Arranged Relationships
In narcissistically abusive churches, some new relationships often do not happen organically. Instead, some new relationships often find their way to members in manipulative and coercive ways. These churches do not allow organic relationships to just happen because members are not trusted to know what is good for them. Thus, original relationships are dismantled and new relationships are crafted behind the scenes. Often members are unaware of what is happening until they are already caught up within a messy and tangled web.
The pastor and leaders of narcissistically empowered churches do not behave as if members know what is best for their own lives particularly when it comes to relationships within the church. Relationships in these types of churches are viewed as obstacles if it appears that members are connecting in a way that will ultimately bring exposure to what is happening behind the scenes of a church or if the connections will take away members’ attention from the goal(s) of the church. The only reason that relationships even matter to these churches is that members build in numbers, create financial stability, and keep the church progressing to its goals.
Otherwise, pure relationships are a nuisance to the church’s cause. Instead, there is the need to procure relationships that will lead to distractions and destruction. Specifically, cults are known for this technique of generating relationships for their members for a purpose. These generated or arranged relationships create triangulation, entanglements, and other stresses. Interestingly, rifts are sought after in already established relationships so that families and friendships are fraught with strife, confusion, and division. The plot of these narcississtic organizations is to gain absolute control over their members.
Choosing Your Friends … Choosing Your Mate
A church that I was a member of had a few members who were notorious for matchmaking. This is actually common in many circles, but is more than likely perceived as something that people do because they either do not want to see an individual alone or they want to see an individual happy. Either way, I always found this character trait annoying in members because it always felt as if members were attempting to control personal aspects of my life. If I declined these members access into my life in this way, then my boundaries were seemingly overridden until I put my foot down.
I do not have a problem with being introduced to someone, but I do have a problem with the hidden agenda that someone is to become my mate. In the narcissistic church arena, I would often hear from members that God told them about the mate He had for me. This would irritate me because it was as if I were subtly being told that I could not understand God’s guidance for myself. Sure, I believe God sends people into our lives to assist us, but I also believe that God respects our individual free will and enables us to make our own decisions even if those decisions lead to mistakes.
I was never down with the matchmaking because it seemed that I was always being paired with someone I did not even like or even had an affinity towards. Whenever I would hear someone in leadership or a member come to me with the “Thus says the Lord …” advice about my personal life in the area of marriage, I would immediately halt the breaks and stop them in their tracks from continuing. None of the matched friendships for me worked out at all as hard as I tried to make them work.
I was set up in friendships with people that all had narcissistic traits. Only the friendships that occurred organically had lasting effects. In fact, I remain friends with one person even when we were separated by a church split and different life paths. As far as the arranged friendships, I had to let them all go. There was absolutely no way I was going to allow myself to be set up by a mate of their choosing. No way! Despite it often being told to me that I should not be too choosy, I still believed that I reserved that right. It was my life nevertheless.
When I began to take note of the patterns in relationships threaded throughout the church, I also took note of how much authority the pastor, leaders, and some of the members seemed to have in these relationships. That seemed far too invasive to me, and I loved my privacy. I did not like the idea that the pastor and leaders could simply micromanage all the members’ lives through various means. One way to control members was through word prophecies. Although I believe in the gift of prophecy, narcissistically empowered churches merely use this gift to their advantage.
If a member was not compliant to the wishes of the pastor and leaders, then the pastor and leadership would use other members to gang up against the noncompliant member to bully them into submission. If the noncompliant member still did not submit, then this group would bully them into leaving. Most often, a less stronger member would cave into the demands of the church, but any member who fought to freely exercise their will would feel they had no choice but to leave. I saw several people leave – even long time members, but their departure would be written off as these members being apostates, backsliders, and troublemakers. Yet, these characteristics about them were hardly true.
I was seemingly chastised by a member for maintaining a friendship with a person outside of the church who was a member of the church that was branched off from in a church split. I could not just turn on hatred for someone who I loved and had been my friend. That was not possible for me. It also does not sound like what God’s love is about either. Yet, this church wanted to maintain control over members’ relationships to the point that they would condition members to believe that the messages preached from the pulpit were warnings against continuing friendships and connections with those outside of the church. They literally called any friendship maintained outside of the church as sin. To me, this was ridiculous.
A few members had their mates chosen from them as well, and the pastor made sure that these mates were inside the church. As long as the pastor and leadership were able to control the relationships inside the church, they were able to maintain control of the members. Some of these mates were not even happy with each other, did not feel originally as if the other was the person that God actually had for them, and they had a multitude of problems that they had to work out. Guess who maintained control of what went on in these marriages even to the point of counseling? That’s right. The church. The church created the problems and created the (fake) solutions.
Nevertheless, I found my way out of this micromanaged fiasco of a problem because I did not want to be controlled in this manner. I wanted the freedom to be able to make my own choices. Personally, I just do not believe another person should have that kind of control over my life. I do not believe that a church should have that type of control over my life either. I do not believe that this is what God wants, but that is my personal belief. Needless to say, the church was giving me “cult vibes”, and because I refused to comply with these micromanaged rules, I was pushed to make a choice to leave. A mob of members set up all sorts of attacks against me, and when I realized what was really happening, I walked away.
In the end, none of the relationships I had in the church that were orchestrated by the church endured as much as I attempted to make them work, and this applied to so many other members within the church as well. Strife was a constant issue among these relationships, but it turns out that drama is what this church thrived upon anyway. The leadership preferred these inside relationships as opposed to any relationships occurring outside of the church because of the amount of control they could exercise over the members. Although this should have been a red flag for me, I was easily unaware of this tactic at the time. Now I know better.
My Voice Unchained 