The Church's Strengths

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The ideal strategy involves no fighting; it coaxes the enemy into surrender by a combination of intimidation, influence, and leverage. The ideal leader conquers their enemies by calculation, and not by force. The church has spent millennia fortifying their position; while the Crusades, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Postmodernism has eroded their clout from time of Constantine, the deck remains ever stacked in their favor.

Sun-tzu teaches us that a well-positioned, well-armed, well-defended, and well-supplied fortified enemy should not be directly confronted for any reason. When the deck is stacked against you, any quantum of progress will come at an enormous cost. The church explicitly engineers situations to rile your anger, to drive you to make foolish decisions to waste the resources and manpower of those who might oppose them. Instead, fortified opponents must be fought indirectly, either by: [1]

  • Threatening something the enemy cares about. This lures the enemy out of their secure position to perform a rescue.
  • Maintaining a secure perimeter around their stronghold, to prevent it from being resupplied. When the enemy eventually consumes all of their supplies, material needs will coax them into leaving their stronghold.
  • Virtuous living. Goodness severely demoralizes your enemies; it gives them no real reason to hate you. By acting with dignity, enemies cannot rally for action and liberation against your moral outrages, since they won’t exist.

While the odds against you are great, the odds are not insurmountable. Nothing is invincible. The warriors of the ancient legends won their great battles because they only fought when it was easy to win; they only attacked their enemies in their weakest places. The truly great warriors were never praised for being brave, clever, or even lucky -- they merely set themselves up to succeed. The strong can be overcome in many ways; you are invited to explore them all: [1]

  • Avoid direct confrontation. Instead, set up traps, and make the enemy come you.
  • The weak can control the strong in moments of transition or change. A well-timed joke can embarrass and enrage your enemies, making them heedless attack without forming a strategy.
  • Bigger is not always better. Force the enemy to waste their strength and energy, instead of using it to defeat you. Rather than making one brash charge, constantly attack your enemy in different ways, in different places, to wear them out by constantly respond to emergencies. A “death by 1,000 cuts” often goes unnoticed until it is too late.
  • Cause division within the enemy’s organization. Sabotage the enemy’s relationships, friendships, and alliances. Have infiltrators enter the enemy’s organization; have them commit sabotage and spread rumors to divide a powerful enemy into smaller, weaker enemies who fight among themselves.
  • Prepare for all contingencies. Daily training is needed to avoid becoming fearful and hesitant when confronted. Likewise, leaders must constantly develop strategies for different contingencies. The end goal of this constant plotting is not to create an exhaustive encyclopedia of strategies, or to make a master decision tree or flowchart to reduce conflict to a series of automated responses to enemy action. Such a system is impossible, because a clever opponent can find and exploit hidden weaknesses. Cleverness conquers all, and leaders who are constantly making plans will become excellent at planning. Thus, they will be able to quickly adapt their plans to account for an enemy’s trickery, or to exploit their mistakes.

The first step in any strategy is assessing the strengths and weaknesses of both parties, to determine the most efficient means of action. Conflict has no standardized form, and any strategy can be countered. By understanding the church’s strengths, you will understand how those strengths will be used against you. By avoiding these strengths, you can discover and exploit their weaknesses, and win by changing the narrative such that you can fight on your own terms. [1]

Capital

Taken as a whole, American churches (as of 2009) generated $100 billion per year, and own $610 billion worth of real estate. The Catholic Church in particular is one of the largest corporations in the United States, with branch offices in almost every town. At their peak c.1965, their assets and real estate holdings exceeded those of Standard Oil, AT&T, and US Steel combined, and their roster of dues-paying members was second only second to United States Government tax rolls. In addition, churches benefit greatly from exploiting tax loopholes which solely exist to further their agendas. All revenue -- except for the preacher’s declared personal income -- is tax-exempt. Churches are not even required to register as a 501(c)(3) charity [2], as churches and ministries are “exempt automatically” under IRS Publication 557 and IRS Code § 508.

Because of this, many churches have, through their investments, grown into “a religious-industrial complex.” For example: [3]

  • The Temple Baptist Church of LA owns the Philharmonic Auditorium.
  • The Muskingum Ohio Presbytery owned a cement block factory in AZ.
  • California’s Christian Brothers were once major vintners and brandy-makers.
  • The LDS church owns (or has owned) the SLC Desert News, KSL (the Salt Lake City NBC affiliate station, via their for-profit holding company, Bonneville International ), 100,000 acres of ranch land (via Zion Securities Corp.) and Laie Village in Honolulu.
  • The Jesuits were prominent stockholders of Republic and National Steel, Boeing, Lockheed, Curtis-Wright, and Douglass Aircraft. They owned the DiGiogio Fruit Company, and its associated shipping fleet.
  • The Knights of Columbus owned the land under the original Yankee Stadium, amongst other landholdings in New York City.

Commercial enterprises as well as the churches have found such partnerships eminently advantageous, thanks to “sale and lease-back” arrangements. A church or religious organization buys a business, and finances the purchase with a mortgage, and leases the facility to the same operators. The church takes most (~80%) of the earnings as taxable rent, and pays off the mortgage in installments. Essentially, the business buys itself. Since the church is tax-exempt, it can offer the owner a higher price than ordinary tax-paying purchasers, who are only interested in earnings after taxes, whereas a tax-exempt buyer keeps 100% of the earnings. By acting as middlemen, churches can thus make the additional business earnings which would have been paid to the government as taxes available to the seller. The SCOTUS has declared that self-liquidating lease-back transactions, or “bootstrap purchases,” are entirely legal (see Commissioner v. Brown, 380 U.S. 563 (1965)). As a consequence, an exempt organization can convert its exemption into a self-sufficient device for the production of capital, and thus sever itself from reliance upon contributors or members, and their scrutiny [3].

The difference between religions and cults is determined by how much real estate is owned.
—Frank Zappa

Many societal problems persist since there is inadequate funding for the social programs established to eradicate those problems. This is, in part, due to the fact that people aren’t taxed in proportion to their wealth. In a holdover from colonial times, city tax revenue is generated largely by property tax, and not by income tax [4]. These massive church landholdings are exempt from taxes, perpetuating social problems, and creating an artificial demand for church programs that symptomatically treat society’s ills. Challenging these social ills is to indirectly attack the church. Conservatives deplore welfare because it gives abused women the means to escape, which challenges their absolute patriarchy. The “welfare queen” is a myth, as there are no incentives for welfare mothers to have more children, as benefits mostly come in non-cash forms (e.g., food stamps, Medicaid, and housing and daycare allowances which are paid directly to the providers). [5]

Furthermore, priests never have to deliver on any of their religious claims, as there are no refunds in the religion business, because there are no transactions or contracts. Since everything is done “by donation,” even the most exploitative of charlatan televangelist faith healers cannot be arraigned on fraud charges [2]. Why, a particularly shrewd or devious person could easily use church collection baskets to launder money [6].

