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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 of us who have been exposed to it grow weary of people trying to minimize or poke fun at what we experienced. If a person has only been in a healthy church or group, they cannot relate. They will wonder why people remained or went along with some things. They simply do not understand the atmosphere in unhealthy churches, nor the harm they cause. Some others who are still part of an unhealthy church love to label everyone as bitter, rebellious, and/or unforgiving and some laugh and say we just didn’t get to sing in the choir or didn’t like the color the pastor painted the church.

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 three blogs. These are used by permission and are anonymous. Some responses have been edited for spelling and punctuation and emoticons have been removed. All the ones included in this part were from the UPCI or other Oneness Pentecostal 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.

I feel like I lost time with my immediate family that could have been shared, as Jesus did – with compassion and mercy. My interactions with them (while in the organization) were more about my false appearance of moral superiority, judgement and condemnation. I’ve lost moments with them that I’ll never get back. I only have hope that our eternities will be spent together at this point.

I was taught a dysfunctional and deformed view of God, as a vengeful, rejecting, elitist, which justified me and everyone else to behave in like manner. I became that guy that cut off family, friends, and anyone who rejected our way. I taught and believed anyone who wasn’t Apostolic was a fake wanna-be Christian and wasn’t going to heaven.

Wearing Make Up? Going to hell. Wearing pants? Going to hell. Wearing shorts? Going to hell. Seeing a shrink? Going to hell. etc, etc, etc. Thus, I spent 15 years judging people instead of loving people. Sure, I’d wave, but I’d turn around and snicker – yea there’s a harlot…

I was taught to mock people who left or were different instead of following Scriptures example. Years ago a local businessman came to me and said, “I know you are a Christian, and I highly respect you, and I want to confide in you.”

This man confided his addiction to pornography to me, explained how he tried and tried to quit, the hurt it caused his family, his failings, etc. In the end, he asked me to mentor him, to be an accountability partner, to support and pray with. I told this man that if he had the real Jesus, not his fake Jesus, he wouldn’t have these problems and that he needed to come to church, get baptized in Jesus name, get the Holy Ghost and speak in tongues or he was lost to hell, and until he did those things I wouldn’t be able to be that connected and close to him.

This man was seeking Jesus, and I could have been part of that, and helped a MAN with a problem most men face. Instead? I judged, condemned and rejected like a good Pentecostal should.

It took me three months after leaving the cult to circle around to as many people as I could remember that I rejected and personally and face to face ask for forgiveness for the things I had done, said and exemplified.

I grew up with a very unrealistic view of the world around me. I was a good student in public school and a PK at home. I felt schizophrenic because the two worlds were always in competition. I attended the cult college instead of real college but thankfully met and married a wonderful man. He was clueless to all the hurt and abuse women suffer in the UPC. I was robbed of the fun and joy of being a young wife. I felt like an old lady at 30 and looked like one. So many things were not ‘allowed’. We were allowed to eat so I got fat. No makeup, jewelry, feminine things that make a young wife smile. I never fit in, my kids never fit in; not because we broke the rules but rather because we followed them too closely. I was miserably judgmental of myself and everyone around me. The peace that can be found when you leave this legalistic, self righteous group is unbelievably amazing!

…I did not even touch on the financial in my last post. From our pastor insisting we buy a van as a young married couple so we could haul people to church (and his assurance in 1973 that we would never have to make all the payments because the rapture was imminent). Then my making all our clothes, even suits and jeans because there was a cheap mill fabric store and a huge portion of our money went into the church. We shared drinks at Burger King while the pastor ate at Bennigans with our tithe. We had major life events including my husband being injured and spending almost two years in the hospital and a year of waiting for military pay to kick in while living on $40 a week from Red Cross and painting a house myself in lieu of rent. No church offered any help whatsoever. That year I had $19 for Christmas for three small children. Although we were assured we would have huge money issues and go broke if we left and did not pay tithe, we have flourished in the seven years since leaving, even though we still give to the poor and needy and those who struggle and to our own families (even those still in UPC who still struggle) but not to the fat cat preachers.

