There have been some interesting stories popping up on the Facebook page WCG Survivors.
I just found out about this site & I think it's wonderful! I've been reading alot about horrible experiences each of you endured and want to speak up a little about some of the horrors visited upon members. Not long before we came into the Church, if it was discovered that the Minister was coming to you home, members would show up at your house with cleaning products & would clean you house! Also, they would go into your cabinets & throw away any food items not acceptable by the church, white suger, white bread, white flour & of course anything possibily related to pork. When we came into the church in the early 70's they no longer did this type of intrusion. However, I was told I would not be allowed to go into the medical field, and a very good friend of ours who was a RN, was told she had to give up her career, which she did. During the time of the Minister from Hell, people turned on one another, spreading rumors if they couldn't find any truth to take to the Minister. Teenagers were told to "turn in" any other teens who weren't doing what the Minister said. My little family got to the point you didn't trust anyone. Some good friends of ours took in a lady who was literally homeless. What happended, yep, she would run to the Minister or his wife with "stuff" that was going on in the home. The same home she was welcomed into. This is just a sample of some of the things that went on. My regret???? We allowed our daughter to be looked down upon, treated like dirt & made fun of, because we didn't have a lot of money & lived in a mobile home. Which is all we could afford, since so much went to the Church. She also had to endure the same type of crap at school, because she couldn't partake of a lot of school stuff due to the Church
The ever compassionate, church hopping Larry Salyer is exposed as the hypocrite he is. Of course this was typical of many COG ministers who felt they had the right to tell people what kind of jobs they could work in. I find it pretty sad that these ministurds were telling people they could no longer be doctors when the Pasadena are was filled with Church doctors and Herb surrounded himself with them.
My dad was a policeman, had four stai-rstepped kids, and we were poor as church mice. Minister of the day (Larry Salyer) told my dad he was sinning by carrying a gun and was told to quit his job. My dad said 'And then how am I supposed to feed my kids?' The answer: (I'll bet you already know).....trust God. Well, my dad apparently didn't have that type of trust, never quit his job, and went on to retire from the police force 30 years later. He was never made a deacon or elder or given any sort of responsibilities because of his "attitude". Although a (pretty) faithful member for many years. In fact, still hasn't come "out", even though he did switch horses many years before the WCG transformation......and all of the splinters he had followed have splintered and he doesn't attend much any more. My dad is a tough one to figure out.....he's 70 and still pretty much does his own thing.
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I've always had a natural bent towards science. It doesn't require much faith if you can prove the outcome with repeated experiments, so that's more comforting to me than wondering if some big deity in the sky will or will not talk to me.
I lost my faith when I was 16. I reached out to god and he turned away. I remember the day that I felt that abandonment. Over the next few years I looked at other religions and realized that all the Christian ones I looked at had the exact same formulas for services, scriptures, ostracism, and etc. That's not what I was looking for, so I started to look at pagan religions. Wicca was just the same thing with another god(dess). Oddly, most of the non-wicca pagans I have met seem to know the Bible better than I learned it. I never thought to ask why there are two creation stories, for example.
I used to hate any and all religions. Over the years I have relaxed my approach. Because all cultures have some form of deity, I realize that it is an essential thing for humans to try to make sense of the world and also create social customs for living with lots of humans in small spaces (as opposed to hunter-gatherer tribes) so that we can ensure our survival. Ultimately I am agnostic. Somethings can't be fully explained yet, so the question is still out there for me, but I am not looking to find anything either. If there is a god or goddess and they need me for something, they will have to find me
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