Category: my experience | Page 19 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

Fallen from grace (spiritual competition in the church)

Maybe this is right. Maybe its a little off base. But I think there is more to it than a lot of people in my ex-church would like to admit. I really feel sorry for them. I remember what grace was like. I can find it again. Many of them never knew grace to start with, and don’t know what they are missing.

Falling from Grace
(spiritual competition)

On the way home tonight I was thinking…

The church I’m in is very conservative. They weren’t always this way. Several years after the church started, when it had started to grow fairly large, some people felt convicted over sleeve length. They went to the pastor and informed him of how they felt. He accepted this as their conviction. There was some stir after this about whether or not they should wear long sleeves at work if the dress code required otherwise (several of them worked for the same entity). The pastor was careful to say that they had the Holy Ghost, and as they walked closer to God they might develop stronger convictions. This, I’m sure, made them feel good about their convictions. Others began to follow suit, both to support those who were “fighting for their convictions” against their employer, and to show they were spiritual too. The employees won their case after a long fight. Several had lost their jobs though, and were seen as “persecuted for righteousness sake” because they lost their jobs “fighting for their (presumably God given) convictions.”

Over time, other “convictions” became established norms in this church. The pastor felt a conviction against hair bows. Weren’t they decoration, after all? Some saints came close to (or did fall into) fornication. Wouldn’t they have been safer had they had a chaperone, or if someone had told the pastor that they were in trouble? The people loved the pastor, and the pastor loved them. He was hard on them, but they were used to that. He pushed them to the limit spiritually. This was challenging and “worth the fight”. Competition grew, and gossip became more rampant.

A few people in the church became very spiritual as a result. They later backslid, but before they did, they were respected for a time. People emulated their “good” character. But it wasn’t good. Then they fell. The church lost about 30-40% of its members in a short time due to economic and political changes and people backsliding. This again increased the competition.

A Christian school was started, a new sanctuary built, and the church became better known. In the school, the same children saw each other six days a week for 14 years. The sanctuary was one of the best in the city, and was a source of pride. They were often told the building would be filled to capacity someday. It was considered great faith to believe this and visualize it and reach others to help fill it. There was also a pride in the fact that the church and pastor were well known. The saints traveled to some of the meetings the pastor preached, and noticed that not everyone carried the convictions they had been taught. They began to think that they were especially blessed people who had something many other places didn’t have. Spiritual competition had just been taken to a new level.

By the time I arrived, spiritual competition had become common place and was not thought of as abnormal. Third generation Pentecostals were now competing, much as their parents and grandparents had. There was a form of sibling rivalry amongst the saints, of who was most loved by the pastor and who spent the most time with him. Family member competed against family member, and group against group. People bragged about who was closest to the pastor and who had done what for him. This was considered normal, but was it? What happened to grace? Where did “love your neighbor” go? These were virtually absent. People were disappointed if the message was on love or grace, and preferred the messages on hell and damnation! These were the tapes they bought, the messages they shouted to, the ones they rehashed later over coffee.

What happened to grace? Many of them traded it for spiritual competition. But spiritual competition can’t save. Only grace can do that, and they had forgotten where to find it.

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Exorcism

*WARNING: This contains material which may be triggering to some*

There was one side affect to being “possessed” that I liked. When my Mom was addressing me (and not the demon) she was more kind than she’d been in a long time. Also, she paid more attention to me than she had in a long time. Watching over me took priority over her best friend’s daughter for the first time since they came into our lives. Of course, she was watching me and spending time with me to “make sure the demon in me didn’t hurt anyone”, but it was still nice to have my Mother back. Because of this, I started lying. They would ask me if the demon was speaking to me or if I was feeling rage, confusion, etc. and I lied and said yes because I wanted to keep receiving attention from my Mom and preference over the her friend’s daughter. As I kept saying yes to everything they asked me about what was going on with me, they decided they were going to have to cast it out as soon as possible. I don’t remember what the reason was for ever waiting.

So one weekend we go to Mom’s best friend’s house for the specific purpose of getting the demon cast out of me. My parents, Mom’s best friend and her husband, and their teenage daughter all participated. Their son wasn’t considered “spiritually stable” enough to help since the demon in me had come from him. They took me into a back room of their house, the farthest away from neighbors. They said that we might get loud and they didn’t want anyone calling the cops thinking that someone was getting hurt.

