Cult Recovery Lesson: We Have the Right to have our own Thoughts and Opinions.

This is the beginning of a series on "Basic Rights" - from a cult survivor. 

Healthy relationships are as much an important part of life between a church and it's congregant as a husband to a wife, a friend to a friend, a worker to a worker, and pretty much any social activity you can think of.

In the cult environment I was a part of for decades, the right to healthy relationships was thrown to the curb for the cult's "right" to your income, your mind, and your heart. There was no common sense to "healthy" relationships. The only relationships allowed were arranged relationships - only allowed within the confines of the cult, under the supervision of the ministry, and furthered only on the approval of the local leader. Any prospect of a "normal" relationship was immediately quenched - no person of "the world" could ever be "evenly yoked" with us culties.

According to "The Anxiety and Phobia Workbood" by Eugene Bourne (Oakland, CA: New Harbringer Publications, 1995), people have 26 basic rights that are a human right. They aren't questionable - they're what makes living abundantly possible. The "right" that I choose to focus on for this post is:

• The right to have my own thoughts and opinions. 

The cult that I was a part of, the Worldwide Church of God, did not agree with this. It's founder, Herbert W. Armstrong, did not agree with this either. He would often preach that everyone must be "thinking the same thing", and all of "one mind, and one body". Any attempt to voice any different thought or opinion would be immediately shut down by a vast network of interior member-spies who would report any attempts at personal opinion or "division" to Headquarters - who would in turn contact the local leader and subsequently "put them out" of the Church - ex-communication.

We were taught not to have our own thoughts, or our own opinions. Our standards, our behaviors, our actions were carefully and thoroughly regulated as if we were one vast collective being programmed by one leading person. This went so far as to inform us of not only what to eat - but how to eat it, how to prepare it, how to bake it, and so on and so forth. There was even an article that spent two paragraphs on if it was okay to drink milk or not.

It is not an exaggeration to state that it went far beyond just what we ate and did not eat. We lost our "rights" on our thoughts and opinions about every doctrine ever taught from the pulpit. According to the leadership of the Church, as outlined in several articles to the members of the church, those outside of the church were encouraged to listen to the mantra "Don't believe me, believe your Bible." However, once they were "in" the Church, and baptized as a member, that phrase was not intended for them. They were to believe every word of the minister as anointed and directed as if it was from Jesus Christ himself. Our right to self-evaluation, interpretaton, and opinion was dunked the moment we were accepted into the Church as a tithe-paying, and praying, and attending member.

The concept that we as humanity have "the right to our own thoughts and opinions" to me was a strange concept - an unusual concept. This flew in the face of every aspect of training and teaching that I ever listened to. My entire job as a member of the Church was to conform - to be accepted by meeting a certain and particular set of standards. My entire task was to listen - to absorb - to "overcome". Our definition of overcoming? Becoming more and more like the expectation of what we were intended to be. And in our training - believe it or not - that expectation was - I kid you not - to be God. And our example of who God was like was the leader of our cult - Herbert W. armstrong.

To have our own thoughts. This was a tough one - because the minute that you allowed your "own" thought to creep in, we were taught that this was not "our" thought, but a "Demonic" thought. Let me give you an example.

We believed in the cult that observing holidays like Easter and Christmas were pagan, evil, and of the dark side. If a thought was to creep in like "I really wish I could be with the family on Christmas this year", we would immediately think of this thought as an implanted thought from an evil spirit. Therefore - we would immediately squelch and silence our own thoughts because of our belief that it was an evil thought.

Another example: We were commanded to give up to 30% of our income to, or for, the uses and purposes of the Church. If we were to have a thought like "I really can't afford food this month, because we're paying the tithes", it would be immediately classified as a "bad thought" from the dark side, because it was a thought that was "intended to cause disobedience to God." The side effect of this?

Every thought of our own was considered demonic that disagreed with the thoughts that conformed with the teaching of the Church.

This mind-conditioning was a never-ending battle.

Whenever we began to think "Our Own Thoughts" - we would think that they were NOT "our" thoughts, but the thoughts from a bad entity. I do not believe it is an exaggeration to say that because of this mind-conditioning, many of us simply chose to "stop" thinking - and just let the minister "handle" the decision to avoid the constant interruptions from that darn evil spirit that dared have us think on our own.

It took a long time to realize a simple fact:

We have brains that are to be used. We have minds. We have the ability, and the right, to think - to make decisions - and the responsibility to do so for the sake of those we are always around and interact with. We do have the right to have our own thoughts and our own opinions. It is the only way to begin to grow, and mature, and become responsible for ourselves and our families.

If there's food that needs to be in the house to feed the family, then we have the right to make that decision - that food comes first to feed the family.

If there are clothes that need to be bought to clothe the family, then we have the right to make that decision - that clothes need to be purchased to clothe the family.

If there are bills that need to be paid - then we have the right to pay the bills and do the responsible thing - no matter what we are being told by those who wish to commandeer our income. 

The cult I grew up in, with wild abandon, removed responsibility and attempted to mold us into their image as our spiritual parents - stunting our emotional growth, and making us perpetual children, incapable of making our own decisions - at least for those of us who were all in on the cult mentality.

Let the shackles fall and the chains be broken!