Life After Pentecostalism, Finding God After Leaving a Cult
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Today I’m being interviewed on a subject, that at its mention, sometimes still sends my body into a state of panic: cults.
One evening in the mid-2010s, I sat in a church listening to a sermon about the end of the world.
As a Pentecostal, it was expected I attend church twice a week, Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings. The only acceptable excuses to miss service were if you were seriously ill or working (and it was assumed if you could, you would rearrange your schedule).
This particular sermon was one in a series of lessons on The End Times, the Pastor lecturing on the topics of the rapture and impending apocalypse nearly every week for about two years.
I can’t tell you the exact point of this specific message, but eventually, he started discussing cults.
My heart sank, my gut lept, my face flushed and my palms began to sweat.
“I have here a list of the top cults in the US,” my ex-father-in-law said, as he stood on the altar.
He energetically stepped away from the pulpit, holding a sheet of paper triumphantly above his head and started to read from the list, “Number 1, Latter-day Saints…Number 3, The Church of Scientology…” I began to shift in my seat, suddenly warm under my knee-length skirt and high necked shirt, my uncut hair blanketing the length of my back as I braced myself for what I knew was coming.
“Number 10, United Pentecostal Church!” the congregation whooped in excitement. Calls of “Amen!,” and “Preach!” filled the room as people began to jump and wail, overcome by his proclamation.
In his profoundly charismatic way, he shouted, “If the truth is a cult, then I’m proud to be in a cult!” the howling and shrieking intensified as the musicians took their place on the alter, his voice growing, beckoning us to gather below him.
It was at that moment I realized I was drinking the Kool-Aid.
But I was too scared of what might happen to me if I decided to put down the glass.
When my ex-husband and I separated three years ago, I knew it meant leaving the church. His father is the Pastor and his mother is the Pastor’s wife. There was no choosing a different pew or going to a church in another town. I would be the ex-daughter-in-law of a deacon in the United Pentecostal Church, forever wearing that scarlet D on my chest.
Even though six years’ worth of sermons telling me what evils lurked outside the pentecostal perspective made me fearful for my fate, I knew once I moved out, there was no going back to Pentecostalism.
Although I had spent the prior six years carefully extraditing myself from “the world,” my family and friends never truly left my side. And when I was freed from the grips of extremism, they welcomed me back to reality with open arms.
At the end of the last phone call I had with my ex-mother-in-law, she told me through tears that she would worry about my soul, and her son’s soul, if we divorced.
“I’m not worried about my soul,” I heard myself say with confidence.
And for the first time in six years, I believed it.
I was raised Methodist, but was always drawn to different ideas of making sense of the universe; astrology, reincarnation, psychics, mediums, things we can't explain. And I never doubted the existence of a higher power.
God has just always been there.
My parents' philosophy was that you didn’t need a building to believe in God. They taught me to say my prayers before bed, love and forgive others, be thankful for my blessings and, “God is bigger than the boogie man.”
Our family’s Christian faith played an integral role in my youth. I was baptized, went to Sunday school and in 2006, we found our family’s church home in the First United Methodist Church of Corinth, N.Y. I participated in Vacation Bible School, went to Christian summer camp, attended youth conferences and joined a puppet group.
It was at my first Break Out conference that I felt God for the first time.
The conference was a massive gathering of different youth groups from various Christian denominations in the area, and was held annually in downtown Saratoga Springs.
During my first Break Out, I couldn’t stop smiling. My heart felt so warm, and I was filled with this vaguely familiar, renewing sense of joy and peace.
The event center was packed with teens, listening to a variety of speakers sharing their stories of triumph, overcoming obstacles and chasing dreams. Live bands graced the stage, Christian rock music blared from the speakers. We were invited to dig deeper, redefine our relationship with God and understand that the most important thing we can do in this life is to operate from a place of kindness and love.
I would return home ENERGIZED. Determined to carry the lessons I learned into my daily life, setting a goal to read the bible in a year.
I never met that goal, but I also never beat myself up for it. Each year I read a little more.
And honestly? I wasn’t a fan of it all. Some of it I didn’t understand, and other parts didn't sit right with me.
But some passages brought me peace and helped carry me through some dark times.
Around 16, I stopped attending church regularly.
I found myself walking up the stairs of our church, alone with our puppet troupe's leader. He made an unsurprisingly sexual comment about the shirt I was wearing and made a movement toward my chest. I slapped his hand away and told him not to touch me.
That moment in time jolted me into awareness.
I was flooded with the realization that this grown adult man had been grooming our all-girl puppet group for years. I replayed the conversations about romantic crushes and our bodies, and the “helpful” way he held up our arms while we practiced, subtly grazing the sides of our breasts. I was disgusted, and after our performance that day, I left the group.
