September 20, 2005 10:17 PM
Legalism and Christian Cults
Early in our Christian journey, Tripp and I stumbled into a legalistic, cult-like church. We were fortunate to stay there just long enough to get badly burned, but not so long as to be destroyed spiritually. And there were so many lessons to learn: on Christian leadership, self-righteousness, and how a church can sometimes actually stand in the way of your relationship with God. (And for anyone who doesn't get the kool-aid reference, I'll address that in a blog tomorrow).
Fourteen years later, I was commissioned to write a pamphlet for Plain Truth ministries - a group that knows more than a little about legalism (more about them- also tomorrow).
This is a long 4500 word piece, which you can read in its entirety here, or you can order the pamphlet at 1-800-309-4466.
From Cult to Christ: Finding Your Way to Freedom
“You should come to my church!” said my new acquaintance, an antique dealer down the road from our new home. Lured by a china cabinet in front of his warehouse, I’d stopped as I was driving into town.
It hadn’t taken us long to find out we were both believers. With less than a year of Christianity under my belt, I was still bubbling with enthusiasm. We’d also shared about our families – Steve* and his wife and three kids lived three miles further down the road in town, while my husband Tripp and I and our six kids lived three miles back.
But the conversation hit a bump when he asked where we went to church. Why would he tell me to come to his church when I had a church of my own? And why, when I brushed off his invitation, would he persist, singing the praises of his pastor, as though no other was worthy of the name?
“His preaching is anointed,” he said, “He wears an incredible mantle of authority.”
We may have been fellow believers, but I’d never heard of a mantle of authority and something about the way it rolled off his tongue really weirded me out. Hastily, I scribbled my check and skedaddled.
A week later, delivering the cabinet, Steve asked how things were going since our move. When I mentioned our 7th grader was having trouble adjusting to her new junior high, his face lit up.
“She should come to our school,” he said. Brushing aside the feeling of déjà vu, I grabbed at a quick solution. Though the church and school were 15 miles south of us, so many kids from our town attended, they’d hired a bus. His kids had been riding since preschool.
And – best news of all – you didn’t have to be a church member to enroll your kids.
My daughter started there the next day.
Now began a chorus of new acquaintances telling me, “You should come to my church!”
What’s wrong with my church? I thought. I felt more and more like an outsider, as though somehow my church was not quite up-to-speed spiritually and everyone knew it but me.
For a month or so we resisted, but the day finally came when we heeded the call. All it took was one Sunday service to convince us our new friends were right. Their church was worlds apart. And yes, our family had needed a rescue from the wimpy, predictable church which was the only one we’d ever known.
Tripp called our pastor the next day and told him we were gone for good.
“You’re young Christians,” Pastor B said. “It’s not unusual that you would want to try a Pentecostal church [as opposed to our old Bible-based evangelical church], especially considering your backgrounds [former hippies who grew up without a spiritual foundation and never heard the Good News of Jesus until our 30’s]. But you may change your mind eventually. If you do, please remember, you’re always welcome here.”
Today, after all we went through after, I marvel at his healthy, loving response.
Not so at the time, when Tripp and I scoffed at the idea of ever returning to the church which had nurtured us through our first year of Christianity with Bible studies, friendships, and mentoring. We actually thought we had wasted a year when we could have been “moving on with the Lord.”
“The Lord is moving quickly,” our new pastor/superhero would thunder from the pulpit, “You have to hurry to keep up with Him. He won’t wait for you.”
Pastor H was charismatic in a Jimmy Swaggart sort of way. The first Sunday we heard him I was simultaneously repelled and attracted. I was repelled by his slick, oily demeanor, which reminded me of a used car salesman (the conclusion of almost every person I dragged to the church over the next couple years). But I was more attracted by his thundering oratory – which drew us weekly to the brink of fire and brimstone – and his absolute confidence. In the pulpit, he held the Bible in his hand as though the Scriptures belonged to him and him alone.
The Bible wasn’t all he held in the palm of his hand – he also had the congregation. Each member stood in complete awe of him, speaking of him in hushed, reverent tones, with self-deprecating remarks like, “He’s so far above us – I can only hope to grasp a few words of what he says each week.”
It was the kind of church where everyone carried notebooks as well as Bibles, and ordered tapes from every sermon, because every one was the most momentous ever. It was the kind of church where you left home at 8:30 on Sunday morning and were lucky to get back in time to recuperate before heading out to the more highly charged evening service at 5:30. Then there was Wednesday night, with an emphasis on deeper theological studies for those who “wanted to go all the way in.”
