Author: Nana5 | Page 6 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

God, Our Heavenly Father

To many of us survivors of an abusive legalistic church environment, and the abuse from male dominant leadership, it can be difficult to trust organized religion and a God that was portrayed as one who was angry and ready to destroy you and send you to hell. It can also be detrimental to our hopes and dreams of having a close relationship with Almighty God.

I was not the good obedient child of God when I was actively involved in the United Pentecostal Church. I was always busy questioning the standards, rules, beliefs and researching and writing papers on my findings, and generally keeping the ministry in turmoil because I was uncovering truth and they knew I would eventually uncover what was being hidden. For example John 3:16; “For God so loved…He gave…” we only heard this scripture at Christmas and in its entirety.

I was one of those statistics who wasn’t raised in a home with a father figure full time. My parents were divorced. I saw my father and I loved him very much but when you only spend short periods of time with them it is not enough. My father was a fireman and worked crazy shifts but every time he came to my house he would show me an escape route if there was ever a fire. He remarried when I was 10 to a very nice woman and we developed a sweet relationship. They also blessed me with a little sister when I was 13; we are very close to this day. My dad and stepmom both passed away in 2011 and I still miss them both very much.

My mother remarried two times while I was growing up and they were harsh and abusive men. After the second time my brother and I asked her not to marry again until we were grown. I was 15 and my brother was 10 at that time and she didn’t remarry until I was 20. Of course by then she finally found a good man and he would have made a great father. He did become a father to me, even though I was grown, and a good grandfather to my children. They will celebrate 40 years this December and he has helped me through so many bad times and stood by my side. He never had kids of his own but he chose to be my dad and introduces me as his daughter.

One thing I found lacking in the teaching of the UPC was developing relationships of any kind and especially establishing a relationship with God. I was afraid of Him and I thought He was a God of judgement and not love. I would read the Bible and be so confused with the greetings in the epistles to God our Father. But I never knew Him as my Heavenly Father.

How sad that a beautiful facet of God’s character was not being explored. He is not a distant, impersonal ruler with an iron fist, but a warm and loving Father. But so often this is tainted by the weakness of human fathers. The foundational truth, God, in all His power and glory, is best understood as a loving, intimate Father. (Source)

Upon closer study of what makes a father, I made a list that shows what a natural or step father should be and correlated with God as a father according to scripture:

1. He is the source of life and creates life. (Genesis 1:27; Luke 1:30-35)
2. He loves us. (I John 4:16; John 3:16)
3. He provides for our needs. (Luke 12:22-32; Philippians 4:19)
4. He lovingly corrects us. (Proverbs 3:11)
5. He gives us His wisdom. (James 3:15-18)
6. He protects. (Psalm 21:8; Deuteronomy 31:8)
7. He welcomes us back. (Luke 15:22-24)
8. He gives good gifts. (Luke 11:9-13)
9. He wants us to enjoy life. (Romans 15:13)
10. He wants us to trust him. (Psalm 62:1-12) (Partial Source)

Many of us expect these attributes from our physical father, and of our husbands when we have our own children. I would say many fathers try to have these attributes but our Heavenly Father has them all, and this is just the tip of the iceberg!

Although God would like our earthly fathers to be the spiritual leaders in our home, most fathers fail at this, either from not being a born again believer or maybe working too much to provide for their families. But our Heavenly Father not only provides spiritual guidance, He can actually become our Father in a very personal way when we are spiritually born again. Romans 8:14 tells us, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons (and daughters) of God.” (Source)

Paul tells us in Romans 8:9, “You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” Of course, we are still flesh, but Paul was speaking of this from God’s perspective. We begin our spiritual life as babies (1 Peter 2:2), but we are to grow and mature in Christ until our death or until Christ returns (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17). Through this new life based on God’s Spirit living in us, we can begin to not only grasp spiritual truths and values (1 Corinthians 2:9-11), but also have a very personal, close relationship with our Heavenly Father. (Source)

Now I always called my father “daddy” and I called my step father, “dad” but I’ve never called my Heavenly Father, daddy or dad. But in Romans 8:15, we are now his children through adoption and we are invited to call him “Abba” which means Daddy or Papa.

So this Father’s Day we have one more to honor, our Heavenly Father! We are free to say, Happy Father’s Day, Papa!!

