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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Aug 26, 2010 6:53:04 GMT -5
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Post by madame on Aug 26, 2010 7:44:40 GMT -5
The notion that faith will heal you from anything is a very damaging one, and it leads you to question people's faith all of the time!
I'm so sorry you had to be awakened from that one in such a harsh way.
Thanks for sharing.
You do have a way with suspense.... :-)
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Post by anatheist on Aug 26, 2010 13:56:33 GMT -5
When I read your story, I'm constantly relieved to know that you're here with us now.
However, I had to laugh when I read the description of Jonathan: "He was part of the “youth group” simply because he inserted himself there, despite the fact that he was in his early twenties." Every youth group that I've encountered has had a Jonathan or two!
My friend finally got away from hanging around the youth group... and she's 30!
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Post by humbletigger on Aug 26, 2010 13:58:16 GMT -5
Wow, Sierra. You were one super smart cookie, to get out of that cult! You have something amazing deep inside. What to call it? Strength? Strong Urge to Self Preservation?
You story reminds me of a fiction I read long ago, set in WW II. Two tragic lovers were working in the underground resistance against the Vichy government. They were caught and imprisoned. The man killed himself with a cyanide tablet after he couldn't take the torture anymore. The woman had an unbreakable spirit, however. She stopped eating until she was thin enough to slip through the bars on her window and escape.
Your story is so similar. I hate that you had anorexia because that means you experienced a great self-loathing you donot deserve, but it helped you escape! I bow and remove my baseball cap in honor to you!
Ah, faith healing. I bought into it at one time, and I almost died of an asthma attack. Oh, the guilt and shame of taking medicine at that time! A clear sign that you didn't "trust" God.
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Post by amyrose on Aug 26, 2010 15:07:47 GMT -5
When I read your story, I'm constantly relieved to know that you're here with us now. However, I had to laugh when I read the description of Jonathan: "He was part of the “youth group” simply because he inserted himself there, despite the fact that he was in his early twenties." Every youth group that I've encountered has had a Jonathan or two! My friend finally got away from hanging around the youth group... and she's 30! I once visited a megachurch where I was told that anyone unmarried and under 35 should attend youth group. Apparently, you are a child if you aren't married.
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Post by Sierra on Aug 26, 2010 15:44:39 GMT -5
When I read your story, I'm constantly relieved to know that you're here with us now. However, I had to laugh when I read the description of Jonathan: "He was part of the “youth group” simply because he inserted himself there, despite the fact that he was in his early twenties." Every youth group that I've encountered has had a Jonathan or two! My friend finally got away from hanging around the youth group... and she's 30! I once visited a megachurch where I was told that anyone unmarried and under 35 should attend youth group. Apparently, you are a child if you aren't married. In many ways, "youth group" tends to take on the character of "singles club." My pastor's daughter used to go to a youth camp every winter. One spring she came back with an awards certificate that had been filled out by the group declaring her and a boy from another church "most likely to be married by next year." Sure enough, they were. They currently live with her parents and are expecting baby #2 (her first is 18 months or so).
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Post by km on Aug 26, 2010 17:02:35 GMT -5
When I read your story, I'm constantly relieved to know that you're here with us now. However, I had to laugh when I read the description of Jonathan: "He was part of the “youth group” simply because he inserted himself there, despite the fact that he was in his early twenties." Every youth group that I've encountered has had a Jonathan or two! Me too, for all of this. And the one's I've known (or known about) have actually been named Jonathan....
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Post by km on Aug 26, 2010 17:05:36 GMT -5
Sierra: When I noticed your bio in the previous installment, I was shocked that you'd only been out since 2006. That's...not that long ago. It's kind of awe-inspiring, how much you've accomplished since then. Thanks for sharing all of this.
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davel
New Member
Posts: 20
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Post by davel on Aug 26, 2010 18:55:29 GMT -5
I couldn't help but burst out laughing reading this part, just picturing her reaction. You might as well have told her you were going to turn into a bat and suck the blood of the living.
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Post by krwordgazer on Aug 26, 2010 21:06:36 GMT -5
Ooh, I can't stand that faith healing stuff. I used to be heavily into that. I'm so sorry about Pearl, I bet you still miss her. I'm still amazed at the twisted molds they forced you into, and how they couldn't see it was killing you.
