Don’t Look Behind the Curtain Part 2

Spread the love

New Thought’s #MeToo Moment Gathers Speed

BY HARV BISHOP

New Thought, and more specifically Religious Science, is overdue for a #MeToo moment.

That moment is beginning as more former and current practitioners (prayer counselors) come forward to describe cruel treatment at the places of worship they serve. In response, ministers and practitioners are examining hard truths and exploring ways to restore trust to these churches.

To briefly recap last week’s post, we looked at the cases of three practitioners, deeply spiritual idealists with a strong desire to serve. They trained for four-plus years to serve a New Thought church and its congregants through prayer. All faced personal crisis and financial difficulties. They could not keep up required tithing to their church.  Instead of compassion, understanding, and support they were given three stark choices: 1) up their giving, 2) attend a prosperity reeducation group, or 3) surrender their license to practice prayer.

One former practitioner who reached out in response to that blog this week wrote, “That is when I realized it is all about keeping up appearances and cash money. It broke my heart and plummeted me even further into darkness at a time when I needed my community to come through for me more than ever. It was a very painful betrayal on top of an already unbearable betrayal in my life.”

‘Do you call that a tithe?’

The problem is not limited to practitioners. The shaming can also extend to ministers whose churches are financially struggling. One Religious Science minister said she was a recipient of what she termed “a ‘Do you call that a tithe?’ phone call from leadership when my center was at its low point.”  Religious Science churches (also called centers) are required to tithe to the denomination’s umbrella organization, Centers for Spiritual Living (CSL).

Since last week’s post I’ve heard from other practitioners across the U.S. who faced similar shaming and shunning. I’ve also heard from people who said I overgeneralized, exaggerated an otherwise rare occurrence, and said that I implied all New Thought churches and ministers were greedy. At the same time, others recognized the importance of the issue and the need to start a serious conversation to improve the situation.

Know that I didn’t publish this blog easily. I’ve been working on this story for six months. Would this story be discounted? Would I be seen as a “negative” voice by a tradition that exalts positivity? Would I, my blog, and forthcoming anthology be shunned by a tradition in which I have friends and received teachings that nourished me? I didn’t want to feel like Leah Remini at a Scientology convention.

Lord knows, it was difficult and painful for those whose stories I recounted to relive these details. Their trauma is real.

In short, I was afraid to speak truth to power.

While I published the blog I also carefully couched my language and at one point in a draft described these events as an “unintentional cruelty.” I now see those words are tepid and wrong.

It’s time for truth to be spoken to power. It’s past time for this abuse to end. And while I didn’t use that word in my original article, I am naming it and using it consciously now. This is religious abuse and horrible violations by those in positions of power and trust. These violations induce trauma. Like other abuse victims, patterns only become obvious when people share their stories.

That is why I see this as a #metoo moment for Religious Science and New Thought.

Did I overgeneralize and exaggerate otherwise rare events?

Before and after publishing this piece, I heard from practitioners and ministers with similar stories across the US: Northwest, Western, Midwest and Southeastern states. Each said they knew of many other practitioners with similar stories of betrayal. This doesn’t suggest a rare or isolated phenomenon. At the same time, the piece in no way suggested that every church and minister treats practitioners in this way. But that some churches do things in a better way doesn’t invalidate the traumatic experience of these practitioners in the article and those I have heard from.

We may not know exactly how many churches treat practitioners cruelly, but what percent of churches can get away this before we care? Ten percent? Twenty? Sixty? The movement AS A WHOLE has a responsibility to see that its administrative models include fair treatment of those who serve and that its core teachings are used by those in power in a responsible way.

Often when abuse victims come forward there is denial, victim blaming, and beloved institutions and powerful others are given every plausible excuse. We don’t want to believe hard truths.

But there were a greater number of readers who were concerned, saddened, angered. and anxious for a possible way forward.

I’m not a minister. I’ve never had responsibly for a congregation or church administration. I have known enough ministers to appreciate how difficult a job it can be.  And I’m deeply grateful to those minsters who have initiated a conversation about facing these hard truths and are beginning to explore a way forward.