It was the kind of church where every Sunday was dramatic and full of surprises – from the worship which seemed to rocket us into another dimension, the spontaneous chorus of singing in tongues, the sock-it-to-’em sermons based on obscure Old Testament passages – to the never-ending altar calls, complete with weeping and wailing while Pastor H and his staff of wannabes paced up and down pointing here and there at individuals washed up on the pathetic tide at the altar steps, speaking in tongues and placing their hands on the foreheads of those who stood until they “came under the spirit” and fell presumably unconscious into the arms of the ushers who waited behind them to ease their limp bodies to the floor.
Do I sound a little skeptical? Maybe now, but not then.
In those honeymoon days, my husband and I were so caught up in the huge emotional waves engulfing the congregation that we threw any burdensome doubts overboard and let our souls toss hither and thither – taking copious notes on sermons, picking up the church jargon, stumbling up to the altar every week for forgiveness for some shortcoming or other.
The last burden overboard was our distrust of the requirement to be “baptized in the Spirit” as the church taught that the only proof of this was speaking in tongues. When we’d surrendered our lives to Christ the year before we learned the Holy Spirit would be there to guide us simply as part of the package. And indeed in those early months so many things about our thinking and our lives underwent radical change that it had been obvious the Holy Spirit was giving us new direction.
In studying the Scripture, Tripp just couldn’t make sense of this extra step. But we were so infatuated with the church, we were willing to go to any lengths to try to make it fit. So Tripp made an appointment with Pastor H.
Later we learned what a big deal it was that he was able to see Pastor H in private. Unlike Pastor B – a modest, plainspoken man, equally available to all – Pastor H didn’t see just anyone. Though the congregations were the same size, our new church was bound by a rigid social hierarchy, based on the usefulness of each congregant to their leader. To be part of the leadership circle was everyone’s dream, but very few made it. Especially among the women, where everyone was scrambling to be noticed by Mrs. H, it reminded me of junior high school.
“Wow. Tripp’s got an appointment with Pastor H?” people seemed stunned. As word spread, I could feel that our status had shot up from newcomers to insiders.
Not only that, but the pastor’s wife began to take a special interest in me, asking me to give my testimony at the ladies’ luncheon and then to be one of a special group of leaders at a women’s healing series she was presenting, a privilege some women had been competing over for years.
In the meantime, Tripp’s meeting with Pastor H convinced him we’d been wrong. Though Tripp had made a post-it path through his Bible to defend our original theology, Pastor H had his own set of verses to defend speaking in tongues as the test of a true Spirit-led Christian.
It was only a matter of time before my husband was speaking in tongues with the best of them. Me, I never really got it, but tried once in a while to work up something close.
Maybe that’s when the church first became a wedge that began to come between us. Though I still traveled in leadership circles, it was by dint of my husband’s obedience to the church and not my own. I mean, I actually thought it was my choice whether to go to every church service and prayer meeting. And with six children, including four under six – plus a half hour drive to the church, I felt our family needs prevailed.
Not so, according to the church elders, who insisted I should be putting God before my family. I argued that God and the church were different, thus my priorities: God, family, church. But they argued that I was making a false distinction between the church and God.
They told us we shouldn’t have any more babies, that it would interfere with God’s call on our lives. Though split on other issues, Tripp and I were committed to growing a large family and I soon got pregnant again.
Still I was included in the inner circle of the pastor’s wife. She arranged a surprise party for Tripp’s birthday, invited us to go sailing with just the two of them on their yacht (yes, a yacht!), even gave us the keys to the yacht to take it out ourselves overnight.
Looking back, I know my “rebellious spirit” would never have been tolerated except for a few important items: my husband and I had strong leadership qualities ourselves, we were business owners, and we tithed big time.
On the other hand, as much as I didn’t like the way the church attempted to run my life (Pastor H even told us what books we should or should not read), I was flattered by my quick ascension to the pinnacle of leadership status. So I hung in there even after I began to see some the dysfunction behind the Sunday spiritual extravaganzas.
Besides, my husband was committed to staying. And as a former feminist trying to follow a more Christian marriage model, I was committed to follow his lead.
Still, I was asking a lot of questions.
I’d come home from the weekly healing series – during which almost every woman in the church who hadn’t already spilled her guts about early sexual abuse had some kind of dramatic awakening from repressed memory syndrome. These women got a lot of attention – particularly from Mrs. H – and almost seemed to compete for it, much like the feeling I sometimes got about speaking in tongues. I couldn’t help but wonder which ones were true and which imagined.
“The weirdest thing is,” I told Tripp after one night’s session, “For all the talk about wanting to heal these women from their bondage, I keep feeling like it’s in the church’s interest to keep them there – and in some curious way they do.”
We should have turned tail and ran then, but didn’t. We were hooked on Sunday mornings.
