Community Church Legal Case, Texas Supreme Court

Posted on 09/27/2006 at 08:22:59  |  Report Abuse |  0

http://www.statesman.com/search/content/shared/news/stories/2006/09/TEXAS_CHURCHES_0927_COX.html

This news is from today's paper. The key points in it, from a "cult awareness" point of view, are that the church is one of the "community" churches and that the pastor obviously used a deception in his role with the victim.

A: The victim met the pastor in a non-pastoral role as a state licensed counselor. They were already members of the same church.

B: She paid him for psychological counseling under his secular license

C: He used her help to start his own church

D: He did not warn her that he believed his responsibilities as a pastor over-rode his protection of confidentiality as a secular counselor

E: He informed the church body of her private issues and advised them to "shun" her.

OK, Here is my take on this:

My tendency to identify "community" churches as cultic has been from their history of figures like the notorious Jim Jones as well as from observing that they have usually mixed pseudo-therapy with their preaching and they have usually used group-psychology tactics to entrap people. They also often present problems to the larger community because they don't draw a clear line between the "shunning" expected of their own membership and a more general practice of mob-hounding people out of town if any of their members have contact with someone outside of their church.

Because of their ability to confuse outsiders as to their "therapy" services, unsuspecting people are often damaged. In the case that is now before the Supreme Court, the woman knew she was in a church likely to shun her, but this same pastor would certainly have violated the privacy of any NON-member who had paid him through professional channels outside the church, and then later had any contact with his church.

This is not an isolated case. It is a case full of classic elements of why some cults are threats to the larger society. The slippage from this type of emotional stress to declaring a person as an "outlaw" is quick.

Edited by denise on 09/27/2006 11:11:13