Dr. Jim Lockard’s post on his New Thought Evolutionary blog, responding to my blog of last week, raised perceptive and important context for this issue. I strongly encourage you read his full post. My brief summary follows.

  • Practitioners were originally intended to be money-making professionals modeled on Christian Science practitioners, and training, licensing and other requirements were developed with that in mind. Religious Science denominational churches began as one way of supervising professional practitioners. Since then the role of practitioners has shifted. There are now thousands of practitioners, and few make money at it.
  • Some ministers are unskilled in dealing with people and act out their own unhealed psychological wounds on others. All ministers are forced to deal with the current reality for practitioners while being asked to enforce outdated administrative requirements for the organization.
  • Leaders need to become more skilled and the outdated practitioner model needs to be updated. Practitioners need to be proactive and meet with their church when they are unable to meet tithing obligations.
  • Both leaders and practitioners need to heal past wounds that can distort and filter New Thought teachings about one’s consciousness creating their life circumstances. That means leaders should not impose guilt and shame on others and practitioners should not accept guilt and shame imposed from above, or from their own psyche and self-talk.

All these are critically important areas for launching a much-needed conversation in the movement.

I think there are some additional perspectives to be considered on the third and fourth points.

Lockard absolutely does suggest a reasoned, proactive response for practitioners facing difficulties in point three.

I do have a concern that when you are in financial crisis, can’t pay your mortgage, and are scrambling to make ends meet, reason can go out the window. Contacting your church about your tithe isn’t the first thing on your mind.

Lack of Clarity

Expectations and procedures must be clearly articulated by leadership. With the practitioners I described the expected level of both service to the church and giving was clearly articulated. What was not at all clear was what to do when when life changes happen at the speed of life and expectations can’t be met. All these people were generous with their service and genuinely believed they were on the honor system to return tithing to normal levels when able. The calls from a staff minister acting as a tithe enforcer, like Tony Soprano, with his bat, came out of the blue. The existence of a person with that enforcer role was and is invisible. The majority of practitioners in this church, even to this day, don’t know that a minister with these duties exists. This minister’s menu of options for those in need is, to put it mildly, cramped and inflexible.

The size of the church is another consideration. In a small to medium church with fewer staff members such conversations would be easier. In a mega-church with multiple moving parts, and less clear lines of responsibility, it becomes more impersonal and progressively more difficult.

If such a conversation can take the place the practitioner still faces an asymmetry of power. The person they are approaching has ultimate say over whether or not they can continue to serve as a practitioner. Make no mistake: each of these people was dedicated and wanted to continue to serve.

In addition, the assumptions of those in power, and particularly the unskilled, are that one’s every circumstance is an out picturing of one’s consciousness. The practitioner’s life difficulties are on them. If they can’t tithe at the expected level, then they don’t have the consciousness to be a practitioner. (Here, I call BS. I wouldn’t hesitate to receive prayer and advice from any of these wise souls).

Former practitioner “Christine” was grieving a family tragedy and trying to recover from a recession-caused corporate job loss. She related “the short version” of what she was told by church officials:

“Everything begins in your own consciousness. It’s not the economy. To blame your financial circumstances on outside sources is not taking responsibility for your own consciousness.”

This isn’t an open dialogue between equal adults.  These practitioners facing hardships are treated like errant school children.  Even following the program doesn’t guarantee results. Recall the case of “Sarah” who attended the prosperity reeducation group while still giving stellar service to the church and who ultimately had to surrender her license because she couldn’t meet tithing expectations in spite of all her efforts.

Lockard’s point that leaders and followers need to address unhealed childhood wounds is also important.  The three whose stories I related are absolutely resilient and living empowered lives. They have not accepted the shame imposed by the church dismissals. That said, they are human beings. They still experience pain, as any human would when there is abuse by trusted others.

I believe that a teaching that says our every circumstance is an out-picturing of our individual consciousness virtually invites victim blaming and shaming by unskilled authority figures or by turning the teachings back negatively on oneself (I certainly did that as a newcomer). Victim blaming is one part of New Thought’s shadow I highlighted last week. The betrayal of dedicated practitioners is one manifestation of that shadow, but victim blaming is a significant problem within the broader movement. One Unity minister commented, “I’ve seen it in every church where I have served.”

