Category: experiences in church | Page 3

The Dress

It was camp time, and I, as usual, didn’t have much money for the fancy evening clothes that most people my age would be wearing. Looking through the thrift stores, I found one dress. It met all the requirements: 3/4 sleeves, mid calf, not too fitted, high necked. It was a beautiful antique green-gray with a cream background, and it fit me perfectly.

Since having been kicked out of my previous church because my former pastor “felt in his spirit” that I was “lusting after” him, I hadn’t felt like looking very pretty. I had started, in my mid 20s, dressing in bulky dress jumpers a size or two too large, in dull or dark colors. This wasn’t modesty, though I didn’t know it then. It was humiliation and depression and a very unhealthy body image.

I wanted to look pretty in a way, but I was also very embarrassed about looking good. Wasn’t that immodest? Would I look sexy? I never wanted to be accused of causing a man to lust again. But I also wanted to look attractive. I saw other women my age at church. They didn’t dress like I did, and they weren’t accused. They were admired. And then I found the dress.

I questioned whether I should buy it. It looked absolutely great on me… and I wasn’t sure if that was great or terrible. But I loved it so much and I loved the way I looked in it. So I bought it. And the last night of camp, I wore it. I was a little self conscious in it, because I knew I looked good, but worried that it showed my figure more than my bulky jumpers, but I was also very happy with it. And so I shouted through the Friday night service and went back home the next day, very happy with my week.

And then came Sunday morning. The pastor’s wife taught our Sunday School class, and that morning she dedicated the class time to discussing how someone in the class had worn something terrible on Friday night. It was too fitted. It showed way too much. The person who wore it should have worn a girdle. She was so embarrassed for her…. For me. I was a size 6-8. I was 20-something with no kids. I’d never married. And the dress, apparently, though she never named me, was bad. I never wore the dress again.

Looking back now, I have to wonder what her problem was. I wasn’t dressed badly. I actually was dressed more like everyone else than I’d been in several years. I met all the rules of the dress code. Did she pick up on my self consciousness and exploit it? Was she jealous? Or was it just pure spite? If she was really embarrassed for me, if she really cared, wouldn’t she have come to me privately and expressed her concern, rather than spending Sunday morning detailing her embarrassment of the unnamed person to the class? (And wouldn’t she have done the same for whoever it was, if it wasn’t me?)

I wonder these thing now, looking back. I recently lost weight and needed new clothes. The ones I had were so large they were falling off of me. And every time I go to try on clothes that really fit, I think of that dress from nearly 20 years ago, when I was condemned for feeling pretty.

Harmed In That Cesspool Of Awfulness Part 5

When one has been exposed to spiritual abuse, great harm can be done. While some escape with minimal or no injury, most do not leave unscathed. Those who are particularly harmed are the men and women who were sexually abused, and making that even worse for them, is when a church/minister covers it up and the perpetrator faces no real consequences. By failing to report these to police, I believe these ministers are partially responsible for those who are later assaulted. The stories of sexual abuse are especially heartbreaking as the survivors are forever changed. You will notice that this installment in the series has a different title and it is taken from a woman’s comment that is seen below. I saved these for last due to the nature of their experiences and because this is a lead-in back to my earlier series on the United Pentecostal Church And Sexual Abuse.

In two groups, I asked people to share how they were harmed during their time in the United Pentecostal Church. I received enough responses to make five blogs. [See also Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.] These are used by permission and are anonymous. Some responses have been edited for spelling and punctuation and emoticons have been removed. Each person is separated between using and not using quotation marks. Note: In the second story, some statements that are included were made in further discussion after the initial statement. These are noted by brackets and placed inside the original statement so that it flows better as compared to adding them all afterward.

