I Accidentally Joined a Cult: Part 6
The Good Shepherd and the Lost Sheep
The story of how I accidentally joined a cult was not a pleasant story to tell. My cult was so full of hidden darkness, and it’s easy to get lost in the dark. The final part of this series is the story of how the Good Shepherd found me in the darkness and brought me into the light.
Leaving a cult feels like trading in firm belief and certainty for grief and confusion. You begin to question which way is up and which way is down. You long for something firm to hold onto, in a tidal wave of fear and questioning.
When the Bible is weaponized and twisted in order to control you, can it be trusted at all? Is it all merely a construct, written by men who invented “God’s Word” in order to oppress others? So much “biblical” teaching I trusted and invested my life into turned out to be nothing more than a tool in the hands of power-hungry men.
After Keith and I left our cult, we decided to start over, to try to forget what we were taught, and to read the Bible for ourselves, without third-party commentary. We asked questions like, “What does the Bible actually say? Who really, truly, is Jesus? What is he actually like?”
We went back to the source of our faith, bypassing the so-called “authorities” who had claimed a superior knowledge of these things.
We spent our newly-churchless Sunday mornings getting a drive-thru Starbuck’s and driving to a little pond, surrounded by trees and ducks, and reading through the gospel of John. What we found was a Jesus that was so different from the manufactured character that upheld the cult’s own agenda. Week after week, I was moved with relief to see that the Jesus described by the Bible was very different from the judgmental, never-satisfied, disappointed buzzkill that Sovereign Grace had presented to me. Once again, the Bible held up to my scrutiny and doubt and fearful questions. It exposed lies for what they were, rather than being the source of those lies. I began to love Jesus more than I ever had when I was attending church.
The Man Born Blind and the Only Man Who Truly Saw Him
Familiar Bible stories took on new meaning as I read them for the first time in a new light. Maybe the raw vulnerability and helplessness sharpened my eyes to see details I had never noticed before.
For example, John 9 describes an encounter between Jesus and a man born blind. You also might be familiar with the story: Jesus and his disciples pass a man born blind on their way to the temple. The disciples ask whose fault his blindness was: his or his parents. Jesus says “neither” then spits on some dirt, turns it into mud, rubs it into the guy’s eyes, and he’s healed. I had always just read this account as one of the miracles Jesus did. I honestly never gave it that much thought.
I previously missed so much of what this story was communicating. This narrative became more profound to me as I read it as a spiritual abuse victim of a religious system that harms people in order to preserve their own image. This story isn’t just about the miracle Jesus performed, but it describes a man who is utterly rejected by his own community, yet sought after by Jesus.
In this culture, a disabled person was completely vulnerable and helpless. Their only hope of survival was for their family to care for them and provide for them. Begging by the side of the road was a last resort. It meant the beggar had reached the end of his rope, and in a classist society, he was now the lowest of the low.
To add insult to injury, it was commonly believed that physical disability or deformity was a result of gross transgression, either on the part of the disabled person, or his parents. Many rabbis taught that suffering was a direct result of sin, and this belief was widely accepted, evidently even among Jesus’ disciples. They didn’t question whether this man’s suffering was a result of sin; their only question was, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” They apparently asked this degrading question within earshot of the suffering man. They were likely not the first to talk about him in front of him, nor the first to assign him blame for his affliction.
What’s more, the blind man had been rejected by his own family. The fact that he was a beggar meant his parents refused to take him in and care for him. Later in the story, we see that his parents are worshipping in the very temple that this man is begging outside of. This means they would have walked past their own son, hearing his pleas for mercy and ignoring his cries while on their way to the temple to worship. The narrator of this account later clarifies in verse 22, that they feared their religious leaders more than they cared for the well-being of their own child. In this honor-shame culture, these parents presumably could not handle the shame of bearing a child who was considered “unclean,” so they rejected and abandoned him. They were willing to forsake their own child in order to retain their status in their religious community.
Jesus is the only one in the narrative who sees and dignifies this man. In his response to his disciples’ accusatory question, he rejects the common belief that it was this man’s fault, and bestows honor onto him, saying that his blindness is not the result of sin, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. He goes on to look at the man, speak to him, touch his eyes with mud, and heal his blindness.
How long was this man sitting in loneliness? How long had it been since someone stopped and spoke words of kindness to him? How long had it been since someone touched him? How long had it been that he gave up all hopes of healing?
Newly healed, this man is presented to his community, presumably expecting excitement and joy. However, their response is not one of celebration, but rather suspicion, questioning, and gaslighting. Many disbelieved him, doubting that he was the same man who was begging by the road. They argue amongst themselves about his identity in front of him, refusing to listen when he speaks.
The religious leaders interrogate him about his theology and are furious that he was not healed the “right” way. They assume Jesus must be a “sinner” because he healed on the Sabbath.
They cared more about their man-made rules than about the person standing right in front of them.
As the leaders continued to interrogate this man about Jesus, he finally gave into frustration with them and responded with sarcasm: “Why do you keep asking about him? Do you want to be his disciples too?” They were furious and cast him out of the temple.
