Andy Overturner demonstrates that leaving the JA is leaving God

It is hard to credit the naivety of the man, that Andy Overturner was willing to demonstrate on the Sheffield Forum just the sort of language that the JA use when speaking of people who have left the fellowship. I have to admit to having been absolutely delighted because he was so open about it, and even justified it by referring to the fact that Jesus used such language:

"Can't you see your actions validate you being described as a 'snake in the grass', pouncing (perhaps unwittingly, by mere instinct) on vulnerable prey? (Yes, you, not us!)Jesus talked about His opponents as being snakes. And also as wolves, looking for a stray sheep to devour. You have been an opponent of our cause, seeking to keep folk away from us. Shouldn't we warn people to be careful? In words that Jesus has taught us?"

The context of all this, as you can see for yourself on the link, was me describing how unpleasant the JA became towards me because, when someone in the JA had asked me if he could stay with me if he left the JA and I had put him up. They had ignored the fact that I had not led the man away but simply done the decent thing when he had asked, rather desperately, for help.

I had told him that the best bet would be not to run away but go and tell his house leader why he wanted to leave, explain his reasons and try to keep lines of communication friendly...and that if he phoned me, I would then come and collect him. I had gone and seen the House leader, then, myself and said that I had hoped that we would remain friends, accepting that the man had acted on his own volition, not mine.

I think what is so wonderful about Andy's comments is that it demonstrates the fact that he thinks that I could have controlled this man's actions; by implication it shows that he believes that it should be possible for people to be controlled this way and that I should not have helped him leave.

It also demonstrates the fact that leaving the JA is automatically associated in the minds of the JA with leaving God. Why, otherwise, would my helping this man be described as a thief stealing an unguarded sheep?...or as a wolf devouring a vulnerable, stray sheep?...or me as a snake pouncing on vulnerable prey?....all terms which Jesus apparently used of his opponents.

The funny thing is that if I had claimed that they use such language, they'd have denied it. Here we have Andy proudly justifying such behaviour as perfectly reasonable.

When the man asked me to take him in, because he knew he would be leaving the JA penniless, Andy says that I "would have done better to stay out of it altogether". Hard to see how any decent person could have done nothing and left this poor chap with people who imagine they have the right to exert such controls over him.

Flying is the best therapy!

If I could afford it, I'd fly every available bookable hour! That would soon break the compulsion to argue with the JA :) I am flying in the morning, so ought to get to bed. Last weekend's "therapy" worked a treat. You feel so ALIVE up there. Can't wait to get up again. I have three days solid ahead.....wonderful.

Next time anyone tells you they are hooked on anything, tell them to go flying.

Going Flying

ahhhh, sod the lot of 'em! I am shutting down and going flying. I remember Graeme Sincere saying he'd given up flying for the Kingdom and in that instant thinking that flying was something I'd like to have in my life. There is nothing, really NOTHING as liberating!

Two whole days of bimbling around in the sky!

Bliss.

a pointless addiction

The immediacy of the internet has made it too easy for me to allow myself to be drawn into pointless and upsetting fights online, which achieve nothing, except perhaps to give the JA the ongoing conviction that they are persecuted and that this confirms that they are "of Christ". They thrive on the stuff, while it just leaves me feeling depressed.

Why don't I realise, even after years of the ridiculous exchanges, that nobody will ever fall down and admit that I am right, or admit that they are lying etc? Of course they won't; it is idiotic to imagine that any group which believes itself to be the Kingdom of God is going to put aside its pathological need to defend the pearls against the swine and own up to its wrongs.

So, why don't I do what friends advise and get on with the book or out to the garage to finish the van.....all my positive projects which make me feel good about myself? How is the addiction broken. Anyone know?

JA evasions on the Sheffield Forum

My attention was recently drawn to the Sheffield Forum and a thread on it about the JA, which is now an astonishing 39pages long. The most prolific of the JA's posters on the forum is called Circa. He writes intelligently, though rather acerbically in defence of the JA...reminding me of myself rather; I was just as passionate about the JA...and as passionate about what was wrong with it when I left. As with my last posting, I must not hold that passion against anyone. I'd be embarrassed if people now could see what I was like when I was young.

