Author: Lois

I was a member of the United Pentecostal Church for just under 13 years and was a licensed minister during a short part of that time. I am the owner of the SpiritualAbuse.org website, which was started four years after leaving. I am originally from southern New Jersey.

Giveaway: When the Church Harms God’s People by Diane Langberg

This is only open to those with a USA mailing address. There is absolutely no cost to enter.

This is your chance to receive a new copy of When the Church Harms God’s People: Becoming Faith Communities That Resist Abuse, Pursue Truth, and Care for the Wounded by Diane Langberg, which is her latest book.

This giveaway is a drawing. To enter, just leave a comment to show you wish to be included. The drawing will close on December 5, 2024 at 6pm (eastern time), after which I will draw a winner.

Be sure to check back to see if you have won as in the past some people have not responded after winning and so a new winner had to be drawn. You will then need to email me your mailing address if I do not already have it, so be sure to watch your email and check the spam folder. If I know your Facebook profile, I will message you there.

Don’t be alarmed if your comment does not immediately show as it may require approval.

In 2025, we’ll be giving away one copy of each of Thomas Fudge’s books on the UPCI/Oneness Pentecostalism (Christianity without the Cross: A History of Salvation in Oneness Pentecostalism, Heretics & Politics: Theology, Power, and Perception in the Last Days of CBC, C.H. Yadon and the Vanishing Theological Past in Oneness Pentecostalism), plus The Uncomfortable Confessions of a Preacher’s Kid: A memoir by Ronna Russell and hopefully more.

You may want to subscribe to the email notifications of new blog posts in order to not miss these. While we try to share about our giveaways on social media, those platforms often do not show the posts to many people.

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Giveaway: Take Back Your Life by Janja Lalich

This is only open to those with a USA mailing address. There is absolutely no cost to enter.

This is your chance to receive a new copy of Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships by Janja Lalich. This is not the latest 3rd edition, but is the second edition.

Take Back Your life is a revision of Captive Hearts Captive Minds which was released in the 1990s. We have given away well over 50 copies of that book through the years.

Lalich is very knowledgeable and her book can help you in your recovery from unhealthy groups or cults.

Janja Lalich is also the co-author of Escaping Utopia: Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over, Crazy Therapies: What Are They? Do They Work? and Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace, and the author of Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults.

On our YouTube channel, we have a partial list of Janja Lalich’s interviews and speaking engagements.

This giveaway is a drawing. To enter, just leave a comment to show you wish to be included. The drawing will close on November 14, 2024 at 6pm (eastern time), after which I will draw a winner.

Be sure to check back to see if you have won as in the past some people have not responded after winning and so a new winner had to be drawn. You will then need to email me your mailing address if I do not already have it, so be sure to watch your email and check the spam folder. If I know your Facebook profile, I will message you there.

Don’t be alarmed if your comment does not immediately show as it may require approval.

Watch each month for our upcoming giveaways! We’ll be ending 2024 with a December giveaway of a new copy of When the Church Harms God’s People: Becoming Faith Communities That Resist Abuse, Pursue Truth, and Care for the Wounded. by Diane Langberg, which is her latest book.

In 2025, we’ll be giving away one copy of each of Thomas Fudge’s books on the UPCI/Oneness Pentecostalism (Christianity without the Cross: A History of Salvation in Oneness Pentecostalism, Heretics & Politics: Theology, Power, and Perception in the Last Days of CBC, C.H. Yadon and the Vanishing Theological Past in Oneness Pentecostalism), plus The Uncomfortable Confessions of a Preacher’s Kid: A memoir by Ronna Russell and hopefully more. You may want to subscribe to the email notifications of new blog posts in order to not miss these. While we try to share about our giveaways on social media, those platforms often do not show the posts to many people.

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Giveaway: Women and Worship at Corinth

This is only open to those with a USA mailing address. There is absolutely no cost to enter.

This is your chance to receive a new copy of Women and Worship at Corinth: Paul’s Rhetorical Arguments in 1 Corinthians by Lucy Peppiatt. It costs $23.

This is a more academic version of Unveiling Paul’s Women: Making Sense of 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 by the author and covers additional issues.

“Making sense of Paul’s arguments in 1 Corinthians 11-14 regarding both the role of women in public worship and the value of tongues and prophecy for the unbeliever has long posed challenges for any lay reader or scholar. Despite numerous explanations offered over the years, these passages remain marked by inconsistencies, contradictions, and puzzles. Lucy Peppiatt offers a reading of 1 Corinthians 11-14 in which she proposes that Paul is in conversation with the Corinthian male leadership regarding their domineering, superior, and selfish practices, including coercing the women to wear head coverings, lording it over the ‘have-nots’ at the Lord’s Supper, speaking in tongues all at once, and ordering married women to keep quiet in church. Through careful exegesis and theological comment this reading not only brings internal coherence to the text, but paints a picture of the apostle gripped by a vision for a new humanity ‘in the Lord’ resulting in his refusal to compromise with the traditional views of his own society. Instead, as those who should identify with the crucified Christ, he exhorts the Corinthians to make ‘love’ their aim, and thus to restore dignity and honor to women, the outsider, and the poor.”

