Nov. 03, 2001
�Many of you know my views of Christianity, to a degree, but let's hear
from someone whom I just met recently. I think her experience speaks much better than anything I could racant and retell of my own experiences. Trust me,
it's worth the read:
�Hello,
I am a women, 44 years old, who walked away from Christiananity in Novemeber
2000. I do not consider myself of "falling away nor backsliding" from
the faith, rather, I consider myself "escaping" from a sexist, mind
control destructive cult called "Born Again Fundamentalistism". I
"got saved" and became "born again" in the spring of 1983.
That was almost 20 years ago. After I got "saved" at a Jimmy Swaggart
crusade in 1983, I joined an Assembly of God church in New York City where I was
"discipled" which is nothing more than indoctinated and brain washed
into the destructive cult. In 1994, I joined an internationally well known non
denominational evangelical church located in the heart of New York City. The
pastor of this church is world known and has written many books and has a
Hollywood movie made about him. Throughout my almost 20 years as an active
member in the Born again Fundamentalist movement, I removed or distance myself
from my friends and family who were not of the faith due to the teaching that
they were not of God and would not be a positive influence for my growth in God.
When or if I did associate with non Born Again Christians, it was with
recruitment in mind. I developed a new group of friends considered "my new
family of God". Throughout the near 20 years with this organization, I
became a fanatical recruiter with years of street ministry in New York City,
Sunday School teacher, and years as a part time foriegn missionary to Russia,
Croatia, Romania, and Brazil. I conducted Bible studies, gave testimony,
participated in Gospel mimes and plays, taught Art with the Gospel application,
was on a radio program and preached in Brazil, and ministered whenever requested
in these countries. I spend many summers in several of the Russian former
communist youth camps attempting to recruit the children and camp counselors. I
developed a successful small On Line ministry for purposes of recruitment and
indoctrination. I had spent about 1/2 year in the Jamacia area of Queens, NY
developing a childrens ministry and training teachers which successfully
continues today. I have "lead many to Christ" recruited many people
and " rooted them in the Word of God by discipleship. In the last year and
half prior to my escape, I became active in the AIDS Ministry in the above
refered church as the ministry administrator, treasurer, and team leader of a
hospital ministry that I began and developed. It was in this church, in this
ministry that was the beginning of the end of my faith in God and Christianity.
Around December 1999, I was sexually assaulted inside of the church during the
Tuesday night service in the Educational Annex Building of the church. The
perpetrator was a member of the AIDS Ministry. Later, he began calling my home
to inform me that he is telling other ministry members that I do not like men. I
knew he was doing this due to the fact that I refused his physical advances
towards me. He spread vicious lies about me throughout the ministry and I found
that those who I thought were my friends quickly turned on me like snakes. I
reported him to the head ordained minister of this AIDS Ministry who immediately
began defending him. This same ordained minister later announced to all of the
ministry members that "all women use sex to manipulate to get materialist
items like refrigorators and stoves from men but he doesn't mind it because he
likes it and it works for him". He laughed after announcing this. This was
followed by several very abusive telephone calls into my home by this ordained
minister who proceeded to verbally insult me, abuse me, and demean me as a
woman. During all of this, my doctors were testing me for cancer and I was
facing possible major surgery. I found the stress of the continuous sexual
harassment to be causing my health to decline rapidly. I desperately needed a
peaceful, loving, and supportive enviornment to recover in. Consequently, I
wrote a letter of resignation to the internationally well known and respected
Founding Pastor, the assistant pastor(who is now senior pastor), the
Administrative Elder, the elder in charge of overseeing the Aids Ministry, and
to the ordained minister in charge of the Aids Ministry. I reported in my letter
of resignation why I felt forced to resign: I clearly told them of the sexual
assault and continuous sexual harassment. As response to my letter, both pastors
passed me off onto the Administrative elder for him to deal with this problem. I
later had a meeting with the Administrative Elder and spoke about what happened.
He then passed me off to the elder in charge of overseeing the Aids Ministry. I
later, on two(2) occasions met with the Elder in charge of overseeing the AIDS
ministry. This elder informed me that God has allowed this assault to happen to
me so to humble me and teach me a lesson: He further said that if I do not pray
and ask God to show me what is wrong with me and what He is trying to teach me,
God will then always allow me to be sexually assaulted where ever I go in life.
It was with this elder that I discovered that they all had developed and
initiated a well planned damage control smear campaign at my expense to save and
protect the image of their Church empire. I found that all of the leadership of
this church, from the internationally well known pastor all the way down the
chain of command, rolled their wagons around the sex predator to protect him as
they unleashed this damage control smear campaign against me. Only three(3)
church business days after the Pastors recieved my letter of resignation
exposing this sex crime, they rewarded this sex offender with a promotion to
take over all of my leadership positions. They even met with the AIDS patients
in the hospital I used to minister to and slandered me. I found all of my new
friend in this new "Family of God" shunned me big time. To this day
they no longer contact me nor associate with me as if I am dead. As recent as
last Saturday 7/7/01, I have been informed of this "family of God"
friends to continue to bad mouth me and lie about what happened to me. I was
never shown any commpassion nor justice. Aproxamately four(4) months ago the
Administrative elder telephoned me at my place of employment and apologized to
me but I take note that this same elder continues to keep the sex offender in a
place of leadership in the church. I do not consider his apology sincere,
therefore, I do not accept his apology. After everything that has happened, the
founding pastor had the audacity to keep having his staff mail me letter after
letter requesting money donations to this church. Due to being grossly violently
violated, then spirtually and emotionally raped and betrayed by my trusted
church leaders, and abandoned and shunned by my entire new group of friends in
this "family of God", I knew that I was in a very unhealthy group to
say the least. I began to educate myself via the internet and found a few web
sites including this one. As I educated myself, I found that all of my near 20
year experience best fit the discription of being in a destructive cult. All the
signs and indications where there; the practice of sleep deprivation in the
required all night prayer meetings, the chanting in other tongnes, the hypnotic
singing of lyrics over and over again, the "them vs us" mentality and
teachings,the fear and guilt tactics, the recruitment with the rules changing
once the new member is indoctrinated, the belief and teaching that only our
group had the "truth" even among the various christian denominations,
the monitored and control of all communication within(the pastor had moles
planted to spy and report other members)into and out of the church group, the
pressure to conformity (no individual or free thinking or questioning the
leaders was allowed), the punishment of members via
shunning,labling,humiliation,and intimidation, a strict top-down centralized
totalitarian leadership structure, the criticizing, shunning, abandoning, and
demeaning individuals who have left the group (the members are forbidden to have
any communication with ex members nor read anything written by ex mambers, and
the calling ex members names like "hardened""backsliden""of
the devil""fallen""having issues". These are power and
control tactics and control tactics to stop members from discovering the clear
errors of the group. In November 2000, as I sat at my computer, I made the
decision to rid my life of this filth called Christianity. I recall the moment
that I made that desicion, I literally felt as if someone lifted a ton of bricks
off of my shoulders. Since then, my life has been so free and clear. My full
health has returned to me. My family has commented on how happy they are to have
me back in my new escapie frame of mind. I am so happy to be living this new
life away from all of this psychotic-like Christian Fundamentalism.