Perceived Authority

Historically, churches were important to social organization, but only as instruments of social control and discipline [7]. Priests must act as authority figures, since Christianity presupposes that man does not – and cannot – know what is and is not good for him; they believe that God alone knows these things [6]. As a part of this, people respect priests, because priests tell them to do so. The primary message of all religions is that you need religion, which only benefits the priests. Secondary messages include: [8]

  • Whatever the group believes is reality. It is not a worldview or a theory -- it just is -- and this is never to be discussed or argued. The only truth exists with the church and its teachings. (This is why it’s impossible to win a creationist debate -- by simply agreeing to a debate, you, you acknowledge that their views contain some quantum of merit, and automatically grant them some degree of victory. [9] )
  • This “reality” is a black-and-white, good-vs.-evil dichotomy.
  • The church members are part of a “chosen” group. This fact makes people feel special, which in turn, keeps followers in line.
  • Submission to the group’s will is required. Individual dreams and goals are must be tailored such that that coincide with and support the church’s goals.
  • Control is asserted though fear, guilt, and shame. It is always the individual who is at fault, and never the church. “Love” is always conditional, and mostly directed at new members as a recruiting tool. Those who do not conform to the church’s ideology are gradually and subtly dehumanized by being assign despised characteristics. This attack is highly abstract, to negate the reality of concrete, specific, and unique human characteristics which may factor in their decisions. This new, exclusive community fosters rigidity, conformity and intolerance against these “straw men.” This is intrinsically dangerous, as extremists never begin as extremists; it is a gradual process, which advances only as long as they do not meet resistance [10]. This behavior is so pervasive that it has been codified as a Catholic Dogma [Canon Law 1369] [5].

The use of control and force is also designed to condition children to rely on external authority for moral choices, accepting personal responsibility, and dealing with the chaos of human life. This is so they will not challenge male authority figures as adults. The difficult task of learning how to make moral choices, how to Refusal to submit to authority is a heresy [10].

The clergy has historically opposed those who questioned their authority. Darwinian evolution, cosmology, and the geosciences are perennial threats to religious authority since they imply a morally neutral universe [10]. This hostility is reinforced by the Bible which is inherently anti-science; Christ advises us to “be like little children” who neither study calculus, economics, or medicine. While the church no longer teaches that education is sinful, it is still considered to be dangerous because it can lead to questioning dogma [11]. However to “be like little children” also means to be completely pliable to authority; children are (mostly) obedient to authority, and will change their stories to meet what they think the adult wants to hear. Also, by making up stories about people, children will change their views about those people to better conform to the stories [12]. In the same way, apologists escape the need for evidence by constantly arguing about what the criteria needed for something to constitute evidence. [9]

To ensure their authority, Christians have co-opted virtually every institution to meet their needs. They offer no opportunity or means for alternate worldviews; four of the Ten Commandments mandate a monotheistic religion, and therefore, oppose a truly free and pluralistic society. Outsiders are marginalized, but they are accepted (or at least tolerated) as long as they don’t push the invisible boundaries which were established for them [5]. While this is seemingly inclusive, group pressure and the tendency to conform work more powerfully than the person subjected to them realizes. Separating people from competing influences, or discrediting or defining potential competing influencers as illegitimate is sufficient to control the attitudes of a majority of the population [13].

It is interesting to note that anyone can assume this authority, as it is not regulated in any way. There is no need for ordination, as anyone can claim to be “ordained by God” [2], and hold as much legal and spiritual authority as those who attended a seminary. This is easier in the US, where the appearance of honesty is valued more than honesty. However, this is the origin “moral corruption;” when lying becomes commonplace, it becomes increasingly necessary. Pretension and further lies are used to hide the deceptions. When lying gets taken for granted, and becomes a part of self-presentation, it inevitably spreads from the public the private spheres, corroding interpersonal bonds [14]. This is why self-ordained priests tend to have short careers. Still, most religious authorities are self-proclaimed. This is especially true for the Catholic Church, which has created most of its own tradition and mythos. The Bible has no mandates for an exclusive, hierarchal clergy; the sacraments of reconciliation and marriage; their complicated legalistic postmortem punishment and reward system, and their authoritative extra-biblical doctrines (e.g., papal infallibility, the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption of Mary.). Some Catholic traditions directly contradict the Bible, like celebrant clergy [1TIM 3:2]; one-way confessions to priests [JAM 5:16]; and calling priests “father” [MAT 23:9] [13].

Left unchecked this authority will spread into all spheres of life, like a cancer. Democratic and Christian values are currently being systematically dismantled, often gradually, by stealth, by a radical Christian movement called Dominionism. Dominionism is an extreme form of Calvinist Reconstructionism which cloaks itself in a mélange of Christianity and rabid American patriotism. They believe to have dominion over all-creation, as promised by God [GEN 1:26-31]. Dominionists now control at least six national television networks, and virtually all of the 2,000+ religious radio stations in the US, and now control over the Southern Baptist Convention. Dominionism seeks to redefine traditional democratic and Christian terms and concepts to fit an ideology that allows the radical church to take political power, in a way that mirrors fascism [10], with American Christians taking the role of the master race [15]. Debating Dominionists is useless, because they seek hegemony, not dialogue. The Christian right, for now, is forced to function within the political system is seeks to destroy, but only “Bible-believing” judges are worthy of respect; only Christian educators are true educators; only the pseudo-reporters on Christian broadcasts, who portray the course of historical and world events as conforming to purported biblical prophecies, report the real news. Only the men of God, who champion the Christian state, who have the right to rule. The movement is creating a parallel system, complete with parallel Christian organizations, to replace the old one. The Christian message has been merged with unrestricted capitalism; denounces income tax as “idolatry” and property tax as “theft.” Dominionists are taught that religious law supersedes secular law, and that people are to be judged not by their actions, but by their fidelity to Christian doctrine. These believers are not brainwashed; they are not mindless automatons. They are convinced that what they are doing is godly, moral, and good. They work with the passion of the converted to bring this Christian goodness to everyone, even those who resist. They believe that what they promote is moral and beneficial, and just as they fear for their own souls, they fear for the souls of those around them who remain unsaved with a well-intended earnestness to a frightening end. These idealists are willing to make great personal sacrifices for the cause of Christ. They justify the disempowerment and eradication of whole peoples, as mandated by God. Nonbelievers have no place on the moral map. The only legitimate voices in this state will be Christian. All others will be silenced [10].

