17 VOLUME 6 |ISSUE 3 |2015
I
entered The Community of Jesus (CJ), a New England religious
community, with my husband in 1970, when I was 23 years
old and we were newly converted Christians. We raised our
three children there. My husband and children all left CJ
between the years of 1988 and 1995. I did not leave until 2010,
after 40 years. The road that finally led to my leaving was painful
and difficult. I am now so glad to be free, and I wish to speak
out about my experiences at CJ. In this account, I speak for
myself alone other people in the group may have a different
interpretation of their experiences.
At the time I joined the community, I had not been raised in
any religious context but had recently experienced a wonderful
conversion and baptism into the Christian faith, and I felt clean
and fresh. The elements of my past that I had personal shame
about had already been forgiven, and I was released from them.
Between the spring of 1969 when I was converted, and January
1970 when we moved to CJ, I was looking forward to a new life.
I was happy and excited. New to
the faith, I was eager to learn how
to apply the Bible to everyday life,
and I joined CJ with this hope and
vision. But instead of joy and peace,
I found myself in a spiral of physical,
emotional, and psychological
pain. I will try to share some of my
understanding of why I suffered so
much while I was living there.
When the stated values of manipulators are the same as a
victim’s, deception is easy. I already believed in the Christian faith
and did not have to be persuaded to change beliefs. Working
within the same ideology made it very hard for me to recognize
the errors, especially since I had not had any previous exposure
to Christianity. The wonder is not that I was brought under the
influence of the group’s teachings, but that I ever took back my
own autonomy.
Usually, when people are becoming involved in a new
community, there is at least a short honeymoon period, a time
of feeling welcome and appreciated. For us, the honeymoon
lasted a matter of hours. On the very first day that we arrived, we
had an appointment in the morning to meet the leaders. While
we waited, one of their religious sisters told us which house we
would be staying in and gave us coffee and tea. When
1:00 p.m. rolled around and we were still waiting, I asked
whether it would be all right for us to start unloading our
belongings at our destination home, only two blocks away. The
sister said that would be fine, and they would call us when the
leaders were ready to see us so off we went.
We got the call, returned, and were taken into the leaders’ office.
Without even letting us sit down, one of them turned on us and
let loose a castigating, humiliating, invective-laced tirade about
how presumptuous and rebellious we were, and how, if we
planned to stay there, we had to learn to be absolutely obedient,
that we should have simply sat waiting until we were called in.
I had learned well from my father that there was no hope for
victory in trying to stand up against this kind of rage, so I simply
cringed and promised to be a good girl from then on.
Although there were times of group and even personal praise,
and constant acclamations about how especially “called” of God
we were, the anger from the leaders and other members at
our “sin” was a constant theme of our life there. In any personal
sessions, the leaders interpreted my words from their viewpoint,
which was that my whole being was steeped in sin. Until
that time, I had believed my intent was usually good toward
others but my not being able to refute their interpretations of
underlying selfishness and sin confused me. In addition to the
lessons I had learned in my childhood home about flying under
the radar to avoid being the recipient of outrage, I had just
spent 4 years after high school surviving the drug culture in the
1960’s hippie era. Newly a Christian, newly married, and newly
pregnant, I was insecure and made every attempt to understand
what the church leaders were saying about me.
When other members would start hammering at me in group
sessions, I began to doubt my own self-image. I was told every
day that my self-assessment was
wrong and that the interrogators,
who were older and wiser and
had been Christians much longer
than I, knew more about my
inner life than I did. The leaders
explained their approach by
saying it was God’s command
that we give all to follow Jesus.
A drastic change was needed to
make a new person out of me.
They taught that, since human nature is against God, we have
to die to every expression of our self-life, in thought, word, and
deed. Any attempt on my part to question, explain, or defend
myself was considered hard-hearted sin. The person in charge of
the house I lived in watched me closely, “corrected” me whenever
she could, and reported directly to the leaders. Yielding to the
daily confrontations of my alleged sin became equal to yielding
to God.
I had to write daily confession notes. At first I met once a week
with my “counselors.” These were called “light sessions” and were
meant to show me where I was living in sin. This did not mean
big sins, but the “little foxes that spoil the vine”1 sins. If my back
was hurting and I wanted to sit down for a while, I was lazy and
in rebellion. If I was 5 minutes late to a meeting because of my
child’s need, I was in family idolatry and rebellion. I resisted this
approach at first. It seemed so picky and unreasonable, and
some of it was just not true.
This resistance caused the attacks on me to become more
intense. The sessions often ended with the counselors calling
the leaders and reporting how “out of it” I was, or with my being
given a discipline. Discipline could include isolation, shaming,
and degrading or hard labor. Even if the labor in itself was not
that bad, the attitude of disgust, rejection, and shaming with
which the labor was imposed created in me an excruciating
feeling of self-loathing.
I would try to convince myself that, somewhere deep inside,
where I was not conscious of it, I had the sins and attitudes they
were accusing me of. They taught that the greatest love we could
...instead of joy and peace,
I found myself in a spiral
of physical, emotional, and
psychological pain.
