A River Could Be A Tree: A Memoir by Angela Himsel
From Indiana To The Upper West Side, A Pilgrim’s ProgressAngela Himsel’s long and winding spiritual road to Judaism.
On the Saturdays of her childhood, Angela Himsel and her 10 siblings, along with their parents, piled into an old Cadillac and would drive an hour and a half across Indiana to a rented hall in an old gray building. As faithful members of the Worldwide Church of God, they’d listen to preachers shout about the End of Days.
Yes, Saturdays. Following church doctrine, they celebrated Jewish holidays, eschewed medicine and doctors, didn’t eat pork or shellfish, tithed much of their minimal income to the church and believed that the world was about to end. And then, Jesus would arrive, and they — if they hadn’t sinned — had been chosen to witness that.
Himsel’s memoir, “A River Could Be a Tree” (Fig Tree Books), tells of her odyssey from rural Indiana to the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where she now lives; from a life bound by the tenets of the Worldwide Church to her conversion and embrace of Judaism. She’s a brave guide, full of humanity, honesty, Midwestern humility and humor. As she explains in an interview, she first fictionalized her story into a novel, and then spent a decade creating the non-fiction narrative, doing interviews and research to assure accuracy.
Read the entire article here: From Indiana To The Upper West Side, A Pilgrim’s Progress
UPDATED:
Journalist’s memoir traces jump from doomsday church to NY Orthodox Jewish mom
Did you have no inkling that the leaders were using money tithed by members to support their own lavish lifestyles, or that the leaders themselves were not adhering to church teachings?I think my [Catholic and Lutheran] grandparents told my parents that it was just a cult that wanted their money. It’s an amazing thing that we have this ability to ignore what everyone around us is saying and just assume that they don’t know the mind of God, that they aren’t chosen, that they don’t understand. There are none so blind as those who will not see.What is your view of the Worldwide Church of God now?I find them despicable. They were responsible for so much suffering. Not just mental and spiritual suffering, but physical, as well. Because they insisted that you would be healed by faith, there were a lot of people who died as a result. That’s murder. I know that these people had free will, but their kids did not. The kids were at the mercy of their parents’ choices and decisions, and that still goes on today in various churches and religions. Any church that would deny children access to healthcare is not exactly Godly, let’s just say that.Angela Himsel’s sister Abby, who died at age 13. (Courtesy)Your own sister Abby died at 13 after suffering from an apparent heart ailment for several years. Your parents relied only on faith healing, yet you do not express any anger or resentment toward them.I think that they did take her to the doctor after she got sick. And I also think that the doctors in Jasper were not great. My opinion is that she was never [properly] diagnosed . I don’t recollect them taking her to Indianapolis to see specialists. I think my parents did try to get medical care at the beginning, but they did not pursue it any further. They just let it go on for years.I don’t blame my parents because they actually believed that God would heal Abby. From their perspective, they were getting the same thing as surgery. They really did. They believed it. It is heartbreaking.
Amazon review:
How does a woman who grew up in rural Indiana as a fundamentalist Christian end up a practicing Jew in New York?
Angela Himsel was raised in a German-American family, one of eleven children who shared a single bathroom in their rented ramshackle farmhouse in Indiana. The Himsels followed an evangelical branch of Christianity—the Worldwide Church of God—which espoused a doomsday philosophy. Only faith in Jesus, the Bible, significant tithing, and the church's leader could save them from the evils of American culture—divorce, television, makeup, and even medicine.
From the time she was a young girl, Himsel believed that the Bible was the guidebook to being saved, and only strict adherence to the church's tenets could allow her to escape a certain, gruesome death, receive the Holy Spirit, and live forever in the Kingdom of God. With self-preservation in mind, she decided, at nineteen, to study at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. But instead of strengthening her faith, Himsel was introduced to a whole new world—one with different people and perspectives. Her eyes were slowly opened to the church's shortcomings, even dangers, and fueled her natural tendency to question everything she had been taught, including the guiding principles of the church and the words of the Bible itself.
Ultimately, the connection to God she so relentlessly pursued was found in the most unexpected place: a mikvah on Manhattan's Upper West Side. This devout Christian Midwesterner found her own form of salvation—as a practicing Jewish woman.
Himsel's seemingly impossible road from childhood cult to a committed Jewish life is traced in and around the major events of the 1970s and 80s with warmth, humor, and a multitude of religious and philosophical insights. A River Could Be a Tree: A Memoir is a fascinating story of struggle, doubt, and finally, personal fulfillment.
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ReplyDeleteThis type of news entry always prompts hooray or boo type responses. Hooray that one of our own has arisen and accomplished something noteworthy, but boo because we disagree with their solution for whatever reasons.