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Post by fabucat on Aug 26, 2010 21:13:01 GMT -5
Once again, great writing! Thank you!
I'm glad that you "escaped" Jonathan:)
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Post by stampinmama on Aug 26, 2010 22:12:22 GMT -5
I could never stand listening to or reading Branham's sermons. I couldn't stand the way his voice sounded and I couldn't stand the way that his sermons were never edited to take out the double words he spoke. That always drove me nuts.
I remember my father in law giving my husband and his brother each huge bags of "Spoken Word" books. After my husband decided to leave the Message cult, he burned the bag of books. When his father asked for them back after my hubby told him he left, he told his father that he burned the books. His father went off the deep end on him and told him, "You have no idea the consequences of your actions. You have no idea what you've just done." CREEPY!
My husband was part of the Joe Coleman brand of the Message from the inner city in New York. The church in PA where my hubby went was an off-shoot of that branch. It angered me that they constantly blamed people for someone not getting a healing. When someone wasn't healed of a sickness, they blamed the congregation or the family of the ill person for not having enough faith. As if it wasn't bad enough that someone was ill (most times terminally) and then they had to be guilted with the lie that it was their fault their loved one wasn't getting any better or that they died.
Joe Coleman and his wife are old and in bad health. The church prays for healing for them all the time, but....apparently the people in the higher ranks of the ministry are immune to the suggestions that they don't have enough faith. They don't blame the family for not having the spirit or not praying hard enough or not having enough faith. They talk their illnesses up as a God-thing. That they're suffering for His glory. ugh. It makes me sick how the ministry thinks they're above the things they judge others for. But isn't that the way things work in cults?
I can't even imagine trying to raise my autistic son in an environment like that. Can you imagine the hell that it would be? He would be an outcast, a Serpent Seed. What a horrible way to think and live.
It took a little while for my husband to stop caring about his appearance pertaining to how he measured up in society. The Message cult puts so much emphasis on how people look. For the church in NY and the off-shoots, they were so incredibly materialistic. If you didn't have a nice car, a leather trench coat, your hair curled a certain way, your clothes a certain style, you weren't good enough. It was like being in high school.
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Post by tapati on Aug 27, 2010 19:21:24 GMT -5
Branham really is a piece of work, isn't he? Whew! (As an aside, the title of this post always makes me think of Disturbed's Down With The Sickness: www.youtube.com/watch?v=09LTT0xwdfw (Warning: explicit.) Not in my experience. Not if they are any good. They will enable you to see how your own thinking contributes to your depression. In your case, the thinking that you had only ONE way to escape this patriarchal road laid out before you. (Fortunately you DID find the other way out!) {{{hugs}}}
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Post by Sierra on Aug 27, 2010 19:34:21 GMT -5
Branham really is a piece of work, isn't he? Whew! (As an aside, the title of this post always makes me think of Disturbed's Down With The Sickness: www.youtube.com/watch?v=09LTT0xwdfw (Warning: explicit.) Not in my experience. Not if they are any good. They will enable you to see how your own thinking contributes to your depression. In your case, the thinking that you had only ONE way to escape this patriarchal road laid out before you. (Fortunately you DID find the other way out!) {{{hugs}}} Hi Tapati - I just wanted to note that a lot of the rhetoric about counselors really didn't sink in with me, for whatever reason. I guess I just figured that it was my pastor's opinion and there was no real Biblical backing for it. As soon as I got to college, I went to see the Health Center and asked for help with an eating disorder. They checked my vitals and wrote me a script for Prozac, but I asked for a counseling appointment and never filled the prescription. I was sure that my depression was situational rather than clinical.
