Stabbed in the Back By A Cult Leader.

Recently, I had called my sister to check on her, and as we were talking, she had informed me that my former pastor, who I call "Pastor Jones" for the sake of this post, had leaked out details to my former congregation of a conversation that I had with him, the day I had personally informed him that I was officially resigning my membership at the church, the church I had been a member at for 12 years, until I could finally break free form my abusive family

That day, he had asked why I wanted to resign my membership, so I laid it out there, told him the theological reasons, drifting away from Christianity and becoming more agnostic for lack of a better term, and finding a lot of acceptance and peace at the Unitarian church I am attending now.

Since the abuse of my past played a role in the life experiences that led me there, I told him about how I was beaten until I was about 11 years old, forced off medication for my depression,  barricaded in the house of my "parents" and threatened with violence when I tried to leave at 21 years old, and about the most recent of the abuse, "The Confrontation" , where just this past December, when I was forced to cut them out of my life, and they tried to break into my home, and nearly assaulted me in front of a police officer.

I told him, even if I could believe in Christianity again (which is a massive remote possibility), I couldn't go back to a church as conservative as that church, and I definitely could not return to that church, for my own safety. When I told him this, I explicitly told him that I expected this to be confidential, my exact words were "this should not leave this office". He never once objected to this, and I went on with the presumption that it would remain confidential.

 Unfortunately, Pastor Jones had sided with my family, used the old "honor your mother and father" line on me, doubted what I had told him about the past abuse, and tried to chalk up The Confrontation to holiday related stress, and encouraged me to reconcile with them.

Despite him doing that, I hadn't thought he would stoop that low as to stab me in the back by leaking this information out to the church, but that was the reports I was hearing from my sister. "Mrs. Sociopath" was talking to her about it, supposedly the pastor had told a deacon, who then went on to tell her this information.

After I had heard the news from my sister that he had let this information out, I was furious, I confronted "Jason", my Sunday School teacher when I was in that church about it, he works for the same company that I do, on a different shift.

He denied that Pastor Jones would have done that, and said I had no proof, it's rumors, it could have slipped out some other way, I was rather annoyed with him, defending him, and he got in a little jab about me being agnostic, said that if I considered myself a person guided by logic and reason, then instead of just believing rumors about it, I should ask him myself. I told him I would.

Undercover Agnostic (Update 27): A Sensory Overload Christmas

Sheldon's note: This will be a bit of a long rant, bear with me. ;)

I had been planning Christmas party with mom and dad at my house for the Sunday School class, and anyone else from the church I am "undercover" in (at least until next month, I'm planning to come out then, I've already come out to my sister). Mom had told me that she was going to help set up most everything Friday during the day, while I was work on a 12 hour shift, and then she would either be gone by the time I got home about 5:30, or shortly after.

She had said that she was going to take my 85 pound dog, "Happy Horse", a Black Lab/hound mix with her when she left. Imagine my surprise when I come home and not only is everything set up, but Happy Horse is still there, barking at me when I come in the back door, and she's still there with my dad. I hadn't suggested the idea of her leaving before the party started, that was her idea, but I was rather annoyed that she wasn't keeping her word about that

The party was due to start at 7, and they are both still there while people are showing up. Oh, and did the people show up. Everyone I invited came, along with some of their friends.

In all, it was around 18 people at it's highest point in a house that's only 763 square feet upstairs, bigger than my mom and dad's house, but still too small for that many people, especially considering that you can't go outside

(It was around 30 degrees and sleet/snow coming down). The living room and kitchen where every one was gathered is only about half of that space, and for some reason, people didn't want to spend time down in the basement, where I have essentially a second living room, and a kitchen style table set up.

It was really getting to my issues with sensory overload, the mass of people gathered, too many people having too many different conversations at once, which in me, leads to it all blending into an overwhelming cacophony of intelligible noise. I stayed to the edges of the crowd, talking to a few people, letting the crowd do it's thing, generally staying to the room where I felt the least suffocated.

My mom, however, didn't find that acceptable, she denies that I have depression, forced me off of medication when I came back home after my nervous breakdown, so the idea that I could possibly be autistic is beyond her limited comprehension.

 She starts working the crowd herself, her massive ego kicks in, and she starts overriding her normal aversion to crowds showing every the house, and acting like she owns the place so much that a few people who didn't know me (the friends of friends), actually asked her if we all lived there together.

Undercover Agnostic (Update 26): People Can Do Amazing Things, Despite Their Awful Beliefs

This morning, as I entered the church a little late for the beginning of Sunday School (I had a hard time waking up and getting ready this morning), I had walked into the room where Jason * normally has his Sunday School class, and the room was mostly empty. The music director of the church was telling me that Jason was in the hospital with his sister Kelly*, she has had recurring heart problems for years, and she was in emergency surgery to open an artery.

She had noticed that heart attack like symptoms were starting, and with her medical history (she had open heart surgery only about 4 years ago), she knew it was, and that it was definite cause for concern. Reports are that she hadn't had a heart attack yet, but was very close to having one, it was stopped in time.