ReplyDeleteI always say that it’s great that someone has had courage and left even if their solution was to leave one of the horribly toxic and oppressive ACOGs to join one of the milder versions.
I’m happy for Angela because her life in Judaism is a vast improvement over what it once was. And, it is nice that she is sufficiently articulate to share in a way that helps people leave whatever cult that may be robbing their lives, not just Armstrongism. You never know what can come next. Leah Remini’s experiences leaving Scientology are now helping people get out of the Jehovah’s Witnesses!
BB
Reading her account, I wonder how free is she really. Did she leave a abuse cult for a Herb-lite religion?
ReplyDeleteDid she exchange a tight strait-jacket for a loose fitting strait-jacket?
ReplyDeletePerhaps it just gives structure to her life. Nothing wrong with that.
It is interesting to me she went from Jewish Christian practices, with an OT flair, to a more comfortable switch to Judaism itself. There must have been a subconscious attraction to all things Jewish to begin with? When a student, I saw not a few students immerse themselves in Judaism and actually turned down going to dig in Jerusalem back in the day because the group going was bit on an annoying Judaism kick and not the folk I was comfortable with over a whole summer.
ReplyDeleteAll the churches of God are Jewish Christian in perspective as were Peter, James and John in the tales of the early church. Paul was the Gentile Christian come lately who overturned the tables in the Temple of the Jewish Christians leaving us modern Christianity devoid of its Jewish past.
The COG's endeavor to connect Paul, in his teachings and perspectives, to the early Church Apostles, but this is a mistake. While Acts was written to give the impression of cooperation in practice and belief, it was not actually so. A close and open read of Galatians 1-2 will reveal just how serious the divide was and how Paul could not stomach the Jewish Christian Apostles Peter, James and John, nor they him I suspect.
ReplyDeleteThe Christian Bible:
Look how the Christians connect Micah to Matthew with a mere page turn!
Look how "seamlessly" Judaism transitions to Christianity.
(if true, why aren't Jews onboard with this?)
The Muslims must maintain a similar narrative?
(if true, why aren't Jews onboard with this?)
I was in the Assembly of Yahweh for 19 years and finally escaped. YouTube has videos exposing various cults.
ReplyDeleteI have been to Jewish Messianic churches and they do "Jewish Christian" much better than WCG.
ReplyDeleteThere is actual worship, lots of beautiful music.
You can discuss different opinions and points of view.
They don't claim to know everything.
They admit certain areas of scripture are difficult and allow for different opinions.
Plus they are not controlled by an HQ organization, instead they cooperate with others.
They have about 50% Gentiles from many races.
No longer interested in any affiliations. I've even backed off the secular group I helped found here in the Verde Valley of Arizona. Inevitably, strong personalities take over and everyone else becomes a follower. I'm just too independent to endure that for long i guess I'm just the eternal "lone wolf."
ReplyDeleteDennis' comment reminds me of my time at the AC dig in Jerusalem. I was supposedly already one of the 10 tribes, so it was pretty easy to expand the tribes a bit. I took Hebrew lessons during the summer in Israel and found a comfortable niche in the AC 'Jewish' cliche. There were a few genuine Jewish students, but not all of them were in the Jewish cliche.
ReplyDeleteA few years later I left WCG, and I was looking for a group to belong to, I considered Judaism. I went back to Israel and spent a summer living on a kibbutz. They were Jewish but none-religious, in fact most were a group from South America who believed in the ideals of Karl Marx. The kibbutz they assured me was the perfect application of communism. I found most Israelis are not religious at all and spend the Sabbath sunning on the beach. When I came back to North America, and met some real Jewish people they were all atheists and no 'real Jews' believed I was Jewish.
Unless you are born a Jew you will never really be accepted by the Jews. Israel gives no-Jews claiming to be Jews the option to get out or go to jail.
ReplyDeleteYou can't become a Jew by a change in belief any more than you can become a Negro by worshipping your ancestors.
ReplyDeleteWhat is a Jew? It’s both a nationality and a religion. The religion has numerous subsets, and the nationality has had many influences because of the dispora effect. The fact is, neither have remained static, but have changed (evolved) with time.
ReplyDeleteThe ACOGs seem to like to take an imaginary snapshot in time, to make that their definition, and to believe that in the future, that is what humanity will get back to, because it was and is perfect. And they do this with nearly everything. It’s a myth that probability and percentages and the collection of thousands of years of additional experience run against. I personally believe that this line of thinking limits their concept of God.
BB
Allen Dexter 11/08
ReplyDeleteOwwwwooooooooooooooooooooo.........................:-) me-toooooooo....:-)