Maybe I'm in a Cult

 In the Christian world, anything that is not “traditional Christian” is a “cult”. Any
other religion besides Christianity is a “false religion.”  This goes hand-in-glove with the idea that “Christianity” is the only true religion.  Anything that claims to be Christian but does not subscribe to “orthodox” beliefs is considered a “Cult.”  This is a very loose definition of a cult. It basically says that anyone that is not “us” is a “cult.”

Sociologically, a cult is a religious group that exercises control over its members and forbids certain activities. It may center around a central personality like Jim Jones.  It’s good to remember that Jim Jones started out in a very typical community Pentecostal church. He was active in local politics, helped the poor, fed the hungry, and he even briefly pastored an Assembly of God church.

The reality is that fundamentalist and evangelical churches have many of the hallmarks of a cult.  They insist that they are the only ones with the truth. They have a scripture that is claimed to be supernaturally given by God. They also have the only true interpretation of that scripture. They use fear to motivate people. Fear of divine punishment, fear of eternal Hell, fear of being shunned by the church community. They begin indoctrination at very early ages and engage in programming members in their belief system by the constant rhetoric of the pulpit that often takes place 3 times a week.  If you hear a consistent message 3 times a week for years starting from childhood, you will be programmed to believe whatever is stated, and it is very difficult to break that level of programming.

When I became a Christian at 17, I attended church 3-4 times a week. I watched Christian TV every day. I read the Bible daily and consumed Christian literature.  I consumed all of this without questioning the validity or being presented with any opposing arguments.  I was taught that all the other regions were false, and if they claimed to be Christian and didn't believe what we believed, then they were a cult.  

Well, Maybe I was in a cult.  Looking back, now that I've left Christianity, it seems obvious that there is absolutely no difference between the cults of the world and evangelical Christianity.  Though they may not always exert physical control over their parishioners, there is certainly psychological control and emotional manipulation.  When you hold the threat of eternal punishment over people, you are using fear to control them.  When use the church system to enact "church discipline" and bring "correction" to members whose behavior you disapprove of, then you are manipulating their emotions.  It's time we recognize evangelical Christianity for what it is; a cult.  

N.T. Scholar | Did the Resurrection of Jesus Really Happen?

 Bart Ehrman, Professor and Scholar of the New Testament, talks about his debate on "Did the Resurrection of Jesus Really Happen?" and other Biblical Topics. 

Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a former Evangelical Baptist Minister.

He approaches theological questions from a scholarly historical framework.  

Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The Lies I Believed | God and Politics

It’s hard to admit you have believed a lie. It’s difficult to realize you have been deceived. We all like to think we are beyond believing lies and are humiliated when we discover we have not only believed lies but spread them to others.  Like the carrier of a virus that, once infected, infects others. A human host of destructive ideas.

My next several posts will be on the Lies I believed, the lies Christianity taught me. It is my confession and my repentance. It is my apology to those whom I led into the darkness of deceit disguised as the light of truth.

God and Politics

I become a born-again Christian on April 29, 1983.  I was quickly fed a steady diet of Christian politics from TV evangelists like Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, and Jerry Falwell.  Before this, I had never even thought about politics, but now I was told this was a Christian's sacred duty to try to bring the nation “back to God.”  Apparently, we had previously been with God, but not anymore.  I wasn’t sure what happened between America and God, but I was on God’s side now.  Jerry Falwell had started his Moral Majority Crusade and was pushing to get evangelical Christians involved in politics at every level.  On the second Tuesday in November 1984, at 18 years old, I cast my first political vote for the Church's choice. The man who would restore morality to America. Ronald Reagan.

I was taught that the Republican party was the party of moral values, family Values, prayer in school, pro-life, creationism, and restoring America to the Christianity it had left behind. It was unclear when America abandoned God, but apparently, it was somewhere in the 60s when sex, drugs, and rock and roll came along. When prayer was taken out of school and abortion legalized. These were all things that God hated, or so I was told.  

