Saturday, December 20, 2003

Why Might People Stay In Cults & Abusive Churches?

Something I posted in July on RsqUBF:

Date Posted: 18:45:41 07/20/03 Sun
Author: Joe
Subject: Why might people stay in cults & abusive churches?

Here's something from the Apologetics Index about why people might stay in cults & abusive churches:



One wonders how often she has been asked since, ''Tina, you're such a talented woman, so intelligent, how could you stay with a man for 10/15 years who was beating you?'' Maybe she has an answer in her autobiography. I don't know. It is on my to-read list. But I know she was asked that question. Every woman who escapes a man who has been beating them must get that question and it is probably the hardest one in the world to answer. After all, it's not that you don't KNOW you're getting beaten. And it didn't happen just once. Nor twice. It happens week after week, month after month, year after year.


It was back around 1991 when I first said to myself about UBF, "I can't stand this cult anymore. I need to get out." I stayed 10 more years, and in those 10 years said the same thing to myself several more times after experiencing or witnessing abuse after abuse. I am not the only one who has done that. A certain "spiritual giant" in Chicago has reportedly done that more than once. UBF praises people who "overcome their human emotion" and decide not to "run away." But each time that we say to ourselves, "I can't stand this any more," and "overcome our human emotion," it does not make us better, it does not make us better Christians, it does not make us better human beings. It makes us worse, it only worsens the hurt, it only deepens the wounds.