_______________said...
"Poor Dennis!
If he had a freind (sic) here, he surely urge him to seek professiomal (sic) help for the delusiobs (sic), extreme narcissism, and illusions of grandeur. However, Dennis' state does cause one to wonder if one couuld (sic) become a COG minister without such proclivities."
It has not proven a joy, at times, to be the symbol of all some have come to hate. And believe it or not, I get that. I'm not real happy with my own youthful choices in vocation either. I worked around ministers in adjoining church areas that were everything I'd hate about a guy if he was my pastor too. Lots of stories but let's move on.
For years now, I've read the opinions and rancorous projections of many who are pretty sure they know why I became a pastor and how I went about being one. So even after 20 years since, I thought I'd ask myself why I chose to pastor in WCG and the answer is the same as when I was 18.
(Note: Nothing new here I know and I know I have told bits and pieces of my journey into WCG before so I also get the "repetition" part. Tune out if you must. I just wanted it all in one place once and a chance for at least a bit of pushback in response to those who actually have no clue as to my motives, hopes and perspective in wanting to be a pastor in WCG. Had I not chosen, and I did chose it, to go with WCG, I know I would have been a pastor somewhere that suited my then beliefs and hopes. I had been accepted at Methodist Seminary as well but chose WCG.
This is the article I posted a few days ago but removed as I was in the "it doesn't matter" mode. But it does matter to me and I have always appreciated Gary's years ago invitation, as a former WCG Pastor who moved on rather than jumped to yet another version of WCG to share the experience and fully known by name in the interest of transparency and openness.)
So here I share my "extreme narcissism and illusions of grandeur" with you for the first time, once again.
A Typical Sunday after church visit to see my brother (right) at the Newark State School Hospital in NY. I guess I'd be about 10 in this pic.
Looking back, one of the main reasons I came into WCG was because of my brother "Freddy" Born 6 months premature and weighing in at 1.5 lbs, he survived but barely. The pure oxygen they gave in those days destroyed his retinas, his small ear bones and left him blind, deaf and unable to speak .
After he lit the curtains on fire at home, took the car out of gear a few times in the drive and stuffed a grape down my throat that mom barely saw him do to me and got it out in time, my parents knew he had to be where he could get more care and where our family could have some kind of normal life. So he spent his first 18 years at the State Hospital, compliments of Eastman Kodak and dad's insurance.
Newark State School-NY
Originally the "New York Custodial Asylum for Feeble Minded Women"
(True!)
Every Sunday after church we'd drive the 30 miles to picnic with him or take him out for ice cream. Anything to get him out and about. Going inside the State Hospital was somewhere between scary and creepy, but by the time I was 10 I had seen, heard and smelled every human birth defect known to man. It may have been overload but it formed the view in me that somehow I was supposed to help fix him and all his friends. Going to see him after church, the picnic and such was probably the reason I never thought much of taking my own kids to the YMCA on Friday nights growing up or the zoo on after Sabbath church if I did not have to speak at two locations. I know some think that proof of my lack of WCG conversion etc, but I didn't grow up in WCG so did not have the same mindset to begin with.
I spent years feeling guilty, as a kid, that I had parents, a home, my own room and bed while my brother had to live locked in and sleeping with all the smells, (he could not see or hear them) of the hospital and the other handicapped children. I used to keep a good eye on my parents walking the halls to find him because I was always afraid they'd lose me and leave me there for a day or so until they came back to get me. Just how kids think.
I wondered what the inner world of my brother was not being able to hear, speak or see. I still do as he is still alive. We communicated through touch and had our own sign language that only we all understood. He went to Helen Keller Institute because the State paid for it but we knew he'd not understand a think about what they were trying to teach him.
In the Rochester Christian grammar school I attended, I prayed every day, out loud, for his healing. The teacher even wrote how nice that was I did that on my second grade report card. I had a caretaker and fixer view of life from a very early age. It was what lead me into WCG.
I was 14 when I visited my WCG newbies sister and brother in law in Boise, Idaho. They were soon to go to Pasadena as "married students." They too went into the full time ministry with myself to follow a few years later.
