Category: shame | Page 2 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

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 #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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Three Steps Part 5: The Second Step

Original post is here. This is continued from Three Steps Part 4: Feminism and Fellowship.

The second half of the 1970s was a time of growing tension in American society, and in my family. We had had the first real economic crisis since the Great Depression, and people were jumpy. Instead of blaming the changing economy, they blamed the scapegoat du jour, feminism. Feminism took the hit for two trends that had been actually going on for most of the 20th Century. One of them was the return of the largest number of women to the workforce since WWII. While it was true that feminism encouraged women who wished to work to pursue their dreams, the majority were motivated by the economy. For every woman who went to work to to fulfill her potential there were 20 who did it to put food on the table for their families.

The more serious issue in the opinion of our neighbors that feminism was blamed for was the rising divorce rates. I can remember riding the bus to school and all the other kids were talking about how their parents were getting divorced or had gotten divorced. They thought we had the only parents in the neighborhood who were still together. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that our parents were actually already on their second marriage. They had divorced a decade earlier to beat the rush.

The real culprit was a bad model for marriage. Marriages made in the early 20th Century were encouraged to follow an occupational model where marriage was viewed as a job with fixed rules that could not be deviated from. This meant that nothing could be changed if the marriage wasn’t working by those fixed rules. Worse, it encouraged cheating on a spouse by equating it with what was considered the relatively minor offense of cheating on your employer. Consequently there was an epidemic of unhappy marriages, and the divorce rate had climbing steadily since the late 1950s before starting to climb steeply in the late 1960s. The saying, “Marry in haste, repent at leisure” was painfully true for far too many people.

Feminists pushed a partnership model of marriage, where each spouse was an equal partner able to renegotiate when things weren’t working out so as to prevent getting a divorce. It also equated cheating on a spouse with the more socially serious offense of cheating on a partner instead of cheating your boss. Starting in the late 1960s more marriages have followed this model, and consequently the divorce rates would decline dramatically in the years to come. But in the late 1970s things had never looked scarier to people who valued traditional marriage.

I don’t know which of these pressures was getting under my adoptive mother’s skin and turning her into a vindictive jerk, but something was. She didn’t like it when the sour economy which forced her to go back to work, even though she had worked until we moved to Birmingham only a few years before. She didn’t like it that her second marriage had deteriorated even further, judging from the fact that my adoptive father’s coworkers had pity-dumped a multi-year stash of Playboy back issues on him that he had to hide in the basement. She didn’t like it that her hair had started to turn grey, which she was camouflaging with the new “frosted highlights” treatment. She didn’t like it that I was getting positive attention from being in the gifted program; she let everyone know that even if I was smart I would never amount to anything. She didn’t like it that I was starting to ask questions. She took all her myriad dislikes for everything else and focused them on one target — me.

Honestly, I found life bewildering at that point. I was old enough that my reason was starting to kick into gear. I could figure out logic puzzles, but the real world didn’t make much sense. And I dearly wanted it to make sense in such a way where everybody agreed with everybody else and people really loved me. But in the real world the arguments only increased and my mother’s abuse only grew more overt.

Well gosh darn it, I was going to try anyway. Both my gifted class and my church taught that reason could and should be used to make the world better, so I was going to use it. But it was hard to reconcile reason and misogyny, especially the virulent misogyny of my adoptive mother, who made Southern men of the 1970s look like die-hard feminists in comparison.

For instance, there was the whole question of women’s role in society. My adoptive mother staunchly defended the natural inferiority of women, and more importantly the natural superiority of white women who believed in the natural inferiority of women over those women of any race who did not believe any such thing. This gave her a moderately high position in the hierarchy from which to look down upon others without having the responsibility that went from being at the top of the heap. It was important to her that I uphold the anti-feminist party line. I could not. Much as I wanted to please her, I could not believe in something so — dumb. I mean, if God intended women to be less intelligent than men, why didn’t He make high IQ a sex-linked trait? But He didn’t. Therefore, He must have meant women to use the gifts He gave them. Including the gifts He gave me. Including my analytical mind. Which, when I did use, people accused me of not being the kind of girl God wanted me to be.

