12. Mr. Controller requires agreement and approbation for everything he does. If you disagree with him in your heart and he knows it, he will take it personally, and he will believe that it is within his rights to resent and punish you.

13. Mr. Controller generally has a large and very faithful following of people who intensely and unusually admire him and may even suppose that he is not a normal sinner, and that all his personal opinions are right. They may not want to read books or listen to sermons that he has not first personally vetted for them.

That is part of the reason why these celebrity pastors are able to maintain the system for long periods of time. When “bad reports” come out, Mr. Controller uses the feeders to isolate and silence the victims.

My concern, though, is when Mr. Controller is not one elder, but a belief system about how elders should operate. When members who question their leadership get isolated and silenced because we need to support and obey our leadership. When the leaders remove opportunities for members to sharpen each other and make sure that only the “approved” are permitted to speak. Where members who don’t conform to the wishes of the leadership and have their life neat and in order get harassed by the leaders, both privately and in public until they leave.

Most presbyterian systems claim to protect the sheep and provide oversight, but what if the leadership of the church is more interested in protecting the superiority and reputation of the office of elder, and do that by refusing to listen when these cases of abuse come up, or by a myriad of legal policies, procedures and rules of order that only the leadership knows?