Category: cult | Page 4 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

God is Like An Elephant

How would you describe an elephant? To me, elephants are gray, and generally calm. They are plodding, steadfast, and they nurture their young. They generally live in herds, and they can work together to accomplish important tasks for the livelihood of their ecosystem. I really like the symbol of the elephant. Studying them is also fascinating. However, none of this is why I say that God is like an elephant.

When I say that God is like an elephant, I am making an analogy to his greatness. Elephants are immense creatures. Of course, God is even greater, but the analogy I wish to make is nonetheless better made with the example of an elephant.

Imagine that you are an artist at a zoo, having never before seen an elephant. You are faced with a wall when you come to where the elephant should be. A sign indicates that, in order to see the elephant, you must look through a peephole in the wall. You notice that there are small peepholes located high and low along the wall, scattered out at different distances. Many other artists are at peepholes, looking through to see the elephant. You choose a vacant peephole and look through, longing to see what an elephant looks like, so that you may paint your masterpiece.

Looking through the peephole, you see a large gray cylinder with a crackled surface. As you continue to gaze, you see it sway slightly. Excited, you rush back to your studio and begin to recreate what you have seen. Soon, you have a beautiful painting of a gray cylinder, with a uniquely designed crackle pattern. You just know that you have perfectly captured the image of an elephant and you can already see the trophy you will win for your life-like painting.

Wrapping the painting carefully, you proudly take it to the contest venue. You place it carefully on the easel for the judges to see, then you turn and stroll through the facility, looking at the other paintings of an elephant.

With growing confusion, you realize that the other artists really have no talent at all. You grow arrogant, thinking to yourself, I am definitely winning this contest! The other paintings look nothing like the elephant you saw through that peephole.

One painting has the same texture, the gray and the crackled surface, but the shape is just off. The artist drew it long and slender, almost snakelike, suspended in midair, with a split end, and it appears to be spewing a cloud of dust. You chuckle, shaking your head. “That is definitely NOT an elephant!” you mumble.

A few steps away, you see another painting, this one just the gray, crackled texture, with a few stems of grass in front of it and some artistic shading. You think to yourself that maybe the artist was attempting an up close version of the elephant.

As the judges assemble to announce the winner, there is silence. Slowly, each judge carries one of the paintings and begins to hang them together, side by side on the wall, some above and some below. As more and more paintings are hung in this fashion, a new view unfolds, and the crowd gasps collectively.

Someone goes to the microphone and gestures to all of the paintings, hung together. “This, my friends, is an elephant.”

Suddenly you feel foolish, realizing that you only painted the back leg of an elephant. You were not the sole winner after all! The judges hand out trophies to each of the artists and you realize that it took all of you together to capture the immense portrait of the elephant because he was simply too big to be seen through one small hole.

In the same manner, many Christian groups have claimed to have the only saving knowledge of who God is. They look down on other groups and make derisive comments about how they have just simply “missed the boat”. They refer to others outside of their group collectively as “the world” or “sinners,” claiming to have some superior connection with God and His character.

I will never forget, upon leaving the cult I grew up in, being told by a preacher, “What are you in search of? You already have all the truth there is to know.” I responded that if I ever think I know everything there is to know about God, I will have just proved my ignorance.

God cannot be put in a box. Only by walking through that wall and getting to the other side of eternity will we ever be able to see Him fully in all His Glory and truly know everything that He is. It is arrogant and foolish to think that any one group of human beings has all the truth they need to know about God, especially while they are still on this side of the wall, looking through a peephole.

I Corinthians 13:12 was speaking about this idea when it stated “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” (New Living Translation)

It is by sharing what we have seen, and getting together with others who see God a bit differently, that we get a glimpse of His attributes.

You can read a book about elephants. Without a picture to see him, you still cannot draw an accurate image. In the same way, the Bible tells us much about God, but it is through knowing Him, and fellowship with other believers who have a slightly different view of Him, that we truly are enriched to know more about Him.

Never again will I be drawn into the cult-like thinking that only the people in this little box have a handle on God. God is too big and too grand to ever fit inside human delineation. We show that we are growing by acknowledging what we do not know. I will never know everything about God until I pass to the other side of life and see Him face to face. Neither will you.

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Temperament’s Role in Spiritual Abuse

There is something interesting that I noted down thru the years. It has to do with the temperament of the constituents in a given church body.

