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The UnBoxing Project: Ashley’s story

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 9, 2015 as part of a series.

Continued from Defecting from a cult.

Editorial Note: Although Ashley is a survivor of a Christian fundamentalist cult, unfortunately she became abusive herself. She has been reported to several law enforcement agencies for human trafficking others from 2017-2019. She is the abusive partner mentioned in this post from 2022.

I keep Ashley’s story on the blog as a reminder that those who do not heal from their own trauma can and often do end up harming others. If you see online fundraisers for Ashley or her current partners, please know that anything you donate may enable her to continue to cause harm, and we would caution anyone against donating to her. If you know where she is, please report her to the authorities since she has been avoiding speaking to investigators for several years.

Content Note: spiritual abuse, self-harm, victim-blaming

Ashley grew up attending the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs, now known as Heritage Pentecostal Church. This is Ashley’s story, told in her own words.

Do you know what it’s like when
You’re scared to see yourself?
Do you know what it’s like when
You wish it were someone else
Who didn’t need your help to get by?
Do you know what it’s like
To wanna surrender?
I don’t wanna feel like this tomorrow
I don’t wanna live like this today
Make me feel better, I wanna feel better
Stay with me here now and never surrender
Never surrender. – Surrender, Skillet

“Mama! Mama! Look at the butterfly!” I squealed in delight at the wonder perched on my shoulder.

“Don’t move, Lovey! It’ll fly away.”

I stood as still as possible as my mom snapped a picture of this beautiful creature, and watched as it flew away. I remember thinking as I watched the butterfly float into a beautiful, summer day, how amazing it would be to be able to just whisk yourself away whenever you chose.

I had no idea how much I would pine for that fantasy to become a reality.

I always remember my parents being there, no matter what the occasion was. Pajama day at school, grown-up day, job day, doctor’s appointments, they were always present. I can’t remember an important event they were not there for.

I went to them with everything, no matter how strange, and they were always brutally honest with me. I liked it that way. Being a straightforward person, I needed that to grow. Things were always so comfortable — and then 2001 came and everything changed. Drastically.

My mom had gotten involved with a church when she was 15, and the experience had always stayed with her. She had visited a Pentecostal holiness church and had received what they call the Holy Ghost, which to them is the basis of salvation. You cannot attain Heaven without it, and once you have received it, even if you walk away from God, you are marked and you will be a target for Satan.

My dad, on the other hand, is Irish/German and was raised Catholic. He was actually an altar boy growing up and wanted to become a priest. However, he grew out of that sometime in high school.

While living in Louisiana, my mom met a girl named Billie Jo, and they went to a Pentecostal church together. My mom converted all the way this time (lost the pants, threw away the jewelry, chucked the TV and music) and as soon as my dad joined, we essentially became Amish with microwaves.

Ashley (center) at a church outreach and evangelism event called Youth with Truth at Acacia Park in downtown Colorado Springs on June 29, 2013. | Photo: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs

But even then, my parents broke me in slowly.

As an only child, I had practically every Disney movie known to man, and they allowed me to hand over my Disney movies in exchange for Veggie Tales. From there, it was my Veggie Tales traded in for either a trampoline or a puppy. My daddy bought me both.

They introduced me into that world slowly, and with ease. I appreciated that, even then. I knew they could have completely ripped everything away from me and made the transition harder than it already was. But they didn’t.

I never thanked them for that. I guess it kind of got buried under everything other emotion that surfaced after.

At first, things weren’t so bad. The family environment was great. Having no family in Colorado, the church appeared to be exactly what we needed. I started going to the church school which consisted of about 50 kids. I made friends quickly, and it seemed so easy at first. We were accepted as new converts and everything was cool.

My parents also made friends, and were treated like family by the pastor. They were like their kids.

I believe this is what started the depth of my parents’ relationship with the ministry. Around 2006, the pastor decided he wanted to evangelize and ended up electing a man from Mississippi to pastor the church.

I’ve never seen a man so hell bent on changing people for the worst.

