Quando Jezebel usa gravata.

Quando Jezebel usa gravata.

Confrontando os erros modernos,

Orando por reforma.

A Necessidade de uma Reforma Moderna

"The spirit of Jezebel, controlling through manipulation and intimidation

Is 1.21; See how the faithful city 
       has become a harlot! 
       She once was full of justice; 
       righteousness used to dwell in her— 
       but now murderers!

Clearly, the medieval church's practices and teachings ran counter to the scriptures in many ways. Both inside and outside the church, there had been movement for reform since the beginning of the 10th century. The early heresies were very different in their origins, arguments and the social bases of their appeal - whether arising from a peasant's dreams (Letard of Vertus) or the faith of the poor (Arras), of clerks (Orleans), or nobles (Gerard of Montforte.) However, they shared the characteristics of disobedience to the church, rejection of the pope's authority and a willingness to interpret scripture in their own way. The heretics sought salvation through personal experience, belief and devotion, rather than through the church.

This heresy must be unassembled! Leaders are leaders, no more, no less. honor them! but don't sell your birthright! Don't forget YOUR individual spiritual authority in CHRIST! If this were not true there would be no scripture that says "is it better to obey man or God" and yet this heresy declares obeying leadership IS the same as obeying man! what pollution!!!.Honor the king! pastor, husband, etc.. But FEAR GOD!!!! ONE over you is God and not to be confused or replaced with some twisted heresy, slickly sold and still destroying others..Yes, God can tell someone to leave a church! Yes, God can tell someone in the church something that the leadership didn't hear first! He never created us to be a second class citizen under another human.. remember the word that says, joint heirs--- with Christ, with husbands, etc.. don't be duped! Remember that there is order and signs and wonders and a "doctrine" of demons that the word warns us about! Just because it seems full of signs, use the authority Christ gave you for discernment!!! What does it taste like!!!??? bondage?? Taste of the Lord that He is Good!!! With the Lord there is LIFE, not death, destruction, or usurping of strength and shame! Come out of it, be not like it! Don't be duped! It is said among these circles that you cannot trust for yourselves -that you must rely on another or you are in pride or your flesh, but if you give your reasoning to your leader to do for you then you are truly humble.. I don't even need to dignify this with a response do I?? Beloved!??? Hello? Bride of Christ?? Wake up sleeping beauty! The Lord is longing to gather you unto Himself and bring you again into His garden to meet with you and refresh your heart,, how long will you chase other loves/doctrines?? Return to your first husband! The Lord your God!

Ezequiel 3

Most of us know of churches that we consider cults or that at least act "cultish." In each case, spiritual leaders with varying degrees of power exercise control over these groups. Submission is always an important part of each member's spiritual development. Anyone who questions the power of the leader is viewed as spiritually underdeveloped (immature) and rebellious. Quite often, they are compared to Judas. We all know that this form of power is wrong. We know intuitively that it is not spiritual authority but a natural authority to which misled people submit.

There is no difference between these extreme examples of cult control and the power we attribute to spiritual authority. None! No one involved in a cult believes that their group is a cult. No one submitting to what they consider spiritual authority believes it to be anything but spiritual. They submit to what they believe to be their spiritual authority because they are persuaded that it pleases God. Nothing could be further from the truth. It does not please God that you submit yourself to men when it is God alone to whom you should be submitting. It is for this reason that God does NOT maintain a spiritual hierarchy among His people.

True spiritual authority is the power to be the servant of all, and being a servant is without question foundational. Only people who have laid down their lives and who have the active power of the Holy Spirit in their lives can be true servants. True spiritual authority is one of the most difficult things to master because it requires self-sacrifice and self-denial. Spiritual authority is the power to take up one's cross and follow Christ. Men who submit themselves to the true spiritual authority of the Holy Spirit will not become the spiritual authority to others. They know that to do this would be to supplant God.

Accountability

There is a popular notion among many Christian groups that Christians must be "accountable" to someone. That someone provides the spiritual authority in their lives. They point to the structure of the institutional church as providing accountability. We must challenge that notion.