I was born and grew up in the cult like atmosphere where spiritual abuse was rampant. My own father was the pastor/spiritual leader for the greater part of my life. I was not only affected during church services, but I lived with the knowledge that he was my “pastor,” which trumped the father relationship.

My own temperament was always extremely sensitive. I was one that responded very easily to any message of guilt or shame. From a very early age I was a perfectionist and a people-pleaser. However, given my early history as a nine-month-old baby being trained to sit alone on the front pew of the service, it’s hardly surprising that my nature was so sensitive and retiring. I would respond to a simple suggestion of what I should do without a direct command ever having to be given. That was because I was trained from a baby to respond to authorities in this way.

I’m sure that, genetically, I was also wired to be this type of temperament, because my mother was very similar. My sister, who was born after me, was not of the same temperament. However, I’ve noticed that a lot of the constituents of these congregations did often have gentle natures from birth. We are all more submissive by nature.

If you are not by nature submissive, you will not last long in the cult. I noted, as a young adult, how my family was always saying we needed to pray for “strong men” to come into the church, so that they could help carry some of the leadership. Oddly enough, there were never any strong men in my dad’s church.

After I married and moved away, I began to think about this, and I began to realize why. Any time there was a strong man in the congregation, he had a tendency to butt heads with my dad and leave. I began to note that strong men could not survive the environment. If you were in this atmosphere, it was not OK to ever disagree with the pastor. If you disagreed with the pastor, or questioned the pastor, you had a “rebellious spirit,” and you would either leave, or learn to submit.

Obviously, a strong spirited man is not going to submit to that, so they would always leave. Oddly enough, there were a few strong spirited women in the church. They would either leave, or become very close to my dad and mother, to the point of becoming a leader in the church, under my dad’s leadership. It’s a very interesting phenomenon to me that strong men could not learn to do this.

I watched my dad at one point try to have an assistant, or a youth leader. It never worked out. He would literally crush the spirit of any male who came to work closely under him. Strangely, he was pretty good at mentoring men who would live in other cities, and just call him for advice. Allowing someone to work under him in his own church…that was a different story.

I began to understand that there is a very real sense of insecurity in the cult leaders. When people begin to wield so much power, they don’t want to share it with anyone else. They begin to be suspicious of others, in fear of ever losing that position of control.

For many of the people who were constituents of these churches, there was a lot of past abuse, mental problems, or just gentle submissive temperaments involved. It is impossible to rule over and brow beat people who are mentally healthy and strong in their temperament. Therefore, these types of leaders by their very nature, attract congregants who are natural follower–submissive, and gentle by nature.

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Coping with the Cults – Part #3 – Spiritual Abuse

Spiritual abuse is one of those labels that can be overused, much like the word cult. In the times following Jesus’ crucifixion and the birth of the Christian church, Judaism and the Roman occupiers of Jerusalem labeled the Christian movement a cult. However, it is also something that needs to be defined and exposed, because it happens in our neighborhoods, around the block, and in town.

Spiritual abuse is defined as when a spiritual leader, such as a pastor, uses his/her position of authority to control other individuals in a way that requires absolute obedience and results in the personal gain of power, prestige or financial gain.

Part 1 – Separation | Part 2 – Judgmentalism

In the book The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, that author(s) talks about the recovery process necessary to put back one’s faith in God and spiritual leadership after leaving a spiritually abusive situation. Like a man or woman abused by a spouse, or a child physically abused by a parent, in time they begin to believe that this is the norm. Every other man, or women, or parent, must be like this.

Nothing could be farther from the truth, but the wounds of the heart run deeper than the skin, and the wounds of the spirit run deeper yet. God warned of false teachers that would come in, ‘not sparing the flock.’ We think that just meant teaching false doctrines, but the warnings came on the heels of Pharisees using their authority to abuse people.

I know that after I am gone, [false teachers like] ferocious wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; – Acts 20:29, AMP

Spiritual abuse is malicious but covert. I am even willing to admit that some abusers are ignorant of the fact that they are perpetrating abuse. Rather, they are doing it ignorantly, fully convinced that it is the right thing to do.

This is always affected by people who lead a more cult-style religious system than a grace-based, Faith focused, Christ-centered church. Rather than pointing you towards Christ and getting out of the way, these people believe that they are the only pathway to Christ, that their legislated rules and behavior models are the only acceptable way, and that you need their shepherd’s crook around your neck to stay on the straight path.

