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I was born in an elevator of the hospital my mom was rushed to. When I had a plan, I would see it through! Naturally gifted with an adventurous, envelope pushing attitude, I started to hang around the group that would end up splitting me in half (metaphorically speaking) in my early twenties, and I learned quickly that my audacity had to go.

While at first I thought it was fine to keep following my ideas, be it to visit someone in another town or country, or offer to write and perform skits for the group’s services, I learned one by one that my travel plans had to line up with the leader’s (unfortunately he never thought it was a good idea to leave) and after writing and performing one skit, the leader would reserve the right to plan a service to the Holy Spirit- not knowing what the topic of the sermon was going to be, I felt unable to write anymore skits. By the time I left the group, my audacity had shriveled my personality into a timid, “what if this isn’t what God wants right now?” wondering paranoid.

The past nine years have taught me, one by one, that I can trust my whims and daydreams again, leading to a life of adventure and the kind of excitement I desire. My family and I have traveled within the US and to Europe, I sing karaoke almost weekly, and with a friend I dreamed up and started our own filmed show on health and wellness, called Living Wellness Live, that we co-host, produced by my husband’s video production company Truth in Motion Studios. However, the pinnacle of regaining my audacity (do I dare to call it God-given?), was to reach out to the authors of “The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse” and another author and pastor, Brian Zahnd. In this post I’d like to share about how that interview came about.

Upon reading “Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God,” I knew that the message of the book was exactly what I needed to hear ages ago. Precisely, Brian explains, what the belief that God hates sinners does to people, churches, communities, and nations. If the God you worship hates, you will become a person that justifiably hates. Having been so deeply wounded and confused at the core about when God loves me, when God protects me, when I could feel good about my eternal status should I die, I needed what Brian had to say.

On top of that, my own home church had already endeavored on a journey of reading and audaciously considering re-interpretation of Bible stories. Believing that God is like Jesus, left us with many shocking discoveries about beloved stories, such as considering that Abraham grossly misunderstood what God was telling him to discover about Him, when he “tested” him; Do you believe, like all the pagans around you, that you need to sacrifice your first born just so that you will get what you are hoping for? Abraham’s discovery was that God did not require such an unthinkable act and later in the prophet Jeremiah 19:5 we’re learning that it hasn’t ever even crossed God’s mind to have someone kill a child for him.

With all these new discoveries about how God was so much better than we had thought, reading Brian’s book filled in cracks or felt like reading a book we could have written as well. I knew I needed to meet him. Reaching pastors of big churches is quite unlikely. Trying to reach him by contacting his team proved fruitless, so I messaged him via Facebook. He got back to me the next day! He was willing to meet me and my husband to film interviews for my first videos on spiritual abuse and a shorter interview for a segment on our wellness show.

Audaciously, I had asked him if we could meet him for dinner and film the next day. My husband and I filled up our orange Beetle with camera equipment to the brim and drove down to St Joseph, Missouri, for seven hours, filled with marveling at the fact that we get to do what we are passionate about: telling (earth shattering) truth with video. We met him and his wife Peri at a Sushi restaurant. It was an incredible hot August Sunday evening and I was excited out of my mind. He looked like a retired rock star with sandals, lots of facial hair, and Pink Floyd shirt. I giggled like a groupie because I had spent the past month basically inhaling his teachings on videos or podcasts, relieved with every other sermon or teaching series at his insight into God’s character that resonated so deeply within me.

We talked vividly for two hours. There wasn’t enough time! Also, if you have ever met someone you admire from a distance, there is the strange sensation of realizing that while you feel like you know them well, they don’t know you well at all, and they might not even have the brain space or desire of getting to know you well. Peri and Brian however were very sweet and showed interest in me sharing my background, which for some reason I decided to start with my grandparents’ birth in Siberia, them becoming Mennonite refugees and ending up in Paraguay, where my mom was born.

When we said good night, I felt like a fool for trying to explain why I believe I ended up in a Christian cult by backing up two generations before I was born, but I wanted them to get to know me as well and as accurately as possible. I guess the moral of the story is, I have to see them again! The interview was filmed in Brian’s office at his church, Word of Life, and covers many different topics. I decided to call it “A reintroduction to God with Brian Zahnd” because that seems to be his ministry. While he is receiving a lot of criticism from other Christians for his positions and views, I believe he is right to say that God is like Jesus and that THAT was the good news, that God isn’t mad and looks to punish people but that He forgives and loves eternally. I believe Brian and Peri Zahnd are nothing short of modern day prophets who speak truth that many people in the body of Christ are beginning to hear as well. I hope you will enjoy the thoughts we are discussing as much as I have!

