Author: Susan | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

UPC Unpardonable Part 2

Well sure enough, we got a call from the assistant pastor to come into his office before church the following Sunday night. The pastor was out of town but was grooming his son to take over the church and since he came on board, the church took on a stricter tone. One night, he was preaching and began boasting about measuring his wife’s hair and how long it was. I remember being sickened by this talk. I knew God was bigger than the length of my hair! We went in to see him that evening and he told us due to the fact that I had cut my daughter’s hair, my husband would have to step down from his position in the church leadership and I could no longer teach Sunday school. You can call me naïve or stupid, yes, I admit to being both concerning what would happen if I broke the rules or maybe, by this time, I just didn’t care.

Now, during this period of my life, I was just beginning to hear the message of God’s grace. I heard the story of the woman caught in adultery and how Jesus told her “to go and sin no more!” One of the grace filled preachers I was listening to on the radio put it like this “the only one worthy to condemn you, won’t.” I was not stepping down without speaking my mind, so I pulled out some of my new found grace speak. I told the assistant pastor that I felt like the woman caught in adultery except instead of “saying, go and sin no more, you are saying pick up the stones and throw them.” He did not like my protests and insubordination, it was plain to see. To reinforce his position of dismissal, he told me that he knew of my past experience with scissors in cutting my oldest daughter’s hair. Then he proceeded to tell me that cutting my suffering baby’s (not even two years old) hair was just as bad as if I had given her alcohol and cigarettes! (In a works based church, alcohol and cigarettes rank right up there with lying, cheating, and stealing.) Yes, that I had harmed her in the same way as if I had given her abusive substances! It is interesting to note here: the senior pastor called me when he got back in town and told me that he would never have done what his son did!?!

We left church after the meeting, not staying for the service, went home, and went to bed. While lying there in the dark, a certain kind of death like silence fell between my husband and me that would affect us for the next two years that we stayed in this church. We could never tell our family members who did not go to a United Pentecostal Church what happened. To verbalize such a trivial thing as cutting a baby’s hair to cause such a reaction was unthinkable and would have made our church look bad to those unfamiliar with the rules. We did not get support from our relatives or friends in the church either. I remember one family member, who is a pastor’s wife saying, “We would have done the same thing.” Other friends said, “They knew the rules.”

To stay in this church for two more years was one of our biggest mistakes. I bravely wore the scarlet letter on my chest and grew further and further away from this ideology and these people, as they drew away from me. I wasn’t cutting hair and I still looked the part but inwardly I came to see that there was no love in this church. By the end of these two years, my depression over my baby’s illness and the death of all that we had lived for up to that point caused me to want out of my marriage and out of life as I knew it. The pain my husband and I were going through kept the veil of silence over our marriage; we were just going through the motions. If we hadn’t left when we did, I firmly believe our marriage would have ended as did the marriages of many of the couples we knew in this church, including the assistant pastor; who eventually took over the church.

Later, I would learn what church discipline should look like. Jesus didn’t leave us clueless about how to handle discipline for believers who were truly sinning. It was so important that He gives us step by step instructions. Reflecting back on the teachings of the United Pentecostal Church and all the things I have learned since leaving makes me realize that they never really emphasized Jesus that much. Oh, they loved His name for distinction purposes but His death on the cross or any of the words He spoke, not so much.

Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Matthew 18:15-17 NKJV

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UPC Unpardonable

Okay, I did it. I admit it. I cut my hair and my daughter’s hair. I can still remember the first time I cut my hair. We were probably about six years into the United Pentecostal Experience, when I was sitting on the toilet and fearing my hair was going to go in, I grabbed a pair of scissors, sat back down and cut the tail end that could get wet. I don’t remember feeling guilty or that it might not grow after anymore. This fear of hair not re-growing after trimming had been expressed to me by another woman in the church. Yes, Pentecostal women talk about cutting their hair. Oddly, her hair was only shoulder length. I guess it was due to the teasing, etc. that goes into maintaining the elaborate hairdos she wore. I also remember while sitting in a restaurant one lady sighing “if we could only get enough grace to cut our hair.” This woman was one of a group of older women in our church who resorted to wearing those Gibson Girl style wigs all the time. Honestly, I think they just got tired of dealing with all that hair!

