The Cult Next Door
“Spiritual Abuse Hidden in Plain Sight”
By: God is good to all
Jim
Jones in Guyana: gruesome images of 931 rotting corpses gunned down or felled
by cyanide spiked Flavor-Aid cocktail.
David
Koresh in Waco, Texas: a holocaust of a charred compound and sixty-seven victims,
twenty-one of them being children.
Heaven’s
Gate and the latest cult scandal of FDLS compound in Texas.
Perhaps
a ‘Brittany Spear’ question must be asked of organized religion: What cult
flagrancy could possibly happen next?
I
submit that the ‘next’ is and has been happening for decades.
The
four examples presented bore the same symptoms: members confined in a compound
setting.
Essentially,
is this not the photo identification of a cult: Aberrant clothing, social and
sexual behavior, and RESTRICTION OF MOBILITY?
Exhaustive
study of resources, communication with abuse victims, and my own veritable
abuse span exceeding two decades have conveyed to me an inescapable truth. The
cult, the spiritual abuse that thrives in the church next door, down the road,
i.e. NOT IN A COMPOUND is as lethal, as fatal as the cult of restricted
mobility.
To the
untrained eye, the spiritually abused church member’s freedom and autonomy is
passable. The dress code is perhaps inhibiting and the relentless church attendance
might be a little excessive. “But:” thinks the unaware observer, “They have
their own house which is not on church property and a car of their own AND THEY
COME AND GO AS THEY PLEASE.”
It is
in this that the spiritually abused are dammed and double dammed. As long as
the abused member has an ‘outside’ job, a car, money of their own, they
seemingly cannot fall into the salvageable category of a cult.
Abused
spouses instantly would call this assumption ‘a load of bull.’ Captivity of the
mind is in every way debilitating as restricted mobility.
I have
lived on both sides of the abuse/freedom from abuse ‘coin.’ On the abuse side,
the pastor of Gospel Assembly held absolute authority. I didn’t go out of town,
go to a friend’s house, or go on dates without her permission. On the freedom
side, I rejoice at the empowerment of the everyday decisions I make on MY VERY
OWN – no permission phone call required!
Unless
you have been the victim of spiritual abuse, you can never fully understand the
devastating fear that surges over the abused when the abuser walks into the
room.
I
vividly remember the first instance I was aware that I had been abused. An “Are
You a Victim of Abuse” sign hung over the sink where I was washing my hands. As
I read over the bulleted warning traits, I thought, “My God, I’ve been abused!”
I almost fell onto the floor I was so shocked. I had lived most of my life in
an abusive environment. To me, abuse was normal.
In “Toxic
Churches”, Marc Dupont says in regards to the
Pharisees: “These abusive leaders believed they were above the law and had a
legal license from God Almighty to judge, harm and shame anyone who tampered
with their authority and power.” Dupont goes on to
quote Pastor Ken Blue’s summarized list of warning signs of a spiritual abusive
environment:
1. Abusive leaders base their spiritual authority on their
positions or their office rather than on their service to the group…
For me, this meant being totally available and totally
transparent to the pastor.
Availability included serving on her cleaning crew. She had an upwards of five
buildings that church members cleaned on a volunteer basis. All proceeds went
to her. Total transparency meant just that – she knew of your doctor visits,
your financial troubles, etc.
2.
Leaders in
shame-based churches often say one thing and do another.
3. They manipulate people by making them feel guilty for not
measuring up spiritually. You know that you are in an abusive church if the
loads just keep getting heavier.
4. Abusive leaders are preoccupied with looking good. They
stifle any criticism that puts them in a bad light.
5. They promote a class system with themselves at the top.
6. Their communication is not straight. Their speech becomes
especially vague and confusing when they are defending themselves.
Yes, in
the <name withheld> Gospel Assembly I had mobility of body. My emotions and
mind, however, were wound tight with fear. What if I made the pastor angry with
any thing I said or did? She had direct access to
God. She could decide if I burned in hell or not.
I lived
in terror as confining as the Koresh compound. My god was my pastor and she
WASN’T unchangeable with everlasting love. Just as I thought I had all her
rules down to a science, she would set new higher boundaries. This was ‘God’s
refining process.’ He required much of us because much had been given to us.
Ha!
Given us, my south end! As Wanda Mason so aptly put it on her ex-GAC site, “I suffered for my
cult!” It was the pastor who was given much, and in the strange equation of
spiritual abuse, it was she of who the least was required!
I find
it particularly nauseating that spiritual abuse apes spouse abuse. For as
followers of Christ, isn’t our relationship with Him exemplified as a marital
one? “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave
Himself for her.” In the healthy marriage, both partners strive to meet the
other’s needs: Giving, sharing, standing on equal ground of mutual respect is
meat and drink of the relationship. In an abusive marriage, the dominant spouse
fulfills their own needs with and in the control of the other spouse. So it is
with abusive churches: No matter what the cost, the dominant leadership will
have their needs fulfilled.
To all
spiritually abused: Know the truth. It will set you free.
Notes:
Quotes from “Toxic
Churches” pg. 170-171