QueenKnitter
08-18-2007, 08:24 PM
I came in here last Fall, I think. Things were ebbing and flowing. But we got an ultimatum -- shut up or get fired. So we made a third option -- we quit.
It was weird in that final ultimatum meeting. When the #1 man sat there pulling out his Bible and started to use it to get me to shut up, I thought, "You're kidding, right? You? You're as bad as all the rest? Wow. I'm so embarrassed for you." This was the man for whom I bought VanVonderen's book The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse just a year earlier. I'm sure he hasn't read it.
I can list my blog (http://www.drslewis.org/camille/index.php) here now. I don't care who knows. It's done.
I am getting everything from gentle prods to outright bullying about my blog. And my husband's (http://www.drslewis.org/grant/). Go read them. They are not. that. bad. Seriously. I mean, there's so much we COULD say. Tsk-tsk.
I'm getting the heebie-jeebies now. I listened to a lecture from a grad (http://www.lifeoffaithministry.com/about.html) from our former employer in which he describes his departure from another "sister" organization. He kept using the term "high control groups." The whole thing freaked me out. He was describing EVERYTHING that happened in our departure and is still happening now 3 weeks later. Creepy. . . .
A friend told me it would take me 1 year to detox. My husband and I started to realize some things a few weeks ago. It's weird:
One day we were driving home from church, and my husband and I both discovered that God had been speaking to us through the sermon/communion that day in the exactly same way. It wasn't necessarily what Pastor was saying either; it was more indirect, and so it seemed *very* much from God.
But both of us realized how all-consuming working for that organization is/was. We felt at a distance from fellowship at church because we wouldn't have time or emotional resources to minister or even be ministered to. We're supposed to attend morning church on that campus, but that "church" isn't one since they don't deliver the sacraments -- never have (no wonder the services are dead). We haven't tithed -- ever. Why? Because our salary was so low we didn't think we could swing it.
DO YOU SEE? That organization, that business was so all-consuming that they were cutting us off at the knees from being actively and properly involved in a church. That's SO WRONG! And sure -- they'd say, "Well, we weren't stopping you from that. That's YOUR fault." :/ Classic abuser posture.
We realized this week that we were really no longer fundies when Grace was our guide. That's when we left. It just took 3 years to actually go.
Sigh. . . .
Camille (my real name!)
It was weird in that final ultimatum meeting. When the #1 man sat there pulling out his Bible and started to use it to get me to shut up, I thought, "You're kidding, right? You? You're as bad as all the rest? Wow. I'm so embarrassed for you." This was the man for whom I bought VanVonderen's book The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse just a year earlier. I'm sure he hasn't read it.
I can list my blog (http://www.drslewis.org/camille/index.php) here now. I don't care who knows. It's done.
I am getting everything from gentle prods to outright bullying about my blog. And my husband's (http://www.drslewis.org/grant/). Go read them. They are not. that. bad. Seriously. I mean, there's so much we COULD say. Tsk-tsk.
I'm getting the heebie-jeebies now. I listened to a lecture from a grad (http://www.lifeoffaithministry.com/about.html) from our former employer in which he describes his departure from another "sister" organization. He kept using the term "high control groups." The whole thing freaked me out. He was describing EVERYTHING that happened in our departure and is still happening now 3 weeks later. Creepy. . . .
A friend told me it would take me 1 year to detox. My husband and I started to realize some things a few weeks ago. It's weird:
One day we were driving home from church, and my husband and I both discovered that God had been speaking to us through the sermon/communion that day in the exactly same way. It wasn't necessarily what Pastor was saying either; it was more indirect, and so it seemed *very* much from God.
But both of us realized how all-consuming working for that organization is/was. We felt at a distance from fellowship at church because we wouldn't have time or emotional resources to minister or even be ministered to. We're supposed to attend morning church on that campus, but that "church" isn't one since they don't deliver the sacraments -- never have (no wonder the services are dead). We haven't tithed -- ever. Why? Because our salary was so low we didn't think we could swing it.
DO YOU SEE? That organization, that business was so all-consuming that they were cutting us off at the knees from being actively and properly involved in a church. That's SO WRONG! And sure -- they'd say, "Well, we weren't stopping you from that. That's YOUR fault." :/ Classic abuser posture.
We realized this week that we were really no longer fundies when Grace was our guide. That's when we left. It just took 3 years to actually go.
Sigh. . . .
Camille (my real name!)