As time went by, I was blessed with a little girl who had beautiful hair. Again, I confess! I did not want her to have long stringy, scraggly hair, so while she was a toddler to probably age 6 or so, I kept it shoulder length. I stopped trimming it when she got older; when she told me someone said something to her about it. No one ever said anything to me about it; however, there were those who were spying out my liberty! (Gal 2:4 NKJV) Ha-ha, there is no such thing as liberty in the UPC holiness standards. By this time, it was the late ‘80’s when the super curly hairdos were in, and frankly, you could cut your hair as much as you wanted and no one could tell. Those pink sponge rollers, along with the concrete mousse it took to set those curls, could take off five inches of your hair length!

My second daughter was born six years later and while still an infant she developed a health problem. She was a precious baby but she had a mind of her own! She was not going to dutifully wear the barrettes and other hair restraints young Pentecostal girls are forced to wear to hold their hair in place, due to the rules for no cutting or trimming of their hair. She would pull out everything I put in her hair and along with the restraint, out came a handful of hair. When she had pulled out enough hair to create a bald spot on her head, I took matters into my own hands. I did not consult with my husband or anyone else. I found the best children’s salon and had her hair cut, along with (gasp!) bangs. I brazenly took her to church that Wednesday night, not thinking anything of it. I thought she looked adorable! I would do anything to help my poor, precious baby! No one said anything to me about it that night except my husband who said, “You know they will ask us to step down.”

To be continued…

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Amish Revisited/Did He really say that?

Recently, I watched a three hour episode about the folks who broke Amish were now returning to their roots in Punxsutawney, PA.

Mary, the mother had her fling in New York, even shed her Amish garb and bonnet for a day, but alas the “English” life is not for her. She’s going back to try to repair the damage she did by leaving. If you are Amish and you make the decision to leave, you will be shunned when you try to come back. During this episode, they are focusing on a particularly harsh reality of the Amish (as well as other cult type religions) – if you give up the rules – you will not associate with them under any circumstance. Her dad died and she is not allowed to attend the funeral. Now mind you, she has re-assumed all of the outer garb, looks the part, and is trying to get back into their good graces but no, she is not allowed in.

She is going to visit the leader and give him a piece of her mind about not letting her in to her father’s funeral. Their confrontation goes like this: The leader says, “What are you doing here with cameras and all that worldly stuff? You are shunned; you are not allowed to be around other Amish.” Mary replies, “My Amish mother wanted me to sit beside her and then you come in acting all big and not letting me sit beside my own mother.” Then he says, “The HOLY SPIRIT was telling me to make you leave.” She argues about wanting to pay her last respects to which he replies, “A woman should never come here and talk to a man like you are doing. A woman is supposed to be with her husband.” Mary says her piece, “I want you to know that what you did was a lot worse than anything I ever did!” Determined to get the last word in (brace yourself) he tells her, “You better watch out or a lot of bad stuff will start happening to you if you don’t start behaving, GET OFF MY PROPERTY!”

Sound familiar? Try to leave the group, or speak out, and the threats start to fly. But the thing that really stuck out to me is the unbiblical use of the Holy Spirit that these Bible based cults use. They assign all types of activities to the Holy Spirit that I’m certain He would have no part in and are not in keeping with His nature. Would the Holy Spirit tell him not to allow her into her father’s funeral? Jesus called the Holy Spirit the “Comforter,” one who comes along side us, our helper. The chief fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, with the out flow of love being peace, joy, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, kindness, and self-control. Love is not rude or arrogant; it keeps no record of wrongs.

Another sad and noteworthy statement of this revisiting is made by Mary’s daughter in law, Rebecca. She states, “Amish, I’ll always be Amish on the inside.” No matter how many of the outward trappings of Amish life she leaves behind, she always reverts back to Amish standards when challenged by someone else’s willingness to go beyond her level of freedom. This is indeed the sad fact of many whose minds are trapped by legalistic standards as a way of proving their worth. These standards become the essence of their salvation, never mind a crucified Christ. They never really make it to that place of freedom they are so desperately seeking but live tortured lives of being half in the old life and half out.

Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. Galatians 5:1 MSG

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Sunday Night Fright Night

The stage was set, the tones were hushed, – weeping and moaning could be heard – and the sweat was pouring amid the hot summer breeze blowing through the open windows. We were reaching the climax of another “evangelistic” Sunday night service at my United Pentecostal Church. The building was small and inadequate for the crowds, as was the air conditioning system. Our pastor’s preaching style was starting slowly with a scripture, a title, and then launching into various Old Testament stories and ending with stories of car wrecks, God’s impending judgement on women who didn’t follow the rules, and those waiting too late to “pray back through.”