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

A Time To Heal – A Time To Build Up

Part Two of Two Part Series

“To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven:
‭‭…..“A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up;”
‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭3:1,3‬ ‭NKJV‬

This is my story of healing my heart and soul and rebuilding my mind and emotions….

For me recovering from spiritual abuse was very personal and private. I knew I needed healing and I needed to repair my relationship with God, which was my first priority. The problem was I didn’t know how to begin. So I started working on developing my relationship with God through conversations with God. To me this was more than just prayer like I had done in the past, this was actual conversation and telling Him about everything that I feared, my anxieties, my anger and I didn’t hold back anything. Then I would spend time in reflection, trying to hear his voice, sitting quietly outside on my deck looking at my gardens and letting his nature calm my soul and emotions, then I turned to scriptures and just began reading and meditating on his word. I felt like I was in that place where God was telling me to “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10) .

I also read books: False Holiness Standards, Healing Spiritual Abuse, The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, and a few more but I can’t remember their titles. I surfed the internet reading all I could find on the subject and joining support groups. I was not going to a church and had not attended a service in over six months so the guilt was very high. Was it guilt from not attending service or was it the guilt and anxiety because I was enjoying not going?

My daughter and I had tried a couple other United Pentecostal churches but there was nothing there but dried up bones and that was six months ago. I knew I was not going back to the UPC. Been there, done that. But I was still trapped in their legalism of dress and hair, simply because that’s all I knew and the only clothes I had. It had been 32 years that I had been in the UPC. I no longer needed to dress this way but I didn’t know how to take that first step to change and that seemed to be the hardest step to take. Although my daughter wasn’t having any trouble giving up standards and she seemed genuinely happy as she searched for a church. She kept saying, Mom, all I want us to be are normal Christians.

Normal was good I thought, problem was I didn’t know what normal was. I did receive a few emails from my former church friends, asking why I left and I should come back and repent and not backslide and blah, blah, blah. I didn’t respond and I unfriended them because I didn’t need the distraction. It wasn’t like I was friendless; I had a lot of good friends at work, just nobody I could talk to about why I left my church and religion.

One of the first things I did was purchase a new Bible, a NKJV, and began to study it with an open heart and mind. I wanted my quest in God’s word pure and fresh so I could see His grace. It was like the word came alive to me and the first scripture I read was: “I am the LORD, that is My name; And My glory I will not give to another, Nor My praise to carved images. Behold, the former things have come to pass, And new things I declare; Before they spring forth I tell you of them.” (‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭42:8-9‬ ‭NKJV‬‬) This gave me a lot of hope that I was still in His will by leaving and searching for truth.

My daughter found a friend, Anita, from Youth Camp online and she explained that we were looking for a church that was “normal” and Anita invited us to visit Crosspoint Church, which was where she went after leaving the UPC. So on Palm Sunday we went and sat in the back row by the door, just in case things got hairy. But from the first beat of the music I could feel the strong spirit of God in a good and loving way; not in a frenzied emotional way. My daughter and I cried all through the service.

When we got in the car to leave, I remember my daughter saying. “Mom did you notice how happy and friendly everybody was?” I told her yes, but it could be a fluke because nobody I knew was that happy about their salvation. Although I saw how Anita was and she was very happy. So we decided to visit again the next Sunday on Easter and bring my granddaughters. The next Sunday was a repeat of the Sunday before and we decided to give it a try and see if this could be our church.

The Sunday following Easter, the church had a ministry fair and I signed up for a ministry called Thyme In A Garden and I registered for a summer ladies bible study to be held in a home close to me. Now I was really putting myself out there because I didn’t know anybody except the associate pastor and his wife and that was only because I grew up with them and my daughters friend Anita.

I’m very thankful for Dave and Ronda because of their wise council to me and the help and love they showed to me during this time. They also had made the same journey I was making. I remember one Wednesday night prayer meeting they both came and prayed for me. None of that grabbing my arms and spitting in my face or yelling in my ears type of praying. They simply put their hands on my shoulders and asked for God to lead and guide me down the right pathway.

After service I asked Ronda how did she overcome the dress code of the UPC? She just smiled and told me I would know when it was time to let go of the past and she assured me when I got rid of the trappings of dress and released the vestiges of legalism, then there would be nothing between God and me except for grace. She said his word would come alive to me like never before because I could no longer hide behind a facade of self righteousness.