Fred Coulter, a bit of an austere and scary guy as I recall at 14 gave the first sermon I heard. But he talked about the Universe for some reason and of course that got my attention. No Presbyterian minister ever did that! But then he quoted a verse that I had never heard in my entire religious life in church up to that point.
Isaiah 35:4-6 4
Say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you." 5Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. 6Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
I was hooked. I never heard that scripture in a Presbyterian sermon. I wanted that for my brother and all his "friends".at the State Hospital. I knew I had to be a part of a church that understood that and taught it. I probably decided then and there I was supposed to teach it too and in someway free my own brother from the prison of his own, literal blindness, deafness and inability to speak.
Of course, I was young and naïve.
I skipped through booklets like the US and BC in Prophecy. The New Testament cared little about who was who. Even I knew that as kid. But "Does God Heal Today?" and "The Wonderful World Tomorrow. What Will It Be Like?", I wanted to read to my brother but alas...well you know.
When I was ordained a local elder in Mt Pocono, the first human I anointed for healing as James 5:14
now gave me the right to expect and the laying on of hands to do personally as a "minister", was my brother. I went up to his room. Touched him to let him know I was there and anointed him. Maybe this was part of why I was "called". Um...well Freddy and I had a good laugh as he sat quietly wondering what the hell I was doing. He still can't see, hear or speak 47 years later. LOL, or not LOL depending.
now gave me the right to expect and the laying on of hands to do personally as a "minister", was my brother. I went up to his room. Touched him to let him know I was there and anointed him. Maybe this was part of why I was "called". Um...well Freddy and I had a good laugh as he sat quietly wondering what the hell I was doing. He still can't see, hear or speak 47 years later. LOL, or not LOL depending.
When I respond with "well you don't know me very well" I mean it a very deep level based in a lifetime of experiences. I can't help that I have moved on in loss of faith in faith and lack of belief in what, to me, are now just myths and stories designed to give a small cultic people a huge pedigree while they languished in captivity.
I can't help that I don't see why any God has to behave as the Bible God and be so out of touch when promises not to be..
I can't help my love for science and seeing what I see in the realities of the evolution of all life on this planet including myself. We can argue our prejudices and faith restrictions til proverbial cows come home, but in my world of study and seeing the evidence and at times holding it in my hands, evolution is simply a fact (known in science jargon as a "theory" even though in religion a theory is thought to be a mere opinion).
One final experience and then I'll start to let you go...
When I had come to the end of my rope with WCG and the twin demons of depression and anxiety had taken root, I spent a week in a Charter Hospital in counseling and getting my brains back in my head. I had a short list of people close to me that were allowed to visit and only one day a week. They didn't want anyone from my past or present interfering with my program. However, one day, in comes ___________, a minster and high up in WCG (and still in another splinter) for a visit. I didn't want to see this person. I thought he had come to fire me but he only threatened that when I got home. Wish he had. But he asked me "What have you learned in here?" I began with a story about my brother and how it affected me but he interrupted me and said "Yeah, yeah...I know all about your brother. What else did you learn?" I think I made something up as I seethed and for the first time in my life heard the words "fuck you" pass unimpeded though my mind. It felt good. I wish I had said it out loud.
One final experience and then I'll start to let you go...
When I had come to the end of my rope with WCG and the twin demons of depression and anxiety had taken root, I spent a week in a Charter Hospital in counseling and getting my brains back in my head. I had a short list of people close to me that were allowed to visit and only one day a week. They didn't want anyone from my past or present interfering with my program. However, one day, in comes ___________, a minster and high up in WCG (and still in another splinter) for a visit. I didn't want to see this person. I thought he had come to fire me but he only threatened that when I got home. Wish he had. But he asked me "What have you learned in here?" I began with a story about my brother and how it affected me but he interrupted me and said "Yeah, yeah...I know all about your brother. What else did you learn?" I think I made something up as I seethed and for the first time in my life heard the words "fuck you" pass unimpeded though my mind. It felt good. I wish I had said it out loud.
I haven't thrown babies out with bathwater in my view. I am not only reacting to "Armstrongism." I'm not interested in destroying faith or taking crowns. My entire life has been soaking in religion and the entire journey and experience has lead me to this place now.
