my UN testimony

[NZexCK]

I was born into the Lords Recovery in New Zealand and grew up in it during the 90’s/2000’s. I won’t say which city as I still wish to remain anonymous for now and NZ is a very small place. I’m sure some people will still figure out who I am anyway and if you do, I ask that you respect my wish to remain anonymous.

First of all I will say that I don’t mean any disrespect to the average community saint. I genuinely believe that the majority of them are lovely people with good intentions at heart. However I think they have been rather misguided in their beliefs and practices and like everyone at some stage during their lives, encounter periods of vulnerability that leave one susceptible to being taken advantage of. Whether this be childhood trauma of their own, a relationship breakdown, illness or moving to a new place. At the end of the day what humans want is a sense of belonging, community, and sometimes the comfort that comes with believing that just maybe this religion/person/product/formula is the answer to all of life’s questions who’s answers you’ve been searching for. I can empathise with the feeling of relief that could come from resigning all of life’s hard tasks over to someone or something that tells you that they know better than you, that they have found the magic formula. Especially if life has beaten you down again and again. I imagine that this must have been the case for many of the parents of us church kids. The LR probably even looked like a haven to raise a family in for some.

As a church kid, I do have many great memories but they are all from times when zero spirituality was required. The times before and after meetings, the weekend sleepovers with my friends, the allotted free time during trainings and summer school. On the flip side from a pretty young age (my guess is somewhere between 5-10) many things didn’t sit right with me. To borrow their own term, there was no sense of peace (cringe face). I think there is something to be said for children being the best bull**** detectors. Children aren’t able to fully articulate how they feel. They don’t understand the world yet, why adults are the way they are, why they feel the way they feel. They are innocent and dependant. Children rely on a feeling. Maybe you can call it a gut instinct or intuition. All they know is whether or not they feel peaceful about something, someone or a situation. I distinctly remember feeling a pit in my stomach whenever I heard Witness Lee’s name spoken in a certain tone or with a certain reverence, even the frequency with which it seemed to pop up. Also whenever “degraded christianity” was referred to week after week, when WWJD bracelets were criticised, when people having the desire to help save the environment/animals was criticised, I could go on all day. There sure was a lot of criticising going on at each and every meeting in my eyes as a child.

My gut instinct slowly grew quieter and quieter as each year went by, as i was taught not to trust it, to deny the self, to slowly stamp it out. I just didn’t see the vision I guess, I just didn’t know how to exercise my spirit correctly, I just didn’t know the “truth” yet. I entirely believed that one day everything would click for me and fall into place if I just kept going, just followed the formula we were given. I was after all being constantly reminded of how lucky and fortunate I was, we had been handed this great and exclusive truth that no other christians had. Some things just didn’t add up for me though. My extended family in degraded christianity seemed to be better christians than me (and many of those in the recovery), they had better personal relationships with God than I did despite being degraded not having access to the real truth unlike me. The christians I attended school with seemed like decent people. Even the non christians seemed like decent people.

A couple of specific events stand out to me from my adolescence. First, my bible study teacher at a private christian school maintaining direct eye contact with me for an uncomfortably long time whilst describing how to identify a cult (we were learning about JW’s). Secondly, attending church with my cousin for the first time and having my mind blown because I had already heard everything the pastor was saying before and I thought that these christians were degraded and weren’t supposed to know this exclusive stuff. Perhaps the biggest red flag of all, why did I swear that there was absolutely no freaking way that I would ever get married in a meeting hall? Just kidding. Anyway, there were lots of red flags but I still pretty much believed that it would all click/fall into place for me one day. I was well into my 20’s and believed the recovery would be an integral part of my life forever, even though I slowed my attendance once I got my first job at 15, and then only met once every few months after I got married.

And then I became a mother in 2016. I had one year off from work and was able to focus my energy on learning how to be a mum and how to care for a baby. A new level of anxiety and a strong (at times irrational) urge to protect my baby kicked in from the get go, no doubt fuelled by sleep deprivation, raging hormones and feeling utterly underprepared. Suddenly I was faced with the responsibility of taking care of another human being. I had to consider things that I had never considered before. How did I want to raise my child? What kind of life did I want for them? Towards the end of that first year once the hardest months were over, the biggest hurdles crossed, and we were settled into a comfortable routine, one thing became extremely clear to me. There was absolutely no way that I would raise my child in the Lords Recovery, yet I hardly knew why. 



