Posting our video on cults on a Facebook post, one viewer by the name of Shawn commented:
Wow!! How phenomenal this video really is!
It reminds me of what I went through after I became a member of the ICOC (international Church of Christ). At first glance they are a very phenomenal and awesome religious organization.
HOW?
- They strongly focus on Jesus, relationship with God, prayer and repentance.
- They are highly evangelistic to family members and friends that we know; encouraging members to evangelize in shopping malls, colleges campuses.
- They appear to be the most biblical, knowledgeable people in all of the Christian world, digging very, very deep into the Bible.
- They do not have a Christian Creed, Manuals or church discipline, but use the Bible alone and all its interpretations.
But here is where it got bad; I mean really, really bad.
- They have what is called discipling partners and discipleship groups that they use to control and manipulate every aspect of members lives. For example, if I wanted to go out to dinner with some Christian friends or even with coworkers or people I knew, I had to get advice from the elders first and they were the ones to make the decision on whether or not I would be allowed to do so. Not taking the advice given from my discipling partner or the elders of my congregation meant sin and the possibility of being shunned.
- If the church had Harvest Night (which takes place around Halloween, in which disciples go around trick or treating for souls), and you need to go to the hospital because someone in your family had gotten sick, they will tell you that you must put God first and be unified with the church to go evangelizing with them instead. They insist that you pray that your family members will be fine and put their agenda over your family’s needs.
- In cults like the ICOC, Watchtower Society, Church of Scientology or the Unification Church, you will almost never measure up to any of their standards and will often be looked down upon with suspicion.
- I was taught to study the Bible with the Bible alone and to make all of my decisions based upon God and His words. YET, if you disagree with anything that they say or teach (even if what they teach conflicts with the Bible), they will put you out of the church and deem you as an apostate.
Being a part of a cult like this can foster up a strong sense of bitterness, despair, depression, anger, unbearable amount of resentment, prideful or defensive attitude. You have the sense that everybody outside of them are wrong and you must listen to them to prove you are not an evil person. This goes along with a constant fear of being destroyed on the day of judgment or shunned from family members and Friends.
I just want to encourage anyone who is a part of a religious organization with these characteristics to get out as soon as possible. They are very deceitful, manipulative and dangerous.
Remember that while cultic churches and religious organizations of this world might not offer you any type of earthly or real spiritual benefits, Jesus is the only way, truth and the life Who brings peace not the fear, doom and destruction that cultic religions offer.