Oh how can I even put down every time they hurt me… every time I wasn’t good enough, every time I was shunned. Ministry kicked me many times while I was down, told me to stay away from people. I was kicked out of a UPC Bible college for kissing, lol. I was raped and then threatened by ministry to keep it quiet, because they wouldn’t back me. When I went back to Bible school in the states, as soon as I made the decision to leave, a minister taught a class on how much of an adulteress I was, while one of my friends defended me then [was] kicked to the streets while trying to get the remainder of my belongings. They were afraid of my influence. Then when I left UPC, I had emails telling me how I wasn’t leaving due to theology issues but my heart and how corrupt it was. Other than all of that, the control, the dictatorship and the abuse. The many times I didn’t line up because my hair wasn’t right or my skirt long enough. I have found forgiveness, I have healed a great deal… but these scars will never be able to go away because they are a part of me… they are now who I am. And I have no doubt someone UPC would read this and cast blame on me… perhaps I should have been a better Christian.

Wow. Loaded question. This would take a book.

My parents started going when I was in 3rd grade. My mom was mentally unstable and the UPC gave her a place to hide. I firmly believe that she would never have gotten away with her behaviors if she had lived in “normal” society. So that just set us up for more vulnerability.

I was targeted by an older man, my Sunday school teacher, and was raped by him at 14. He had been sexually assaulting me since the month I turned 12. I was threatened, verbally and psychologically abused by him for years. His friend (who I’m convinced these guys were all there to prey on younger girls), also stuck his hand up my dress/underwear and wouldn’t remove it. When the pastor found out, I was told it would make the church look bad and threatened that I’d get kicked out of the church school. (Which is another point of contention – the lousy education I received.)

Things only got worse. I was kinda forced into marrying my abuser, who was 17 years older than me. I took one for “team UPC.” They got rid of their child molester by marrying him off. Or they thought – because you can’t pray that away.

Needless to say, that marriage was a disaster. He was a “minister,” who couldn’t hold a job, liked porn and young girls, and was a wreck. I finally left, and the church treated me like garbage. I was shunned by everyone. [When I was trying to leave, he drug me up by the baptismal, and yelled at me, asking if I wanted my teeth rearranged, and then punched the wall next to my face. Not a single soul in that church did anything. They all viewed it as “righteous anger” and I was backsliding so I must’ve deserved it.] The pastor told me not to “rock the boat,” among other things, to “encourage” me never to tell, and boom, next thing I knew I was a lesbian, on drugs, had cheated, you name it, they made up rumors about me. [I could go on. Ha. But the control they had over me, the manipulation, the way I was beat down and taken advantage of, is shocking.]

[Sadly, I was not the only one. Our pastor knew of many cases of sexual abuse and only threatened the victims with silence. Never did anything to the perpetrators. It was rampant there. The church’s methods were awful. Truly deeply harmful.

Thankfully I ran. Oh, I’m so happy I left that cesspool of awfulness.

I imagine that my experiences are extreme but it is my experience. My UPC pastor did not report the sexual abuse that I reported to him when I was a child. Not only was it not reported, but many people from the organization still associate with my abuser. I feel that the church I attended did not care about Christ’s general message. When my family was hungry no one helped us. When we didn’t have electricity no one helped us. Your importance within the congregation was directly associated with how much money you gave. I also feel that my self-confidence was damaged because of the way that our church talked and taught about women. I could list many many many more things but we would be here all day.

…I have suffered a lifetime of trauma due to the sermons and teachings around the devil, hell, and the rapture. That is the primary cause of my PTSD.

I feel like my situation was likely more extreme. The Wisconsin UPC in general is pretty messed up but I lucked out with the pastor who was obsessed with unpardonable sins and had the most bitter woman as a wife.

One of my first memories of the UPC is an adult male church member giving me quarters to sit on his lap. This is beyond not normal/appropriate.

I’ve talked about the anxiety, fear, depression I experienced due to the sermons I was exposed to. My best friend in the UPC was raped by her own brother (also UPC) and he also used to be inappropriate with me…not rape but still not remotely OK. There was a heavy layer of sexual inappropriateness in that church….way beyond normal teen hormones. I remember senior guys in the k-12 school we attended teasing me about being flat chested and they’d lift up our skirts and thought it was funny. I was maybe 11 or 12 at the time.

The pastor dealt with all this because we keep things in the church.

We’d have to kneel in front of the pastor’s wife and if our school uniform skirts didn’t hit the ground we were sent home.

