Even the Compassion of the Wicked is Cruel

If you were to talk to my and other family members of Armstrong Cult Survivors who still hold strongly to that faith, you'd hear the same argument over and over again.

"I love them too much to ever hurt them. None of what they say is true. We aren't in a cult, we just have the truth."

But being "loved" by family members loyal to the teachings of Herbert W. Armstrong is often a very painful experience. For some, that "love" was even LETHAL.

Sometimes it's easy for people to forget that CHILDREN of cult members are often the ones who suffer most.

Below are some highlights from firsthand accounts of what life was like in the WCG and its resulting splinter groups.

I don't know what it's like for you to read these, but for me it has a kind of reassuring comfort coupled with intense fear and dread. Like wrapping up in your favorite blanket and watching the scariest movie imaginable alone in a pitch black room. The familiarity of the blanket brings you wonderful comfort and contentment while the story unfolding in front of you has your heart racing and every muscle in your body is clenched tight while you shake uncontrollably and hyperventilate to the point of nausea. 

 The people who wrote the emails sampled below are my "favorite blanket" in the above metaphor. They are the people I can most relate to. 

They understand. 

They were there. 

They would never judge me for my problems or my past. 

These people are my "Tribe".

As isolated and alone as I often feel having the cult mentality as my foundational education, seeing these emails reminds me that I'm really not alone at all. After so many years of gaslighting, having copious written confirmation that it really did happen the way I remember it is such an incredible mental relief!    I can't even begin to describe how it feels, but in their emails after having found the accounts from survivors, they all express the same joyous relief at having found others who know and understand what happened.

Does it seem like we are all dwelling on the past and should just forget it, get over it, and move on?

Allow me to quote a fellow former Armstrongism cult member, "James" form one of the other Armstrong Cult Survivor sites.

"Forgiving is one thing. To forget and not to warn others is to participate in their crimes."

The full text of these and many other accounts of what life was like for us can be found HERE and HERE.

I've never met any of the people who wrote what you're about to read, but I feel like I've known them forever.  

I remember [Mom] saying that while we were at school, somebody might come to take us away and we would have to have faith that our parents had gone to the 'place of safety' and we would meet up with them later. Or maybe we would be protected, and [my parents] would be tortured, but we would have to be strong. Or maybe we would be tortured. And if one day they (the beast or whoever) might come and asked questions about our religion and how we shouldn't betray anyone. Or that if someone in the family was trying to conceal a bible on their person and I gave them away by looking at them, I would be responsible for what might happen to them.

 

When I finally had to go on Welfare, I was told that I had to tithe off of the Welfare check. He said, "It’s income, isn't it?" After all, it is Gods money. Also, an offering would show God my faith in His ability to take care of us

 

I remember my Worldwide Church of God friends waking in the night screaming of nightmares of the "end time coming" This because we had heard in sermons that all things that we took with us from this world would turn to dust in the place of safety. The dreams consisted of loved ones and pets turning to dust or horrible deaths as we were taken to the place of safety.

 

The church never lost its sway on me during my elementary school days. In fact, it got stronger. I remember my brother and I sitting in the backyard playing "church", which would consist of screaming at the top of our lungs "you shall not keep Christmas!", while pounding on the lectern. The other one of us would be sitting on a chair in the "audience", listening. There was a little neighbor lady who thought we were completely whacked out because of this.

 

When I was 5 or 6, my mom would put my shoes by the bed at night so I could step straight into them. When I asked her why she put my shoes there she said it was in case we had to flee in the night. - Talk about scaring your kids!

 

I became good friends with the minister’s daughter and was invited to stay at their house, my mother’s face drained of all color. When we got home, I got a lecture from both parents about how “we” (the white race), should not “fellowship too closely” with “them.” I was devastated, and also confused–if the minister of the church could be black, there was nothing wrong with being black and nothing wrong with my friendship with his daughter. The family was also very kind and loving, something I sorely needed, as my parents found any excuse to whip, hit, punch, smack or paddle us. They also complained about other races, especially Puerto Ricans. My mother didn’t like one Puerto Rican family in particular and would moan that when we went to the Place of Safety, we would have to share a cave with that family.

 

One of my youngest son's best Y.O.U. friends committed suicide. 22 years old. What a shame. I wonder what the percentage of suicides are for Y.O.U. former members and how they compare with "the world"

 

My father gave all of his time and money to the Worldwide Church of God (my mother did not work) and because of this, there was seldom any food in the house. We didn't have hot water. Quite often the electricity was cut off. There were many occasions during which we had no heat. We had no phone. We lived in absolute poverty.

 

When they finally got to the feast, everyone told them to visit the Amish shop. It wasn’t to buy beautiful hand-crafted items. It was to buy a half inch thick wooden paddle, to use to “discipline” their children. Usually, it was the mothers who used these horrible instruments. They would grab a child by the arm, drag them outside or to the “mother’s room” /bathrooms, and wail away on them. No amount of screaming, crying, or begging would lessen the severity or duration of the punishment.

 

[Mom] brought a woman to live with us who was a young widow in the church with three young daughters. This woman had breast cancer...early stage, could've been treated, but no doctors allowed! I watched this woman die of the most horrible disease I've ever known. I cannot tell you how often I think of her and her daughters. I'll never forget it.

 

The reason for discipline could be anything from running in the aisles, talking out of turn, sticking out the tongue or even just a “look” that the parent or one of the members deemed to be “rebellious”.

