Posted on 03/15/2009 9:14:11 AM PDT by WayneLusvardi
There is a new brand of Orwellian brainwashing or thought reform emerging on Internet chat room websites whose apparent purpose is the use of subtle coercive techniques to change the beliefs of one or more people for political purposes in the religious culture wars but couched as some sort of religious confession or catharsis. Think of the adroit blending of George Orwell's Double Think, social psychologist Solomon Asch's conformity experiments, the manipulative Delphi Technique, and the use of religious confession all rolled into one. Let's call it the New Blog-Think, Wiki-Think, or Religious Lib-Think.
Recently, a minister at a Christian church we will fictionally call The New Wine Church in Collegetown, USA, got a nation-wide response, including newspaper coverage, to his online invitation for Evangelical Christians to confess and repent for Lent of their hostility to Darwinism and evolutionary science. This minister-blogger additionally invited scientists to comment on how religious-based anti-Darwinism affected them "personally."
Our anonymous blogger is the minister of an Orwellian-like Anti-Evangelical Evangelical Christian church geared to young people under the age of 35 in a liberal college town in the United States. The church's main ministries include small groups, justice and compassion, and environmentalism (i.e., called the "Green New Wine" ministry apparently after which this fictional church is named).
The ministry of this church seems based on a twisted group hostility toward Christian Evangelicals in which the minister constantly goads, aggravates, and incites Evangelical Christians to respond to his provocations as proof of his contention as to how hostile they are and how loving he and his church are.
Unsurprisingly, subtle group hostility toward other Christians seems to work as a successful form of what is being called the "Emergent Church" in post-modern America. That this emerging cultural form of anti-religious religion is based on manipulation and cultural group hostility, couched in the rhetoric of love, is an interesting cultural phenomenon in itself. It is perhaps what German Evangelical theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer meant by prophesying of a "religionless Christianity." But it is the online method of conversation with the outside world of this type of Emerging Church which I would like to focus on.
The minister's webpage is a sort of religious "Hidden Persuaders" blog after the 1957 book by the same title by Vance Packard which documented the hidden auto-persuasion techniques used by advertisers. The online blogging Christian minister seems to use the following methods in inviting comments to the posts at his blog:
1. First, invite online bloggers to respond to a loaded question (e.g., when was the last time you bashed Darwin and isn't it time you repented of that for the Lent Season?). Such loaded questions are like the unanswerable question posed by a lawyer in a court room: "when was the last time you beat your wife?". You're guilty of being un-Christian until you prove yourself innocent online.
2. The first responses posted online transparently all seem composed by the website manager in an attempt to "get the ball rolling." These shill responses apparently are meant to warm up the blogosphere and to suck unsuspecting Evangelical Christians who seek to be loved and to demonstrate love into the conversation. Afterall, the last thing such Evangelical Christians want is for someone to think of them as unloving and to be characterized as hatemongering fundamentalist Christians.
3. Only responses in which respondents confess of their sin of anti-Darwin (or anti-immigrant, anti-homeless, anti-gay, etc.) bashing are posted. This sets up the responders for what social psychologist Solomon Asch called "informational conformity" where they feel subtly persuaded to go along with the group. Dissenting comments are not posted as they are deemed hate speech.
4. The respondents are then tested for their love, expressed as conformity to the group think. If you don't love Darwin and science (or gays, or the homeless, or immigrants) you must be some sort of Christian hatemonger. The syllogism goes something like this: "all Evangelicals hate Darwin; you are an Evangelical; you must hate Darwin" (unless you confess otherwise).
5. The Good Cop-Bad Cop technique used to secure false confessions in interrogations seems at work here. The blogger-interrogator sets up his hateful Evangelical Straw Man (the Bad Cop) and then portrays himself or herself to be the Good Cop or Good Minister who the accused can confess to. Interestingly, often churches that employ such techniques on their blogs are publicly opposed to "torture" and "waterboarding" techniques of prisoners of war but have no qualms with manipulative psychological techniques.