Accountability in institutional churches is a myth. It does not exist. Just how involved are church leaders in the lives of the average church member? How much of their day-to-day activities are they even aware? Most church leaders have a general knowledge of their members but nothing more. In fact, barring a phone call from a spouse or reading about an arrest in the newspaper, most church leaders would never know about a person's alcohol or drug problems.

"Accountability" is not about being aware of someone's problems. True accountability is invasive. It carries with it the sense of legal responsibility. Look up the word yourself.

Then there are the groups like Promise Keepers that encourage men to come together and to share their inner weaknesses with one another. They call this "accountability." What men choose to share is voluntary, and so is how they choose to color it. True accountability is not voluntary. It is "liable." Choice is removed. These "feel good" groups are not invasive into each other's lives any more than church leaders are in the lives of their members. So we say it again: accountability is a myth. Christians act independently and freely with only the fear of getting caught, their actions and motives discovered.

True spiritual authority is transformational. You cannot resist God once you submit your life to Him. However, when the "form" of "accountability" replaces true spiritual authority, the response is no longer to God but to men. Instead of responding to God and experiencing His transformational power, people tend to hide who they really are and learn to deceive in order to hide their sin. When Adam yielded to Satan for his spiritual authority, he found himself hiding from God and covering himself with the leaves of self-righteousness.

"Accountability," as defined today, is just another form of contemporary spiritual authority that usurps God's rightful place. It breeds hypocrisy and religious form. The stronger the influence of men, the more hypocrisy and religious form will exist. Most people really are not afraid of God finding out what they are like and what they do. They are afraid that their pastor will. This should demonstrate to them the extent to which men have come to replace true spiritual authority in their lives.

In summary, spiritual authority in the New Testament is the rule of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It is this rule that has the power to transform us into a "new creature (2 Corinthians 5:15)." But men have patterned the institutional church after the spiritual authority found in the Old Testament where God did not act directly in the lives of His people. As a result, contemporary Christianity does not experience even a fragment of the transformational power of God.

The Pastor of the Church was a one man show, and he was always
emphasizing the terminology "authority and obedience". I felt very uncomfortable with the whole operation of Church. The Pastor became notorious later on for taking money from the poor believers through deceptive means. He bought properties under the disguise of starting various ministries. Now, everything belongs to him and his prodigal children.

If we blindly follow somebody's authority without detecting their
selfishness, greed and spritual gifts, gradually we are getting into
deeper trouble by accepting the leader as a cult leader. Those 
so called leaders use "brainwashing technique" to control the mind of the congregation. The leader will collect all the secrets of their family and financial matters, and use that information to intimidate
the gullible followers.

Watch carefully, if the leader tells
that they are the only group of
saints elected by God.

Does he or she tells the congregation to have more affinity with the leader than the believers have with their family.

Does the leader has special revelations without corroborating
the word of God.

Does the leader talk more of material things than spirtual issues?

We must know the tree by the fruits. I have made serious blunders in life by trusting relatives
and ministers of the gospel, but I could learn a big lesson out of my

mistakes. We need to have special blessings to discern the 
spirit in every human being, especially the leadership, else we will regret one day.

Hebrews 13:17 
17: Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.

The term Spiritual abuse was coined in the late twentieth century to refer to alleged misuse of authority by church leaders.

Researchers conceptualize a set of discernible characteristics of spiritual abuse.

Dr. HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Enroth" \o "Ronald Enroth" Ronald Enroth in HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churches_That_Abuse" \o "Churches That Abuse" Churches That Abuse identifies five categories:

Authority and Power - abusive groups misuse and distort the concept of spiritual authority. Abuse arises when leaders of a group arrogate to themselves power and authority that lacks the dynamics of open accountability and the capacity to question or challenge decisions made by leaders. The shift entails moving from general respect for an office bearer to one where members loyally submit without any right to dissent.