I was only a kid, and the stress was wearing me down. Finally, one Sunday morning after some especially vicious remarks on the way to church I could stand it no longer. I did something I hadn’t done since I was very little. I prayed to God. Not only that, for the first time in my life I prayed to God for a sign. I had always thought that was selfish, but I was desperate to clear up the confusion.

Imagine my surprise when I got one.

It was the Sunday before Easter, which is Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday, for those who haven’t been to church in a while was when Jesus led a parade of his followers into Jerusalem in the hopes of making radical changes in the Establishment, hopes which were to be completely dashed by the Old Guard. It was also the first sermon by our brand new preacher, and the first chance for most folks to meet him.

The church was packed with listeners curious to hear the new preacher. He began by saying that he knew everyone expected to hear him speak of Big Things, but he wasn’t going to do that today. There was a minor, not really important, matter that had somehow been allowed to get out of hand which had to be addressed first. That matter was the status of women.

He said it seemed like the women of the church, and some of the men, weren’t reading their Bibles correctly. They were focusing on the words of Jesus, but when it came to women the words of Jesus were less important than the words of Paul. Paul had the final say on matters.

I wasn’t sure who this “Paul” fellow was. I knew the Apostles and the Old Testament figures, but I hadn’t heard much of this guy. And how could anybody’s words be more important than the words of Jesus? I thought we were the followers in Jesus Christ, not somebody else.

Now, this Paul fellow was a Christian leader who came along after Jesus was dead and started organizing Jesus’ followers. He wrote letters telling the other Christian leaders how they were supposed to interpret Jesus. I wondered how those other Christian leaders who had actually met Jesus felt about that.

Paul had strong ideas about women’s place in the church. Ideas like:

Women should remain silent in the churches, They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

And:

Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.

We were told that this was obviously the way Jesus wanted things to be, even though it contradicted things Jesus himself had said. We were told that this was the way the church was going to be run from now on. We were told that women should show their assent to the new order by not dressing up for Easter next Sunday.

I sat there in shock. It was…

It was…

It was the biggest load of malarkey I had ever heard in my life. I felt astounded to hear such hogwash being spoken seriously and terribly embarrassed on behalf of this grown man that he was being heard saying something so foolish in public.

I thought somebody was going to stand up and call him out for having his first sermon say such crazy and divisive things, but while I could sense the consternation nobody said anything. Now, my adoptive mom didn’t sew, but I knew there were ladies who had been working on their dresses for weeks. It was a mean thing to publicly denigrate their work right before they even got to finish it. It was crass and bullying. I decided then and there the God I believed in was not mean, crass, or bullying, and anyone who said He was had just blown his credibility with me.

My adoptive mother was proudly, almost combatively, anti-crafty, so I didn’t have a dog in this fight. But I knew there were ladies for whom new clothes on Easter were important, some for showing off, but others got into the whole “rebirth and renewal” aspect. I had also figured out that the church ladies who sewed were proxies for the church ladies who did the other jobs the congregation needed to have done, the ladies who organized the Sunday School, organized the Fellowship Hall, dusted the sanctuary, and ran the office. These were the women whose work was the real draw to come to the church who were being belittled by proxy.

I wondered what would happen if those women stopped coming?

In my naiveté I expected that even if the women didn’t confront this new preacher directly, their menfolk would have some strong words with him after the service about insulting their womenfolk from the pulpit. Dumb old me didn’t realize that the men’s desire to send this very message was what got the guy hired. I would learn that lesson over time, but not that day.

That day, as I sat listening to this man stand at the pulpit and speak the most idiotic drivel I had ever heard, I had a more important lesson to learn. He stood at the pulpit like he was some kind of authority, like he had a right to be there, but his words were not true message that Jesus had brought to Earth and died for. Even though he looked the part, acted the part, and no one openly questioned his right to the part, I knew he was a false prophet. That day I learned to never, EVER accept authority without question. It didn’t matter what position he held, it mattered that his words and deeds were in keeping with that position. And if they weren’t, he had no business being there.