The answer to America’s illness, to her “sin,” was to elect righteous men and women to office who would then be able to change laws that would force people to do what was “right.” Then God would be pleased and bless our nation. And somehow, everyone would be happy, even those that disagreed, because they would see the error of their ways and find Jesus in a great revival.

It was clear that the Republicans were God’s chosen party, and if God has a political party, you can rest assured so does the devil, the Democrats.  I mean, Demon is almost in the name.  These liberals were killing babies and supporting all kinds of sexual immorality, teaching children about sex in schools, and they were making people irresponsible by giving them social handouts.

These were the LIES I believed.  Lies preached to me from the pulpit in the name of Jesus.  I wanted to please this new God of mine,  so I took it all in. I was going to be a warrior for Christ. 

The truth I wouldn't discover for some 20 years later was more nefarious.  The facts I were to discover were that those who claimed to have the moral high ground had secret lives engaging in the "sins" they railed against. Their love for fetuses' in someone else's womb was betrayed by their disdain for children of poverty. They refused to vote to fund social programs that would help innocent children while blaming impoverished parents for irresponsibility.  Their talk of love for humanity was hidden hatred for those who loved in ways they disapproved; their hate sprang out of the cauldron of bigotry as they proclaimed AIDS as a judgment of a loving God. A disease that decimated tens of thousands of individuals. Their cold, callus, uncaring concern for their neighbor was preached with ease as the distorted idea of the grace of God.

All this was done with a smile and a "Jesus loves you."  I was a compassionate and caring person by nature.  As a child, I would not kill a spider, and my heart would break at the sight of others in pain. I had a deep sense of empathy.  It took the lies of Christianity to teach me to see people as deserving objects of God's wrath that would cause them to suffer unimaginable pain.   Something about this never set right.  When I finally saw this for what it was, I was ashamed to have promoted these Ideas as a Christian and a Preacher.

Since forsaking these lies, I have restored compassion in my life.  I can see and care for people as they are without any judgment.  The naive ideas of Christian morality are a cloak of hated for what one doesn't understand.  I prefer to truly love my neighbor as myself and see people as human beings deserving of care and compassion and not objects of a capricious God's whims. 

Understanding the Experience of The Holy Ghost | Alice Greczyn's Experience and Research

 What is it that people experience when they say they "Got the Holy Ghost" or were "Slain in the Spirit."  Some think everyone is just faking, but there is more to the story. Listen to Alice Greczyn, who grew up under the umbrella of the "Toronto Blessing."  

I experienced this "movement of the Holy Spirit" at the Pensacola outpouring, which occurred simultaneously with the Toronto Blessing.  I have been "Slain in The Spirit." As a post-believer, it is good to have a rational understanding of what happened.

If you've ever been in or seen a Revival Service, you find Alice's presentation enlightening. 

Snake Handeling Faith

What do you think of snake handling and drinking poison? These believers do it to prove their faith. Yet they are saved by medical science. This may seem extreme but "regular" Christians embrace ideas in the name of faith that are just as foolish.
 

Haiti in Chaos: Where is God?

 

If the all-powerful God could help any nation, it should be Haiti. Every denomination has its missionaries scattered across the island. Churches, chapels, and Bible studies proliferate as the people of faith seek to save the people of the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. The Gospel is preached from the capital city to the lowest village. Former President Jimmy Carter, a devote Christian and founder of Habitat for Humanity, has spent countless time building homes and negotiating politics on this small island.    

In 1985 I went on a mission Trip to Haiti with my Evangelical Baptist Church. We landed in Port Au Prince, the island nation's capital, and were ushered into an airport flooded with people. The heat was oppressive, I held back vomiting at the stench of body order and urine, and there was no air conditioning to give relief. Stepping outside, I was met with culture shock at the level of poverty and lack of basic services.  Obviously from America, we were flocked with people begging for money or anything we might spare. The local missionary warned us not to hold anyone's baby as they would quickly hand the child off and disappear in hopes that we could bring them to America.  

