I have always believed, as a critic of the Jesus Army, that if I was to have an impact on JA members they had to be able to recognise the truth in things that I said, even if they might never be able to admit it either to themselves or to me. Recognising the truth would make it possible for them to consider the points I raised, which I felt arose from those mutually accepted facts.
To do that I have attempted over the years not to use vocabulary which puts a negative spin on things that happened in the JA. For instance, I never use the word brainwash or ever claim to have been forced to do anything against my will. I try to avoid casting in a negative light anything which I would, at the time, have accepted as reasonable. Maybe I am lucky in that the objections I have to the fellowship are to things which I militated against as a member; I am fortunate that I did not suffer as badly as some others. I never experienced anything which I did not think was well intentioned, if misguided.
Some however claim to have been abused in the JA, and from what I do know of the JA, I have no doubt that they have indeed been very badly treated, but have taken issue recently with the use of the word abuse, particularly when it has been made clear that they were not harmed physically or sexually. This is an issue which has exercised me recently, as I have been involved in a very public spat with someone who speaks freely of having been abused as a child (pre-JA) and of having subsequently been abused in the JA, though I know from private correspondence that whatever she experienced in the JA was not sexual in nature.
I take issue with people using words like "abuse" when criticising the JA (especially when in the same posts they refer to sexual abuse in her past) because the casual and unqualified use of the word seems calculated to smear the JA, as readers will be left with the impression that child abuse etc is what is implied. What makes me most angry about this is that such people know that readers will automatically assume that they are referring to sexual or physical abuse and they deliberately leave it vague so that the JA will suffer the greatest measure of suspicion as a result.
It is disingenuous of them to say that all abuse is abuse (as if a harsh word is as severe as rape) and that they are not explicitly saying that the abuse is sexual. It is downright misleading if they later concede that the abuse was "spiritual", given that it is on a secular forum and that most people do not recognise the existence of spiritual abuse anyway.....let alone automatically infer it. If they mean bullying, maybe that is the word they should use and not abuse at all.
One has attempted to say that I am in some way defending the abuse which she says goes on in the JA or that I am accusing her of lying. This reminds me of the time that I did indeed defend Noel Stanton from the allegation that he protected paedophiles; that too was an allegation designed to cause the JA maximum damage without being founded on any evidence at all, and that too led to me being accused of defending "abuse" in the JA. It is the kind of unsophisticated sophistry you tend to get from the shrill people on some forums.
Of course I do not support abuse of any kind. And I am not actually defending the JA, as such. I am defending a principle. Describing bullying of adults as being on a par with the abuse of children is foolish and appears to degrade the seriousness of child abuse. Further, misleading language makes it hard to reach people we want to help in the JA.
As I am a member of a profession which has to deal not only with children suffering from real abuse, but also with children and their parents who use the paranoia around abuse to make malicious allegations against teachers, TAs, social workers etc in order to punish them for doing their jobs, I take this kind of thing very seriously. You almost never hear of conscientious children making malicious allegations of abuse; it will almost always be disruptive kids who can't get their own way, who strike back by accusing adults in school of something - because they want to hurt them. This has devastating consequences for these dedicated professionals, many of whose careers are permanently ruined, even the lucky few who are eventually exonerated. So, when I see people using words like abuse, people who know that readers will assume that sexual abuse is implied and readers who have probably never even heard of "spiritual" abuse, it makes my blood boil.
If genuine abuse takes place in the JA, social services and the police need to be brought in immediately. Anyone who talks of abuse in the JA but who has not alerted the authorities must be assumed to be muck-raking in order to cause maximum damage.
Anyone who says they are accusing the JA of abuse in order to help the victims of abuse is just not being honest. The way to stop abuse if you know it is going on is to call in the authorties and really get something done, especially post Baby P, when child services etc will be falling over backwards to be seen to be doing everything possible to protect children.
If however, you are not talking about child sexual abuse, it is morally reprehensible not to make that perfectly clear. Almost nobody has ever heard of spititual abuse, whatever the heck that is, but if that is what this person means, that is what she should say....and as nobody knows what it is, she should spell it out....not leave it entirely vague.