I lost my youth. I lost out on relationships with extended family before I left and now with my immediate family and most childhood friends since I left. I was uneducated, depressed and married at 20. I hated my life and didn’t even recognize it until I left.

Being a former 4th generation UPC kid and growing up under the church pews, I learned to hide who I was quickly. I learned my body should be hidden. I wore clothes several sizes too big for 27 years. If I wore something that fit me (even as a kid), it was too sexy and I would be causing some old penis to sin. I was taught I shouldn’t find interest in sports or things because the dress code for those things were “inappropriate,” I really hate that word! It was used for anything that didn’t fit the UPC mold: friendships, clothing, jewelry, heels off in church, sexuality, creativity that didn’t serve the church in some way… I was taught to not speak up, to hold my peace. I wasn’t to listen to my instincts because they were inherently evil. (I still struggle with this! It’s gotten me in some pretty awful situations over the years.) I felt I often needed to apologize to people I cared about in the church for my family’s treatment of them in the name of God. The church taught exclusivity from “the world.” I could have had some pretty amazing life-long school friends had it not been for the church! I missed out on joy, being more athletic, being a dancer, feeling beautiful, being playful, having relationships with my non-UPC family, getting help with my developmental disabilities outside a school setting, and not making plans for my future past 18. (It was a rule in our house we had to graduate high school, but I didn’t plan for marriage, college, career, kids, or anything. The rapture was going to happen! Hallelujah. Amen. Why try to dream about things that’ll never happen?!? It really made the first few years of my marriage super tough. I didn’t know how to live in the real world. I was so flipping naive! I didn’t know what I wanted to do for work, so I got fired a lot a lot! I didn’t know how to pay bills. I’d always lived with my parents. I could spend money like there was no tomorrow at the grocery store. My poor husband was/is still super patient with me when it my lack of street smarts/worldliness pops up.) There is sooo much more.

The constant call for money and giving more than you could afford caused much heart ache in our family. Even to giving our whole month paycheck to the church. Not even a thank you and it going into the big black hole that was existing at that time. My husband and BIL were asked to sign on a huge loan and they wouldn’t. That next Sunday was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The church was asked who would support the pastor in anything they did or say by raising their hands. We did not of course. That’s when we were snubbed leaving that day. We had had enough. 1/3 of the church split. We were with the split. That pastor left us to go evangelize and we felt betrayed. The new pastor sent in by the UPC also betrayed us by leaving in a month. That’s when both of us gave up on the UPC. My husband went back to it after awhile but I never did.

Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

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Throughout my lifetime, there have been various times when I had to be in a court of law, either as a witness, a defendant, or a plaintiff in different situations. Obviously, in these cases, the judge is the final word (unless it is a criminal trial, which was not true in any of the cases I was involved in).

Due to his power over decisions that affect the lives of individuals in significant ways, it would be normal to have a level of fear or anxiety about making sure one was able to properly communicate the truth of one’s testimony to a judge.

However, thinking about this over the years, I’ve noted that my fear and anxiety in each of these cases was greatly enhanced and compounded by the presence of preachers in the courtroom. Interestingly, I found that their reactions to what was being said was the most frightening aspect of all.

My first few experiences of this type, I was still involved in the cult, and felt this fear was natural. After all, preachers are “God’s men” and whatever they think about you must be God’s opinion as well.

Down through the years, as events in and around my life have unfolded, I have come to realize that preachers are just human beings. If there were six preachers in the room at any given event, their opinions about what is going on would probably differ greatly and they would even contend with one another as to who was right or wrong.

Some time ago, I found myself in a similar legal situation, and it was interesting to note that, although I no longer believe that preachers are second only to God, I had the identical emotional reaction that I had in my youth, the first time I was in a court-like atmosphere with preachers present. Realizing that many others who had been taught about the infallible opinion of a preacher probably deal with similar emotions, I decided to delve into the science behind why this occurs.

