Non-Believer Former Members of the Worldwide Church of God

I was born into the WCG (I still want to refer to it as “THE CHURCH”, how sad is that?) in 1974.

My father got out of the Navy as a conscientious objector after he heard Herbert W. on the radio.

Thankfully I am by nature a rebellious, questioning kind of person; I refused to go back to church when I was 15. When my parents tried to force me, I ran away from home.

Gerald Flurry was our minister when I was very young, and a strong influence on my parents. He was kicked out a few years after he transferred out of the Eastern Washington area where I grew up. I remember adults crying in church when his excommunication was announced.

My parents were always broke, and I’m sure that tithing had quite a bit to do with it. I know my dad made decent money; we just never saw a lot of it. They are nearing retirement age now, and have no savings.

One of my little sisters was severely disabled, I remember people from church telling my parents that we must have done something to cause her to have Cerebral Palsy. It was our fault and God was punishing us.

I could go on forever about the slights, insults, and degradation I experienced growing up in the WCG, but it would be book-long and much of it has been described in previous posts.

I like to think that I have moved on and that growing up in the environment of the WCG hasn’t really left any scars, but that’s not true.

To this day, 12 years after the last time I saw anyone from the cult, I sometimes fantasize about running into authority figures from the WCG and being able to tell them off. Or better yet, just stomp them good.

Like many of the people who have commented on this site, I have a strong aversion to religion of any kind. I actually feel a little hostile and nauseous whenever the subject comes up. This unfairly affects my family - my wife occasionally brings up things like going to Christmas mass, Easter services, etc. She’s not religious by any means, but she does hold christian “beliefs” and would like to bring our 2 sons up with those “beliefs” too. Whenever the subject comes up, I tend to get angry and an argument ensues. Not because I have any real problem with her beliefs, or a problem with the boys learning these things. I respect her values, but I have an incredible and irrational amount of bitterness and hostility towards any organized religion.

There are positives, though. The memorization of bible verses and endless note taking every Saturday taught me skills that I have successfully used in life. Actually, that’s about the only positive. lol.

There were about 6 boys my age that I grew up with - I occasionally hear things about them through the grapevine. I was the only one who left the church on my own. I am the only one who has managed to create a successful life for my family and me. I think the two are related.

My parents did not move on with any of the splinter groups, and do not belong to any church. Unfortunately, I still do not have a good relationship with them, and probably never will. Now that I have children of my own, their passivity when it came to defend my brother and sisters from the church, when we so obviously needed defending, has come to seem to me so much worse. I would never expose my children to an environment like that, and find that they did inexcusable. My wife feels the same way, even though I have only talked about the WCG incidentally, she knows enough to never be able to trust my parents with our precious children.

Thanks, Robert, for providing us with a forum to air these grievances and share them with others who might understand.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 8th, 2006 at 5:50 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.