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From Cult to Christian, The Long Journey Home

September 29, 2010 By Randy Olds 7 Comments

Today I stumbled upon another blog of a woman who is chronicling her journey out of religious abuse. I lingered for a while, reading some of her posts…feeling her pain.

There are essentially three types of blogs that I follow. I have found a number of respected Christian scholars, most of whom are professors at one university or another. Of these, I tend to avoid those who are too far extreme either to the left or the right. I also follow a number of seminarians, of who most are working on advanced theology degrees. These advanced students often ask questions that others are afraid to ask.

The last category of bloggers that I like to read are those who have been involved in some sort of cult or “extreme fundamentalism” and are trying to find their way home. Many, but not all, of these spent time in the same cult that I grew up in, Armstrongism.

I read the professors and the academic types because I seek to learn from them. Although I don’t always agree with their conclusions, they delve much deeper into various theological ideas than I will ever find in a Sunday School class. Over the course of the last couple of years, I have weeded down the blogs that I follow to those who approach theology and the Bible with open minds and are willing to ask the same hard questions that I do.

And hard questions I ask.

I think that growing up in a cult will force a person to do one of two things. Either give up on religion completely, or start completely from scratch. I’ve seen a great many who grew up in the cult that I did who did the former, and I was very close to giving up on God my own self. How could I trust anything that any religious leader said when the one that I grew up thinking was “God’s Apostle” turned out to be blatantly wrong on 90% of what he taught?

Fortunately, God never gave up on me, and the day eventually came when I set out to once-and-for-all determine if Christianity’s claims had any validity at all. Through many, many painstaking hours of study and a few heartfelt prayers, I finally determined that the basic claim of Christianity must be true. That is, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lived, died on the cross, and was resurrected three days later. And that He did it for me.

However, past that basic fact, I have had to prove nearly every tenant of the Christian faith for myself, and that is still an ongoing process.I had to start from scratch.

Just because a bunch of people came up with a creed or two, or a church committee developed a “statement of faith” is simply not good enough for me. Having been burned, and burned badly, by the Worldwide Church of God’s erroneous “statement of faith”, I doubt that I will ever be able to simply say, “Hey, that’s a great creed, I think I’ll go with it!”

So, as I read through the blogs of recovering fundamentalists, quivering daughters, and cult survivors of all sorts, I realize that it is much the same for all of these people. Like me, most of these have lost faith not in God, but in those who tell us who God is. Quite often, the cult survivors that I run across escaped the cults that they were in decades ago, but are still struggling to find a Christian church that they can feel comfortable in and a pastor that they can trust.

For me, it’s been over twenty years since I set foot in an Armstrongite church, but I know that I still haven’t fully recovered. Of course, I spent a good many years of those two decades in no church at all, and it has only been in the last few years that I really started digging into the Bible in earnest to find the message held within. But that too is often a hallmark of cult survivors.

The shell-shock of coming out of a cult often discourages survivors from any sort of church membership at all. And as I pointed out in a post last year, the experience quite often drives cult survivors into a stance of complete disbelief or atheism.

Perhaps the day will come when I read an account of someones journey away from spiritual abuse and it won’t hit that nerve that is still raw. Perhaps one day I will have, to my satisfaction, proven enough of the tenants of the creeds that I can stop asking so many questions. Perhaps one day I will find myself completely healed from having grown up in a cult, and simply call myself Christian, instead of “a-Christian-who-grew-up-in-a-cult-but-who-is-now-just-a-normal-Christian.”

Filed Under: About Me, Armstrongism, atheism, cults, Fundamentalism, Spiritual Abuse Tagged With:

Banned By Herbert W. Armstrong

September 24, 2010 By Randy Olds Leave a Comment

Thanks to Gavin over at Otagosh, I received directions to a new blog devoted (almost) entirely to some of the various publications that portrayed Herbert W. Armstrong and The Worldwide Church of God in a less than stellar fashion;

“Since the mid 1960′s countless authors wrote books about Armstrongism (Herbert W Armstrong and the Radio Church of God/Worldwide Church of God). The church always took a negative outlook at these books and derided these authors with considerable contempt and mockery. I thought it would be interesting to highlight these various books with quotes from them. Plus, every once in a while doing my own mockery of the silliness that it Armstrongism. After 45+ years in it, I think I have that right!”

This blog has great potential! Check it out!