First of all, one must understand the body’s physical stress response to a dangerous situation. The emotion involved is usually fear, and it activates the fight or flight response in the brain stem, or primitive area of the brain. When this area of the brain is activated, it temporarily shuts down the cognitive (thinking) area of the brain, which means the reactions of the individual become instinctive, and fueled by adrenaline. Adrenaline was designed to help the individual have extra strength to flee or to fight in times of danger. However, in situations where one can do neither (such as in a court room or in a church service), adrenaline floods the body and can cause various symptoms, such as sweating profusely, pounding heart beat, increased pulse rate, breathlessness, trembling, crying, instant headaches, or a host of other physical stress responses.

At the core of the area of the brain responsible for these stress responses, is an almond shaped part of the brain called the amygdala. This is where important memories are stored that are strongly linked with emotions. Without having to think about it, the individual will automatically react in certain ways to events that trigger these memories. Sometimes the memories are even so instinctive that the individual might be unaware of where the response is coming from.

So how does this relate to stress involving preachers?

When one has been raised in, or spent significant time in a cult, he or she has been inundated with powerful messages of fear involving ever crossing the will of the preacher. In a cult, a preacher or some type of leader will have all of the power, and the other members of the group learn to be in awe and fear of this leader. In the case of spiritual abuse, we were indoctrinated to believe that an angry preacher meant an angry God. When all was well between us and the preacher, all was well between us and God. The fear of displeasing this man was equal to the fear of hell and eternal damnation without God.

When a person comes out of this atmosphere, and begins to grow in their cognitive understanding of the fallacy of this teaching, it is helpful in one’s daily life to know that God’s relationship with the individual is personal and does not depend on the opinions of others. However, in times of stress and emotion, the cognitive area of the brain is shut off. So, even though one firmly believes that a preacher is just a human being, in those moments of stress, when disapproval will undoubtedly come in a fearful situation, that primitive physical stress response kicks in.

It does not mean that you are “back to square one’ in your recovery. It doesn’t mean anything at all, really, except that your primitive, early brain learned to respond in fear and stress to a negative response from a preacher. In these cases, I’ve learned to get through the stress response by using relaxation techniques, and just to know that my recovery is still on track, and that the response was nothing more than a primitive physical response of my body warning me of the danger of such individuals in my life.

In the true spiritual world, only God is my judge. The opinions of men…all men…and women…all women, are irrelevant. God alone will decide my case. He alone will hand out the decision of my final destination.

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Have you ever just shaken your head in disbelief or had to restrain yourself from commenting on Really Bad Theology on Facebook? I know I have, and unfortunately on more than one occasion. It’s really hard to hold it in when you see people expressing stupid platitudes that don’t help the situation or only make things worse.

Here are my top three seen recently:

• God never gives you more than you can handle (personally, I think this one has contributed to more than one personal faith crisis)
• Heaven needed another angel/heaven gained another angel (lousy theology, IMO, and often not that helpful for the bereaved)
• So-and-so is in a better place (this can open up more than one can of worms if the bereaved is struggling or if their relationship with the deceased was troubled)

The first will be dealt with in Part 2, and the last two will be dealt with in Part 3. Here, I’m going to tackle some suggested coping strategies when some of the ideas people express really get you down:

• Pick your battles wisely – some people just express these ideas because someone in their family came out with them and they lack the Scriptural foundation to question them, so debates are likely to get you nowhere. Using the option to hide the status update or tweet in question on your feed will probably save you a lot of frustration.
• Don’t be afraid to invoke the “my news feed, my rules” principle – if you don’t want people posting stuff to your FB timeline or retweeting stuff you find objectionable to you, stand your ground. Let everyone know that if someone posts something to your feed that is offensive, you’re within your rights to delete it.
• Enforce your own boundaries – setting boundaries is always good, but at its most effective when you make it a point to enforce those boundaries. If someone in your life keeps expressing ideas that trouble you on social media and filtering their stuff out isn’t quite working, taking a break from their drama might be in order.

