Why is the Mormon church so keen on interviewing its members? Is it just a control tactic like everything else?

I was a convert at the age of 12 and had my first "birthday" interview with the bishop when I was 13. My parents never sat down with me and asked me personal questions, especially about morality - if I had clean thoughts, etc. They pretty much just ignored me. So when the bishop invited me to his office to ask me personal questions - even though he scared the crap out of me (he was a lawyer by trade and conducted the interview like a cross examination), I mistook the experience for one of caring and nurturing and not the prying and controlling experience that it actually was. I thought it was so wonderful that an adult cared so much for me - the church was true!

Throughout my 20 years as a TBM I had several interviews with bishops and other church authorities, including birthday interviews from the ages of 13 - 18, yearly tithing settlement, temple worthiness interrogations, new calling interviews, etc. Seems like they were frequently delving into my personal life and I obediently answered all their prying, none-of-their-business questions.

I didn't realize how damaging the interview techniques were until I was a missionary. My mindset on my mission was to spend my time trying to convert people and not focus on myself; I would try and loose myself in service. My mission president had other ideas. He would ask deeply personal questions unrelated to the mission work (e.g.: were you molested as a child?) to try and find the "real" me. He didn't seem satisfied until he'd struck a painful chord and made me cry. The interviews left me feeling drained and emotional. Later I'd heard that other missionaries had the same experience. Those interviews threw me off balance because I was trying to forget myself - and doing a pretty good job of it until interview time when the president probed into my deep feelings and personal life. I ate up the attention and fake caring because my non baptizing, rejection filled mission damaged my self confidence. The mission president knew how to make us dependent on him and to crave meeting with him. I think he was just on a huge ego trip and liked making the missionaries needy for his attention. Unfortunately the amateur psychology he practiced caused a great deal of emotional damage and unnecessary mental trauma on my mission.

Two years after I returned home from my mission I attended the mission reunion. After all those very personal interviews with the mission president I was looking forward to seeing him. When I walked up to him to shake his hand, he didn't remember me. I was crushed. He was nothing but a big fake.

I'm wondering if the frequent interviews with the bishop and other church "authority" figures aren't just another needy-making (I just coined that), dependency inducing technique from LDS Inc. Members become addicted to the attention from the bishop and are less likely to leave the church.

I also think that the Mormon church intentionally starts the interview process when members are young (12 yrs old), vulnerable, malleable, and more obedient, so that by the time they reach adulthood they won't think twice about answering the invasive questions they've been conditioned to answer since they were young. To this day, the only Mormon man I have contact with continues to drill me with personal questions whenever I see him. Often I will tell him everything he wants to know without thinking about it. They programed me very well indeed!

I'd like to hear your thoughts about interviews with the bishop and other "authority" figures in the Mormon church. Is it all about control? Is it a common practice in other religions or unique to Mormonism?

IMHO it's all about control. They make lots of interviews to keep you thinking about the cult's stuff all the time. So they can brainwash you in order to make you fear of sinning.
So you become obedient because you think if you don't do what church want you to do you won't be with your family in the VIP heaven.... Happy together forever.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2017 10:14PM by luckylucas.

consider caring. Then along came some who seemed to care and I trusted them. I ended up in my gay/straight marriage.

We're okay now as both of us have resigned and are happily long-time separated, but there are times I wonder what might have been.

But I found all of the interviews disgusting.

The main men who got me into my gay/straight marriage have heard from me and I told them what they put me through. I wasn't going to tell the main bishop, but then his wife started asking questions of my ex's workers (he works at the hospital and she is there a lot). That was about 2 years ago. We've been out of the singles ward for 33 years. So I sent the bishop a letter and told him what his actions did to us, especially our children.

The bishops of my youth and especially when my cousin was bishop, I NEVER ONCE considered them caring.

I've read many of your posts about your marriage. I'm glad you wrote a letter to your bishop, letting him know the harm his meddling and poor advise caused in your life. I hope you get a response.

It is control tactics 100% and the leaders have an ego and self-importance complex also. The entire church is psychologically screwed up from the top leaders to the lower leaders, only when you walk away do you understand their methods. They controlled me because i literally thought god was at the head of the church when he wasnt. So i consider their control tactics and brainwashing to be some of the best out there because i am a strong person and they still got me so i do not underestimate them at all. I was brainwashed since i was a toddler and that is serious stuff, very serious stuff.

I think you are right. The Mormon church preaches "free agency," but they're all about control and dependence. They want the members to become attached and needy which is why the interviews start when they are young and can be conditioned to think that the only way to be forgiven is to confess all to the bishop. The more they meet with the bishop the more dependent they become.

>>Is it a common practice in other religions or unique to Mormonism?

It was not my experience growing up Catholic. Catholics do go to confession, but it is quite different. The topics discussed in the confessional are driven by the church member, not the priest. If you don't want to discuss sex, sex doesn't get discussed. And confessions are officially anonymous -- you can even make your confession at another Catholic church if you wish. Both you and the priest are just shadowy figures behind a privacy screen.

Priests (and ministers) do counseling, but that is not unlike counseling you might get from a therapist -- listening, questions, guidance.

I was raised in the Catholic church but my family only went to church on Christmas and Easter. I was forced by my grandmother to go to confession once but it wasn't that bad because the confession booth was dark and I didn't have to look at the priest's face. I don't remember the Priest or Father calling my home and setting up an interview with my parents. I do remember my mom and dad trying to fix their troubled marriage by involving one of the Fathers, but that was not the same as the regularly scheduled bishop interviews in the Mormon church. I'd forgotten about all of that.

