The church I left advertised itself as being “a faithful expression of God's New Testament pattern” and that their leaders did everything “exactly in accordance with the Scriptures.” They advertised themselves as being a place for “serious Christians who really want to advance in their walk with the Lord.” Yet, unknown to most of us, the following things were going on behind closed doors:
- The head honcho was an adulterer who had forced himself on several women over a period of at least twenty, and more likely, thirty years.
- The money given by the rank-and-file every week was actually spent supporting the head honcho and his two sons, so that they could live in relative luxury while doing almost nothing.
- One of this man's sons was a wife beater and an abuser of his own children. The head honcho and his deputies knew about this for over a decade, yet consistently covered it up, spending thousands of dollars in the process. This man was put in charge of one of the churches in the group, where he practiced his abusive ways even on church members, though not to the same extent as he did with his family. His wife and one of his daughters eventually left him, and the daughter obtained a restraining order against him.
- People in the group were pressured into giving thousands of dollars and countless hours of personal time to the “work” of the head honcho. In many cases, the individuals who gave so much were ruined in the process. People who had resources but were not fully committed to the group were made into targets for gossip and character assassination.
- A subtle form of racism was practiced in all the churches of this group. Black and Hispanic people bore the brunt of it, with the severest racism being reserved for Black members of the group. In a number of cases, Black members were hindered from marrying. Also, members who were single parents were persecuted by the leadership.
- Married couples with children were told not to vaccinate their children, with the result that a number of children got serious diseases such as whooping cough.
- At least two members committed suicide because of the group.
These and many other things were occurring behind closed doors, a collection of misdeeds piling up like so much raw sewage behind closed doors, misdeeds committed both by the head honcho and by his lieutenants, until the doors couldn't be kept closed any longer and burst open. The dam-bursting event was that many people at one time became aware of the wife- and child-abusing ways of the head honcho's family, and those who knew or had witnessed the abuse and cover-up became willing to speak out. Much of that speaking-out took place on the Internet, for all the world to see. It became impossible to keep things quiet any longer.
The result for many of us was that we began to see our own experiences in the group in a new light. I, for one, began to realize the true meaning of the treatment I had received from the head honcho and his deputies, and I didn't like what I was realizing. Many others came to the same realization concerning their treatment. We began to share our experiences with each other, especially those things we had been instructed to “keep to ourselves.” The anger and pain so many of us had stuffed down for a long time came at last to the surface.
Some of us elected to stay and try to fix the system. However, I had a moment where I looked into the mirror and said to myself, “Face the facts. You know, you've been in a cult all these years.” Many others I knew had similar moments. We decided to walk away.
We walked away, knowing that we were walking away from death disguised as life, from hell dressed up as a cheap imitation of heaven, from sadists dressed as doctors, from worthless liars dressed up as the genuine article. We walked away, and were walking into – who knows what? Some of us tried to do our homework in order to prepare for the journey. We read books like “Churches that Abuse” by Ron Enroth, “The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse” by David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen, and “Soul Survivor” by Philip Yancey. Some of us talked to counselors, psychotherapists and pastors. Over and over we kept hearing that we needed to find a “healthy church” where we could heal.
In my next installment, I will tell what I discovered while walking out and while walking into the outside world...
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