Brian J. Magee
Washington DC, USA
bjmagee3@bellsouth.net
My memories of the WCG are vague and fragmented because my family left the church in 1974 when I was only 12 years old. I have recently starting reading through the various sites on the web about the WCG and have learned many things I didn’t know at the time. Being so young, I would not have known many of these sordid events. I didn’t know anything very negative at all until my parents allowed me to watch that apparently famous 60 Minutes broadcast shortly thereafter. But that is all I really knew until recently.
I do have memories of the various teachings…no trinity, the return-of-Christ predictions, food restrictions, Saturday sabbath, no birthday celebrations, no Christmas, etc. To this day no one in my family celebrates birthdays. Sometimes I even forget the birthdays of my family members, even my own sometimes. I have no idea when the birthdays of any of my friends come up. It is just something that I never thought about as a kid, and can’t bring myself to think about now. Others in my family have tried to do a more traditional Christmas in recent years, but it never really took hold.
Another memory is the topic of Ambassador College coming up a great deal, but no real details except once during a sermon. The preacher was describing a carpet in a new building as looking like "someone had stood from above and dumped jewels on it." I don’t know why I remember that.
I specifically remember getting weird looks from the Jewish kids at school when I was eating matzos at lunch during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. I also remember a rather odd meeting with school officials telling them I would not be in school during the Feast of Tabernacles. They couldn’t understand why I would be gone for so long. Being members of the Washington, D.C. church, over the years we went to the Poconos site and the site at Jekyll Island. One memory of a comment my father made when in Jekyll Island for the third for fourth time comes to mind. He stated that it seemed unfair that the longer someone was in the church the further away from the meeting tent our hotel was located. We didn’t even get to stay on the island the last time we went.
Another memory comes from a meeting my parents had set up with the minister where he never showed up at the house. I believe it was a meeting to go over the family budget. I was sent outside to meet his car and show him where to park, but he never came. After reading what’s out there on the web, the meeting must have been as a result of the many requests by the church for more money. I have since learned that my parents took out at least one extra mortgage on the house to give the money to the church. My parents resent that to this day, I believe, but really don’t like to talk about it, or anything about the church really.
Although now I am an atheist, most of my childhood memories of the church are not bad. I remember being taken on trips as a member of the "Pre-Teen Club." I also was looking forward to becoming a member of the "Teen Club," but we left the church shortly before my 13th birthday. For a few years after I tried to latch on to other Christian groups. I was a member of a Presbyterian church and very active in the youth group called Young Life. But shortly after high school I realized that I am an atheist and have been ever since.
If there is anyone out there who was an adult member of the Washington, D.C. church during the late ’60s or early ’70s, I would love for you to contact me. Maybe you can help me further understand some of the things that were going on back then.
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