My Experience with a Christian Cult…

At age 21, I graduated from an Ivy League college. I had a great education prior to that, attending day and boarding schools that I really liked and where I made a lot of friends. I was a high school competitive athlete and won academic awards. In college, I became overly attached to my college boyfriend. The year after college, he broke up with me and started dating someone else. I was devastated.

I moved to a new city where I knew very few people. Some new friends, from overseas, were fundamentalist “born again” Christians. Before long, they invited me to services, and, not long after, I was ready to be born again in a full immersion baptism. The officiants told me two minutes before the baptism that I should talk in tongues during the event and I complied, basically pretending.

In the next months, I went off to graduate school in another city and continued with the same charismatic Christian group. I continued to be taught that I was a true Christian and that non-Christians and mainstream Christians who were not “born again” would not go to heaven like me; in other words, most of my friends and family would go to hell and it was my job to convert them. If a convert left the group, that person was a “backslider” who would go to a lower part of hell because she had seen the truth and rejected it.

My family was very concerned that the group was cultish, but was careful not to say anything to alienate me. A new friend who lived down the hall in my graduate dorm understood what was happening to me. With her help, I began to see that the group was too controlling, and I left before I got in too deep.  When people say they do not understand how people can be so stupid to believe various conspiracy theories, anti vax messages, etc., I don’t really see it that way.  Good and intelligent people get roped into extremist beliefs through mind control, especially at times in their lives when they feel lonely and fearful.

One line from the Bible has really stuck with me and is a good line to remember today: “Perfect love casts out fear.” In this time of fear, let’s try to fight it with love.

~Amanda