He was a very large, imposing man and he could be very dramatic in his sermons; visually displaying how the devil had his way with Job, as he scraped his sores. He acted out the stories of Rizpah, shooing away the vultures from the seven slaughtered sons of Saul, staggering back as poor Naomi who would have to be called Mara (meaning bitter) because she went out full and came back empty; no husband, no children, and of course pitiful blind Samson, who didn’t even know when God’s spirit left him. (This thought would haunt me for the rest of my life.)

All of these sermons were meant to create a sense of urgency in the audience to come rushing to the altar benches in front of the pews at the end of the service to plead with God for mercy one more time. This scene was repeated each Sunday night in my United Pentecostal Church. The purpose this served in my life was to make me very fearful of God and not the kind of fear the Bible describes. As a young girl, the first concepts taught to me about God were that of someone who would only love me if I was good enough. If not, He would yank the Spirit right out of me or maybe like Samson it would drift out and I wouldn’t even know it. The long term effect of living with this kind of fear in my life is that I have always taken on the guilt of everything. Every circumstance that comes in to my life causes me to question “is it my fault?” I even dream up circumstances to blame myself for. And since our emotions can’t think, they tend to stick with you through life despite the facts that you know.

Fear and guilt are used as a means of gaining control over the members of these churches. You see, these are not the meek and mild ministers you see in movies, they are in total control. In fact, the churches in the area I am in are not even called by their name but by Brother So and So’s church; whoever the pastor is at the time. You are not to question his authority. These ministers make up strict behavioral rules for you to obey; how to dress and how to comb your hair. If you are going to be allowed to participate you must be following the rules.

Those who don’t follow the rules are disapproved of and seen as the dreaded “worldly.” We were told what we could listen to, where we could go, and what we could do. Fear is used to keep people from leaving the church; you are told there is no alternative, if you leave here you will lose your salvation. It was always stressed that your “church family” is really closer to you than your real family. Why would you ever leave?

But, is this God’s approach to drawing people to Himself? If God’s highest desire is for man’s love and obedience, is it won based on fear of punishment? The answer is no. God’s approach to win man’s love and obedience is love.

“…not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” Romans 2:4b NKJV

“For God so loved the world…John 3:16a NKJV

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:4-7 NKJV

^“For the love of Christ compels us…” II Corinthians 5: 14a NKJV

Dirty Words

Like words made of dirt, gravel, and twigs that need to be chewed up and spit out as quickly as possible or the taste would be too much to bear. There were these kinds of words spoken in my United Pentecostal Church. They are Bible words to be sure, but they just didn’t taste right with the message they were trying to get out. Words like Father, love, and grace. They didn’t understand them and in reality wanted nothing to do with them. But being a church that loosely relied on the Bible to preach their perverted gospel, they must be read or said from time to time. They were never expounded on and by the way they were said, you knew, they wished they weren’t in there.

Honestly, the more I read the things they say, it’s clear to see that there has been no growth for over twenty years. They still write about and speak the exact same half scriptures and clichés. Take the word Father, for example, I don’t think I ever heard of God referred to as our Father. There were no lessons given on the love the Father has for his children. It would have been dangerous to get too mushy when God was spoken about. After all, we must fear Him! If you call Him, Father, then you are hedging perilously close to Him having a Son and, well, if there are two, then…well, just don’t go there!

Love was a word mostly mentioned as something to be aimed at God or fellow standard-bearing churchmen. We don’t need much love around here – be tough, follow the rules – get people up to speed like us. I don’t believe love was ever spoken of as an action word; something you demonstrated so that all would know you were His disciples. That was taken care of by the way you dressed. Who needs love?

The word believe, –ptui! The personal Savior crowd was acknowledged with a slight giggle and indignation. How dare they think that’s enough, why even the devil believes and trembles! Look what it takes to be US – the true church. It’s just not that easy; where is the spittoon?

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound! We sang the song, all right, but we didn’t need a sweet sound; we had the mighty rushing wind. Grace is for those wretched souls who didn’t know the truth. No, no one could be saved by such a word as grace. Grace could mean that God lets you into heaven based on His merit and not your own. The way was much narrower and “few there be that find it.” In fact, even the words Jesus spoke to His disciples, when He was giving them the great commission, were avoided except to say “He didn’t really mean it that way.” It was code language that only they understood – everybody else could go to hell if they didn’t get it.

I always thought it strange that the musical performance group that frequented our church would sing a song using the words of the scripture, John 3:16. It just didn’t fit. I just didn’t get it…

For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. John 3:16 GNT