It's my journey and just like yours, I am entitled to the lessons and experiences it provided me with. Being an "a-theist" is simply another kind of result you get when one becomes dis-illusioned with religion but why would one want illusions in religion to begin with?
It started when I was about 10 visiting my brother at the State Hospital every week after Church. The story is ongoing as I enter year 70
And I'll have to end with one of my favorite Eckhart Tolle quotes:
“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.”
Thanks for listening...
...and that's all I have to say about that
26 comments:
Dennis, your philosophy is pretty much identical to mine. My journey, which differs from yours, has led me to the same philosophy.
“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.”
I call this enlightenment.
There is so much more to this life than we can ever know. Religion is a simple and primitive means to attempt understanding of life and its meaning.
The Twilight Zone once touched on this thought...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=2omxzM0w4SA
Dennis--- you need to sell this to Hollywood as a script for a movie. Id pay to see it, and eat popcorn and milk duds while watching.
Hi PT
Thanks for the positive comment and yes, we are very much alike in our perspectives. Religious folk tend to scoff the concept of En-lightenment. Sounds too woo woo, but I find the word "converted" to be woo woo at times too.
Life a is great adventure and the chance that each of us as our conscious selves gets to explore and experience it is simply amazing. What's the chance?! The opportunity is also a short one in the over all scheme of things
En-lightenment, to me also means that a normal life of critical thinking, wondering, exploring etc is a much "lighter" life than that stuck in the sameness of religious dogma. We have learned more about, for instance, the evolution of life in the past 25 years than in the previous 5000. We don't know how life started. Perhaps we shall someday and good folk are spending their entire lives seeking that answer. Evolution is about the diversity of life forms and their movement through deep time to the present. It is not about how did it all start. That we don't know.
I believe the current model of the Big Bang but what banged and why it banged we don't know. But empty space is not empty and most of the matter in our universe we can't even see if the theory is correct. Personally, it just seems right that our Universe is just one in a sea of universe (parallel?) bubbles. Just as we have learned we are not the only galaxy, I suspect in time we will know somehow we are not the only Universe. I'd just like to live long enough to confirm some other earth like planet with life or even fossils on Mars from the time when it was much like Earth.
Some say we are a human having a spiritual experience. Others that we are a spirit having a human one. Who's to say, though many claim to know, just ask them. Would be kinda freaky if, as some feel, we are a simulation run by our future selves. lol. Maybe that's not so funny!
Religion, to me obviously, is a fear, shame and guilt based system to control the mind and keep it from actually exploring itself. Compliance and obedience is the key to a numbed out mind that merely obeys but does not explore, or at least does not tell the group it does.
As a kid we sang, "Trust and obey, FOR THERE IS NO OTHER WAY, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey." That always sounded concocted by Priests, Apostles and Pastor types to keep the troops in line and not seek personal contentment and enlightenment outside of the group, church or organization. The hymn didn't go on to say what to trust or just exactly who to obey. I also did not find myself very "happy in Jesus" to be honest. I was more happy and content moving on and getting off the "narrow way" which was too narrow and had it's own way of leading to destruction and not near the life and peace it promised.
anyway.....
Dennis wrote:
We have learned more about, for instance, the evolution of life in the past 25 years than in the previous 5000.
And yet, we may find out 100 years from now that most of what we "learned" is about as useful as blood-letting turned out to be for medical science. Let's not be dogmatic and religious about our scientific knowledge, which is always provisional as we continue to learn more. The theory of evolution is more useful than the idea that we sprang forth from the forehead of a Greek god, but there is still so very much that we don't know. For example, most scientists today believe that mind is what brain does. However, those who work closely with quantum mechanics are often very open to the idea that consciousness may be the substratum of matter, rather than the other way around.
Nevertheless, one of the best things that can happen to a person is to learn to abandon fear-based religion: "Love Daddy or he will burn you!"
Dear Dennis, I'm so glad you post here, the things you write are so thought provoking, this last one brought tears to my eyes. I have often thought that being blind must be one of the worst things that could befall a person but being both deaf and blind must be unbearable and to watch a loved one go through life like that defies words. I know to say "hang in there" is trite but it's all I can muster.