Sunday mornings made us feel so proud to belong to our church. Pastor H reminded us often that we were “on the cutting edge of Christianity,” that we were “the chosen,” “the remnant,” the “Bride of Christ.” Others who called themselves Christians were not. They were “compromised,” “carnal Christians.” Their churches were “dead.”
We would nod knowingly, smug in our position as the only true Christians, so far above those Pastor H jokingly referred to as the Sad-You-Sees and the Fair-I-Sees.
We marveled at how Sundays never got boring. Every sermon was riveting, as when Pastor H preached on the Jordan River, then accused us all of being afraid to cross over the river ourselves, and made an emotional call for us to come forward and enact that crossing over. Many collapsed in tears or fell unconscious – but every Sunday was highly charged with something or other.
Sometimes Pastor H would give us a tongue lashing for gossip and slander, and all those guilty would come forward weeping and wailing to confess their sin and promise never to do it again. Those were usually timed around someone’s departure from the church.
Someone’s departure was cause for great sorrow, not because we’d miss them, but because it meant that without the “covering” of our pastor – who never let anyone leave in peace – they were on the fast track to hell. We were instructed to “mark those that cause division” and have no fellowship with them. If it was a prominent member or a group leaving en masse, the leadership would circle the wagons and take extra measures to unify those remaining – as when Pastor H delivered an especially pounding message and called forward those committed to “going deeper” with the church for a special anointing with oil.
The drama was addicting. Our pastor made frequent trips to India, returning with claims that he had saved hundreds of thousands. During his two-week absences we were expected to meet each day at six in the morning and six in the evening for “spiritual warfare,” an hour or two of screeching in tongues and berating the “enemy.” I went only twice because I hated the chaos and the focus on the devil rather than on God. Tripp went often, receiving much encouragement as a “prayer warrior.” The wedge between us grew.
We were strongly encouraged to sign up for counseling with the church therapist, a longtime member who had obtained his license. We had to sign papers giving the counselor permission to discuss the details of our counseling with the pastor and his wife.
By then light bulbs were really going off for me. I realized that a lot of the sermon material timed around people’s departures was based on such inappropriate sharing.
“The only thing wrong with our marriage is that Tripp is in lockstep with the church and I’m not. I know these sessions are aimed at getting me to surrender,” I told the therapist frankly at the first session. A few days later the pastor’s wife called to invite me to lunch, where I was surprised by the inner circle and a profusion of gifts for no reason – an honor any lower-on-the-totem-pole lady would have walked through fire for.
But it was too late for schmoozing for me. My marriage continued to deteriorate for a few more months as I waited for Tripp to gain some perspective. Later I learned that the pastor’s wife had suggested he divorce me, since I wasn’t spiritually fit to be his wife. Thank God he didn’t listen, and thank God he finally saw the truth.
We tried to leave peaceably, with a letter to Pastor H saying we wanted to part on good terms, that our children would remain in the school. Still, we were denounced from the pulpit and shunned by even those we’d considered fast friends. When a teacher told our first grade son his parents were “hearing from Satan” in front of his classmates, we withdrew our kids from the school.
It was a terribly painful time for our family. Constantly on the verge of tears, I felt incapable of accomplishing even simple tasks – much as I’d struggled in the first few months of overcoming drug addiction ten years before. Only then I’d had a 12 Step group – now Tripp and I had only each other. Although we’d been at the church for less than two years, our world had become terribly narrow. We’d stopped our involvement in other Christian ministries, dropped friendships with outsiders, neglected – and completely turned off – our extended family, even stopped taking our kids on outings to parks and museums and the zoo.
One day I was crying over a sinkful of dishes, remembering how sweet and simple my relationship with God had been before the complicated mess we’d gotten into. When I’d first surrendered my life to Christ, I basked in a loving relationship with God the Father, as real as the ground beneath my feet. I trusted Him completely. Now I felt like a toddler who’d wandered off and couldn’t find Him anywhere. Out loud I cried, “God, what happened?”
And a wordless reply was impressed on my heart: “I’m still your Father and you’re still my little girl.”
That was the beginning of my recovery from what I grew to understand as a legalistic, abusive, cultlike church – a church the way God never intended, a church which professed to bring people closer to God while actually coming between a loving Father and his children, a church which looked so vibrant and alive, even as it was producing spiritual death.
1Samuel 16:7 says, “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” We judged the church to be superior spiritually because of the exciting worship. But people get worked up about rock and roll concerts and football games – that doesn’t mean those events are spiritual. Today I’ve been in services that run the gamut from very charismatic to very reserved – and I understand that’s not a way to measure the spiritual depth of a church.
The church also impressed us because all the members talked of God constantly, spiritualizing every detail of their lives. But once we’d left and begun to sort things out, I realized this was also just an appearance, because the members actually had shifted their focus from Jesus to Pastor H. They didn’t talk to people about Jesus, but about their pastor. They didn’t invite friends to begin a spiritual relationship with God, but to come to church and hear the pastor.
