I don't know whether you've read Ronald Enroth's <i>Churches That Abuse</i> (<a href="http://www.ccel.us/churches.toc.html" rel="nofollow">found in its entirety here</a>) but it was quite an eye-opener to me, back in college, about how destructive authoritarian churches can be. Thank God I've never stumbled into one.

Christians go on and on about the "cults"--the heretic churches--but simply not enough is said about the <i>real</i> cults, the churches that may totally have their ducks in a row with their basic theology, but have completely crossed over to the dark side when it comes to control and coercion.