The pastor’s son was/is mentally ill and is now in his 70’s. He used to corner us in the church basement and ask us out when we were around 15. He was well into his late 40’s at that point. He continues to harass young girls to this day and the excuse is “It’s just Michael being Michael.”

These are just a few small examples from my childhood.

I feel like we’ve been hit in every area. Our situation isn’t as tragic as many others, but it has certainly messed with us. Spiritually: I feel like we are in limbo. I don’t know what I believe anymore. I know we have deep grooves in our brain that lead us back to what we’d been indoctrinated with, and fighting our way out of those grooves has been hard. Learning to think outside of the UPC box has been challenging, but we are getting there. I am afraid to trust any “spiritual leader” or walk into a church.

Emotionally: There are so many “triggers“… when I think of anything UPC I cringe. When I think of friends who shunned us because we moved from one church to another when we moved an hour away, I feel abandoned. When I think of the pastors who manipulated us in so many ways, I feel disgust and anger. When I think of people who are still in the UPC and not realizing what is going on, I feel sorry for them. When I think about raising our kids in that environment, I feel guilt. When I think about how judgmental we were, I feel shame. When I look in the mirror I am embarrassed and disgusted. When I think about all the money we sacrificed to the UPC, I feel regret. On and on. It sounds like I’m a mess, and honestly, I’ve never been happier or felt more freedom, but when I am trying to deal with what we’ve been through, all these feeling start to swirl. I know they will decrease in time, and in fact, they are becoming less frequent and intense, but it’s still draining.

Physically: Up until we got into the UPC when I was 27, I was physically active and fit. I water skied, para-sailed, fished, camped, played softball, did Jazzercise, played racquetball, swam, hiked, wore a size 8 or 10 and felt OK about myself. After I got in the UPC and started dressing like a bag, not being active, eating more, spending less time outside, I became overweight. There are other reasons that play into that, too, but much of it is because I just quit doing things I loved. My self esteem is at about zero. I’ve recently reconnected with high school friends, who of course I didn’t spend time with while in the church unless they were interesting in converting. So many of them want to get together, but I’m so ashamed of how I look I can’t face them. I just want to crawl in a hole or starve myself until I am presentable. I hate the clothes I wear. I feel like I stand out with these nasty skirts and t shirts. I can’t wait to change my wardrobe…and it’s coming, but I’ve not yet been able to buy new clothes or feel good about any pants I’ve tried on. It’s coming along, though.

Financially: We totally supported the church with our tithes and sacrificial giving. We have never had extra money, and it took so much self discipline to always give 10% plus another 5 and sometimes10% more! We went without many things. That doesn’t bother me, but what does bother me is how it affected the kids. It was hard on them to see their friends with spending money or new clothes, and they had very little. We weren’t poor, but we were tight all the time. And then to see the pastor and his family living in luxury, being given lavish gifts, vacations, cars, boats, new home, etc. really hurts. It hurts because it’s all at the expense of the people who are living without so they can give to the church. We figured it out and the money that we’ve given to the church could have paid off our house, our car and allowed us to have a savings. Instead [my husband] is working two jobs and I’m making bars of soap to sell in order to make ends meet. It’s just wrong. Why were we so gullible!? Why didn’t [we] see what was going on years and years ago? Regret.

Family: Our family has been damaged. My daughter was preyed upon by an older, married man, and was seduced by him, married him after he divorced his wife, and then was abused by him for 15 years. We were told by the pastor that the person who did this to our daughter would be reported to the police, (before they got married and all that came after), but we recently found out it never was. That’s another story, but my point is, this hurt our family. All three of the kids lost their youth. Their education was lacking. They were not active in community. They didn’t have friends outside the church. We didn’t go on vacations because we didn’t have money and wouldn’t miss church. We always put church first and missed many family milestones, get togethers and events. I know our families resented it and all the while we were holding our noses in the air thinking we were super Christians for doing it. Putrid! I can’t think of any area in our life that wasn’t affected or harmed by being a part of the cult. It will take time, but we will recover and continue to live in freedom! I look forward to what is left of our future.

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When The Church(Pastor) Invades Your Home

Recently I was reminded of several events of home invasion that took place during my time in the cult – the independent Oneness Pentecostal church I belonged to for 15 years, that illustrates the overbearing control some pastors and leaders take over the flock, the congregation, the members, and how that control ultimately leads to invading your personal life, your home, and sometimes, your person.