My shock started to fade, to be replaced by an urge to giggle. Not just giggle, but to guffaw with a transcendent sense of — joy. I mean, yeah, it was awful that he was up there saying this nonsense, but, as a girl named Sarah would realize in a movie that was to come out ten years later, “You have no power over me.”

Never again would I accept without question anyone’s authority over me. I was liberated! I walked out of church that day feeling blessed and euphoric in my power to do what Southern Baptists were supposed to do and decide for myself what God’s words meant to me.

And that was good, because things were about to get very strange.

Coming: Three Steps Part 6: The New Guy [Edit: This was never completed.]

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Love Without Fear

This morning I woke up around 4:40 am as usual, because I’m getting older and I have to go use the restroom about that time. After I got back in bed, I dozed off, but the rest of my sleep was rather light and restless. Over and over in my sleep I kept hearing an old verse that I learned years ago, “perfect love casteth out all fear.”

Now, to be honest, I have been in a process of recovery lately. I’m in the stage where I have been detoxing from religion. I have still been talking to God (though irregularly—but, hey, at least I’m still on speaking terms). I haven’t read the Bible in months, and I haven’t been to church since October. I have altogether avoided any religious influence, other than chats with friends, and support groups that help with my recovery process.

So, needless to say, at first I was rather annoyed that this Bible verse kept tormenting me in the early morning hours. Yet it has nagged at my mind all day long as I wondered, what can that verse really mean? On the surface, it sounds comforting and I surely could use some comfort!

Well, this evening I decided to look it up. I got involved in it the way I used to do. My mind is still trying to wrap around the concepts. I will share them with you, knowing that tomorrow I may not read any more. Maybe this was enough for me to chew on for a long while.

My understanding of 1 John 4

^“7Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.”

The cult taught that “sloppy agape” love was not true Christianity. It taught that one had to follow a three step formula to get saved: Repentance, Baptism in Jesus’ Name, and the “infilling of the Holy Ghost as evidenced by speaking in other tongues.” This verse says that ANYONE who LOVES is a child of God, and KNOWS God. That means that many who we were taught were lost are really God’s children and know Him intimately.

⁸“But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

In the cult, there was a lack of true love. “Love” and acceptance came only with a price tag. You did as the leadership wanted you to do, and you were “loved.” You questioned the rules or the leadership’s decisions at all and you experienced shunning, punishment, hatred and vicious disdain. Yet that very “sloppy agape” that was made fun of from the pulpit—that very thing is what determines a person’s belonging to God, according to these verses! So, here it says plainly that if anyone does not love, he does not even KNOW God! God is love, so if you know God you show love. No love=no God.

^“9God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.”

God showed us what REAL LOVE is—by sending his only begotten son to sacrifice his life for our sins. THAT is real love—it wasn’t conditional based on our performance or righteousness. If we have real love, it has to be patterned after that—Unconditional.

^“10This is real love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”

The real love is not us loving a God who sacrificed everything for us, because all of us can recognize that he DESERVES our love. Real love is that He sent his Son to be a sacrifice, giving his life, because he saw we were sinners. Sinners—we didn’t deserve anything but death. He gave us what we DIDN’T deserve—that is REAL LOVE!

^“11Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. ¹²No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.”

Since God loved us that much…Unconditionally…when we did not deserve it in the least…when we were unlovable…when we were filthy in his sight; because of that, we ought to surely be able to love one another. There has never been a gap any wider than that between God and the sinful human. If He could breach that gap with His love, then anything is possible!

IF we love each other, God lives in us and loves through us. This indicates that the opposite is also true. Does this mean that if we do NOT love each other that God does NOT live in us? If he cannot show his love through us, because we do not let His love into our lives, does that mean we are not His?

^“13And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. ¹⁴Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. ¹⁶We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.”