Manipulation and Control - abusive groups are characterized by social dynamics where fear, guilt, and threats are routinely used to produce unquestioning obedience, group conformity, and stringent tests of loyalty to the leaders are demonstrated before the group. Biblical concepts of the leader-disciple relationship tend to develop into a hierarchy where the leader's decisions control and usurp the disciple's right or capacity to make choices on spiritual matters or even in daily routines of what form of employment, form of diet and clothing are permitted.

Elitism and Persecution - abusive groups depict themselves as unique and have a strong organizational tendency to be separate from other bodies and institutions. The social dynamism of the group involves being independent or separate, with diminishing possibilities for internal correction and reflection. Outside criticism and evaluation is dismissed as the disruptive efforts of evil people seeking to hinder or thwart.

Life-style and Experience - abusive groups foster rigidity in behavior and in belief that requires unswerving conformity to the group's ideals and social mores.

Dissent and Discipline - abusive groups tend to suppress any kind of internal challenges and dissent concerning decisions made by leaders. Acts of discipline may involve emotional and physical humiliation, physical violence or deprivation, acute and intense acts of punishment for dissent and disobedience.

With Spiritual abuse it is often very difficult to find any evidence of abuse. Victims often fail to realize what is happening due to peer pressure or the use of guilt feelings in relation to obedience towards the leaders of a church/group/fellowship or cult, etc. which can be masked as obedience towards God.

Have you ever been accused of "being in rebellion" or "not under a spiritual covering?" As the church accelerates toward the close of this age we hear this accusation more and more. I believe this is partially due to the rebellious age we live in, but I also believe we are hearing this more often because we are confused about what authority and covering are. Let's look in the Scriptures at another time when people were very rebellious.

How do men rule in the Church today? Why do men rule when they were called to serve – liderar é server.

When a man uses terms such as, "my flock" or "my church" or "as long as I'm the leader here...," the sheep are not yours, they never were and they never will be – fishing in another’s aquarium

As long as church leadership must have special buildings and offices to set themselves apart from the sheep, or special clothes or special chairs to sit on and elevated platforms so people can see who is in charge, it is obvious they are still trying to operate under delegated authority and desire to rule over the flock.

May God grant the Church's leaders the brokenness that it will take to transform them into transparent men of God or replace them with men who do humbly guide His flock. And may He once again tune in the hearing of the sheep so that another's voice they will not hear. "And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers (John 10:5)."

I'm sure that many are only doing the "pastorate" for the people of God, with no pretenses of making money. But then again, how many so-called pastors are only doing what they do because it pays well? Suppose a pastor was employed by a large congregation and was well paid. Suppose he preached, visited the sick, and did the other ministry expected of him. Now suppose that the same pastor was told he'd no longer be receiving pay for what he did. Would he get a secular job and continue to minister to/with the congregation? Or would God suddenly "call" him to leave for another paying church?! I think we all know the answer to that one.

Our spiritually abusive leaders brainwashed us into seeing them as our gods. When we let the pastor down, it was equal to letting God down. When we turned our back on the pastor/group, it was equal to abandoning God in our minds. In our desire to please the group/leader, we learned to become people pleasers, which caused us to abandon our own identity. We replaced who we were on a very deep spiritual level with the identity of the group/leader. We emptied ourselves out and took on the group mentality. After we escape this process, we find ourselves feeling empty and fractured. This is not because God is gone, but rather, because we abandoned our self identity.

Are you a people pleaser? Have you abandoned your own identity to please others? Well, you are not alone! The good news is that you can take back what was stolen from you. You can begin to think for yourself, make your own decisions, and form your own opinions again. At times you may feel helpless to do these things, but that’s only because you haven’t been doing them for a long time. The brain parts that drive these functions have become atrophied, and simply need to be stretched and toned again through repetitious usage.

Fear and Guilt: Recovering From Performance-Based Relationships

Fear and guilt are two very powerful components of spiritual abuse. These two forces can cause people to live their lives striving to get the approval of their religious leaders and fellow group members – many times to the detriment of themselves and their family members.