It should be noted that Fundamentalism strongly correlates with racism, homophobia, ethnocentrism, and punitiveness. They target women, homosexuals, Jews, atheists, blacks, and a host of other groups when confronted with the imperfections of our culture [5]. This is in part, due to Fundamentalism’s a binary worldview, which renders them incapable of seeing others as anything other than inverted reflections of themselves. They seek to destroy nonbelievers and create a Christian America, because they are convinced nonbelievers are seeking to destroy them. When people come to believe that they are immune from evil, that there is no resemblance between themselves and those they define as the enemy, they will inevitably grow to embody the evil they claim to fight. When evil is always external, then moral purification always entails the eradication of others [10]. “It doesn’t matter if you believe this stuff. What matters is that they do.” [8]

In many ways it is love the leaders fear most, for it is love that unleashes passions and bonds that defy the carefully constructed edifices that keep followers trapped and enclosed. This is ironic, given the amount of time they spend discussing love and the family, since it is the cohesive bonds created by family and love which they are warring against. [10]

Weaponized Language

George Orwell was the first to notice that language, not physical force, is the key to manipulating minds. In fact, growing evidence in behavioral sciences reveals that a smiling “Big Brother” has a greater influence than a visibly threatening person [16]. Modern Christians have learned to avoid violence, if nothing else, to avoid the backlash that would ensue from doing so. Christians prefer to poison the channels of public information; the question is not how to best present the truth, but how to bend the truth support themselves. Conservative Christians claim to be super-patriots while seeking to destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesman of the monopolies and vested interests. By controlling both the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, hegemony is ensured [10].

Religious belief is commonly defended through clever semantics. When confronted about a specific problem with their faith, Christians will claim not to believe that aspect. When you ask why do not believe that, or why they continue to believe at all, then the conversation transforms into a monologue disguised as a dialogue [9], drowning out any contrary views.

Christians assert their dominance through the exploitation of seven interlocking psychological devices. Christians are able to successfully deny this manipulation because, in isolation, these techniques are too obvious and transparent to be manipulative, or they have fleeting effects which quickly subside. However, each of these methodologies synergistically interacts with one another; their cumulative effect greatly exceeds the sum of their individual effects. These interlocking psychological devices include: [13]

  1. The Benign, Attractive Persona of the Bible. The Bible appears quaint and harmless, and anything objectionable is deeply coded within its subtext. However, everything the Bible says holds alternate meanings, which are learned as the initiate deepens their studies. (Essentially, the Bible acts like a classic “bait-and-switch” con.)
  2. Discrediting “The World.” Christianity establishes a rhetorical framework wherein ad hominem attacks (i.e., personal insults) become legitimate arguments, to be used on Christian and challenger alike as a means of control, since Christianity must dominate any and all aspects of life [COL 31:-17; PHIL 2:1-11; 1COR 12:12-31].
  3. Doublespeak. The New Testament was designed to use deliberately confusing terminology, keeping with the Pharisaic tradition of putting an interpretive gloss on scriptures; Paul freely admits to this deceit (2COR 12:16). Common words and phrases are loaded with additional confusing or contradictory alternate meanings, so they can no longer be effectively used to communicate information. The new meanings are always more somber and meaningful than their common-usages. As a member is further indoctrinated, these new meanings supplant the old ones. This makes communication with non-members difficult, and later, unintelligible. This process protects members from outside influences, and helps portray outsiders and foolish and/or immoral. God encourages the use of doublespeak against the advocates of science, technology and mutual cooperation who can usurp God’s sovereignty, as demonstrated by the story of the Tower of Babel. [13]

    This doublespeak technique is enhanced by the many ways wordplay, translations, and hyperbole is used in the literary traditions of other cultures. The effect has been further refined within recent years by modern biblical translations which change or remove words or passages to optimize this effect. Commonly loaded words include:
Common Loaded Words
Life Death Truth Wisdom Righteousness Faith
Justice Liberty Bondage Love Hate Belief
Will Grace Witness Word Sin
  1. Assaulting Integrity. Religious faith demands the believed concedes to the idea that belief can be sanctified by something other than evidence [17]. Christians further assume that any curiosity or doubts about their dogma are forms of ridicule and rage. The immoral actions and character flaws of other Christians are usually shrugged aside using the No-True-Scotsman Fallacy as the go-to defense [18]. The end result is that Christians have rigged the game so that it rude to even question their beliefs, so it must be done indirectly [19]
  2. Inducing Disassociation. Faith is presented as a constant outpouring and expenditure of energy, and the “peace” and “joy” it provides does not mitigate this drudgery. Obsessive conscious concentration is lauded, and mental relaxation, flights of fancy, and anything resembling ecstasy are devalued and negatively characterized. [1THES 1:3, 5:5-9; 2THES 1:11-12; 1TIM 6:12; EPH 6:23-24]. Letting your guard down for even a second can possibly result in instant damnation, as Christ will swiftly return at an unknown time [1THES 5:2,4; 2PET 3:10; REV 3:3, 16:15]. The “Full armor of God” [EPH 6:10-17] is a cumbersome military uniform which submerges individuality, insulates the believer from all but a few approved forms of stimulation, restricts their freedom of movement, and is better for making war than making love.
  3. Bridge Burning. The gap between the close-knit circles of believers and the non-believer outsiders are widened, such that those who are inside can never escape.
  4. Holy Terror. Fear is used to ensure compliance, and actions to the contrary are evasions or obfuscations. Christianity only offers hope from being delivered from its own punishments. (“They cut you with knives to sell you bandages.”)
Perhaps the unpardonable sin of fundamentalism is its effort to make people suspicious and afraid of their own minds, their own logic and thinking process. Any thought that contradicts the fundamentalist dogmas is labeled “Satanic” or “demonic.” If we cannot depend on our minds to process reality and make choices and decisions in life, then we are more likely to depend on fundamentalist preachers like Falwell or Swaggart. How can a democracy survive if all of us renounce reason, thinking, and logic?
—Richard Yao, head of Fundamentalists Anonymous [2]

