Hosted by Mattie Lasiter and Ashleigh Teeter, siblings who were separated for more than 25 years due to the shadow of their shared past. Their father, a charismatic but enigmatic figure, led a cult that consumed the lives of its members, leaving their family torn apart and forbidden from contact.
They have reunited to share their journey with you while unravelling the haunting tales of cults from around the world, shedding light on the warning signs that can help
prevent others from falling into their grasp.
This is their shared story in Worldwide Church of God and Crusade Church
25 comments:
Well, the blurb sounds good, on the surface.
What the hell does this have to do with WCG?
Excellent story. Very accurate. I had never heard of their father and his cult.
What does it have to do with the WCG? Well they sound a lot like a WCG split-off, no?
If you took the time to go to their website and review the information you will find that it has everything to do with WCG. Richard
"Top Down" governance went all the way to the bottom. It was not just HWA, but a steady slope down until the bottom , with a blind, elderly, divorced, woman on third tithe assistance or similar being squished by the top heavy pyramid. Families were no different.
"What the hell does this have to do with WCG?"
One thing is for sure by this comment, the church never brought in the brightest of the world.
No question that WWCG was too cultish. That was a failure of leadership that I recognized right away. But the basic biblical truths of the Sabbath, Holy Days, the Kingdom of God, God not being limited to a pagan Trinity concept was truth that you can’t deny from scripture. I came the world’s biggest “Christian Cult” the Catholic Church.
There is nothing wrong with being a member of a cult. I'm part of several. I'm part of the cult following for '55-'57 Chevies, a staunch member of the James Dean cult, part of the Stevie Ray Vaughan cult, a semi-Trekkie, health and physical fitness cultie, 2nd Amendment cult member, and several other lesser fields of extreme interest. But, these cults are in no way toxic!
Armstrongism is not just cultish, it is toxically cultish. Many of us have symptoms and disorders which were directly caused by these toxic aspects. The outrageous severity of the child rearing policies, plus the overall intrusiveness of the system of governance in the WCG, has caused a lifetime disorder for me called PTSD. In my case, this is a disorder which will not allow for any type of normal close relationship with other humans. There are serious barriers and fears caused by my perception of all other humans as potentially being my enemies. Generally, I can't stand to be around any given other person except for relatively short periods of time. Especially arbitrary authority figures! Even my relatives. Sucks big time that it came from practices supposedly related to the worship of God. And that is why I consider Armstrongism to be toxic, and straight from the devil!
But at least you have the appropriate interest in Chevies. My first car years ago was a '55 Chev.
10.54 am So the church was too cultish "But the basic biblical truths of the Sabbath, Holy Days. Kingdom of God, God not being limited to a pagan Trinity" is truth from scripture.
The above is typical minister talk, or from a brainwashed, mentally imprisoned member.
Let me try to explain this. The Trinity, right or wrong, has no impact on people's daily life. Understanding the Holy Days, the Sabbath, God's kingdom etc, can have next to no practical impact on many people's lives. By contrast, a cult by definition robs people of the responsibilities that are life itself. These churches are robbing their members of their lives while the victims are solely focused on Pharisaic trivia. How stupid is that??
God's Church, whatever you believe it to be, was never for the brightest of the world. God has always called the foolish instead of the big brains, because the big brains are too full of themselves to be of any use to God right now. If you are highly intelligent and have been highly successful in life, and somehow think you need God in your life, stop deluding yourself. Leave God and the Bible to us morons and losers.
I was not raised in the WCG of any kind of Bible based religion at all, my parents were very worldly types who mocked at such things. I ran into HWA, GTA and the WCG on my own at age 18 (many years ago), and while immediately interested and captivated, and even attending Sabbath services periodically over many years, I was never baptized and never became an official member. The reason is because I somehow sensed all the problems in that organization at the outset, and spared myself the grief that thousands went through. Over the years as an outsider looking in I came to believe that HWA was wrong about many things, but was also right about many things. Today my Bible faith is based on a few bedrock HWA doctrines which I believe are true, plus what I've been able to discover and prove on my own. Many have criticized Armstrong for plagiarizing everything he taught, and while that might not be a good reflection on him personally it does not of and by itself discredit the validity of whatever he plagiarized.
