Evangelical Struggle Sessions

How Churches Turn Truth-Tellers into Targets

My latest piece for the Center for Baptist Leadership below, reproduced in its entirety.

“Struggle sessions” aren’t just relics of communist China. They’re creeping into evangelical churches, and Christians need to learn how to spot and resist them.

Originally, struggle sessions were a form of psychological torture. Victims were publicly humiliated, accused of imaginary crimes, and pressured by friends and enemies alike to confess their guilt. These sessions served to advance the political goals of communist China’s Cultural Revolution: break social bonds, coerce ideological conformity, and force total allegiance to the state.

As crazy as it may sound, a softer version of this has become common in Bible-believing churches. Typically, outspoken conservatives are the primary targets. Why? Because they hold views that make their left-of-center peers uncomfortable, and their willingness to speak out makes them anxious. If someone is vocal about hot-button cultural issues, like LGBTQ, feminism, race, or immigration, people at church will start getting nervous, accuse him of “getting too political,” and tell him he should keep his opinions to himself because the church should focus on “preaching the gospel.”

Ironically, these conformity enforcers may not even disagree with the speaker’s views. They just think Christians shouldn’t talk about them publicly because doing so might offend people who disagree. They might say something like, “Brother, I agree with you that illegal immigration is a problem in our country, but that’s not our focus as a church. We just need to preach the gospel and love people.” Meanwhile, our neighborhoods are being rapidly overrun by people who can’t even speak English and worship idols.

Sometimes, they pit neighbor-love against confronting sin. They might say, “Brother, we believe homosexuality is a sin, but it’s not our job to play the Holy Spirit or alienate people with hurtful rhetoric. We just need to love our gay neighbors and show them the love of Christ.” Meanwhile, our local schools and libraries are pushing a gay agenda on our children.

In these and similar cases, those holding unacceptably conservative views must be silenced. The Christians trying to silence them see themselves as doing the right thing–serving the body of Christ by correcting their overzealous and judgmental brothers. They see themselves as just doing what Jesus would do—eating with tax collectors, welcoming sinners, and spreading the love of God. Speaking boldly about cultural sins is an obstacle to that mission.

Their moral compass is calibrated by progressives priorities. If a leftist is offended by what a Christian says, that’s clear proof that Christian is in error. The church’s “public witness” must be protected. This is done by staying “above the fray.” They say the church should just “preach the gospel,” which is narrowly defined as preaching about God’s love, the death and resurrection of Jesus, and forgiveness of sins (without naming them).

Sometimes, a disagreement may escalate to the point where corrective action must be taken. A common example is a social media post that gets people worked up. Sometimes, a pastor may preach a bold, uncompromising sermon that offends church members, so they grab their pitch forks and torches to make sure that never happens again.

Regardless of the particulars, struggle sessions are usually triggered by a single inflection point, where someone did something that prompts a wave of collective anxiety in the church, often led by anxious women (and their compliant husbands). This inflection point enables everyone’s accumulated frustration to focus on one person who went too far. An example must be made of him. Everyone must learn that outspoken conservatism is not Christlike and such behavior will not be tolerated.

From here, the subsequent struggle sessions follows and all too familiar script: call out the offending party; accuse him of vague, subjective, and imaginary sins; demand a public apology to those who were “hurt” by his insensitive actions; and take disciplinary action to ensure neither he nor anyone else repeats his error. Perhaps he is required to submit to some kind of counseling. In extreme cases, he is fired.

The emotional dynamics in such situations are wonderfully described in Joe Rigney’s book, Leadership and Emotional Sabotage. The people behind the struggle session think they’re doing the right thing. They don’t realize they are punishing courage and reinforcing a church culture of capitulation and weakness. Sometimes, church leaders can put members through struggle sessions to silence them. At other times, church members and elders can put their senior pastor through a struggle session.

I’ve seen it many times, and it always follows the same playbook. I’ve outlined three steps below to help you identify and resist it.

Step One: Accuse the Victim of Imaginary Sins

The goal of a struggle session is control. The accusers want to extract a confession from the accused for imaginary sins, subjective offenses, and violations of the therapeutic code that can’t be measured. In the woke struggle sessions of the world, people are charged with an array of -isms and -phobias, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, or xenophobia. The harm supposedly is always psychological. Someone’s feelings got hurt because the truth spoken was too much to bear.

Churches do the same, using biblical language to lend weight to their accusations. But the supposed “crime” is never a violation of clear biblical teaching. It’s always an accusation of some vague, difficult-to-define, “heart-issue” sin. For example, a man who speaks plainly against the popular sins of the Left and refuses to caveat his words may be accused of arrogance, quarrelsomeness, stubbornness, lacking compassion, or being hurtful. In each of these cases, the accuser’s subjective interpretation of his actions is sufficient evidence to prove the charge. Sometimes, a vague cloud of witnesses is summoned to amplify the charge: “Brother, I’m not the only one who feels this way. I’ve heard reports from others who also found your comment hurtful.”

Evangelical struggle sessions are effective because they weaponize the Bible’s teaching about sins of the heart against the victim. Since all Christians acknowledge that our actions and motives matter, accusers work to convince the accused that there must be some sin to confess, even if the action that triggered the struggle session isn’t itself sinful. The spiritual vagueness is key, because we believe that even our best good works are tainted with sin (Rom 7:21). So even if people are upset at the accused for saying something true, they will accuse him of saying it in a sinful way.