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When I first started attending a United Pentecostal Church, I “did my research” to find out if they were right. I looked up the verses they gave me to look up, and they’d accurately quoted them. I did NOT read the surrounding verses or consider the Bible as a whole, however, so I didn’t know they were sometimes taken out of context or twisted to fit their desires. I also searched Bible dictionaries and commentaries for the specific words the UPC used… and thought “Wow, even other churches’ commentaries say the UPC is right, even though they don’t follow it’s teaching!” BUT I never checked to see why those other churches did NOT teach like UPC or why they decided to teach what they did.

I run into the same issues today. I and others too often call something “research” when really what we’re doing is trying to find backing for the thing we WANT to believe, rather than looking for the truth in a matter. We want to be right. We want what we now believe to be right. And we’re willing to go to great lengths to silence opposing opinions, when really if we’re seeking truth, we should be doing the real research of studying out those opposing opinions and why people hold them, and comparing them to our own opinions and our reasons for them.

Cults love to “stack” false teachings by using our desire to justify our opinions and be right with a misconception of what study and research really mean. They’ll use obscure sources (or their own publications) to “prove” that what they’re saying is right, without giving consideration to any other perspective. Others “don’t have the truth” or are “lost”. They don’t have the great “revelations” that we’ve now been presented with [and had better accept or we’ll also be lost]. And so begins the stacking process. Then they do this, for example:

1) there is one God. (of course there is)
2) His name is Jesus. (wait, that’s not quite… but they have plenty of verses and we want to understand, and the verses are in the Bible, so…)
3) And every believer should be baptized in Jesus’ name (I was already baptized. Oh, but that’s not how you should REALLY be baptized. But maybe you don’t have this revelation. But if the Father, Son and Holy Ghost is Jesus, then I HAVE been baptized into Christ. No, not the same. The right words weren’t said. But don’t worry about that right now. Just keep coming and you’ll see…)

And after awhile, a person accepts the teaching as true. And because it’s preached often, even to a room full of people who already believe it, it’s reinforced and reemphasized until it becomes fact in their minds.

When I first started attending a UPC, on several occasions I was told not to ask certain questions or think about certain things yet, because they didn’t want to “confuse” me. The truth of the matter was that if I’d considered them at that point, before they’d finished stacking their false teachings in my mind, I WOULD have seen. I would have seen that what they wanted me to believe wasn’t all Truth at all. If I’d known how to research, how to really study rather than just trying to prove my own point or verify theirs, then I would have grown.

It’s easy to prove a point. There’s always someone, somewhere, who will agree that you can use to back your point. But it’s harder to take years of various opinions and consider and weigh all of them. It’s much harder to read about why people disagree with something you want to believe – to read respectfully, without constantly thinking what they’re saying is all wrong, but actually considering their words. It’s hard, but it’s healthy. And often it’s the only way to untangle unhealthy religious teachings at all.

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The following article is written by a woman who wishes to remain anonymous. It is about Independent Fundamental Baptist churches, though others will also relate.

In my preteen years, I was taught to believe that expressing any negativity in any way was a way to show that I did not actually possess the Fruit of the Spirit (or evidence I was saved). Since the qualities included “joy” and “peace,” any sign of discouragement, depression, sadness, anxiety, was taken as a sign that I was under the devils influence. If I was under the influence of Satan, I was either “backslidden” or not truly saved.

Therefore, anytime I was in public, I was reminded by my mother, or people in my church, that in order to be a “good witness” for Christ (and not give God a bad name in the process), I had to put on my happy face.  And I did so.

Anyone who saw me in my teenage years would have imagined that I was living a life of pure bliss. I was smiling literally ALL of the time. I always acted cheerful, even though inside, I was deeply depressed (in fact, nowadays, when I see a girl who smiles too much, I worry for her). I radiated what appeared to be pure joy, “the joy of the Lord,” so to speak.