This is a prime example of why so many 2nd and 3rd gen leave Armstrongism. You see from childhood the abuses and internalize them and think your at fault. Then you grow older and wiser and see that the authority figures in your life suffered abuses too and they're either too scared or too entrenched to leave so you have to make your way out yourself.
After being out for almost 8 years I couldn't be happier with that decision. I miss some of the people but the fear-baiting, pseudo scientific, culture war bullshit is not missed in the slightest.
For those still attending enjoy warming that seat for two hours while you're told how pathetic you are or how blessed and fortunate you are compared to the world. I'll be sleeping in, chilling out, and hopefully enjoying some novelty.
10:49 pm says The above is typical minister talk, or from a brainwashed, mentally imprisoned member. I’m the person you are judging without knowing anything about me. I have a college degree and worked in IT for over 50 years which requires logistical thinking.
To say the Trinity doctrine and the Sabbath and Holy Days don’t matter ignores the profound difference how a human being relates to his Creators and the understanding of a hopeful and fair process of salvation for all mankind. This is especially true for the billions who suffered greatly in living often in harsh conditions and had NO HOPE.
I recognized the cultish leadership immediately but I would often point it out and was afraid to speak my mind. Im now in United and can honestly almost all that old cultish behavior is GONE. Today it’s top leader is warm, kind person, Rick Shabi, who focuses on things like Agapi love, which along with Gods Spirit will transform the those who enter God’s future kingdom on Earth
I’m 5:03 am. I meant to type that I wasn’t afraid to speak my mind. Just a typing mistake
5.03 am I did not say "Holy days don't matter." Your 50 years of logical thinking seemed to have over looked straw man arguments. My point is that the ACOGs are feeding their members spiritual milk rather than spiritual meat. Endless talk about Holy days, the kingdom, the second coming, God's master plan etc is no substitute for this.
There are thousands of members who have attended services for decades and are morally confused, and often times social barbarians. Christ said "feed my sheep" three times for a reason. Giving out Kenneth Copeland slop and emphasis is not spiritual food.
Try reading a good self help book to understand what I mean. We do grow in proportion to knowledge.
I didn't understand spiritual milk vs. spiritual meat fifty years ago, it all looked like meat to me back then. Only after fifty years of watching the COG's and my own spiritual growth can I say that the HWA COG's never went beyond spiritual milk, that organization was simply never set up to grow up spiritually. In recent months I attended some UCG services out of curiosity and maybe nostalgia, and what I saw and heard was pathetic, sad and weak.
Ha, ha, social barbarians, boy did you ever nail it! It's amazing to me that some of those people could hold jobs, they are so socially inept and retarded.
The Germans during WW-II has artificial coffee, which was called "ersatz".
The milk HWA taught wasn't even real milk. It was that wretched tasting soy-based imitation of milk!
Not to make too big a deal of it, but I don't understand how anyone who thinks "logically" and has an IT degree could end up in one of the COG'S, at least for very long. Traditional men's careers in the WCG tended to be selling insurance, washing windows, Boeing machinists and assorted low level government jobs with guaranteed Saturdays off. Years ago I knew an IT guy, before the term "IT" was coined, in the WCG in Seattle. I won't mention his name but he writes extensively for The Painful Truth website now and rips the entire COG organization to shreds, rather sadistically I might add. He's concluded that anybody in that outfit is either a moron, an idiot or an imbecile but I don't recall him saying any of that in 1978. I think he got all caught up in the "rule the nations with a rod of iron" thing, that was a real power trip for the bigger brains in the WCG. Then, when prophecies didn't come to pass they left to devote all their time to IT.
I can't completely disagree.
That's the approach I took, I held onto those basic truths HWA taught, and then went a long discovery process about everything thing else. But in my experience that is not the approach most in the WCG took. They either embraced everything he taught or ultimately threw it all out. That is not the way you arrive at truth.
May I ask if you were born into the church as your parents were members? I think this is the group that were most damaged by the cult. Growing up from a very young child in the church only allowed a limited basis of your identity to form. And what was taught as reality is actually not. It's like growing up in Alice in Wonderland.
I'm always interested to hear the exit stories of people who left the "cult" of Armstrongism, but what interests me more is where you go from here. Just sleeping in and chilling out? Maybe for awhile, but there's no interest in pursuing Bible truth? Just a bad experience to recover from and nothing more? Understandable I guess, but sad. Life is for learning, not just recovering. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for recovering, but it shouldn't have all been for nothing.
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