A few weeks later I went to my first meeting to Thyme in the Garden and I was a nervous wreck about going into a place I didn’t know. But in I walked and said Hi, I’m Cindy. I was greeted so warmly and friendly by all the ladies and they accepted me right in and I’m still going 6 years later. I met the best group of Christian women that day and they prayed for me after I told them I just left the UPC.

Being a former pastors wife, you know a thing or two about people and of course the shunning and shaming you get when you leave a church. But my biggest shock came from one friend from UPC, we’d been friends for 30 years and I had visited many times since my divorce. She was emailing me at work and I was answering her and I told her that I was going to a new church. She asked me where and I told her and I guess she looked it up online and literally became a wild woman telling me I was backslid if I could go someplace that didn’t teach standards and now I was going to be a reprobate.

Then she finished by telling me we could no longer be friends because we have nothing in common anymore. I couldn’t believe it just five minutes prior to telling her where I was going to church we were chatting away. Now we had nothing in common? I knew I was going to lose friends but I never imagined her. We haven’t spoken since that day and she, along with her family, unfriended me on Facebook. The pain of it still hurts at times but God has given me more friends than I can count now. During this time, I continued to search scripture for reassurance and God never fails:

Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness And rivers in the desert. (Isaiah‬ ‭43:18-19‬ ‭NKJV)‬‬

I held on to his promises because I was in uncharted waters.

I again showed up at the home where the summer woman’s Bible study was being done and again God put me in touch with Steve and Helen, former UPC Pastor and wife, who left the organization years ago. God knew exactly who to put me in touch with. I don’t know how many times I’ve called upon them to calm my fears and doubts.

“Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? Unless the LORD had been my help, My soul would soon have settled in silence. If I say, “My foot slips,” Your mercy, O LORD, will hold me up. In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul.” ‭‭Psalms‬ ‭94:16-19‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Steve and Helen prayed for me and with me, gave me scriptures to read and taught me about healing and forgiveness. I told them I wanted to start over as a brand new Christian and they even signed up to take a new Christian Bible study with me.

I started feeling more at peace every time I went to church and finally I felt the freedom to get rid of the old clothes and buy new. My daughter and I had fun shopping and there wasn’t a dress or skirt purchased. My daughter was getting ready to graduate from Beauty School, so I was her model to demonstrate a hair cut. I donated 24 inches of hair to Locks of Love and felt so light and free. I was her model for color demo and she made me a beautiful blonde. I hadn’t felt pretty since my wedding day until that day. I sat and looked in the mirror and cried.

I took the church’s Welcome to the Family class, which is a four week course that explained the history of the church, their beliefs, their staff and what was expected from a new member. Again I had to brace myself against the anxiety, but my daughter took it with me so I wasn’t totally alone. During the first class we found out the church came out of the United Pentecostal Church about 30 years ago and my pastor was also former UPC and that explained a lot of the teaching. It wasn’t legalism at all, it was grace and mercy. It was Christ and him crucified. It was no big “I”s and little “U”s. But it was salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. It was humility and servitude and living within your means. There are no thrones on the platform, the ministers sit with the congregation. They teach commitment, connection and contribution. Everybody dresses casual so all that come feels comfortable. They were answering all my questions one by one. It was amazing and wonderful all at once. I finally felt at home, that I was in a safe place and I had a place where people cared and prayed and loved each other.

My final confirmation that I was in the right place for me came in September at our ladies retreat. My pastors wife wanted all of us to go outside and enjoy nature alone with God and our Bibles. I remember sitting at a small table looking over the lake and asking God one more time, is this the place you want me to be? He replied with his word: “You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, And called from its farthest regions, And said to you, ‘You are My servant, I have chosen you and have not cast you away: Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’ “Behold, all those who were incensed against you Shall be ashamed and disgraced; They shall be as nothing, And those who strive with you shall perish. You shall seek them and not find them— Those who contended with you. Those who war against you Shall be as nothing, As a nonexistent thing. For I, the LORD your God, will hold your right hand, Saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you.’” (‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭41:9-13‬ ‭NKJV‬‬) With tears streaming down, I lifted up my hands and praised him for always being with me and leading me out of darkness into his marvelous light.

That was six years ago and do I still have anxiety from the past? Yes I do and I still have fear from time to time. And yes I suffered with nightmares for several months, but I put my trust in God and he never failed me.