Between fear and guilt, fear is the more powerful of the two components. Fear is what hooks us into the spiritual abuse to begin with. While we are in a spiritually abusive group, we hear messages of fear over and over, telling us that if we are "out of God's will" (aka out of their church) that Satan will take over our finances, relationships, families, etc. We are taught that if we leave "the covering" of the abusive leader, Satan will destroy us. This is how we get locked into a spiritually abusive relationship, and it doesn't stop there. The entire time we were in these groups, we were being continually programmed with fear. This is why many of us found ourselves bound with fear, panic attacks, anxiety, and even depression after leaving the group. It can take years to get deprogrammed of this fear, which happens by educating ourselves.

Are you one of the many loyal and sincere church members who faithfully and cheerfully attend, support and participate in a local church, but have a nagging, persistent inward "thought" that "something is just not right here?"

Each time it rises within you, you peer around the room at the faces of fellow-worshipers caught up in seemingly heart-felt worship, you tune your ear to the soothing, melodious music crescendoing upward, and listen intently to the inspiring exhortations flowing from the lips of the various leaders on the platform...then...once again...you begin to chastise yourself...and "take authority" over those terrible carnal, negative thoughts, and command them to leave your mind. Now! there! no more of that! Right? Right!

The proper role of human under-shepherds is to lead people to the Great Shepherd, Jesus Christ, and teach them how to be His disciples, in submission to Him and His authority. Hyper-authoritarian leaders, instead, lead people to themselves, and indoctrinate them to be their followers, in total submission to them and their authority. In essence, these dominating shepherds teach they are the church-members' de facto lord, master, and savior, rather than Christ. They indoctrinate members to believe the spiritual leaders of the church themselves are the members' HYPERLINK "http://www.slm.org/trtdigst/articles/covering.html" "spiritual covering" (a totally false and patently unbiblical concept), and any member who ever leaves the church will be "out from under" their "covering," be without any covering or what they call, "uncovered," and will experience terrible curses and other horrible consequences as a result. From the pulpit often come "horror stories" about what happened to such-and-so person or family, who were so spiritually bereft or rebellious as to leave the group without the blessings and approval of their "spirital authority."

In these groups, the "authority" of the "shepherds" is absolute, sacrosanct, and inviolable, that is, without reprisal. Any semblance of anything other than total and unquestioning obedience to the desires and counsel of the church's leadership chain is considered rebellion and insubordination, and simply is not tolerated. Members live under the constant threat of being branded with the Scarlet Letter "R" for "rebel," openly denounced and shamed from the (bully-)pulpit, and consequently shunned by the "covenant-community" for failure to comply with the unwritten, unspoken rules and expectations established by the leadership. An oppressive performance-based approval and promotion system keeps members in constant internal turmoil and fear as they jump through all the hoops the spiritual taskmasters put before them, in an attempt to seek their leaders' approval and favor. Moreover, members are indoctrinated and compelled to accept the leadership-set agenda of the group, regarding which they have next to no real say, as their personal burden and responsibility, and thus to commit their time, talent, And most importantly, their tithe, to its successful completion. Sadly, most never see past the spiritual smoke and mirrors to realize that the so-called "church" to which they have sworn allegiance and promised their wholehearted and unflagging support, is nothing more than the personal "business" of its leaders, and not only are they free labor, but they actually pay out of their own resources for the privilege of being a participant, i.e., member.

Multitudes of sincere and trusting believers are caught in the virtually invisible web of religious captivation in the churches they attend, and don't know it. They are unaware victims of spiritual abuse, psychological enslavement, and exploitation perpetrated under the heavy-hand of hyper-authoritarianism. That is to say, the leadership of the church-group of which they are a part is dominating, controlling, manipulating, and exploiting their followers for their own personal gain and private kingdom-building. Through systematic indoctrination, victims have been duped into accepting as biblical and beneficial oppressive and abusive predominance imposed upon them by unscrupulous, tyrannical church-leaders.

