Communication

Photo Credit Sophia Louise Creative Commons  It was repeated several times in a church staff meeting, so it was nothing new this time. The pastor instructed us to essentially be his “amen corner” during the sermon and exuberant charismatics during the musical time of the service. Laugh, visibly take notes, and clearly “leading” the crowd around you to respond to the platform. Of course, if the staff were lazy slobs and sleeping during the sermon and eye-rolling at the worship leader I might expect a reprimand. But, it was clear the goal was to create a more charismatic response through manipulation rather than instruction. Might the congregation say amen if the sermon was better delivered? Might the church sing louder if they were invited rather than coaxed into it? Authoritarianism Versus Egalitarianism In 2015, a movie called The Experimenter told the story of famous social psychologist Stanley Milgram. His experiments on obedience are legendary. These were the ones, if you recall, where a subject was a “teacher” who zapped the person in the other room with ever-increasing voltage. The test responses if in error or silence were punished. Most participants went all the way to the end, where the man …