Melissa
Today I found your blog. I grew up in Atlanta, GA and in the “Church” from birth–1969 and rebelled at around 16 years of age and refused to attend and later left home at age 17yrs. I do remember “fun” times in the church with the YOU youth group between the ages of 11–15 yrs, but also remember the fear of stepping out of line (father) and how you were taught you were inherently “evil,” essentially born “bad.” After spending a good portion of my life searching for some kind “truth” to life (”why are we here” question) I finally came to the “realization” there was no such thing as God— and it was all made up; in fact all religions are made up in order to control people and societies. I recently came across the new world order/secret government/white supremacist/fear tactics agenda (David Icke) and something clicked inside of me: “Oh my god, this sounds eerily familiar to the ‘doctrine’ I grew up in…” and it works out about the right time-wise 1930’s with HWA. And I wondered if he (HWA) got his “separatist/control” agenda from the same people. Anyway, I went searching to try and connect the dots and I found your website. I remember as a child/teen listening to countless sermons about “nimrod” and the pagan Babylonians, the worldly pagan holidays, the tribulation, and how one world government would be created and and Jesus would come back and the world would fight against him…
Anyway, I am still searching for answers. But after joining the military, a college education in behavioral science, researching every religion/philosphy/political science under the sun, a career in DoD, and most recently coming back from the middle east (Kuwait); today I’m only confident of 2 things: there is no God, or at least not the God I was taught as a child; and purposeful tactics of controlling the global “masses” is still alive and well today.
I would love to hear from anyone who can relate to what I’m saying, or just wants to comment.
Thank you… 
Melissa –Denver, CO
September 14th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
H, I spent over twenty years wrapped up in the organization and got out in 74-75. I was an Ambassador graduate (1960) and very devout for much of my younger life. My book, Believing the Unbelievable–Into and out of Fanaticism, outlines my journey into a belief system similar to yours. If you would like to read it, send me an email at: phylandal@qwestoffice.net, and I’ll send you my word file so you won’t have to buy a copy from Xlibris. We’re separated by a generation, but my children went through much the same esperiences as you and I went through my own personal hell for a long time. I check this blog often to read the experiences of others. It’s therapeutic.
September 21st, 2008 at 6:54 am
Hi Melissa,
It has been good to read this blog and these comments - I did not grow up in the WCG, but attended as a teenager with my Mom when she was “called.” I have been working through many emotional issues tied to its brainwashings since that time; recently I had an email interaction with my brother and his wife that has really shaken me, because they are so insistent that they know a type of truth different from other people. It is this closed-mindedness that has completely turned me off from any organized religion, and I certainly have no claims to believing in God anymore. Although I care deeply about my brother, his family, and my Mom, I think their current religious practices have created a huge gulf between them and me (they are now a part of the Philadelphia Church, I think). It will be difficult watching my new nephew go through a lifetime of the same hurtful teachings.
September 24th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Hi Melissa, I was born into that organization too. I totally agree with the connections you’ve made and I’ve been wondering the exact same thing about HWA but I haven’t read into David Icke too much. I’ll look in that direction. I’m don’t know too much about the mind control thing but there are some gross similarities with some of my experiences in that church, the abuse, the end of the world nightmares, I basically had all the symptoms of PTSD by the age of three. Thanks for your post!
October 19th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
I was never in the WCG but my ex wife is and has been her entire life. I never had a problem with her churhc but my family did. And I even stay with her when my family hated her. I even stayed with her when her parents told her that they would shun her if she married me. She was pregnant at the time. We was married for 6 years. In that time I was deployed to Iraq three time. On my last deployment she moved out to California to be closer to her sisters and to be more involved in a splinter church called the faithful flock. that worships in Modesto california. We had two children together. on my last deployment i was hit by a IED and was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, a back injury and PTSD. Shortly after that my wife kicked me out of the house in california as I had to move back to Kansas to live with my parents.