I know you have gone through so many other trials as well, my hope is that there will be a silver lining for you in the end. ps. I'm no longer a believer either.
toby
I agree 822. This does not prevent us from building on what we learn as we go and discarding that which does not hold up to scrutiny over time. Fossils are fossils and the evidence of what deep time can do will continue to unfold for us in our knowing how things work and came to be. There is always room for more understanding. What religion does that? Religion gets mired down in "the truth" which is unprovable and as Paul said "once delivered" That "once" bothers me as if there was nothing more to know or learn.
I also agree on what quantum mechanics might reveal 0ver time. You know "the observer" and all that. :) I'm still trying to turn around fast enough to see if everything behind me is a wave of possibilities and catch it collapsing into matter! So far, I can't turn around that fast. lol.
The 14 churches that Dennis pastored evaporated. That's the word he used. So now he comes to Banned to do some more evaporating.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Terminator.
Dennis Diehl, The Evaporator.
Good post, Dennis. We all had our own experiences> Mine were different, but we've come to similar conclusions after much trauma and mental turmoil. Life is an interesting phenomenon. I'm about fifteen years older than you, but our journeys have been similar. We were both sincere in our motives and the disillusionments also similar.
Anon 8:22:
Any theory that seeks to attribute human consciousness to material causes is lame. I can refer you to some material on this.
DD:
I think many of us, and perhaps you, were attracted to Armstrongism because it was disruptive. This is the same theory behind why people voted for Donald Trump - he is a disruptor. People who are fed up with the status quo love a disruptor - throw in a hand grenade and see what happens - we have nothing to lose.
The fact is, sometimes disruption can lead to a creative state that results in some good. Sometimes it doesn't. Once it led to World War 2. But it has a definite appeal. Armstrongism seemed contrarian and powerful. (Remember that powerful scene in "Jaws" when the town leaders were having a meeting to figure out what they were going to do about the big shark and Quint introduces himself by scratching on the blackboard? That's what The World Tomorrow broadcast was - Quint scratching on the blackboard.)
The problem is that Armstrongism turned out to be not only a good disruptor but also non-Christian. It was just a degenerate form of Millerism created by an advertising salesman who mailed out little booklets. Hence, the Great Disillusionment followed. All former and current members of the WCG were caught in this.
Thanks for the positive comment Toby. Our family adjusted to it all. My parents handled their frustration by starting an organization called The Sunshine League. They saw many parents drop their handicapped children off at the state school and never come back again. They started the Sunshine League to encourage families to not do that and visit their handicapped children no matter how bad the situation was. In their 90's my parents began to withdraw from Freddy physically a bit at a time though they'd go watch him bowl etc (yes he bowled) from a distance but did not let him know they were there. They did this so his transition without them might perhaps be easier. When we communicated mom and dad were "all gone" he made the sign for "all gone" which was family originated communication over the years and that was it.
I visited my home church once where I was speaking and on the way down the isle I was stopped by a very handicapped member in a wheelchair who wanted to talk. I knelt down and we had a good chat. Later, my sister told me the local minister was watching and asked her "how does he do that" since handicapped people evidently made him uncomfortable. She told him, "You didn't grow up like he did."
"I think many of us, and perhaps you, were attracted to Armstrongism because it was disruptive. This is the same theory behind why people voted for Donald Trump - he is a disruptor. People who are fed up with the status quo love a disruptor - throw in a hand grenade and see what happens - we have nothing to lose."
A pretty good description for the success of first century Christianity in Jerusalem under the Roman thumb Id say. Gospel Jesus was "a disrupter" of the status quo in the act of turning over the tables of the money changes and causing a disturbance on the Temple Mount during Passover. A No No by Roman Standards and they killed him because of it. No one is really sure if any Jesus actually did this as John has the act as one of Jesus first actions in his Gospel already in Chapter 2. Matthew has the incident at the end of his book in chapter 21 and something done just prior to Jesus arrest.
The Gospels give Jesus a one year ministry. John gives him three. Not something one would mess up you'd think.