What is most interesting on this particular thread is that it attracts the attention of JAs in a way that JAW has never really succeeded in doing, making them vulnerable to public scrutiny in a way that I am not sure I have ever witnessed before, but as they are not really equipped to think or express themselves freely, as soon as they have said their set-piece, they are quite incapable of doing very much more than repeating themselves....as in my exchange with Mendocino.

What none of them will countenance is being drawn into a consideration of how they would feel if I could prove to them that in the old days people were led to believe that if they left the JA they would lose their salvation; that in the old days all leaving was associated with apostasy and leaving the Kingdom, etc.

The JA posters deny, point-blank, that such things have ever been taught and imply that I am lying and it occurs to me that their indignance and apparent sincerity points to them having been kept in the dark, just as my exchange with Tschaka indicated a couple of years ago. Back then Tschaka was adamant that the lost salvation stuff was heresy and so thought I was saying it to make the JA look bad. He asked around and was surprised to discover through an elder that I hadn't been lying after all. He had the good grace to admit as much to me, all the time insisting that it is not what is taught now, though.

Along with never holding their hands up to actual mistakes made (instead preferring always to trash whoever is making the allegation) the JA, it seems, will never actually admit to having taught heresy in the past....because PR is still far more important to them than truth and honesty.

The current membership are being kept in the dark about past doctrine because if it were more commonly known about (if, for instance, it was openly and arrogantly boasted of by some zealot, as they are rather inclined to do) it would seriously undermine the JA's carefully orchestrated re-modelling into a mainstream evangelical church.

If other churches and even the JA's own members knew that in my day the JA was said to be the Kingdom of God and that leaving them led to damnation, that other churches were "the form without the power" and that other churches were only ever blessed because they got splashed by the overflow of God's blessing on the JA, it could very well lead to a serious crisis comparable with their earlier exclusion from the Evangelical Alliance.

All of which explains why the JA, having put in a passionate appearance on the thread, are very evasive indeed when it comes to discussing how they would feel if I proved my claims about the JA's heretical past.

Maybe I should be more tolerant of other survivors

When I worked in a Christian bookshop, I remember being told off for endlessly banging on about the JA. Getting out and getting through all that was the biggest thing that had happened to me...and I needed to work it through in my head and talk it out, over and over...so much so, that I bored everyone to tears with it - especially my poor, long-suffering girlfriend, Gill.

I was preoccupied with it for several years: talking to the press, Newsnight etc, attending conferences, being invited to talk to the Samaritans etc about cults etc...and inevitably, my point of view was very one-sided. I didn't have it in me to see the good in the JA...and certainly would not have stood up for them, as I did for Noel, for instance, when one critic accused him of covering up paedophilia in the JA, etc. But you mellow with the years and when other issues in your life eclipse the old ones.

I should probably remember that other survivors will not have yet processed all their sh1t, and maybe I should be more tolerant than I am at times, particularly on JAW, where my attempts to balance things get me into hot water with very angry people.

I have had a correspondence with an ardent ex-JA Christian, recently (via hotmail), who said she didn't think she could trust me with her story because of my stance on sex outside marriage. I said that I wasn't particularly anxious to hear her story if she wasn't comfortable telling me it, but took issue with her suggesting that I am untrustworthy just because I don't think sex is immoral. She chided me for my pride in thinking I am good, etc. I thought all sorts of unchristian things then, which is my prerogative as an evil backslider ;) ....but I have been there. I was an evangelical christian for years after the JA, so maybe I need to be more christian in how I view people who are obviously still a bit unhinged after their JA experiences. This poor lady, for instance, believes that a brother told her by telepathy that he loved her, before she was then very badly treated by the brethren.

We are all at different stages in our post-JA evolutions. The survivors should, perhaps, remember that and help carry the surviving, even if it means having to put up with their self-righteous crap. God knows, we remember what it was to be just as boring, obsessive, angry and unbalanced. I know I would be desperately embarrassed to meet the intense young man I was when I worked in that christian bookshop.

John agrees but does not concede

John stresses that he has conceded nothing; he felt it very important to stress that point. He had asserted that people must achieve concensus before editing. I had impressed on him the fact that actually anyone can edit without seeking approval from anybody else and after some to-and-froing he finally agreed that what I asserted was so, but he wants it clearly understood that he has made no concessions.

Is that clear? ;)

Latest concession frees everyone to contribute to the JA article

John Campbell has now conceded that there is nothing to stop anybody editing the Jesus Army article without first discussing planned changes with other editors and seeking consensus. I am hoping to get John's reassurance that he will not "revert" edits he disapproves of until a period of time has been given to any editor to justify his or her edit.