Last year I was reconnected to a dear friend from the church we had pastored and we’d been apart 18 years, but our friendship is closer now than ever before. She has been delivered from legalism and spiritual abuse.

A few months ago I was able to call my ex-husband and forgive him for everything and he started crying and saying he was sorry for what he did. We talked for over an hour about our children and grandchildren.

My daughter met a really nice man and they were married two years ago. She has 3 girls and he has 2 girls, so now I’ve been blessed with 5 beautiful granddaughters.

Has it all been a bed of roses? No it’s not, life is still life. I lost my father and step mother within two days of each other through cancer and pneumonia in October 2011. My mother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and is in stage 5-6 of the 7 stages. I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2011 and had to retire in 2016. And I lost a dear uncle to cancer last year (2016). But through all the trouble and tribulations, God has always been there with a comforting word and prayers, visits and ministering from my church friends helped us get through those tough times. There’s been good news, too. My aunt and cousin have accepted the Lord into their hearts and attend church with me. I helped a dear friend escape from my previous church and she is healing and attending Crosspoint, along with her grown children, who were also spiritually abused and hurt. My dear mama has also accepted the Lord.

Yes, when you’ve been in an abusive church for any length of time, things are killed in your heart and soul and things are broken down in your mind and emotions. Eventually you become spiritually crippled and emotionally damaged.

But the Lord gives us a time to heal and a time to build back up. It does take time and patience and a renewed walk with Jesus and the right church and people. And a whole lot of trust in God. It wasn’t easy and it has taken me six years to get this far, but with God all things are possible.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. ‭‭II Corinthians‬ ‭5:17-19‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

A Time To Kill – A Time To Break Down

Part One of Two Part Series

When you’ve been in an abusive church for any length of time things are killed in your heart and soul and things are broken down in your mind and emotions. Eventually you become spiritually crippled and emotionally damaged. This is my story…

I was in the United Pentecostal Church all my life, that’s the only religion I ever knew and even though my mother never truly believed or conformed to the rules and regulations, that was where she took my brother and I to church on Sundays.

We went mostly to please my grandmother who was the matriarch of our family. She was a pro at shaming and putting on the guilt because she truly believed it was the only way to be saved and she prayed diligently for her family. Although I was the “strange” granddaughter with an analytical and inquisitive mind; always asking questions about why the church believed this way or where was this rule in the Bible, she just wanted me filled with the Holy Ghost and that would answer all my questions. I found out later that she couldn’t tell me where the rules and regulations were located in the Bible either, but she remained dedicated and faithful unto the end.

I was baptized in 1969 and received the Holy Ghost 2 years later at Youth Camp. But my mother didn’t believe the standards were necessary and got angry with my grandmother for making me dresses and skirts. It was a very confusing time in my life and although I had received the Holy Ghost, I still couldn’t find answers to my questions.

I remember finding and reading 1 Corinthians 11: 1-15 regarding women having long hair and I noticed when they preached on long hair this was the reference that they used and always stopped at verse 15. But if you read verse 16, Paul says, “But if anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God.” Which basically says we don’t have this belief and it’s not a big deal. But I held my peace because it was just easier.

Because I was pulled between pleasing my mother and my grandmother I was in and out of church throughout my teen years. I got involved with after school clubs and was a Pom Pom girl my last two years of high school. God and church were on the back burner for me.

I married my high school sweetheart, a nice non-practicing Catholic at age 18. My UPC family members were horrified and my grandmother was very disappointed because she had been praying for me to marry a minister. His family was just as horrified that I was not a nice Catholic girl.

To keep the peace we were married in a chapel and the ceremony was performed by my UPC uncle. Our son was born 2 years later when I was 20 and we were ripe for the picking when we had our son dedicated in the UPC church.

This was 1977 and the church was still involved with evangelism and we were sucked in with all the other young married couples and gave our lives to the Lord…or so we thought…we really gave our lives to the church. My husband was baptized but hadn’t received the Holy Ghost and once again I started wearing the dresses and skirts, got rid of the make up and put away my jewelry. Since it was the 70’s I still had long hair. Once again I couldn’t explain the standards to my husband nor where to find them in the Bible.

My husband was transferred to another state in 1978 and we found a UPC church close to our home and started attending and they became our family. My husband was filled with the Holy Ghost and we had several couples that we considered close friends and we thought life was good.