Sincere Christians are especially vulnerable. They’re accustomed to humble, self-examination, so they start to wonder if the accusations might be right. Churches that emphasize “heart idols” and introspection can be especially prone to this, since vague accusations feel spiritual and humble. Reformed churches, ironically, are often the easiest targets. Then, the accusers add to the weight by saying things like, “You don’t want to wound your brothers and sisters in Christ, do you?”

One of the most common charges is the failure to “love your neighbor.” That sounds weighty. After all, it’s the second greatest command (Matt 22:39). But in practice, even loving one’s neighbor is defined subjectively, according to the accuser’s feelings, not God’s law.

The accusers may present themselves as wise, voices of reason. Being captive to the therapeutic spirit of the age, they think they can “see the sin beneath the sin.” They rely heavily on secular, psychological concepts. Being outspoken for truth becomes “bullying.” Being decisive becomes “controlling.” Being a strong leader becomes “authoritarian.” Not caving to the emotionally manipulative tactics of the angry mob makes one “divisive.” All of these labels are rhetorically powerful. These words can ruin a man’s reputation.

He’s trapped in a Catch-22. There’s no escape. Any response reinforces their narrative. If he denies any wrongdoing, he will be accused of being “defensive.” His refusal to confess his sin is regarded as further evidence of his “pride.” And if all the above labels fail to accomplish their objective, the granddaddy of them all is “narcissist,” which means the accused is hopelessly imprisoned in his sinful, self-delusion.

Remember, the goal of the struggle session isn’t justice. Nor is it truth. The accusers running the struggle session will say they are seeking “accountability” and “restoration.” Not true. The goal is submission. The accusers are trying to control the accused by asserting enormous psychological pressure on him to participate in their humiliation ritual.

And their accusations against him don’t even need to be true. They just need to feel true enough to get him to question his reality or even his own sanity.

Step Two: Leverage His Social Circle Against Him

As the social pressure mounts on the accused, those closest to him also feel the heat. If he caves to the pressure, he will be humiliated and hung out to dry publicly. If he stands his ground, the pressure will continue until no one wants to associate with him. This is especially difficult for his wife, because she is torn between two important feminine instincts. On the one hand, she doesn’t want her relationships disrupted. But on the other hand, she wants to stand by her man.

The accused knows how burdened she is, and he fears she may resent him for the pain she’s feeling. Even though he knows, deep down, he’s not guilty of what they’re accusing him of, he’s nevertheless under enormous psychological strain. So he shuts down, panics, loses sleep, and maybe even relationships. In extreme cases, he loses his job. He becomes a hollow shell, demoralized, living in a confusing world where truth seems irrelevant.

As he and his family feel the noose tightening, paranoia can easily set in. He feels as though his world is collapsing around him. One by one, the people who initially stood by him start abandoning him. They see the strain he’s under and interpret it as a man with a guilty conscience beginning to break, which only supports the agenda of his accusers.

Step Three: Require Penance Through a Humiliation Ritual

Struggle sessions follow a predictable pattern. Most often, the accused will cave, confess his guilt, and issue a public apology. Sometimes he might be required to go on an “apology tour,” personally grovelling before various accusers as a form of penance. He may be required to attend counseling or submit to other corrective measures.

If he is truly innocent of wrongdoing yet he submits to the humiliation ritual to appease the mob, he’s cooked. Even the smallest of apologies empowers the accusers and sets the template for their next victim. Mentally, he might justify the confession, knowing there was probably some kind of sin going on, even if he doesn’t know what it was. In this way, his conscience gets distorted. He starts equating righteousness with submitting to mob demands. He loses confidence. His moral clarity is eroded. He’s been neutered and gaslit. His “guilt” is now a matter of public record, making him vulnerable to future manipulation.

I’ll say it again: Struggle sessions like these in the church a form of psychological torture and spiritual abuse. I’ve seen many good men be subjected to them by weak, spineless men who targeted them. I’ve known many courageous pastors who were accused of fake, unprovable, therapeutic thought crimes and lost their ministries as a result. Yet their accusers are dead certain of their victim’s guilt.

They didn’t see it coming. They were probably naive enough to think the church is the one place where speaking the truth is valued. And they paid a steep price for being gullible.

Conclusion: Stand Firm

If this is happening to you, I have one simple word of counsel: Don’t give in. Yes, your theology tells you to humbly confess your sins, but scripture also forbids false accusations. Yes, all deeds are tainted by sin, but that’s not a valid basis for subjective guilt. You are being bullied and manipulated. They’re trying to silence you.

Require them to name a specific, concrete sin. If you are guilty of an actual sin, then of course, repent. But if you are accused of a made up, subjective sin, and if the only evidence of guilt they can provide is someone else’s hurt feelings, you are being struggle-sessioned, and it is your duty to resist the manipulation. Yes, doing so may cost you friendships, but the alternative is worse. You’ll wound your conscience and damage your soul if you cave to manipulation by confessing faux guilt.

Trust God. Stand your ground. Preserve your dignity. It’s hard, but holding the line is worth it. You are not alone. Be courageous. Speak truth with wisdom, pray for clarity, and let your conscience—not the mob—guide your actions.