How Language Is Used to Control
Familiar Words, Different Meanings: Wellspring uses the language of historic Christianity, but many familiar terms carry meanings that differ from their ordinary or historic understanding.
Confusion Replaces Clarity: As definitions quietly shift, ordinary conversation becomes increasingly difficult because people appear to agree while operating from different assumptions.
Control Through Language: By reshaping the meaning of common words, language itself can become a mechanism for directing beliefs, relationships, and behavior.
A common feature of high-control environments is control over language itself - not merely over what people are permitted to say, but over the meanings attached to familiar words.
Language is one of the primary ways human beings interpret reality. When a religious system gains the ability to redefine words such as love, obedience, freedom, rebellion, family, or faithfulness, it gains significant influence over how members understand their own experiences. Conduct that might otherwise be recognized as pressure can be understood as love. Isolation can be understood as obedience. Fear can be interpreted as conscience.
In this sense, control over language becomes a form of control over the world people inhabit: relationships, decisions, loyalties, conflicts, and even their ability to describe harm. If the vocabulary used to name an experience has already been redefined by the system, recognizing and challenging that experience becomes much more difficult.
This is not a secondary issue or a side effect; it is one of the core mechanisms of control.
One of the effects of this kind of language control is that ordinary conversation no longer feels ordinary. It can feel as though every word must be negotiated, every phrase may carry hidden meanings, and every statement risks being reinterpreted through insider language and unspoken rules. Instead of bringing clarity, speech becomes coded, layered, and difficult to navigate.
Control is therefore maintained not only by influencing what people say, but by reshaping the meanings through which they understand and describe what is happening to them.
1. Familiar Words Create Trust
Wellspring consistently used familiar Christian language. These words carry widely understood meanings in Christian life. They signal safety, shared faith, and spiritual legitimacy. For many people, this language created a sense of comfort and trust. It sounded like Christianity as they already knew it.
At first, these words were used in ways that felt ordinary. Newcomers heard what they expected to hear, and nothing seemed unusual. Because the vocabulary was familiar, many assumed the underlying meanings were familiar as well.
Speaking the Same Words, Meaning Different Things
Newcomers to Wellspring often hear Christian language that sounds familiar:
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"We are born-again Christians."
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"We are people of the kingdom."
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"We are a New Testament church."
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"God has adopted us as sons."
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"We are just a local church."
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"We believe in membership commitment."
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"We are saved by faith"
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"We believe in God in three Persons."
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"We worship in spirit and in truth."
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"We preach the gospel."
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"We are a spirit-filled church."
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"Water baptism is an ordinance."
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"We are rooted in the Word."
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"God is sovereign."
None of these statements would ordinarily raise concern for most Christians. Standing alone, they sound entirely consistent with historic Christian faith. To many Christians, these expressions carry broadly recognized theological meanings.
Within Wellspring, however, many of these familiar expressions carried theological meanings that were often profoundly different from their ordinary or historic Christian understanding. Because those differences were not always apparent at the outset, newcomers could believe they were speaking the same language as other Christians while actually operating from different definitions.
For example, someone hearing "born again" might initially understand it to mean conversion through faith in Christ. Over time, they might learn that the term carries additional requirements within Wellspring's teaching. Likewise, phrases such as "Spirit-filled," "New Testament church," or "local church" may sound familiar while reflecting beliefs that are very different than many visitors or outsiders realize.
When familiar words carry specialized meanings that are not immediately apparent, communication can become difficult. People may believe they are in agreement because they are using the same vocabulary, while actually operating from different definitions.
When Meanings Quietly Shift
Just as familiar theological terms were given specialized definitions, numerous everyday words gradually acquired meanings that reflected the group's internal framework rather than their ordinary usage. The following examples illustrate only a few of these shifts:
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Family increasingly meant conditional belonging.
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Freedom existed only within narrow, approved limits.
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Discernment became closely associated with agreement with leadership.
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Rebellion could include questioning or disagreeing with leadership.
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Love became closely associated with alignment and compliance.
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Grace increasingly emphasized obedience and submission.
People were not typically told that familiar words had acquired specialized meanings. Instead, the new meanings were reinforced through teaching, correction, examples, expectations, and the practical consequences of disagreeing.