Other examples of Christian doublespeak include:

  • Christians work to redefine the interpretation of language, so that the US Constitution can then be interpreted to form their own legal system of “Christian Principles,” with which they can protect their vested interests and condemn their opponents while maintaining an air of democracy. By assuming control over our history, they can deny the validity of histories other than their own, and thus deny that there are other acceptable ways of living and being. In their rhetoric, there is only one way to be a Christian, and only one way to be an American [10].
    • Specifically, “liberty” is construed in a way that does not refer to freedom, but to “religious liberty [5],” and more specifically, the “liberty” found when one accepts Jesus Christ and is thus “liberated” from the world to obey Him [10]. Alternately, “liberty” has been redefined to mean as “fealty to the Spirit of the Lord.” As such, the work of “liberty” is an ongoing process where Christians must free society from the slavery imposed by “secular humanists.” The process of “liberty” “frees” (i.e., eradicates) different moral codes and belief systems, and introduces a single, uniform, and unquestioned “Christian” orientation. “Liberty” is thus a synonym for theocracy [10].
    • Faith is commonly invoked by believers as a thought-terminating cliché to end arguments. [9]
  • The textbooks used in Christian parochial and homeschooling re-interpret history to serve their agenda. Joseph McCarthy is seen as a patriot, whose “conclusions, although technically unprovable, were drawn from the accumulation of undisputed facts.” These books also blame the poverty and political chaos in most of Africa on a lack of faith, ignoring the repressive colonial European regimes that exploited the continent and decimated the population [10].
  • The church imposes itself into all important life experiences, to usurp the power of those moments (e.g., “Christian marriage”) [20].
  • Censorship is a “selection process” [21].
  • The scaremongering term “atheistic communism.” There is no connection between atheism and communism; in fact, both the founder of capitalist doctrine (Adam Smith) and the most rabid modern champion of capitalism (Ayn Rand) were both non-believers [5].
  • The Gideons offer “free bibles,” then ask for donations [5]. Likewise, preachers can ignore “No soliciting” signs since they are not selling anything per se, they are giving the “free gift” of salvation [10].
  • A combination if framing and phrasing is used to discredit atheists, including:
    • Atheists are branded as “arrogant,” while many literally Christians claim to have every answer, and certain knowledge of past and future events. No evidence of the Christian’s claims is ever presented, and questioning these claims is beyond reproach [19].
    • The terms “so-called atheist” or “admitted atheist” are phrased to marginalize or discredit that worldview. In reality, it is no different, and no less common than being a “so-called” Presbyterian or “admitted southern Baptist” [5].
    • Atheists are unjustly associated with illegal drug use and prostitution, while also being branded as “rampant materialists and cultural elitists.” This suggests that regardless of the atheist’s “designated” place in society -- as either a street hood or penthouse millionaire-- they are thought to be actively degrading or destroying that society [19].
  • While frequently complaining about “liberal” control of the media, Christians maintain a 24/7 TV and radio programing empire across a variety of networks. These stations interweave between theological and political viewpoints. Furthermore, the political statements made on religious broadcasts generally are unscrutinized or unchallenged by the mainstream media. [5]
  • While Christians claim to be marginalized and unjustly persecuted, they will not hesitate to persecute any person or organization over any perceived slight. The Southern Baptist convention and the Catholic League are famous for their attempts to control the secular media through legal threats, public humiliation, letter-writing campaigns, and sponsor boycotts [5]. This behavior is an inarguable part of Catholic dogma (see Canon Law 1369) [5].
    • Those who resist or complain about this persecution are labeled as “anti-Christian bigots.” This claim riles up Christian base, even when they are demonstrably untrue [5].
  • The term “sin” has been rephrased to remove its collective dimension. Originally sin referred to violations of the natural and economic order, or against the concept of justice itself. This term has now been reframed to refer to personal indiscretions (e.g., adultery, drunkenness, drugs, gambling, and foul language), which are obsessively pursued with the same energy and zeal as the large-scope problems sin once embodied [22].
  • Additionally, acts which promote an individualistic self-consciousness are branded as sinful. Devoting all of one’s personal resources to a heroic, principled and individualistic purpose is contrary to interests of existing churches [13]; if one were to cure society’s ills, then the church’s symptomatic treatments become unnecessary.
  • Any act or practice which is not specifically created by Christians is de facto sinful, since it does not serve God, the church, or the church’s agenda. Christians have issued repeated, vocal condemnations on the following:
    • Yoga is a “demonic doorway,” since it was derived from Hinduism [23].
    • Satanic meditation is passive, Christian meditation is active (reading, memorizing, etc.) By running non-productive cognitive tasks all the time, you can’t think about anything else. “God commands us to control our every thought” [23].
    • Many fundamentalists view the Catholic sacrament of the Eucharist as a form of idolatry, as Jesus’ infinite power cannot be contained in a small, man-made object. Since this is not the true Jesus, it is de facto demonic [23].
    • Mantras are demonic because they induce trance states which can allow spirits to enter the body. The fact that prayer operates in an identical fashion is never discussed [23].
    • Martial arts are demonic, because the various hand positions used in striking are interpreted as being mudra, making marital arts a de facto form of yoga [23], as do the breathing methods, centering techniques, and Zen-inspired meditation influences, yoga breathing, and centering techniques [21]. Likewise, traditional Japanese dōjōs often include cultural elements, (e.g., bowing to the kamiza, and instructors) which are viewed as idolatry [23].
    • Rock music (in all forms and derivatives) is evil because it induces hypnotic trances with “mindless chants” and repetition [23]. It is not discussed that much of the Western musical tradition features repeating a chorus.
  • “Ethical conduct” simply means supporting and campaign for their particular agenda. Often to be “moral,” one must oppose gay rights, affirmative action, gun control, stem-cell research, doctor-assisted suicide, anti-abortion, the United Nations, most liberal politicians, and support patriarchy [24].
  • The phrase “That’s because God wanted it that way” is the ultimate thought-terminating cliché; it allows Christians to cite literally anything as evidence for their claims, regardless of what it is, or what it does. However, since this phrase can mean anything, it ultimately means nothing -- it can’t prove anything, nor can it even demonstrate a causal link [19].
  • Christianity makes use of intentionally undefined terms, so that they can be used to mean whatever is convenient for them at the time. For example:
    • Religion itself is an undefined term, which equally refers to non-deistic “philosophic” religions, like Zen Buddhism and Taoism [18].
    • God explicitly commanded that his name shall not be taken in vain, but he made literally no effort to explain what that meant. At any given time, this can mean a prohibition on: [19]
      • Calling on God, and/or using his name in profanity and/or filler speech (e.g., “Oh my God!”). This is commonly invoked as a means to limit personal expression and the freedom of speech.
      • Swearing oaths and contracts in God’s name.
      • Calling yourself a Christian without observing all of the standards and practices. This can be used to condemn any action, since it an impossibly vague request with wildly varying requirements.
      • Linking God to your personal causes and agendas to give them legitimacy.
  • Christians make frequent use of seemingly-profound statements or “deepities.” Deepities appear true on one level, and meaningless on all others. Examples include: [9]
    • Everything Deepak Chopra says.
    • “Having faith is really about seeking something beyond faith itself.”
    • HEB 1:11
    • “Faith is faith in the living God, and God is and remains a mystery beyond human comprehension. Although the ‘object’ of our faith, God never ceases to be the ‘subject.’”