Brother and Sister Burgess at Ashley’s high school graduation. | Photo: Ashley Kavanaugh

To my parents, this couple took the place of God. I have literally heard my dad say that if John Burgess asked him to stand on his head for 6 hours a day, in the middle of Interstate 25, that he would do it without hesitation.

They believe that he is the voice of God, that even if he is wrong, and they sin because of his advice, that God would honor their obedience and look past their own wrongdoing.

The church services are filled with hype and the sermons are mostly guilt, especially directed at young people. They warn us of the wrath of God if we choose to walk away and almost every service we are reminded of the horrors that have happened to backsliders all through Pentecostal history, including those from our own youth group.

One of the stories of backsliders was one of my close friends Sharonda.

She grew up with me, my mom babysat her and her older sister, and I looked up to this girl. She was my idol for a long time. She was my piano inspiration, she was cool, and she loved people.

I’ve never met a heart as big as Sharonda’s.

She was shot and killed late summer 2012. The case was never solved, and the Burgesses made not only her death, but also her funeral, an omen and message to all of us, that we should not run from God, for he is a jealous God, and his vengeance is strong.

She is seldom mentioned among the young people. It just hurts too much.

Brother John Burgess leading prayer during church outreach event called Youth With Truth at Acacia Park in downtown Colorado Springs on June 29, 2013. | Photo: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs

The Burgesses continued to push their way into the minds of the church, and more and more young people have been driven away from God.

Most of the “backsliders” that I know don’t even believe in a benevolent God anymore.

This started to become my opinion very young. I couldn’t see how any of this made sense. I thought the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was just and honorable? Not malicious and manipulative.

After my parents began to blindly follow the pastor, I started to lose control. I shut off all emotions because I just couldn’t handle them anymore. I began to get more and more reclusive, and eventually began to blame myself for the guilt and pain that my parents were dealing with due to the controlling ways of the church.

I didn’t know how to get help, and I began to fall into a deeper depression. I began to self-harm. This was done in so many ways, I can’t even begin to explain it all. Eventually, the self-harm wasn’t enough. I attempted suicide six times, starting at the age of 11.

I tried everything. Nothing worked.

My mom caught me cutting once and literally dragged me in to Shanna Burgess (the pastor’s wife), who promptly told me as I lay on the floor, bleeding, that it was all in my head, and I needed to stop being so angry at God.

She told me I was the one to blame.

After coming to her weeks before with my heart wide open and breaking in pieces, I explained one reason why I felt so alone. I was sexually assaulted when I was 6 years old and had no way to express my feelings. She, of course, immediately took this information to my mother, who denied it.

My parents have never believed me. Sister Burgess told me I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself because come on, it never happened!

I hated them before but after this? I could never forgive them.

Brother and Sister Burgess had and still have a hold on my parents like nothing I’ve ever seen.

(Left to right) Brother John Burgess, Ashley Kavanaugh, and Kevin Kavanaugh at Heritage Christian Academy’s 2012 high school graduation. Heritage Christian Academy is a private, unaccredited school operated by the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs. | Photo: Ashley Kavanaugh

When I turned 18, things started to look up. I was finally allowed to have a phone because I had turned 18 (pastor’s rules for youth), I was finally granted rights to a car (that I bought, of course), and everything was going good.

I had been in good graces with the Burgesses and my family. I was following the rules to perfection.

And then after a falling out with my best friend at the time, I started to become close friends with a girl named Racquel. We began to grow closer and closer as the months went on, and before you knew it, we were opening up to each other. I told her things I had never told anyone ever.

Eventually, our concerns about the church and their doctrines, the Burgesses and all sorts of other questions came to the forefront of our conversations and we began to discuss them.

We grew even closer after learning about some of the abuse that the other one had endured.

We got caught discussing these topics, and we were separated and forbidden to speak to one another. This happened four times.

Each time we grew closer and closer and eventually, we started to go to extreme lengths to see each other. My parents and the Burgesses resorted to lying to both of us, trying to force us to hate each other.

After another six months of not speaking, we once again rebelled and talked about what had happened. We realized they had lied to both of us, obtaining information by hacking email and bank accounts. My parents forced me to stop attending my college classes because Racquel might try to visit me there.

