Woke to da Bougie Church by Distinguishing Tares from Wheat: Gaslighting by the Traditional Church (Article #3)
Woke to da Bougie Church by Distinguishing Tares from Wheat: Gaslighting from the Traditional Church
Article #3
Welcome back to our high-speed maglev, the Ministry of Reconciliation Train (MRT)! I don’t take it lightly that you have chosen to stick with me thus far. I’ll endeavor to honor your attention by continuing to provide clear, concise distinctions between tares and wheat.
Our train’s final destination is the de-weaponization of Christ for personal, financial, and POLITICAL gain. To the new passengers, I would encourage you to review our previous two articles (aka train stops) to get an overview of where we’re going.
Today’s stop: Gaslighting by the traditional Church.
The next leg of our journey will be traveling to higher mountainous elevations—it’s possible that the increased altitude may cause slight dizziness. To help you overcome your discomfort, I’m going to take a moment to remind you why we’re on this train and the importance of our destination.
The true work and message of Christ has been weaponized to provide cover for the evil, manipulative, and demonic means of those who don’t know Him (1 John 4:8). As disciples of Christ, we are not going to take it anymore. Know that we battle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12). There are individual demonic attacks, and there are institutional demonic attacks. While these institutions obscure Christ, we are interested in seeing a wider view—the big picture.
As we begin, remember to take deep breaths and hold on to Christ as our cornerstone (Acts 4:11), our foundation (Ephesians 2:20), and our compass (Psalms 37:23).
Gaslighting is defined as the manipulative use of psychological methods by a person or group over an extended period that affects the victim’s ability to trust their own sanity, the validity of their own thoughts, or the power of their own reasoning.
On an individual level, gaslighting manifests as telling lies, denying the truth despite the proof, turning others against the victim, engineering them to feel crazy, and destroying their confidence.
The key points are doubting the validity of your own thoughts, sanity, and power of reasoning. The true danger lies in empowering any person or group with the authority to confirm what we know to be true or what we individually hear from God.
On an institutional level (such as the traditional church), there are so many ways that the body of Christ has been gaslit. This mass-gaslighting is so mind-boggling that I cannot concisely explain it all in a single article. That would be like kicking an anthill and then trying to pick up the scattered ants one-by-one.
The challenge in depicting these manipulations is that we’re putting words to that which is unspoken. It’s not easy to draw a picture of what’s been concealed or to shed light on what hides in shadows.
Nevertheless, I will provide an example.
Women have been gaslit within church for generations. If it’s not about the clothes we wear, the positions we hold, or our vocality in the Church, then it’s about how good of a mother, a wife, or volunteer we are. Although it is not scriptural, submission is only used in the Church in reference to women. Any woman that tries to break free from the lie is called a witch or a Jezebel! Oh, and don’t even get me started on all the sexual violations!
Furthermore, it’s difficult to explain the gaslighting within the traditional Church because the amount of denial and deflection makes it hard to “see the forest for the trees.” Those who share their experiences with gaslighting are often met with someone saying “Well, that doesn’t happen at my church.”
The devil has a way of distracting the body of Christ from what he is doing on an institutional level by convincing us to focus on what occurs at the personal level. I’m making a conscious choice to NOT get bogged down by the small details—I’m here to tackle the bigger threat.
Within the Church, gaslighting can take on the form of RELIGIOUS INVALIDATION. This occurs when the Church causes you to question or doubt your definitions of good and evil by self-righteously crowning themselves an authority over YOUR interpretation of the world. Methods include (a) magnifying the negative and minimizing the positive and (b) holding incongruent double standards for themselves versus others around them. I call it the Church’s calculated use of the “Fear, Sin and Guilt” message.
In a Huffington Post article about her experiences in the Church, Elizabeth Baker wrote:
“Gaslighting is psychological manipulation that leads one to question one’s own feelings and perceptions of reality. [...] I have watched, shocked as 81 percent of the religious leaders and peers of my youth and early adulthood have embraced a man and a political ideology contrary to the teachings of Jesus. They have thrown out the foundational values of Christianity in exchange for tax cuts, Supreme Court nominees, and political power. Today, those Christians are calling me a heretic and a godless woman because now I reject their Republican rhetoric and because my personal Christian values (that they drilled into me for decades) more closely align with the Democratic Party’s platform.
The boldness of the church’s hypocrisy is causing me to question the very foundation of my spiritual beliefs. It’s disorienting. Every biblical principle I hold sacred has been disregarded by many other Christians, and I often feel like I’m losing my sanity while the entire house of cards that is my evangelical upbringing collapses around me.”
You say that, Elizabeth! Amen!
If you recall in my last article, I spoke to you about the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” versus the “Tree of Life.” Our mission as disciples of Jesus Christ is to remain free from the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” and function from the “Tree of Life.”
To be clear, I’m NOT advocating that you waste time remaining connected to the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” by endlessly debating the evils that you see within the traditional Christian Church. I’m encouraging you to ACCEPT that what you are seeing is most definitely evil and that the relentless debates are demonically designed to keep us bound to the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”
I know it’s evil! You know it’s evil! God, through the Holy Spirit inside you, is telling you it’s evil! Let’s get free from the debate! What you are seeing is evil all day long and twice on Sunday! Some people hide in the shadows and will never admit the evil. Satan benefits from the debate!
Just call a spade a spade and get free from ANY construct that keeps you tied to the
“Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” That’s the DEVIL!
We must unlearn our personal trauma, but a person cannot recover from a trauma that they are not allowed to acknowledge exists in the first place. Enlightenment is the antidote to gaslighting. Christ enlightens us.
Don’t fall for it! Back up! Look around you! Venture beyond the borders of your own neighborhoods, your own church, your own state, and your own country!
All this gaslighting is wrong, especially the POLITICAL gaslighting. So, to all the wheat reading this article: what are YOU going to do about it? Are you going big, or are you going small? Are you going to remain bound by a limited vision of you and yours, or are you going to embrace the bigger vision of us and ours? (Ephesians 2:17-19)
As wheat, we are called to be ambassadors of the Love of God to the world. As a disciple of Jesus Christ, I’mma do what Jesus would do. I think you should too.
Joy Johnson
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