The Cult
Cult (kult) n. [ latin cultus, care, cultivation ] 1. a system of religious worship or ritual 2. devoted attachment to a person, principle, etc. 3. a sect
The cult in question has denied the accusation for as long as I remember. The first time I remember it being brought up was on a Wednesday night in 1994. After the evening service at the cult, a meeting was called by cult leadership for all those in the high school system. That included me, and I made my way downstairs to the gym where a large circle was forming. I found a gap in the circle, and waited for someone to tell us why we were there.
About that time Sherri Barden, the cult leader’s wife, showed up. She was in tears and was being comforted by vice-pastor Kevin. She was distraught over the fact that “people on the outside” were calling LFF a cult. She asked for us to get together and “pray” against these people and this “attack of the spirit” which was meant to destroy the cult.
I was certainly an impressionable teenager, and my own religious indignation was inflamed by her reports. I couldn’t believe that someone would dare to speak against a place like LFF. I had been taught, and thus I believed, that there was no better church in the entire world than LFF. Why someone could be so confused I had no idea.
And so I prayed. I remember praying a loud and angry prayer, much like those of the passionate people of the cult. The louder and more agitated I got in my prayer, the more acclaim I could expect to receive from those listening. I had determined long ago to set myself apart as a “man of passion,” who was more “spiritual” than everyone else. And so I prayed.
They told us that a “cult is something easy to get in to, but tough to get out, where LFF is tough to get in to, but easy to get out.” If only that were the truth. If LFF were so tough to get into, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten stuck there in the first place. And easy to get out??? Walking out of the front door doesn’t equate to “getting out.”
You are now entering the mission field. <-- sign by door as you leave. I am still trying to get out of that damn place. It won’t let me go. No, there is no human chasing me with a gun, but my conscience and my memory haunts me. I can’t get away. I can’t help that every time I go to a church and hear some religious buzz-term, I remember where I heard it first and get soooo angry. I so wish it were easy to get out. No, former members of LFF and those who grew up there carry it with them for the rest of their lives. It is a spiritual handicap, one not to be ignored, and one which I do not believe God will forget.
The cult in question has denied the accusation for as long as I remember. The first time I remember it being brought up was on a Wednesday night in 1994. After the evening service at the cult, a meeting was called by cult leadership for all those in the high school system. That included me, and I made my way downstairs to the gym where a large circle was forming. I found a gap in the circle, and waited for someone to tell us why we were there.
About that time Sherri Barden, the cult leader’s wife, showed up. She was in tears and was being comforted by vice-pastor Kevin. She was distraught over the fact that “people on the outside” were calling LFF a cult. She asked for us to get together and “pray” against these people and this “attack of the spirit” which was meant to destroy the cult.
I was certainly an impressionable teenager, and my own religious indignation was inflamed by her reports. I couldn’t believe that someone would dare to speak against a place like LFF. I had been taught, and thus I believed, that there was no better church in the entire world than LFF. Why someone could be so confused I had no idea.
And so I prayed. I remember praying a loud and angry prayer, much like those of the passionate people of the cult. The louder and more agitated I got in my prayer, the more acclaim I could expect to receive from those listening. I had determined long ago to set myself apart as a “man of passion,” who was more “spiritual” than everyone else. And so I prayed.
They told us that a “cult is something easy to get in to, but tough to get out, where LFF is tough to get in to, but easy to get out.” If only that were the truth. If LFF were so tough to get into, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten stuck there in the first place. And easy to get out??? Walking out of the front door doesn’t equate to “getting out.”
You are now entering the mission field. <-- sign by door as you leave. I am still trying to get out of that damn place. It won’t let me go. No, there is no human chasing me with a gun, but my conscience and my memory haunts me. I can’t get away. I can’t help that every time I go to a church and hear some religious buzz-term, I remember where I heard it first and get soooo angry. I so wish it were easy to get out. No, former members of LFF and those who grew up there carry it with them for the rest of their lives. It is a spiritual handicap, one not to be ignored, and one which I do not believe God will forget.
