Australia, Geelong Revival Centre, Considerations When Leaving a Group, Childhood Trauma
"A parliamentary inquiry considering how to outlaw coercive cult practices in Victoria has alarmed a part of the Liberal Party's religious right that fears pastors could be criminalised and Pentecostal churches unfairly targeted.Traditional churches have also been closely watching the work of the state parliament's legal and social issues committee, concerned that religious freedoms could be eroded.A staff member of state Liberal MP Renee Heath encouraged constitutional conservatives at the Samuel Griffith Society think tank to provide submissions to the inquiry. In an email last month, the employee described the Geelong Revival Centre, where decades of historical abuse has been alleged, as "strict but not coercive".
"This inquiry seems positioned to facilitate a state-sanctioned practice of religion with all else being deemed coercive harmful behaviour," said the email, obtained by The Age.
Heath said she was not previously aware of the email and that the employee, whom The Age has chosen not to name, was expressing his own opinion.
The inquiry was launched in April after the podcast, Secrets We Keep: Pray Harder, and The Age revealed allegations of abuse and coercion at the Geelong Revival Centre. The centre was contacted for this story.
In a sign of just how fraught the task is, the committee took the rare step of circulating a guidance note: "Harmful or abusive practices can happen in any group – religious or not – and our concern is with those actions, not the beliefs behind them."
The inquiry is looking at harmful tactics used by organised fringe groups and will consider whether any amount of coercion should be criminalised.
The committee said recruitment tactics included using social events to build rapport (like potluck dinners or youth groups); isolating recruits from "negative" outsiders; promising secret or higher knowledge; asking recruits to commit in small ways, then escalating; using charismatic leaders; creating insider language and symbols; and targeting vulnerable people.
Heath's employee said some examples misrepresented church activities as "deceptive or sinister" while sports clubs and political parties were ignored.
He claimed, in a "church guidance note" attached to the email, that anonymous submissions "fuelled by media-driven stereotypes and Facebook groups … could be used to justify new laws that potentially criminalise and censor pastors, leaders and churches and expose them to vexatious legal actions.
"Despite high levels of coercion and control displayed in unions, activist groups, political parties and sport, the Victorian government is targeting religion."
Heath said her office had been contacted by constituents concerned about the inquiry and that she had asked her employee to get in touch with key stakeholders."
Leaving a high-control group or environment can be one of the most courageous and difficult decisions a person makes. Whether you're actively preparing or just starting to imagine a life beyond the group, this checklist can help you assess your situation and take the first steps toward independence and safety.
ICSA has a set of questions that are designed to help you reflect on what you might need practically, emotionally, and legally.
Psychology Today: 2 Lasting Ways That Childhood Trauma Rewires the Brain
"Most well-informed people are aware that traumatic childhood experiences are often associated with serious mental health conditions later in life. What few people know, however, is how exactly trauma gives rise to these disorders.
Some attribute it to emotional scarring or psychological wounds that live only in the mind. But according to 2022 research from Brain, Behavior, & Immunity - Health, these wounds are in no way metaphorical. To the brain, trauma can be as real and physical as a cut or a broken bone."" ... According to the 2022 study, individuals with bipolar disorder who had experienced adverse childhood experiences showed clear signs of white matter disruption. Specifically, their brain scans revealed lower levels of fractional anisotropy, which is a measure used to assess how coherent and structured these white matter tracts are.
In essence, the aforementioned inflammation can result in lasting damage to an individual's white matter. In most cases, this means the brain's internal communication system will function less efficiently than that of a person without trauma.
When white matter is intact and well-organized, it acts much like well-planned and well-looked-after roads: Information moves quickly and efficiently across the brain. But once white matter connections are lost, tangled, or damaged, those signals slow down or get misrouted—much like cars do on a road with potholes or fading paint.
This is exactly what the brain looks like when it's frequently exposed to trauma in early life: a collection of unkempt, interconnected roads, on which cars struggle significantly to travel. And this kind of "unkemptness" in the brain's highway system has very real, functional consequences.
The study notes that damage to the white matter's structural integrity can lead to miscommunication between some of the brain's most essential regions. In turn, it's considerably more challenging for the emotional centers of the brain to communicate with the areas responsible for logic and regulation. This can lead to dysfunction in:
- Emotional regulation
- Sleep and wake cycles
- Threat detection
- Higher-order thinking (such as planning, impulse control, and decision-making)
As a result, an individual might feel perpetually on edge without ever really knowing why. Even in situations where they have every logical reason to feel safe, they might struggle to calm themselves down. And despite immense exhaustion or tiredness, they might find themselves lying wide awake at night.
Even the smallest, most inconsequential decisions can feel overwhelming, since the mental routes that once effortlessly facilitated those processes can feel as though they're punctuated with delays and detours. Unfortunately, these responses can persist well into adulthood, and well past their years of trauma.
That said, this doesn't mean that the brain is "broken" or that it has "failed." It just means that the brain has adapted to danger and inflammation in the only way it was designed to: by reinforcing defensive pathways to protect itself.
When faced with trauma, the brain makes an executive decision to prioritize survival over flexibility—even if that means day-to-day functioning might be a bit more difficult later on in life. This is a sign of resilience, not failure.
