Saturday, August 15, 2020

Why Do They Stay?

Here on Banned, after reading all of the various and crazy seeming behaviors, ideas and perspectives of the spiritual leadership in the myriad of Church of God splits, splinters and slivers, we often are forced to ask ourselves, "Why do they, the membership, who can't be this naïve and gullible. stay?" 

One valid reason is that indeed they are that gullible and naive. Another is the sincere belief that have that in spite of the seeming craziness and prophetic blunderings, "I sincerely believe this is God's True Church."

 But also, and perhaps a more primordial and subconscious belief,  is the absolute fear of the loss of connection and of belonging.  I get that and so do you.  

For several years before I departed WCG as both minister and member, I could see it coming. 

Originally I thought that my generation of ministry would right the wrongs of the WCG and stop majoring in the minors as well as practice minding our own business on topics which are not actually the church's business.  

That idea got crushed early in my ministry , which began in 1972, with the failure of the Systematic Theology Project, in 1974,  that addressed just such needs in the church.  Herbert would have none of it nor would he yield his supposed authority to others to recognize the need for changes on such topics as healing, divorce and remarriage and a number of other topics that were both meddlesome and troublesome in endeavoring how to apply them in our times.  The church nor HWA could err on the side of compassion , love and common sense.  It had to be technically and literally correct if it was to be "God's true Church." The rest is history. 

But even more than simply choosing to quietly not apply some church teachings and requirements to the congregation because I disagreed with them, it was the loss of community, connection and belonging that also weighed heavy in the background.  It is a subconscious human need that goes back a very long ways. 

. Being "disfellowshipped" or "marked" is a very old way of stirring up the fear people have of these losses and was used by the Bronze Age Old Testament types and the Iron Age New Testament types to keep the "all speaking the same thing, that there be no divisions among us" family together in peace and harmony. In the OT the penalties for stepping outside the box of the Israelite religion was severe and often fatal. In the New Testament it was a more conscious attempt to make the person lonely and cut off from the herd with the hope that would teach them good not to stray again. 

In the ancient history of tribal man, being put out of the group was literally a death sentence. Being put out of the church was deemed a mere death to the flesh in turning one over to Satan, but so the spirit could eventually be saved in the tale of ultimate salvation. I doubt it worked either.  

Somehow it never seemed to strike the NT types to wonder just why someone felt as they did, asked the questions they did, had the doubts they did or made the mistakes they did, and perhaps actually get them help and encourage them. 

Today with the increase of knowledge, a good thing, that approach has lost much of it's punch in motivating people to pray, obey, pay and stay where they are not comfortable.  And yet, the need to belong and the connections people have with family and friends in their faith is still strong and the major reason people stay put. 

It is when they find themselves sitting on the outside to Church beliefs but standing up on the inside when they disagree.  The inside and the outside don't yet match and may never depending on the degree of loss of connection and belonging a particular person is willing to live with. Perfect love, the opposite of which is not hate but fear, does not strike the NT church as a way to keep a church together. Fear of loss works just fine. It also causes a church to be made up of people who seem one way but are another. 


The reality of "why they stay" is perhaps illustrated in the life of Charles Darwin as well in relation to his wife Emma.  His "evolving" views on the Origin of Species" caused great distress in his personal relationship with his very religious and church going wife Emma.  

But in his personal life and relationship, Emma wrote him of her concerns. 

" My reason tells me that honest and conscientious doubts cannot be a sin, but I feel it would be a painful void between us."

Emma, wife of Charles Darwin,  upon her recognition of potential consequences to Charles discoveries as to the Origin of the Species. 

"May not the habit in scientific pursuits of believing nothing until it is proved, influence your mind in other things that cannot be proved..." 

Emma to Charles one year later in 1839.

Charles Darwin's "Sandwalk " Path where he often spent time alone in his thoughts. 

By the 1840's, Charles is escorting Emma to church, stopping at the door to drop her off and going off to take a walk alone while she is in Church.  It was this fear of the loss of his bond to Emma that caused Charles Darwin to postpone the publication of his Origin of  Species for another 20 years. 

Some do feel that this had little to do with Darwin's fears about either the reactions of his peers or his wife and were more a function of being busy and in poor health, but "all of the above" would seem true with such a revolutionary theory and understanding in that day. Today we have ample proof he was correct where Darwin simply had the concept lacking all but some relatively simple proofs of his time and by observation during his trip on the Beagle. 