We communicated to each other through Eleanor for about three weeks, and then we started to sneak out again.

We had contemplated running away many times before, but something was different this time.

When two adults aren’t allowed to talk because they get caught listening to One Direction, there’s some serious malfunction going on. It had reached an all-time idiocy and we had enough.

We both left home, and the night I did that was the hardest decision of my life.

Three days later, my dad was going to throw my stuff on the sidewalk. My mom, who was out of town at the time, convinced him to let me come pack my stuff, so he left for a few hours.

Racquel and Eleanor went with me. The first thing I noticed when I came in was that all my pictures were taken off the walls and lay facing down. Some sat in piles on the floor. I almost lost it then.

I just remember feeling like my parents died, and I was cleaning out their house.

A little later, Cynthia Jeub and another friend also came over. I’ll never forget the look on Cynthia’s face when I saw her. I walked outside to greet them, and she just looked so disturbed. But there was also pride in her eyes.

She hugged me for a good ten minutes. I’ve never expressed how much that hug meant to me.

They helped me pack up, and I decided last minute to check my mom’s car. I went to look for any remaining items, and when I opened the door, I saw that the inside of the car was destroyed.

I can only assume my dad went crazy and trashed the car. It was really scary.

Everyone was panicking because we didn’t know when he was coming back, and he had guns, so people were starting to freak out. We left not long after.

It didn’t really hit me until then, how drastic the change was going to be.

Since then, I have gone through a lot. I’ve put myself through an abusive relationship, made myself be something I wasn’t, lost connection with my family for months at a time because of “religious differences,” moved around a lot, found out I was adopted by my dad, been through a ton of counseling, self-harmed, ran from my home state, even shut my humanity off a few times.

But one thing I can say I haven’t, nor will I ever do, is forget who I am and where I came from.

I can’t express how hard it has been. The sleepless nights, the thousands of times I’ve cried myself to sleep, and woke up screaming. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

But you know what? I don’t regret it. I can’t. I’ve invested too much into this decision to fault it.

To those of you trying to escape, it’s not impossible. It’s not easy, but I promise its worth it.

We have helped more people come out since my decision to leave, and the feeling is so liberating, knowing you are a voice and a model for them.

To those of you who have siblings that are still in captivity, don’t give up hope. They will make it. YOU are their light, no matter how dark you feel sometimes. Because sometimes the darkest shadows have been cast by the brightest lights.

And no matter what bad choices you make long the way, I’ve found that I don’t have to be ashamed of them. Because they are finally my decisions.

So while wading through your red river of screams just as we have, remember you do not fight alone. You can make it.

And never surrender…. the battle will be worth it, and we will win the war.
I don’t wanna feel like this tomorrow
I don’t wanna live like this today
Make me feel better, I wanna feel better
Stay with me here now and never surrender
Never surrender

Ashley Kavanaugh attended public school during her elementary school years, but her parents later chose to homeschool her online when they joined the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs. She finished her senior year of high school at Heritage Christian Academy, the private school operated by that church. Her adopted father is an attorney, but she was the first person on her mother’s side of the family to finish high school and attend college. She is interested in studying psychology, forensics, and criminal justice.

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The UnBoxing Project: Defecting from a cult

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 8, 2015 as part of a series.

Continued from Racquel’s story.

Liz was part of our network that helped Racquel and Ashley as they left the cult environment of the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs. Here is her perspective.

Photo: Wil C. Fry, creative commons license.

Nearly two years ago, I received text messages from Eleanor about a friendship between two girls that had been recently forbidden by their religious leader.

I was asked to attempt to sneak a cheap TracFone to one of the girls at her school because I would not be recognizable to her parents, who had confiscated all her means of communication. Unfortunately, she wasn’t in class that day.

Eventually, they acquired their freedom by leaving their church behind and living with friends.

Most people assume their own community has only good intentions in mind for members. Why would we believe otherwise if an overwhelming majority of us were taught that strangers are the ones who seek to hurt us?

In reality, data suggests that most cases of violent crime and sexual assault occur between people who are at least acquainted with each other or in regular physical proximity.

