearts" is human ego at work. It is promoted by "leaders" and fellow congregants who are often on a power trip, are extroverted, or have an intense need for human and worldly affirmation because they've never done the personal internal work of gaining affirmation from God.

Ironically, this forced closeness simply cannot sustain itself, and those who finally get it, get out, while those who want to continue to "pour into" folks carry on with new recruits.

Not all small groups can be defined this way, but far too many can.

And to a new Christian, like myself at one time, this "stepping out of one's comfort zone" and into "authenticity" is believed to be what one is supposed to do "in order to be a Christian."

But this joined-at-the-hip mentality is only one person's or group's take on what Christian community might look like. It is not written in stone, and so if it doesn't feel right to us, then for us, it isn't right. 

There is no "one way" to "do" Christian community.

In discernment we must take note of who it is that is asking--or pressuring us--to act, speak or believe in a certain way, and test their requests and motivations against Scripture and our own inner warning system called the conscience, which God alone can either confirm or convict within us.



copyright Barb Harwood