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/%C2%93darwins-delay%C2%94-the-stuff-of-myth

In modern times and in such cases where walking away from religious practice, people and beliefs that one no longer can support or count as a credible reason to stay put, we can see the same fears expressed when contemplating the losses and realities that will come from no longer being able "going along to get along. "  Going along to get along is the dilemma I see many of my former and now older minister peers stuck in because of age and the price of leaving being way too high if not impossible to do at this stage in their lives.   I get that. It's a dilemma they never would have imagined when young and it is not a function of doubting their sincerity.  

"I have a compelling reason to believe in God. My parents are deeply committed Christians, and would be devastated, were I to to reject my faith.  My wife and children believe in God...Abandoning belief in God (or a specific faith and church as with the splinters) would be disruptive...sending my life completely off the rails."

Carl Giberson, "Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution"  2008

In my own experience in coming out of ministry and membership in WCG many years ago now, I participated in The Clergy Project. This was a private and secure website for members of the clergy, male and female, to talk with those who have already had the experience, about their loss of faith and how to navigate all the potential emotions and losses associated with it. It was always the fear of loss of a marriage, the love of children and the safety and comfort of belonging to community that held them back or was the stuff of nightmares "coming out." . One pastor asked me if the divorce he feared  and his children rejecting him had to happen.  He wanted reassurance that it would not.   I could not give him that. No one could. It is often inevitable depending on what actually holds a relationship together. If it just church, then no.  And if no is not something one is willing to consider at this time, the struggle for one's personal authenticity and the consequences of a  loss of faith in faith will come calling again another time to see how it's going. 





19 comments:

Anonymous said...

I strongly recommend Steven Hassan’s book ‘Combatting cult mind control’. He was in an abusive religious cult and after he got out he studied the mechanics behind it and wrote a few books about that topic. Worth reading! You can also find him on YouTube.

What makes him stand out, is that he not only talks about what happened to him, but also makes you understand WHY it happened and how you can heal from it.

Steven Hassan said...

Thank you. Actually the book has been updated and the new edition has only one "t" in the title. Here is the link: https://www.amazon.com/Combating-Cult-Mind-Control-Best-selling/dp/0967068827/ and it has an audible version too. My web site is freedomofmind.com and I would like to invite people to come and learn about unethical influence and mind control cults. Also, I did an interview with two former members at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvyzi43-W7M&t=62s I wish all of you well, Steve Hassan

Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix said...

As a former member of the Worldwide Church and splinter group attendee, I can attest to the fact that the fear of abandonment/alienation/rejection/loneliness is real. I also understand the impulse to put up with a great deal in the hope of preserving one's social network.

Indeed, I may understand it better than most, because I have also experienced these emotions from another perspective. For many years, I denied my sexual orientation - not only to others, but also to myself. After all, there was a time when being gay put one outside of everyone's circle - religious and secular. I was afraid of becoming/being something so different, so out of the ordinary, that no one would be able to love me - that I wouldn't even be able to love myself anymore. Moreover, one had to fear not only being cut off from human acceptance - there was the ever present Damocles' sword of being forever alienated from God himself!

Nevertheless, my experiences have taught me one very reassuring truth - Our lives our much more than the individual component parts that make up the whole. It turns out that being a member of the Worldwide Church of God was a small part of who I am - that it was actually a small part of my spiritual self. Likewise, when I finally accepted the reality of my sexual orientation, I eventually came to see that being gay was only a small part of my identity. In short, there was much more to Lonnie than those pieces of the whole. And even after shedding pieces of who I thought I was, there was whole lot of Lonnie left without them!

It is unfortunate that some folks feel that they must abandon all of their former self to embrace new truth and understanding. It is unfortunate that Darwin and his wife suffered so much because of the false dilemma that we impose on ourselves. Choosing to accept evolutionary science does NOT mean that you have to abandon God or things spiritual - no matter what anyone else tells you. Acknowledging errors and inconsistencies in Scripture does not have to include rejecting the Bible or abandoning God.

While accepting reality may cause us to lose some of the pieces of our former life (including some very important and dear pieces), it does not have to completely alienate us from ourselves, others and God. In the end, we're the only ones who can completely isolate ourselves from God and the rest of creation. After a stumble/fall/setback, we make the decision to lay down and die or get back up and keep going!

Anonymous said...

Hi Steven
I read your book many years ago. I loved your advice about tip toeing around the mental defences that cults have programmed into their members. I highly recommend your book to our readers.

Ronco said...

"Likewise, when I finally accepted the reality of my sexual orientation, I eventually came to see that being gay was only a small part of my identity."

