When is it that MCF (Melbourne Christian Fellowship) & BCF (Brisbane Christian a Fellowship) became houses of psychobable?
Pre-1988, there always was an unnecessarily controlling element involving ‘deep and meaningfuls) and some suffered terribly under that regime.
But post 1992-ish, Vic Hall brought in enormous amounts of navel-gazing and patriarchy that was simply un-Biblical.
Not only was there Vic’s messenger word with submission to guru elders (or husbands) but there were endless sessions of Bible Studies (with little Biblical basis) encouraging all sorts of psychological analysis.
We were encouraged to:
- ‘Renegotiate’ our marriages
- Assess whether we, as men, were ‘feminized’
- Assess whether, as women, we were usurping
- Assess everything we did to find ‘idols’
- Determine which type of house we were (evangelistic, teaching, serving, pastoral)
- Were we living ‘parallel’ lives?
- Should we take up good opportunities or sacrifice them so God could impute them back?
and so on.
At some level it all makes sense Biblically. But when this preaching goes on and on for 5 to 10 years and most of the content is more like pop-psychology, that’s when it becomes a cult and dangerous.
Along with the ability to psych ones fellow congregants cane power and esteem. In the end if you couldn’t use the lingo and were seen as a weak assessor, you were out of the equation when it came to doing anything in the church.
A quiet-ish person was forever delegated to toilet cleaning. Someone like that could never even be considered for leadership despite possibly being an excellent bible teacher and enthusiastic evangelist. Just quiet in football conversation. And Vic Hall psychobable.
So this psychobable and judgement and presumption is what MCF & BCF leaders became masters of. They would talk of ‘laying (your dreams, idols, ministries) down, back or forward’ and these all carried distinct meanings that none of us congregants could quite work out. Then there was the legalism of assessing which Levitical offering your service was and which type of vow it was.
Ultimately, these leaders would waffle their way into essentially being treated like apostles. Special dinners were held for the leaders when they come down to conferences. Meanwhile, we plebs were treated like trash, unable to make the slightest contribution apart from menially serving their agendas.
Oh, MCF, BCF, when will you repent?
Think about all these pushes. Not one has led to anything! There’s almost no fruit. Nothing has come of pointless sacrifices. So many people lost through rough treatment. So many children lost to the world because of outrageous requirements. And no teaching of the basic gospel! No training in the basic gospel! No evangelism. And the youth just learning to regurgitate what leaders want to hear. It’s so sad.
Open Letter to Melbourne Christian Fellowship (MCF) 