Who Gets Targeted?
It's happening in our family. A relative I am close to has fallen down the rabbit hole. And my parents are gobsmacked. We taught them better! So it got me thinking, and I made a list of who gets targeted. Feel free to add more in the comments:
The Lonely: I suspect this is why our relatives got sucked in. They are selling out everything about themselves just to have a social group. Just so they're children can have friends. They are trying to fit in. If there's one thing churches can do well, it's community. They target those who have moved to a new city, or away from home for the first time (ie: college). They love bomb them and give them a place to belong. It doesn't help that they bait and switch and can co-opt regular culture (Disney, musical theater) to suck people in.
The Traumatized: These people have experienced terrible events (drugs, alcoholism, death in the family). They turn to evangelism because it gives them an easy answer to why The Bad Thing happened. I didn't pray hard enough, lack of faith, the devil, etc.
The Uneducated/Naive: They get targeted because they haven't had a whole lot of life experience. Or, they haven't been taught critical thinking. That makes them ripe for the picking. They can be convinced to give half of their paycheck and not question why. And they're also wanting Easy Answers to all the problems.
The Already Psychopaths: They get into it because they see it as another way to grift. And because evangelism has little accountability, they can engage in all their shenanigans and not get caught. They don't genuinely believe in it. They just want to grift and abuse.