This is a substantial change. It is more in the spirit of Wikipedia than the process that John, Rumiton and I had to go through to bring stability to the article. A number of people have expressed their disappointment with the article that was produced by this "committe-style" process, and hopefully will be able to bring about changes now which will make the article more representative of the JA many of us know, and which has not yet been reflected in the article.

My thanks to Gramby for comments which kick-started this change of approach.

The neutral observer's perspective on the wiki article

Given Wikipedia's emphasis on the "neutral" point of view, it was interesting to get the POV of someone who had never come across the JA before a day or so ago, and then only a reference in someone's blog, which made him curious and made him consult wikipedia. Calling himself Gramby, he commented on the discussion page that the article seemed to have been sanitised, to be no more than a "fluff" piece promoting the JA. Reading the negotiations had in turn led him to the conclusion that John Campbell was vetting all the content of the article and using the wikipedia rules to stop sincere editors having a voice.

His comments put me on the spot a bit because I have a potentially invidious relationship with John, where, in the interests of the stability of the article, we communicate with each other and attempt to co-moderate the page. It is a questionable compromise and I am starting to question my role in it.

I may have let myself be too easily bullied by wikipedia zealots with a better handle than me on wikipedia's rules, into giving too much ground. That would not have happened if I had taken the trouble to read the wiki rules with sufficient care. From Gramby's comments I have realised that I have probably yielded too easily on the subject of verifiable sources, which need not be exclusively academic but can include respected news media. I used very few media sources, giving up my right to cite many others. Tabloids, for instance, may be less desirable than broadsheets, but they are still verifiable sources.

For the last couple of days John Campbell has been uncontactable and I would be reluctant to move until I have given him the chance to comment on Gramby's observations, but I do think Gramby is right and that editors must be assumed to be in good faith when they attempt to make changes to an article which we all know is a compromise which very largely covers up those aspects, past and present, which embarrass the JA. There has been a tendency for editors who have made changes without clearing them with others (in discussion) to be treated as vandals and disruptive elements. Reference has even been made to "potential disruption" or "vandalism" in the edit summaries. Why should any editor clear anything with me or John first? I would even question the right to include an insistence that edits be discussed first.

Negotiation and building relationships with people whose interests are contrary to your own is a very tricky business and involves "give and take" and it seems that I may have given rather too much. It may be time for me to be less of a school prefect on wikipedia and to hope that others will be enboldened to make some brave edits.

I apologise to anyone who has been frustrated in their efforts to make edits, if I have come across as a patsy, seemingly defending the JA's position by defending the stability of the article. If you read the history of the negotiated re-write, you may get a perspective on why I felt it was necessary to attempt to maintain a status quo. I hope you will get a sense of just how hard I fought to include facts which would shed a more revealing light on the JA, but which ultimately could be excluded using the perverse wiki rules of evidence.

Please appreciate that there is a lot in what is now in place which can be read between the lines, or which is very subtle and which would have been totally excluded if compromise had not been possible. My rationale has been in all this, that it is all very well being bold in what you put in, but there is not much point if it then gets immediately removed (reverted). Achieving a compromise that all can live with will mean that the edit will be allowed to stand.

JA membership is a stumbling-block for the faithful

It may seem a funny thing for an atheist to say, but re-reading the last posting made me realise that membership of the JA is a stumbling-block for people who believe.

When I was there we used to say that Christians outside who had not met us would be under grace, but that anyone who met us and did not answer the calling to the kingdom (which we thought was inevitable because we were THE kingdom) would be under judgement.

The irony of this twisted way of looking at things is that in a sense quite the opposite is true. Here and on JAW we have talked about people who leave the JA and lose their faith. I have suggested that the reason for it is not that leavers are bad people or even wilfully rejecting God, but simply that the JA way of couching the faith creates a natural intellectual and psychological block for anyone who leaves.

Christians I met over the years who asked why I had lost my faith all conclude that after experiencing the JA it was perhaps inevitable that I'd be sickened by Christianity. As it happens, I was a Christian afterwards for about 5 years. But in a sense they are right I think: the JA brand of Christianity is a stumblingblock to faith in Christ or trust in other Christians.

Perhaps the JA were right after all; those who had not met them WERE under grace.