It was subtle, but undeniably true. Pastor H held the place in the peoples’ hearts that should have been reserved only for Jesus. I remembered a verse Pastor H often used in his sermons:
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of
heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will
say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your
name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly,
‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matthew 6:21-23)
How had I not seen before that Pastor H and his inner circle would also answer to this? How had I not seen that Pastor H’s frequent scoffing references to the Sadducees and the Pharisees could best be applied to the church he himself had built – where legalism and judgmentalism were a way of life – where followers were told what to read and what to avoid, who to shun, where to send their kids to school and when to stop having them (vasectomies were almost mandatory, as the leadership seemed to regard children as a threat to the church’s finances).
When Pastor H decided it was time for everyone to fast, he’d send a clipboard through the pews with a sign-up sheet, though the Bible is clear that we are not to make a big deal out of fasting, but to do it in secret (Matthew 6:16-18).
So many things contrary to Christ, so much to grieve our Father in heaven. And so many people hurt. What finally got to Tripp was the hypocrisy and double standards – one set of rules for the lower-status faithful and another for the pastor and his family. Pastor H thundered on and on about the dangers of Christian rock music but let his teenage sons listen to heavy metal and his wife watch MTV. Teen dating was not allowed, but when the pastor’s 19-year-old son went after an elder’s 13-year-old daughter, they were encouraged to enjoy “their freedom in Christ.”
Tripp and I had always had a heart for those others tend to forget, and he finally began to see that the social hierarchy was built not on seeing individuals as God sees them, but solely on each person’s usefulness to serving Pastor H’s vision.
This was the opposite of all we’d learned of Jesus, who’d made sure to leave us a vivid picture of servant leadership. At this church, the image of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet was turned on its head when the lowly masses were invited to come forward and wash Pastor H’s feet. He left his shoes on and underlings passed out Kleenex.
We had to get away before we could make sense of it all. Then, shunned and condemned, we had to come to terms with the loss of fellowship and lean only on God. We asked him to show us where we went wrong. We went back to the beginning of our relationship with Him.
One verse that resonated was Jesus’ invitation:
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.Now we saw that though initially we found freedom in Christ, we had slipped back into bondage. But thank God we had had a healthy relationship with Him to return to. We grieved for the many we knew who had been saved in our “cutting edge” church and who had traded one form of bondage for another.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart,
and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matthew 12:28-30).
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). Yet there are thousands of aberrant churches throughout the United States that that don’t just hold to Jesus’ teaching, but place pastors on pedestals, enslaving their members in extra-Biblical rules and regulations, through guilt, manipulation, and outright mind-control.
I’ve used my own story as an example because even though no two stories of survivors will be the same, the events illustrate certain characteristics of abusive, legalistic churches. You may be reading this because you are questioning your own church or because you have been hurt and confused or because you are in some phase of recovery from a dangerous church.
First let me assure you that no matter what happens, God will use it all – the wasted years, the confusion, the pain – for good (Romans 8:28). Biblical truth doesn’t end when you leave a dysfunctional church. In fact, in many ways it’s then you’ll see it truly begin.
Also, without a dangerous church interfering with your relationship with God, you will begin to enjoy a more authentic relationship with him, casting all your cares upon him for he cares for you (1Peter 5:7).
Early on, Tripp and I decided it was useless to blame the church and the people who had hurt us. We prayed and asked God to show us why we had been vulnerable to this toxic brand of religion. For us it was the appeal of elitism – being on “the cutting edge.” For others we’ve talked to since, it was the need for structure and order or recreating parent/child patterns.
I’ll never forget my son’s kindergarten teacher, a faithful church member who obeyed the faculty requirement to attend the twice-daily “spiritual warfare” services to the point of utter exhaustion. She’d been looking unwell, and when I asked her what was the matter, she started crying and said, “I’m so afraid I’ll never be part of the Bride of Christ!”
“But you already are,” I said. That might be the moment I really started to hate the church and the leadership, for making people cringe and crawl – for playing on the inability of some Christians to accept God’s grace rather than showing them the way.
How I wish I could speak with her now, but she is still locked in the system, convinced that I should be shunned.
As for those we’d shunned ourselves – or even judged unfairly – Tripp and I sought them out and apologized. The damage to our own relationship was considerable and took a long time – and lots of God’s grace – to work out, but eventually God restored our marriage, even stronger than before.
