Manufactured fear of outsiders justified authoritarian control in Driscoll’s church

Evidence

Driscoll thrived on manufacturing a sense of threat posed by outsiders. Prominently identified security guards monitored the sanctuary and flanked Driscoll when he preached, “surveying the audience like a private militia ready to pounce.” Male volunteers were recruited to help “protect the body.” A sense of physical threat dovetailed with religious and cultural hazards: unorthodox theology, Islam, “sexualized single women” and “effeminate men” all put the church and nation at risk. Driscoll incited fear in order to maintain control. Tolerating no passive consumption, he demanded self-sacrificial service and absolute submission to (his) authority. As in wartime, dissent was quickly snuffed out. By ratcheting up a sense of alarm, Driscoll justified his demands for discipline, control, and unquestioned power. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 443

Categorization

• XREF: This mechanism — manufactured external threat justifying internal authoritarian control — is the precise template Du Mez uses to explain later white evangelical surrender to Trump’s strongman appeal. The church-level version portends the national-level version.
• DEEPTHINKING: Shows the logic by which a community primed to perceive constant threat willingly trades freedom for a strongman — the micro-mechanism behind the book’s central thesis about the 2016 election.