This giveaway is a drawing. To enter, just leave a comment to show you wish to be included. The drawing will close on October 18, 2024 at 6pm (eastern time), after which I will draw a winner.

Be sure to check back to see if you have won as in the past some people have not responded after winning and so a new winner had to be drawn. You will then need to email me your mailing address if I do not already have it, so be sure to watch your email and check the spam folder. If I know your Facebook profile, I will message you there.

Don’t be alarmed if your comment does not immediately show as it may require approval.

Watch each month for our upcoming giveaways! We should be wrapping up 2024 with Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships by Janja Lalich (2nd edition) and Diane Langberg’s forthcoming book, When the Church Harms God’s People: Becoming Faith Communities That Resist Abuse, Pursue Truth, and Care for the Wounded.

In 2025, we’ll be giving away one copy of each of Thomas Fudge’s books on the UPCI/Oneness Pentecostalism (Christianity without the Cross: A History of Salvation in Oneness Pentecostalism, Heretics & Politics: Theology, Power, and Perception in the Last Days of CBC, C.H. Yadon and the Vanishing Theological Past in Oneness Pentecostalism), plus The Uncomfortable Confessions of a Preacher’s Kid: A memoir by Ronna Russell and hopefully more.

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Giveaway: The Uncomfortable Confessions of a Preacher’s Kid

This is only open to those with a USA mailing address. There is absolutely no cost to enter.

This is your chance to receive a new copy of The Uncomfortable Confessions of a Preacher’s Kid: A memoir by Ronna Russell. This is the second release of her book, from 2023.

Ronna had a childhood filled with fear of her father’s quick temper, being lost, and being left behind in the rapture. Ronna is a survivor and her story should be heard. Will you listen?

Ronna, one of Donald Fisher’s three daughters, shares her painful and lonely upbringing in the United Pentecostal Church. She longed to belong and fit in somewhere and not feel suffocated by her father’s rules and control. Some people envy PKs, thinking they have life great, yet many do not and reading this memoir will cause you to reconsider such a thought.

The late Donald Fisher held license for many years in the United Pentecostal Church. He worked in the Youth and Foreign Missions Divisions and was the founder/editor of Word Aflame Publications. He was a vice-president of the Jackson College of Ministries and a president of Conqueror’s Bible College. Don started their national Bible quizzing program. His influence on the United Pentecostal Church cannot be denied, yet at the same time his influence on his children was something quite different, so much so that Ronna has never missed him since his passing in 1995.

This book is more than just her experiences being brought up in the UPC. It is about how she struggled and overcame many years of loneliness and obstacles in her life.

Some might also want to read Heretics and Politics: Theology, Power, and Perception in the Last Days of CBC by Thomas Fudge. Ronna was interviewed for it and it covers, in part, about her father. Other books by Fudge that are United Pentecostal Church related are Christianity without the Cross: A History of Salvation in Oneness Pentecostalism & C.H. Yadon: and the Vanishing Theological Past in Oneness Pentecostalism.

This giveaway is a drawing. To enter, just leave a comment to show you wish to be included. The drawing will close on September 18, 2024 at 6pm (eastern time), after which I will draw a winner.

Be sure to check back to see if you have won as in the past some people have not responded after winning and so a new winner had to be drawn. You will then need to email me your mailing address if I do not already have it, so be sure to watch your email and check the spam folder. If I know your Facebook profile, I will message you there.

Don’t be alarmed if your comment does not immediately show as it may require approval.

Watch for our next post on October 16, when we’ll be offering a new copy of Women and Worship at Corinth: Paul’s Rhetorical Arguments in 1 Corinthians by Lucy Peppiatt.

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Blindsided Series Full Listing

From January 30, 2020 through August 2, 2021, Crystal wrote a series of blogs titled Blindsided, where she shared about her experiences at the Antioch Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. Andrew Ray was, and still is, the pastor and Douglas Stauffer was his assistant. Since her time at Antioch Baptist Church, Doug Stauffer moved to Florida and became the pastor of Faith Independent Baptist Church in Niceville, Florida.

A total of 60 articles were posted. The series was never completed and no posts were deleted. Crystal had all intentions of completing the series and additional posts were planned, which is why you will see four titles without a link.

Blindsided Series

Part One: Red Flags and Rose-Colored Glasses

Part Two: Calloused Carnality and Hidden Harassment
(Sunday, June 3, 2018- Tuesday, June 5, 2018)

Part Three: Navigating the Masks of Deceit
(Wednesday, June 6, 2018- Sunday, June 17, 2018)

Part Four: Discerning a Diotrephes: Douglas Stauffer

Part Five: When Closet Skeletons Speak

Part Seven: Rising Up from the Ashes

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