I returned to work on a part time basis and began my journey of deconstruction. This forum was one of the first things I found and I spent weeks and months pouring over just about every thread. It was at this time I happened to stumble upon the early talks of starting a facebook group for ex LC members and I jumped at the chance to join. This eventually split off into a separate group specifically for ex church kids (for reasons reflected in this forum as of late). These facebook groups have been a tremendous help to me throughout the last several years of my deconstruction. I remember when I first joined these groups being quite bewildered by how dramatic these other church kids in the US seemed to be. What? You see a therapist? Wow, I’m glad the NZ experience wasn’t as bad as that. Three years on and I have deconstructed enough to understand how they feel. It has been a rather long and slow but necessary process. There were years of unhealed wounds to work through that I had simply stuck a bandaid on and left to fester. Now I have to rip them off and let them heal.

I am still making connections with how growing up in the LR is affecting me today. Imagine your entire would view forming as a child through the very specific lense that is the LR. The scaffolding of your entire makeup based upon the foundation that is the LR. Just about every connection that your developing brain made done so with the distinct twisted connection of the LR. And then waking up one day and discovering all of the lies, hypocrisy, deception, power play and manipulation that the LR is really about. I had spent my entire life thinking that these adults knew what was best for me, had my best interests at heart and had trusted them. I believed that there must have been something wrong with me, only to realise at age 25 that maybe my gut instinct had been right all along and they were the ones that were wrong.



This first year of deconstruction had a bigger impact on me than I realised at the time. Imagine losing just about everything that makes up your identity/world view and having to start rebuilding from scratch. After one year of returning to work I made the sudden decision to resign. At the time I just felt like I was burning out and put it down to being unable to cope with the work/mum life balance. Two years (and another baby) after leaving my job and I’ve begun to make more connections. In my job I was a young woman working in a very hierarchical (and somewhat patriarchal) environment. I was required on a daily basis to work along side and communicate with many senior medical officers, mostly white or asian males over 50 (who does that resemble?). I began to find myself struggling with constant anxiety having to be in close proximity to them. I would pretty much shut down if required to communicate with them. Talking to them took an extreme amount of energy and effort. I developed anxiety over picking up the phone at work and this lead to anxiety in taking/making phone calls in my own personal life. I had to ask my husband to call and make appointments for me. My personal phone was always on do not disturb. I realise now that this has stemmed from spending meeting after meeting, conference after conference, week after week, year after year of my entire life taking to heart the words of some older, male figure with perceived spiritual authority. They taught me how to ignore my intuition, deny myself and repress my critical thought. I was taught that my voice, and opinions were insignificant and didn’t matter. They told me how I should dress, behave, talk, choose a career, marry, raise children, and basically how I should live my entire life as if they knew what was good for me better than I knew what was good for myself. In fact they only cared for what was good for their own best interests. Maintaining their position of power and spiritual authority. Maintaining the numbers. Maintaining the whole organisation. Maintaining the legacy of Witness Lee.



I know that my experience is not what everyone else experiences. Some people have had much worse experiences than I did and I’m sure some will feel that they have had an overall pleasant experience with the LR and don’t understand what all the fuss is about (much like I did 3+ years ago). Each experience is unique to each individual who is on their own journey at their own pace. I am grateful to be able to be in this position of privilege to even be able to think about my healing from the LR. I am so lucky to have my husband (a fellow ex CK) who has been a constant source of support and strength in my deconstruction and was brought up to have more emotional intelligence than I will ever be blessed with. 



It has been my observation that the CK’s in the generation above me had it much worse. So much so that many wouldn’t even step into a place like this forum to begin with. The LR certainly noticed their mistake and toned it down a notch for those in my age group. I was still damaged, but not damaged to the point of being unable to recover. From what I hear the LR has recognised that their handling of church kids was wrong and have been working on changing their antics. Regardless of this, for me the localities will always be branches of the same tree with the same roots. They will continue to bear rotten church kid fruit for as long as they associate themselves exclusively to the teachings of Witness Lee and LSM. I’m happy to be proven wrong but this is why I still choose not to raise my children in the LR.