It was here when the abuse began….the dictatorship…. we couldn’t miss church without calling the pastor, or go on vacation without prior notice, and the pastor didn’t like women working outside the home and leaving their children to be raised by strangers and of course I worked and was beginning a good career. Our pastor had a thing about cleanliness and would make surprise visits to your home and put a pair of white gloves on looking for dust. Our home was hit several times because he was trying to catch something on me to prove his point that women shouldn’t work. I became obsessed with a clean house and he never could make me his subject for a Sunday sermon.

I was put on the troublemakers list pretty early because I wanted answers to my questions about the rules and regulations and I even did my own research and wrote papers and gave them to my pastor and asked him to explain what I found. He would get very angry that I had the audacity to question his teaching and “convictions” he received from God. The only thing he would do is tell my husband to control his wife.

In 1982, after three miscarriages, we were blessed with a beautiful baby girl and our lives began to change and become more demanding. I began to teach Sunday School and I also became the pastor’s administrative assistant. He figured if I insisted on working I needed to work at the church. I really think it was because I was the only woman in church who could type and use a computer. I also was given a teaching position in the church’s Christian school and became friends with the other teachers who were not of the same faith. This was frowned upon because of our beliefs, but I persevered and held on to one friendship unto this day.

When my husband was called into the ministry, situations arose in the church. Instead of mentoring him, our pastor and his family felt threatened by my husband wanting to start a church somewhere in the state. Therefore we were not so kindly asked to leave the state and go back to Missouri, because he didn’t want “his” people leaving to attend my husband’s church.

In 1991 we loaded everything up and moved to Missouri to help my uncle in his UPC church to gain some experience. It was different to say the least. My uncle preached against everything. To him, if you spit wrong it was sin. I felt so trapped and stifled that I could hardly breath. We couldn’t even have a Christmas tree because he thought it was a sin.

Fortunately I was able to find a good job at a local college and one thing my uncle didn’t preach against was women working, because that meant more tithes. He knew everybody’s payday and like a bill collector he would knock on your door and collect your tithes. I loved my uncle but sitting under him for a year smothered me.

In 1994 a small church became available in a neighboring town and my husband was voted in as pastor. We had 9 in attendance our first service and 4 of them were our family. But those first few years were amazing. We saw new people coming in and being “saved” and our first fundraiser went to buy a baptismal tank.

My husband wasn’t hard on our people but he came down hard on our daughter and me. We had to make sure we were always dressed right and to sit and look pretty. Our son was to lead in worship by example and help wherever needed. When we went to sectional or district meetings, I was to be quiet and not talk or laugh and to keep my opinions to myself so he wouldn’t be embarrassed.

I continued to work for a few more years until the extra duties of the church, the District Ladies Ministry and the continued care of our children were too much for me and I became a full time pastors wife.

For a small church we were very active in puppet ministry, stick drama, choir, VBS, fall ladies tea, Easter and Christmas programs and community projects. The church grew to an average of 50-60.

I began teaching bible studies and the more I studied, the more concerned I became about what we were teaching. I voiced my concern to my husband but received a blank stare in return.

Around this time our church had some trouble and we had a split, losing a lot of people. This so upset my husband and I watched him change into a bitter and unforgiving man. He lost his joy and was letting the situation destroy him. I told him to rebuild or resign. He really just stopped doing anything.

Our daughter married a nice Pentecostal man (so we thought) in 2000 and our first grandchild was born in 2002. Then one weekend, while I was out of town helping our son move into an apartment where he was going to college, my husband did the unthinkable. He resigned the church, left me a note, emptied out our bank account and ran off with a worldly woman. I came home in shock with $12 in my purse. My life would be forever changed.

So I closed the books of the church and sat in several board meetings while they voted whether or not they were going to pay my bills for the month. I was so embarrassed but I made it through and turned in the church keys and left that town. It would be 18 years before I would go back.

With a lot of help from God and my parents, I was able to move my mobile home to a nice place in the St Louis area, file for divorce, and I secured a good job at a public accounting firm as an administrative assistant. I would eventually work my way up to Tax Supervisor before I retired in 2016.

Again I found another UPC church and started attending and tried to be a good Christian woman, although as a divorced woman I was marked. The married women were jealous if I even shook hands in greeting with one of their husbands and I was warned by the women to leave their husbands alone. I wasn’t interested in any man and I was hurt. Why couldn’t they see my heart was broken? That I had no interest in their husbands? Where was the love? Compassion? A pat on the back and a “hang in there!” would have been nice.