A few years later, it came out that this man had done much worse to other members of our group and was removed from the church. He also resigned from his position as a School Resource Officer with the Warren County Sheriff’s Office.
I always on some level knew this experience affected my perception of God and religion. But it wasn’t until I sat down to detail the path that led me to Pentecostalism, that I allowed myself the space to acknowledge the damage he did to my faith.
And I forgive him.
My ex-husband and I met the September after I graduated high school, in an American History class at SUNY Adirondack. We were from the same town but graduated six years apart. His sisters were my mom’s Spanish students, his parents lived in the village and he had an apartment a few blocks away.
I was fascinated by this concept of growing up parallel to each other, and when further connections were revealed, the delusion that I was destined to be "saved" by converting to Pentecostalism was solidified.
Those additional threads of connection were woven between his sisters, me and my mom. They remembered me over a decade after they were my mom’s students, and my mom always remembered them. One had saved a picture of me as a baby, given to her by mom in the 90s, and my mom had saved a birthday card given to me by his other sister.
I always wanted sisters, and those two beautiful souls welcomed me into their fold with open arms. We spent countless hours in deep conversation; I spent my free time with them, having dinners, celebrating birthdays and holidays. For six years, I truly did have two sisters and I don't regret one moment spent with them and their children. They will always hold a special place in my heart.
Prior to focusing on healing myself, I felt like a victim. I held onto the belief that I was tricked into a life of a born-again Christian. But through meditation, therapy, time, perspective, and honest conversations with loved ones, I no longer think that. I know that I chose that life. While fear, conditioning, and psychological tactics assisted my decision to stay, I willingly gave six years of my life to a damaging belief system and relationship.
Three years later, I’m still learning and healing from making that choice.
The relationship with my ex and the relationship with the cult were mutually exclusive. Without the other, I don’t believe either would have survived as long as they did. If I left the cult, I would have to stop attending church, meaning I would be damned to hell for all eternity. I would also be broken up with. If I left the relationship, I would have to disconnect myself from his family whom I adored, my life would be ruined and my soul would burn in hell.
Eternal damnation for those who weren’t saved (baptized in Jesus’ name and received the gift of the Holy Ghost), was a constant subject matter, and the fear of that played a large role in why I chose to stay.
But, including the close relationship with my ex-sisters-in-law, there were some positive elements to the church that made justifying leaving harder.
I loved the worship service, which took place before each sermon. The singers had such powerful and beautiful voices and my ex-father-in-law (a true musical genius) would hop between playing the guitar, piano and saxophone, while the drummer passionately banged on the drums and the bassist enthusiastically sang and strummed.
The music was intoxicating, and I always felt a stirring in my soul that was reminiscent of what I experienced attending youth conferences all those years ago.
It was that feeling and sense of community that made up for the fact I wasn't allowed to cut my hair or wear pants, jewelry or makeup.
It was my blind trust in my ex-father-in-law’s interpretations of the bible that made me believe if I chose a different path for myself, the devil would ruin my life, I would end up destitute and burn in hell. Or, I would experience extreme suffering in this life, causing me to run back to them.
My desire to feel connected to God coupled with my fear of eternal damnation, overpowered my gut screaming to be heard.
My ex-husband wasn’t attracted to me. He never really was. I believe his trauma and conditioning kept him in the relationship as much as mine kept me bound. I was at the heaviest weight of my life and looked 10 years older than I do today when he got the courage to end our marriage. And I am incredibly thankful he did.
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Three years ago today, I knew my marriage was over. I also knew I would no longer be in the church, which terrified me.
Three days after moving home, that terror began to lose some of it's hold over me and I started to believe that maybe I would be okay.
Three years later, I'm more than okay. Fear is no longer my operating system; prayer, meditation, yoga, writing, tarot and Reiki help quell that fear when I feel it start to rise.
I'm no longer angry at the church and I have immense compassion and love for those still in its congregation.
It’s taken me a while to attempt to document this portion of my life, and truthfully, I don’t know if I’ll ever reach a point where I’m not drawing on its influence to help ensure I stay true to myself and grow as a human.
Including, knowing what works for my soul and what doesn’t.
I’m thankful to those youth conferences and worship services for opening me to that feeling of being connected to the Universal energy of love and light. The key difference between now and then, is I can feel that connection on a daily basis. As I type this, my heart is warm and I can’t stop smiling.
Three years later, I’m me again.
Connected to God and to my highest self. I finally understand the words, “God is within you.”
You don’t need dogma to find that, you just need to look inside of yourself and find your God. They are always there.
