A reader emailed to ask me how I've managed to get myself entangled in such a messy situation. I thought I'd reply about it here, instead.
I'd summarise all that follows in just five words: It could have been much worse. The evangelical organisation for which I work is respected, well spoken of, collaborative, only slightly autocratic, right-on with child protection, adequately-paying of its employees and respectful to women. I could be in a really dodgy group.
I got myself involved in a particularly ominous such group at the age of 16. In relation to the demographics and personality types of those alleged to be "at risk" of joining "cults", I was the epitome and the archetye: young, bright, idealistic and a bit mad. Whereas I don't really by into the tabloid concept of "cults" as overly different from any other slightly alternative form of religious group, this was the utter epitome and archetype (minus the sex, my mother may be pleased to read) of a Daily Mail "cult" scare story. We wore skirts to worship and went to the toilet when the Dear Leader told us we needed to. She taught from two lever-arched files labelled Faith and Finances and nobody dared point out that she was saying the same thing every week. The whole group fell apart one evening after the Holy Spirit had told the Dear Leader that we needed to move our place of worship thirty miles north-north-east to preserve God's annointing on us. Seven of us arrived on her doorstep unannounced one evening to "discuss" this. One woman delivered a somewhat forcible sermon on how, if God is everywhere, he would be unlikely to require us to move thirty miles north-north-east and how, if God is a God of families, he would not be asking us to put church attendance thirty miles north-north-easy-away before her son's Sunday rugby matches. Then another woman (well, it was me, but I don't like to boast) said that she'd been reading about the early Church in the Bible and that her impression was of a community in which everyone made decisions together and no Dear Leader had the authority to ruin an woman's attendance at a son's rugby match. Dear Leader stuttered "well everything I teach you is entirely from Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagin". I said "we'd rather have the teaching of Christ". And everything fell apart from there. Not that I want to blow my own trumpet. But it did.
A few years later, in my early twenties, I briefly encountered another such group. Although I wasn't so young, I was significantly more mad and was sitting in Costa one icy afternoon, reading the Guardian and crying. Two girls (one of whom I'd been at uni with) came over to ask whether I was alright, and took me back to theirs to convene a prayer group for me and it all began from there. This group, I think, weren't motivated by money or power as much as a strange mix of compassion for the lonely and fear of the outside, theological shortcomings and maybe a fair bit of narcissism. But I knew, even at the outset, that the vision they had for me wasn't going to happen. The idea was that Grace would become a poster-child, a figurehead and a spokesperson for the ex-mad, that God would have tranformed me in a blaze of light and I'd then lead their ministry of healing with such annointing that all the mental hospitals would close. Um, yes. The trouble was, I knew that God wasn't going to transform me in that blaze of light because what they wanted me transformed into was that perfect image of themselves, or rather, Joyce Meyer. I suspected that, instead, God might have a few things to teach me along the way and that he would prefer me to be transformed into his likeness as Grace rather than some televangelist clone-figure. And so, I thanked them for their idea and politely declined.
I found a very nice local church and felt entirely safe, relaxed and un-got-at there for the next however-many years.
So it's a few years on that I'm doing this job. I was sitting online last night, using Google, MySpace and Facebook to track down the women I remembered from both groups. And what I learned was frighteningly consistent: the ones who stayed are the ones who married the sons of the leaders. Invariably, even. Endless blogs and mission reports and photos of six-child families mummied by the exhausted-looking faces I remember as energetic, bright, idealistic and slightly mad teenagers.
They, then, are the ones I worry about.
I'd summarise all that follows in just five words: It could have been much worse. The evangelical organisation for which I work is respected, well spoken of, collaborative, only slightly autocratic, right-on with child protection, adequately-paying of its employees and respectful to women. I could be in a really dodgy group.
I got myself involved in a particularly ominous such group at the age of 16. In relation to the demographics and personality types of those alleged to be "at risk" of joining "cults", I was the epitome and the archetye: young, bright, idealistic and a bit mad. Whereas I don't really by into the tabloid concept of "cults" as overly different from any other slightly alternative form of religious group, this was the utter epitome and archetype (minus the sex, my mother may be pleased to read) of a Daily Mail "cult" scare story. We wore skirts to worship and went to the toilet when the Dear Leader told us we needed to. She taught from two lever-arched files labelled Faith and Finances and nobody dared point out that she was saying the same thing every week. The whole group fell apart one evening after the Holy Spirit had told the Dear Leader that we needed to move our place of worship thirty miles north-north-east to preserve God's annointing on us. Seven of us arrived on her doorstep unannounced one evening to "discuss" this. One woman delivered a somewhat forcible sermon on how, if God is everywhere, he would be unlikely to require us to move thirty miles north-north-east and how, if God is a God of families, he would not be asking us to put church attendance thirty miles north-north-easy-away before her son's Sunday rugby matches. Then another woman (well, it was me, but I don't like to boast) said that she'd been reading about the early Church in the Bible and that her impression was of a community in which everyone made decisions together and no Dear Leader had the authority to ruin an woman's attendance at a son's rugby match. Dear Leader stuttered "well everything I teach you is entirely from Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagin". I said "we'd rather have the teaching of Christ". And everything fell apart from there. Not that I want to blow my own trumpet. But it did.
A few years later, in my early twenties, I briefly encountered another such group. Although I wasn't so young, I was significantly more mad and was sitting in Costa one icy afternoon, reading the Guardian and crying. Two girls (one of whom I'd been at uni with) came over to ask whether I was alright, and took me back to theirs to convene a prayer group for me and it all began from there. This group, I think, weren't motivated by money or power as much as a strange mix of compassion for the lonely and fear of the outside, theological shortcomings and maybe a fair bit of narcissism. But I knew, even at the outset, that the vision they had for me wasn't going to happen. The idea was that Grace would become a poster-child, a figurehead and a spokesperson for the ex-mad, that God would have tranformed me in a blaze of light and I'd then lead their ministry of healing with such annointing that all the mental hospitals would close. Um, yes. The trouble was, I knew that God wasn't going to transform me in that blaze of light because what they wanted me transformed into was that perfect image of themselves, or rather, Joyce Meyer. I suspected that, instead, God might have a few things to teach me along the way and that he would prefer me to be transformed into his likeness as Grace rather than some televangelist clone-figure. And so, I thanked them for their idea and politely declined.
I found a very nice local church and felt entirely safe, relaxed and un-got-at there for the next however-many years.
So it's a few years on that I'm doing this job. I was sitting online last night, using Google, MySpace and Facebook to track down the women I remembered from both groups. And what I learned was frighteningly consistent: the ones who stayed are the ones who married the sons of the leaders. Invariably, even. Endless blogs and mission reports and photos of six-child families mummied by the exhausted-looking faces I remember as energetic, bright, idealistic and slightly mad teenagers.
They, then, are the ones I worry about.
1 comment:
Interesting post. Brave and enticing. God bless.
Chris J.
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