For instance, in the Oneness Pentecostal sect of Pentecostalism I was in, the leaders often believe in what is called delegated authority or spiritual fatherhood. They have the right to whip your hiney when you get out of line (figuratively). They have the right to set up curfews, and dating policies, and restrict cell phone and internet usage of congregants. They have the right to decide if you attend college, or if you seek professional help for marital or mental health issues.

As a matter of fact, in the bylaws of my old church, they taught that the pastor was the final authority on matters of infidelity – in other words, he decided if and when a divorce could take place. He even chose if and when a marriage could take place, what you could wear, sing and eat at said weddings.

Furthermore, the pastor defined our dress and clothing, what was/was not acceptable, our hairstyles, if we could have facial hair, when women had to wear nylons, and what style of underwear our daughters could wear at certain ages.

Spiritual abuse can take on many other forms, such as requiring work from church members while using guilt to enforce obedience. It can also be exhibited in the grossest forms, where spiritual leaders demand sexual relations with congregants and use their position and authority to demand silence and to instill fear.

What we know for sure, is that this is not the Kingdom or Church of Christ!

Jesus did not come to create a church in which men (and women) would lord over God’s people (1 Peter 5:3) and create rules and standards above and beyond what He already gave us. (Mark 7:7-8)

Rather, understanding and knowing that Christ came to set up a church in which humanity was inspirited to live for Him due to his love and mercy!

The adulteress of John 8 is a beautiful example of Christ combating legalism and spiritual abuse. This allows us to fulfill Scripture when we say, show me another human who is without sin, and thus is capable of passing judgment, and I’ll show you a liar. (1 John 1:8)

However, when they persisted in questioning Him, He straightened up and said, “He who is without [any] sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸Then He stooped down again and started writing on the ground. ⁹They listened [to His reply], and they began to go out one by one, starting with the oldest ones, until He was left alone, with the woman [standing there before Him] in the center of the court. ¹⁰Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” ¹¹She answered, “No one, Lord!” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you either. Go. From now on sin no more.”] John 8:7-11, AMP

The Results of Spiritual Abuse

The most common result of spiritual abuse is causing a soul to turn away from God. This bruised and scarred spirit will take on the attitude that if that is what God is, they want nothing to do with that God.

Another result is reverse judgmentalism. This person will cast the behavior of a very bad minister upon the face of all other ministers. This is equally devastating as the judgmentalism of cult leaders and followers because it denies the one abused the right they have to recover and to see faith again.

Fear and depression is a major sign and a result of spiritual abuse. One woman recently said that she used to wake up with panic attacks in fear of God cursing her for all the wrongs she had done. When she stopped feeling that panic, she would panic again, now believing that God had given her up and she was eternally damned. Why? She was wearing jewelry, or pants, or cutting her hair.

Marital and family conflict is a very major part of the spiritual abuse and marks the organization as a cult when it demands loved ones to refuse to be part of each other lives based on the premise of believing in the organization’s set of guidelines and ideas.

Self-hate and criticism was my drug. You begin to question your own intelligence, and sanity! Some will say, ‘How could I have been so stupid!‘ or ‘Why would I be so deceived to let someone do that to me?‘ You can even start to believe it was your fault, that the responsibility was yours.

Worst of all, is that the lies of a spiritually abusive leader will be so ingrained, that even after exiting from the system, you’ll constantly wonder, ‘What if they were right, and I’m lost now?’ It can cling to you like the spray of the skunk. No matter what you try, and how many showers you take, that scent is still in your nose, always reminding you of the past.

Recovery from Spiritual Abuse

It will sound strange coming from a faith-based ministry like Divide The Word, but there are some very real and consequential steps to take in your recovery. These are by no means a complete list, and if it comes down to depression, anxiety, and marital struggles, you need to seek professional help.

Also, read the book The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse! You can find it here very inexpensively, and if you desperately need help buying the book, send me a private message on my contact page and I’ll help.