In spite of statistical and factual realities, we teach our children to fear strangers. We teach them to avoid the rare anomalies but fail to teach them to look for warning signs in the mundane. This contributes to the denial in identifying abusive communities when people are a part of one.

Instead, people taught to fear the outside world might think that to leave would be worse.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt says that evil is banal. It is predictable, common, and is generally perpetuated by unremarkable people motivated by their own, typically material needs.

An intense, outward adherence to a particular ideology or manifestation of a psychological condition might be present in the situation, but neither are enough to explain why communities as a whole behave a certain way.

In other words, abusers are regular people and not the monstrous caricatures we see on TV or evil stepmothers in children’s fairy tales. There might be a few narcissists and sociopaths at the upper echelons dictating the orders, but several people who are afraid of seeking out other dissenters within the group.

With hierarchy and scale, diffusion of guilt and responsibility is inevitable. Diffusion of guilt is generally paired with resistance to collective guilt that should logically follow the diffusion.

The lower end claim to be following orders, the higher ups claim they didn’t personally do it.

It’s the same garbage that makes none guilty for abuse that many participated in. It is as if people hope that with sufficient diffusion, the amount of culpability per person is rendered insignificant. Dilution of active ingredients in homeopathic “remedies” operates this way.

Abuse as a phenomena doesn’t become significant simply because the perception of responsibility among abusers is thinly spread out because there is always someone else to blame in the eyes of the guilty such that their victims somehow become responsible for their own abuse.

What I’ve gleaned from my studies in history and politics is that there is a tendency to conceal or otherwise diminish the significance of abuses as a means of trying to protect the legitimacy and reputation of an organization such as the Catholic church, many American universities, collegiate and professional sports teams, the entertainment industry, among many other examples.

When an organization cares more about protecting its own reputation than removing abusers or helping victims, there is a reason to question the validity and value of such an institution and the complicity of people within afflicted organizations.

Even if an individual abuser recognizes the harm they cause, to reject the cultural norms is to risk being socially ostracized and possibly, their standard of living. Obedience experiments by Milgram and replicated by others show that people are generally submissive to figures of authority up to a certain point.

It is likely that people from more isolated communities would escalate punishments further when commanded by members of their community than people from the general population being instructed by a stranger because of a greater sense of obligation and desire to belong in the former.

Defection is complicated. It comes with a high price tag in both an absolute and perceived sense.

People in deliberately isolated communities are generally taught that outsiders are evil, that its their own fault for being mistreated or that victims deserve it, and that the victims aren’t being treated badly in the first place. If maltreatment is believed to be normative and benevolent it tends to make victims attempt to justify what is going on as a means of internalizing conflicting messages.

The more isolated people are, the harder it is for them to recognize their own condition and the more complex the logistics of leaving becomes.

Liz received training at a local college in her hometown so that she could teach freshmen at her high school about how to avoid and recognize dating violence, local resources for victims, and statistics regarding the frequency of rape and lack of conviction. She was also a student teacher who assisted with evening adult education courses in sexual assault escape and self-defense offered by her school to the community.

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The UnBoxing Project: Racquel’s story

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 7, 2015 as part of a series.

Continued from Why did you call it the UnBoxing Project?

Content Note: religious manipulation, forced starvation

*Eleanor and Racquel hiking the Incline near Colorado Springs in fall 2013. | Photo: Eleanor Skelton*

Racquel grew up attending the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs, now known as Heritage Pentecostal Church. This is Racquel’s story, in her own words.

Somehow I never imagined that the inner peace and joy I felt as a 5-year-old girl after being filled with the Holy Ghost would later disgust and scare me.

I am writing this because I believe my voice should be heard. I hope that by telling my story it will help my healing and others with similar stories as well as prevent more stories like mine from happening.

The music was loud, and the atmosphere was pulsing with energy.

I wanted to show how much I loved God, so I went up to the front of the sanctuary and danced with all my might, letting my tears flow. I had been taught that I should dance before the Lord and not let anyone’s opinion stop me.

Often, I was the first one or the only one at the front of the church.