Banned by HWA! Books About Armstrongism and the Worldwide Church of God

Filed Under: Armstrongism

Some Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 3:12-15

September 21, 2010 By Randy Olds 5 Comments

The images of little children displaying signs proclaiming that “God Hates Fags” got me to thinking about a post that I’ve had sitting in my “draft” box for a while now. From time to time I write about spiritual abuse, not just because I was a victim of spiritual abuse growing up in The Worldwide Church of God, but also because I come across others who are still victims of similiar abuse.. Whether it is children picketing with hate signs, or women oppressed by the Quiverful movement, or the many people who are still trapped in Armstrongism or some other form of Fundamentalism, victims of spiritual abuse still abound.

While I believe that the leaders of some of these Churches and movements will definitely have to answer to Christ at the Final Judgment, I find myself wondering what Christ will say to those who grew up in such churches and really just didn’t know any better. Although Jesus plainly said that it would  be “better to have a millstone around your neck and be cast into the depths of the ocean” than to mislead one of these little ones (Mark 9:42) and that obviously refers to those who lead their flock astray, Paul seems to indicate that we are responsible for what we actually know (Romans 2:14-15).

1 Corinthians 3:12-15 seems to indicate to me that there are going to be a great many people who will have an inheritance in the Kingdom of God who, at least at face value, may not seem to be living out a life anything close to what Christ advocated:

If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. 1 Corinthians 3:12-15

Now reading this passage in the context  indicates to me that the ones who Paul is primarily referring to as doing the building are the teachers and pastors, although the argument could be made that the individual Christian has some degree of responsibility. As James echoes in James 3:1, “Not many should be teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive a stricter judgment.”

But what about the flock of those who have fallen victim to false teachings and as the result not lived out lives that would seem to represent what many others would would consider “good Christianity”?  And what about those who have become disillusioned with Christianity and left the fold as the result of these “wolves in sheep’s clothing”? It would seem to me that many of these never had much of a chance.

My own personal journey out of spiritual abuse and false teachings was a very long and painful one in which I spent a great many years rejecting Christianity altogether. During those years I battled depression and addictions and was not generally what most would consider a very nice guy. It was only when I reached a crisis point in my life that I embarked upon my journey to discover what the Bible really said and what the real claims of Christianity were. But what if I had died prior to that epiphany?  Prior to the point in time that I really started to truly seek and understand what the Bible really said, I considered myself to be a Christian, although I definitely did not exhibit any of the fruits of the Spirit.  I thank God every day that I finally “got it” and was able to finally to begin to move beyond the pain and false teachings of my youth and that He blessed me with a mind capable of reading and the Bible and hopefully begin to finally understand just a bit of it.

And what about those who may have learning disabilities and are really not able to to read the Bible with a degree of comprehension to determine what is true and what is false so far as what Jesus and the Apostles really said? We need to realize that for many, many centuries Christians were not even allowed to read the Bible and were basically at the mercy of the priests who told them what the Bible actually said. Is God going to deny them entry into the Kingdom because they received false information and acted on it in ways that we might find reprehensible? How much is God going to hod these types of people responsible for?

There is a lot more that could be said about this passage in 1 Corinthians, including some who have interpreted it to indicate some sort of Universalism. I have also read that the Catholics use this verse as a proof-text for Purgatory, but those are all for other posts. The main point that I wanted to draw out from this verse today is that Paul seems to be saying that there are going to be people whose works, as lacking as they may seem to appear, are going  make it into the Kingdom of God, even if by the skin of their teeth. And I tend to think that many who have been misguided by false teachers will meet those qualifications.

Filed Under: Armstrongism, Fundamentalism, Spiritual Abuse Tagged With:

The Personhood of The Holy Spirit

September 6, 2010 By Randy Olds 1 Comment

Although I have long ago worked out my issues with the false doctrines of Armstrongism concerning the personhood of the Holy Spirit, I know that some of the readers of my blog who have roots in Armstrongism still struggle with the issue. Billy Birch posted an excellent article on the subject yesterday that I would urge you to read if you still have questions;

The Personhood of the Holy Spirit

Filed Under: Armstrongism, Holy Spirit, The Holy Spirit, The Trinity Tagged With:

That Old Familiar Icky Feeling

August 18, 2010 By Randy Olds 7 Comments

Official Seal of Ambassador College

While browsing through some of the posts on the Stuff Fundies Like blog, I clicked on a couple of links in his Controlling the Flow of Information post. The links turned out to be concerning a certain Pensacola Christian College. After reading the (somewhat disturbing) links, I did a little reading about the school. Turns out they are an unaccredited Independent Baptist “university”, King James Only, are unabashedly fundamentalist and proud of it.