2 comments:
I went to LFF for 8 years. It now seems to me that the leadership was almost constantly reminding us that LFF was not a cult.
Now I think, if you have to say you aren't one, you probably are.
What finally made me realize what it was, was the resources on the Internet that described other cults and the things they have in common. LFF fits the profile very well.
One example of a common characteristic of cults is elitism. Pastor Karl used to say in the Going for the Gold series that once we finished it, we would be better prepared than 90% of all the pastors in the world. He also heaped scorn on mainline churches (he used to be an Episcopalian) for what he said was a lack of holiness (I think he used as an example that he and another elder of that church used to look at Playboys together.) One time during my freshman or sophomore year after joining LFF, I was invited to attend a Bible study led by another group, I think it was Campus Crusade for Christ. I told my home care leader about that and he was kind of scornful and suggested joining another crew instead.
Another thing cults do is limit what information you can take in. There actually used to be an approved reading list, though it wasn't enforced. Of course, if you're reading about five Bible chapters a day, plus the Closer Walk devotional guide, and everything else, you won't have much time to read anyway.
I left the country for two years, and the distance from LFF and the courage to go and look at cult information on the Internet led me to realize that I didn't want to go back to LFF when I returned to Pullman. A very good, Christlike (yet not even a Christian!) friend let me stay at his house for two months and gave me the moral support to stick with my decision. My family was also very supportive when I went "cold turkey."
Several months after that, I took a job in a foreign country, where I would stay for four and a half years. During that time, I had to completely rebuild my faith from scratch. Along the way, I found that God would always bring other Christians alongside of me (and he still does). God also brought a former cult deprogrammer into my circle of coworkers. I learned many crucial things from him that helped me understand what I had gone through.
The year that the Passion of the Christ movie came out was my turning point. I saw the movie, and I also read Philip Yancey's book The Jesus I Never Knew, and found my newly rediscovered/rebuilt faith centered on Christ, and a deep and abiding affection for and trust in Him. Not insignificantly, I had turned 33, Jesus' age when he was crucified, that year, and felt like I could really understand Jesus as a man like never before, and identify with Him.
I'm now back in the Pullman area (living in Moscow, working at WSU). I was worried when I agreed to take a job at WSU that it would be hard to be around here because of the many painful memories. And yes, it has often been difficult. The hardest part is meeting people I know from LFF, and the reason it's hard is because I never know how I am going to react. For example, I suddenly ran into my former HCL in a hallway at WSU, and all I could do was avert my eyes, knowing that we had both recognized each other. I am ashamed of that because I would have liked to be friendly, as I still have an appreciation for the fact that they *did* devote so much time to me and genuinely (though within a warped milieu) tried to help me. It can be awkward.
Other times it's been painful because the other person turns out to also be a former member, and I can see that they have lost so much trust that they probably would not even trust me, someone who has gone through the same experiences and would like to help.
The greatest blessing has been to discover a coworker who is also a former member, but who has adjusted very well to life on the outside and has opened my mind to all sorts of wonderful early Christian works. Getting back to the original sources is so enlightening.
Well, that's about all I have to say right now. I could probably write several pages about specific abuses I saw at LFF, and maybe I will sometime in another post, if it would help someone. People get so brainwashed there that it takes a while for it to sink in that they've been duped, and even years later (it's been 8 years since I left), there is still a little corner of the brain that says you're bad for leaving LFF, and all sorts of wrong thinking that still resides, left over from the experience. For that reason, I still find it helpful to read these accounts, thanks by the way for the blog! Reading other people's experiences is an affirming thing, it helps remind me that, yes, I wasn't crazy--there *is* something badly wrong with that church! *I am OK!* *There IS life after LFF!*
Wow... I've never really met or come across anyone else that experienced LFF that way. I started attending LFF while I was attending WSU, my roommate went and it seemed like a good idea at the time, so I tagged along. Next thing I know, I'm attending various classes and services and functions damn near every day of the week. My school work suffered, my relationships with my other friends completely broke down. I eventually saw the light when somehow my home care leader talked to me about private emails that I had received. That creeped me out and I left LFF, and left WSU.
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