Without realizing it, myriads of faithful followers, in submitting themselves and surrendering their God-given right to self-governance or personal autonomy unto their spiritual leaders, have become "slaves of men" in blatant violation of God's explicit warning against that very thing: "DO NOT BECOME SLAVES OF MEN!" (1 Cor. 7:23). Frequently, in groups employing such hyper-authoritarian practicies, adherents codify their willful enslavement by signing biblically-prohibited "covenants" with their leaders that require them to effectively surrender their free-will unto their spiritual taskmasters and granting them the right to intervene in and make decisions regarding the mundane matters of their lives.

Many believers are increasingly aware of the Jezebel spirit, a demonic spirit of control, one intending to supplant true authority. Individuals ruled by the flesh, who cooperate with this spirit, sow discord, presumption, rebellion, insubordination and a host of other marks of Satan's kingdom.

the Jezebel spirit is fueled by self-centeredness and self-promotion

What is HYPERLINK "http://www.watchman.org/profile/abusepro.htm" \t "new" spiritual abuse? Just as emotional abuse affects one emotionally, while physical abuse inflicts pain and bodily injury on its victim, HYPERLINK "http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/9575/biblespirab.html" \t "new" spiritual abuse affects one spiritually. It is the result of a spiritual leader or system that tries to control, manipulate, or dominate a person. This control is often in the form of fear.

Does leadership in your church demand you consult with them (or your discipler) before making major decisions or any decisions at all? Has leadership forbidden you to go on vacation or spend time with someone (particularly one who has left the church group)? 

Do you find yourself periodically questioning your spirituality or standing with God? Have you been preoccupied with checking out others in the congregation to see who is living up to the rules and who isn't?

You may not be allowed to confront or question those in leadership as they are " HYPERLINK "http://www.spiritualabuse.org/mywritings/authority.html" \t "new" God's anointed". Members are taught that only God is to handle situations in which leadership may have done wrong.

Don’t touch God’s anointed – Sl 105.15 (my anointed – God is referring to Israel??? 8-15)

Acts 11 – Peter questioned yet he didn’t play the “I’m you spiritual authority” card.

Acts 17 – the Bereans questioned if what Paul was teaching was scriptural

Characteristics of An Unsafe Church

Inability to ask questions or raise issues- If an individual raises a problem they become the problem.

Lack of accountability - accountability suggested but not there in reality

Increasing expectation of commitment

Emphasis on external image- even if it is not reality

Manipulation, dominance and control

Social isolation of members from individuals outside of the church

Obedience to authority in all circumstances

Secrecy - over finance, decisions etc

Emphasis on finance

Misuse of scripture/pulpit

The belief that the minister always knows best

Fear of leaving

Personal slander and subsequent isolation on leaving

Loss of personal identity

Elitism - there is no other church like this.

Where did the modern authoritarian discipling system come from? Who dreamed up this pyramid scheme of a young evangelist controlling the lives of converts so that they grind out huge work quotas and big number baptisms? What are the roots of this system?

Watchman Nee, a prolific writer and leader of the indigenous Chinese church movement known as the Little Flock, makes a strong plea for the need for Christians to obey delegated authority in the church. "The church is a place not only for fellowship of pothers and sisters," says Nee, "but also for the manifestation of authority. " (3)

Nee's writings on spiritual authority and on the normal church life reflect the kind of Asian authoritarianism that prevailed before World War II. According to Bob Buess, Nee required blanket obedience regardless of morals or righteousness, simply for the sake of obedience . (4)

Nee taught that each person must have a "covering" in the Lord. He used that term for a person who has delegated authority, who must be obeyed unconditionally, and who must be imitated. He also taught that Christians must confess their sins to the person who is their "covering."

Jerram Barrs explained that the doctrine of "covering" means that ideas, decisions, and lifestyle must be covered by someone higher in the chain of command; thus the "covering" gives instructions on many secular matters and not just on matters of faith.

wealthy Christians being forced by their shepherds to reveal confidential details of their financial and family life. He told of one individual who was warned that he would miss out on the Kingdom of God and be ruined spiritually, physically, and financially if he did not submit to the shepherd's authority.