The pastor asked me to be the Ladies Ministry Leader for the church, which was odd because that position is usually for the pastor’s wife, but she didn’t want the position, so I accepted it. I was given a notebook of all the rules and regulations I was supposed to obey and be a “good example” for the ladies to follow. I don’t remember all of them, but being a faithful member and supporter of the church was close to the top, as well as dressing as becoming a godly woman and I was to exemplify the Proverbs 31 and Titus 2 women at all times. So I gave it a try and worked very hard for the next three years.

It was like pulling teeth to get the ladies to do anything or participate in any activity and they were not interested in Proverbs 31 or Titus 2. They were like the Stepford Wives. But they did enjoy honoring their pastor and his wife on pastor appreciation day and their birthdays and anniversary. They bought flowers and gifts and I tried making a suggestion on a gift but it was never good enough. One of the ladies told me that I just didn’t understand how much they all loved the pastor and his family, and they showed this by giving extravagant gifts and speeches, full of praise and honor. One year the church bough him a restored 1957 Chevy because he mentioned it was the ride of choice while he was dating his wife. I could understand why my suggestion of a $100 gift card to Bass Pro was turned down.

I never could get into the pastor worship and it seemed like idol worship to me and left a very bitter taste in my mouth. I managed to do three years as the ladies leader but I didn’t feel like I accomplished much. The ladies still acted like Stepford Wives, although I did manage to make one of the ladies that was in charge of the kitchen mad at me. So I resigned the position by submitting a letter and returning the notebook. Nothing was ever said to me about my resignation, nor about the three years I served. The pastor assigned his daughter-in-law to the position and she was hailed as the new leader and how she would do great things and etc etc.

I returned to college in 2003 to finish my Bachelors degree in accounting and going to school for the next three years, plus working full time and trying to be a good ladies leader, kept me busy. I remember telling the pastor (I learned never to ask) that I was enrolled in college and he was not pleased and thought it was a stupid idea. I told him I was single and needed to go to school so I could advance on my job and increase my earnings. Later I found out he wanted me to manage the church’s day care for $10.00 an hour. He thought that was enough for me to live on.

I persevered and graduated in June 2006 and received a promotion at work and a big raise, which increased my tithes significantly. I paid my tithes because I didn’t want to be put on “the list” that would get waved around during every sermon. He would be preaching and something would be said about tithes and he would pick up a list of names and wave it around yelling, “I have a list of names who are not paying your tithes. You are cursed with a curse and don’t come to me for help until you are paying your tithes because I can’t help you.”

It’s sad thinking back on those days and the people who were laid off and out of a job and couldn’t afford to put gas in their cars, much less pay their tithes. But couldn’t receive help from the church they supported for many years. Of course I understand that the new Lincoln pastor drove, and the fancy clothes and the newly remodeled home, was very important and needed tithe money to pay for them because they had an image to uphold….hmm.

Well with a promotion and big raise came more responsibilities and my work days became longer and I began missing the midweek services. Nothing was ever said to me for quite awhile and then only in passing that I was missed. I never thought much about that because as long as I wrote that check out every payday, attendance didn’t matter.

So after a year or so I was only attending Sunday mornings and by 2010, I was not going at all. It took the pastor 3 weeks to call me and I’m sure it was when my name came up on “the list.” When I told him I was not being fed the true word of God, and that in the 8 years I’d been attending he preached the same 9 or 10 messages and I named them: Tithes, women’s apparel, Tithes-The List, holiness, Acts 2:38, the coming of the Lord, communion, Tithes and attendance. He was offended, of course, and said some bad things to me about knowing better or something along those lines. I just said good bye and hung up the phone. I never felt freer than when I hung up that phone.

It was also during this time my daughter was going through a very messy divorce. Her husband was not a “good Pentecostal man,” but he never showed his bad side to the church and therefore it had to be my daughters fault and they took his side. I called and let them know very strongly about the abuse, the bruises and having to sneak my daughter and three granddaughters to a safe house for their protection. But it didn’t matter…the man is always right and they kept him in his positions at church and we were the outcasts.

That was my deciding factor that I was through with church and the Pentecostal ways. I knew in my heart that the doctrine was not “the truth” like we always heard; I had done enough research to know it. So my daughter and I never went back. I loved that taste of freedom.