Additionally, priests have learned to adopt a manner of speaking that induces hypnotic trances, to get their parishioners to relax, listen, and ultimately, comply. (These are almost never taught in this context, but as a series of “best practices.”) These hypnotic techniques include: [16]

  1. A marked, regular, soothing rhythm. Abruptness will shock people out of their trance.
  2. The use of refrain and frequent repetition.
  3. Guided imagery in the onset. This encourages a system of compliance and cooperation, thinking the thoughts that the speaker wishes to convey. Typically, the focus is on an idealized path that never existed [25].
  4. Vague imagery when the trance is established. Omitting details forces the subject to fill them in for themselves, and concentrate further. Overly-descriptive stories cause the listener to get wrapped-up in details, and lose their train of thought (like a Tolkien novel.).
  5. Nested stories. Keeping everything straight causes mental fatigue, which enhances the power of trance states. Christians are notorious for this, because of Christ’s technique of using parables. (i.e., Rather than being direct, priests will tell a story of the time Christ told a story, and relate that to a previous time they met a troubles person and told them the story about the story, and then relate this experience to your personal story.)
  6. The use of routines designed to generate an emotional response. These routines are chained together to reinforce their familiarity. The order of these routines rarely change significantly, in part because there finite combinations available, of which the best have already been discovered (e.g., few churches ask for cash up front).These routines are designed to evoke friendly and positive emotions only among the other members of that religion (e.g., Muslims don’t sing “Onward Christian Soldiers”) [25].
  7. A venue which induces trances. Walking into a church triggers rituals (removing hats, blessing with holy water, kneeling to the tabernacle). Catholic and Orthodox churches commonly use aromas in their rituals to trigger trance states. Group size and density has a powerful effect; so mass is held en masse to amplify individual experiences. (This is why poorly-attended stadiums and bars are boring [25].
    • This is why the trappings of traditional authority are deemphasized in evangelical churches. Since their buildings must be expanded or abandoned when their congregations grow or shrink in size; which is something that a traditional stone cathedral will not allow [25].
  8. The use probing questions to stir up emotional upset and turmoil in one’s life to find weaknesses. Coming out of emotionally charged situations causes an endorphin release. [2] Priests stir up this distress, to present religion as a solution to the parishioner’s weaknesses. By getting the parishioner to relax and pray, they will feel better, and associate religion with being able to relieve tension, despite the priests being the one who caused it. This is a favorite technique among youth minsters [25].

Double-binds

The essential principle of totalitarianism is to make laws which are impossible to obey. The resulting tyranny is even more impressive if it can be enforced by a privileged caste or party which is highly zealous in the detection of error [26]. The Doctrine of the Will was fabricated essentially for the purpose of punishment -- of wanting to find guilty. This psychology presupposes the fact that its originators, the priests at the head of ancient communities, wanted to give themselves the right to impose punishments – or to do so indirectly by giving God the right to punish. People were thought to be “free” so they could be held culpable, judged, and punished – so they could become guilty. Consequently every action had to be thought as being willed, and as originating from the consciousness [6]. Cultists are notorious for this, as they preach perfection and condemn members for imperfection. Cult members then spend years trying to live up to this ideal, and always fail because their standards are beyond human capability [16].

Christians are thus able to control people via a combination of the “Just World Concept” and Victim Blaming. It is assumed that good things happen to good people, and vice-versa. Therefore, anytime something bad happens to someone, they are assumed to be a moral failure. This is the unfortunate reason why rape victims are blamed instead of rapists, and mugging victims are blamed for being in a bad part of town. As a result, American Christians only see four groups of victims as being “legitimate:”

  1. Victims of violent crimes.
  2. Victims of circumstance (e.g., natural disasters, serious illnesses).
  3. Victims of kidnappers and/or the hostages of terrorists.
  4. Victims of civil torts (e.g., Personal injury, malpractice) who can address the courts.

There should be a fifth class, the victims of enforced dependency, for those who are who are victimized by forced behavioral reconstruction, such as brainwashing, gaslighting, or other manipulation, but this has yet to extended itself to the whole of society [16].

Predict things that were bound to happen anyway. Some of the more popular versions of this tactic include:

  • Christians expect to be persecuted, because Christ claimed that if he would be persecuted, so would his followers [JOH 15:20], and Christ was eventually mocked, spit up, betrayed, beaten, and publically executed in a slow manner. As such, any act of resisting Christian authority is accepted as proof of the validity of Christian authority [23].
  • Parochial schools tend to have higher standardized test scores and college acceptance rates than public schools -- but only because they are allowed to pick and choose their students. Problematic students are deliberately excluded, and left to the public school districts. This is how parochial schools maintain their image; not by teaching, but by the refusal to educate [5].
  • The majority of abortions performed are the result of contraceptive failure. Most people want to use contraception as a first-line of family planning, seeking abortion as a last resort. Christians misrepresent this fact to further their agenda [5].
  • The church uses unconscious hatred and fear to promote its goals. The church is claimed to be the only salvation from a world of intrinsic injustice, poverty, cruelty, and misery; despite the fact that these conditions can be cured with sweeping economic, political, and educational reforms [11].
  • Nice people know that he that increasth wisdom increaseth sorrow, and they infer that he that increaseth sorrow increaseth wisdom. This is why they will donate money to build playgrounds with so many rules no one can have fun. Likewise, this is why so many shops, museums, etc. are closed on Sundays, when people might be able to enjoy them [11].
  • Satanists allegedly infiltrated every police department, welfare department, and all areas of psychology and psychiatry, which is why their crimes went undetected [23]. While there was never any direct evidence for these Satanic cults, this lack of evidence was cited as a proof of a conspiracy [21]. The indirect evidence used to cite cult activity claims was so broad and varied that anything could be construed as such a sign.
  • Faith healers blame their inevitable failures of their healing ceremonies on the subject’s lack of faith [2].