I
entered The Community of Jesus (CJ), a New England religious
community, with my husband in 1970, when I was 23 years
old and we were newly converted Christians. We raised our
three children there. My husband and children all left CJ
between the years of 1988 and 1995. I did not leave until 2010,
after 40 years. The road that finally led to my leaving was painful
and difficult. I am now so glad to be free, and I wish to speak
out about my experiences at CJ. In this account, I speak for
myself alone other people in the group may have a different
interpretation of their experiences.
At the time I joined the community, I had not been raised in
any religious context but had recently experienced a wonderful
conversion and baptism into the Christian faith, and I felt clean
and fresh. The elements of my past that I had personal shame
about had already been forgiven, and I was released from them.
Between the spring of 1969 when I was converted, and January
1970 when we moved to CJ, I was looking forward to a new life.
I was happy and excited. New to
the faith, I was eager to learn how
to apply the Bible to everyday life,
and I joined CJ with this hope and
vision. But instead of joy and peace,
I found myself in a spiral of physical,
emotional, and psychological
pain. I will try to share some of my
understanding of why I suffered so
much while I was living there.
When the stated values of manipulators are the same as a
victim’s, deception is easy. I already believed in the Christian faith
and did not have to be persuaded to change beliefs. Working
within the same ideology made it very hard for me to recognize
the errors, especially since I had not had any previous exposure
to Christianity. The wonder is not that I was brought under the
influence of the group’s teachings, but that I ever took back my
own autonomy.
Usually, when people are becoming involved in a new
community, there is at least a short honeymoon period, a time
of feeling welcome and appreciated. For us, the honeymoon
lasted a matter of hours. On the very first day that we arrived, we
had an appointment in the morning to meet the leaders. While
we waited, one of their religious sisters told us which house we
would be staying in and gave us coffee and tea. When
1:00 p.m. rolled around and we were still waiting, I asked
whether it would be all right for us to start unloading our
belongings at our destination home, only two blocks away. The
sister said that would be fine, and they would call us when the
leaders were ready to see us so off we went.
We got the call, returned, and were taken into the leaders’ office.
Without even letting us sit down, one of them turned on us and
let loose a castigating, humiliating, invective-laced tirade about
how presumptuous and rebellious we were, and how, if we
planned to stay there, we had to learn to be absolutely obedient,
that we should have simply sat waiting until we were called in.
I had learned well from my father that there was no hope for
victory in trying to stand up against this kind of rage, so I simply
cringed and promised to be a good girl from then on.
Although there were times of group and even personal praise,
and constant acclamations about how especially “called” of God
we were, the anger from the leaders and other members at
our “sin” was a constant theme of our life there. In any personal
sessions, the leaders interpreted my words from their viewpoint,
which was that my whole being was steeped in sin. Until
that time, I had believed my intent was usually good toward
others but my not being able to refute their interpretations of
underlying selfishness and sin confused me. In addition to the
lessons I had learned in my childhood home about flying under
the radar to avoid being the recipient of outrage, I had just
spent 4 years after high school surviving the drug culture in the
1960’s hippie era. Newly a Christian, newly married, and newly
pregnant, I was insecure and made every attempt to understand
what the church leaders were saying about me.
When other members would start hammering at me in group
sessions, I began to doubt my own self-image. I was told every
day that my self-assessment was
wrong and that the interrogators,
who were older and wiser and
had been Christians much longer
than I, knew more about my
inner life than I did. The leaders
explained their approach by
saying it was God’s command
that we give all to follow Jesus.
A drastic change was needed to
make a new person out of me.
They taught that, since human nature is against God, we have
to die to every expression of our self-life, in thought, word, and
deed. Any attempt on my part to question, explain, or defend
myself was considered hard-hearted sin. The person in charge of
the house I lived in watched me closely, “corrected” me whenever
she could, and reported directly to the leaders. Yielding to the
daily confrontations of my alleged sin became equal to yielding
to God.
I had to write daily confession notes. At first I met once a week
with my “counselors.” These were called “light sessions” and were
meant to show me where I was living in sin. This did not mean
big sins, but the “little foxes that spoil the vine”1 sins. If my back
was hurting and I wanted to sit down for a while, I was lazy and
in rebellion. If I was 5 minutes late to a meeting because of my
child’s need, I was in family idolatry and rebellion. I resisted this
approach at first. It seemed so picky and unreasonable, and
some of it was just not true.
This resistance caused the attacks on me to become more
intense. The sessions often ended with the counselors calling
the leaders and reporting how “out of it” I was, or with my being
given a discipline. Discipline could include isolation, shaming,
and degrading or hard labor. Even if the labor in itself was not
that bad, the attitude of disgust, rejection, and shaming with
which the labor was imposed created in me an excruciating
feeling of self-loathing.
I would try to convince myself that, somewhere deep inside,
where I was not conscious of it, I had the sins and attitudes they
were accusing me of. They taught that the greatest love we could
...instead of joy and peace,
I found myself in a spiral
of physical, emotional, and
psychological pain.