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Post by Sierra on Aug 27, 2010 19:42:14 GMT -5
Erika, I love hearing about your (and your husband's) experiences with the Message because every church really does have its own culture. I suspect that there would be a deep suspicion between my pastor and Joe Coleman, going off the website. My old church is now located in Pennsauken, NJ and yet we never got to know anyone in New York (although we had "sister churches" in Maryland and Connecticut). I, too, was taught to fear doing anything that might "desecrate the Word" - either the Bible or the Spoken Word books. I'd love to get my hands on a bushel and burn them now - not least because I don't think VGR has all THAT much money and systematically burning Message books could make a dent in the world's poison supply. That said, we had our "poster children" who were wealthier - almost always later converts to the Message who had started out with viable careers. I'll write more about Sven's family, whom I thought were perfect in every way. Turns out they just had wealth, but I didn't know how to identify what I was so attracted to - their home seemed so peaceful and stable. But when you had as large a house with as much acreage as they did, it made sense that it seemed blissful. You were so far removed from financial sources of stress, and you could escape each other whenever you wanted to. I attributed their peacefulness and happiness not to money but to perfect parenting. I was so wrong. It seems to me like Coleman actually had known Branham. Is that right? There is a dwindling supply of old-timers, but they are afforded a ridiculous (idolatrous?) celebrity status amongst believers. I should write soon about the widespread belief that Christ would return before Branham's son Billy Paul died. It's rather morbid, but I wonder if there will be any fallout before they successfully renegotiate the meaning of the quotes they're basing that belief on.
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Post by km on Aug 27, 2010 22:12:14 GMT -5
Sierra: I'm interested in understanding more about how Pearl didn't get crushed under the weight of all that dogma. Sometimes, I think there are just...people who can live gracefully in the midst of an oppressive system. And I am not one of them, and I think they are few and far between, and almost saintly... But I have known one or two. I had a similar friend--Elise, who died of old age at 85 a few years back.
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Post by arietty on Aug 27, 2010 23:09:19 GMT -5
Sierra: I'm interested in understanding more about how Pearl didn't get crushed under the weight of all that dogma. Sometimes, I think there are just...people who can live gracefully in the midst of an oppressive system. And I am not one of them, and I think they are few and far between, and almost saintly... But I have known one or two. I had a similar friend--Elise, who died of old age at 85 a few years back. Yes, isn't it funny, I have observed that myself. Sometimes I think they just don't take everything on board as a personal crusade either in favor or to react against like I am wont to do. Stuff rolls off them like water off a duck's back. Well my back is rather porous..
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Post by km on Aug 28, 2010 8:27:11 GMT -5
Sierra: I'm interested in understanding more about how Pearl didn't get crushed under the weight of all that dogma. Sometimes, I think there are just...people who can live gracefully in the midst of an oppressive system. And I am not one of them, and I think they are few and far between, and almost saintly... But I have known one or two. I had a similar friend--Elise, who died of old age at 85 a few years back. Yes, isn't it funny, I have observed that myself. Sometimes I think they just don't take everything on board as a personal crusade either in favor or to react against like I am wont to do. Stuff rolls off them like water off a duck's back. Well my back is rather porous.. Yeah, I'm the same way.
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Post by Sierra on Aug 28, 2010 8:53:36 GMT -5
Sierra: I'm interested in understanding more about how Pearl didn't get crushed under the weight of all that dogma. Sometimes, I think there are just...people who can live gracefully in the midst of an oppressive system. And I am not one of them, and I think they are few and far between, and almost saintly... But I have known one or two. I had a similar friend--Elise, who died of old age at 85 a few years back. This is true. It's like Vyckie said in the "peanut butter in the patriarchy trap" thread: just like the healthiest patriarchal marriages are actually between closeted egalitarians, the healthiest people in fundamentalism are those who don't take the doctrines to heart. I used to be very frustrated whenever I realized that the people I admired liked to listen to (forbidden) rock music from their childhoods (Anna, Sven's mother, did this, and also made the curious exception to the "Christian music only" rule for mainstream country music, because she liked it). My mother was one of the least "legalist" (yes, there is a spectrum of legalism even within the Message) because I was allowed to own and play video games and use the internet without supervision. My mother simply said she trusted me not to get into trouble.
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Post by Sierra on Aug 28, 2010 8:54:47 GMT -5
As for Pearl, I am still not sure how she managed to keep her head above water other than to say "she married well." Eamon was a really sweet guy who would have never dreamed of enforcing his "authority." I think Pearl just had a strong sense of self-preservation and a good husband who never broke her will.