Satan

While the fear of Satanic cults is markedly less prevalent now than its heyday in the 1970’s and 1980’s, the fearmongering which drove such panics still persists; only the targets have changed. The perceived threat of Satanic ritual abuse conspiracies threw small town America into the most intense moral panic since McCarthyism; nothing in the modern era has even come close. To some degree, it still persists -- generations of children still x-ray their Halloween candy due to the rumor reports of children being maimed by razors every year. Strangely, no one seems to know such a child, and no one has ever been arrested for these crimes, despite the fact they’ve been allegedly operating in the same neighborhoods, for thirty years [12].

Satan had been the best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years!
—Anton LaVey, from The Satanic Bible [32]

Rationale

Exploiting the fantastic and grizzly tale of Jim Jones and then-popular fad of stories about Multiple Personality Disorder (e.g., Sybil, The Three Faces of Eve, etc.) [27], these cults were said to operate for years in small towns, completely undetected, since they were so organized and Machiavellian that they could and would do anything and stop at nothing to preserve their secret. They were allowed to continue unchecked, with the police frightened into silent compliance, despite their ability and history of competently infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan, the Communist Party, drug dealer syndicates, and Mafia crime families. However, the slightest skepticism was seen as the ultimate betrayal -- not only the children allegedly harmed -- but to the accusing adult’s sense of identity as the saviors of young victims. In such as polarized atmosphere, doubters were condemned as a part of the patriarchal backlash against the fight against sexual violence. Defense lawyers cried foul at the lack of corroborating evidence -- no adult witnesses, no pornography, no scars, no blood stains, no bodies -- and no testimony from abused children without relentless pressure from parents and investigators [12]. Historically, this has always been the case [28] -- the police can’t infiltrate secret criminal covens, because they simply don’t exist [14]. Without physical evidence, convictions were found via testimony alone, mostly by children who agreed in monosyllables to the prosecuting attorney’s stories [12].

Like all social movements, multivariate factors drove the “Satanic Panic.” These include:

  • A generation’s worth of turbulent changes gender relations suddenly came to a head during the hyper-conservative Reagan and Bush I administrations. Middle-class adolescents became open about their premarital sexual experimentation, abortion was legalized, the number of unwed teenage mothers quadrupled, the divorce rate tripled, women with young children streamed into the workforce, and day-care centers proliferated [12].
  • Western philosophy holds the unique notion that people exist to strive for moral perfection, but are not to be blamed for failing to attain that ideal. This failure is the result of society being undermined by hidden, inner enemies. The cognitive structure of this demonology encourages people to psychologically project their fears and guilt (i.e., their “inner demons”) upon convenient scapegoat groups. This strongly appeals to people with authoritarian personalities, as their extremely rigid thought patterns demand complete conformity and allegiance to the social norms imposed by an official ideology or religious belief system.[14]
  • After the Vietnam War ended, Baby Boomers simply had nothing to be mad at anymore; they became aimless rebels without causes. Seeing no obvious enemies, they became forced to invent some [12].
  • Satan and Satanic cults were the ideal choice for an enemy-stereotype scapegoat because:
    • No other scapegoat could be found at the time.
    • It keyed into American's historical sentiment of believing that they are more morally righteous than the other peoples of the world [14].
    • The term “Satanic Cult” is a loaded phrase that combines two powerful images: Satan and cults.
      • Americans do not use the term “cult,” in its technological or anthropological sense (i.e., as a new religious group that is distinctively different from previous religious groups in society.) Instead, “cult” is a loaded word that labels a group as dangerous, manipulative, secretive, and conspiratorial. Moreover, cults are seen as de facto heresy, a threat to decent, traditional cultural values [14].
    • “Satanic Cults” are easy to find, because the term is so vague that it can be flexibly applied to a wide variety of social deviants: e.g., child molesters, violent teenage gangs, psychopathic serial murderers, teenagers involved in makeshift occultism, and harmless practitioners of unconventional religions [14].
    • Satan and Satanism were a large, regular part of the popular culture of that era, as there was a golden age of low-budget horror movies trying to cash in on the success of The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby [12].
    • Satan symbolizes losing faith in legitimate authority. Fighting against Satanic cults is an expression of what anthropologists call a “revitalization movement” -- a social movement aimed at restoring an idealized society to its past greatness and moral purity. These social movements typically blame the subversion of dominant cultural values upon an evil internal enemy [14].
    • The economic downturns of the era escalated poverty, which attracts more people to religion.
    • Fearing competition, the Satanic cult myth gave these fundamentalist churches the chance to literally demonize New Age religions, which were growing in popularity at the time[12].
    • Religious persons are often paradoxically relieved and pleased by the news of Satanic crime -- by confirming their belief in Satan they, by proxy, confirm the existence of God [14].

Groupthink is instrumental to each of these factors. Groupthink is a collective response to conformity pressures operating within communication networks and groups which are somewhat closed to the influences of external sources and, thus, closed to the influence of alternate beliefs. Groupthink can occur in any groups which requiring cooperative interaction between members, by creating social pressures to conform. These pressures suppress any critical thinking and reality testing to support group solidarity. Members with deviating viewpoints can cause internal bickering and conflict, so they are subtly ostracized or chastised for their disloyalty. Eventually, the process alters each member’s perception of reality, and those who might disagree privately begin to doubt their own thinking, and change their beliefs to comply with the group’s conception of reality [14].

When a society perceives an external enemy -- even if they pose no genuine credible threat -- the society responds by collectively manufacturing an evil enemy image. This image is a stereotype of the enemy group, which portrays them enemy as having whatever qualities are considered to be the most immoral at the time; the enemy stereotype is image is a reverse mirror image of the society which creates it. The image-creating society thus becomes a contrast stereotype; this allows its members to exaggerate their own virtue, while silencing critics and dissenters as traitors (e.g., “Red fanatics” from the “evil empire” of Communism; the “Japs;” “Huns;” and “Indian savages”). Eventually, this takes on the worm of a “moral crusades” and/or “witch hunt” for these perceived social deviants which may or may not even exist. Eventually, this will create a self-fulfilling prophecy as new types of deviants are created to perform rumor-inspired copycat crimes, since a “deviant ideology” is needed to rationalize deviant behavior [14].