Surround yourself with both secular and more loving faith-based people.
Often times, secular people can provide understanding without looking at you or your situation through the eyes of religious standards or requirements, and thus, be a very healing antidote to the poison in your heart.
Read, read, read!
Read books like Toxic Faith, Spiritual Abuse, visit websites like spiritualabuse.org and find local and even internet communities that are for the purpose of recovering from spiritual abuse. I will say this boldly, and clearly: Anyone who scoffs at the idea that spiritual abuse is real, and tells you this is nonsense, is themselves an abuser. You must find support and community. The single most healing aspect of my own recovery was first understanding, as sad as it made me feel, that I was not alone. There were hundreds and thousands out there with the same story. This made me feel like I had a family again, and there you’ll find comfort, understanding, and friendship.
Seek professional psychological help
There are too many pastors and teachers that believe they have your every need, and it is simply just not true. There are some traumas that ingrain themselves into our psyche that requires digging out. Certainly, God is powerful enough and capable, but the real bottleneck is our own mind and heart. Having a professional help us open ourselves up again, to learn to let go of some of the pain and accept the nectar of God’s love, is sometimes the only way back.

Conclusion

Spiritual abuse, like Satan, is alive and real. It’s around the corner probably and in most towns. Denying this keeps it alive. Staying quiet about it keeps it alive. Believing that it is isolated, keeps it alive.

The most important thing we can all do about spiritual abuse is to expose it where it lays. Drag it out into the street for all to see. Put the Scarlet Letter S on it like a badge of shame so that we can keep as many souls from being scarred by it as possible.

We cannot stamp it out, or root it out completely, for God himself said that these men would come in among us. Yet, we can mitigate the results, and when we find someone who was abused, spiritually, we can make our calling and election sure by displaying the real love of Christ to them, in acceptance, in refusing to judge, and most importantly, being there and caring for them in their time of need.

For certainly, someone extracted from spiritual abuse is a spiritual widow or fatherless child until the true Father, and husband, is accepted back into the fragile heart of a human.

Pure and unblemished religion [as it is expressed in outward acts] in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit and look after the fatherless and the widows in their distress, and to keep oneself uncontaminated by the [secular] world. – James 1:27

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Coping with the Cults – Part #2 – Judgmentalism

Since leaving a cult, I have delved into studying, writing, reading, talking and coping with the very real, sometimes hidden, but obvious affects cults and their teachings have on lives. Most certainly the very word ‘cult’ conjures up the worst horrors to hit the news headlines, like Jonestown, or Waco, TX, but the majority of cults are far less obvious and insidiously covert, and right next door.

The most common fear or result we have seen as a result of leaving a cult is the harsh judgmentalism that is felt by those who leave, or ‘change.’ You don’t obey their dress standards anymore. You can feel the whispers, the stares. You can even see it in their children’s eyes.

Part 1 (Please see Part 1 for my definition of a Cult)

In Part 1 we dealt with coping with rejection and separation from all you’ve known and been connected to, in the cult. One of the most glaring and obvious signs of a cult is that they require your entire social circle to revolve around them. Your friends, your family, sometimes your job.

Fellowship with ‘outsiders‘ is forbidden. Friendship with the ‘world’ they say, is enmity with God. This is Scriptural, but their definition of ‘the world,’ is twisted and perverted. To them, that is everyone who doesn’t believe and perform in their predefined mold.

To the JW and Mormon structures, absolute avoidance of non-members is required. To my ex-Oneness Pentecostal cult, you can wave and be nice to the family member that has left the ‘way,’ but you should avoid them as much as possible. To the Scientologist, destroying the reputation and value of those who have left, and hate for them is nearly required.

What is Judgmentalism?

So the end result of this mentality is judgmentalism. Judgmentalism exists by believing that there is a superior, or only way, believing that you alone have that only way and thus have found perfection. Anyone who rejects your way, or doesn’t line up is sub-par. They are rejected by God due to these performance standards, and thus, can/should be rejected by you.

For instance, the holiness standards of the United Pentecostal Church, International hold the following ideas simple ideas:

Women cannot wear pants or they violate ‘Wear not that which pertaineth unto a man.’ (Deut 22:5)
Men cannot have long hair, and women cannot cut their hair (short) to any degree. (1 Corinthians 11:14-15)

My particular church held the additional standards:

Watching Television/Movies is sinful (Psalm 101:3)
Wearing short sleeve shirts or shorts (men) is sinful (no Scripture for this)
Men are not to have facial hair (no Scripture for this)
Women need to wear pantyhose when in public or at church events
etc

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: – Hebrews 12:14, KJV

They have defined all these things as ‘Holiness,’ and then use Hebrews 12:14 (wrongly) to enforce the idea. Why am I saying this?