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Post by stampinmama on Aug 28, 2010 10:36:28 GMT -5
Erika, I love hearing about your (and your husband's) experiences with the Message because every church really does have its own culture. I suspect that there would be a deep suspicion between my pastor and Joe Coleman, going off the website. My old church is now located in Pennsauken, NJ and yet we never got to know anyone in New York (although we had "sister churches" in Maryland and Connecticut). I just posted a response in another blog about one of the experiences that we had when David and I were first engaged and how the Message church deals with outside marriages. Here's the link: thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-distaste-for-all-things-courtship_26.html#commentsIt seems to me like Coleman actually had known Branham. Is that right? There is a dwindling supply of old-timers, but they are afforded a ridiculous (idolatrous?) celebrity status amongst believers. I should write soon about the widespread belief that Christ would return before Branham's son Billy Paul died. It's rather morbid, but I wonder if there will be any fallout before they successfully renegotiate the meaning of the quotes they're basing that belief on. Yes, Coleman "discipled" under Branham for quite some time. And yes, he's given definite celebrity status and he's almost like a demi-god in that church and the off-shoots. It's ridiculous. David and I talk about it from time and time and wonder what will happen to the church once Coleman dies. I honestly hope it falls apart. But at the same time, he's been grooming his son, Jonathan, and his son in law, (we can't think of his last name at the moment, David has really tried to forget all of what happened there) so that when he dies, there's someone there to take on the legacy. So, who knows what will happen. It really disgusts me that they're constantly coming up with predictions and every time they fail to come true, there's some excuse or other interpretation that they use to justify why it didn't come true. Well, hello! Isn't that the mark of a false prophet???
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Post by stampinmama on Aug 28, 2010 10:37:30 GMT -5
David and I talk about it from time and time and wonder what will happen to the church once Coleman dies. I honestly hope it falls apart. But at the same time, he's been grooming his son, Jonathan, and his son in law, (we can't think of his last name at the moment, David has really tried to forget all of what happened there) so that when he dies, there's someone there to take on the legacy. David just remembered his son-in-law's last name. Robledo.
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Post by madame on Aug 28, 2010 10:46:28 GMT -5
Erica, Kenneth Hagin, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland and other less well-known self-proclaimed prophets are always predicting stuff. No. Prophesying stuff that never comes true. It seems like all the hoopla that surrounds their so-called "crusades" distracts their followers from what these men are doing.
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Post by madame on Aug 28, 2010 10:50:58 GMT -5
Kenneth Copeland is well known for teaching that you can be healed by faith. I remember listening to his and his family's talks on their website. In particular, his wife Gloria, teaches "healing school". Guess what? KC got a slipped disc in his spine. He talked and talked and talked about all his faith and how God had sustained him when he had surgery for it.
Charlatans.
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Post by Sierra on Aug 28, 2010 11:19:32 GMT -5
Erika, I'm saddened, but not surprised, by what you had to go through in your relationship with David. I've never heard of the son-in-law you mention, which really intrigues me. There must have been some big doctrinal disagreement between our churches, or he'd have been invited in as a guest preacher. Message folks love networking, but we've had some guest preachers who were canceled in the vetting process because our pastor detected a "wrong spirit" about them. Similarly, we've had Message sermons followed by corrective Message sermons when one managed to slip through the cracks. Relationships within the Branham following are pretty idiosyncratic, despite uniform lip service to some form of courtship. I knew a family who did not allow their son to court until after he'd graduated from college, but once they did, their "courtship" was indistinguishable from dating. They went out driving alone and nobody said anything. It would have been a big scandal for most Message families. With the right personality/calling/spirit/bribe? you can get away with anything except the obvious: pants-wearing, smoking, hair-cutting, drinking. Outside of the vessel much? I think I've mentioned it before, but Message networks try to ensure that all young people marry within approved sister churches. I've never seen girls on the prowl like at Family Camp. It was a weird, twisted thing, though - mostly involving befriending the sisters of the guys you liked and probing them for information. Since I had male friends, I was consistently used as a resource. I learned to see through those "friendships" after a couple of years.
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