Below are examples of religious abuse quoted from Dr. Laura E Anderson’s book, When Religion Hurts You, all of which can be found in the WMSCOG.

Coercion and threats: convincing individuals they must follow certain rules and lifestyles to secure their eternity, using threats to keep people from stepping out of line, threatening excommunication, making threats if an individual seeks help outside the religious institution, and making individuals drop or not seek to press charges for illegal behavior (such as, but not limited to, sexual abuse)

Intimidation: making people feel afraid by using actions and gestures that could suggest disconnection from the community, teaching people they deserve eternal conscious torment if they do not subscribe to the system’s rules, not valuing the safety of members by hiding or dismissing abuse

Emotional abuse: making individuals feel bad about themselves, calling them names (e.g. calling them worthless or sinner), publicly or privately humiliating them for mistakes or acts deemed sinful, making them feel guilty, gaslighting them, teaching theology that promotes human worthlessness as a foundation of human existence, refusing to allow individuals to be autonomous and make choices for themselves

Isolation: requiring individuals to have relationships only with people inside the religious system; requiring relationships with individuals not in the system to be cut off; controlling what people do, who they talk to, what they read, or where they go; controlling access to information; using fear to justify actions (e.g. “people who do not believe like we do will try to get you to sin”)

Minimizing, denying, and blaming: making light of the requirement to be part of the system, not taking concerns seriously, shifting responsibility for abusive behavior, calling abusive behavior “sin issues” that require spiritual discipline instead of legal help, convincing an individual that they caused the abuse

Patriarchal privilege: treating women, children, and other marginalized individuals as lesser than or subservient; placing only men in positions of authority, power, and leadership; allowing only men to define gender roles; using holy texts to justify abuse, oppressive, supremacist behaviors of men toward women, children, and marginalized bodies

Economic abuse: preventing people from pursuing education, discouraging people from obtaining non-ministry job training or non-ministry careers, guilting people into giving the church money, keeping financial secrets (such as not permitting access to financial records), encouraging people to neglect the needs of their family in order to give more to the church or group, which may include messages such as “God will take care of all your needs”

Each element of religious abuse described above is spot on to describe the WMSCOG’s practices, almost as if the WMSCOG used this list as a guide for their behavior.