Aside: There was NOTHING amiss with having moneychangers in the Temple area. Pagan money had to be exchanged for Temple coin to purchase sacrifices. The authors of "John" and "Matthew" each had a story to tell but perhaps did not understand that and made their Jesus quite the disrupter and fatally so. It's not nice to screw with the Romans and stir up a crowd at Passover.
I didn't come to WCG, however, because it was a disruptive theology. I simply thought it was a more correct one. No one knows better than I do. I was there when I decided. Perhaps all religions draw those who crave disruption of the status quo.
The Apostle Paul was such a disrupter to Judaism that he hoped they cut their balls off if they wanted circumcision. Or maybe it was Jewish Christians who wouldn't go all the way with his version of the "Good News". That would disrupt my life evermore! What a guy! lol. Gal 5:12
Sometimes I think Paul may have been the childhood victim of his circumcision gone wrong and was quite bitter about it? Maybe that's why he stayed single?
But that's just my hyperbolic tenor again probably :)
DD:
Christianity, without a doubt, was revolutionary and remains so. I agree with you on that. The pagan world was a quite different world before the influence of Christianity especially in regard to the value of human life. While Christianity in the first century was disruptive to society in its implementation, it should not have been theologically disruptive to Judaism because of the prophetic and symbolic language contained in the Law, Prophets and Writings concerning Jesus. Jesus' life was surcharged with political and religious disruptiveness gratuitously because of the environment that he had to live in.
There, of course, is a counterpoint to the idea of a longer ministry.
"There was NOTHING amiss with having moneychangers in the Temple area. Pagan money had to be exchanged for Temple coin to purchase sacrifices."
No, there was something wrong with this activity because the guy who really owned the temple, its history and its theological import came and threw out the money changers. What was amiss was exactly what Jesus said was amiss - it had become a den of thieves. The currency exchange was not a simple and useful market for transactions in support of temple worship. It had become a corrupt place of greed that blighted the monument to the worship of god.
The disruption caused by Donald Trump is different from the disruption caused by Jesus - not in its mechanism but in its philosophy, not in its basic methodology but in its content.
Finally, think how warmly you were received by the WCG. I have the distinction of having been referred to repeatedly at AC/BS as a Neanderthal by one of the guys that currently sits on the UCG Council of Elders.
Like every COG minister, Dennis cannot handle any dissent. Such narcissism on display. Fortunately for Dennis, there are always an aboundance of COG-like minions to stroke his ego.
Anonymous said...
The 14 churches that Dennis pastored evaporated. That's the word he used. So now he comes to Banned to do some more evaporating.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Terminator.
Dennis Diehl, The Evaporator.
Context my friend, context...
That is an observation made looking back now over the past 20 years, having long since moved on myself, and since the moronic Tkach "Jesus performed a miracle in the Church" debacle and rise of the splinters and slivers.
Everyone here is safe
4:42
There's the first Eva, the second Eva (Mary Magdalene) and the third Eva Porator of the 14 churches mentioned in the extended version of the renewed book of Acts.
Nck
People don't realize sometimes that what some consider to be insults, others consider as reaffirmation. I was sitting at a light this evening, waiting for it to change,when suddenly a girl yelled from a passing car, "Dirtbag!" I thought to myself, "Dayamn! You still got it!"
BB
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Unfortunately in the cold light of day, some would say, that you might not have been called in the firstplace.
The production line of AC has produced many clones of Armstrongisim but not many called individuals.
Anonymous said...
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Unfortunately in the cold light of day, some would say, that you might not have been called in the firstplace.
The production line of AC has produced many clones of Armstrongisim but not many called individuals."
Unfortunately in the cold light of day the concept of "called" is somewhat dicey as well. It seems that as long as one believes what one is expected to believe, contributes to the effort and raises no questions, then they are definitely "called". But once they hang up, then they couldn't possibly have been called, much less "converted".
The NT makes much of the chosen and the called until they hang up and then they are apostates, fallen away, turned over to Satan, raging waves of the sea foaming out their shame and twice dead. (Even though it is only appointed unto man once to die :)
Let me go out on a limb here. I was not called I did my own homework at the time. I chose it of my own free will. You could not have talked me out of it and I would have proof texted you to death had you tried.. Whatever "converted" is or was, I was not that, especially if one means by that their staying with WCG no matter what or hopping to a split, splinter or sliver to keep it all going.