When we got in the room, they put me in the middle of the floor and gathered around in a circle. I can’t remember a lot of what was said, but there was a lot more describing of what the demon looked like, what it was “saying” to them about me, etc. At one point, they made me lay down and they each took an arm and a leg and held it tight to the floor. They said that if the demon got mad, it might give me extra strength. Sometimes I pushed my arms and legs against them to see if I did have super-human strength, but I was never stronger than my 9 year old self. Ha.

This went on for hours, my Dad got disgusted pretty quick and left the room. He was still pretty emotionally disturbed over his brother dying recently (which I wrote about here) and didn’t like what he was seeing them do to me. They also had just asked me if I’d had thoughts of suicide, and like I had been doing lately, I answered yes even though it wasn’t true. There was a lot of screaming at the demon to come out, and sometimes all the people holding me down and yelling in my face these awful descriptions got so scary that I screamed. They then said that “it was close”, so I started screaming more to try and bring this awful episode to an end. I don’t remember what was the deciding factor, but eventually someone yelled “It’s out!!!” and then my Mom grabbed me and hugged me.

I was so happy, I thought that I wouldn’t be scared at night anymore in my bedroom. I thought the demon talk and visions would be over. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

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Finding God in Spite of Men

My dad became the co-pastor of the church my grandfather pastored, and it was here that I spent the rest of my childhood. It is my understanding that they had the agreement all along that this would be the way that my dad would take over the church when my grandfather wanted to retire. This was to make sure there was no opening for the district to try to put in a pastor or influence the members.

It was during this time that I received the Holy Ghost, speaking in other tongues. I was eight years old, and had been “seeking” for a couple of years. The weekend before this happened, another little girl in the church had received the Holy Ghost, speaking in other tongues at a youth rally. I figured if she could do that, I could probably get it too. For me, there was nothing negative about this experience. It was wonderful in every way!

A few months before I had asked to be baptized, but my parents talked me out of it because they felt like I was just doing it because my friends were doing it. However, after that experience, I was allowed to be baptized. My grandfather baptized me in the name of Jesus. I know that I felt wonderful after being baptized!

However, even though we were little children, we were expected to pray for people in the altar, pray a full 30 minutes before church each service, and live “good holy lives.” It seems that before this point, I was not aware of the stipulations and rules about performance. After I received the Holy Ghost and was baptized, that burden begin to get heavier and heavier, as I slowly became aware of all the things “God expected” of me.

I remember one night during a very emotional service, my friend and I were falling out in the floor and rolling back-and-forth, because we had heard about the “old days” where people were “holy rollers.” Everyone was always “wanting to go back to the old paths in the old days.” I guess in our little minds we felt this was very spiritual. I remember one night during this time my dad “shouted”, which he rarely did, but when he was dancing, he turned over one of the pews on which a little boy was asleep. The child was not hurt, but did get dumped unceremoniously into the floor.

I remember one lady had difficulty giving up her cigarettes, even after being baptized and speaking in tongues. Several members of the church, including my parents, (which meant I was there too) stayed and prayed with her for hours, trying to help her “get the victory” over those cigarettes.

During those days, it was more common to have someone come to church who was “demon possessed“. When this would happen, and they would be trying to rebuke the devil out of this person, all of us children were sent into another room, presumably so the devil wouldn’t come out on us.

Very loud worship was encouraged, and if it was a really good service with a “real move of God,” people were usually dancing, having a “victory march”, “shouting”, or someone got the Holy Ghost. It happened a lot during that time.

I recall my dad getting frustrated with my grandmother, because during the long preaching, she would draw pictures for us on a tablet of paper and let us copy them. Once, my dad called her name out from the pulpit to rebuke her for drawing for us. It was not uncommon for him to call out certain children or teenagers who were not behaving during his preaching. Embarrassment seemed to be something he felt was effective for dealing with these kinds of problems.

As a shy child, I lived in fear of being called out in this way. It was very mortifying for me to have attention drawn to me negatively. I was very sensitive as a child, and a simple rebuke in private could bring me to tears. These public humiliations were a nightmare for me, and I did my best to avoid them at all costs.

Eventually my grandfather handed the church over to my father. He and my grandmother moved to another city to retire, and attended the church of my uncle, who was not United Pentecostal, but independent Oneness Pentecostal.

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Evangelism in the United Pentecostal Church

I was five or maybe six when we first started evangelizing in a small trailer. I remember how tense things would get when it was time to get ready for church. We would have to climb up on the bed and be very quiet and still while dad would get ready for church. We often got in trouble for not being quiet enough or still enough. Once dad was out of the trailer, mom would get me ready and send me to him, then get my sister and herself ready. I later discovered the reason for this was because the trailer was too small for more than one person to move around at once. This is the same reason we were allowed only two or three toys each.