Because with this mentality, you can now judge those who do not follow this lifestyle choice. For instance, I know a woman who is still in this church standard, and she saw another woman on the side of the road who had left the ‘way,’ in pants. This woman said, ‘Well look, you can see she obviously isn’t going to make it…she is in pants after all.’

A judgment about her status was based on her outward appearance, which, in this case, alluded to her spiritual well-being, as in, she (the women wearing pants) was lost.

Another example of spiteful judgmentalism is how they ignore those who have left their circles. For instance, the bishop of the church I once attended pulled up in a truck to a driveway I stood in with another local businessman, ignored me completely, and refused to acknowledge my wave and greeting. He spoke to the other businessman, then drove away without looking at me.

Recently, the pastor of the church sent a Christmas card to my home and wrote the label to specifically exclude me from their holiday wishes. They could have labeled the envelope, ‘Brickley Family,’ but instead they singled out my wife and daughter.

They and their followers will say, ‘You are the one who chose to leave.’ Yet, I’m not sure how you can justify dropping respect and decency for another person simply because they disagree with you, and/or choose not to attend weekly services at your building.

Another young man decided to leave the church and this same pastor told him spitefully, ‘We will compare how our kids turn out in 30 years to decide who is right and who is wrong.’

This is why judgmentalism is a stumbling block. It can never bear good fruit. Jesus rightly said, ‘Ye shall know them by their fruits,’ and the pastor used the Word spitefully and incorrectly. Judgmentalism overrides common sense, decency, and wisdom. It is not a fruit of God’s Spirit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. – Galatians 5:22-23, KJV

How to cope with Judgmentalism

1. Realize only God can judge you!

First, and foremost, come to grips with the reality that God is the only one capable and worthy to judge you, and when it came right down to it, He doesn’t do so superficially. If other flawed humans are judging you, they do it at their own peril and in our their own ignorance, violating Scripture commandments not to judge.

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:8

Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way. – Romans 14:13

The cult will demand perfection for admittance, or to maintain your membership, which is truly a stumbling block to faith! God simply demands you strive not to sin, knowing of course that you will again. Consider again the adulteress of John 8, an illustration I’ve used many times.

When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. – John 8:10-11, KJV

We can also take comfort that while God definitely has an opinion about our outward appearance (dress) he is most concerned with the condition of the heart.

But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart. – 1 Samuel 16:7

2. Surround yourself with non-judgmental people

Human nature tends to be judgmental, so we are going to face this issue throughout our life. Yet, when Coping with the Cults, your primary step towards healing is to get connected with ‘outsiders.’ And this will feel unnatural at first! You’ve been taught for years, perhaps your entire life, that this is absolutely wrong, to connect with people outside of the ‘way.’

More pointedly, find both religious and non-religious people that you can speak to, maybe even family that you had before the cult that would listen to your pains and understand them.

Look, when entering a cult, you cut off the entire world outside the cult. When exiting a cult, they cut you off from them. You are like an infant again in a world of strangers and now, it feels like limbo. Who do you have to turn to now? You must find them!

There are great Facebook groups like SpiritualAbuse.org and their website. These places will connect you to hundreds, thousands of people with similar stories and experiences that can listen, understand and help.

3. Do not become bitter and offer the same treatment in return

Lashing back at them is hard to avoid but is ever so important to avoid it. However, do not confuse exposing the hurt and the behavior of these groups as just being bitter. I expose them all the time, and they accuse me of being bitter.

But in my exposure of these cults, I have had many people come and say, ‘Thank you for sharing this! I was going through this and felt alone and didn’t know where to turn!’

You can be an instrument for a change! Those people who judge you are watching and waiting for your reaction. It may just be that in healing, you cause them to see you didn’t turn into the demon the cult said you would.

I have an in-law that calls me names because now I wear facial hair, which he is not allowed to have. I could in turn label and judge him, but my impact on him would diminish and it would just be a spitting match.

My son watched my words and behavior after I left the cult and had to start admitting, dad might be right… If I had become vile and bitter, he would have believed the worst of me, and been justified to think I had ‘gone astray.’

Conclusion

Coping with the Cults will not be easy, whatever brand, label or type it is. The judgmentalism runs deep in the roots of these organizations. Gossiping is generally the most visible sign of their spirit, both in organizations and in people.

