Predators in the church

[happiernow]

The church allows sexual predators to flourish. I have experienced this first hand. Does anyone else have experience with this?

[Ohio]

Welcome HappierNow!

Thanks for sharing your heart-breaking story. Though we on this forum are in no way professional counselors, we have provided some needed help for others who have left the LC. I can say that you are not alone and others have been thru similar ordeals, though yours is one of the worst. Many others like yourself, after leaving the LC, had to "put God in the closet" while they got their hearts and lives back together.

I just can't believe what a fighter you are. Congratulations on your academic achievements! I just marvel at your ability to persevere and aim your life in the right direction! I think you will accomplish great things in your life.

I do hope sometime soon you could obtain some healthy counseling to work thru the horrors of the past. Though this may be the last thing you want to hear, I can say with assurance that our Heavenly Father does love you, and does know all your sufferings. None of us can explain why all those around you, failed you, failed to protect you, and then blamed it all on you. I can say thru experience that often times the sanest person in the room gets blamed the most.

Thanks again for sharing.

[eDh22]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Welcome HappierNow!....Though we on this forum are in no way professional counselors...I do hope sometime soon you could obtain some healthy counseling to work thru the horrors of the past....Thanks again for sharing.

HELP! On counseling.

If you have sought out counseling in association with experiences in the Local Churches, how did you do it?

After almost three decades of aligning with behavior, thought and emotional control, how do you get comfortable calling a stranger for help? What do you look for in a counselor? How do you find the words to explain? What all does it entail?

I know that a section on therapy was removed from this forum some years back, so I'd like to testify that I successfully sought counseling for the self-harm behavior that I was practicing while in the Local Churches / Lord's Recovery. I did not bring up anything to do with the Churches and I was sufficiently "under the influence" at the time not to even consider it. We focused on how to safely channel my response to my anxiety through Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Managing my response to anxiety ended up going hand and hand with my retreat from the Local Churches, as one can imagine. I have not practiced physical self-harm since that time.

However, I found myself years later still practicing thoughts and emotions that were damaging to me and my family. I sought out a Christian counselor but I found that individual perhaps too defensive of Christianity to be comfortable with my speaking about a high-demand sect. I then met briefly with a non-Christian, but they didn't seem to understand the context and appeared to me a bit dismissive of the faith. To be clear, they were both helpful in their way. Critically, meeting with these counselors was helpful (necessary?) keep me safe from myself during trying periods.

ANY RECOMMENDATIONS HIGHLY APPRECIATED. THANK YOU.

[HERn]

As me and my wife were exiting we went to a PhD Christian Psychologist, I dropped several hints about being in a cult-like church but he did not offer any help in that area. So, it might need to be a counselor who understands the impacts a cult-like group can have on a person.

[aron]

Originally Posted by eDh22

If you have sought out counseling in association with experiences in the Local Churches, how did you do it?

Some good recent work is by Steven Hassan, the so-called BITE model. Find a counselor that appreciates that approach. People, including many counselors, don't appreciate how deeply this stuff gets into the brain, and drives one's thinking, and what that impinged-upon thinking does to one's behaviours. As if we weren't already sick enough!

I went to my LC 'elders' for help and they clearly were neither equipped nor interested in my case. "You're fine. Just pray-read Ephesians and go to another meeting and your problems will be gone." So I left the LC, and went back to my old Community Church but now I thought that the Pastor was horribly deficient because he wasn't teaching "God's economy" as Witness Lee outlined it!

Do you see what I mean? I left physically but my mind was pickled in LC juice!

https://freedomofmind.com/bite-model/

[awareness]

Originally Posted by aron

https://freedomofmind.com/bite-model/

Great link aron. Sure wish I had it when I left.

[Nell]

Happiernow,

Your story breaks my heart. I'm so sorry. It's amazing that you have chosen "happiernow" as your moniker. I believe that during the horror you've experienced in your young life, that God was weeping with you and his heart is surely broken also. The things you described are not of Him, but clearly from his enemy, the Devil.

No one can hurt you as much as your family. That includes your earthly family as well as your Christian brothers and sisters. There are many stories of abuse by Local Church "authorities" who lord it over God's children.

Please don't give up on Him. How can I help you?

Nell

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by happiernow

The church allows sexual predators to flourish. I have experienced this first hand. Does anyone else have experience with this?

Witness Lee's own son Phillip was a sexual predator, and WL himself enabled it. There were a number of victims at LSM. The so-called church "storm" back in the 1980's was due to this.

I was active in the LC many years, but as soon as I learned this, I left for good, and lost nearly all my respect for WL and his ministry.

[aron]

Originally Posted by happiernow

The church allows sexual predators to flourish. I have experienced this first hand.

I don't know the details of your story, and respect your and others' privacy. But we do know that groups promoting human-centered unity are ripe for predators to exist. As long as these ones are "positive" they're covered over. Diversity of thought, expression, and experience are suppressed and even shunned, as conformity to the Hive and it's all-too-human center, here aka "the ministry" and its representations, are continuously and obsessively stressed. In such an environment, those who're zealous (or appear so) will be given the blind eye, while "rebels" will be exposed at every turn.