This was good. It meant I was a leader, and that I was fighting spiritual warfare. It would also show my pastor, who was God’s voice in my life, how my walk with God was and what a good apostolic young person I was.

I remember night after night where this was my mindset.

*Racquel (far left, wearing an orange dress) speaks in tongues on the front row during Heritage Youth Conference, fall 2011. | Photo: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs*

I was isolated from other members of the youth group because I would refuse to do things that the pastor had commanded us not to, like riding in a car with a guy unless it was approved or unless a married approved chaperone was in the car.

However, there were also the many, many times where I sat or knelt at the altar, weeping and feeling the guilt of my many sins when I simply failed to uphold the standards because I had listened to unchristian music, watched a TV show, or could not stick to a daily prayer life.

For years, I went through a cycle of getting in trouble with my best friend, Ashley, for questioning the pastoral authority and why we held to some of our standards, sometimes completely disregarding the rules, and then being told that my best friend and I should not talk or hang out because our personalities did not complement each other.

Meanwhile, I stood by as she was abused in so many ways by both the pastoral authority and her parents. The only thing I could do was be there for her.

In January 2013, my best friend and I had come to the conclusion that we did not and could not agree with the church. However, we were discovered yet again and ripped apart.

This time, the pastor lied to both of us, trying to turn us against each other by saying that the other one had ratted us out.

At the direction and guidance of the pastor, Ashley’s parents were punishing her for not losing weight because it was said that God could not use her unless she lost the weight. Because of her inability to meet their demands, she had begun starving herself.

I texted her one night in compassion and frustration that she should “F*** (written politely as $@##) what they think” to drive home to Ashley that starving herself was not the answer, and that her parents and pastor were wrong.

During one of the long sessions in the pastor’s office after getting caught, I discovered the pastor had hacked into my best friend’s phone and found my text.

I was questioned about my lack of respect for authority.

My hands were tied as I seethed in anger not able to tell the pastor the context of the text, lest the abuse she suffered would increase, because the pastor was part the abuse.

Back then, Ashley was too scared of losing her parents and being kicked out to do anything other than play along with them. When she was 19 years old, her parents and the pastor stripped every form of communication, transportation and even her ability to go to college from her.

She was not even allowed to be alone in her own home at any time.

Racquel (far right) singing in the choir. Apostolic churches consider leading worship to be a privilege called being “on the platform.” Anyone who questions authority or church beliefs may be removed from the platform as form of social shaming. | *Photo: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs*

In March, the deception worked, and the pressure finally broke me to the point that I gave in and did exactly as the church and the pastor wanted me to do. I felt helpless and that the reason for these crazy feelings must be because I was not submitted to them.

I continued to not talk to my best friend and tried to force myself into the mold they had created for me with my approved Christian friends and guilt-ridden prayer life.

I still had all of the same questions.

Why must a man my pastor dictate to me what God wants and God not talk to me directly? Why must I not be allowed to talk to my best friend who was still the most important person in my life?

How could so many injustices and abuse be what a loving god wanted?

So when my little sister decided to leave suddenly and move in with a guy I had never met, and I had no idea were she was or if she was safe, when my approved friends failed, I reached out to the one person I knew who would be there: Ashley.

Within two weeks of resuming secret communication, we had both discussed in detail what we saw wrong with the church, and had stated that no matter what we were going to keep communicating, even if it had to be hidden.

10553500_802766489755823_1022764128682957679_n — Ashley, Eleanor and Racquel in August 2013 | Photo: Eleanor Skelton

Almost immediately, she started to date a coworker.

On December 15, 2013, her dad followed her to her boyfriend’s house, and that night he kicked her out.

I received a text that said: “They know everything can you come and get me.” I immediately drove to her house and picked her up.

After that, we stayed in Eleanor’s apartment. She had also recently escaped an abusive fundamentalist home.

There has been a lot of healing and learning since then and now. Learning to live outside of the box has not been easy, nor do I think it ever will.

I now have the wonderful freedom of choice, and with that comes what I would describe as both the beauty of a rainbow and the burden of the rain cloud.

Making these choices is the scariest and most exhilarating thing that I have ever done. I have learned and accepted more of who I am.