When my sister left our church, years ago, people talked about her all the time. My dear mother, God rest her soul, would ask me at times, “Why do they have to be so mean to her?” They were the church leaders.

The answer is because they must. To be part of the gang you act like the gang. To be accepted into a social circle, you must morph with them. To be considered one of us, you need to act like us.

If you realize this and pray for them, silently forgive them, and count it an opportunity to show them a more real truth, a more real God, and a more real faith, you can endure and spring forth fruits from the judgmentalism.

More importantly, you can slowly etch away at the scars within yourself. Someone who has been deeply ingrained in a cult like society must battle out the judgmentalism they carry in their hearts. There are moments that you’ll look at other people and make decisions based on their appearance. Perhaps even looking back at those you escaped from and judge them.

Battle it out, pray it out, and be thankful you got out!

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Coping with the Cults – Part #1 – Separation

The most common question I am asked, the top concern and hurt I see through my YouTube channel, this blog, interviews and online groups, is ‘How do I cope with the pain of all those I loved who now reject me, simply because I no longer go to church there?’

This series on Coping with the Cults will be focused on addressing the real and emotional outcomes that are a result of being a member of, or being affected by someone who is in a cult. But before we move on, I want to address the word cult and what I mean when I say it.

What is a cult?

1. The word itself has a few different social meanings. We have heard the phrase ‘cult following’ around a brand, a product, even a movie. Even Netflix has a section called Cult Sci-Fi & Fantasy. That is to say, these movies have a large fan base. Products like Apple can be referred to as the Apple Cult.

In this sense of the word, cult simply means something that is loved and/or adored by others.

2. The second most common definition of cult is a religion. Christianity, from its very beginning was considered to be a cult by Judaism and the Romans who occupied Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. That is to say, a religious cult is a religious movement or organization that differs dramatically from the social normative of religion in the time and environment the group was formed in.

Christianity of its time was considered to be a cult.

3. Today’s most common understanding of the word cult, and what I mean when I say it, is a religious organization that exhibits the following major characteristics at the very foundation of the belief structure:

Exclusive – They are the only ones ‘with the truth,’ and often use phrases such as ‘coming into the truth’, or ‘leaving the truth.’ You must be in their organization and share exactly their beliefs in order to gain salvation, and leaving the organization is often hard, painful and doing so labels you as apostate.
Secretive – These groups will internally teach doctrines, beliefs and practices that they do not share publicly, knowing that the knowledge would create ridicule and scare away new converts before indoctrination and take away the shock of the beliefs. They may also have sacred texts or writings that only upper echelon member are privy too.
Authoritarian – The biggest and most insidious aspect to religious organizations known as cults is their practice of gathering around a single, often charismatic human leader who through indoctrination, brain washing and often outright demands, requires absolute and unwavering loyalty and obedience by his/her followers. This is often displayed by members becoming aggravated and potentially violent towards any who oppose the leaders teachings.

This third example is the type of church I attended for fifteen years and what I, and the majority of the world that studies cults, would define as a cult.

A young man from the very same church I left asked the pastor there if he could marry a young lady in the church. Because this young man had been asking questions about the doctrines of the church, the pastor told him no. He was told;

“Until I feel your unwavering loyalty, I will not give you one of my girls.”

This is a cult. One in which your privileges in life are at the permission of the leader. An organization that makes you believe that you must cut off family, friends and other associations in order to be in right standing with them. A belief system that makes you guard what you tell people about it, is most definitely a cult.

What happens when you leave a cult? Separation

Disfellowshipped, cast aside as chaff, purged wickedness. Separation.

If you decide of your own volition to leave a cult, you are one of the few. And if you are told you had to leave the church, the result is the same. As a matter of fact, this is so important to some religious organizations that follow this definition of a cult, they have entire web pages dedicated to teaching their followers how to cope with Disfellowshipping their own children.

The Jehovah’s Witness organization is one such group that fits this mold and puts a lot of effort, like the Mormon faith, into teaching their followers the art of separating from those who no longer believe ‘the faith,’ or as little as ‘break the rules’.

This article, entitled God’s Love – How to treat disfellowshipped people?, goes on to declare that strict avoidance and abandonment of a disfellowshipped person is necessary to prove ones loyalty to God, even if it is your children.

In this article, Why Disfellowshipping Is a Loving Provision, they try to show how Julian dealt with the Church declaring his son an outlaw, disfellowshipped and to be shunned. His Son.

