Ontheroad
10-27-2004, 08:26 AM
Hi,
I just found this forum last week, after searching for sites about spiritual abuse and cult recovery. This seems like a good place. I'm not sure how to start, so I guess I'll give a background on myself and my former church:
Six months ago, I left my church of over 12 years. I was very involved, and leaving was a horrible, painful mess. Looking back, I can now see that the church always had problems; I just didn't know how to recognize them as such for a long time. The pastor became increasingly power-hungry and authoritative, repeatedly demanding "covenant" loyalty and both privately and publicly rebuking anyone who had any concerns or questions about him or "his" ministry. He verbally assaulted many of us, both privately and publicly, criticizing us, belittling us, and accusing us of things repeatedly that we never did or that were only sins in his twisted perception.
In addition to the abusive authority issues, it has been concretely proven with corroborating evidence and witnesses that he has embezzled more than $30,000 over the last few years. He also evaded taxes by grossly overstating his parsonage usage. Despite the fact that his embezzlement caused our little church to greatly suffer financially, he placed the blame on the congregation, saying numerous times that we were not "bearing enough responsiblity" and that our lack of giving showed the "condition of our hearts".
He also was arrested for a DUI for prescription painkillers and became addicted to Vicoden. He violated his probation for the DUI by keeping the details of his arrest secretive and lying about his addiction in order to obtain Vicoden from church members who were prescribed it for legitimate medical and surgical reasons. When he could not get enough of the drugs that way, he got it by having a church member steal a prescription pad from her doctor ex-husband, and asked her to write illegal prescriptions to obtain the painkillers, for which she was ultimately arrested and lost her law license. She covered up for the pastor when she was arrested, and he left her to take the fall alone.
Additionally, he and this same church member were prayer partners in an intercessory ministry focused on helping pray for people to come out of satanism. It has now been proven that over a 2-3 year period, the church member fabricated over 50 different personas that she would use to contact the pastor via e-mail. These fake persons would claim to be involved deeply in high-level satanism. The pastor would correspond with each "person", leading them to witness to them and counsel them out of satanism. Of course, all the while, the many "satanists" were reality the church member with whom he was praying. The two of them - the pastor and church member - would spend many hours interceding and praying for each "satanist" until each one, via e-mail correspondence, would relate that they had seen the light and were leaving satanism. This was a horribly deceptive and evil thing this church member did, and numerous ones of us in the church repeatedly went to the pastor to tell him that we suspected that these "satanists" were not real people, but were actually the church member pretending to be the satanists. The pastor would refuse to listen. Instead, he would berate us questioning ones for daring to question his discernment and authority and for accusing the church member of something so evil. Well, in February of this year, it was technologically proven that this church member indeed had fabricated each and every one of the "satanists", creating their respective e-mail addresses and maintaining correspondence with the pastor that would create a self-confirming intercessory ministry between her and the pastor, that their many hours of prayer were effectively getting people saved and out of satanism. Myself and another person from our church proved that the IP's of every e-mail address originated from and traced back to the church member's home or work computers. Her work was alerted to her unethical and illegal usage of computers to help perpetrate the falsified e-mails. The computer tech guy at her work was able to, without her knowledge, get screens shots of her keystrokes, concretely showing her fingers typing the fake e-mails. The pastor refused to believe the evidence. Instead, he maintains that he and the church member have been "set up" to make it appear that she fabricated the e-mails. He is too prideful to admit that he was conned and in turn refused to heed others' counsel, thus making him a part of the hoax by his willful blindness.
Yet in spite of all of this, he stayed in the pulpit. He was asked to step down, which he refused to do. Some of us have left. Some are refusing to see the truth and are continuing to believe his lies. I only pray that they will allow their eyes to be opened. It is a sad, grievous situation.
There is actually quite a bit more, but I think I've written perhaps too much for a first post. I hope it was OK to write what I did.
My family and I are now attending a different church, and for the first time, I am starting to see what a healthy church and pastor truly are like. But I'm still reeling and hurting from the whole mess.
Thanks,
Ontheroad
(to freedom, truth, and healing...)
I just found this forum last week, after searching for sites about spiritual abuse and cult recovery. This seems like a good place. I'm not sure how to start, so I guess I'll give a background on myself and my former church:
Six months ago, I left my church of over 12 years. I was very involved, and leaving was a horrible, painful mess. Looking back, I can now see that the church always had problems; I just didn't know how to recognize them as such for a long time. The pastor became increasingly power-hungry and authoritative, repeatedly demanding "covenant" loyalty and both privately and publicly rebuking anyone who had any concerns or questions about him or "his" ministry. He verbally assaulted many of us, both privately and publicly, criticizing us, belittling us, and accusing us of things repeatedly that we never did or that were only sins in his twisted perception.
In addition to the abusive authority issues, it has been concretely proven with corroborating evidence and witnesses that he has embezzled more than $30,000 over the last few years. He also evaded taxes by grossly overstating his parsonage usage. Despite the fact that his embezzlement caused our little church to greatly suffer financially, he placed the blame on the congregation, saying numerous times that we were not "bearing enough responsiblity" and that our lack of giving showed the "condition of our hearts".
He also was arrested for a DUI for prescription painkillers and became addicted to Vicoden. He violated his probation for the DUI by keeping the details of his arrest secretive and lying about his addiction in order to obtain Vicoden from church members who were prescribed it for legitimate medical and surgical reasons. When he could not get enough of the drugs that way, he got it by having a church member steal a prescription pad from her doctor ex-husband, and asked her to write illegal prescriptions to obtain the painkillers, for which she was ultimately arrested and lost her law license. She covered up for the pastor when she was arrested, and he left her to take the fall alone.
Additionally, he and this same church member were prayer partners in an intercessory ministry focused on helping pray for people to come out of satanism. It has now been proven that over a 2-3 year period, the church member fabricated over 50 different personas that she would use to contact the pastor via e-mail. These fake persons would claim to be involved deeply in high-level satanism. The pastor would correspond with each "person", leading them to witness to them and counsel them out of satanism. Of course, all the while, the many "satanists" were reality the church member with whom he was praying. The two of them - the pastor and church member - would spend many hours interceding and praying for each "satanist" until each one, via e-mail correspondence, would relate that they had seen the light and were leaving satanism. This was a horribly deceptive and evil thing this church member did, and numerous ones of us in the church repeatedly went to the pastor to tell him that we suspected that these "satanists" were not real people, but were actually the church member pretending to be the satanists. The pastor would refuse to listen. Instead, he would berate us questioning ones for daring to question his discernment and authority and for accusing the church member of something so evil. Well, in February of this year, it was technologically proven that this church member indeed had fabricated each and every one of the "satanists", creating their respective e-mail addresses and maintaining correspondence with the pastor that would create a self-confirming intercessory ministry between her and the pastor, that their many hours of prayer were effectively getting people saved and out of satanism. Myself and another person from our church proved that the IP's of every e-mail address originated from and traced back to the church member's home or work computers. Her work was alerted to her unethical and illegal usage of computers to help perpetrate the falsified e-mails. The computer tech guy at her work was able to, without her knowledge, get screens shots of her keystrokes, concretely showing her fingers typing the fake e-mails. The pastor refused to believe the evidence. Instead, he maintains that he and the church member have been "set up" to make it appear that she fabricated the e-mails. He is too prideful to admit that he was conned and in turn refused to heed others' counsel, thus making him a part of the hoax by his willful blindness.
Yet in spite of all of this, he stayed in the pulpit. He was asked to step down, which he refused to do. Some of us have left. Some are refusing to see the truth and are continuing to believe his lies. I only pray that they will allow their eyes to be opened. It is a sad, grievous situation.
There is actually quite a bit more, but I think I've written perhaps too much for a first post. I hope it was OK to write what I did.
My family and I are now attending a different church, and for the first time, I am starting to see what a healthy church and pastor truly are like. But I'm still reeling and hurting from the whole mess.
Thanks,
Ontheroad
(to freedom, truth, and healing...)