The above methods are right out of the book by William Sargant, Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Brainwashing and Conversion. Needless to say, such methods are antithetical to genuine Christianity, especially Evangelical Christianity which, in my experience, puts an emphasis on unmanipulated volitional conversion.
That the above prototypical form of online conversation is based on manipulation and subtle hostility, not love which transcends group hatreds and prejudices, doesn't seem to come into the awareness of the online respondents. Or perhaps those who do recognize how this online game is played do not have their responses posted by the webmaster-blogger for fear it would expose what is going on and would lead to nonconformity with the online thread of Groupthink.
The Christian Gospels warn of those who passive-aggressively twist their own hostility and project it on to others.
Matthew 7:5 - Paraphrased "First remove the pollution out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck of dust out of your brother's eye."
People's New Testament Version: The man who finds fault with another for sin, while he is more guilty, is a hypocrite. A great many are very zealous to convert the world, who are themselves unconverted..
Wolves dressed in liberal zombie sheep clothing. Beware of liberal zombie sheep pretending to be conservatives! Youve been warned America!
Eh, not surprising, the Blogosphere has no quality control, and critical thinking is apparently no longer fashionable.
As has been said though, Judgment begins at the pulpit.
The only answer to these people is to use the Bible. Let the Word speak for itself and let it ring true to you. The Adversary is subtle, and he be not dumb!
She posted some real garbage, and when I tried to sign up to correct the nonsense she was posting, it it wouldn't let me registers.
Watch out for the false flags. With Omama’s billions the lefties will be pushing that stuff left and right.
Even though there are tens of millions of us - they will try to make us think we are alone. But that is how Satan works!
Stick to the Word and the path, no matter how bleak it seems, and you can't go wrong!
For an example of the New Blog Think go to the link below and scroll through the comments:
From Ken Wilson Online - One Step Closer
“Apologies to the Memory of Charles Darwin”
Link:
http://kenwilsononline.com/2009/02/12/apologies-to-the-memory-of-charles-darwin/
Why don’t you take a page from Mr. Alinsky and NAME/SHAME the “pastor” and church that is doing this? They don’t deserve to be protected by anonymity.
See Post #6 above - the name of the minister and web link to his blog is shown. Repeated below:
Rev. Ken Wilson, Vineyard Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan
See his blog and the comments at:
http://kenwilsononline.com/2009/02/12/apologies-to-the-memory-of-charles-darwin/
Also see the newspaper blogger who got suckered into this
Steve Scauzillo, “Evangelicals, Lent and Darwin,” Pasadena Star News, InsideSoCal.com - here:
http://www.insidesocal.com/scauzillo/2009/03/evangelicals_lent_and_darwin.html
bttt
Because many Americans have abandoned God, they are spiritually hungry. They wander looking for food and the wolves in sheep’s clothing snap them up like gumdrops.
The Church needs to be doing a LOT more to help people develop their intimate, personal relationship with the Lord. They are going to need it to survive.
I don’t see how this would be particularly effective unless the reader was exceptionally weak. I don’t get the feeling that most evangelical Christians would take the bait.
SnakeDoc
To Snake Doctor
In Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments 75% took the bait and 25% did not conform. But there is a tendency of cultural liberals, whether they are conservative or liberal in their institutional religious commitment, to want to be loved and to love (i.e., to conform to the groupthink). I don’t know what the percentage of conformists would be who are Evangelical Christians - my guess is that the percentage would be lower than normal. But there is a new brand of Evangelical Leftism that probably would find no cultural tension and would conform.
For Christians:
Romans 12:2
“And be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God.*
to his online invitation for Evangelical Christians to confess and repent for Lent of their hostility to Darwinism and evolutionary science: I laugh at these people.
So do I laugh. But look at the people posting their “confessions.”
INTREP
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.