The 13^th verse seems to back up cult teaching that being God’s and His living in us is based upon whether or not we have His Spirit. However, the verses before and after clearly state that ‘God’s love in us is the true proof of belonging to him,’ so, we have to take the verses in context. Because of this, it seems to me that His Spirit being in us or not is not a matter of whether or not we speak in tongues, but whether or not we have and show His love!

It goes on to say that everyone who declares Jesus as the son of God is infilled with God’s Spirit. There is that idea again—the one we were indoctrinated against because it is just too easy. To declare Jesus as the Son of God is not EARNING anything. Humanity cannot seem to grasp the concept of simple faith and getting something as valuable as salvation without effort. Yet, here it is again and again. We have him living in us and we live in him by our declaration that He is God’s Son.

This involves a rudimentary understanding of God’s love—the REAL love of God—the unconditional love. By trusting Jesus to be our Lord and Savior, we have put our trust and faith in that unconditional love. We have given up trying to earn our salvation and we have embraced the idea of His unconditional love that caused him to come and sacrifice His life for filthy sinners, loving us in spite of our condition. To wrap our hearts around that kind of love is a spiritual work of faith that really is quite a bit more challenging to the human mind than the idea of striving to DO in order to receive. Think about it! Isn’t it mind-boggling that the God of the Universe sent his son to die for people who were sinners and were not able to pull themselves out of the filth? He took the place of every sinner in order to show His love and to free us from our sin. He says we simply receive that gift and love Him and others in return.

“God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.¹⁷And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.”

We all know that God is love. It is a basic fact we learned as children. But, here we see that all who live in love really live in God. Think about that for a second. If God is love, then to live in God means to live in love. To have God in your life automatically means you have love in your life.

The more God we have and the more we live in Him, the more perfectly we are able to love others. That completely undoes the life many of us have lived within cults. “Godliness” and “Holiness” cannot mean a list of rules one follows. It cannot then relate to judgmental attitudes and haughty spirits who feel that they are more “godly” than others. In fact, it is completely the opposite! The more “godly” we are, the more we will LOVE others—all others, even those who least deserve it.

“To be like Jesus, to be like Jesus, on earth I long to be like him”…remember hearing it during altar calls where you were guilt tripped into crying and repenting over everything imaginable, including your lack of following the rules?

That is not what being like Jesus means! Living like Jesus here in this world means loving like He loved, showing compassion like he did, mercifully befriending the outcasts. When we live like this, we don’t have to be afraid on the day of judgement. We can come to him with confidence because we lived like him here in this world—overflowing with love towards the unlovable and the lowly.

^“18Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.”

Speaking of the judgment day, when we live in His love and His love is shown through us, we don’t have to be afraid, because this love relationship gets rid of all fear. What a revelation!

Life in a cult is based on fear. Fear, shame, and guilt are running our lives when we are trying to live by the rules and earn our salvation…always trembling lest we somehow fail and fall into the hands of an angry God. No, no, no! That is not what God wants for us!

If we have fear, it is because we think God is just waiting to punish us. That thought pattern shows that we haven’t really had a full experience of his “perfect love.” Wow! Did you get that?

How is it that one like me can spend forty years of life living to the best of my ability to try to please God and thinking that I had to work harder and harder to measure up—only to realize I had no clue who God really is?

When we understand His perfect love, His unconditional love, there is no longer fear. He is going to love me when I am doing well, and he’s going to love me just the same when I’m covered in mud and filth. He is not searching for an opportunity to punish me. He loves me and he wants me to love him and others. There is no fear in that at all!

This is why a chorus I learned after leaving the cult meant so much to me: “I’m no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God.”

^“19We love each other because he loved us first.”

How are we able to love each other? Because He loved us first and showed us what love looks like.

^“20If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? “

How many liars have you known down through your years in cult environments? I’ve known a lot. I doubt any of them would admit to actually “hating” anyone…but “actions speak louder than words” is an old adage that holds true in this case as well. Lack of love is the same as hatred.