I would like to end by saying that I am so grateful for this forum and spaces like the facebook pages. They have enabled me to find my voice again in my own time which is so important in the process of healing and taking back the power. I am so grateful to have found communities of people who’s experiences resonate with me, more than it ever happened whilst I was in the LR.

[SerenityLives]

Hi NZExCK,

Thank you for sharing your testimony. I can relate to the small voice within my conscience every time when I was younger. For example, when my parents taught me how to pray read and call on the name of the Lord repeatedly whenever I had a bad nightmare. It was strange and so awkward for me as a kid, since children usually are non verbal (at least I was for the first few grades of my elementary years). Then, going to those Bible camps was stressful. My conscience grew used to the eccentrics of the church over time. Eventually into my young adult years (right after teenage years), I just saw too many injustices being done (LC members not acting “Christian” towards my family members, brothers mistreating other brothers, sisters mistreating other sisters, views on mental health (one sister my age stopped eating because of depression, and none of my fellow sisters in my age group wanted to visit her and kept telling me to visit her- We were all equally close to her so I didnt understand). This was in ninth grade. Then during Bible camps, the kids would get rewards for reading the recovery version of the bible cover to cover. I did it three times (two times in english, 1 time in Chinese) and extra points/prizes for those who read and memorized the footnotes. Why did the middle schoolers need to memorize the recovery version footnotes? I found it silly and didnt do it. My younger sister did. She got praised for it. Then having to stand up and share in meetings- that was so stressful, I didnt like being in the spotlight, and my intuition was telling me this was wrong also, like people shouldnt be forced to share in meetings if they dont feel like it. The whole process seemed fake to me and forced. Then finally, trying to hand those tracts on college campuses, I felt silly doing that as well. During Lords Table meetings, my locality would include a section detailing how many attended church that Sunday, and there would be plusses and minuses as if they were more concerned about the growth of the congregation than really taking care of each other. So much of your testimony parallels my experiences, it’s cryptic.

[NZexCK]

Serenity lives, yes and yes to everything you said. I am reminded of a photos I saw shared on facebook recently of a group of about 20-30 teenage sisters singing hymns together in a very public part of town (we used to all have to do this during summer school). There are 3 main sisters in the front, one of them looks genuinely overjoyed to be singing hymns on the street (I think she was a serving one), the other two look like they are really making an effort to look like they're having a good time. Everyone else in the background looks utterly miserable and aren't even trying to hide it. They're looking off into the distance, overly "studying" the song book, fidgeting with their hair. That picture really brought back some uncomfortable memories. I know exactly how they feel. Of course those in charge sell it to you like it's a choice. Sure no one is holding a gun to anyones head. But deep down you know that if you are the one person to go against the "flow" that you will be ostracized. No teenager who already has a weak sense of self, doubled down by the pressure of the LR is going to have the strength to stand up for how they really feel. There is and always will be a huge imbalance of power between a grown adult and a child with an under developed brain.

I forgot to add that the LR even dictated to us when we should get baptised. As soon as we turned 11/12 ish there was a whole meeting at a camp that placed intense pressure on us to get baptised. Afterward we were "encouraged" to pray one on one with serving ones and then when we retuned to our locality we all got baptised together one after another. Everything in my being was screaming out all through the meeting and all through the baptism that this was so so wrong. But 12 year old me felt like I didn't truly have a choice. I went along with it because of the peer pressure, my insecurity and the need to get approval/validation from the adults I was surrounded by. There are no physical barriers or physical threats, only psychological.

[jigsaw44]

Couple of minor questions- thank you for the post btw.

1. What careers do LC oppose? Is it careers that require a lot of hours or traveling abroad? Or perhaps careers/field of studies that can potentially be a danger of preventing you from being indoctrinated into the LC?

2. Can you elaborate when you say the LC has realized their errors in child raising and is trying to change that? Im curious to see the LC acknowledging mistakes they have committed. Is there an officials statement by a locality or Anaheim headquarters for this need for change?