What it comes down to is that we can’t control others’ beliefs (and indeed, we shouldn’t try), but we can control whether toxic beliefs of theirs become a source of annoyance.

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Before I dive into this account, I misspelled the word “fallacy” on purpose. It’s a reference to the disturbing and tainted legacy of my former church’s founder. The story I share concerns a “prophecy” the founder made over 30 years ago that never came to pass. Still, a lot of my friends fell for the sales pitch.

Thanksgiving weekend, 1987, was supposed to be a fun time for everyone. Most normal people, unless they were on duty, went home on leave to visit loved ones. I didn’t have enough leave yet to take an extended vacation, so I joined the rest of the guys at the church for a big Thanksgiving dinner at a Norfolk supper club, hosted by the founder. The dinner would wrap up and we would load up in vans and return to the church for an evening service.

The founder stated that night what we thought was a prophecy:
“Behold, thus saith the Lord; give Me 200 men who did not care where they ate, where they slept, where they lived, or whether or not they ever get married. If you give Me this, I will use you to win the world with the gospel.”

We were worshiping and praising the Lord for what we considered at that time to be a powerful message of prophecy. We believed God was going to use all of us to go out into the mission fields around the world. The message on the surface sounded noble. However, the founder was known to preach a doctrine called “eunuchship.” Eunuchship was based on a scripture in Matthew’s gospel.

Matthew 19:12 (KJV)
For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

This is the only place in the New Testament where Jesus spoke of this. The founder encouraged men to make a vow never to get married for “the gospel’s sake;” those who did were seen as an elite group in the ministry. I never made this vow. The men who did would find themselves cheated over time.

The single men in the ministry often lived in crowded apartments, sometimes up to six in a two bedroom unit. We would spend almost every waking moment doing busywork at the church, being basically free labor for the leadership and in some cases sex partners for the founder. Yes, the founder was a closeted homosexual yet he preached vehemently against homosexuality in public. Lack of sleep, no social life, little time for personal pursuits were common and we as a group endured it because we had this promise – especially those of us who “made the vow” – God would send us out.

As the years and decades passed, this promise fell flat. Only a small number of us who followed what the founder said ever got sent out. The majority were stuck at the church building, working low wage jobs, became socially isolated, and never fulfilled their dreams. These men, once young, grew old and lost the relationships that mattered most: family, friends, professional achievements.

After leaving, I realized how bogus the “phallacy” really was. I count myself thankful to God for never tossing my life away to that extent; I lost enough years as it was. I wanted to tell some of my friends who still attend how they’ve been cheated. They more than likely would reject me, stating I backslid and am reprobate. They still believe if they remain faithful, they will be sent.

These men will go to their graves never realizing the whole “prophecy” over 30 years ago was all a scam, meant to provide free labor and sex partners. In other words, a “phallacy.”

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I believe I had this idea to some extent growing up. It was definitely reinforced in the unhealthy churches I was in. We even sang a song about it. I was furious when I learned my former pastor’s son was molesting boys in the church. We’d been told often that if we had any concerns about the pastor and his family or anything they were doing we should “hold our peace and let the Lord fight our battles” (just shut up and pray) and God would take care of anything that was REALLY wrong (ie not just our evil imaginations, because if we thought anything negative about the pastor or his family it was surely us who were wrong).

Well, where was God? If he was to fight our battles, if we were right to just obey the pastor and pray, then how could he have not fought for those boys? Everything I’d been taught about trusting God, it seemed, was wrong.

I think back to my teens and young adult years when so many songs were about being God’s hands and feet in missions and ministry. The concept was that God is a spirit and Jesus is no longer on earth. It’s his people who now do his work. How in the world is staying quiet and just praying EVER considered OK when kids are being abused or other things are wrong?

Mom used to say that she might have faith, but she wouldn’t stand in the middle of the road and pray not to be hit by a car. But that’s what we did every day, staying quiet and expecting God to do for us what we should have had the decent common sense to do for ourselves.

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