I would be remiss, due to recent comments, not to mention that not all Oneness Pentecostal pastors and churches do all of the things I mention in my blog. However, I believe the Oneness Pentecostal movement as a whole is a cult, and it’s doctrines lead to abuse and deception, and while I will make a disclaimer that not everything I write about is attributed to every church, it is pervasive in the system, and this is evidenced by the hundreds of interviews and contacts I have had from United Pentecostal, independent Oneness, and other Oneness Pentecostal people, not just my personal experiences.

First, let me start by asking the question, “Does the church belong in your home?”

It is no doubt to me, that your home life should be reflective of your Christian faith and convictions. We shouldn’t have a double standard for our ‘public’ life, and our ‘private’ life, but there definitely is a distinction between the two. And, as Christians, if we believe that God dwells in us, by the gift of the Holy Spirit that dwells in our heart, our being, then surely, God is in our home.

But does the church belong there, and when I say church, I mean the rules, dogmas, and wishes/commands of the pastor. For instance, in the Oneness Pentecostal church, women are forbidden from wearing pants, as they consider it unholy. They teach, that anything that splits the leg is men’s apparel. Of course, then they go on to demand women wear pantyhose..which splits the leg – but I digress.

It so happens, that this teaching prevails upon the homes too – for it has been taught, Don’t you think you can go home and wear pajama pants, and pants at home just because no one can see you. Again – this never made sense to me, because if the point of holiness in dress standard is not to cause other people to lust after you and slip up (morally) – and no one is there to see you…what does it matter what you wear? But again, I digress.

Monitoring Your Behavior

Around 2010-2011, in the church I attended at the time, the pastor was coming against the ‘dangers of the internet,’ and no one can doubt there are bad things on the internet if one goes looking for them. The approach was, and he asked me many times how to do it, knowing I was a computer nerd, to require church members who were in any way involved in ministry, Sunday School, Bus Ministry, Music, etc., to put a software on their home computers to block things that were considered ‘wrong.’ It was strongly encouraged that the whole church participated with this program, and probably the majority did. We simply did what our pastor told us to do.

That list of ‘wrong’ of course, was focused on pornography, violence, alcohol, and streaming of movies, television, etc. What was intrusive was that it wasn’t up to you install this software, or to control your own behavior. The software could only be installed by elders in the church, who came to your home to do it.

These elders installed the software with a password you could not be given, and the software could not be removed from your computer without their permission and password. Furthermore, it sent nightly emails to the pastor of your online activity, alerting them to you trying to access things that they didn’t want you accessing, and even telling them if you tried to uninstall it.

One young man in the church told me, “They did it with my tablet but as soon as I got it back I factory reset it.” They wanted this software on any phones and other mobile devices that could access the internet as well.

Of course, over time that demand settled. I would guess the majority of people got new computers and devices and never reinstalled it. I would also guess, the sheer volume of ‘monitoring’ time it took the pastor and his son (the son is now the pastor) would be overwhelming. Micromanaging people is a daunting task.

I, too, had the software on my home computer for awhile, but was tired of the restrictions and eventually reinstalled Windows to remove it. As a web designer with many ‘wine’ based clients, the software blocked me from going to websites that were about wine and it was constantly a major challenge to my business.

What has made it worse was that around 2015, the churches non-accredited private Christian school (which is just a fundraising and indoctrination arm of the church) went digital and changed curriculum, which required families with children in the church to purchase Chromebooks for their students. I’m a huge fan of digital, so this was a brilliant move to me, having children living like they were in the Little House on the Prairie times – they needed to be introduced to modern technology – but then the insidiousness of home invasion began anew. It was required that monitoring software was placed onto each Chromebook (which was not church/school purchased) so that school staff would be alerted to any young person infracting the church rules.

And even more ridiculous were the infractions. My good friend, who has disowned me because I now speak out against this church, was in charge of setting up these Chromebooks and told me “Kids were trying to look up Odyssey on there, or the weather, so I would call the school supervisor and tell her, ‘um’, you might want to go check on….”