Jesus consistently emphasized truthful and straightforward speech:
Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil. (Matthew 5:37)
Language that requires constant reinterpretation or insider explanation does not bring clarity - it can create confusion and make genuine communication more difficult.
“We Don’t Shun” - But the Practice Remained
One of the clearest examples of language control involves the word shunning.
Wellspring leadership has consistently insisted that it does not shun. Members are often instructed not to use the word, and accusations of shunning have historically been met with strong denial and defensiveness. Yet the issue is not the label - it is the practice.
When relationships are reduced, withdrawn, or made conditional through sustained teaching, social pressure, or fear of spiritual consequences, the result matches what most people ordinarily understand as shunning. It is the broad and often indiscriminate loss of meaningful relationships brought about by pressure from leadership or the community.
This separation may not always be demanded all at once. It may unfold gradually over time, as teaching, counsel, and social pressure consistently move members toward distancing themselves from family or friends who have left, until separation becomes the expected and normalized outcome.
By disputing terminology rather than confronting the behavior itself, the focus shifts away from the harm being done and onto arguments over wording.
2. When the Argument Keeps Moving
Another form of confusion can arise when an objection is answered by shifting to a different level of argument rather than resolving the original question. Those familiar with formal debate or forensics will recognize this as a recurring argumentative technique: when one line of argument comes under pressure, the discussion can shift to a different premise, definition, or category before the original claim has been fully tested.
At Wellspring, a discussion might move from the wording of baptism, to the authority of Jesus, to the meaning of the divine name, to a verbal affirmation of the Trinity, and then back to Scripture alone. Each of those questions can be discussed legitimately. The difficulty arises when the controlling premise keeps changing, because no single claim remains fixed long enough to be carefully tested.
In formal debate, a related tactic is sometimes called moving the goalposts: once one standard has been answered, another is introduced. Whether intentional or not, the effect can be similar. A person may spend considerable effort answering one argument only to discover that the discussion has already moved to another.
This makes disagreement unusually difficult to evaluate. Answering one objection does not necessarily settle the issue, because the case can continue by shifting to another premise, definition, or theological category.
3. Why Language Control Is So Effective
When familiar words are redefined and the grounds of an argument keep shifting, harm becomes difficult to name clearly. A person may struggle not only to describe what is happening, but even to hold the issue still long enough to evaluate it.
People sense that something is wrong, but the language available to describe it has already been reshaped, while objections may be redirected into new definitions, premises, or theological categories.
When language minimizes harm, redefines reality, or silences dissent, honest communication becomes increasingly difficult. Scripture calls Christians to speak truthfully with one another:
Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. (Ephesians 4:25)
Scripture reminds us that confusion is not a mark of God’s work:
For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. (1 Corinthians 14:33)
C.S. Lewis on "The Death of Words"
C.S. Lewis warned in his essay "The Death of Words" that words can gradually lose their meaning when they become detached from their ordinary definitions. As language becomes distorted, clear thinking becomes more difficult. Lewis observed, "Men do not long continue to think what they have forgotten how to say."
His concern extended beyond vocabulary itself. Clear language allows people to reason together, evaluate ideas, and recognize reality honestly. When words become tools of persuasion rather than vehicles of truth, confusion inevitably follows.
His observation applies far beyond politics or culture. Any community - including religious communities - should be cautious whenever ordinary words require constant insider interpretation or take on meanings that differ significantly from their common understanding.
Reclaiming Words Is Part of Healing
Healing often begins when people are allowed to use words again - ordinary, honest words.
Jesus connected truth with freedom:
If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. (John 8:31–32)
Truth-telling restores connection. Healing begins when reality can be named honestly, while silence and euphemism often protect systems rather than people.
4. Truth Does Not Fear Being Named
Healthy faith does not depend on redefining words or policing language. Love does not need semantic defenses. Truth does not require people to pretend they are free when they are afraid.
The apostle Paul described faithful leadership this way:
We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. (2 Corinthians 4:2)
God invites His people into light, not confusion; into clarity, not double meanings; into love that casts out fear.
If you struggled to name what was happening - if conversations felt circular, if objections were dismissed as misunderstandings, if ordinary words seemed to lose their meaning - you are not imagining it.
To speak truthfully is to walk in the light of God, who is not a God of confusion but of peace, and whose truth stands without disguise or defense.