Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
There is a LOT of "appearance versus reality" stuff with this group. A lot of positioning, selective presentation, re-wording of "red flags" to make them less noticeable, of "coding" phrases so that outsiders would think it was biblically-sourced where the practice was anything but biblical.
The vast majority of CoC activity is careful and deliberate packaging and marketing, combined with manipulation both subtle and overt. Pressure the mark, or "new one", and get to a subjective crisis point which causes the mark to respond emotionally, then use that opening as a leverage point, and get them to work immediately recruiting others. Lots of "warm fuzzies" for going along with the programme, which can be withdrawn if need be. Again, establish leverage points and then manipulate.
There's a reason they go on the college campus: teen-agers are more susceptible to this pressure-and-control format than 35 year-olds. On the campus they get a much higher return-on-investment (ROI) than on Main Street.
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I served as a president of the CoC group at my campus. I was asked to, and it sounded reasonable enough at tge time, so I agreed. Almost immediately, I realized the students had no say in what was going on. The elders were making the decisions, we were just pawns.
In fact, the elders were there on campus participating and leading the Bible studies we had. Yet those who came to our meetings looked to us, the students, for the guidence they were seeking. We were put in a position of having to rationalize what was really going on, and I realized I could not do that. When I came to that realization, I withdrew from participating from CoC activities and focused on my studies, and I never looked back.