3. I cant believe the singing in the circle thing is a universal thing throughout localities. I always seemed iffy on the idea of pressuring people to sing in a huge circle and grandstanding for attention. Is it a test for LC loyalty and enthusiasm or some sort of recruitment tactic?

4. How much witness lee is revealed in childhood for LC Kids? They hesitate to expose lee to college students unless they feel they can be bamboozled enough to be deceived by Lee doctrine. For people who are so passionate for Lee, they seem to hide him so much to outsiders. The fact they indoctrinate footnotes into your head as a middle schooler is a "get them while they are young" long term manipulation tactic. Its sad to see, but LC kids are the biggest pawns outside of college recruiting in maintaining numbers in terms of size.

5. What is the worst practice/practices that is forced in LC kids growing up as a whole?

[NZexCK]

1. growing up I always got the feeling that the arts/psychology/philosophy were looked upon as lesser than. physchology/philosophy I think for the obvious reasons, they were always sort of seen as satanic. I think they knew if people got too educated in those areas their house of cards could come falling down. The LR is after all one big psychological power play. As for the arts I sort of feel like there is a sort of this "starving artist" stereotype. If people choose to do painting, music, dance etc then they are more likely to earn less and have less to give to the church? I know this is a great big generalisation but I think their rather asian world view is that certain fields lead to a more stable/reliable income which is more important than actually enjoying your job. As a high schooler they would bring in different saints to present their careers to us each week so we could get a feel for them before choosing a tertiary qualification. The saints they chose to present to us were always in the fields of engineering, teaching, something medical, IT, never the arts.

2. I don't know of any official statement. Certainly before I stopped meeting for good I do recall being in a meeting where they talked a lot about the next generation of children and how they needed to focus more on love than on the spiritual side of things. From hear say through the grapevine the elderly saints are genuinely concerned as to why church kids rarely seem to stay around and have realised that they may have over spiritualised things.

3. The story I mentioned wasn't of sisters singing in a circle but rather standing more like a choir would to perform in a public square.

4. I feel like the writings/teachings of witness lee was equally if not more emphasised than the bible during my childhood/adolescence.

5.For me, the worst practice was getting coerced into being baptised before I was actually ready. That is what felt the most spiritually violating. Other than that I felt coerced into just about every "spiritual" activity, from door knocking, singing in public, sharing my "enjoyment", pray reading. I didn't have any genuine enjoyment about the teachings of witness lee so I had to fake/force it. Honestly they just felt like rantings of a delusional man who managed to take up an entire page with an idea that could have been explained in one or two sentences. On a more human perspective, the worst practice was stifling our ability to develop a healthy sense of self/self trust which has a knock on effect in all areas of human living.

[SerenityLives]

Originally Posted by NZexCK

Serenity lives, yes and yes to everything you said. I am reminded of a photos I saw shared on facebook recently of a group of about 20-30 teenage sisters singing hymns together in a very public part of town (we used to all have to do this during summer school). There are 3 main sisters in the front, one of them looks genuinely overjoyed to be singing hymns on the street (I think she was a serving one), the other two look like they are really making an effort to look like they're having a good time. Everyone else in the background looks utterly miserable and aren't even trying to hide it. They're looking off into the distance, overly "studying" the song book

I forgot to add that the LR even dictated to us when we should get baptised. As soon as we turned 11/12 ish there was a whole meeting at a camp that placed intense pressure on us to get baptised. Afterward we were "encouraged" to pray one on one with serving ones and then when we retuned to our locality we all got baptised together one after another. Everything in my being was screaming out all through the meeting and all through the baptism that this was so so wrong. But 12 year old me felt like I didn't truly have a choice. I went along with it because of the peer pressure, my insecurity and the need to get approval/validation from the adults I was surrounded by. There are no physical barriers or physical threats, only psychological.

same here, the song book thing, there was always this awkward silence where the teenage sisters were looking down or glancing at each other awkwardly as if to say, “you choose the song! hurry up choose the song! I dont know what song to choose!” I thinknyou can make a comic strip out of it.