Ironically, they kicked him out of a temple he was never welcomed into. How could they kick him out when he was never in? I think the fact that he was never accepted into the temple gave him the audacity to speak truth to power. Kicking him out was no threat, since he was never welcomed into his community in the first place.
After he is kicked out, Jesus finds him, and is the only person in the narrative who expresses joy in this man’s healing, just like he was the only person to express compassion when he was stuck in his blindness.
The narrator tells us an important detail: Jesus heard that they had cast him out and went and found him. Jesus first healed this man outside of the religious institution of his day. He is absent from the institution as everyone argues about the man’s identity, then seeks out the rejected man once again after he is kicked out of the religious institution.
He doesn’t tell the man, “Hold on, let’s bring you into the temple to heal you. Let’s wait until tomorrow when the Sabbath is over, so we’re following all the rules. Let’s go back to the temple and sit down with your leaders and try to reconcile. Let’s not leave the institution that God has established. Not every temple is bad. If you leave the temple, you are leaving me.”
Jesus seems altogether unconcerned about the institution and appeasing the religious authorities and following their rules.
He sees a person in need and immediately responds with compassion. He finds a man who has been rejected by the religious elite and meets him outside of the institution and speaks with him, even revealing to this man that he is the Messiah.
So many of these details melted my heart as I thought about my experience, and so many others who have been driven out of the church. We too have been questioned and interrogated, instead of treated with compassion and love. Our leaders have been more concerned about their own rules and upholding their own image than they care about people. We have been slandered and lied about by our religious communities, our supposed “sin” dissected and analyzed, like the blind man. Some of us also have family members like the blind man’s, who care more about maintaining their status in their religious community than they do about protecting and caring for their hurting children.
Yet this story portrays Jesus in stark contrast to these characters. He seeks out the hurting, heals him, delights in his healing, and speaks words of life to him. He is altogether uninterested in appeasing the religious institution.
In her excellent book Suffering and the Heart of God, Dr. Diane Langberg says,
“No system — family, church, community, or institution — is truly God’s work unless it is full of truth and love. Toleration of sin, pretense, disease, crookedness, or deviation from the truth means the system is in fact not the work of God, no matter the words used to describe it…
“We forget that anything done in the name of God that does not bear his character throughout is actually not of him at all. In our forgetting we are more loyal to the commandments of men that the commandments of God.”
Diane Langberg, Suffering and the Heart of God (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2015), 220.
The Good Shepherd vs. Bad Shepherds
It is in this context that Jesus goes on to call himself The Good Shepherd in John 10. After Jesus reveals that he is the Messiah to the man born blind, he claims to bring judgment to those who are “blind.” The religious leaders overhear him and ask, “Are you talking about us?”
Jesus goes on to tell both the man born blind and the leaders that rejected him about good and bad shepherds.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers” (John 10: 1–5).
According to Jesus, there are good and bad shepherds. “Shepherds” was a symbol throughout the Bible for leaders of God’s people. In the Old Testament, the shepherds were Israelite leaders. In the New Testament, shepherds are pastors and church leaders.
Jesus says that a good shepherd calls his sheep by name and leads them in such a way that they are compelled to follow. The sheep follow a good shepherd because “they know his voice.” They trust him, because he has proven himself to be trustworthy and safe, putting the sheep’s safety above his own: “The good shepherd lays his life down for the sheep.”
By contrast, a bad shepherd “comes only to steal and kill and destroy…. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.”
I read these familiar words as one who has been utterly baffled by “shepherds” who claim to love and serve Jesus, yet care nothing for the sheep. Tears filled my eyes as I read for myself what Jesus actually thinks about abusive pastors who use people for their own gain, and who refuse to protect the sheep from predators. I read for myself what Jesus actually thinks about me and all other “sheep” who refuse to follow pastors who have proven themselves to be untrustworthy and unsafe.
Jesus does not blame the sheep for refusing to follow false shepherds. On the contrary, he assumes that the sheep will not follow abusive shepherds.
He holds the shepherds accountable for persuading the sheep to follow him, rather than demanding that the sheep unquestionably follow the shepherds.
He makes no excuses for bad shepherds but calls them what they are: “hired hands who care nothing for the sheep.” He gives no excuses for their refusing to protect the sheep from predators, and in fact puts the blame on poor shepherding for the reason sheep are “scattered and attacked by wolves.”
When pastors choose their own status in their community over calling out abusers among their own congregations, they are false shepherds. When pastors partner with other pastors who have covered up abuse, it is like shepherds who partner with wolves. It is unthinkable. Yet we see it all the time.
When pastors choose their own comfort and convenience over the safety of the sheep, they are hired hands who care nothing for the sheep. When pastors prove themselves to be spiritually abusive, twisting Scripture for their own purposes, Jesus assumes we will flee these shepherds who sound nothing like the Good Shepherd. We do not recognize their voices, and we should not follow them.
Unlike those who shake their heads and blame the sheep who have fled, Jesus sees those sheep with compassion and love, rather than blame and judgment. He reserves the blame for so many scattered sheep on the pastors and leaders who drove those precious sheep away.
Jesus says that sheep will follow trustworthy shepherds, so if they flee, we should not assume they left in order to sin or because they were never truly sheep, or because they just hated the truth.
