Out of curiousity, I have been reading some online articles about a 1973 bank robbery in Sweden that gave birth to something psychologists call the Stockholm syndrome where a hostage begins to identify with and grow sympathetic to his or her captor. This term and concept was also used to explain a case about a woman named Patty Hearst who went from being kidnapped by a radical group to being one of their members and eventually robbed a bank.
As I began reading the stories and analysis concerning the now famous Norrmalmstorg robbery, that birthed the term “Stockholm Syndrome’, an interesting thought came to my head:
Does the Stockholm Syndrome exist in the sanctuary today?
In many places, the answer is an outstounding yes. Even though the people involved as the ‘hostages’ in a Spiritually Abusive / theologically unstable church usually go in willingly because they felt ‘loved and accepted’, the common trait that is associated with this psychological phenomeon still takes place where:
the ‘hostage’ feels safer with and forms a ‘bond’ with their ‘captor’ to the point of actually helping the ‘captors’ to achieve their goals or to escape the ‘police’ because they fear that the ‘police’ might cause more trouble via their methods to set the ‘hostages’ free.
How?
Let us re-write the phenomeon listed above in a spiritual way (with substitutions listed in bold print):
the ‘congregation member‘ feels safer with and forms a ‘soul tie, obsession, etc.‘ with their ‘false teacher / spiritual abuser‘ to the point of actually helping the false teacher / spiritual abuser to achieve their goals or to escape the ‘apologetics groups, heresy hunters, concerned friends who want them set free, etc.‘ because they fear that the ‘apologetics groups, heresy hunters, concerned friends who want them set free, etc.‘ might cause more trouble via their methods to set the ‘congregation members‘ free.
Even though world history tells us that the real-life hostages that were a part of this now famous robbery did not ’switch sides’ from being a hostage to a captor, there are way too many cases where in the Christian version of the syndrome, many Christians (whether they do not know the truth, or see an increase in power, position, and authority) easily make the switch from being a ‘hostage’ (congregation member) into being a ‘captor’ (false teacher / spiritual abuser).
What eventually happens in this person’s life is:
The hostage becomes the robber.
The abused becomes the abuser.
The deceived becomes the false teacher.
but more importantly (and tragic)
The innocent become the guilty.
The pure at heart became the compromised.
All of this done in the name of being ‘God’s true chosen people…?’
Been there, done that, thank God I got out.
When I realized I was too afraid to call the police on my church for physically restraining a minor against her will by pinning her to the floor to perform an “exorcism”, then I knew I’d become part of the problem.
I would heartily agree that there is a distinct danger that such a syndrom can develop in some churches. I lived it.