And being baptized, I think in the church in Chicago, the age was 10 years old. I didnt even know if I had genuinely consecrated my life to serving God at that age, but all the adults were looking at us expectantly. had their cameras out and all the Amens. Being the first in line in my cohort didnt help either (it wasnt that I was enthusiastic, I was put first in line because I was supposedly according to my birthdate, the oldest in my age group.) . Tbh I didnt know how to swim and the whole time I was more worried about water going into my nose than anything. When I came out of the water, I felt “light” not because my sins were buried but because I was like “whew, I didnt drown. That was my experience of baptism.

In regards to career choices, I ended up in the paychology field and I do art as a side hustle, so double oops.

[aron]

Originally Posted by NZexCK

I didn't have any genuine enjoyment about the teachings of witness lee so I had to fake/force it. Honestly they just felt like rantings of a delusional man who managed to take up an entire page with an idea that could have been explained in one or two sentences.

If you look at some of the Life-Study messages, or HWMR contents it's eerie how much repeating goes on. There are two reasons that I can think of for the pattern of repetition. First is that he got paid by the word so he had to pad his few ideas with filler. Second is that these messages were all given orally as talks before audiences, and his use of repetition was his way to program us. He'd keep repeating 'key' words or phrases, which were picked by the cued-in regulars. They would then stand and 'testify of their enjoyment ', using the same stressed words. Supposedly this was the metabolic transfer of the processed god into our being. But it was no different from a rock concert, sporting event or political rally. The symbols were paraded, the crowd huzzahs on cue.

[aron]

Originally Posted by NZexCK

I returned to work on a part time basis and began my journey of deconstruction. This forum was one of the first things I found and I spent weeks and months pouring over just about every thread. It was at this time I happened to stumble upon the early talks of starting a facebook group for ex LC members and I jumped at the chance to join. This eventually split off into a separate group specifically for ex church kids (for reasons reflected in this forum as of late). These facebook groups have been a tremendous help to me throughout the last several years of my deconstruction. I remember when I first joined these groups being quite bewildered by how dramatic these other church kids in the US seemed to be. What? You see a therapist? Wow, I’m glad the NZ experience wasn’t as bad as that. Three years on and I have deconstructed enough to understand how they feel. It has been a rather long and slow but necessary process. There were years of unhealed wounds to work through that I had simply stuck a bandaid on and left to fester. Now I have to rip them off and let them heal.

I am still making connections with how growing up in the LR is affecting me today. Imagine your entire would view forming as a child through the very specific lense that is the LR. The scaffolding of your entire makeup based upon the foundation that is the LR. Just about every connection that your developing brain made done so with the distinct twisted connection of the LR. And then waking up one day and discovering all of the lies, hypocrisy, deception, power play and manipulation that the LR is really about. I had spent my entire life thinking that these adults knew what was best for me, had my best interests at heart and had trusted them. I believed that there must have been something wrong with me, only to realise at age 25 that maybe my gut instinct had been right all along and they were the ones that were wrong.

This first year of deconstruction had a bigger impact on me than I realised at the time. Imagine losing just about everything that makes up your identity/world view and having to start rebuilding from scratch..

I think deconstruction is the right word. There is a construction built into you, as a child of course you were complicit because every child wants to be fed, cared for, protected, loved. And those were the rules of the game. So you went along.

Then you leave physically but you realize all this crap got installed into your mind, your emotions, your feelings about yourself and the world around you. All that 'stuff' is interwoven with 'you'.

I entered the LR as a college student, lived their 'church life' 24/7 for a period of years - with all the meetings, fellowship, trainings, conferences etc - then my inner klaxon horns just got too loud and I left. But it took years, and a lot of work, to really appreciate how much that mind-set had become engrained into me. What if I'd been born into that programme? What would that be like - leaving physically, and now alone in a world you've been taught from Day 1 to hate, fear and despise?

