Imagine growing up in a world where your thoughts and feelings are controlled and you are told that you are part of something special, when in reality, you are trapped in a cult.
BERYN ORERA
Black Ballad
April 12, 2024
Content warning: this article references coercive control, child sexual abuse and racism.
Alex* was 11 when she and her family joined a new church in the Midlands. Unlike other churches she had attended, this one interviewed everyone seeking membership.
Part of the interview process involved studying and pledging allegiance to the church’s literature, and at first this surprised Alex. But she soon took a liking to the church due to its in-depth analysis of the Bible.
As she grew older, Alex began to notice aspects of the church which, in hindsight, resembled those of a cult.
“The locations of church services were kept secret so people couldn’t just turn up,” she explained. “I always found that a bit strange because all the other churches I had attended wanted everyone to come.”
If you get disfellowshipped, you get cut off from your family.
The church also had strict rules about tithing. Alex’s mother was a single parent and struggled financially, however the church would guilt her into giving a full tithe (believed to be 10% of her earnings) regardless of her financial status. Some of the pastors lived luxuriously and attributed that to being blessed by God. They went on to tell the congregation that if they did not have financial abundance, it was because they had displeased God.
“Marrying someone outside the church was not allowed,” Alex said. “They were also quite racist. They were anti-interracial relationships which is a bit awkward for me because I am a product of an interracial relationship; my mom is black and my dad is white. They said that when it was time for us to start dating, we had to choose a side and stick with it. The belief that Adam and Eve were white was also frequently emphasised.”
Mixed race black woman with curly sits on the floor with her face in her hands.
Image by Liza Summer
Alex recounted an incident during a church retreat in the Netherlands that served as a turning point. Then 16, Alex danced with a white person and that caused a stir. Following the incident, they stopped attending the church. This also meant that they were barred from associating with members of the church.
After leaving, Alex was fearful – she believed that there would be a big global event initiated by God in which she would be destroyed.
“One of the church’s core beliefs was that Jesus would return to earth and that everyone who wasn’t part of the church would be destroyed and that there would be a big world war but that God would keep us safe by evacuating us to a special location that only the head pastor knew,” Alex said.
“After the war, God would come and reorganise the earth and people who went to our church would be in charge of the world. Everyone who wasn’t racially in their home country would be forced to live back in their own country. I remember hearing that, as a mixed-race person, thinking, ‘What do they want me to do? Are they gonna split me in half?’”
The cult concealed most of its doctrines from the public, only publishing a watered-down version of its teachings in a monthly magazine that, according to the church, is read by millions of people around the world.
Fifteen years after leaving and Alex continues to grapple with the trauma she endured while attending the church. She remains sceptical of churches but is dedicated to nurturing her spirituality without an intermediary.
Side profile portrait of a black woman with high-key lighting and lots of shadow.
Image by Victor Ace Geoffrey
May* was born and raised in a Bible-based fundamentalist cult based in Virginia, USA. Her life in the cult was marred with severe abuse and trauma, and for over 20 years that was all they knew.
In this church, women were taught to be submissive and May recalled an incident in which they corrected their male Sunday school teacher. May was immediately removed from the class and forbidden from attending Sunday school. This experience left May feeling isolated and profoundly misunderstood as a child.
Even when being abused, women and children in the cult were silenced. The church protected abusers as long as they performed their duties.
“The church forbade members from using the legal system. Everything needed to be handled within the church,” May said. “When it was discovered that I was being sexually abused by my father, the men in the church chose to cover it up.”
“I was coached to lie if I ever had any interaction with Child Protective Services and because of that, I actually didn’t remember a lot of the abuse that I experienced until I left and went to college. I wanted to go to therapy growing up but my parents wouldn’t let me because the church teaches that psychology is of the devil.”
It is important to question everything.
The church encouraged its congregants to homeschool their children and May began homeschooling at the age of 10. But instead of being educated, May was entrusted with a majority of the household chores and caregiving responsibilities by their mother, who spent most of her time serving the church. According to the church’s doctrines, girls were to be taught housework instead of being educated.
"Part of the reason they homeschooled us was to isolate us from anyone who’s not in the church,” May explained. “We weren't really encouraged to have any relationships outside the church. We were taught, as children, that anyone who is not part of the church is going to hell. You could try to become close to someone for the purposes of converting them.”
May dreamt of going to university and having a career. Their mother had been coerced into marrying their father by the church, and she was also convinced to leave her job and become a stay-at-home mother. Determined not to follow that path, May planned their escape.
“I started preparing myself when I was in high school by reading dictionaries and encyclopaedias and trying to increase my vocabulary so that I would do well on the standardised test,” May said. “I knew that was the only way I would be able to go to college because I didn’t really get a high school education, even though my parents pretended that I had received an education and [forged] a transcript for me.”
May passed their standardised tests and was admitted to an institution affiliated with the denomination of the church. Women in the cult were encouraged to study social work or education, so May pursued social work. They eventually transferred to a secular university in Florida to escape the cult’s influence, but the cult got wind of that and has been monitoring May closely.
“I have struggled a lot honestly after leaving,” May remarked. “If you get disfellowshipped, you get cut off from your family. They can’t spend any time with you or talk to you unless they are talking to you about coming back to the church. I also lost all my friends.”
Cult members received financial support in the form of childcare, housing, employment, free cars and assistance with bills. After leaving the cult, May lost access to all of those benefits.
May, now 36, has dedicated their life to helping others recover from childhood abuse, coercion and severe trauma as a somatic practitioner and herbalist. They are also one of the facilitators of a monthly Family Survival Trust support group.
The Family Survival Trust is a registered charity whose mission is to prevent and provide information on coercive control, cultic behaviour and psychological manipulation. They support those affected by groups that use such techniques, educate people about the risks those groups pose and advocate for appropriate controls on their activities.
Black woman with long dark braids looks over her shoulder.
Image by cottonbro studio
“There are many psychological techniques used by cults to manipulate and control their members including coercive control,” explained Gillie Jenkinson (PhD), director, psychotherapist and counsellor at Hope Valley Counselling Limited and a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). “Lifton’s eight components of thought reform [brainwashing] go a long way to explaining these, which include micromanaging the individual’s life and environment. including how they use their time and energy, what they eat, wear and who they partner up with or have sex with.”
According to Jenkinson, cults manipulate and control members by cutting off outside contacts, including family. Cults also speak ill of other organisations thereby discouraging their members from considering any valuable input from them. Cults promote unquestioning loyalty to a charismatic leader who claims divine knowledge; they enforce rigid moral codes defined by the leader and place the belief system above the individual’s well-being.
In addition, cults usually create their own language which restricts critical thinking and they expect an atmosphere of extreme openness, giving ammunition to the leader and other members to attack. Gas lighting is a common tactic used to undermine members' confidence in their own perceptions and judgement.
“It is important to question everything,” Alex concluded. “Don’t believe something just because a man in a suit says it’s true. It’s okay to push back and if they are not okay with you pushing back that’s probably because they’ve got something to hide.”
* Names in this article have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.
Header image by David Kwewum
https://blackballad.co.uk/views-voices/black-women-leaving-cults