The Just World Hypothesis

Why?

The Just World hypothesis from social science suggests that the more people believe that the world is fair and people get what they deserve, the less compassion they feel. What suggests a just and fair world more than believing that each person’s circumstance is a reflection of their individual consciousness?

The teaching either needs to evolve to a more nuanced form that places cause and effect in a larger context, as I discussed last week, or be taught hand-in-hand with the kind of inner healing for leaders and others recommended by Lockard. Would it be too much to expect both approaches?

To do otherwise is spiritual malpractice. It is equivalent to giving someone a loaded rifle without a hunter’s safety course.

One former practitioner dealing with pancreatic cancer said “there is often questioning about what you did to cause your situation.”

“I could not completely resolve my shortcomings,” this person said, and opted not to renew their practitioners license.  Even though they helped others, there were still internalized “echoes of ‘What did you think that caused this to happen to you?’ ” This person ultimately found support in a Unity community. “I have released that idea (self-blame) completely and just move forward from one step to another.”

Even if the core teaching of every life circumstance coming from individual consciousness never changes, how can its use evolve to help and empower those who serve us? How can we stop its use as a yardstick to prove the “failure” of faithful servants? I’d love to hear your ideas.

Practitioners giving is carefully tracked by some churches. This goes so far that they are admonished not to put cash in the basket as it can’t be monitored and properly credited.

One practitioner, in the southeastern U.S., relates a similar experience to those featured in last week’s post. He suggests that the situation is partly driven by declining church attendance and lower contributions from congregants. Given the economic realities and challenges, churches that otherwise preach prosperity consciousness pursue the path of least resistance: strong-arming those who have already proved their dedication to the church—the practitioners.

Which brings us to radical, common sense solution practiced by Rev. Patrick Soran, of Denver.

He doesn’t track his practitioners giving. He trusts them as adults to do what is right in light of their circumstances. He sees them as valuable members serving the church in a variety of ways. Help is available if they ask, but it isn’t forced. They are never singled out, shamed, or embarrassed.

This shouldn’t be such a radical concept in a movement that professes to see the best in everyone as a reflection of the Divine.

 

Similar Posts

18 Comments

  1. Another salient piece, my Brother. As I read the responses to your post (including blog posts by others), I found myself really struggling with the notion that somehow both those who were shamed as well as the leadership were victims, much like we hear “slut shaming” of rape victims. And that will never play well with me.

    Religious organisations become irrelevant culturally and spiritually. And the sooner the New Thought moment realises that, and begins in earnest to recreate from the ground up, the sooner these abuses, guilting and shaming will end.

    I say this as someone who walked away from licensing as an RSI minister, who has no ill-will toward the organisation at all. I simply believe it’s time for a very tough conversation about relevance in a post-modern ethos.

    Just as the late Dr. Louise Hay suffered the consequences of guilting and shaming gay men who were not “successful” in overcoming the dis-eases associated with AIDS, particularly after some of her victims committed suicide, we’re at that same moment where we have to be willing to accept responsibility and where some might want to take a deep, hard look at whether their desire to rise up in the ranks of “church” with diminishing relevance is blinding them to the depth of the conversation you’ve begun.

    Much Love.

  2. Thanks Harv. There is so much you have addressed that has been problematic for me. My heart and belief is tied to the basic teaching found in the writings of Dr. Holmes. Over the years there has been an ‘evolution’ and perhaps not for the better. But that is just my opinion.

    1. Thanks Steve. I understand where you are coming from. The evolution I am talking about would be recognizing that there would multiple causes for the events in our lives including consciousness. I know some folks will disagree strongly with that. I would be very interested in your thoughts on how Dr. Holmes’ ideas could be used in cases like these practitioners having financial difficulties and other issues preventing them tithing etc. My gut feeling is that he would not support the kinds of behavior by the minister described here.