Language is powerful stuff. It must be handled carefully.
Why? Because if we want the members of the JA reading it to feel that someone is arguing their corner (with the possibility that people will be emboldened to leave) they have to be able to recognise what we say as representative. I am pretty confident that most would say that they are having a rough time of it, prehaps even a truly horrendous time, but very much doubt that they will think, "I am being abused".
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
Friday, 7 November 2008
If you can do no more good, go flying!
Clearly the JA will not answer for the past, not publically anyway. But as those who remember the past carefully avoid the public spotlight and are defended by people who weren't even around back then, and who have had the past carefully guarded even from them, perhaps nobody should be susprised.
And if those zealots defending the JA don't know of its past offenses and are genuinely indignant about the criticisms they are defending their church from, does that not perhaps suggest that the church has changed? I'd like to think so.
I think that my unfortunate recent experience of the JA was down to the house elder, who had joined his house church to the JA, being so determined to be a hardliner in order to impress the centralist elders; hard-liners of the original, unreformed JA. His need to be seen to be the big man cost the JA's new reputation. But it can perhaps be seen as exceptional behaviour?
It would always cause me concern that new elders recognise the hard-line centralists as the people to impress and that the leaders who date back to the JA's more cultic days are still in charge...principally Noel Stanton and Mick "Temperate" Haines(Noel's Timothy).....but right now I don't feel there is a lot of point being a critic.
In the past I always saw to it that what I wrote could be recognised as the truth by ordinary members, who would be challenged to think, "Yes, I see where Peter Eveleigh is coming from. I don't agree, but I need to think about how to answer that criticism, because if I can't, maybe he has a point."
But when current JA's first response to anything I say is one of disbelief and is coupled to a sense that I must be lying out of some sense of bitterness which has lasted twenty-plus years, I have no chance of being a force for good. The remodelling of the JA has clearly been very effective but with the pre-reform elders still in charge, I am afraid that some way down the line the young or new members will discover that actually the warnings I have been given were justified. Fortunately for them, there are lots of support groups, etc, and though they won't see it now, having forums like the Sheffield one will give them a way of making contacts. And if that is all that so-called "discussion" forum has become, well that is not such a bad thing.
So, for now anyway, I am going flying.
And if those zealots defending the JA don't know of its past offenses and are genuinely indignant about the criticisms they are defending their church from, does that not perhaps suggest that the church has changed? I'd like to think so.
I think that my unfortunate recent experience of the JA was down to the house elder, who had joined his house church to the JA, being so determined to be a hardliner in order to impress the centralist elders; hard-liners of the original, unreformed JA. His need to be seen to be the big man cost the JA's new reputation. But it can perhaps be seen as exceptional behaviour?
It would always cause me concern that new elders recognise the hard-line centralists as the people to impress and that the leaders who date back to the JA's more cultic days are still in charge...principally Noel Stanton and Mick "Temperate" Haines(Noel's Timothy).....but right now I don't feel there is a lot of point being a critic.
In the past I always saw to it that what I wrote could be recognised as the truth by ordinary members, who would be challenged to think, "Yes, I see where Peter Eveleigh is coming from. I don't agree, but I need to think about how to answer that criticism, because if I can't, maybe he has a point."
But when current JA's first response to anything I say is one of disbelief and is coupled to a sense that I must be lying out of some sense of bitterness which has lasted twenty-plus years, I have no chance of being a force for good. The remodelling of the JA has clearly been very effective but with the pre-reform elders still in charge, I am afraid that some way down the line the young or new members will discover that actually the warnings I have been given were justified. Fortunately for them, there are lots of support groups, etc, and though they won't see it now, having forums like the Sheffield one will give them a way of making contacts. And if that is all that so-called "discussion" forum has become, well that is not such a bad thing.
So, for now anyway, I am going flying.
Saturday, 18 October 2008
In a nutshell, what admissions from the JA would satisfy me?
Circa's comment that there would never be any terms which would satisfy me made me wonder what three admissions would make me willing to let go. I think in essence, these three would do it:
1.