In the evening, we made our way through a maze of buildings.  We went in and out of alleys, ducking our heads through low passageways until we finally came to a small room that had been set up as a chapel.  People sat shoulder to shoulder on old wooden benches with no backs, and the preacher stood in the front behind a small podium.  The people rocked back and forth, shouting, "Amen!" as the preacher proclaimed the saving power of Jesus.  A young man fell to the floor, screaming and shaking as people gathered to pray for him. We looked to our missionary guide for an explanation of what was happening.  "He's possessed by a demon," The missionary told us. The service went on for hours.   

The next day we headed out in an old Jeep to the backcountry, where we would spend a week putting a roof on a one-room church made of stone walls that swayed with the breeze as if ready to fall over.  As a new Christian, I was inspired by this work.  These are indeed the people whom God would want to help.  The experience would motivate me as went back to America to pursue a life of full-time ministry.  I would pray every day for the people of Haiti.

So what has happened to Haiti? My expectations as a young Christian were that with all the prayers, humanitarian work, and missionary endeavors, God would surely bring peace and prosperity to the land. No one needed it more.

Fast forward to today, 2022.  Haiti is worse than ever. Their president has been assassinated, and gangs are ruling the streets.  Earthquakes have devasted the cities that have virtually no infrastructure to repair the damage.  Where is the God we preached so passionately about? Does he not care? Or has he no power? After all these years, with the power of prayer and missionary zeal, Haiti has only worsened.

Haiti has disappeared from the headlines of the news. Worse, it has disappeared from the headlines of the American Evangelical Church, which is focused on its "cultural war" and crying of its "persecution" as people leave the faith in droves.  The Church has forgotten because it never really cared as it focused on "souls" and forgot the person. Despite what I had been taught, neither the church nor its God had any power to change anything. 

If help comes to Haiti, it will NOT be through the church. Haiti is proof that the Christian God is impotent.  If help comes to Haiti, it will take the work of the international community of nations that decides that people who have no money, oil, or exports to benefit the world are worth our help.  Yet the international community has largely forgotten this small island nation as it focuses on the war raging in Ukraine and the scandals of a former American President.

What will happen to Haiti? 

Book Review | DE converted: A Journey from religion to reason by Seth Andrews

 

DE Converted is the Story of Seth Andrews leaving his lifelong commitment to the Evangelical Jesus. In the book, he chronicles the process it took him to deconvert from the faith he had been indoctrinated with since childhood.  He would come to question the faith his parents diligently instilled in him. After a life as a successful Christian broadcaster, he left his faith behind and became an Activist for Atheism. He founded the highly successful Thinking Atheist PodCast that broadcasts to thousands of listeners.  How could someone make such a drastic change? Read the book and discover his journey out of religion to embracing reason as a way of life.

Personally, I was struck by the similarity of his religious experience with my own.  Being a similar age, I could Identify readily with the Christian Culture of the '80s, '90s, and 2000s.  From the Christian music artist to the Christian Fads, it brought back tons of memories from my Bible College days at Southeastern College in Lakeland, Florida.  I, too, felt disgusted at Evangelical ministers' response to the attack on 9/11as they proclaimed it as a result of God's wrath for abortion and homosexuality.  I, too, could no longer defend a God who said he was love and demanded worship but could not rescue the most innocent from suffering. With great clarity, Seth Andrews lays out the emotional and intellectual challenges he faced that eventually led him to abandon the Christian faith and all faith in favor of a more reasonable explanation for life, suffering, and the pursuit of happiness. 

I highly recommend DEconverted for anyone who has ever struggled with reconciling their faith with the reality of the world around them. I would also recommend it for Christians who want to understand how people can reject Jesus after being a committed Christian. Seth Andrews lays out the reasons without bitterness toward his former religion or those who continue to practice. It is simply his experience, but it is an experience shared by many, myself included