I have an off-topic question for you, Summer. I was baptized into the Catholic church when I was a baby and then baptized into the Mormon church when I was 12 years old. Does the Catholic church still consider me a Catholic of did the Mormon baptism erase the Catholic baptism?

Once baptized Catholic you are always Catholic.

>>I have an off-topic question for you, Summer. I was baptized into the Catholic church when I was a baby and then baptized into the Mormon church when I was 12 years old. Does the Catholic church still consider me a Catholic of did the Mormon baptism erase the Catholic baptism?

Your Catholic baptism would never be "erased" for any reason that I know of. It would still be considered perfectly acceptable in the Catholic church or in any of the Trinitarian Protestant churches, i.e. Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, etc.

Catholicism is not at all like Mormonism in terms of membership. You can freely leave at any time, and freely go back. Catholics will always accept you as being one of the "club." If for instance, you wanted to return to the Catholic church, you would go have a talk with the parish priest and sign on as a member of a local parish. Catholicism counts membership as being those who are registered with a parish church. If you have little or no knowledge of Catholicism, then you would want to take RCIA classes to learn about the church, its doctrines and customs. You could also simply attend for a while to see how you like it. Ditto that for any of the mainstream Protestant churches.

Think about how the TSCC is such an evil organization. All it does (aside from sucking up tithing) is to gather information and gossip about its members. From fear to intimidation, it has a chain of command that is to be respected. Members are trained not to readily question or criticize any leaders. After all, they were called of god and you had better tell the truth to this man of god.

My go-to-plan for interviews was to say nothing; admit nothing; and give vague answers whenever possible. It never seemed to work. Whoever was sitting across from me would open up a folder to reveal a list of sins or less than flattering set of indiscretions. So many would start off with, "A bunch of members saw you doing ________________. How do you account for that?" Also, the real cunning interrogators would link their piercing questions with scriptures. The use of guilt would usually get a person to fess up or at least admit to a lesser sin.

The interviews from a young age are there to teach kids how to lie. Ask a bunch of questions that you have no right to ask and most of the time you will get a lie. If you don't get a lie the first time, punish then ask again. It is critical that mission age kids master the art of lying. Missionaries who lie get better stats than honest missionaries.

I think you're onto something, Potato. Shoot, I missed that. I just thought the bishop was being a jerk. It's a cult of lying!

Big Brother

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditing_(Scientology)

Scientologists use regular auditing to control the members. They ask personal questions and then record these. When someone threatens to leave, they present them with their secrets as blackmail. It's severe form of control used by a cult.

If authority figures can wheedle confessions and embarrassing information from believers, they have power over them. Those who confess feel they can't cross the organization which can hold this over them. If believers confess something in private, they don't dare say anything in public which might upset anyone who knows their darkest secrets.

Oh i see

Interviews are an assertion of the power of the church. They tell you when to come in, rather than YOU calling when you need to talk. And they often don't even tell you what the interview is about.

The interviews break down normal boundaries of privacy. No stranger or acquaintance has the right to ask about your innermost thoughts and beliefs. That's something that YOU should offer only to someone you love or trust. But they ask, and the expectation is that you will tell them.

Also, your sexual practices or feelings are nobody's business, unless you choose to talk about it. Normally, this information would be completely private, or shared only with a sexual partner or with a therapist who is required by law to keep it confidential, and who has been trained on how to deal with the information in a way that won't be harmful. This interview process conditions members to overshare, and in turn, they learn to pry into other people's business.

It also facilitates the gathering of information to elevate some members to leadership roles, or labeling of some members as more or less 'worthy' than others. It's ironic that a church which claims that leaders have the gift of revelation or discernment rely so heavily on interviews and leadership meetings where people gossip about the other members of the organization. It allows the church to reward and punish members based on compliance and conformity.

Worst of all, worthiness interviews disempower people to be the judges of their own lives. Worthiness interviews reinforce the idea that a person in authority, outside yourself, gets to be a judge of your 'worthiness', based on THEIR questions and priorities. In my atheist opinion, it's bad enough to think that a god gets to judge you. But some human than lives down the street? That's even more messed up.

Those interviews are definitely tools of coercion and manipulation.

Worthiness interviews are the worst. Some brainwashed shit head, who can't apply the least critical thought to their own lives, is in front of you determining if you're "worthy".

It's so batshit crazy that it doesn't belong in the same universe as divine. I call it criminal malfeasance.

I was a somewhat happy kid at 12 and enjoyed the Mormon church's scouting program and other activities. I didn't really give the church to much deep thought until my interview. It scared the crap out of me. The bishop was talking about things I never even thought about. I never looked at the church quite the same and was essentially out by 16. I did date mormon girls though.

But, Bishop (or sp or mp, etc.) What a big nose you have. Response: All the better to get all up in your personal business, give lame or really harmful advice, and to maintain total control over you, my dear.

If it is really all about control, it is failing miserably.

My seventh child is coming up to 15 in December. I think that the total of birthday interviews (let alone half year) for all of them is less than 15.

Should be in excess of 35. So not much control being exercised.

Some cults might require a few and other cults might force many. One can be one too many.

You asked if this is common to other churches---no, it's not. Maybe in others such as JW also considered to be cults---but for sure not in "mainstream" Christian or Jewish.