just read the Henke meeting excommunication doc...

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[boboso]

It was flatly disturbing how much of that conversation happened again just a year ago with us. It shows how nothing has really changed and it is just as big of a cult today as it was 20 years ago.

The "leadership" attitude was arrogant, condescending, pompous, self-righteous, and outright filthy. When anyone brought up a reasonable point, they were immediately marginalized and told to sit down and shut up. The women were treated with such disrespect.

The analogy of the parent/child relationship was just awful.  The immediate assumption is that the "children" in the church couldn't possibly have their own relationship with God without the "leadership" filter. Clearly, they didn't regard adults as adults and arrogantly assumed to corner the market on Christianity. That's right, the 20-yr old "elders" know better than everyone else. This can't be more wrong.

This document really upsets me as so much of it is in place today. I could remember several conversations going this way just last year. Just sickening.

[puff of purple smoke]

Thanks for sharing.

My main observation with the Henke and Taylor excommunication transcripts, in comparison with today, is how open they were about their wacky beliefs back then, even going so far as to tape it. They were unashamed. Today they try to cover up what they believe from outsiders while at the same time still believing it, and instead of publicly excommunicating, try to get people to "just leave" as silently as possible. Would you agree? Or in your experience were they as brazenly open about what they were doing to you as they were when they excommunicated Gary Henke?

[boboso]

As you said, they were not as overt to begin with -- however, when we started getting to know the "leaders", they tried to get us to drink some of the kool-aid.

We did have an ex-communication happen during our tour, and they (as expected) sought to ensure everyone had buy-in on it. No, there was no vote, there was no discussion, we all just had to agree. I didn't know enough detail, but was shocked to hear about it and was instructed to have nothing to do with this guy. Sadly, I didn't see him since.

After they had approached me about being a "leader" and I denied it due to the craziness I started to notice, I was then told (within a month) that I was unteachable and then told I was causing some division. Real consistent. I didn't change anything about what I was doing before but I think they were paranoid as they couldn't believe anyone would not want to be a part of "leadership". I then told the pastor that I didn't think he was qualified to be an elder either and then it really went downhill.

In a nutshell, they were quiet until they exposed themselves enough to where they had no choice. They were not as overt as the guys in the past, but they sure did use the same sledgehammers.