Non-Believer Former Members of the Worldwide Church of God

I’m glad to have found your site.

I was in WCG from birth in 1977 to 1994 when I was “disfellowshiped”.  I didn’t realize at the time that it was the best thing that could have happened to me.

We started in the Church in Roanoke, VA.  My father would go sporadically but my mother, grandmother, grandfather, sister and I attended regularly.  I remember the things everyone else remembers – weekly Sabbath and Wednesday night Bible Study, and the activity books you would get when you were little (they taught the 10 commandments and you had to memorize stuff like the 12 Tribes of Israel).  Being very small and not having the critical thinking skills, I accepted the Church and those in it whole-heartedly.  I can even remember being very sick when I was little and my mother withholding medicine (she was a nurse by the way).  The Pastor anointed me with oil and after a while I got better.  I remember proclaiming, “Mama, God healed me!”

My parents divorced when I was 5 and my mother later remarried when I was 7. She was still attending church but her new husband did not.  She was suspended for 6 weeks since he was an outsider.  My mother remained loyal and although we barely had money for food or a functioning car she still gave all of her tithes.  We later moved to FL where I attended church at the Melbourne and Cape Coral/Ft. Myers locations.  I was involved in YOU youth group and SEP (summer educational program). Like many others on this page, my mother ruled with an iron fist and believed that any misstep on my part warranted physical enforcement (in our house the 6th Commandment of Honoring your Father and Mother was spouted between lashes).  I remember the things I went without – Christmas, birthdays, swine, makeup, Friday night football games and boys that were not affiliated with the church.  The irony of the latter is as I got older, the boys that attended WCG were actually worse!

When I was 17 I finally couldn’t take my mother’s physical and mental abuse. I moved out of her house and into my boyfriend’s parents house (I had my own room).  I remember her telling everyone that I ran away and was living in sin.  The Deacon and another member of the Church came to my new residence, wanting to know what had happened.  I went through the whole story and even showed them the room that was mine to assure them it was not as tawdry as they had been told.  It was obvious they had no interest in my side of the story and I was told that I was setting a bad example for the rest of the teens in the Church and couldn’t come back until I went back home.  I remember being devastated – I probably needed the guidance of the Church more at that time than ever.

My sadness eventually turned into anger.  Shortly after my departure, the Church had its schism and my mother stopped attending.  I went off to college realizing how much I had missed and trying to pack those lost years into 4 fairly self-destructive years of school.  Like others on this site, I have issues with being told what to do and find myself being very angry when I feel like I don’t have control of a situation.  No doubt a result of my WCG upbringing.  The irony of all of this is as my mother went through her second divorce she began to turn to a new mechanism to control her life – drugs.  Some might say its because she turned her back on God.  In my opinion, God turned his back on her.

I no longer find comfort in religion.  I spent too many years believing that mainstream Christianity was wrong and as I admitted above, I’m too stubborn (or feel like a fraud) to explore it now.  This is just one more thing the WCG took from me.

Jessica (Fainter)       

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 3:23 pm and is filed under Personal Story. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments must be approved by the moderator before they will appear.