I can only hope that healing will come in time, and the scars will become less painful.

Racquel graduated with a bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs in May 2014. She struggled with undereducation from inadequate homeschooling and Christian private education in her church throughout her time in college. Racquel hopes to pursue a graduate degree in counseling and mental health, and her current job involves assisting troubled teens.

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Why did you call it the UnBoxing Project?

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 6, 2015 as part of a series.

Continued from The Trouble With Freeing People.

Editorial Note: I re-wrote this post in January 2024 to better reflect what I now know about social justice and systemic oppression in the last decade since I left fundamentalism.

When I moved out of my restrictive home environment and was kicked out of the cult my family was in, other friends in similar circumstances told me what they were dealing with.

I realized I wasn’t alone in my experience.

Unfortunately, there were many other young adults and college students in their early 20s from Christian fundamentalist or other religious backgrounds in Colorado Springs who lived with their families in high-control situations, just like I did.

I would alert the same network of friends who supported me, enlisting their aid. We offered them emotional support and resources or actually organized a plan to help them move out on their own.

My best friend in college, Cynthia Barram, who is black, said our network of friends helping friends to escape abusive situations was like an “underground railroad.”

However, we did not want to appropriate that name from the BlPOC community, although we shared a deep admiration for people from marginalized communities who risked everything to find their own freedom.

Our experiences were definitely not the same as those whose ancestors experienced enslavement and the generational trauma of racism.

Although ex-fundamentalist Christian homeschool alumni may experience the marginalization of disability, neurodivergence or chronic illness as the result of childhood toxic stress from living with long-term abuse and having a high score of adverse childhood experiences (ACE), we wouldn’t want to compare our experiences to other marginalized groups.

Homeschool kids often read a lot of history.

Unfortunately, we often were taught incorrect or biased history, but we also grow up resonating with historical figures like Harriet Tubman or Corrie Ten Boom or other people that we are told are heroes of our faith. People who made brave choices against all odds. My siblings and I often pretend re-enacted scenes from history that we read about. This experience I’ve found is common among those who grew up homeschooled.

Before bedtime, my mom used to read us Laura Ingalls Wilder books (yes, we now know these books have issues) and Christian historical fiction set during the Civil War like the Between Two Flags series. I read biographies about Corrie Ten Boom and the Hiding Place, did a research project on Underground Railroad in 6th grade, and devoured historical fiction like the deeply problematic and patriarchal Elsie Dinsmore series.

Two of my homeschooled friends at the Independent Fundamental Baptist church that my family attended in Dallas wrote their own Civil War historical fiction novel during our early teen years, distributing serialized chapters after church each Sunday.

I grew up wanting to lead people to freedom like Harriet Tubman or hide people in my own home like Corrie Ten Boom. None of us faced oppression like the enslavement or massacre of an entire people group.

But I had always connected with these narratives, and my friends did, too.

We weren’t immersed in popular culture, so we felt closer to people we read about from long ago more than our own time.

We liked the idea of people who couldn’t tolerate the injustices they observed and helped other regardless of the cost or risks involved.

In dealing with the abuses in our own community, we wanted to give shelter to those who needed it, until they found their own freedom.

My friend Kyle, who worked at a non-profit to prevent human trafficking called The Exodus Road, said that the number of young adults from this type of background being denied agency by overbearing parents is troubling.

We ended up calling our network The UnBoxing Project because my friends and I nicknamed the Christian fundamentalist homeschooling cult environment that we left behind “the box.”

Sometimes I’ll say things like, “back when we were in the box, they used to say that any music with a syncopated beat was demonic” or “People in the box think that Cabbage Patch dolls are evil,” and my friends know exactly what I’m talking about.

It’s a convenient way to refer to cult-speak and teachings of the cults that we escaped.

Helping others to leave abusive fundamentalist Christian environments is undoing what “the box” did to them.

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The UnBoxing Project: The trouble with freeing people

My friends and I often felt like Katniss in the Hunger Games as we left behind the high control churches we were raised in and rebelled against those systems. | Source: Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1.

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 5, 2015 as part of a series.

Continued from Being an angel with a shotgun.