I grew up in a conservative preacher’s home. I heard the verbal vomit about the “liberal” leadership and neighboring pastors who “don’t believe fat meat is greasy.” I heard preachers who claimed to be holy and godly spout out comments like “he’ll never amount to anything,” “he’s good for nothing,” “I wouldn’t give you a plugged nickel for him,” and “I won’t give him the time of day.” These comments were all in reference to other ministers or saints who were in the same organization with the same doctrine, but disagreed over rules and standards of living.

Where is the love in that? Can you say you love God when you talk about another believer in this fashion? When you can be in the same room with another believer and completely avoid talking to him or her because you can’t stand them, is that love? How can you say you love God and behave in this fashion towards his other children?

^“21And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers.”

It is a command…the true and only command to indicate our salvation.

What a lot to take in! It really is all in the concept of love. Remember Jesus saying that all the Ten Commandments could be condensed into loving God and loving others? That really is all it is about. It isn’t difficult to measure up, and it isn’t supposed to be an anxiety trip. It is all in that one little word, LOVE.

Emotional Abuse in the Church

A book caught my eye yesterday. Though most of it doesn’t pertain, one chapter, “Patterns of Abuse,” was very applicable to my experiences and some other experiences I’ve read. The book is The Emotionally Abusive Relationship by Beverly Engel.

In the book, Engel lists several types of emotional abuse, and gives an example of each. Some excerpts:

DOMINATION… Domineering behavior includes ordering a [person] around; monitoring time and activities; restricting resources (finances, telephone); restricting social activities…

The list continues from there.

VERBAL ASSAULTS… Verbal assault includes berating, belittling, criticizing, humiliating, name-calling, screaming, threatening, excessive blaming, shaming, using sarcasm in a cutting way, or expressing disgust toward the person….

ABUSIVE EXPECTATIONS… A [person] with abusive expectations can never be pleased because there is always something more you could have done.

EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL… one of the most powerful forms of manipulation. It occurs when one [person] either consciously or unconsciously coerces the other into doing what he wants by playing on [the other person’s] fear, guilt, or compassion…these are often quite subtle.

Several spousal examples are mentioned. I’m rearranging them slightly for church: a pastor may jokingly suggest that a saint better start acting like he enjoys service more if he doesn’t want to get left out of activities. Someone may say it would be difficult to find a new church where the pastor is willing to accept a “move-in.” Or someone may remind a member of how dangerous it is out there in the world, with so much sin and all.

The following are warning signs that you are being emotionally blackmailed:
Your [church/pastor] asks you to:
choose between something you want to do and them/him.
make you feel like you are selfish or a bad person if you do something [they don’t] want you to do.
give up something or someone as a way of proving your love for [him/them].
threatens [to kick you out, stand you up, sit you out of church] if you don’t change.

Other things the book mentions are drastic mood swings, sudden emotional outbursts for no apparent reason, inconsistent responses, constant or continual conflict with others, a need for arguments (including deliberately starting arguments or creating chaos), using humiliation, criticism, gossiping or lying about someone in order to discredit them, or telling the person that their concerns are “all in their heads” or simply their imagination.

Above all that, a person who:
secretly hopes bad things will happen to the other person
gets satisfaction from knowing something bad happened to the other person
attempts to MAKE bad things happen to the other person
or causes the other person to doubt themselves or question their perceptions
could be malevolently abusive or lethally abusive. People in these situations either need to get counseling or leave the situation, according to the book.

If parallels are drawn from this to spiritual abuse, then telling a person they can’t come if they don’t conform, blaming, standing them up in front of the church, accusing them of things publicly or alluding to things that will start gossip- especially over the pulpit, blaming them for things they didn’t do, labeling, saying they’ll go to hell, have a bad accident, lose their job or whatever if they leave, logging attendance, Bible reading, and prayer time and then using it against people, telling people they must be at every service, and so forth could all be forms of emotional abuse, as well as spiritual abuse.

Sometimes I run across something like this. Memories flash through my mind, I take a deep breath, and just have to say “Wow.”