However, I  remember sitting in my room by myself, day by day, and being just so incredibly depressed. I would lie there, reading books or drawing pictures, and thinking to myself, “What is the purpose of living, if you’re just going to die anyway,” “Does anyone really care about me? Why do I actually exist at all,” and sometimes my thoughts would gravitate to how scary death would be. I would imagine my funeral and wonder how many people would show up if I died.  I truly believe the only reason I didn’t commit suicide was because of the intense fear I had of going through the torment of the fires of Hell.

I remember one time, passing a note to my friend at church, which said, “If I died tomorrow, would you go to my funeral?”  At the time, it seemed perfectly normal to ask such a question.

I sang a lot of “specials” (songs) at the church regarding joy. Here’s an example:

But what I couldn’t understand through the years was…why didn’t I feel this joy I sang of? I was living a lie,  but was not allowed to acknowledge this fact. It was forced to be a secret buried deep within myself, and I despised it.

My mother frequently read my diary, so I never felt quite like I was able to be honest in it. Yet, I felt a deep desire to write!  So sometimes I would begin a journal entry, and I would be honest about feeling bad…then I would consider whether the entry would be a “bad witness” for Christ. I worried that if I was to die that day and someone was to find it, they might think badly of God and therefore be denied the opportunity to be saved, so I would actually erase the entry and change it into something that looked “positive.”

For instance, I would think, “I feel so lonely. Why am I not happy? What is the purpose in life? There is no meaning in anything! The kids told me I was ugly today and it really hurt my feelings,” but I would write, “Today was such a BEAUTIFUL day!  The sun was shining and I got to go to church and see my friend. Someone got saved today, and I’m so happy for them! I can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow!”

If you read my journal back then, it might have seemed that things were good, but they were actually tragically bad. And this actually was a problem for years into my marriage also. I was unable to allow myself to believe anything was ever bad. This denial caused me to not be able to confront issues as they arrived and I went through much unnecessary hardship as a result.

The Bible NEVER condemns feeling sad, or anger, or any other God given emotions. Our emotions were given to us by God to help us to see and address problems in our lives. They are tools to help us, and they are not sin in and of themselves.  Ephesians 4:26 says “Be angry, and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath.”  It does not say not to be angry, but not to allow that anger to cause you to SIN.

David poured out many tears to God, and expressed deep sorrow multiple times, and yet he was considered “a man after God’s own heart.”  The Bible says that He knows our suffering intimately, and cares for us.  He has experienced the same types of pain we have, while existing in human form on earth, and He knows our suffering and carries our burdens on His own shoulders when we give them to Him.  Jesus – even though he was GOD HIMSELF and knew the final outcome of the situation- WEPT with Martha and Mary over Lazarus. He knows our emotions and does not hold them against us. He gave them for us, to help us heal. They are a GOOD thing.

If you have grown up with the idea that being true to who you are, and expressing emotions is a negative thing, or that God would be upset with you for expressing any sad, angry, or hurt feelings, please know that the God in scripture does not EVER express such an idea. Emotions are a gift from God. Being honest with who we are and what we feel is healthy. Being dishonest and wearing a mask is unhealthy and breeds resentment, and continues the cycles of depression. We must be honest with our emotions in order to find healing.

JOY does not necessarily mean that every moment you feel happy. True spiritual joy is in knowing that despite the trials we face here on earth, we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and that NOTHING can separate us from His love. We can pour out our hearts HONESTLY to Him, and do not have to hold back our anger, tears, pain, disillusionment, etc. He understands, is patient with us, and helps us to heal with the tools he has given us – our emotions.

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Churches, even bad ones, emphasize love. They just put their own spin on what it means to love. We were told they loved us, and that if we loved God and loved Truth, we’d stay in their churches, that if we loved our brothers in Christ, we’d wear long skirts and never look a man in the eye, and that if we loved the pastor, we’d obey him. If we loved… Yet they didn’t know what love was. I Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Yet they were jealous, proud, loved talking about all they’d done and hearing others say how wonderful they were. They talked about how only they had the truth and called other churches trash cans. They yelled at people, publicly berated and humiliated them without ever even first hearing both sides of the story or searching for the truth in the issue they were yelling about. They were quick to judge and condemn, and if you did any little thing they could bring up the whole laundry list of everything they knew or thought they knew you’d ever done in a heartbeat no matter how you’d repented. They had no problem throwing people out or creating an atmosphere were certain people couldn’t stay, and immediately washed their hands of those “hell-bound reprobates.”

Love. One simple, yet very misunderstood, word.

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