A culture of fear built on a thousand little lies
http://nolongerquivering.com/2009/11/05/a-culture-of-fear-built-on-a-thousand-little-lies/I am lucky I grew up when I did; it’s much worse for kids growing up in that now.
You all might have heard of one of those kids about two years ago–Matthew Murray, who shot up a Youth With A Mission post and a portion of New Life Church in Colorado Springs (and killed several people) before he committed suicide by gunshot to his head.
What was never publicised well–outside of forums like Dark Christianity and Talk to Action, at least, until a chapter on the story appeared in Max Blumenthal’s recent book “Republican Gomorrah”–was that the Youth With A Mission post was in the Assemblies church he grew up in, which was a hardcore Joel’s Army church of the sort portrayed in the movie “Jesus Camp” (which I still cannot watch without the hooboo-jeebies–in part because I was “Jesus Camped” as a kid).
What was never publicised is that his mom was a hardcore believer in Bill Gothard’s system of coercing kids and families, as was his pastor–and when he showed the first signs of questioning, he was literally isolated from everything save the Internet and referred to “Christian counselors” rather than legitimate psychiatric professionals.
What was never publicised is that this isolation meant his only chances for “escape” were essentially from the frying pan into the fire–particularly Youth With A Mission, which is a Joel’s Army group that is almost universally considered a “Bible-based cult” by experts in abusive groups.
What was never publicised is that, for months before he went on his rampage, people on the Ex-Pentecostals forums begged him to seek help–and he refused, in part because he was convinced he’d just end up with another “Christian counselor” who would throw him right back into the pit of abuse. (He was so spooked at this, in fact, that he even refused the help of an exit counselor. I can relate–after a lot of failed psychotherapy in my teens, including a family therapy session with my folks after I’d told the psychiatrist I was afraid if I told him about the abuse I was suffering in front of my parents that I’d be abused worse, I pretty much refused to see therapists until early 2004 when I had a near-crippling PTSD flare that scared me enough to seek mental help. Fortunately, THIS time I knew what to say to the GP to get an appropriate referral.)
He tried–but ultimately he was never able to escape the Culture of Fear, which now has built a very high wall indeed for walkaways to surmount.
Much of why I write is because I know that–had I been born a few years later, right when “Christian homeschooling” was catching on and the trend was accelerating to isolate kids almost entirely from the non-dominionist community–I’d have likely been in a very similar situation, and I can’t say I wouldn’t have snapped either.
I also know Matthew Murray isn’t the only one that this movement has destroyed like this. Most of the time, the suicides and the destroyed lives don’t take others out with them.
But that’s why I write and why I fight. I don’t want to see anyone destroyed like that again. :(
Why the subject of dominionism is rather...personal to me.
by dogemperor
Thu Oct 12, 2006
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/12/256547/-Why-the-subject-of-dominionism-is-rather...personal-to-me.I'm a survivor of the same "Third Wave" (aka "Joel's Army") dominionist movement that spawned the camp depicted in "Jesus Camp". I even remember in my youth attending a day-camp program run by the dominionist church I escaped--one that was very much like "Jesus Camp", in fact.
To this day I have serious issues trusting people and have had to undergo therapy for complex PTSD (yes, kids who grow up in this stuff go through literal shellshock, in some ways worse than Gulf War or Vietnam veterans--because they never had anything "before the war" to go back to), and have socialisation issues to the point people have wondered if I didn't have Asperger's Syndrome.
I've compared the experience of growing up in these groups to something akin to growing up in a pit filled with zombies--all of which are trying to zombify you, and grab onto you as you try to climb out the slick, jagged walls...and that's assuming you decide to at all, because you're taught all your life that even with the horrors in the pit that Outside is Much, Much, Much Worse.
Most of us who've escaped discovered either people "in the pit" were lying about Outside, or we had a caring person from Outside tell us what it's really like (usually kind of a mix of both); more and more, these kids are being isolated from ever having contact with people from Outside till they're well in their twenties or even beyond that.
snip
I began to realise something was broken, too, during the televangelist scandals. My folks had taken us to Heritage USA (the old theme park that Jim and Tammy Bakker ran) as sort of a dominionist alternative to taking us to Kings Island or Disney World; in my teenhood I started realising that these were far from the men of God they claimed to be.
I made the mistake of mentioning this to my mother once. She first thundered that I was not to judge a "man of God"; when I questioned whether they were men of God at all she accused me of being demon possessed, attempted an impromptu exorcism by smearing Wesson oil on my head whilst ranting in tongues, then went on a two-hour harangue reading from the Bible on how I was apparently damned, had better change my ways or I'd go to hell, had better "start flying right", and that if I didn't she would have deacons come to our house to perform an Assemblies-style "deliverance service" on me.
All because I didn't toe the line anymore. (This pattern would be repeated quite often in my youth as I spoke up more for myself. There were times I thought seriously that I would have to run away from home for my own personal safety.) Until I was in college, though, I just thought my parents were somewhat abusive--I didn't realise what went on in my home, the "beating of kids till they cried", the claim I was full of Satan...I didn't quite realise that wasn't normal, largely because my folks largely prohibited me from going to other people's houses (especially overnight; literally, to visit a friend, my mother pretty much almost had to have a full background check on their parents).
snip
Dominionist groups, especially those into "spiritual warfare" (crossreference Marguerite Perrin on "Trading Spouses" for an example of this in action--I honestly wish I could say it's an extreme example, but in some dominionist groups her behaviour is sadly typical), have an entire system designed to isolate their members from "mainstream reality" and to essentially create a dominionist "group-think".
snip
a) Taught explicitly that everyone outside the group is evil, possibly even in league with Satan, and that Satan may even be "working through them"
b) Taught that criticism of the group was "blaspheming against the Holy Spirit" and criticism of members or the church was answered with "touch not mine annointed" or "thou shalt not judge a man of God"
c) Taught that demons were the cause of all hardship and illness (including diseases; genetic diseases along with multigenerational poverty were termed "generational curses" and even colds and flu were the result of "solidified demonic corruption") and that these could be cured by "naming it and claiming it" as well as donations of up to fifty percent of income to the church
d) Taught that "doorways to Satan" could open up and cause "demonic oppression" by things as innocuous as peace symbols (which they preached were Satanic), Nike shoes, and Pokemon (!) (yes, they literally teach that if kids had Pokemon stuff they'd be demonised; they also do book burnings of Harry Potter books for the same reason, and even criticised C. S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" because it was fantasy)
Much, much more at the link so please read if you really want to understand where the right wing religious thinking behind people like Bachmann & Palin comes from!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/12/256547/-Why-the-subject-of-dominionism-is-rather...personal-to-me.http://dogemperor.dailykos.com/General info on right wing religion
Theocracy Watch
http://www.theocracywatch.orgTalk2Action
http://Talk2Action.org (dogemperor cross posted there as well as at Kos)
Right Wing Watch by PFAW
http://www.rightwingwatch.orgMilitary Religious Freedom Foundation
http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/
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