Ex Church Kid - Thankful I left!

[River]

I have commented on here a couple of times and made one post but have yet to introduce myself. At age 11, my life changed dramatically when my parents joined the LC/LR. At that point, everything changed, and it wasn’t for the better. From a young age, I knew in my heart that the LC/LR couldn’t be “It,” that it wasn’t “The Church” or the only church, so, like many of their teachings, I took it with a grain of salt. Although I didn’t have an extremely traumatic event that caused me to leave, in many ways, the overall experience was traumatic and hard, so I left as soon as I could. I have a long list of all the things that caused me to leave, but many of the things have already been said here by ex-members, so I won’t list them now.

However, I have been reading through some threads on here trying to see which ex-church kids I could relate to because, after many years, I still feel much hurt and sadness about the effect the LC had on my life and family. It seems I should be able to “get over it,” but with close family members still trapped in it, it is often something I must deal with.

In the process of reading through the posts, I found a statement that is one of the main problems I have with the LC/LR. It is a statement from Kappagamma, “I don’t know for others but I think for me there is a crying out of “look at me as a person” “see me as who I am” “care about my humanity” and if the craving is for that and you are only fed something else then eventually the proverbial stomach recoils at what is offered.” (Thank you Kappagamma for your post “Intro of an ex "Church Kid" from June 27, 2019 . I don’t know how to tag you or tag your post, so I hope you see this.)

This quote from Kappagamma hits home with me and explains why the LC/LR left me feeling empty or lost. It doesn’t care for our humanity, but rather it has you reject it! It has you ignore your God-given mind, feelings, opinions, and thoughts, and blindly follow the MOTA aka Witness Lee. So if you are a “good” member you already know … don’t use your mind, don’t use your emotions, don’t give opinions, don’t be an individual, do blindly follow the MOTA, and certainly don’t ask questions! As a parent, I would be terrified if my grown kids joined any group that taught such cultish things!

Much of the spiritualness in the LC/LR seemed fake to me. After all, how can a truly spiritual group constantly criticize other Christians in their meetings and in conversation? As a teen, it got so bad, that I sometimes would start counting all the negative comments about “other Christians” during a meeting. It was horrible! Even though I couldn’t come to terms with any of the many terrible issues I have with the LC/LR, I knew I was a Christian and that God's love was so great that I couldn’t even imagine its depth, and that would be enough for me.

One last thing, as all ex-members know, the LC/LR is very controlling and extremely damaging to families and family life. If you are thinking of joining or are a long-time member, I would recommend taking a break and getting away from it. Once you give yourself some time away, you may see things differently.

Wishing you well.

[Zezima]

Thanks for posting River. You mentioned that there were reasons that you left but they’ve been posted here already. Could you tell us more about those? Its helpful for those considering a leave and those going through the process.


How has your family handled your decision?