      1. You know Harv. I think there are several aspects to this. Early on someone told me that Dr. Holmes did not provide financial support for new ministers seeking to found new churches. At first, I thought this rather odd but then I realized that his perspective was one of allowing the consciousness of the minister be the determining factor. In other words, and more simplistically; one must be able to express what is professed. That, however, is really the second part of what I think was a more important part of what Dr. Holmes understood to be the fundamental core in the understanding of what he taught. He wasn’t seeking to churn out ministers, he was teaching his students to be practitioners, as in ‘healers’. Not just by name but by expression and demonstration and my personal belief is that that has become secondary today. “You can’t give away what you don’t own” and the emphasis on the intellectualization fails to the degree of non-demonstration expressed by the student. This is why I use the 48-lesson study course as my main foundational tool. It was compiled by Dr. Holmes and as an intro to each lesson he explains what he want the student to learn from that lesson. It takes me about three years to work through it with those who want to learn. One of the issues that Dr. Holmes expresses right from the beginning is “practice” and the more “practice”. I tell my students that this is a skill just as playing an instrument is a skill. You can’t be a successful master of your instrument if you don’t put in the hours upon hours of practice. And to be a practitioner one must dedicate the time and then more time to begin to achieve that skill. The fault lies with the teaching/training not with the” practitioners”. Just because one wants to be a practitioner does not mean they can be a practitioner. It’s like any other profession, not everyone who wants to be a brain surgeon will make it through the process of becoming a skilled professional. When an organization places more emphasis upon tuition and intellectual knowledge than on the skill they have failed the student.
        This is just my personal take for sure but when you look back in the history of Religious Science and the ministers, all of whom were successful practitioners also practitioners. And so I ask the question today and often; where are our practitioners today who’s professional skill and history of demonstration is of note? Why is that? One of the questions we must ask and answer is, did our predecessors do what they claimed or did they perpetuate a fraud? If our foundation is solid than we need to return to the essential and fundamental teaching that is coupled with demonstratable proficient skill.
        I highly encourage those that seek to embody this philosophy as a personal spiritual life expression to make a commitment to learning and study as a part of their spiritual journey. Knowledge allows for personal growth however not everyone is going to be a practitioner. Not everyone can be a practitioner. And to fail, as a teacher, an organization to screen those who want to be but are not cut out to be is just wrong.
        If you have failed in teaching and training individuals to be proficient practitioners it seems to me that to seek some kind of financial return so that someone that you gifted with a tittle for a skill that they are unable to demonstrate is not ethical.
        Just my humble opinion.

        1. Very well said Steve. Your humble opinion is right on in my way of thinking. One thing I have had a challenge with in my years of watching and participating in the revealing process of “New Thought” teaching is exactly in line with what you have said. As I was studying to become licensed I was struck by what seemed to be a contest among different churches to see who could produce the MOST licensees rather than those who truly qualified. I found it disrespectful of the whole process and actually caused me to rethink my place in it all.. It was a motivator for me to dig more deeply within my own beliefs which took me back to the teachings of Jesus and others that inspired Dr. Holmes to do his work. I have come to understand in my own mind, heart and soul that compassion is key and sometimes it requires tough love in guiding one to a new way of seeing. It has been shown to me that kindness, patience and Love always win in the long run and release of that which no longer works for individuals or groups sometimes looks messy but comes out down the road when Principle is followed. Staying in Principle produces ethical outcomes. It can only be so in Truth. Thank you for the courage to speak this in these times.

  3. The worst thing you can do to someone who is suffering is to lay a guilt trip on him or her. When congregants are suffering, we offer them help. It’s an essential part of what ministers and practitioners do. It’s the job. Yet when it happens to a practitioner, we don’t say, “Why don’t you talk to a practitioner?” (And if you can’t talk it through with the minister, a practitioner is the place to go.)

    Frankly, every practitioner should have a practitioner. Not just as a prayer partner, though that too, but as a peer you can talk to when things go badly. And let’s be honest here — the mere fact that we’ve been through practitioner training, or even ministerial training, .doesn’t mean we don’t have problems. It means we “grow in public”, to use the phrase a founding minister of our Center used. It means our “stuff” is out in the store window more than the congregants’ “stuff.” Practitioners and ministers are the “faces” of the center.