This again is the church invading the personal and home life of its members, using control and fear tactics to keep people in line, teaching that absolute obedience to the pastor is required to be ‘righteous‘ before God. It is truly mind-boggling that a group of people (myself included for 15 years) would give another flawed and angry human being this level of control over their lives.

Letting the Preacher In

The second event wasn’t really an event, but an understanding, something the preacher would say from time to time to drive in the point of having the ‘right spirit’, or attitude of respect and obedience to the ministry.

“You should have the attitude that if I wanted to come to your home, and look through your drawers, and cabinets, and rooms, you would let me.”

This was such a devious teaching because as all of Satan’s lies, there is always this thin layer of truth covering the stink of rotten meat. In layman’s terms, the principle was that we shouldn’t have anything in our lives, and in our homes, that we would want to hide should the pastor come over. But, they spun it in such a way, that by osmosis, you would believe that he had the right to inspect your home whenever he wanted to.

It was this attitude of authority – that the preacher was God incarnate, the vicar of Christ, the authority of Jesus, the harbinger of His will.

In Family Class, which if you had children in the church’s (non-accredited) private school, you had to attend, they taught at times on what kind of underwear your daughters could wear.

In marriage retreats, several times it was covertly (via euphemisms and vague references) taught what types of sexual behaviors were allowable between husbands and wives. My pastor taught against masturbation, oral sex, and other ‘behind closed doors’ behavior, as if he had any business being there.

In other cases, several times in the church I attended, and in reports from other UPC church attendees (or previous/ ex-attendees), the Pastor would come to the person’s home after service, if that person wasn’t in church, and demand to know why he wasn’t there, all in the spirit of love and concern for his soul, I’m sure, and make sure they attended the next service.

My last example is my old pastor telling my wife how much weight she could lose. She had been dieting for some time after having our first child and was working to remove some of that extra baby cushion. The pastor met us in the middle aisle of the sanctuary, made some small chat, and then told my wife, who looked and looks great by the way, “You’ve lost too much weight, you need to stop.”

Conclusion

As the majority of my work is now focused on high-control and cult style systems, I must confess this writing is as a warning to you, who may read this, that if you or a loved one find themselves in a situation where this level of control is being demanded, it is a cult, and a very traumatic and dangerous situation to be in. It will be equally traumatic to exit but exit you must.

As with all cults and high-control systems, your exit will be just as painful as the realization that you are being controlled. Having your best friend disown you because you speak out against it. Having friends cut you off for ‘questioning’ the control. Children may move away from parents, and parents may deny their children unconditional love, conditioned on their obedience to the system.

As with the pyramid image above, these systems are a #1 – ‘We tell you what to do’, and this will often involve your vacations, jobs, purchases, finances, etc. Be wary and avoid these places, run from them, and if necessary, get your family out of them. They may not be willing to come, but over time, if you show unconditional love, they will see the difference between the offer of freedom that Jesus gave, and life has for them, vs. the demands of bondage these evil men require.

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Harmed In The United Pentecostal Church Part 4

In two groups, I asked people to share how they were harmed during their time in the United Pentecostal Church. People were also able to respond who exited a different group. I received enough responses to make at least five blogs. These are used by permission and are anonymous. Some responses have been edited for spelling and punctuation. The ones included in this part were from the UPCI or other Oneness Pentecostal group as well as one from the IFB. Each person is separated between using and not using quotation marks. After reading this series of posts, perhaps many will better understand some of what can happen to people in abusive churches. See also Part One, Part Two and Part Three.

Only a robot could come through what we’ve all been through unscathed and without a myriad of mixed emotions, regrets, issues and more to unpack and sort through.

For a very long time, I have been contemplating whether or not to share my story on here, but I feel like it’s time. My biological father joined the UPC when I was around 13 years old. We believe he has bipolar disorder and the structure and strict nature of the church catered to his mental processes. As I got older, I began to realize how warped everything was. He would comment on the size of my chest and say that I needed to “work extra hard to be modest.” He would financially manipulate members of the congregation and our pastor in order to get what he wanted, and since he was a big strong man, everyone feared him.