In fact, I see all of our recovery as due to the grace of God, which nudged us – though we didn’t realize it until later – through the 12 step process we’d learned earlier to begin our climb back to spiritual health. This meant we
• treated our attachment to the church as an unhealthy addiction• realized that only God could set us free and asked him to
• got honest about our own shortcomings
• made amends to those we’d hurt
• made a searching spiritual inventory part of our everyday life
We also tried to glean every spiritual lesson we could from our experience, eventually concluding that we were better Christians for having gone through it. We know now what to look for in Christian leadership and how to lead in a godly manner when God calls us to lead.
Dr. Ron Enroth, author of Churches That Abuse and Recovering from Churches That Abuse says, “Spiritual abuse takes place when a religious leader uses his spiritual position to control, manipulate, or dominate another person or congregation.”
Like the Hebrews who wanted a king, though, the followers are partly to blame. For those who’ve been there and are still licking their wounds, I’ve included a bibliography of excellent books to speed and make the most of recovery. And for those who are wary of getting stung again, don’t give up on church. Just look for a healthy one.
How to find one? In March of 1995, at a lecture I attended, Dr. Enroth gave these guidelines:
Hallmarks of a Healthy Church
1) Stresses authority of Scripture, not special revelations
2) Leads by strong and gentle example, gentle encouragement
3) Teaches Godly relationship with larger society
4) Keeps the focus on Jesus, not on the leader
5) Maintains high standards of purity
6) No additional requirements for salvation
7) Allows members to hear from God for themselves
8) Teaches biblical principles allowing individuals to grow and make decisions for themselves
9) Fosters relationships with the larger community that are more than self-serving.
And perhaps it’s wise to steer clear of churches which spawn believers too pushy and proud.
Beware anyone just a little too intent in claiming, “You should come to my church!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For further reading:
Churches That Abuse, Ronald M. Enroth, Zondervan, 1992
Healing Spiritual Abuse: How to Break Free from Bad Church Experiences, Ken Blue, Intervarsity Press, 1993.
Toxic Faith: Understanding and Overcoming Religious Addiction, Stephen Arterburn and Jack Felton, Shaw, 2001
Twisted Scriptures: A Path to Freedom From Abusive Churches, Mary Alice Chrnalogar, Zondervan, 2000
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And for a few laughs, because laughter is the best medicine:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (NR), Republic Studios, 1956
Leap of Faith (PG-13), Paramount Studio, 1996,
Posted in Spiritual abuse | Permalink
Comments
My husband and I lived in a Christian community for a few years MUCH like the one you have just described. It had it's own unique nuances, of course, and much good to offer...but your description of the head leader fits ours like a glove...only, because he was the "spiritual head" of all of us, he got involved with a few of the gals on the sly, too...
Looking back, I can't believe we ever fell for it, but, of course, I know a lot more now than I did then. Then, I was a brand new believer, excited about Jesus, and so delighted to find a group that seemed to love Him just as much as I did--a group that was willing to "give it all."
To be honest, my husband never did fall for it...He just went there to get me, as he often says with a sweet smile. I was the one who thought this was The Place to Be. After a year of marriage, we left...and it was during that last year there that the lightbulb finally came on in my brain, slowly, slowly, slowly... By the time we left, I was just incredulous at the stuff that was going on there in the name of Christ!
Speaking of that group, none of them talk to us now, of course, including those that we were really close to. Who knows what the leader told them...
It's frustrating, but just as you shared, it's more common than one might think. Personally, I find the experience, painful as it is, VERY helpful today. I have met SO many people who've been burned by this kind of stuff.
It's good to be able to share that I've been through it myself, and came out on the other side still ALIVE, that it's possible to learn from it instead of just be bitter, that God is real and that good leaders DO exist, that godly church gatherings ARE out there, etc...
Great great great post.
Blessings,
Molly (from Choosing Home)
Posted by: molly | September 20, 2005 11:52 PM
I found this to be completely fascinating. It's strange how legalism can encompass so many different styles. The story I shared about my parent's experience in the commune is one side - yet, as an adult, I experienced the type of church you described. When you're in the midst of this situation it is so difficult to see - you want so badly for everything to be what it seems, and as a Christian you want to trust - but once out of it, the abuses are so glaring. I could relate to so much of what you wrote - and it also took me a couple of years to regain my footing. Anyways, thanks for sharing your story. I think everyone needs to read these potential warning signs - they can be found where you least expect them - and I think they are more common than we expect.
Posted by: Lydia | September 21, 2005 12:56 AM
WOW!
We once attended a church that started off as normal and then progressed to "we're the only folks living on the cutting edge" bandwagon.
We left (because of a move) soon after, but I wonder if we would have stayed and endured the yuck you endured. So sorry, but I'm thankful you learned from it, were healed by Jesus, and are able to help others who have gone through something similar.