After only about half of the Wikipedia entry about the school, I was having flashbacks about Ambassador College. For the newer readers (I haven’t posted about Armstrongism in a while), Ambassador College was the extreme fundamentalist cult college where Herbert Armstrong encouraged all church cult members to send their kids. If your were lucky enough to live nearby (I only missed out by about 60 miles), you could send your K-12 kids to Imperial Schools to get an early start on their indoctrination brainwashing.

Although I was lucky enough to miss out on the entire 4-year plan, I spent a great deal of time in my teens at the Big Sandy Campus. We only lived about an hour away and were there for the various festivals pretty often and I had a few friends who actually lived there. Additionally I had the great opportunity for a summer of fun brainwashing for several summers at the Big Sandy campus for the YES summer camps ( I went one summer to the Orr, Minnesota camp) . We got to swim at Lake Loma (yes, Herbert W. Armstrong named the school lake after his wife), get taught brainwashed by the Ambassador College students about the wonderful World Tomorrow, and, if we were lucky unfortunate enough, actually meet Herbert W. Armstrong himself when he came to visit the campus. I actually met the man two summer sessions, and still remember the sense of awe that I felt in my poor, unfortunate teen-aged brain.

I can remember all of the little paths that led across the Big Sandy campus. The campus was actually beautifully landscaped (with the 3, yes count them 3 tithes that church members sent in…30%!) and the auditorium and buildings had some great architecture. I can also remember the fountain and the swans. In later years, I remember stories floating around about how it was told back in 1972 that those swans were actually going to take flight as a “sign” when “The Church” was going to “The Place of Safety” (i.e. raptured) prior to the Great Tribulation. I never have checked out the veracity of those “Swans Taking Flight” rumors, but my father claims that he remembers hearing about it pre-1972 (he never officially joined “The Church” but was allowed to attend services because of my mothers membership).

I can still vividly remember some twenty five years later how much I was looking forward to becoming a Young Ambassador. I was going to get a four year degree, meet a nice church girl (from the only One True Church!), settle down and teach brainwash children of my own about the wonderful World Tomorrow while we all happily waited for Jesus to come back and show all of the pagans who attended the “other” churches how wrong they had been. And who knew, I thought, with my Ambassador College credentials, perhaps I might one day be a Worldwide Church of God Pastor false prophet.

Oh, those were the good old days.

Back before I realized that I had a brain and could actually use it.

Back before I realized that God wasn’t out to get me and I found out about this amazing little word called “grace.”

It still surprises me how, after all of these years, I can still get that old familiar icky feeling whenever I come across stuff like this. I suppose a part of me still mourns for my lost childhood. A childhood that was stolen from me by an egoistical false prophet and his lackeys. I am also still sometimes surprised at the anger that I feel whenever I come across various people who are still spiritually abusing people with false teachings about Christianity.  I can feel the pain of those who have lost their faith because of cults or fundamentalism. I feel the pain of those who are still having to go about the long, hard task of gaining a realistic faith and having to decompress from the years that they may have spent in one form of fundamentalism or another.

I hope that I live to see the day where all religious abuse has ended. A day where everybody knows about the amazing grace of Jesus Christ. A day where nobody has to go through the spiritual abuse that so many people are still entrenched in right now and nobody has to worry about walking into a church and having a preacher yell at the congregation from the pulpit and have his deacons or elders bully them about whether or not they are “doing it right.”  Perhaps I will, although I doubt that will happen without God getting involved in a pretty direct way (by the parousia more than likely). I do think that the Internet age is slowing the legalists down a bit, but it definitely hasn’t stopped them.

Well, I guess that I’m done ranting. For a lighter look at things, check out yesterdays post. Tommorrow I’m going to get back to my live-blogging on “The Imitation of Christ By Thomas a Kempis.” I’m also reading “Predestination and Free Will: Four Views of Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom“, so look for some blog posts from this interesting little book over the course of the next week or so.

Filed Under: Armstrongism, Fundamentalism, Spiritual Abuse

Balancing Theology with Devotion – A Contrast

July 29, 2010 By Randy Olds Leave a Comment

This is a post that I’ve been toying around with in my mind for a good while now. The bulk of my Internet excursions are normally spent meandering around the faith-based blogosphere reading what other Christians of all sorts write about. When I initially decided to dedicate my life to living for God through His Son, I had a great many questions about what sort of things were expected of me from God and became a prolific reader not just of the Bible, but of other Christian writings as well as of Christian blogs.