Content Note: suicidal ideation, pastoral authority doctrine

“Eleanor, does your church teach the doctrine of pastoral authority?” my friend Racquel asked.

She was waiting with me in our college’s main auditorium and we were talking before the review session for my Organic Chemistry class started.

“What is that exactly?”

Racquel attended an apostolic Pentecostal church in Colorado Springs that told her that a person wasn’t “saved” unless they had been baptized and spoken in tongues at that particular church, not any other Pentecostal churches in the area.

A long list of offenses that are part of everyday life for most people, like watching movies and television or wearing short skirts and jewelry, could grieve the Holy Spirit, she said, and then you’d lose your salvation and have to “pray through at the altar” again.

Although I also grew up fundamentalist in the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement, we believed in “once saved, always saved,” meaning that if you messed up bad enough, you must never have been a real Christian to begin with and your salvation was fake somehow.

We’d been taught two different theology systems, but both churches taught us to be constantly afraid of hell.

“Pastoral authority means that our pastor, Brother Burgess, prays and decides if it’s God’s will for us to talk to a guy in the church, date him, get engaged, or marry,” she said. “And whether or not we can move out of town and attend another apostolic church.”

“Other apostolic churches allow social media and let their young people listen to CCM [contemporary Christian music], but our pastor has decided it’s not spiritually good for our congregation.”

Racquel didn’t see the harm in what her church banned, and she believed her pastor had good intentions.

“I can tell my pastor cares about the people in the church, the way he walks around and prays for us during the service.”

I hadn’t moved out of my parents’ house or begun dealing with the unhealthy cycles in my own life, but I knew something wasn’t right. A church community should support my friend, not make her miserable.

Over the next few months, Racquel and I had many theological discussions, and I argued that Jesus was about freedom and grace, not rules.

I said her church had the tendencies of a cult. But she couldn’t see it yet.

// // //

I’d started texting Racquel’s best friend Ashley. She’d just gotten permission from her parents to own a cellphone and drive the car again, even though she was nearly 20 years old and attending massage therapy school full-time as well as a part-time job.

I had moved out in August 2012, and felt even more strongly that Ashley’s family situation was toxic since my escape from fundamentalism.

In January 2013, I lost contact with Ashley when her parents and Brother and Sister Burgess (the pastor of their church and his wife) discovered she and Racquel had watched movies again and listened to rock music, including Skillet. Brother Burgess declared Skillet was demonic after listening to their song “Monster.”

Ashley was finally allowed to buy her own iPhone with parental and pastoral permission eight months later. (Yes, this is a real thing in Pentecostal churches. I realize how wild it sounds to people who didn’t grow up this way.)

Now it was late October. Ashley and I were meeting for coffee that evening. She showed me Search for Truth Pentecostal Bible study lessons, intended to recruit potential converts to the UPC church, as an excuse so her parents would allow us to hang out.

I was driving down towards the Starbucks where we would meet on the south end of town when I got a text message from her.

“I’m sorry, Eleanor. I can’t come meet u. My parents are now not letting me use their car for anything.”

“Stay calm, see if I can pick you up in a bit,” I replied.

“I’ll try. Don’t know if I can last that long. Cya.”

“You can make it. I believe in you. You still ok?”

“No I’m not. I’m done Eleanor, I’m sick and tired of this. I can’t do it anymore. I’m too tired and can’t keep this facade up. I’ve fought for 13 years against this and am too tired to continue fighting this. I have no control and no choice. I’m fed up and there’s no way out. I realize that now. I just don’t know what to do now.”

“Do you want out? Do you want to make the jump?”

“Yes I do. But I can’t.”

// // //

The church and Brother and Sister Burgess trapped both girls in an awful double bind, using manipulation and lies. I knew they needed out.

I organized a network of friends to be prepared when they asked for help.

But when would they be ready?

One of our friends at the time, Cynthia Jeub, wrote an article called The Trouble with Freeing People for the Huffington Post describing Ashley’s situation and how we couldn’t force them to leave.

“Helping her feel ready to take freedom for herself is the only way to make her free,” Cynthia wrote.

Only they could decide.

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