Monday, October 26, 2009

Complete Control

http://atheism.about.com/od/jehovahswitnesses/a/SocietyControl.htm

I found an article by an atheist explaining the methods in which Jehovah’s Witnesses are controlled buy their leadership. There are curious parallels to the WOF, such as an exalted "anointed" leadership, although the origins as well as the overall personality of the groups are quite different. For example, I have never seen any WOF church to be anywhere close to the well-oiled recruitment machine that the JWs organization is.

One of my concerns is that such controlling methods have been filtering out into mainstream evangelicalism for a number of years via the Word of Faith movement. If a church is built up as one man's career vehicle, then the temptation to try to control people may be too hard to resist. It seems like a lot of guys leading mega-awesome mega-churches should just quit the ministry and be regular ol' CEOs instead of religious business philosophers.