A nod to Felix, who discovered the link to the Ben Mitchell story reported on here some time ago. Ben tells his story of life growing up in the dysfunctional Worldwide Church of God as a kid. The clip is from Australia's A Current Affair. It may not be online forever, so see it while you can.
I'm about 16 chapters into Ben's semi-autobiographical novel, The Last Great Day, at the moment, and will post some comments in a few days time.
It is true that the constant exposure to the doomsday cult Radio Church of God / Worldwide Church of God have left those who grew up in the cult with persistent nightmares lasting for decades -- often unsettling visions of suffering through the Great Tribulation. Some may very well be suffering from PTSD.
ReplyDeleteSelf-medication is another matter. It is difficult for me to decide whether or not to buy into "the doomsday cult led me to take drugs" theory. I'm thinking the connection is tenuous, and others I have known with similar trauma did not turn to drugs, even with the nightmares and other problems.
As for the term "cult", those with whom I have conversed, at minimum, do find the invasive inquisition of ministers coming into your house looking for white bread and white flour in your cupboards as "cult" as it gets. The RCG / WCG also fits well with the assessment of "cult" in the book, "Take Back Your Life".
The other aspect about the WCG is that it was always the "Church Corporate" established by a man who only knew the Corporate world of the late 19th and early 20th Century. As such, "The Lucifer Effect" clearly describes the environment of the type which existed in the WCG where "order was to be maintained" by "Guards" and "Prisoners", as bounded by the 1971 Stanford University Prison Experiment by Philip Zimbardo. The same dynamic has existed in the Armstrongist Churches of God from the beginning and continues in a more sophisticated form in UCG and CoGWA of the Corporation as I delivered to them from the Weyerhaeuser Corporation.
This Feast, several ministers have already spoken about the "Church Corporate" and I discussed the matter with the minister hosting the Festival. They recognize that to survive, all traces of the church body as a Corporation must disappear or people will continue to suffer.
While I am working on "Misery of the Ages", I am also working to re-establish ChurchCorporate.com to "connect the dots" so to speak, from the kind of story Ben Mitchell is telling, to the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971 to the "Church Corporate". It's ambitious, so it's taking awhile, but note that more and more of the independent ACoGs are coming to the conclusion that the "Church Corporate" is toxic and ends badly for members and their children.