[NZexCK]

Thanks for your response aron. I've taken the term deconstruction from the wider exvangelical community. In my search for answers I've come to realise the the LR church kid experience is often not too dissimilar from ex church kids in mainstream christianity. There is a huge community out there of ex church kids from all areas of christianity sharing their deconstruction process/journey which I've found really helpful and relatable. I guess anytime money and power is involved its going to lead to manipulation and abuse in some form or another. It's really reinforced for me just how un-special the LR is and how much they really are just another degraded denomination of christianity (with a few extra quirks). I wouldn't be bothered half as much if they just owned the fact that they are another denomination. It's the whole acting like they are above every one else which makes the whole movement even more repulsive to me. As of now I've reached the conclusion that "belonging" to a specific group of people who meet a certain way or at a certain place isn't a requirement to being a christian. Church can be as simple as being alone, or with one other person, being present in the moment, appreciating how beautiful a tree is.

[NZexCK]

Originally Posted by SerenityLives

same here, the song book thing, there was always this awkward silence where the teenage sisters were looking down or glancing at each other awkwardly as if to say, “you choose the song! hurry up choose the song! I dont know what song to choose!” I thinknyou can make a comic strip out of it.

There were so many funny little coping mechanisms us CK's came up with to endure those endless boring meetings. Avoiding eye contact with who ever was speaking so as not to be picked for an illustration or a question. Ducking out for little "toilet breaks" or getting a drink of water to space out the monotony. My most epic doodles were done in meetings. Pretending to be seriously studying something so as not to stand out/get picked for questioning. Not standing up too fast or sitting down too slow when it was your groups turn to sing a verse. Finding the most mundane things hilarious about how the speaker looked/how they were explaining something, just to make the meeting a little bit more interesting. I remember one video training in particular the brother talking had a really shiny bald head that was making all kinds of interesting reflective shapes.

[aron]

Originally Posted by NZexCK

I've taken the term deconstruction from the wider exvangelical community. In my search for answers I've come to realise the the LR church kid experience is often not too dissimilar from ex church kids in mainstream christianity. There is a huge community out there of ex church kids from all areas of christianity sharing their deconstruction process/journey which I've found really helpful and relatable.

One thing that I've found out is that there are other groups very similar to the LR.

Iglesia Ni Christo in Phillipines
Gloriavale in New Zealand
La Luz del Mundo in Mexico
Shincheonji Church of Jesus in South Korea
Mormon Church of USA

etc etc

You have a supposed apostle, with a proprietary vision, then people gather round, obey without question, recruit new members, and pressure their children to be unthinking automatons. Abuse in such high-control programmes inevitably follows like night follows day. (and it is abuse to deny children their intrinsic humanity - they are not commodities in a pipeline.)

Originally Posted by NZexCK

As of now I've reached the conclusion that "belonging" to a specific group of people who meet a certain way or at a certain place isn't a requirement to being a christian. Church can be as simple as being alone, or with one other person, being present in the moment, appreciating how beautiful a tree is.

I agree. Belonging to a group isn't bad per se, but it is fraught with perils. I understand the Christian maxim to "not forsake the assembling together" but we should forsake manipulation and control, and assembling unfortunately can lead to such abuse.

It is a fascinating study in pathologic sociology - the nonconformist who strikes out on their own, then starts their own group and pushes strict conformity on group members. The parents in this self-oriented passion play become unwitting dupes, telling their children how they "followed the Lord out of Babylon" and into the Pastures of Plenty, but at the same time they attempt to deny this same journey to their progeny.

If your idea of your destiny of actualization depends on someone else denying their own, I'd suggest checking your vision again.

[NZexCK]

Aron, I’ve even noticed lots of similarities with religious groups or cults that aren’t Christian either. I’ve watched a lot of cult documentaries about Scientology, heavens gate, rajneeshpuram etc and am always surprised by the parallels I can draw with my experience of the LR.

As for church, I think it will be many years before I will have the trust to step foot into another large congregation. My experience/research of the LR has left me with a great deal of cynicism and mistrust to deal with.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by NZexCK

Aron, I’ve even noticed lots of similarities with religious groups or cults that aren’t Christian either. I’ve watched a lot of cult documentaries about Scientology, heavens gate, rajneeshpuram etc and am always surprised by the parallels I can draw with my experience of the LR.

As for church, I think it will be many years before I will have the trust to step foot into another large congregation. My experience/research of the LR has left me with a great deal of cynicism and mistrust to deal with.

I'm happy for you NZexCK ... you've gotten free.