"Choosing to accept evolutionary science does NOT mean that you have to abandon God or things spiritual - no matter what anyone else tells you. Acknowledging errors and inconsistencies in Scripture does not have to include rejecting the Bible or abandoning God."


Amen to that Lonnie!

Anonymous said...

Miller wrote: "It is unfortunate that Darwin and his wife suffered so much because of the false dilemma that we impose on ourselves. Choosing to accept evolutionary science does NOT mean that you have to abandon God or things spiritual - no matter what anyone else tells you. Acknowledging errors and inconsistencies in Scripture does not have to include rejecting the Bible or abandoning God."

Just so. There is hardly anything else to say. There are those who would wish us to believe that if you accept evolution you must reject God. This is political positioning rather than theological, philosophical or scientific. While this idea is patent viewpoint it is given the cachet of being "a priori" or necessary.

It is important for people who are making profound personal shifts not to create or accept unexamined dilemmas that just may be false. This is like fleeing a lion and running into a bear.

Tonto said...

Your life can be ruined simply by needing people, and getting married to them, or going to church with them, or associating with them. You think you love them, but later you find yourself trapped by some kind of monster. It happens all the time. Why these things happen?

Take the opinions of others, for instance, the way you enslave yourself in order to get a good opinion of yourself nurtured and reinforced by your servitude. All your efforts to this end result in conflict. Even though you're kind to the poor, a loving mother or father, you may even say to yourself that you're loving too much. Real love always knows how far to go. If you're "loving" too much, it is not love at all, but a kind of compulsion to find sustenance for a good image of yourself, and you can become a slave to the process.

No matter how good and kind you are, it's never going to be enough. And the people you are enslaving yourself to for the sake of that image will always take advantage of your servility. you'll spoil them rotten. That's what you do, and you end up being terribly hurt. And as a result of being terribly hurt, you become terribly angry. There's your problem right there.

Resentment, rage, and hostility siphon off all that is good in you, the real you along with the good image. Rejection! That's the word. We all have this terrible fear of rejection along with a growing need for acceptance. Psychologists will always tell you--wrongly, of course--that this need for approval is normal, but it is abnormal for human beings. You should not feel the need for approval. You should not need the love of the world.

There is something about this odd need for approval that is so deeply wrong that it doesn't want to see anything wrong about the whole process it uses in going about its business of reconstructing reality for the sake of crating a finer image of itself for the outsider's mirror. It is something terribly wrong on the inside that drives a person to need so much support from the outside.

Leadership is a lonely thing. Self Actualization is a lonely thing. Relationship with God is a very private and lonely thing too.

Anonymous said...

It is abandonment that is the first step in healing. This even occurs before you leave and starts within you as you work through your cognitive dissonance. How many people bashed the Painful Truth only to write us and apologize years later? Quite a few.

You would think that the current crop of armstrongites would be offended by Herbert screwing his daughter, but sadly is does not. They continue on, never being able to address the issue whether God uses a child molester/pedophile to spread his gospel. Until, I should say, they justify his actions using the David defense

Anonymous said...

Your book was incredibly helpful, thank you.

DennisCDiehl said...

Tonto noted: " No matter how good and kind you are, it's never going to be enough. And the people you are enslaving yourself to for the sake of that image will always take advantage of your servility. you'll spoil them rotten. That's what you do, and you end up being terribly hurt. And as a result of being terribly hurt, you become terribly angry. There's your problem right there. "

It was always interesting and telling to me how NT characters, like Paul, who made the rules and enforced them on such things as divorce and remarriage and if yes or no, never reveal anything about how he affected the members real lives with this. We never hear the other side or the pain inflicted by such edicts.

We never hear any stories of how members or their children suffered under James idea of "is any sick among you...let him call for the elders of the church" etc... Granted, what real medical choices did they have so no biggy but I bet some were over zealous and paid the price for ignoring other kinds of help.

We certainly don't hear about the losses, both materially and in faith , by those promised time was short, soon and quickly when it was not. Who lost what to "all things common"? which came and went as time grew long and more wealthy Greeks came into the churches saying "hell no, I'm not doing that!" You know as well as I do that any church leader would not risk a wealthy member leaving over the insanity of all things common. That is why it died. And also because it was never meant to be long term. It was a short term sharing because time was short when it was, in fact, not.

Paul tells us he had a thorn in the flesh that made him do what he should not and not do what he should. He won't say what.

Paul tells us he went to the Third Heaven (he didn't of course) but could not tell what he heard and saw. Why tell it then? Ego and specialness.

