Tactics that certainly look like Sin

Maybe if Jesus had explicitly said 'do not brainwash others if you do not want to be brainwashed yourself', things would be different today.

I noticed some striking parallels in this account "The Secrets of the Christian Right's Recruiting Tactics" and reports on ex-gay ministry events.

Some excerpts:

The emotional meltdown that leads to the conversion experience -- one often induced in crowds skillfully manipulated and broken down by demagogues -- is one of the most pernicious tools of the movement. Through conversion one surrenders to a higher authority. And the higher authority, rather than God, is the preacher who steps in to take over one's life. Being born again, and the process it entails, has far more in common with recruitment into a cult than it does with genuine belief.

I attended a five-day seminar in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where I was taught the techniques of conversion, often by D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries. The callousness of these techniques -- targeting the vulnerable, building false friendships with the lonely or troubled, promising to relieve people of the most fundamental dreads of human existence, from the fear of mortality to the numbing pain of grief -- gave to the process an awful cruelty and dishonesty.

Intense interest by a group of three or four evangelists in a potential convert, an essential part of the conversion process, the flattery and feigned affection, the rapt attention to those being recruited and the flurry of "sincere" compliments are a form of "love bombing."

It is the same technique employed by most cults, such as the Unification Church, or "Moonies," to attract prospects. It was a well-developed tactic of the Russian and Chinese communist parties, which share many of the communal and repressive characteristics of the Christian right.

"Love bombing is a coordinated effort, usually under the direction of leadership, that involves long-term members flooding recruits and newer members with flattery, verbal seduction, affectionate but usually nonsexual touching, and lots of attention to their every remark," the psychiatrist Margaret Thaler Singer wrote. "Love bombing -- or the offer of instant companionship -- is a deceptive ploy accounting for many successful recruitment drives."

What disturbs me most is that this process takes something genuine and turns into a means of manipulating people.