In the past the Jesus Fellowhip taught openly and without shame, self-conciousness or embarrassment that they were the Kingdom of God on Earth and called themselves Zion. They regarded all other christian churches as worldly, compromising, backslidden, uncommitted etc. They believed that such Christians lived under grace alone and that the only excuse such people had for not being in Zion (in the JFC) too was the fact that they had not met the JFC. They believed that any person who met the JFC but did not join it, must be judged by God as disobeying the call to covenant community.
2
Any person who left the JFC was said to be en-route for apostasy, that leaving the fellowship was not merely leaving one church with the possibility of going to another, but was actually an act of rebellion against God and that such people must be judged by God accordingly; judged for breaking their life-long covenants. Noel taught unselfconsciously about people who left committing the sin against the Holy Spirit, with the danger that in the moment of rebellion that person risked God not only never being able to forgive them (the sinner having committed the unforgivable sin), but actually actively hardening their hearts against Him, himself. People who left, even if they claimed to be leaving with their faith intact, were encouraged to believe that they would forever live as spiritual orphans who would never find their spiritual homes. Some of us were even told that if we became sick, we would not recover because we would not have the covering of God.
3
People like me who spoke out about the JFC had some really horrible lies made up about us in order to blacken our reputations among people who might otherwise believe us. One sympathetic member of the press (now a very highly admired author and correspondent for the New Statesman, The Observer etc) rang me after doing a piece on the JA to advise me that they had suggested to him that I had been forced to leave the fellowship for trying to have sex with under-age members!
That was probably their worst mistake in dealing with me, for far from making me afraid to speak out, it made me more certain than before what sort of people I was dealing with; and more sure of just how spooked they must be by my efforts. Noel rang my minister and told him I was mentally unstable and unreliable. As I have said before, a sister was contacted this year and told that every churchman in her town would be contacted and told she was a treacherous jezebel. We are always painted as bitter misfits who never fitted in, who were always trouble-makers etc, even though two fellow critics in the 1980s had been elders and had lived in fellowship for many years.So, there you go. In essence, I would be satisfied if there was an admission that in the past the JA regarded itself as the Kingdom of God, that people feared losing their salvations if they left and that those of us who spoke out were blackened with the sorts of lies that could easily have destroyed weaker people.
Perhaps the scale of the things that trouble me most about the JA will help put in perspective just why leaving the fellowship had such a life-affecting impact on me, and why it is hard for me to let go.
1.
In the past the Jesus Fellowhip taught openly and without shame, self-conciousness or embarrassment that they were the Kingdom of God on Earth and called themselves Zion. They regarded all other christian churches as worldly, compromising, backslidden, uncommitted etc. They believed that such Christians lived under grace alone and that the only excuse such people had for not being in Zion (in the JFC) too was the fact that they had not met the JFC. They believed that any person who met the JFC but did not join it, must be judged by God as disobeying the call to covenant community.
2
Any person who left the JFC was said to be en-route for apostasy, that leaving the fellowship was not merely leaving one church with the possibility of going to another, but was actually an act of rebellion against God and that such people must be judged by God accordingly; judged for breaking their life-long covenants. Noel taught unselfconsciously about people who left committing the sin against the Holy Spirit, with the danger that in the moment of rebellion that person risked God not only never being able to forgive them (the sinner having committed the unforgivable sin), but actually actively hardening their hearts against Him, himself. People who left, even if they claimed to be leaving with their faith intact, were encouraged to believe that they would forever live as spiritual orphans who would never find their spiritual homes. Some of us were even told that if we became sick, we would not recover because we would not have the covering of God.
3
People like me who spoke out about the JFC had some really horrible lies made up about us in order to blacken our reputations among people who might otherwise believe us. One sympathetic member of the press (now a very highly admired author and correspondent for the New Statesman, The Observer etc) rang me after doing a piece on the JA to advise me that they had suggested to him that I had been forced to leave the fellowship for trying to have sex with under-age members!