Well now we are filing for a divorce and I have been ordered to give her half of my monthly income. but the worst thing is she won’t permit me to enroll the children into a private school, she home schools them and also she won’t get the kids vaccinated. I am looking for a formal member of the church to be a witness for me regarding the church’s belief about modern medicine and the church’s platform of the end of the world coming. YOu see I am going to file for full custody of my children and my attorney told me if I could get a former member of the church to testify on my behalf. I know the WCG main belief is the end of the world and they instill that fear into everybody, my main fear is that they are going to interpret the current situation of world affairs as the end of the world and go off to their place of safety. where GOD is suppose to take the chosen to a place of safety and ascend. I am thinking that she will take my children to some compound in the moutains in California and drink poisoned kool-aid. That may sound extreme and far fetched but that is my worst fear. can somebody help me?
November 18th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Hello Micheal,
I was never in the WWChurch of God but my sister was. I didn’t really know it was a cult until about four years ago after reading about it on the net. I would highly encourage you to work to get your children. It is a dangerous cult and my own daughters who would stay over night at her house at times because she had two daughters close to the same age experienced a horrifying act that had to do with a child being placed in the ground and they were sexually abused by people in dark robes. They only have limited memories of this and I only found out about it less then three years ago. They were to scared to tell and still think someone from the cult will hurt them or me if I go to the authorities. The church took any relationship I might have had with my sister away and she died still a member of that cult. Her two daughters are still brainwashed and I never see them anymore and haven’t since she died. She got cancer and wouldn’t go to a doctor until it was to late. What people do in the name of God is frightening and you need to get some witnesses who are willing to testify. Do your best to make it work, Joon
November 19th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Joon,
Having also grown up in the church, I must say that if anyone was “sexually abused by people in dark robes,” it had nothing to do with the Church’s teachings. That’s not to say there weren’t some screwed up people, but there’s enough blame to go towards the old WCG without introducing satanic panic.
November 20th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I say if there is satanic panic so be it, if it truly happened. I was asking this question because I wanted to know if anyone else had a similar experience. I refuse to put any peramiters on a cult and what they will do for power and control. Just reading some of the stories tells me that there was a lot of mind control in this cult and that in itself is very dangerous. Herbert W Armstrong was a child molester himself, he sexually abused his own daughter for years, would that be called sexual panic? After reading this about him I know for sure the evil side of our world was involved. Anyone who sexually abuses a child is the lowest most evil form of life on this earth and he was a leader of a cult. That tells me a lot about the WW Church of God.
Call it what you want but the truth always wins out.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:29 am
Joon,
The fact is, I was raised in the WCG from the time I was five, and I was not sexually abused, by “people in dark robes” or otherwise. Robes are and were never worn in the WCG under any circumstances. There is a certain level of sexual abuse in society, and in all my years in and around the WCG (I still have family members who attend) I have encountered no evidence that the level of sexual abuse in the WCG was above social norms— certainly comparable with other typical religious denominations. Yes, there was “mind control,” but I would level that accusation at pretty much every religious denomination, to a greater or lesser degree, and I have encountered many so-called “cults” (and even some mainstream sects) that far surpass the WCG in their level of institutionalized abuse.
Thanks for your opinions, but they sound like those of a hysterical outsider. I am a former insider, and while I don’t give the sins of any church a pass, I also don’t believe in whipping up mere stories into your kind of frothy “truth.”
Other former members here are welcome to respond to you in their own way.
November 30th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Hello Melissa,
Just found this blog this morning and did a search for ‘Atlanta’. I too was in the Atlanta churches from 1981 to 1995, we moved here from Texas when I was twelve. I’ll bet we knew each other and suffered through Randy Bloom’s ‘Youth Ministry/Y.O.U.’ (I never understood where the ‘opportunity’ was in that acronym) and the endless droning of Harold Lester and all those that followed.
I still believe there is not a god but nothing like what I was taught in WCG or UCG. I do, however, agree that purposeful tactics for controlling lives is very real and has it’s roots in organized religion.
It sounds like you have made a nice life for yourself. I must admit a touch of envy for your military career, I wanted to join the Navy myself but at the time did not summon the courage to leave the church.
Thank you for your service to our country, please stay safe should you re-deploy. I sincerely hope you find the answers you need.
RB