The sick were not made well by me anointing them as per James 5:14 nor did I do the same miracles Jesus did and "greater" as I recall were promised. I was never able to say to a mountain "be moved into the sea" either. My "faith" never even reached the size of a mustard seed much less a peach pit or avocado seed. I don't recall anyone else doing that either. No one did it in my pre-WCG upbringing either as I recall.
In my experience, when someone says that someone was "not really called" or "was never converted" it about them who say that. It is what those on the inside say to comfort themselves and dismiss what the unchosen may have done or believed contrary to the church.
Like Paul saying "Follow me as I follow Christ" HWA used that line all the time. But it simply means "Follow me" with a bit of wiggle room to blame/credit someone else if it goes south. Thus, the Tkaches did not F up the Church. Jesus worked a great miracle. But in fact, they F'd up the church lol.
I ponder the motives that moved individuals into WCG. I was very disappointed in how little cooperation Barrett got from members and ministers when doing his scientific study on New Religious Movements and his focus on WCG. I think that information would be quite telling but without it, some of my guesses are based merely in anecdote. Ames and Winnail have both admitted in sermons that they were drawn into WCG out of fear of the tribulation. I've thought about how sad that is and how empty that must feel in quiet moments alone with their own consciousness. Hearing these men admit publicly that fear was their motivating factor is what helped me to really question the power and control these organizations have over both, their ministers and members. I think it would be an interesting study to see who was motivated by what in becoming ministers and what were they then like as ministers. I like the chapter on Dennis in this book already.
The belief in the Fairy Tale of Evolution is just another form of religion requiring extreme faith and the denial of scientific facts. It's the delusional excuse for the ignoring the obvious intelligent design that is seen all around you.
No human would ever conjure up the extreme complexity of DNA and its role in the creation of needed proteins to keep something "alive". Mankind with all of its knowledge and technology can not create a single protein. (yes, I know we can modify an existing protein) To call the inner working of a cell extremely complex is an understatement. Anyone who would study the defense systems, energy systems (ATP), manufacturing, communication, transportation, and waste disposal systems of a cell and pretend it was all put together by accident is complete self-deception.
Anon 9:36 AM, what made you go off topic so radically? Forget to take your meds?
Retired Prof said...
Anon 9:36 AM, what made you go off topic so radically? Forget to take your meds?
Trying reading the Dennis reference to Evolution. Apparently you missed that.
"I can't help my love for science and seeing what I see in the realities of the evolution of all life on this planet including myself."
Off topic? I'd hate to be in your class.
Dennis
You got into religion for the wrong reasons to start with. Then you were drawn into a corrupt system blinded by your selfish perspective. But finally you then blame God for all this misery you suffered?
Jesus came to save us from our sins. Since you say there is no God and therefore there is no sin, your sin remains.
People who repent find peace in life. You are very bitter about other peoples actions. If you regretted your own more you would be able to forgive others and you would not so persistently seek validation from random people on the internet.
God still loves you and will forgive you. Then you can forgive the men who mistreated you. Then you will see clearly how to pass on this healing to others.
None of us were " called," we were entrapped. We didn't become enlightened, we became depressed and desperate. In the end none of it matters, for me about 54 years of despair. I just didn't realize what it was until I was out of it. Granted I didn't join up, I too was dragged in by my Mother. Turns out all that garbage, all the song and dance, all the ritual meant absolutely zip. I thought maybe all those years made me a better person, gave me a background, but in fact I probably would've been a decent person without it. Sigh.
Hi Dennis, have you looked at stuff on Childhood Emotional Neglect - There's a lot of material available. I've just bought Jonice Webb's "Running on Empty". It deals with all different kinds of cen and offers advice on dealing with it. I would think that a lot of people who came into the church and tolerated the narcissistic abuse have come from dysfunctional families and need to heal from this. I include myself in this. However, now that the abusers have been called out for what they are, we need to work on ourselves and become whole. Those doing the abusing - well I don't know about them. Possibly incorrigible at this stage- they are a mystery I don't want to think about anymore.
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