“What Jehovah expects of us is reasonable and is a protection for us. For example, we all want to live among peaceful, decent, and honest people, and that is what we experience among our spiritual brothers and sisters. Why are they this way? Because they dedicated themselves to Jehovah and promised to live by what he says in the Bible.

How stark a contrast these teachings are to the power of love given to us by Christ.

John 8:7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
John 8:10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
John 8:11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

What a different story! The example from the Jehovah’s Witness web page, and my old Oneness Apostolic Pentecostal cult said, ‘get right, perfect yourself, cleanse the sin, and then we will accept you!’ But Jesus said, “I’ve already accepted you in your sin, and I do not judge or condemn you, let that be the reason you cleanse yourself from sin.”

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:8, KJV

How to cope with separation?

This is for most, the hardest and most crucial moment in escaping from a cult, and retaining their faith in a loving God. It would be all too easy to say, ‘Why would God allow something like this to happen?’ and abandon faith. To let the pendulum swing to the other extreme.

We’ve probably all heard someone say, and maybe the preacher, ‘Would God allow us to have growth and revival if HE wasn’t in what we are doing?’ as if that proved the validity of their systems. To that I would ask, why is the Muslim faith the fastest growing religious organization on the planet? Is God in it?

In the book, The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, it ends with something I wasn’t expecting when I first read it, fresh after leaving the cult. The authors, David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen, said leaving a spiritually abusive system was like leaving a physically abusive relationship, or leaving a drug addiction. It would take recovery.

Recovery? I shuddered. I left it, what did I have to recover from?

Bitterness for sure. To have the sudden realization that those whom you called friend, and even loved ones, turned from you simply because you decided to no longer attend a church. Not that you left God, became a robber and a murderer, or blasphemed God, you just left that address, or building. Can friendship be that cheap? Their responses will be, ‘You’re the one who left.’

Fear daily. What if they were right? What if the curses of God are about to crash down on me? Did I make a mistake? Will they ever talk to me again? I don’t have any friends now. What will my family say about me?

Anger at the system. Anger at those who follow the system. Mostly, angry at yourself for being so gullible and stupid. How could I have been so weak and stupid to let them control me like that?

When I read this I nearly broke out in tears. It was true. I was really angry, and I could easily take it out on others, but I was really angry with myself. That I would allow another human being with no gun to my head to control me so utterly. I felt like my manhood was ripped away. Really small, you know?

And then they said, this is how a drug addict feels. That small pill, the little bottle. The tiny droplet, or small pile of white powder. It had absolute control over them. And they felt stupid.

In the book Toxic Faith by Stephen Arterburn and Jack Felton, they describe spiritual abuse like physical abuse, in that humanity tends to cling to the abuse if it is all they have known, because the unknown somehow seems more painful.

What a vicious cycle it is, and I believe God alone has judgement for the propagators of this hate.

The only way to Cope with the Cults, and the separation that follows, is to get help!

Consider this list of the top five steps you must take after a marital separation and see how it applies to Coping with the Cults.

Recognize that it’s OK to have different feelings
Give yourself a break
Don’t go through this alone
Take care of yourself emotionally and physically
Avoid power struggles and arguments with your ex-church fellowship

#5 originally read, “Avoid power struggles and arguments with your spouse or former spouse.”

This is poignant because when you buy in to a cult, you are marrying the system. You are not just someone who attends, but you are a member. You have committed to being one with the organization; you are, in all intents and purposes, betrothed. And separation from that is painful and has long term tremors.

You can, and you will recover! You will find support, and new friends, a fresh start, the life God intended you to live. It may take months, and in some cases, there are those who have been out for years that still face the struggle.

But God has better plans for you! You can Cope with the Cult that dogs you in the shadows of your mind, because God is not the author of confusion. Life was never intended to be a closet society on the fringe edge of normality.

You did escape, and you can escape, and you will recover, if you realize you were NOT STUPID, you are human. You are OK to have different feelings. You will not be hard on yourself for the past, and you most certainly will not do this alone. You will take care of yourself, free from the judgementalism of your past, and you, not in the spirit of separation, but in the spirit of love and recovery, will not endanger yourself by becoming embroiled in arguments and power struggles with those who would condemn you.

Remember the words of Christ as you go on in victory, Coping with the Cults.

Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

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