Because of the huge amount of theological misinformation that I had received as a child growing up in a religious cult (see Armstrongism), followed up by a number of years in various forms of Christian fundamentalism, the bulk of my early readings after committing my life to Christ involved theology. I read a lot of heavy books in an attempt to dispel the ghosts of my cult childhood and fundamentalist youth. I also spent a great deal of time on a large number of Christian websites and blogs, especially those of the more respected theological folks. I wanted to try to ascertain which branch of Christianity and which theologians had the most valid arguments for Biblical truth so that I could try and shape my Christian worldview correctly.

Along the way, and really only in the last few months, I have discovered a curious anomaly in my readings. Instead of reading only those blogs by the theological types who, by the way, are about ninety percent male, I have started browsing a variety of other Christian blogs. A number of these blogs are by various women bloggers who I have loaded in my Google Reader. At the same time, I have read through a couple of excellent books of a devotional nature by Catherine Marshall (A Closer Walk: A Spiritual Lifeline to God and Something More). Additionally, I recently began reading “The Imitation of Christ By Thomas a Kempis”. Most of what I’ve been reading lately barely touch on deep theological matters, but are more of a devotional type of writing.

What I have found is a whole lot of Christian writers who could care less whether or not Paul wrote the Pastorals or if the Pericope Adulterae was in the original transcripts. They are not concerned one way or another whether Calvin was right or if it was in fact Arminius. These writers might be aware of the Young Earth Creationism/Evolution/Creative Design debate, but they simply focus on practical ways to live out their Christianity rather than worry about how old the earth really is.

Instead of worrying about all of these debatable things, they simply write about loving God, loving neighbor, and trying every day to try to be just a little bit more like Christ.

I’m not quite sure why, but the majority of these “devotionals writers” tend to be women. I find myself wondering if women are perhaps more “wired” to see things that way than we men are. I am finding that many women are simply more accepting in their faith than a lot of us men and don’t feel the need to ask a whole lot of questions that in the long run really don’t matter much.

Also, I think that as men, many of us (I am speaking for myself here) are nuts-and-bolts types of people. We often want to take things apart to see how they work. Many women on the other hand often seem content just to enjoy the beauty of a thing, not really wondering what is behind the beauty or how it got there, they just know and enjoy it for what it is.

My wife is that way. When she is reading her Bible, she is seeking for God to speak to her. She finds scriptures that give her strength and hope, and is not so very concerned about what the context of the scripture is about. She is not trying to figure out if we Methodists are more right than the Baptists down the road, or if our charismatic friends ought not to be talking in tongues. In fact, although I know that she has come to love the Methodist Church (after growing up Southern Baptist), she recently told me that she could really worship just about anywhere (except the cult that I grew up in!). Quite often I wish that I could have her simple faith instead of questioning everything as I do.

Of course, I know that writings of a devotional type is not an exclusively “woman” thing. My current book, “The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas Kempis, is definitely not a theological tome. To be sure, he tries to be theologically true to his beliefs, but by and large, the thrust of the book is of a devotional nature. Instead of writing about theology, he focuses primarily on how to practically apply the teachings of Christ in an attempt to be more Christlike…to “imitate Christ.”

Now, I am not discounting Theology or theologians. And there are also some fine women theologians that I have encountered, both professional as well as lay(women). There always has been and always will be a need for people who dedicate their lives to studying the Bible in an attempt to apply doctrinal truth to our ever changing culture.

However, as I continue down my path of trying to imitate Christ my own self, I am beginning to realize the need to balance my search for theological truth with a quest for ways of practically applying that truth. Head knowledge will only take you so far. There has to be heart knowledge as well. As Thomas Kempis puts it, “An humble knowledge of thyself is a surer way to God than a deep search after learning.”

I’m sure that I will continue to ponder after theology and my Amazon Wishlist will continue to grow and grow. However, I’m beginning to realize that I need to add more balance to my readings. Another quote that I ran across in my Kempis reading comes to mind;

“If my knowledge embraced the whole of creation, what good would it do me in God’s sight? It is by my actions that He will judge me”

I consider myself an egalitarian, and believe that God has equal use for men and women in His Kingdom. With that said, I am also seeing how we (men and women) quite often complement each other in our spiritual walks. I am coming to realize that instead of constantly attempting to gain knowledge and dissecting my faith, there are times that I should be taking my wife’s lead and simply admire the simple beauty of it and seek ways to incorporate that beauty in my day-today life.

Filed Under: Armstrongism, Christian Living, theology
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