[Article 7] Character Assassination: The "Bitter Card" and the "Prideful Card"

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[The Articles of Indignation: Article 7]

Character Assassination: The “Bitter Card” and the “Prideful Card”

By Daniel Berg           June 25, 2015

                                                                   

In one of my previous articles I said the following about manipulation done by those who are not officially employed by the Church:

Misinformation is tolerated (if it will help them achieve their goals) because most of these people are not what you would call “professionals” since they are not actually employed by the Church, it is easy for the ICC leaders to disregard these as “rookie mistakes” and can easily escape any legal obligation to be held accountable for any possible misconduct, but of course they do very little to prevent it from happening and actually instigate the members to manipulate each other as we saw in the previous section about the “Domino Effect” control system.

I talked about the ICC tolerating the misconduct of unemployed members, however, what if the misconduct is being done by someone who is employed by the church, like a region leader? At this point the church can no longer pretend as if they are not involved, so an effective method of dealing with situations like these is trying to shove the blame from the abuser to the victim. Of course this method is also used in all other forms of coercion as well, the character assassination method is often used when:

● A member does not want to take “advice” from their discipler (see the “Seeking Advice” as a Means for Control section of The ICC Psychological Control System article that I wrote).

● If a member is being coerced to give more money,

● If a member attempts to rebuke a leader for abusive actions

● When a victim attempts to speak out against the corruption in the organization.

● Situations similar to these, etc.

As I said before, people who speak out after being wronged are automatically character assassinated as being “bitter” and therefore “in sin”. Blame can then be shifted from the abuser to the victim, and the abusive leader is defended in the overwhelming majority of cases. This has happened even when the victim attempted to go through the proper channels, such as trying to report abuse to a shepherd, etc. Of course any of the past sins the victim has committed is also brought against them as well as any past non-adherence to policy, anything that can be used to attack their character. The misconduct of the abusive leader is then played down as the victim is told that “the church is not perfect” and “everyone makes mistakes” and their abusive behavior is classified as them merely being “overzealous”. If you read my article The ICC’s Psychological Control System, it becomes apparent that this abusive behavior is actually something that is instigated, not accidental. It is no coincidence that the majority of these “mistakes” seem to revolve around issues of money, which is a big red flag (1 Timothy 6:10).

For people who attempt to argue with an ICC leader’s decision, they are automatically labeled as “prideful” (in fact I saw a member get disfellowshipped and marked simply for arguing, not even actually being divisive). For people who finally realize how broken this system is, their attempts to speak out against the ICC are met with accusations of “arrogance”. Oh how “arrogant” these people must be for ever daring to speak out against this “holy organization”. Who is really the arrogant party here? Where does the pride really fall?

People who challenge ICC leaders on Biblical issues are also automatically labeled as "prideful", even when they have a list of scriptures which support their arguments.  By playing the "prideful card", suddenly the opposing arguments magically become invalid, without having to resort to sound logic, which these leaders seriously lack.

In fact, what does this say about the mentality of the Church leadership?

How dare these ordinary members challenge the wisdom of the leaders, these members must be prideful for doing so. Who is really the prideful person here?  Does this sound like the reasoning of a humble church leader to you?

And this does not only apply to church leaders; if a member goes against the "advice" of a discipler, we see the same actions being taken.

Of course we see ICC leaders "playing humble" by admitting their own characters flaws when applicable during their sermons.  But the moment that an area of the ICC's system of profit and control becomes challenged, we see a drastic turn-around of their behavior.

People who cry out against abuse are labeled as “bitter”, and people who speak out against a corrupt system are labeled as “arrogant”. These are the “bitterness” and “prideful” cards: They wave these cards around as if they were magic wands that can miraculously dispel any argument that is made against them. There is no sound judgement or logical reasoning to be found. Once again I would like to quote Gustave Le Bon here:

Given to exaggeration in its feelings, a crowd is only impressed by excessive sentiments. An orator wishing to move a crowd must make an abusive use of violent affirmations. To exaggerate, to affirm, to resort to repetitions, and never to attempt to prove anything by reasoning are methods of argument well known to speakers at public meetings. –Gustave Le Bon, Book 1; The Minds of Crowds, Ch. 2.3

When ICC leaders have no proof to show that these individuals are “bitter” or “prideful” then they fall back on using obscure statements such as “I see from the way you write that you are ‘prideful’” (or bitter) or claiming that the information presented was “inaccurate” without any specific reference to what this “inaccuracy” is in question.

There is another method I have seen them use and is one that I like to personally call the “Jedi mind trick”. It is when they obscurely claim that they can “see the bitterness” within people even when these people are making clear that they are speaking out of indignation against abuse; “you are bitter, you just don’t know it” (“this is not the corruption you are looking for”). The intent is to make these people doubt themselves as well as to attack, to manipulate, to put the blame of sin (“bitterness” and “pride”) on others and to deter other people from listening to the accounts of these victims who have been wronged.

