Back in the early 1960's I gave up a child for adoption and thus
thought I was the most terrible person on earth. (I had been married at 18
and divorced two years earlier before becoming pregnant and unwed.) I went
on to get married again a few years
later but it was three years and a lot of medical procedures later before
I got pregnant again. When my son was about a year old, I was introduced
to the Plain Truth magazine and HWA's radio program (The World
Tomorrow) by my mother. I bought into it hook, line and sinker not
knowing what it was really about because the real
essence of this cult was hidden until you requested to be baptized.
When their ministers first came to counsel me, they told me that due to
the D & R
doctrine I would have to leave my husband to be able to be baptized.
After much agonizing and trauma, I decided against it mainly because I did
not have the capabilities to raise my child on my own and I did not want
to deprive my son of a father. I was so torn because on the one hand was
my salvation (and the world was ending any day, according to HWA) and on
the other was my husband and baby that I had longed for. I
spent many hours crying and thinking I was such a failure.
I did not hear from the ministers for a couple of years and then, lo
and behold, when Herbert Armstrong
got romantically involved with a divorced woman (Ramona Martin) 46
years his junior, he changed the doctrine. This should have given me a
big clue but by this time I was suffering from
post traumatic stress disorder from
the adoption and had panic attacks and agoraphobia. This was triggered by
the death of my father. At 30, I
was an emotional wreck and decided that being right with God would make it
all better. Wrong. I did join the WWCG
and was baptized but, since my husband would not join, it made it very
difficult to practice all of their doctrines.
Now I was more of an emotional wreck because I was filled with guilt
for not being able to tithe as much as they wanted and to go to their
feasts, etc. I could not travel because of the panic attacks and sitting
in services for two hours was agony. To make a long story short, I started
to question whether they could be the true church when they were so
anti-female and anti-black (neither held high positions in their
organization) and some of the other young couples did not have enough food
to eat because of tithing. Then when I heard about the dalliances of
Garner Ted, it was the straw that broke
the camel's back. I quit. It took me about a year to recover from thinking
I was going to the Lake of Fire in a breadbasket, so to speak.
I was overjoyed when the WWCG failed and their assets auctioned off. I
felt that it was good riddance to bad rubbish. But now another fraud,
resurrecting HWA and all his lies is trying to capitalize on vulnerable
souls. His name is Gerald Flurry
and obviously the
only reason he is doing so is greed. I sincerely hope that it will be
harder for him to dupe as many as HWA and GTA did with the internet now
available to debunk the Armstrong propaganda.
Thanks so much for your website. I found it interesting to read letters
from others who felt violated. It validated all the feelings I had
regarding this cult. These vultures feed off
of people's feelings of inadequacy and guilt and need to be exposed for
what they are. Since they are such "experts" on the Bible, they should
know that God will judge them far worse than others for using His name for
their own private gain.
By Clarissa
October 10, 2007
Articles For Those Who Were Emotionally and Spiritually Abused
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