I specifically remember one night I made him especially angry. I was talking too much, and women are to be seen and not heard. Five years later I was diagnosed with ADHD so it was truly out of my control. He took me by the forearms and threw me against a wall, giving me a concussion. He took away my phone so I couldn’t call for help. But it was all okay because I was “disobeying the Lord so I needed to be punished.” I was so scared for my life that I contemplated climbing out my second story window to run and get help. The next day, I tried to tell my youth pastor about it and all he told me was that I didn’t have the marks to prove it. This wasn’t the only time. Many times I would go home to my mother’s house with bruises, fat lips, and other injuries. He spanked me until I turned sixteen and left. Quite soon after joining the church, my bio father became involved with my babysitter, a woman from the church who was eighteen years younger than him (whom I despised). He told me he was going to marry her. That was the tipping point.

Three years later and many blocked numbers, emails, and a name and address change, he will still occasionally show up at my work or find a way to contact me. I work at a Texas Roadhouse in Wisconsin, and I see a lot of people from my old church come in. Almost all of them have tried to get me to come back. I would tell them what my father had done and no one ever believed me- up until one day, when I was sweeping my section and Jennifer happened to be in the section over with her husband and recognized me. We ended up talking for at least an hour about escaping UPC. It was so great to have someone who not only believed me, but understood what I have gone through.

I guess my message here is that it does get better. I used to go into full blown mental breakdowns when he would show up at my work. Now, I have the ability to have him removed from the premises (I’m so thankful for my managers) without the bat of an eye. I have a stepdad who has agreed to legally adopt me as an adult and loves me more than anyone else has. I have a new family through him, and I have this group as a wonderful support system. Because of the UPC, I developed Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. It’s now being treated, and I feel more in control of my future. The church no longer affects me, nor has any power over me. I am grateful to see members from my own former congregation in this group who knew him and the trauma he incurred. After I left I realized just how much the church enabled him, but they didn’t win- we did…..

The stories never end. I always cared for my mother, who lived on $780 in social security, I paid for her phone, medicines, often groceries, etc. And still, the pastor told her, she needed to find a way to pay tithes and offerings.

Sick men, who shopped at Sacks 5th, all family members drove BMW’s, and they made a little lady with $780 who couldn’t afford to live, support them.

My issues happened in an IFB church with a cult-like family. I am STILL IFB.

1. The Bible is now filled with landmines and concepts I’m now terrified of. Prayer is the same way.
2. I was called a harlot for being interested in the man who is now my husband, and it still crosses my mind if I didn’t marry the wrong person because what if I didn’t wait on God and I just married the first person that liked me back, as I was accused of.
3. I would go into full-on panic attacks when a man walked into my place of work passing out tracks
4. I truly thought it would be better for everyone else around me if I was dead. I caused problems for the wife because her husband was always cutting things off because of things I did. And I couldn’t get him to stop. He wouldn’t stop, but for me to back out of the friendship (cult) would hurt her so deeply….it would have been better for me to die….but I couldn’t do it
5. I’m currently unable to handle the idea of the calling that God has called us to (missionaries) because of triggers….but then again, my (future) husband and I were told that with women that had emotional issues like I had, may never make it to the field……..
6. I’m afraid I will never be where I should be spiritually and that God has/will just put me on the shelf…and that that will affect my family

I was yelled at for hours by a man who we had deemed was an authority in my life since my parents weren’t Christians. He had me do chores in his house to keep me away from his wife because he thought I loved her in a sexual manner. He wanted to keep me away from his teen boys because he accused me of fantasizing about them throughout a church service (even forced me to “admit” it once), but he wanted me to spend as little time at my parent’s house because they weren’t saved, and thus a bad influence. He accused me of looking at the billboards and forced me to stare at the back of the seat with my head down when in their vehicle, yet insisted on inspecting every article of clothing that I wore. He told me to burn a skirt… I still remember it was black with little blue flowers and green leaves… because it was too short. It went to mid calf when sitting. He told me to get rid of my heels because they are prostitute shoes, and certain shirts (that his own wife bought me) because he decided they were too tight. What’s strange about it? Goodwill is still a trigger. His wife took me shopping before Bible college and I had several outfits that were fitting for a homeschooler going to Bible college…but those times were special. When I see Goodwill (etc), I think of those times and they hurt…. Then it triggers the anger of what her husband did. But it hurts deeply and I can hardly set foot in a Goodwill without panicking, 10 years ago this summer.