I also mentioned in my article The ICC’s Psychological Control System, how past sins of the members may be used against them to destroy their self-esteem if they try to resist being coerced into raising their contributions:

If the potential victim still stresses their inability to increase their weekly contribution these “coaches” quickly change into interrogators, trying to find any weakness to exploit and even using a list of their past confessed sins against them, trying to assault their self-esteem and attack their sense of spirituality; calling them “unspiritual” and then presenting this contribution raise as the solution for regaining their “spirituality”.

(The “coaches” terminology was a reference to disciplers and how they were trying to present themselves.)

It is wrong to bring up an old list of past sins for such a purpose. The only case where it is acceptable to bring up an old sin when rebuking a person is if the sin is a constant ongoing case of sin that stays in effect until the offense is rectified, and the sin that fits this specific definition is, of course, an unpaid debt (Psalms 37:21); one of the most ignored sins in the ICC (and there are even leaders who hold the title of Evangelist that are in blatant sin on this right now and I have noticed that this behavior has trickled down the ranks).

One of the biggest examples in the ICC of when character assassination was used to attack a victim while defending an abuser was the Karl W. incident. There was no way that the leadership could deny that disgustingly abusive behavior was carried out by Victor Gonzalez Sr., so many pretended to sympathize with him saying what happened to him was “wrong” but then followed up with the usual “all leaders make mistakes” kind of arguments and then attacks on his character that he was “bitter”. When Karl W. made it clear that Kip McKean also threatened to destroy his family with divorce, just like Vic Sr. did, it was interesting to note that they would try to change the subject or suggest that maybe he had “misheard”. If a man’s family is threatened (twice by Kip), I don’t think that is something that he is going to “mishear”. Then they proceeded to make accusations that his accounts were inaccurate by nitpicking at other statements that he had made while trying to avoid the issue of Kip McKean threatening him. It was a diversion play while attacking Karl’s character. Either Kip and Vic threatened to coerce his wife into divorcing him or they didn’t, either Vic threatened to use his power to make Karl’s W.’s life miserable or he didn’t, either Vic stole thousands of dollars from Karl or he didn’t (Karl was only paid back 1/3 of this money by the way, so their claim that the money was “returned” was only 1/3 accurate). The behavior of these leaders trying to nitpick at these other statements that Karl W. makes while trying to avoid these atrociously serious issues shows that they were only trying to attack him, looking for weaknesses in his arguments or anything else that they thought they could use against him (Karl W. is not Jesus guys, of course he will make some mistakes, but that does not disqualify his account of the serious events that happened). This behavior noticeably started when Karl made it clear that Kip was also involved, and then these ICC leaders rushed to defend their superior and employer rather than siding with a man who had obviously been heinously wronged.

Other Psychological Attacks and Manipulative Arguments

When a leader is caught in the midst of character assassination or any other coercive action, they usually have an array of backup arguments in order to defend their actions such as:

I am just trying to help you be more “spiritual”. –Right, so digging up the past confessed sins of a member and then beating them over the head with them is going to make them more “spiritual” I guess. It is one thing to address sins when the member is obviously not repenting, but to bring up old sins when a member wants to report abuse or is hesitant to raise their contribution is something else entirely.

Stop trying to be so defensive. I am just trying to help you so stop being “prideful”. –said by leaders when a member attempts to defend themselves during a psychological attack on their character. Their defensiveness is equated to “pride” and is used to try to prevent potential victims from defending themselves (by saying that they are in “sin” for doing so) and therefore to make manipulation easier.

Also recalling my meeting with Anthony from my article titled The ICC’s Extortion and Coercion for Money; at the beginning of the meeting Anthony immediately proceeded to attack my character before hearing any of my arguments, this was character assassination. I quickly called him out on this blatant psychological attack against me but without any pause or hesitation he hastily brought up a scripture in Matthew 7:6 (or maybe it was Matthew 15:27) where Jesus makes a reference to dogs. “Jesus calls people dogs” Anthony said, as if this justified his actions by trying to compare himself to what Jesus did. He was a professional manipulator all right; the fact that he had such an obscure reference to scripture up his sleeve prepared for this meeting beforehand to defend his actions told me that he was fully aware that what he was doing was indeed character assassination. This was further evidence of intentional manipulation (and pre-meditated preparations for such manipulation) and corruption.

Conclusion

Throughout my articles I provide scriptures from the Bible to show exactly which aspects of the apostles teachings are being violated. I provide evidence in the form of psychological theory from authoritative authors on group psychology such as Gustave Le Bon and Sigmund Freud to explain how and why the congregation is manipulated into going along with the leaderships decisions despite their obvious contradictions of Biblical scripture. And then I provide personal accounts from witnesses to validate my information; notwithstanding that I myself also count as a witness as I was with the ICC for six years.

Since these members of Kip McKean’s inner circle have shown that they have no intention of repenting, this leaves only one option for these ICC leaders who wish to attempt to attack me: character assassination. This is without a doubt the ICC's favorite tool of choice for situations like these.