Her ex-husband’s true nature was soon discovered when he was stalking a girl at the church and he started showing his creepy side and he was asked to leave. But we never received an apology, nor another phone call. Our days of being in a controlling cult was over and all I felt was relief.

I will end with this: When you’ve been in an abusive church for any length of time things are killed in your heart and soul and things are broken down in your mind and emotions. Eventually you become spiritually crippled and emotionally damaged….

Part Two will follow.

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

A Closer Look at Deuteronomy 22:5

A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment for all who do so are an abomination unto the Lord your God.

This scripture has been used by many legalistic churches, particularly the United Pentecostal Church, as proof to enforce their stand against women wearing pants. Although the scripture doesn’t state the word pants or skirts because this scripture was written many years before the western culture even began. This is a perfect example how the UPC will take a scripture out of context and it’s culture and twist it around to what they want it to mean, especially when in the days of Moses everybody wore gowns and robes.

So let’s start at the beginning, Genesis to be exact, this is the beginning of biblical clothing, the beginning of any clothing. Genesis 3:21 after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and hid from God because they were naked. God was upset by their disobedience and killed an animal and used its skin to make them tunics and dressed them.

He didn’t make a fuss over how he dressed them. It doesn’t say he covered them from neck to ankle or that the sleeves were a certain length, or whether Adam wore pants and Eve wore a skirt, no, he dressed them in tunics.

Now back to the book of Deuteronomy. After carefully studying this book that was written by Moses before the Israelites entered into Canaan, you find it full of a lot of commandments that seem strange to the modern mind. For example, if a man discovered a bird sitting upon eggs, he might take the eggs but not the bird (22:6-7). Different kinds of seeds could not be planted in one’s vineyard (9). The Hebrew farmer was not to yoke together an ox and a donkey for plowing (10). A Jew was forbidden to wear a garment containing two types of cloth (wool and linen – 11), and so on and verse 5 was only mentioned one time in the middle of a group of miscellaneous commandments almost like an after thought that Moses had.

God told Moses to write down His commandments regarding the worship of the strange gods of the Canaanites several times and told the people of Israel to utterly destroy all implements of worship when they possessed the land of Canaan. (Deut. 6:14, 7:5, 12:4, 13:1-5 and 20:17-18)

When you come into the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD; and because of these abominable practices the LORD your God is driving them out before you. (Deuteronomy 18:9-12)

According to history of the culture and practices of paganism, Deuteronomy 22:5 is an indication of cross-dressing in certain heathen ceremonies that was deemed to be a cure for infertility. This was done by the Canaanites, which God strictly forbade the Israelites to participate in and ordered them to completely destroy them all (Mariottini).

You shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded; that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices which they have done in the service of their gods, and so to sin against the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 20:17-18)

“I could cite several other passages in Deuteronomy where the word “abomination” is used as a reference to a religious practice that existed in the religion of the Canaanites and several other nations in the Ancient Near East.” (Mariottini) But let’s move on to another point to note is the order of the words: “the female is referred to first, then the male” ( Mariottini). “This is the reason Deuteronomy 22:5 prohibits Israelites from wearing garments of the opposite sex because these were the special garments female and male cultic prostitutes wore in the service of Asherah” (2 Kings 10:22; 23:7). ( Mariottini)

“Archaeology has shown that the exchange of roles in pagan cults, that is, where male acted as female and vice-versa, was common in the Ancient Near East.” (Mariottini). “Theodore Burgh, in his book Listening to the Artifacts: Music Culture in Palestine said (p. 69) that in ancient Mesopotamia, transvestites, men dressed like women, played and danced in the cult of Ishtar, performing erotic dances and pantomime.” (Mariottini)

“The Biblical text was not written in a vacuum. The Biblical text was written within a historical and cultural context. When the Biblical text is divorced of its cultural and historical contexts,” as some legalistic religions tend to do, “the text is made to say that which it never intended to say” (Mariottini).

Many countries today may practice the pants as male dress and the dress or skirt as the female dress. “But Deuteronomy was not addressing a cultural issue …in the twenty-first century or in any other century. Deuteronomy was addressed to Israel as it struggled with Canaanite culture. Deuteronomy was written to address the many religious problems that were plaguing the worship of God, problems that compromised Israel’s uniqueness as a chosen people and problems that undermined Israel’s mission to the nations.” (Mariottini)

While it undoubtedly is true that God wants some sexual distinction apparent in men’s and women’s garments, it is not legitimate to say that all women’s “pants” are wrong, or, for that matter, that Scottish “kilts” are sinful for the men of that culture.