The music director was trying to redirect people from Jason's class to his Sunday School class, but I went on to a class with a teacher and people I was more familiar with. This class, and a larger class was carrying on their tradition of meeting together for announcements before splitting into their classes, planning future events together both in and outside the church.

For some odd reason, both of these classes are mostly made of of middle aged people, some are married couples, but most are divorced (which is highly ironic, considering the views that the church has on divorce). some were divorced while they were at this church, others before they ever came there.

The church, among some other charitable endeavors that include a food pantry and clothes closet, has a habit of serving food in the church fellowship hall twice a month to a large number of poor and homeless people in the area.

Undercover Agnostic (Update 23): Discussions About Charismatic Christianity and Unintentional Double Meanings

(Pentecostal televangelist Benny Hinn)

This Sunday, at Sunday School, my Sunday School teacher "Jason", a regular in the Undercover Agnostic   series, said that his sister "Kelly" was gone because she was visiting their aunt and uncle in the town of Jacksonville in west central Illinois. He said Kelly was a wondering what she would be seeing this week since they are what is known as "Charismatic" Christians, (extreme Pentecostals), and she attends church with them when she visits.    


This had started a conversation on the entire Pentecostal movement, and it brought to mind my days in the Assembly of God denomination as a young boy, which is likely more moderate than the church that Kelly will be visiting, but still Pentecostal and fundamentalist none the less. Some time ago, I wrote a guest post titled Subconscious Phone Conversations with God about my first speaking in tongues experience on the blog Leaving Fundamentalism.

Jason talked about how his uncle was a big enthusiast of Biblical prophecy, the book of Revelation, and various theological debates surrounding the end times (Will we be raptured up before or after the Tribulation? etc.). I remember those days well, and just how popular that kind of theology was, and related fiction too, like the popular Left Behind series in the 90's and early 2000's.

I had a Sunday School teacher then I'll call "Jack", who was a big fan of such theology, and he had a very interesting life story. He grew up in a town in central England, was a solider in the final years of World War II, and met his wife, a German citizen, in the war.

His stories of coming from a rather rowdy British family were quite amusing. His family had the reputation of being some of the tougher people in the neighborhood, especially his mother and brothers. He once told the story of how in England, much like it was in the US at the time, people wouldn't hesitate to scold (or sometimes even punish) other people's children, or if they did something mischievous. Sometimes, they would practically drag them to their parents, explain the situation, and the child would have hell to pay from their own parents once they got in the door.

Once, he did something a neighborhood father didn't approve of, and the man thought nothing of it to spank him for it. His mother didn't approve of such societal norms, and was furious. She went to confront the neighbor, and asked him why he did this and he said he was "chastising" young Jack. His mother supposedly told him, "Oh yes? Well let me 'chastise' you!", and despite the fact that she was a foot shorter than him, punched him in the face.

Undercover Agnostic (Update 20): If You Are Going to Go New Testament on Us, At Least Be Consistent About It

Recently, “Jason”, a frequently occurring character in the Undercover Agnostic series, invited me to a viewing of an old A&E special on the history of the early church at the house that he owns with his sister “Kelly”.

Our new pastor, let’s call him “Pastor Jones”, was interesting in viewing the video himself, so Jason had let him preview it before the showing at his house. Pastor Jones’ has been a pastor in churches mostly in the south for some time (North Carolina and Arkansas, he is originally from North Carolina himself), but his theological background is mostly in church history, he has a seminary doctorate in church history in fact.

Since the video was produced by the cable network A&E, it looks more at the history of Christianity from well, a historical and outsider’s perspective instead of a more rigid fundamentalist view. Pastor Jones had a few objections to some statements and assertions that were made, and he had come with a printout detailing his disputes. We were all discussing his list, and then the discussion took a different turn.

Jason spends quite a bit of time with Pastor Jones, especially when he is counseling new church members or prospective members. He had talked about an incident where he had went with Pastor Jones to speak to a man who had been attending the church for a while with his young daughter, and had wanted to convert and join the church.

The pastor asked him if there was anything that he wanted to confess to god and to him as his pastor, and the man said that he had been living with his daughter’s mother, but was not legally married to her. Pastor Jones said that before the church would accept him as a new member, he must either break off the relationship with his girlfriend, or marry her. Jason said the man never contacted either of them again, and both this man and his daughter have not been to the church since.

It started a discussion on marriage and divorce, and Kelly brought up something I never knew about the practices of the church. She said that her son wasn’t willing to join our church because he has been a member of a moderate Christian denomination (I can’t remember which one, I think it was a branch of the Lutheran denomination), and he had married his wife in a ceremony officiated by a female pastor, and the church had already told her and her son that they would not consider his marriage to be legitimate because he was married by a female minister.

I was rather shocked by this, since in over 12 years of being a part of that congregation, (although 3 of those years have been spent undercover), I had never heard of such a policy in place. I had asked the group then about what the policies on divorce were, because I had never heard of anyone being excommunicated, refused membership, or having their second marriage deemed illegitimate in the eyes of the church before. For reference, let’s look at the New Testament view of marriage, divorce and remarriage before, I discuss the group’s reaction.