Just remember that your life and person are as precious to God as anyone else's. Jesus' teachings and actions made this utterly clear. And your voice exists, just like any other. Silence is a tool of conformity and a cover for exploitation and oppression.

[aron]

Originally Posted by happiernow

The church allows sexual predators to flourish. I have experienced this first hand. Does anyone else have experience with this?

Bringing this forward in light of the recent discussion on the Jo Casteel FB page. Very important that those without voices (and there were/are many) are allowed to speak.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by aron

Bringing this forward in light of the recent discussion on the Jo Casteel FB page. Very important that those without voices (and there were/are many) are allowed to speak.

Yes they should be allowed to speak. They should be allowed to speak to wake up parents and followers so devoted to the movement that they essentially turn a blind eye to what's going on in their midst.

But this is not only a problem in the LC. It's also a problem in all Christian groups and assemblies. The difference being that the LC claims to be the one true church of Christ, and the up to date movement of God on the earth.

For those reasons all voices revealing the lies of those claims have to be silenced by the powers in the LC, and the blind sycophants feigning ignorance.

Amen to Jo Casteel for allowing them a forum for their voices to be heard, exposing the LC movement as no different than all the other Christian groups they continually condemn as fallen. Isn't it about time, and long overdue?

And it's time that any incidents of this occurring from here on be reported to the authorities.

[countmeworthy]

Originally Posted by awareness

Amen to Jo Casteel for allowing them a forum for their voices to be heard, exposing the LC movement as no different than all the other Christian groups they continually condemn as fallen. Isn't it about time, and long overdue?

And it's time that any incidents of this occurring from here on be reported to the authorities.

I absolutely agree the religious predators especially from the LSM/LR since this is what this forum is focused on SHOULD be reported asap to the police authorities. For a young vulnerable person it would be difficult perhaps for those are the people predators go for: weak, vulnerable, shy.

This forum is a great start for them to come forward without fear.

May God grant them the courage, strength and protection they need to bring down these shameful and cowardly predators who pretend to be ambassadors of Christ when they are in actuality ambassadors of the devil himself.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by Ohio

There has always been a consensus among former members that leaving the LC with your faith in Jesus intact is much preferred for all those who exit.

But it doesn't fix problems for those mentally disturbed by the mind control, and killing of the mind, in the LC, or those that have suffered sexual assault while in the LC.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by awareness

But it doesn't fix problems for those mentally disturbed by the mind control, and killing of the mind, in the LC, or those that have suffered sexual assault while in the LC.

Au contraire.

In my experience the ONLY thing that fixed me was the healing power of the Holy Spirit, and an understanding of what the word of God really means in regards to LR deceptions.

Learned, Spirit-inspired Christian counseling is fine. Secular psychology by itself can help, but only in the way a crutch can help. It cannot solve the underlying fundamental problem of spiritual deception and injury.

Only Jehovah Rapha can do that. God the Healer. Believe Him, receive Him.

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by happiernow

The church allows sexual predators to flourish. I have experienced this first hand. Does anyone else have experience with this?

I do not have any first hand experience. I do believe it exists and allowed to go on unabated through "covering" by the brothers.
Simply if a brother is deemed "positive for the ministry", the brothers will cover when needed.

I just wanted to share something that’s interesting and insightful about churches and leaders that practice abuse in their movements. The IHOP movement that has been exposed for abuse by its founder, is now going out of business. I have over the years read and heard of many abuses on this site and others that related to the local church movement, it’s founders and leaders in their midst. Some are old, some are recently, and some probably that as the blended called “covered, but not covered up”.

I know as a former member how difficult it is to leave this group to begin with, but to expose them and their actions takes next level of courage and discipline. It takes boldness, to stand there and point out the frauds that hide behind blue screens, nameless coworkers or just plain old individuals who enjoy double standard treatment because they drink the Koolaid and can unleash hell on those who would even consider exposing them. The ends justifies the means, and while invocation of “minister of the age” or other special fear based teachings set these men & women Scot-free for the time being just as it happened in the above case, eventually their many cases will pop out and expose them for their true identity.

Churches that abuse should be exposed!
Church leaders that abuse should be exposed!
Church leaders that covered up abuse should be exposed!
Church leaders who justify punishing victims by using fear should be exposed!
Church teachings that are enabling those people to be above standards should be exposed!

[PriestlyScribe]

Originally Posted by TheOG

I just wanted to share something that’s interesting and insightful about churches and leaders that practice abuse in their movements. The IHOP movement that has been exposed for abuse by its founder, is now going out of business.

I see an interesting parallel between the predatory ministry of Nee-Lee and that of Mike Bickle - the paradox of inconsistency.

Both of these ministries contain certain healthy teachings which, if believed and put into practice by those in positions of responsibility - would never allow abuse to be "tolerated" or "covered up".

Below is just one example from IHOP University (2012):


Link to full document: https://blendedbody.com/4LCD/How_To_...cteristics.pdf

If you try really hard to wrap your mind around the way these groups tolerate inconsistency it can make you go crazy.

BTW: One very insidious type of abuse which the Witness Lee System promotes is that very same "Family Member Loyalty Abuse" warned against in the above graphic.

P.S.