He said he went to Arabia for three years but failed to say for what reason. We made up reasons for him that are no doubt baloney.

Paul tells us that "all Asia has forsaken me" but fails to tell us why. I would have liked to know why.

And of course, those who notice time goes long are labeled scoffers who deliberately and are willingly ignorant that a day with God is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day. No they don't! And if that was always true and not just an apologetic for time going long made up on the spot, why didn't someone tell people this thirty years ago? Because they made it up just now. Kind of like "God is giving us more time" rather than "Oops, I was mistaken"

Simply to say, we also have no record of the other side of obvious coins in the NT from those who were also hurt and no doubt terribly angry. And because we don't, those examples can be used by all sorts of pastor types or religious organizations to keep the sheep gyrating in their seats making any situation in a group today fit the one sided scripture example...until it blows or someone also wonders how badly someone got hurt and why they got angry.




Anonymous said...

Tonto
Actually, resentment, rage, and hostility are part of being made in God's image. These traits need to be honoured rather than suppressed. Many religions,including everyday Christianity reject these and similar emotions. But they are wrong. The fact that they are involuntary proves that they are natural. So is the need for approval.
Your post is typical of most Armstrongites, present and past. After listening to thousands of Kenneth Copeland type sermons, members are still morally confused.

Dennis,
Can God use a pedophile? The Bible says yes, which you should know. For instance, God used an evil Balaam whose prophesies proved true. In Daniel, God states that He sometimes puts the most base person into power. So yeah, God does use scumbags. And ACOG members are repulsed by Herb screwing his daughter, and grant him no defense.

Anonymous said...

Nothing really makes sense about why religion is as it is unless you see religion for what it is. Religion is an institutionalized effort to explain our "human" need to understand why we exist and the way to a better eternity after the difficult struggles of this life ends. Religion is the invention of our need to solidify the human desire to understand all of this by incorporating it into a tangible structure. Spirituality however is not bound in structure but is a very personal belief in more of an unexplainable but perceived existence of forces that exist in the universe. It is simple to explain why there is so much abuse and disfunction in religion. Because institutionalized religion is very much human it tends to display the negative human traits as well as the positive human traits.

Anonymous said...

Dennis wrote "We certainly don't hear about the losses, both materially and in faith"

I agree with this. We do have only a partial view. When we read the Epistles, we are reading someone's mail and a well rounded view is not given. The challenge is that this vacuum allows the superimposition of a number of viewpoints on NT writing.

Armstrongism advocates a closed system viewpoint. They have all the answers. If the don't have the answers, they can use loosing and binding to create their own answers. They expect a closed system and they work diligently to manufacture a closed system. Authoritarianism only works well with a closed system. But this demands of its adherents a self-deception - a belief that everything is a neat, unquestionable package when it is not.

Christianity, I believe, is an open system - energy escapes in directions that you don't expect and you must stop and think about it. It is disruptive. It is demanding.

An aphorism: Armstrongism not only brain washes you in the dimensions of pseudo-theological data, religious behavior and responsiveness to authority - it also makes you believe there is a closed system when the system is actually open. So you are always looking for a closed system - the mythical neat package.

Anonymous said...

Dennis:

More to the point: Why do people hang around bad crowds?

I think that people are essentially ego-centric. And when they internalize beliefs, the beliefs become like a personal possession - or maybe even a part of their identity. This ownership engages their ego. To challenge their beliefs is like stealing something from their living room. I have noticed that the most avid Armstrongists I have encountered have the biggest egos. A corollary observation is that within Armstrongism, being pathetically bull-headed can be easily mistaken for "good character" or "conversion" or, wait for it, "faith."

Anonymous said...

NEO
A long time ago I read that philosophically a closed system is one in which all the fundamentals are correct, but details can be added. A open system by contrast is one in which the fundamentals are still hotly debated.
Hence the ten commandments is a closed moral system.

Anonymous said...

Tonto
Resentment, rage and hostility are also the involuntary reactions to being the victim of emotional abuse. Hmmm.

Anonymous said...

Psychology is used way too often by the unconverted.

The desire to put people into boxes and peer into their minds is the ruination of many.

How can the faithless understand the faithful.

Beware of crown stealers.

Anonymous said...

Lol, imagine being so consumed with disdain for a church you used to belong to decades ago that you take the time to create a website dedicated to trash talking them constantly. Sounds like everyone here never really moved on.

Anonymous said...

Imagine having your family separated by these cog cults and knowing that this website and it’s comments may deter someone from getting sucked in and or eventually someone inside will read and be able to free themselves..imagine that