Evangelizing meant lots and lots of church, everywhere, all the time. I heard my parents stressing over offerings that were not big enough to take care of our family. I heard conversations where dad got reprimanded for something he preached at a church. Once my bike was stolen when we were parked outside of the church. I never got it back.

Homeschooling while living that lifestyle was the worst ever! I can recall mom being so frustrated trying to teach me that she would send me inside the church, where my dad would be studying, in some area that the pastor had allowed him to use. He would try to teach me, but without fail, it would end up with him yelling at me, and then I would be too anxious to think straight. Although I later found out that I was fairly intelligent, I sure didn’t feel it during those times.

Eventually we ended up parked for several months outside a family member’s church in a different state. This family member pastored what, at the time, seem like a fairly large United Pentecostal church. I remember being babysat by a couple of teenage girls in the church. It was funny because the girls would spell things to each other, thinking that they were talking above our heads, not realizing that I very well knew how to spell those words. They were often talking about the pastor’s sons and their romantic involvement with them. It was not a very positive conversation.

At one point, this church ran a huge campaign on a college campus in that city. The campaign was to advertise a series of services they were planning to have, to expose the rock music agenda. I remember being terrified during those services as rock songs were played backwards to reveal secret messages, and fearful language was used to “bring conviction”. The place was packed out, but I don’t remember what the results of the services were. I do remember being terrified, and standing with my mom in the back, and then my mother taking us out, because the content was too scary for us. I appreciate her doing that.

There were a lot of private adult conversations that went on during that time, and I was vaguely aware of unrest. I never figured out the gist of those conversations. Abruptly, we left, and my dad took the pastorate of another small church.

At this new church they had a tradition of singing happy birthday every Sunday morning to all the people who had birthdays, and singing to all the people who were having anniversaries. Oddly enough, the anniversary song was “When the Battle’s Over, We Shall Wear a Crown”. I remember thinking that marriage must be really difficult.

We did not stay at this location very long. Again, I was too small to know all the details, but apparently my dad “butted heads ” with some of the older people in the church and was either asked to leave, or realized it was best to leave. We were again evangelizing, homeschooling, and experiencing family stress. We were in church services constantly.

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Maybe it is just me

For years when I didn’t seem to be able to ‘fit in’ in the cultic church that was my heritage, I would ask myself “is it just me?” Is it just me when it seems there is so little real friendship, or even so few real people? Is it just me when things just don’t make sense and I am unable to mindlessly just go along when everyone else seems OK? Is it just me when I feel shunned but don’t really understand why? Or when my beautiful well liked (everywhere but church) children are shunned? Is it just me when I feel I have no true friends in the church?

In viewing my life from this much older person vantage point, I think perhaps some of it was just me. When we first left the cult and found other escapees with similar experiences, there was great relief in thinking “OK, it wasn’t just me!”

However, upon reflection, I am beginning to realize much of my unhappiness in the cult came from my own nature to not be a cliquey, groupy, type person. I remember as a 10 year old getting all the neighborhood girls together to form a club, but though they were all my friends, some didn’t know each other and had formed their own little cliques. My goal was to ‘bring us all together’. Then in high school, after lunch, I would go from clique to clique, being friendly to many different and differing groups. One friend asked me why I didn’t just pick one group to belong; I really didn’t know, it just didn’t fit ‘me’.

As an adult, my hubby and I would throw parties and I intentionally invited people from my eclectic groups of friends, neighbors, church friends, scouting friends, homeschool friends, etc. I would make up icebreaker questions so they could get to know each other. One of the funniest is when ‘I was a high school quarterback’ was answered by our little petite friend, Marsha 😀 (it was an all girl team, but still . . . .)

In the cult, having outside, different friends was discouraged unless you were attempting to bring them into ‘the truth’. Following the rules explicitly was expected, but most seemed more than a bit hypocritical in this. Another way it probably was just me; I abhorred hypocrisy, so it was either I really followed the belief or I really didn’t. I have always worked diligently at being the same person no matter where I was.

So maybe, at least a part of why I never seemed to really fit into a group and culture that I was literally 3rd generation born in was ‘it was just me’! The best part of me! The me that refused to be part of a clique, the me that loved people from all walks of life, the me that tried to forge friendships in diversity, the me that refused to be hypocritical, the me that God created me to be.

It is OK to be me .

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