Scientology documentary like GCI

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[Loro]

I helped start 2 churches and was in GCI for over 20 years.  I left in 2003 after a divorce and went to a Evangelical church. After getting remarried, my former pastor told the church to shun me. He never told me or warned me. He then told me I was not allowed to attend my daughters wedding that year.
After watching the A&E documentary on the cult of Scientology I realized how similar the two churches are.
They lie, discredit and shun anyone who challenges their authority.

[Janet Easson Martin]

Welcome Loro!  Thank you so much for speaking OUT about the spiritual abuses you experienced with GCI/GCx personally.  

I am so sorry that this was done to you.  How dare they!  Who do they think they are to mandate you to keep away from your own daughter's wedding!!  I know first hand of similar stories about parents of children in GCx. Obviously you are not making uneducated, unfounded, or impulsive claims.  You were there for twenty years and were familiar with their ways.  Thank you for testifying that the GCx organization did INDEED audaciously practice the abusive and destructive control mechanism of DISCONNECTION in their people's lives.  In the process, they likely used the same audacity to LABEL you as a DEVISIVE PERSON and strongly persuaded others to treat you as an "enemy", including your own family!

You have given A VOICE to the victims of GCx who have suffered similar destruction and pain.  God hears the crying out of his children who suffer under this insidious OPPESSION and sends his angels to act on their behalf.  

As we have seen and heard about ourselves (who testify here about the abusive practices of GCx), it seems you also along with us and many others have had erroneous and very dishonoring implications or "stories" spread by GCx about our character in an effort to take away the validity of our actual claims.

I agree that their methods of control were similarly EVIL to those used in Scientology (as exposed by Leah Remini on the current A&E series 'Aftermath') to manipulate its followers!  These methods seem more obviously appalling to others when they are implemented in a cultic religion.  Why aren't they recognized as even more abhorrent when they are used by a church group like GCx that claims Jesus as its leader?  

Wasn't it Larry Pile or Paul Martin who rightly labeled GCx as a Totally Abhorrent Christian Organization?!

So glad you brought this 'Aftermath' series to our attention. It has been quite revealing to see and hear the destruction that greedy power and deceitful manipulation have inflicted.  It seems very helpful to view the harmful oppression especially from outside this group.  It is easier to identify and acknowledge such abusive methods when you are looking from the outside in, then it is when you are inside the captivity and deception and vehemently condemned to look outside it. As we have experienced in GCx, members are strongly warned not to listen to outsiders' opinions of their group, especially those once inside who saw the abuse and left.

I encourage any to watch it, because it is an opportunity to view 'DISCONNECTION' and 'LABELING AS ENEMIES' practices by a group from the outside in.  Though it may be hidden from you by the suppression of actual conversations and events GCx leadership has with those questioning or critical of its controlling practices, it is a very REAL experience that has been HUSHED by GCx for over 40 years. Many testimonies spanning the entire history of GCx from its beginnings until NOW tell their very real stories here, some for the first time.  This website represents just a small portion of the AFTERMATH those once in the ranks of GCx have suffered.  

[Loro]

Thank you so much to responding and believing me. One woman who was shunned was in a mental institution at the time of her shunning. Her husband was into pornography and going to strip clubs but he was felt sorry for. She went into a mental home and began cutting herself because of his sin got close to another male patient at their then elder publicly shunned her. When she went to another evangelical church in town the elder called that pastor to "warn" him about her. What kind of evil person does that.
 

[Janet Easson Martin]

Perhaps an evil person who is desperately fearful that she will tell her story and be believed.  Perhaps that the truth will be known and that he would be exposed as abusing God's sheep rather than caring for them. 

Father in Heaven, we ask right now that you minister to this hurting woman and show her your TRUE LOVE through other spirit-filled believers.  We ask that she feel lifted up in your arms and see you as carrying her.  We ask that she would learn more deeply and solidly how MUCH you care for her.  Make her so confident in your attention to her every need.  Bring your justice to your people.  In Jesus' Name.

[margaret]

Loro, I've been watching Leah Remini's series on Scientology too, and have also seen some parallels. However, because I left long after you, I didn't experience the shunning that you did.  I'm so sorry you went through that. It's horrific.
After 30 years in, and being told what to think, say, feel, and do, it's hard now, after several years out, to do those things for myself.  I wish you strength and confidence.

[Loro]

Thank you Margret for your words of kindness. Thankfully now I am in a great church with pastors of integrity and accountability. But the pain is still very deep.

[lovebombed]

I've been watching a lot of these documentaries lately about cults. I saw one about the jesus family or some such out in California in the 1970s that promised beautiful people doing fun stuff and guitars and bonfires and good food. I'm totally convinced that if I had been there, at the same age and stage and life experience as I had been when I encountered gcm, I would have joined- and the same for the hair krishnas or the moonies or prob even Scientology. The things they offered are similar enough to what I was offered with gcm  that I would have been susceptible.  

[Janet Easson Martin]

I was sort of disgusted that some of the same abusive principles practiced in Scientology (based on the documentary, "Aftermath"  by Leah Remini) to control it's people were also used by GCx, an aberrant Christian organization, though often to a lesser degree, but not always.  I say abusive in that it practiced LORDING IT OVER or Extreme Authority, DISCONNECTION or Shunning, and LABELING those confronting the abuse AS ENEMIES.

The audacity and outrageousness of those in charge of this religious organization (in this "Aftermath" documentary) became quite clear.  The focus of people's lives became myopic.  Almost every person said they became trapped by fear of looking outside or beyond.  Honest questions were viewed as criticism and the organization's response was bullying and slander! They were shamed into never investigating the organization on their own.  They were told it was evil to do so and considered a "crime".  Instead, they allowed themselves to be judged, labeled and accused by such leaders.  

Isn't it quite STRANGE and ALARMING that a church like GCx, that claims Jesus as it's leader, should impose these same abuses on it's people!!!

It seems apparent that most any onlooker would view the accounts of those people once "trapped" in the Scientology organization as SHOCKING!  Therefore, should we be surprised that onlookers would find APPALLING the accounts being shared of GCx leadership and it's use of these same tactics!



 

[Janet Easson Martin]

"Ask Me Anything #2"

It is quite educational and eye opening watching the very revealing responses to "Aftermath" on Leah Remini's "Ask Me Anything #2".  It will probably air several times.  The commentary that is key to us, who have been or are being abusively manipulated in the GCx organization, is Steve Hassan's calling out the controlling behaviors that are common among cults.  Please ask yourself if any of those control tactics were or have been used in your GCx church?  Think and pray about those matters.

A key journalist recalls what we know deep down in our soul.  Trustworthy church organizations are open and honest about their history, core beliefs, actual methods and practices.  Those that aren't have much to hide, which likely includes keeping harmful secrets about their manipulation and abuse of authority.  

Praise God, he has made a way here for so many of those shameful secrets of GCX's appalling manipulation to be told.  He has led others to create a platform on which these victims may finally speak out. Hopefully it has been healing and they have been given encouragement and support.  Through their voice others are freed from false condemnation, guilt, and slander, and from the sly captivity of GCx itself.

We shouldn't have to see a cult documentary like this to open our eyes to spiritually abusive behaviors.  We should be made aware of the many passages in scripture that so desperately warn us.  After we're awakened to it's existence among us, we should take the Bible's advice and flee.  We can turn our eyes and hopes toward the REAL God who can and will heal and lead us.