 

Being a child of the church has to be one of the hardest things a kid has to go through. No birthdays, no Easter. no X-mas. I hated being Different from the other kids.

 

We were not only beaten with slaps and closed fists, we were beaten with paddles that my father brought home from Imperial School (the Worldwide Church of God private school), where he was a teacher. We were beaten with belts that had large belt buckles. We were beaten with the thorny stems of rose bushes! We were beaten and beaten and beaten! And, in addition to the beatings, we were told, repeatedly, sometimes on an hourly (if not more often) basis, that we were sinners and worthless.

 

Herbert had announced that everyone stop going to doctors or hospitals, and depend on the faith of God. A child became very ill so the mother and other women in the church set up a schedule where they all would take turns sitting with the child. The child had a horrible fever of 104 or so, and obviously needed medical attention. They would put drops of water on the child's lips and face trying to reduce the fever, but nothing helped. The mother was begged to take the child to the hospital, but she feared Armstrong and the new rule he had made. She watched the child die in her arms. The whole time he preached this rule, he, himself had a private nurse taking care of him.

 

The discipline was intense. They took that spare the rod spoil the child thing to heart. I got beatings, not spankings. This was all in the name of God though, so it was okay too. I read my bible all night every Friday night. No TV on the Sabbath, no play time, nothing but study and church.

 

Under the mantra of obeying God, I was personally told by several ministers to not interfere with my husband's abuse of our children because he would have to answer to God and I was supposed to answer to him. One minister went so far as to tell me I was wrong to interfere with my husband choking my ten-year-old son. That I was suggesting motives and that was Satanic.

 

I also could not accept the fact that by church law my children were considered bastards even though I was legally married to their father. My mother constantly told me that by leaving the church and marrying outside of my so-called religion that this was what they were considered. Awful that people get involved in groups such as this.

 

Sitting through services, I remember one day, I was bored so I turned around to see what the kids were doing behind me, well when I got home that night, I got whacked with dad’s belt for being disrespectful!

 

The highlight of his pastorship was the day a member family had a stillborn child and he blamed it on the spiritual state of the congregation.

 

One little girl’s legs always had switch marks up and down them. Her step Daddy took his mission seriously. He tried to beat every bit of her spirit into submission. I remember someone speaking to deacons about it and they got reprimanded. Children did not have much value in the church and neither did women. Abused women needed to pray and be better wives

 

The damage done by this cult to the innocent victims, (i.e., the children who did not choose to join and embrace this strange way of life), is irrevocable. My personality was shaped to a degree that I don't feel a part of "normal" society at all.

 

 I never asked to be a member, to be screwed out of sports, holidays, dating, food, life! My god we did not even get a birthday just a pat on the back and told congratulations you're a year older! My life growing up was hell because of the church

 

Ever sense I can remember I was told that if I was bad, I would die and end up in the lake of fire and that anyone outside the church was evil and would only drag me down and all my worldly friends would die if they did not repent of their sins! What a pile of shit to drop on a child. When I was five my dad left my mom and for the next twelve years all I heard was how evil of a man he was and how he had left his family and turned to evil even though my mother was beating us on a regular basis.

 

My mother died, when I was 7 (she was 43), in 1969 the new doctrines had obviously not been adopted yet, so she would not consider seeking medical attention and instead suffered in pain from an intestinal blockage for several days until she died, at home, with two children and her husband.

 

I always hated the feast of trumpets, because of all the preaching about trumpets and seals and the terrible things that were supposed to happen. I hated atonement. My first atonement was when I was 5. I was a skinny kid with no fat to keep me going. I really suffered that day; I ached all over and literally thought I was going to die.

 

Here is a video link for The World Tomorrow telecast where you can see what we saw and heard over and over again. 

 It's worth mentioning again that I was one of the very few who was not subjected to physical abuse because of Armstrong's repeated insistence that it was vital for our surviving the "Tribulation"  (Although I did get hit by my father when I went to live with him after leaving "the church") The only reason my mother didn't hit me was due to my mother being too thin and feminine to effectively hit anyone. She was, however, VERY good at verbal abuse.

Almost everything mentioned in those email highlights you just read was a part of my life and hundreds of thousands of others as well. 

But why did it have to be that way?

It was supposedly all in service of wanting to protect us and show us love.

Proverbs 23:14 (NIV) Punish them with the rod and save them from death.

(*I'm using the NIV because Armstrong preached that there was no such thing as the commonly understood "hell" that most of the other versions use as the translation of the original Hebrew "Sh'ol.")

We were told again and again how our suffering was a sign of God's love and necessary training for "the End Times."

Usually the suffering turned young members to substance abuse and self harm.

Some of us came away with a kind of emotional durability / numbness that is often mistaken by most "worldly" people as a strength of will or character. 

Heck, even my mental healthcare team raves about how strong and brave I am to have come through it all alive with no addictions or noticeable scars! I sure don't feel strong though. 

Mostly I feel scared, but just in the background.

Am I ever going to meet a stranger and not go through the process of thinking, "he could be a demon, so be careful. - Wait, no, there are no demons. But what if I'm wrong? I'm not wrong, I have to trust that. Everything is gonna be fine. Just just need to say hi and then I'll feel better."

That's a question for another post though.

If you've got questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Comments are always welcome.