Undercover Agnostic (Update 19): “I Wish I Could Believe Sometimes”

“Is that a pentacle or a pentagram?” I asked “Mark” as he took over for me in the guard shack because the guy who normally works that night shift for early in the week had called off. I was asking him about a tattoo on his right arm.

He said it was in fact a pentagram, he said he got it some years ago when he was “mad at god”. He grew up in a fundamentalist Baptist background, and was beginning to separate himself from Christianity, and was feeling a lot of anger about his time spent in it, and what he had been taught. He had no connections to Satanism, either now or at the time, but regarded it as a kind of “screw Christianity” kind of message, like some hard rock singers and death metal bands viewed the pentagram in the 70’s-90’s.

He said he wished he didn’t have the tattoo now, mostly because it was so visible, he said he has other tattoos, but he kept them in places out of sight, places where a short sleeved shirt would easily cover them up. He said now that he considers himself an atheist, but he seems at times to be rather confused. He said that he finds many aspects of the Bible to be rather absurd, like Noah’s Ark, the Creation story, etc, and is repulsed by some aspects of Christian theology, (he also agrees with me that the concept of free will in Christianity is a false illusion), but he said something that surprised me, he said he wished he could still believe in Christianity.

He said that he thought that people in Christianity were much happier than people outside of it, and talked about various studies that claim that Christians are happier than other groups. He finds Christianity to be highly contradictory, and rather bizarre, but he’s longing for that sense of joy that many Christians appear on the surface to have. You see, unlike me, he has been very open about his mental health issues at work, he has OCD and anxiety issues, and chooses to deal with it sometimes by making a joke of it, laughing about being on Xanax to keep the anxiety down, etc.

The False Illusion of Free Will in Christianity

Sheldon’s note: Though I use the word “Christianity” in the title when talking about the Christian doctrines of salvation and hell, I am primarily referring to understanding of these doctrines from a fundamentalist perspective; I do understand that some Christians, especially Christian universalists, don’t even believe in the doctrine of hell at all.

My understanding of Christianity primarily comes from my fundamentalist upbringing and former beliefs, so that is my frame of reference when discussing theological matters.

Though fundamentalism both annoys and repulses me, few strains of fundamentalism (other than cults like the Independent Fundamental Baptist group and Sovereign Grace Ministries of  course), annoy me more than people on the more extreme end of Calvinist theology, what the writers of the Christian website The Wartburg Watch like to call “Neo-Calvinists” or “Calvinistas”.

There’s many reasons why I find their theology highly repulsive (and probably still would feel the same way if I had become a more moderate Christian instead of leaving Christianity altogether), but primarily it’s the way they view god, and the way they view humanity. This line of thinking, to me, completely strips away all sense of human dignity, and free will, all while claiming to believe in free will at the same time.

Due to the popularity of ministers/theologians like John Piper and R. Albert Mohler, and the influence of the denomination’s deep connections to the cult Sovereign Grace Ministries, which I mentioned earlier, Neo-Calvinism has become extremely popular among Southern Baptist churches, including the one I am undercover in.

“Jason”, my Sunday school teacher, and co-worker, who makes quite a few appearances in my Undercover Agnostic series (I talked about him just last week), has fully embraced this kind of theology (sometimes I can almost hear John Piper’s voice instead of him when he is speaking about theology).

I was having a discussion with him a few weeks ago about theology, it’s odd that whenever we are outside the church, he still wants to talk about and debate theology, I suppose it’s because he’s one of the few people I have come out to about my change in beliefs, and it’s like a fun challenge to him, he wants to know if he can hold his own in a debate with an agnostic.

Undercover Agnostic (Update 17): “He’s an Atheist, So He Has Nothing to Say to Me”

I have talked about “Jason” on the blog before. He’s my Sunday School teacher in the church I am undercover in, and he also happens to be a co worker of mine, albeit on a different shift than I am on. Jason can be quite the paradox sometimes, in many ways, he’s a typical fundamentalist, but in other ways he can not only break the mold, but downright shatter it.

He was a theology student after spending several years in the US Marine Corp, and he intended to become a missionary after graduation. He has never said why exactly he left the college he was in a year before graduation, and I’ve never asked. There are times that he can put fundamentalist dogma over his sense of compassion, even for his own family.

I’ve had many discussions with him where he has stood by many of the more absurd tenets of fundamentalism like Young Earth Creationism (he is one of the few people who know about my de-conversion, it’s led to quite a few interesting discussions), not only is he a YEC supporter, but he insists the earth has to be no more than 6,000 years old, it can’t be 10,000 or 25,000, like some YEC supporters say, it must be 6,000, and he won’t budge on that.

Then again, he breaks from the fundamentalist mold in some ways. He doesn’t understand why fundamentalist parents push their children to marry young, he enjoys the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and John Oliver, despite their very liberal leanings, and his own personal sense of humor is well….. the best way to describe it is as being rather twisted. A fellow co worker of ours, a blue collar, non-religious kind of guy, who likes to party on his days off once said that sometimes he can get too vulgar even for him, and that’s really saying something.