I remember the summer after freshman year… Six days before I was supposed to start courting the man who is now my husband… The man convinced my (now) husband to break things off. I was broken that summer…but I wasn’t supposed to contact any friends from college because they were a “bad influence.” There was to be no contact with my now-husband, though the wife (my friend/mentor) contacted him to find out how his dad was doing since he was supposed to have quadruple by-pass surgery. The man, Randy, assumed that I had made contact with my (future) husband. He berated me over and over again, hurling threats of things he would take away or things he would do that would make my life miserable. At one point…he called my future husband and started berating him. I ran to the bathroom and locked the door….lights off, I huddled up on the floor against the door and sobbed…. He was calling the man I loved, the one I wanted to marry but knew I had hurt so deeply… Now Randy is tearing him apart, causing him more hurt, and there is nothing I can do about it.

It was later that summer that they broke me enough to the point that I had decided I wasn’t ready for a relationship and maybe this wasn’t the man I’m supposed to marry. The only reason I was allowed to go back to Bible college was because I thought I wasn’t ready, the wife had contacted my future husband and he said he wasn’t ready, and that there was a good chance he wouldn’t make it back sophomore year right away due to finances.

My husband too went broke due to the UPCI and his ex wife’s beliefs that were drilled into his head from a young age. She was paying thousands of dollars a month into the church to “build” her and her parents status in the church, but the bills at home weren’t being paid on time and he was laid off from time to time due to work flow! We are free from that church now, nothing has struck us down, and almost five years later the bankruptcy that the “Church” put them in is finally paid off next month! We still tithe to our current church, but not for any other reason as we budget it and it’s not out of our reach!

Part Five.

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Harmed In The United Pentecostal Church Part 3

In two groups, I asked people to share how they were harmed during their time in the United Pentecostal Church. People were also able to respond who exited a different group. I received enough responses to make at least five blogs. These are used by permission and are anonymous. Some responses have been edited for spelling and punctuation. The ones included in this part were from the UPCI or other Oneness Pentecostal group as well as one other group. Each person is separated between using and not using quotations. After reading this series of posts, perhaps many will better understand some of what can happen to people in abusive churches. See Part One and Part Two.

I was harmed by the usual stuff that people have noted here, minus the sexual abuse (that came earlier in life, before the church). I think though, that the worst thing for me is the niggling thought that the problems I have now are my fault from leaving church.

Psychologically scarred, for one. I’m 11 years on the outside now and just completed a several month round of therapy that was much needed after some UPC trauma started to rise from beneath the surface. This kind of trauma subliminally affects us and even if we think we’re entirely over it, down the road it will show up. And we have to confront it, deal with it. My problem was that I couldn’t trust my judgment or instincts – I felt like I was crippled when facing major decisions. That is because the UPC teachings paralyzed that part of my brain for so long. They taught me I cannot make my own decisions. So I’m much better after this last round of therapy and feeling confident in myself.

Another way – in my last UPC church (the big Denver one), I was used to the last drop for my musical talents from 16 to almost 20. I counted that I was probably playing piano there upwards of 10 hours a week, with Sunday morning and night, Tuesday night choir practice, Wednesday night church, and Friday youth service. It stole many years from me, physically and spiritually and emotionally exhausted me, and caused me to miss so many experiences most teens would have had.

It made me feel like I was living a double life and sinning because I went to a movie or wore shorts or any other silly thing they were against. It also warped my mind to judge someone’s heart on the basis of their outward experience.

Because God always makes lemonade out of lemons if we’ll allow Him to, that experience taught me to study, research, learn, and never take any belief for granted or as Gospel truth without investigating it myself.