    Part of the problem is that we tend to be a very “heady” movement. Note the terms we use for God — One Mind, Consciousness, and so on. Many are trying to move the movement in a more heart-centered direction, but old habits die hard.

    My wife, who is also a practitioner, tells of a girl she knew in Religious Science who was in a severe accident in which a couple of girls were killed. This particular girl showed up with a broken leg, and she got the New Thought guilt trip: “What was in your consciousness taht you got a broken leg?” She replied, “I was in an accident in which a couple of people died. What was in my consciousness that I ONLY got a broken leg?”

    Consciousness does create reality. But it”s not merely our individual consciousness. It’s Consciousness. Capital C. As Amit Goswami says, “Consciousness is the ground of all being.” Not your consciousness, or my consciousness, but Consciousness. While much of our life is controlled by our consciousness, much is controlled by the collective consciousness, which we call Race mind, which Carl Jung called “the Collective Unconscious.” The economy, for example, is not dependent on individual consciousness, but on the One Consciousness of which we are all a part, and to which we all contribute. What is known anywhere in consciousness is known everywhere in consciousness.

    As I said in response to Part I, it’s about compassion. We need to apply the principles compassionately. If people are falling short — and we all do in various ways — then help them get where they need to be. Don’t beat them up over it. Support them. You don’t criticize someone for needing help to get on a ladder; you give her a boost. Eventually, you hve to climb yourself, but often along the path you need help and support. If spiritual leaders can do this for each other, why can’t we do it for each othr?

    1. Yes. One of the practitioners involved did exactly that. That would also be dependent on the number of centers available to move to in a given area. In some cases, frankly, some of these people were sufficiently disillusioned to leave the organized institutional part of it behind. They are all very spiritual people and I would welcome their prayer support at any time.

  4. This movement would certainly benefit from a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of the teaching. The simplistic notion that “says our every circumstance is an out-picturing of our individual consciousness” does invite “victim blaming and shaming by unskilled authority figures or by turning the teachings back negatively on oneself…”

    Of course communicating these ideas in ways that aren’t on the level of The Secret is difficult – especially to congregants who are just coming into a center. It’s much easier to say “thoughts become things.”

    And, if you’re a leader whose primarily goal is to increase donations, you may not want a more nuanced understanding.

    1. Good point Randy! Sadly, as in politics with any issue the first question is who wins, who loses and benefits and that usually involves following the money.

  5. Thank you for bringing this up to be healed. I have another area of concern. I am an ordained CSL minister and created programs with my ordained CSL minister husband.
    He died in such a way that was very “Un-spiritual”….and traumatic for everyone involved.
    Ok…yet, CSL- really had no response to his death. I was NOT supported by people I know in the organization. I am grateful for my prayer partner of a dozen years, as a lifeline. I feel the organization is not prepared for situations such as this.
    Just saying…..

    I am currently a member of an African American Church founded by Rev. Ike. ALL LOVE.

    1. Thank you Rev. Simone. I’m so sorry for your loss. This is indeed another Achilles’s heel for the movement. There is no adequate theology of suffering for some of the same issues discussed in this series. In discussions with another minister I have heard that unfair judgments are often imposed on ministers with serious illness. I agree with you that CSL and others are ill-prepared. I hope to address this deeply concerning issue in the future. These things must be healed if the movement is to reach its full potential and truly serve people in need. I am glad you’ve found a new spiritual home.

  6. It’s not just finances, either. I have felt demeaned by CSL for quite a while. If you don’t agree with certain aspects of the organization’s worldview, they will punish you. And for all our talk of diversity, inclusion, and openness, the leadership is definitely not open to some ideas from some people. They do not accept those people, nor treat them with compassion, oneness, wholeness, and dignity. I have seen many people, some of whom were practitioners and Leadership Council members, be driven away. We need to find ways to be more open and more welcoming, not just to people with financial challenges.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *