my story

[outcast]

I figured this was as good a place as any to post. I'm sure my story is not much different from others here. I recently left my old church that I have since realized was a cult, about 6 months ago. I had been there almost 12 years.

I see now that it exhibited the classic signs of being a cult. The pastor was very controlling, publicly shamed congregants from the pulpit, and he was/is a sexual predator who tried to destroy not only my marraige and life, but the marraiges of countless women over the past 20 some odd years. After leaving the church, I still worked for the church sponsored school until the end of the school year. That was most definitely the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and my life has not been an easy one - so that is saying alot.

I guess I'm here b/c I still feel estranged from God. I am in a new church and while I refuse to get too active, I am a little involved. Frankly, I don't really know what I think about God anymore. I've been a Christian for the past 18 years. But, I can say that I feel the past 12 have pretty much screwed me up.

I suppose I am here for answers to my questions, and to see if I am alone in how I feel.

[outcast]

I wanted to edit previous post, but didn't see the button. Oh well, what I wanted to add was that I still get extremely discouraged about my walk w/God now. I feel like a baby Christian in some ways b/c I am sorting through all the ideologies/doctrines to see where they embedded their subtle lies. It is overwhelming to say the least.

This past week I got an e-mail from the ex-pastor's daughter. She used to be a close friend of mine. Now I see that she just befriended me b/c of my position as the worship leader of the church. It wasn't a personal e-mail, but some stupid forwarded crap. I just want her to leave me alone. She knows her father is a sociopathic sexual predator, but she refuses to acknowledge it and get him professional help.

My best friend still attends church there. She and her hubby will leave soon, but for now it hurts to see them still there. She says she's learned alot from my experiences there so that she can leave effectively too. I hope so. The pastor had said some things to her about me. I knew it would eventually happen, but it still hurts to have proof.

I have a hard time studying the word and praying b/c they were so performance oriented about that. I do it sporadically and that is all. It's all so empty now...

[Janice]

welcome to the forum.

May you find what you're looking for here.

[peanut]

Dear Outcast,

Welcome to the forum and thank you for having the strength to share and walk with us. I am so sorry you have been through such trials. I continue to be amazed by the common themes that run through so many of our stories.

You have a lot to get past......give yourself time......read and learn how others deal with the issues and reactions -----that has been a huge help for me. Don't hesitate to ask for help here...there are so many experienced, intelligent people here who are so giving. My testimony now involves what God has taught me through this forum and how he is healing me through these people.

Hang in there.....He does love you and will continue to care for you. Welcome to our group and enjoy!

Love,
Mimi

[Willow]

I still get extremely discouraged about my walk w/God now. I feel like a baby Christian in some ways b/c I am sorting through all the ideologies/doctrines to see where they embedded their subtle lies. It is overwhelming to say the least.

outcast.... I just want to tell you, what you feel in regards to your faith is very similar to what I am going through. I've been out of the abusive church for 6 years. However... it takes exactly what you said... starting at square one... to sort through all the bad doctrine and shame imposed by bad churches. I think you are very wise to recognize that. My belief system has changed dramatically. I'm not the same person I was even 2 years ago. I just try to keep myself balanced and functional in real life while I let myself explore and expand. In some ways... I got stuck in young-adult and teenager mode. I had to do some serious growing up into adult behavior. Still working on that one!

Glad you found us!

Amy aka Willow

[Jerry]

Dear Outcast,,,,,
Welcome,,,,,no such things as dumb questions here ;) No one here is taking your "Spiritual Temperature" :D
Love Jerry

[Reg]

Hi Outcast,

You have found the right place. Here is a thread I posted awhile back about just that. You should
find this particularly interesting.

Here's some notes I made in that regard when I read the book "Toxic Faith".

"Toxic-Faith" (Chapter 7) The Five Roles in a Toxic-Faith System.

The are Persecutor - Co-Conspirator - Enabler - Victim - Outcast. I want to focus on The Outcast role.

The Role of the Outcast

http://www.christianrecovery.com/vb/showthread.php?t=2657&highlight=outcast

[Voyager]

Toxic,

Many of us here can totally relate to what you are going through. When you invest yourself so deeply into a faith-based system and then you are ripped out of it by the roots, the "faith-based" part of your experience gets horribly damaged in the process. This is not unique to your situation, it has happened to many of us here on this forum.

It becomes hard to sort God out of all the false teachings that we were brainwashed with. So many of the teachings that we swallowed actually built the foundation of our belief system. Now that those teachings have come under scrutiny, our whole belief system becomes questionable. Personally, I have never been able to put mine back together. I thought maybe one day everything would fall back into place, but it hasn't - and I've been out of my former church for over seven years now. Like yourself, I was in the church for 12 years before I finally escaped because of the abuse.

Do I still believe in God? Yes, but not much of my belief system has anything to do with the teachings or writings of men. I'm not even sure if I believe most of the Bible anymore. I used to think it was the inerrant word of God, but now I find myself questioning a lot of it that seems bigoted and barbaric. Most people on this forum haven't gone this far with their belief system, but I am not embarassed to be honest about mine. I question just about everything "religious" anymore.

That said, I am now very much at peace with my belief system. It took many years for my mind and heart to settle down on this issue. For so long I had a lot of anxiety regarding my religious beliefs that were thrown into utter turmoil. But now, I find myself saying, "If Jesus died for my sins, great! I accept it." That's about as deep as my belief system goes anymore. I don't get caught up with all of the stuff about whether or not God has modern-day prophets, speaking in tongues, the rapture, and all of the other Christianese doctrines. I have tossed them all back to God and said, "Here God, I don't know if I can believe any of this, so you can have it all back. I don't need it anymore."

I hope you are able to find peace on your journey through recovery. It's a lifelong process.

:cool:

[ex-shep]

Welcome aboard. As you can tell by the posts, you are not alone. My faith was destroyed beyond all recognition after I walked out of a pentecostal bible school 20 years ago. I lost a friend to what was then a fundalmentalist shepherding group. I developed an allergy to anything sounding remotely evangelical. Even hearing Christmas carols in a department store would drive me stark staring bonkers. The sad thing is it was not your fault. Feel free to share whatever is on your heart and mind. From one who has been out over 20 years, it does get better one day at a time. Virtual coffee pot is always brewing. Keep on posting.

[yeshua'smags]

Hi Outcast! I'm so sorry for everything you have been through. But I'm glad you found us!

[Hope 98]

Welcome outcast!

Especially after Reg's post, I'm wondering how it is that no one every used that "handle" before!

[yeshua'smags]

I was thinking the same thing, Hope!:D

[outcast]

I would just like to express my appreciation to everyone for their posts/warmth. I got on here this morning thinking maybe I'd have one or two replies... of course I was shocked to see the response. Thank you.

Although I am saddened that others have been through similar situations to mine, I am also a little comforted to know that I am not alone. I do hope that this group will help me on my path to find healing.

Reg, I am glad you mentioned the book Toxic Faith. It was one of the many I read when I was preparing to leave my old church. I've also read the book The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse. Both are good. Anyway, I picked the name Outcast for other forums I've been on b/c I realized that that was the role I transferred into as I began to see the truth about the cult I was in. I had been more of the victim in the beginning. Of course, very few people listened to me and eventually I was ostracized. Meh.

I am sure I will share more as the days go by. Right now I am just glad to be here.

[yeshua'smags]

One thing is sure...you are anything but alone! ;) ;) :cool: ;) ;)

[SpinningHead]

Welcome Outcast...

I've been quiet on the board lately but want to say welcome. I totally feel your pain and lack of enthusiasm for your faith. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt as some on this forum might say. :)

You're not alone. Tell us what you need from us. We're glad you found us. :)

[mary]

Dear, dear Outcast,

As everyone else here has said, oh, no, you are not alone here... I, too, was put in the position of being victimized by a sexual predator posing as a pastor... This "minister" also tried to destroy my marriage; in fact, he flat-out told my husband that he was going to get me to divorce him... So many things occurred that were hurtful and embarrassing and shameful... (My original thread was "Was this spiritual abuse?" and the last post in it was last March 15 or thereabouts. I also posted a lot of details in the thread "Vindication.")

I will never forget how much comfort Jerry here gave me (I think it was he?!) or maybe it was SpinningHead when he/she told me that I had "just been refellowshipped here." Wow... :D

Outcast - and you're certainly not that here: you're "Enfolded!" - please continue to post. You might find some comfort, as I did, in the www.flywithgrace.com website; it's for women who've been sexually harassed or otherwise violated by pastors or others in authority in churches. There's another site - www.advocateweb.org - that also helps women in such situations. I found a great, local Christian counselor through that site. (You punch in your zip code and they contact you by e-mail.)

May the Lord bless you with His finest and -- please know that we're all praying for you...

mary

[outcast]

I am in a venting mood tonight so here goes. The full story. I joined my former church/cult when I was about 19. They had passionate, contemporary services and the music really appealed to me b/c it was similar to the contemporary songs I used to enjoy singing at youth camps growing up.

This church also focused heavily on emotional/spiritual healing. It is safe to say that at least half the things preached from the pulpit were sound. They taught about God's love, his mercy and so forth. But the messages were colored by the fact that the pastor had/has such issues within himself that he cannot preach a pure gospel. I received alot of counseling from these people for the problems I had incurred from my highly dysfunctional upbringing. You all can probably imagine the irony I felt when I read in several books that cults often prey on people who come from dysfunction. Well, in my case it worked.

I sang with the worship team at this church for a number of years. Eventually I became the worship leader. I was unpaid, of course, b/c they claimed they didn't have the money. Not that I did it for that anyway, but it did seem a convenient way to make me feel less than in their eyes. They used money as a tool to try to show how generous they were. A few hundred dollars here and there throughout the year was supposed to make me grateful to them when they were getting at least 60-80 hours of my time per week.

The undercurrent throughout the years was that the church leaders knew that there was a stigma on the church. They openly talked about the church being called a cult. They had ready defenses for why it was not and how b/c they had such dynamic teachings on things the devil caused people to talk about them and hate them and blah, blah, blah. That was their story anyway. Every accusation against the pastor or his wife was always explained away by attacking the character of the accuser. We were well brainwashed about what to believe about the church and what not to. For years I naively believed their stories and pledged my loyalty and defenses to the mighty cause.

They held people there by talking of an impending healing revival that was prophesied over this church by key prophets/prophetesses in the nation. Big names too. This promise of revival, I realized later, was the proverbial spiritual carrot that was used to keep people there when they began to see the evil in the church workings.

The man who claims to be a pastor there is a very charismatic sociopathic man. He would sporadically make comments to me for years about my body and every time I lost weight he would pile the compliments on me. I viewed him for a number of years as a substitute father, so I welcomed the attention at first. The comments seemed borderline innocuous, so I didn't think they were inappropriate. A year or so ago my opinion of that began to change. Basically, the comments did become more and more inappropriate towards me. At one point, he even suggested that he thought I thought I had made a mistake marrying my husband of almost 9 years. He began to try to plant thoughts of divorce in my head.

At one point he came up behind me in a public setting and he whispered in my ear about how I had lost so much weight he almost didn't recognize me from behind anymore. My instinctual thought was "how often has this man been staring at my rear end to get a comparison?" When I pulled away from him and tried to shrug him off (others were blatantly staring at his inappropriateness) he grabbed my arm very hard to pull me towards him so he could try to flirt some more. At that moment, I lost all sense of trust for the man and I was thankful we were not alone.

I always spurned his advances, unlike other women I know of who have actually allowed them or have slept with him. His wife enables his behavior b/c she seeks fame/fortune in the full time preaching circuit.

When I told them that I was going to resign my position as the worship leader, I met w/very harsh resistence from them. Their true colors came out and they both tried everything they could think of to try to control me. It just made me more determined to get away. The wife tried to manipulate me with supposed prophetic dreams she claimed to have about me. She/they even tried to turn my best friend against me in the same way they had turned me against a good friend of mine who had left years before. Fortunately, it didn't work.

The process of cutting all ties w/this place took about 9 months b/c I was employed by their school as well. I have never been so glad to see summer before.

I attend an Assembly of God church now. I still don't know how I believe about basic tenets of the Christian faith. I struggle with alot of things now. I especially struggle with cussing when I get angry. I feel like I am angry alot.

Fortunately, my marraige not only remained intact, but it is better than it has ever been. I honestly don't know what I'd do w/o my sweet, godly husband. He's been very patient w/me.

I have a new job and it is very good. By all appearances my life is way better than before. But, inside I still feel dead sometimes. Most of the time.

[butterfly]

:) Welcome Outcast,

I thought I was all alone also.

This forum is a place with people who understand what you have gone thru.
Butterfly

[outcast]

I suppose this thread has become a sort of blog for me to vent. I would like to ask for prayers from you all concerning something that I feel I must do.

I have been in my new church about six months now and I recently started singing with the worship team and was also placed in charge of a women's worship team that meets once a month. Well, in the past two weeks, I have been a complete and total mess. I thought I was healed enough emotionally to start serving again and quite frankly, I think I really missed it.

I e-mailed my pastor's wife to discuss it w/her sometime next week and really I am a little scared b/c of what I went through when I resigned the worship leading position at my old church. I think she will understand and take it well, but I don't know. Personally, I feel like I need professional help to get over the spiritual abuse and an indeterminate time to heal. I thought I was being gracious by giving myself 6 months and I really thought I'd be okay once my job was over w/the school there. It was okay for a few weeks and then the flashbacks started about 2 weeks ago.

I feel mostly peaceful about this, I guess though it is just the fear of the unknown. I also don't look forward to letting any of these people down, but I think in the long run I will do them more of a diservice by staying in this position in the damaged state I'm in now. It dawned on me tonight that of course it would take me awhile to heal after enduring 12 years of abusive programming and treatement.

Anyway, I do appreciate all of your prayers and I will let you know how it goes. Thanks.

[profnachos]

I wanted to edit previous post, but didn't see the button. Oh well, what I wanted to add was that I still get extremely discouraged about my walk w/God now. I feel like a baby Christian in some ways b/c I am sorting through all the ideologies/doctrines to see where they embedded their subtle lies. It is overwhelming to say the least.

This past week I got an e-mail from the ex-pastor's daughter. She used to be a close friend of mine. Now I see that she just befriended me b/c of my position as the worship leader of the church. It wasn't a personal e-mail, but some stupid forwarded crap. I just want her to leave me alone. She knows her father is a sociopathic sexual predator, but she refuses to acknowledge it and get him professional help.

My best friend still attends church there. She and her hubby will leave soon, but for now it hurts to see them still there. She says she's learned alot from my experiences there so that she can leave effectively too. I hope so. The pastor had said some things to her about me. I knew it would eventually happen, but it still hurts to have proof.

I have a hard time studying the word and praying b/c they were so performance oriented about that. I do it sporadically and that is all. It's all so empty now...

Wow, the pastor needs to be removed, period, not to mention professional help. Thanks for sharing.