Marked and Shunned
I am a Christian. I am also a battered sheep who is trying to recover his wife and children from an abusive church environment. So far I remain unsuccessful.
One of my brother-in-laws has been shunned by the church group going on 20 years now. His sons have been encouraged to move away from him, and they cut off all contact until he "repents" of his independent thinking.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with my brother-in-law spiritually or morally. He is an upright and genuinely decent fellow, yet he has been demonized all these years by church leaders who want him under group control!
Unfortunately, I participated in this myself until I began to wake up and began to question the practices of the church. And when this happened, I was singled out as one to be avoided until I repented of my independence. My children, raised in this system and trained to automatically follow leadership's decisions, are now shunning me as we all once shunned my brother-in-law and, sadly, my very own wife's elderly mother who chose to leave the group with her husband some twenty-odd years ago.
This is a really tragic situation. Families divided and destroyed because of leadership control. I can have my family back, I'm told, but only if I submit to the church leadership.
This has been a lonely and discouraging battle for me! So you can imagine my excitement at discovering your web site.
I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and I am seeking moral support and information so that I can help family and friends who are caught up in this abusive, controlling church group.
This e-mail may be a bit hasty and disjointed due to the time of morning and my excitement at finding your site. Please forgive me. But there are many here in this area that could use the information you are trying to put out. I want to get it to them. My hope is they will respond to it, because I know the information can set them free from the situation they are all in.
If anyone wants to reach me, they can e-mail me at rehud1@hotmail.com or by phone at 817-428-2214.
I hope to post more information about this group in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, please read the following attachments I have sent you in Adobe Acrobat PDF format:
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Note: To read the above PDF articles, you need to download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader:
Read some feedback we have received on Richard's story "Marked and Shunned"...