That was probably their worst mistake in dealing with me, for far from making me afraid to speak out, it made me more certain than before what sort of people I was dealing with; and more sure of just how spooked they must be by my efforts. Noel rang my minister and told him I was mentally unstable and unreliable. As I have said before, a sister was contacted this year and told that every churchman in her town would be contacted and told she was a treacherous jezebel. We are always painted as bitter misfits who never fitted in, who were always trouble-makers etc, even though two fellow critics in the 1980s had been elders and had lived in fellowship for many years.So, there you go. In essence, I would be satisfied if there was an admission that in the past the JA regarded itself as the Kingdom of God, that people feared losing their salvations if they left and that those of us who spoke out were blackened with the sorts of lies that could easily have destroyed weaker people.
Perhaps the scale of the things that trouble me most about the JA will help put in perspective just why leaving the fellowship had such a life-affecting impact on me, and why it is hard for me to let go.
Monday, 13 October 2008
Saturday, 11 October 2008
Secondary Sources found to support claims about cult lists
See wiki for the new section on the finding of two secondary sources which confirm the existence of CIC and FAIR, in the former of which John Campbell is actually quoted as denying what the CIC are saying. The latter (about FAIR) is a book which I think John has successfully cited himself (certainly the author is), so he won't want to discredit this one. And since the tone of the quote from Chryssides is pro-JA, John will have trouble arguing that it is a bit of anti-cult polemic.
Many thanks to Mike Aldrich.
Many thanks to Mike Aldrich.
You judge for yourself - are the JA "mainstream"?
Following pressure from me to include an edit on the wikipedia article about the JA that acknowledged that the JA is regarded by some as a cult, John replaced one I had put about the CIC, setting that allegation against an academic article that gives the impression that at the same time, others regard them now as mainstream.
John wrote:
"Despite the entry of the Jesus Army into the charismatic mainstream[18], the church continued to attract a range of views[19] and anti-cult groups like the Cult Information Centre, FAIR and Reachout Trust still included the Jesus Army on their lists.[citation needed]"
But having put it, in order to nullify my claim about the cult organisations, he is using wiki rules to push for the complete removal of the allegation from the article. I am pretty sure the paragraph will disappear any minute now.
We discussed this here. On the issue of the "citation needed" to back the allegation about the JA's cultism, here is what was said.
My feeling, as you can see from the discussion, is that wikipedia rules are being used to suppress the truth, rather than to document it. I am not sure I agree with John Campbell's interpretation of rules of evidence, but he is clearly not going to let this go, and anything I add to the article will just be "reverted" anyway. It is John's full time job responding to people like me. I don't have the time or inclination to fight this endlessly.
By leaving these links here I want to leave it to you, the reader, to decide whether the JA are just grasping at whatever straw will allow them to suppress the fact that they are regarded by a lot of people as a cult and are not, as they would have us believe, now just part of the Christian mainstream.
John wrote:
"Despite the entry of the Jesus Army into the charismatic mainstream[18], the church continued to attract a range of views[19] and anti-cult groups like the Cult Information Centre, FAIR and Reachout Trust still included the Jesus Army on their lists.[citation needed]"
But having put it, in order to nullify my claim about the cult organisations, he is using wiki rules to push for the complete removal of the allegation from the article. I am pretty sure the paragraph will disappear any minute now.
We discussed this here. On the issue of the "citation needed" to back the allegation about the JA's cultism, here is what was said.
My feeling, as you can see from the discussion, is that wikipedia rules are being used to suppress the truth, rather than to document it. I am not sure I agree with John Campbell's interpretation of rules of evidence, but he is clearly not going to let this go, and anything I add to the article will just be "reverted" anyway. It is John's full time job responding to people like me. I don't have the time or inclination to fight this endlessly.
By leaving these links here I want to leave it to you, the reader, to decide whether the JA are just grasping at whatever straw will allow them to suppress the fact that they are regarded by a lot of people as a cult and are not, as they would have us believe, now just part of the Christian mainstream.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
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.
"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.
Friday, 3 October 2008
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.
Next time anyone tells you they are hooked on anything, tell them to go flying.
Saturday, 27 September 2008
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.
Two whole days of bimbling around in the sky!
Bliss.
Thursday, 25 September 2008
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?
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?
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