Posted by: relevantgirl | September 21, 2005 3:42 AM
Oh, and a sad PS:
When we left the church in 1990, even those who pretended to be our best friends turned their backs on us, believing the lies fed to them by Mr and Mrs. Pastor. Over the years, other people left - particularly when financial wrongdoing was uncovered. They experienced the same slander and shunning. And yet, in their minds the same sick heirarchy persisted - everyone who'd left before left in the "wrong way." They left in the "right way."
I really feel a survivor can measure his or her healing by whether they've come to grips with the fact that in the process of being abused, they also abused and need to make amends for that. Since only four or five people have ever sought Tripp or me out to set things right (and not those we were "closest" to), I can only assume there are still a lot of sick legalistic spawn of Pastor H still out there.
And a special prize to the first person to guess the denomination!
Posted by: barbaracurtis | September 21, 2005 7:42 AM
This was very powerful. Thank you so much for sharing your story.
Posted by: Jane | September 21, 2005 9:48 AM
I almost gave up my christianity because of the church where I grew up. I just couldn't fit the profile of the christian they created. it took me at least two years to figure out that God created me the way I am and that's why I am what I am and i don't have to try to become something else. It was a hard lesson and made me very cautious what comes to churches. Maybe that's the reason why I find it hard to find a home church for me now. I'll probably join the local Lutheran church because there i can stay more anonymous and secure myself. This sounds so horrible because i still believe in the unity of the christians. It just seems that it works better between different churches than among one. I attend a prayer group with people from different churches and that's something so real unity in Christ.
May God help all the people hurt by some church to heal!
Posted by: Maiju | September 21, 2005 10:22 AM
No fair by my guessing, huh?
Posted by: Amy | September 21, 2005 11:50 AM
That sounds a lot like an Assemblies of God church to me. Do I win?
Posted by: Mel | September 21, 2005 1:53 PM
Lydia - "When you're in the midst of this situation it is so difficult to see - you want so badly for everything to be what it seems, and as a Christian you want to trust - but once out of it, the abuses are so glaring." This is so true
Maiju - I know what you mean. Since that experience, our family has probably attended 25 different churches - from once to a couple years - of all denominations and worship styles. We go where the spirit leads us and discover new things at each place. I am actually glad my kids have had this experience as their vision of the body of Christ is very wide and they truly understand that their personal relationship with God is one thing while going to church is another.
thanks for all the other comments.
You win, Mel. Did you ever get around to buying my books? If not, email me your address and I'll send them to you!
And seriously, we found through reading the Assemblies of God bylaws (after we left) that pride and arrogance are built into those very foundational documents. Plus, they give their pastors free reign. Pastors have no accountability and higher-ups do not respond to churchgoers who try to sound an alarm (our letters - as well as those of others - were completely ignored). Which is why, I guess, they end up with so many weirdos like Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Baker, Benny Hinn. We have been to AofG churches that seemed okay, but there was still that "we're closer to God than other people" mentality. Pastor H was just one of a cast of thousands, I'm sure. After the financial scandal, he took his closest confidants to start a new church in Georgia. And he has a website where he solicits money for his outreach, which he claims has saved gazillions of Indians and Africans. It was funny while we were there, other church members seemed not to know that anyone else ever went to those places to share the gospel...
Posted by: barbaracurtis | September 21, 2005 2:57 PM
Hey, I attend an AG church and we love, love, LOVE our pastor. He's a great guy, but we also know he is a sinner just like the rest of us. No denomination is perfect. And I guess I'm kind of weird so it fits me just fine. Hope you're not "banning" me, Barbara. ha ha
Posted by: Monika | September 22, 2005 5:27 PM
Hi Barbara, thanks so much for sharing this post. I have a friend who's been deeply involved in a church similar to the one you described for over 6 years now. She became a believer through our friendship and started attending this church as a new Christian once she got married. We didn't realize how crazy and cult-like it was until her husband died of suddend illness (at age 36)and the church leadership turned it into a spiritual battle in his life over sin. Of course, they used much more super-spiritual lingo than that... because he had numerous prophecies and "words from the Lord" over his life through this church, and when he was sick they even said, "Don't believe the doctor's report, it's not his time to go" Basically, God will heal him. A week later, he's gone. My friend is more strongly attached to this church now than ever. We have been praying for months about how to help her see the truth about her church, but it's overwhelming at times. Do you have any advice on how to get through to someone so blinded by this type of Christian cult? I am considering giving her your pamphlet to read, I am definitely getting one myself! I really appreciate you sharing this story and I am so glad you were both able to see the dysfunction in that church before long.
Posted by: Sarah | September 23, 2005 7:26 AM
Hi Monika -
While I know all AoG pastors are not cultleaders, the denomination seems to attract more than its share of potential demigods. And worse, it seems more interested in protecting the wolves among their leadership than in protecting the sheep.