I was told that if I listened to her (a fellow church member) she could save me money on therapy…I was told to stop my medicine…rely on God and get in my word, give it all to God, pray, etc etc…I stopped my medicine believing that I was spiritually lacking and wanting a way out of the madness that was my mind. Ended up suicidal, was taken to the ER and was baker acted into a mental hospital for about three weeks. After that while attempting to pray at the altar, she comes to me and says that she can’t pray with me anymore because I won’t respond to the leading of the Spirit and there are others who want a move of God and will receive it… I figured if I started crying and jumping then she would think I was praying through…I wasn’t about all that…I soon realized I was better off if she left me alone.

The cult I joined was not UPC or any oneness group. You could probably call it Pentecostal because there was HUGE emphasis on the Holy Spirit. They followed the so-called five-fold-ministry structure. However, they were independent and not part of any denomination or other large organization.

How was I harmed? I could write a book about that.

Simply put, it destroyed my ability to trust, either other human beings or even God. I have rebuilt some of that trust, and in a much more healthy way, but I am still a very deeply suspicious person now. On the positive side, because I make people prove their trustworthiness, it makes spotting cons and fakes easier.

It destroyed my ability to trust God because I thought I was following his will, thought he had worked wonders through them, and then had my life torn apart by these same people claiming to work in his name. As I told my therapist just this last week, if these people were harming others in his name, using his words in the Bible and targeting people he claims to love and that STILL wasn’t enough to get him to intervene, how could I ever trust him? The truly sad part is I want to be able to trust him, but I am going to need him to prove that he is trustworthy. Trust is earned, not owed.

It is almost impossible to read the bible, both because of the sick and twisted teachings the group had applied to various verses as well as the fact they made Bible reading such a chore.

I lost a woman who I could have married. I met her at the church I attended before. We were dating before I ever joined the group, and for awhile after that. However, she began to see some of the unhealthy aspects and decided to get out. I had a bad rebound relationship and then after that the group became very controlling of who we could date (basically no one from outside). So I spent years literally having no opportunity to date. Now that I am out, I am in my 30’s and the “dating pool” is more a stale, septic puddle. So they robbed me of companionship.

I lost friends. Friends who never joined and were either driven away by my own increased toxicity at the time, or were cut off by the increasingly isolationist policies. Even worse were friends who had joined, and were twisted into someone else by the elders’ control. After I and a few others left, those once so-called friends shunned us, not that I would trust them anymore anyway.

What I believe has been undergoing a massive change since I left. It took a while, and even when I started I didn’t know what I was actually doing yet, but basically I have taken everything I once believed, both from the group and from my time before, taken it “out of myself” and set it on a metaphorical table. I have stripped these beliefs apart to as small of pieces as possible, and have been carefully and painstakingly examining them bit by bit. Discarding ones that are demonstrably false, reintegrating those that demonstrably have truth, and continuing to examine the rest. There are many that have been discarded, a few that have been taken back in… and quite a few that remain on that table.

Let me count the ways….

As an adult head of my household, I was not allowed to have church friends over to my house without the pastor’s permission. He refused to allow it because he said it was “dividing the baby” (a reference to Solomon). Because the people invited were of one ethnicity and I hadn’t included the pastor or his daughter, it meant I was “causing division.” Truthfully, that was the furthest thing from my mind. I simply wanted to hang out with people I had something in common with, share a meal, and relax. Instead of coming to me privately to address the issue, he preached a whole sermon about it on Sunday morning from the pulpit. That’s when I left.

Pastor would publicly berate and shame teens for riding their bikes to the library and hanging out at the library. He publicly told church people if they saw teens (by name) there, to send them home and report it to him. Supposedly they were hanging out with “worldly teens” there.

As young mothers, no matter what type of feeding, we were not allowed to feed our infants in the auditorium, because a drop of something might leak on church upholstery. Yet there was no nursery. So, to feed the babies, we had to go into the ladies bathroom and sit on the floor because there was only one chair in there and lots of young babies. Needless to say, between fussy, tired babies, feedings, and diaper changes, we’d usually all end up sitting on the bathroom floor for the better part of those 1-1 1/2 hour sermons.

Mine was letting go and the fear was overwhelming. I still feel like a misfit but I am on the mend. When I go to a different church and not UPC, I hear my pastors voice that I am wasting my time.

Part Four.
Part Five.

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