These completely-absurd rumors took off and became accepted because of the zeitgeist, which provided all three forms of rumor fuel: [14]

  1. An ambiguous event that causes many people to enter a stressful situation (e.g., economic downturn).
  2. A common, ongoing activity where people draw attention to some fact or aspect of it they have not considered before (dual-income families placing their children in daycare).
  3. Symbolic urban legends or folktales which are reworked for the modern world by integrating the above two items. In particular, Satanic cult rumors are derived from the:
    • “Blood ritual myth,” where conspirators kidnap and murder children, to use their blood and body parts in religious rituals. This is an enduring myth because of its universal appeal, as it frightens every parent [14].
    • “Surprisers Surprised” legend, where those planning a surprise party enter the guest-of-honor’s home, only to find them doing something embarrassing [12].

Legitimizing Factors

These Satanic cult rumors were considered to be legitimate because: [14]

  • They were being conveyed by authority figures, including parents, teachers, and ministers.
    • People won’t question the statistics given by authority figures, especially when they are communicated via a one-way media (e.g., radio, television, sermons). Senator McCarthy sent America into a Red Scare with his list of Communists that infiltrated the US State Department -- but he never showed anyone the list [29]. No one asked for it; and no one could ask for it. Likewise, in 1987 Geraldo Rivera stated on his show in there were 1,000,000 Satanists in the US -- 1 in every 230 people -- and no one ever noticed it until that broadcast.
    • Certain groups (e.g., fundamentalist churches, small town police forces) are more ideologically receptive to the symbolism of Satanic cult rumors were more likely to actively disseminate them. When spread on the local level, in face-to-face relations and personal communication networks, these bizarre claims attained greater credibility than the media could ever grant. The most powerful way of being exposed to an outrageous or frightening story is hearing about it from “a-friend-of-a-friend” who “really knows,”[14] because this has a built-in reason-suppressing mechanism -- to question these claims is to question your friendship and sense of community [12].
      • Rumors spread because people assume that their friends won’t lie to them. Likewise, friends-of-friends are also thought to always speak the truth, by proxy. This enables testimony to be unjustly accepted as absolute evidence, even in the absence of corroborating physical evidence.
    • By making a religious-based threat, clergymen were able to leverage their expertise to gain credibility in the secular world. The National Education Association permitted religious evangelists to speak to public school students about the psychological dangers of Satanism, since they were the “experts” on a relevant social problem. The fear and spectacle drew large audiences to these seminars, which charged admission fees of $70 ($170, adjusted for inflation) per person [14].
  • The rumors were repeated many times, from different sources, resulting in a “consensual validation of reality” (i.e., wikiality).
    • A rumor is “only just a rumor” when it has been proven false. However, rumors usually contain some seed of truth which is blown out of proportion by misperception, distortion, and embellishing lies. Legends, like rumors, are primarily oral, and “as if it were true” and “is true” often become shaded.
    • Rumors cannot be stopped with denials, refutations, or by remaining silent: [14]
      • Rumors are constantly being repeated over and over; silence can do nothing to stop them.
      • Denials are commonly ignored, since they are not interesting or newsworthy enough to repeat.
      • Denials or refutations by authority figures can be distorted by rumormongers into confirming the rumor’s validity.
    • Even poorly educated, un-skeptical people will disbelieve rumors if they have specialized knowledge about the rumor subject. Stories of cattle mutilations by UFOs or Satanists were widely accepted by their respective conspiracy theorists, but never believed by the ranchers [14].
    • The key factor in rumor acceptance is participating in a communication network which constantly repeats the stories. Rumormongers are not propagandists, where few people actively promote the rumor stories to passive audience which ignores facts. Rumors are a social process of collaborative (tandem) story-telling with the goal of finding a consensual explanation of ambiguous circumstances [14].
    • Rumors must be built off of a seed of truth. The Satanic cult myths were based on the following, listed in order of prevalence: [14]
      • A murder or suicide.
      • “Satanic” graffiti.
      • Cemetery vandalism.
      • A violent crime in an otherwise peaceful small town.
      • Church meetings or police conferences concerning the dangers of Satanic cults.
      • Mass-media presentation about Satanism cults.
      • Accusation made as part of conflicts between local youth groups.
      • The discovery of mutilated animals [14]. (It should be noted that many of these were merely roadkill [12].)
  • Stressful social situations make people apt to believe that bizarre tragedies can easily happen. People will thus half-believe any rumor story as a “better-safe-than-sorry” precaution.
    • Experimental evidence shows that fear-provoking rumors have the paradoxical effect of satisfying the need of information for uncertain matters, while increasing people’s collective anxiety. Rumors about dangerous cults served focusing rising collective anxieties upon a specific, though imaginary, threat. People suffering from anxiety due to stressful life situations seek explanations for that anxiety. If the reasons for the anxiety are unclear, then people will grasp rumor stories for explanations (e.g., a specific threat in their environment [14]).
    • The most crucial support for rumors is eyewitness testimony. Rumor stories typically involve the teller knowing someone with an eyewitness account to verify even the most bizarre events. Rumormongers legitimized fabrications in this way to satisfy a variety of their personal motives, such as to: [14].
      • Obtain attention and prestige.
      • Express their fantasy fears.
      • Attack a group they hate.
      • Amuse themselves or others.
      • Express some mental delusion. Most of the reported Satanic cult survivors also suffered from Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)
  • The rumors were personally relevant to many people.
    • These rumors keyed into the common “stranger danger” fear, since their politicians were fed the false statistic of 50,000 child kidnappings by strangers each year.
      • However, if that were true, then every school would have one missing student.
      • In reality, only a few hundred children are taken by strangers each year. Most child kidnappings are perpetrated by their divorced, non-custodial parents [12].
    • The police officers, social workers, and clergymen who spent the most time promoting the myth were primarily focused on teenage Pseudo-Satanism. Finding these behaviors in your community is always a self-fulfilling prophecy since:

Inerrant Bible

Modern translations, such as the NIV, have smoothed over many theological problems by cleverly re-interpreting many problematic texts and editing out many contradictions. [5] While there are many theological objections to these modern translations, the KJV endures in popularity for a more practical reason -- it in the public domain. A modern translation is the intellectual property of its translator -- reading from such a Bible in mass could be considered a public performance, and the translator could be entitled to royalties. The King James Bible, completed in 1611, pre-dates the notion of copyright, and can be used freely by all.

