it takes a brave soul to leave

[JavaJane]

Megan Phelps and her sister have left Westboro Baptist. Their story reminded me so much of the processes and thoughts involved when leaving twi it blew my mind. I guess leaving a cult is leaving a cult no matter what the cult is called.

https://medium.com/reporters-notebook/d63ecca43e35

Here's some excerpts I found eerily similar:

... Mostly, the tears have subsided—“in public, anyway,” she says one afternoon, as we sit in a Tribeca café. “I still cry a lot.” Forget what you know of the church. Just imagine what it is like to walk away from everything you have ever known. Consider how traumatic it would be to know that your family is never supposed to speak to you again. Think of how hard it would be to have a fortress of faith built around you, and to have to dismantle it yourself, brick by brick, examining each one and deciding whether there’s something worth keeping or whether it’s not as solid as you thought it was....

... She kept trying to conquer the doubts. Westboro teaches that one cannot trust his or her feelings. They’re unreliable. Human nature “is inherently sinful and inherently completely sinful,” Megan explains. “All that’s trustworthy is the Bible. And if you have a feeling or a thought that’s against the church’s interpretations of the Bible, then it’s a feeling or a thought against God himself...

I feel for you, Megan. And your real life is just beginning.

[chockfull]

Agreed, and awesome link.

[Twinky]

Many here can really empathize. :cryhug_1_:/> Been there, got the T-shirt (and the scars) and survived. Not only that, even "live abundantly!"

I was struck by this sentence: "This, of course, assumes that the church’s teachings and God’s feelings are one and the same. And this, of course, assumes that the church’s interpretation of the Bible is infallible, that this much-debated document handed down over the centuries has, in 2013, been processed and understood correctly only by a small band of believers in Topeka. “Now?” Megan says. “That sounds crazy to me.”"

1 Cor 14:26 How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation.

Let all things be done unto edifying...oh, let's just ignore this bit, too inconvenient.

No wait, let's not ignore it...edifying means building. Let's tell 'em they must build the church, our church. They must bring in new recruits. Yep, that'll do it.

[Twinky]

Thought this was good, too:

“My doubts started with a conversation I had with David Abitbol,” she says. Megan met David, an Israeli ...“I would ask him questions about Judaism, and he would ask me questions about church doctrine. One day, he asked a specific question about one of our signs—‘Death Penalty for Fags’—and I was arguing for the church’s position, that it was a Levitical punishment and as completely appropriate now as it was then. He said, ‘But Jesus said’—and I thought it was funny he was quoting Jesus—‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ And then he connected it to another member of the church who had done something that, according to the Old Testament, was also punishable by death. I realized that if the death penalty was instituted for any sin, you completely cut off the opportunity to repent. And that’s what Jesus was talking about.”

In OT there are many instances of people through their actions being "worthy of death" - however, there aren't that many (whom we read about) who actually get executed.

Mercy and grace attend us all. Thank God.