Also as a reminder, we are no longer bound to the commandments of the law, Jesus Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. ( Gal. 3:1-14, Eph. 2:14-18, Eph. 2:19-22 and Col.2:14-23).

A woman can be feminine in a modest pant-suit (1 Tim. 2:9-10), and men can still be masculine in a robe-like garment (as in some Near Eastern countries today).

Two principles should be borne in mind. First, the Christian should dress appropriate to his gender. This distinction, incidentally, is apparent in all cultures. Second, the godly man or woman should dress modestly, and not in a manner that would solicit sexual interest.

“Deuteronomy 22:5 is not prohibiting women from wearing pants. In fact, the word “pants” does not even appear in the Bible. Well, that is not totally true. The word pants appears twice in the Bible: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God” (Psalm 42:1 NIV). But these are pants of another kind” (Mariottini).

Works Cited: Dr. Claude Mariottini, Professor of Old Testament at Northern Baptist Seminar

********
Shop at our Amazon store! This website is a participant in the Amazon
Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

Dressing Modestly or To Impress?

According to the dictionary the word modesty can mean several different things and I chose the following:
1. free from ostentation or showy extravagance
2. having or showing regard for the decencies of behavior, speech, dress, etc.

Many women in the United Pentecostal Church will tell you they wear skirts and dresses for their own conviction on modesty not because of the teaching in their churches. That may be so but how can convictions be born without the teaching?

Many scriptures have been used to support their convictions from Deuteronomy 22:5 through 1 Timothy 2:9 and they have certainly been twisted to make their case for what they deem is proper attire for women.

I want to look at 1 Timothy 2:9 since this is a commonly quoted scripture to support their cause. This is a letter to Timothy from the Apostle Paul;

“I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes,” 1 Timothy 2:9, NIV

This verse begins the second main section of chapter 2, which extends to the end of the chapter at verse 15. The theme is that of the role of women in Christian worship. When believers gather together, how should women function? The first statement made by Paul here uses the term hōsautōs, meaning “likewise.” Paul has just made mention of prayer and its importance. Women, therefore, are to share in similar godly actions as the men of the church. What Paul says here, then, is not a unique principle for women as much as a specific application for women.

Specifically, this refers to how women dressed and cared for their hair. Then, as now, church gatherings were not an appropriate time to dress seductively or for attention. Clothing styles vary, and tastes change based on time and culture. All the same, how women (and men) dress should be appropriate for worship of God.

Second, women were not to focus on “braided hair.” This is another comment requiring careful cultural understanding. Paul’s point is not that certain hairstyles are necessarily sinful; rather, the message and the motives are. In the culture of Ephesus, braided hair was a luxurious status symbol. In that era, it required much time and financial costs. This was the equivalent of modern hairstyles requiring significant time and cost. Those who put so much energy into hairstyles suggest that their emphasis is on themselves, rather than on worshiping God.

Further, Paul addresses fancy clothes and flashy jewelry. These items are mentioned because of the focus on using money on self rather than to help others (1 Timothy 6:10). Once again, no particular piece of jewelry, or clothing, is being called out as explicitly sinful. The message and effect have to be considered. Then, as now, worship services are not intended to be treated as a prom, social event, or a party where women—or men—”dress to impress.” These are times to worship God and focus on Him. Self-promoting clothes not only distract others from the point of a church gathering, they distract the one who is overly concerned with their appearance.

How many times have you been to any kind of UPC conference, whether it is ladies conference, district conference or general conference, and the women are dressed to impress in their designer clothes and shoes and their elaborate hairstyles as are the men in their $1,000 suits and gold watches and their Lincolns and Cadillacs?

Paul never mentions that women and men are dressed to distinguish between men and women. That is all made up rules of the UPC and twisting scripture to support it. But Paul does admonish those who spend a lot of money on their clothes and dress to impress others of their spirituality.

Taking into consideration of our culture and fashion changes, it doesn’t matter whether we wear a skirt or a pair of jeans as long as we are not dressing seductively or for attention. God wants our attention. He wants both men and women to be in prayer and worship focused on Him.