Regardless of what version you use, reading the Bible is a tricky endeavor. There are several different types of stories and lessons interlaced throughout, each of which fall into one of four categories: [13]

  1. Explicit Devotional Program Instructions. Concrete acts the believer is commanded to do.
  2. Implicit Devotional Program Instructions. Acts which believers are told to do in figurative, not literal terms. (e.g., “turn the other cheek.”)
  3. Direct Suggestions. Biblical allegories are used to explain the mindset expected of believers. These are especially important, as the Crux of Protestantism is that all Biblical events are allegories for the inner life of their readers.
  4. Reverse Suggestions. Biblical allegories (e.g., the ones involving animals, demons, and disasters) serve to reinforce the negative psychological consequence of belief. These provide the believer with feedback to make sure they are “on target.”

However, determining which passages fall into which categories are not clear. Some passages are literal, while others can be explained away -- but what drives this “selective literalism”? [30] How can you tell what is real and what is a metaphor? For example, some Christians take the story of Noah’s Ark literally, while others view the story figuratively. Which group is correct? -- and what criteria did priests and biblical scholars use to determine the status of a given passage or story? [31]

This is why apologists act with such zeal -- they aren’t trying to convince others; they are trying to convince themselves. [9] The act of witnessing is not to convince others to join, for the witness to convince themselves to stay. To meet this end, apologists exploit a number of cognitive biases to influence decision making in lieu of arguments. In particular:

  • Apologists frequently invoke the confirmation bias to make extreme logical leaps that “prove” the accuracy of scriptural events. [9]
    • This is especially true with the New Testament, as Paul was merely a narrator, who spoke in vague generalities. The only factual statement that Paul ever took a strong position on was, ironically, the Liar’s Paradox [TIT 1:12], which is an unverifiable statement. [13]
    • The Trinity is often in voked for this purpose, as it allows Christians to be effectively polytheistic without having to resort to polytheism. [31]
  • Pastors frequently tell their doubting parishioners to read the Bible and pray about it. When you ask someone to start with a belief and see what happens, that’s not an argument -- that’s just giving an order. [9]
  • The bible directly commands Christians to police their own thoughts [2 COR 10:5] and that people should be “obedient as children.” [2PET 1:14] [5]. The peace, joy, and calm that come from being a Christian are actually just side effects from disassociating from the world around them. This isn’t a bolstering of self-esteem; it’s an evasion of the conscience. [13]
    • This self-policing of one’s thoughts could be construed as a early form of cognitive-based therapy.
    • “The good advertiser is not the one who makes people think, but the one who makes people think they are thinking.” Christianity does not ask people to think. It asks them to accept. Christians can think, but they don’t think deep enough. [5]
  • Christianity indoctrinates people into a pseudo-psychology which misrepresenting human nature as more empty and inadequate than it really is. [13] The church castrates life to make itself look more appealing. [6]
    • This is why gory and wrathful bible verses are popular in conservative churches; they allow believers an outlet to express otherwise forbidden emotions (e.g., anger, hostility, sadism, masochism, etc.). [13]
  • The brain can only correctly process information when it is presented as a linear progression of small, manageable chunks. Anything not presented in this form will become mysterious and seemingly deep. [13]
    • This is why priests are so fond of quoting many different passages from different speakers and stories, and tying them together.

______ But no public man...ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means. —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep-seated need to believe. —CARL SAGAN

Bibliography

[1] Sun-tzu, Art of War. [2] J. Randi, The Faith Healers. [3] A. Balk, Religion Business. [4] H. Cox, The Secular City. [5] K. Blaker, Fundamentals of Extremism. [6] F. Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols. [7] R. L. Moore, Selling God. [8] M. Miller, Coping with Cults. [9] P. Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists. [10] C. Hedges, American Fascists. [11] B. Russell, Why I am Not A Christian. [12] D. a. S. M. Nathan, Satan's Silence. [13] E. D. Cohen, Mind of the Bible-Believer. [14] J. S. Victor, Satanic Panic. [15] C. Hedges, American Fascists. [16] M. T. Singer, Cults in Our Midst. [17] S. Harris, The End of Faith. [18] T. Keller, Reason for God. [19] G. P. Harrison, 50 SImple Questions for Every Christian. [20] F. Niettzsche, The Will to Power. [21] J. Michaelsen, Like Lambs to the Slaughter. [22] O. Guinness, Gravedigger Files. [23] R. Brown, Prepare for War. [24] ???, Atheist Universe. [25] D. Ray, The God Virus. [26] C. Hitchens, GOd is Not Great. [27] ????, Satan's Silence. [28] B. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. [29] Lederer, A Nation of Sheep. [30] M. Shelley, Well-Intentioned Dragons. [31] G. P. Harrison, 50 Simple Questions for Every Christian. [32] A. S. LaVey, The Satanic Bible. [33] D. Ryder, Breaking the Claim of Satanic Ritual Abuse. [34] A. Balk, The Religion Business. [35] J. D. White, Burnout Busters: Stress Management for Minsitry. [36] J. A. Sanford, Minsitry Burnout. [37] D. Barker, Losing Faith in Faith. [38] M. a. Edmondson, It Only Hurts on Monday. [39] F. Lehr, Clergy Burnout. [40] K. A. B. B. Ham, Already Gone. [41] You Lost Me. [42] B. Lane, Why Pastors Quit. [43] The Tipping Point. [44] Hartford Seminary, Hartford Institute for Religion Research, "Fast Facts about American Religion," [Online]. Available: http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fastfacts/fast_facts.html#numcong. [Accessed 14 11 2016]. [45] B. Russel, Why I Am Not a Christian. [46] M. C. Disease, Jackson, Anne. [47] C. Stone, 5 Ministry Killers and How to Defeat Them. [48] O. Guinness, The Gravedigger Files. [49] G. L. Rediger, Clergy Killers. [50] G. &. O. S. Graffin, Anarchy Evolution. [51] T. S. Rainer, Autopsy of a Deceased Church. [52] J. Michaelsen, Like Lambs to the Slaguhter. [53] R. M. Oswald, Clergy Self-Care. [54] K. Blaker, Fundamental of Extremism. [55] K. C. Dean, Almost Christian. [56] D. Ryder, Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse. [57] D. a. L. G. Kinnaman, unChristian: What a New Genreation Things About Christianity. [58] ???, Will Our Children Have Faith?. [59] D. Carlin, The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America.

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