One thing I learned though from being in that church and spending 18 months with a steadily narrowing view and acceptance level is this: instead of looking for what divides me from others, I look for common ground. You and I probably share a lot of that.
Sarah - I saw this happen so many times after I left the church (there was one member who kept in touch with me as a "spy" - she was the one who took notes during the special meeting the pastor had to denounce our entire family, trotting approval-seekers up to slander and recant their friendship with us). Anyway, it's a win-win situation for the church: if God heals the person, the church takes the dredit; if he doesn't, the person didn't have enough faith and was undeserving to even be a member anyway.
The best book for you to read to help your friend is Twisted Scriptures.
Posted by: barbaracurtis | September 23, 2005 7:44 AM
Wow! Thanks for your story. It shouldn't be surprising that I come across it today. The underlying message of reassurance (its OKAY) to seek out the right church for your family, and the inclination to doubt your decisions without guilt, as to WHY a certain church doesn't seem right, comingled with the actualizations and experience reasonings of each partner of the marriage, is so good to hear testimony OF! We've been visiting two churches, thinking we NEED to make a decision, in order to become part of the body of Christ. The first church, similar to your story, ~only I couldn't put my finger on it what wasn't quite right. After taking a 1/2 hour just to glance through the by-laws, I couldn't commit and told my husband. The pastor's wife of this 1st church, asking me what she had done wrong or said, to make us not want to attend their church....(red flag, supersized).
Posted by: nature4us | September 23, 2005 7:54 AM
Monica's situation with her friend who's husband died is almost identical to my close friend. I was wondering if anyone has advice for what your friends could have done to help you get out of the toxic church. I just keep praying that some situation will bring her to see the unhealthiness of her church. I would have never hoped for her husband to die, but when it happened I prayed that God would use that hard time to get her out of the church. It seems like it has only brought her more dependent on it. And it seems like she isn't even able to grieve for her husband because that would make her less spiritual. Anyway, just looking for advice on how I could help her. From her perspective, I am not as spiritual as those in her church who have the "full knowledge of God" Thanks for any advice.
Posted by: Joyel | September 23, 2005 3:35 PM
Just want to make sure everyone knows I'm not condemning all Assembly of God churches or leaders. I think their openess to the Holy Spirit can result in great worship, a lot of energy, and an enthusiasm for the Christian life.
But it can also result in just plain weirdness - remember Holy Laughter? Pastor H once began a wedding by slaying the couple in the spirit not once but half a dozen times (in his glory days, he could wave his arm and the entire congregation would cooperatively fall over. What's the point of that?
And I do fault the denomination for not listening to those who warn them of trouble ahead, which is how people like Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker ended up in their respective messes. Imagine if someone had gotten them the help they needed (mental help) before thinks went kaploooey.
Posted by: barbaracurtis | September 24, 2005 7:16 AM
It's not just Assembly of God--it can be Southern Baptists as well. I was part of an SBC church for two years that went in the other direction--they were the opposite of Pentacostal--very 'high church.' They prided themselves on doing NOTHING that wasn't commanded by Scripture. Everything was done for a reason--even the way we said hello to each other had a 'biblical basis.' I've been out for two years now and I'm only just now starting to recover. It affected my relationship with God in a huge, negative way. For a good year and a half after my husband and I left the church I did not pray--too scared, for various reasons. Only in the past few months has my relationship with God been renewed.
You are right--it is an addiction. After we left I used to monitor the church's website and keep up with what was going on. It was difficult to make a clean break, even though they made it clear they wanted no contact with me.
Anyway, all that to say, that it happens across denominations, and I'm thankful for your post and look forward to exploring your blog more.
Posted by: Nicole | September 26, 2005 6:32 AM
I dont' know if you have seen this
http://holycall.com/jspurgeon/tales/TFTT1.HTM#top
It is called Tales from the Temple, I got it from Praire Girl http://fromtheprairie.blogspot.com/
Very intersting, I read the whole thing, sound like a very his experience was very similar to yours.
Posted by: Amie | September 29, 2005 4:47 PM
Wow! I came here from Wittingshire to read your post on Judy Squier and then saw this post title in the sidebar. I read about half of it out loud to my husband because it was so eerily similar to an experience we had when we left a church a little over a year ago. We are just now getting back to "normal" where we don't obsess over what happened, wonder if we could have done anything differently, wonder why our old "friends" from the church are so distant and awkward around us. We are finally settling in to a healthy church but we still look over our shoulders to make sure there isn't something weird lurking in a corner somewhere.....
Our church's abuse and shunning was a bit more subtle than yours. Still, it has the same effect. Once you leave the church, you are an outsider and the church keeps its members so busy with church work they have no time for outsiders. My husband was in leadership in this church (after just a short time, the pastor wooed him just like Pastor H. wooed your husband) and when he began to realize what the pastor was doing, he tried to convince the rest of the board to see it as well. They didn't, couldn't, wouldn't, still don't. Two other former board members did see it and left when we did along with about 25 other people. Still, the faithful members think everything is going just fine now that the "troublemakers have left."
I could go on an on, but I won't. Your post said most of what I would say. I am so thankful to be gone from that church. So thankful to have my relationship with God back. So thankful to have my husband back after a year of living with a very hurt and angry man. Oh, by the way, one of the things that prompted my husband to know that something was wrong was that the pastor was changing the bylaws of the church. He had a hand-picked committee draw up new bylaws and touted them to all committee members as "giving up some of the pastor's control to the board of trustees". In fact, of course, the new bylaws gave the pastor more control in almost every area. Once we knew how he really operated behind the scenes, we could see how he would use the new bylaws to "legalize" his abuse of the church. Aggh!
Thank you so much for your post. I love your website and can't wait to read more.
Sandy
Posted by: Sandy C. | September 29, 2005 9:16 PM
I realize I'm a little late chiming in here, but just wanted to say great article. I actually grew up in the Worldwide Church of God, so I do know more than a little about legalism and spiritual abuse.
Thankfully God was working with me at the same time He was working with the leadership of the church. Its so freeing to have a relationship with Jesus Christ that is based on grace. I pretty much have "legalism feelers" that can see it a mile away.
Anyway, I followed the links from the article on Doug Phillips and spiritual abuse to read this pamphlet you wrote. Thanks for being such a balanced, Biblical example of grace.
Posted by: Kim | March 2, 2007 10:28 PM
I don't know HOW I arrived at this article - one link led to another link... and here I am!
Regardless, I really appreciate your post. I was saved in a Baptist church as a teenager and ended up in a United Pentecostal Church about a year later. The "leadership" there sounds eerily similar to the guy in your story.
It was difficult to leave, despite being physically attacked - at the age of 16 - while praying because a woman had a "dream" about me and saw tattoos of moons and stars on my nude body. Despite a huge, deep scratch on my forehead, neither the pastor or the "bishop" corrected or disciplined her. I kept going to the church!
The last straw for me was after the pastor's wife allowed my younger sister to spend the entire day at the church blowing up water balloons for a youth activity that evening and then told her she'd have to go home and change if she wanted to return. (She was wearing long shorts.)
I never went back.
The great irony is that my experience sent me into a spiritual tailspin and I didn't come out of it until about two years ago (I'm now 32) and ended up in ANOTHER legalistic church - though of a different denominational bent.
Sigh.
This time my newly-saved husband was sent into a tailspin and has yet to recover completely.
God bless you and your family. Thank you for such a well-written post.
Jennifer
Posted by: Jen | May 22, 2007 1:56 PM
I don't know HOW I arrived at this article - one link led to another link... and here I am!
Regardless, I really appreciate your post. I was saved in a Baptist church as a teenager and ended up in a United Pentecostal Church about a year later. The "leadership" there sounds eerily similar to the guy in your story.
It was difficult to leave, despite being physically attacked - at the age of 16 - while praying because a woman had a "dream" about me and saw tattoos of moons and stars on my nude body. Despite a huge, deep scratch on my forehead, neither the pastor or the "bishop" corrected or disciplined her. I kept going to the church!
The last straw for me was after the pastor's wife allowed my younger sister to spend the entire day at the church blowing up water balloons for a youth activity that evening and then told her she'd have to go home and change if she wanted to return. (She was wearing long shorts.)
I never went back.
The great irony is that my experience sent me into a spiritual tailspin and I didn't come out of it until about two years ago (I'm now 32) and ended up in ANOTHER legalistic church - though of a different denominational bent.
Sigh.
This time my newly-saved husband was sent into a tailspin and has yet to recover completely.
God bless you and your family. Thank you for such a well-written post.
Jennifer
Posted by: Jen | May 22, 2007 1:56 PM
I think you would find exmormon.org highly interesting. Many ex-mormons share alot of the same negative experiences as you. Talk about demi-gods, they think if they are "good" enough, they will become gods of their own planets when they die! Of course, many mormons aren't even aware this is a belief of their religion, but that's another story... Anyway, they have very good message boards that you could share your story on, and maybe help someone in their struggle with leaving a controlling abusive church. My ex-boyfriend's family is LDS, and I have a child with him. I have looked up the seemingly wonderful religion, and am now terrified that she will become brainwashed by it as she grow up. Do you have any suggestions on how to prevent this? On a different but related note, PTM is a truly wonderful help! I'm glad you collaborated with them and shared your painful experiences. Thank you for seeing the positive in your loss and not turning your back on the real God.
Posted by: DG | March 6, 2008 12:12 AM