When shepherds allow predators access to the sheep, the sheep will scatter. They will be devoured by these predators, through no fault of their own. It was the shepherd’s fault for not fighting off the predators that feed on sheep. Predators can be husbands who abuse their wives, pedophiles who prey on church kids, or spiritually abusive leaders. These kinds of predators are rampant in Sovereign Grace Churches. Is it any wonder so many sheep have fled and scattered?
When we see scattered sheep, we shouldn’t ask, “What sin did they love more than the church?” We should be asking, “What would cause them to flee their community?”
Consider this description of scattered sheep from a modern-day shepherd:
“Sheep don’t wander away from the flock. It isn’t in their nature. A sheep who has left the flock left because it was driven away. It was terrified and did not know where to look for safety, so it ran. And the reason it was terrified is usually due to poor shepherding — the shepherd has led the flock to a pasture where there are predators, or has left it out in a storm….
“In other words, very often the person we are to seek out is not ‘lost’, and is not missing because he or she made poor decisions. They left because we drove them away…. They were being abused by other members of the flock, wolves in sheep’s clothing, and we did not protect them.”
“I am Against the Shepherds”
Jesus’ words about good and bad shepherds in John 10 are an echo of Old Testament words.
In Ezekiel 34 (a chapter I have never heard preached in all my years of church attendance), God calls shepherds to account. Foreshadowing Jesus’s words in John 10, Ezekiel reveals God’s damning assessment of false shepherds:
“Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts” (Ezekiel 34:2–5).
God condemns false shepherds who use the sheep for their own ends. They “eat the fat and clothe themselves with the wool.” I saw this all the time among SGC pastors, who enjoy lavish lifestyles off of the coerced “generosity” of their congregations. They enjoy paid vacations they call “sabbaticals.” They enjoy tax exemption status, increasing their wealth and housing. They travel the world in the name of ministry. They enjoy all-expenses-paid conferences, where they are showered with praise and honor for their “most difficult” job. All of these things are funded by the “tithes and offerings” of the church. They enjoy Pastor’s Appreciation Month, where their congregations donate various gifts and money, on top of their high salaries. They often enjoy free babysitting, gift cards, free labor, housing discounts, meal deliveries, and much more. Often they accrue hefty stipends from preaching gigs at other churches, or being a keynote speaker at expensive, heavily-attended Christian conferences. These men are paid handsome amounts for even a single conference message.
In the churches I have attended, the pastors enjoyed a lifestyle unlike any other person in the church. There is no “Single Mom Appreciation Month” or all-expenses-paid vacations for families on food stamps, struggling to feed their kids. Yet these false shepherds feed on their sheep, and enrich themselves while telling everyone that “to be a pastor is to suffer.” They bemoan “losing heart” and “the heartbreak and hardship of pastoral ministry.” I realize that there are various aspects to being a pastor that are very difficult, but that difficulty does not justify accruing wealth in the name of ministry.
God sees it all and calls it like it is. He identifies pastors who feed on the sheep as false shepherds, and calls them to account:
“Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.
“Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered…
“I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak… I will feed them in justice” (Ezekiel 34: 10–12; 15–16).
After his indictment on the false shepherds, God contrasts his own shepherding care for his scattered sheep. He rescues the sheep from false shepherds and puts an end to their feeding on them. He seeks out those who are scattered, and rescues them from predators.
He does what the shepherds failed to do: he seeks out the lost, brings back the strayed, binds up the injured, and strengthens the weak.
What if God is rescuing his sheep today by causing them to leave spiritually abusive churches, and to deconstruct their faith? What if those of us who are scattered sheep, who are deconstructing spiritual truth from lies, are not doing so because we hate the truth and deny God, but because the Good Shepherd is using our very questioning and fleeing in order to rescue us from predators?
When the church is full of injustice, when victims are dismissed and predators are protected, when abusers are given positions of authority and victims are shamed into silence, when children are abused in the name of Jesus, this is opposite to the shepherding care of Jesus.
Jesus displays a heart of love and compassion for the scattered, strayed, deconstructing, hurting, abused sheep. Just as he was towards the blind man, he is perhaps the only one in our narratives who truly sees us with compassion. He is the only one with the power to fully heal us. He is the one who bestows dignity on us, and refuses to dismiss us or accuse us of being merely a product of sin.
Let us not confuse Jesus for those who claim his name. Those who claim to love, follow, and serve him, yet abuse his sheep are nothing like him, and in fact in opposition to him. He will one day, finally and forever put an end to their injustice.
Again, quoting Dr. Langberg,
“God is not abusive, and we who name his name are not to be abusive either. God condemns abuse. He speaks out against it and he protects the abused. So must his church if she is to be like him. When God’s people are obedient to him, they reprove abusers and defend the helpless. Unfortunately, we have often reproved the helpless and protected and defended abusers.” (Ibid. p.258).
All this being said, I wholeheartedly believe that not every church nor every pastor is abusive. There are precious and wonderful examples of good shepherds that I have encountered personally and, I believe, exist all over the world. Just because many churches and pastors abuse their power does not mean God has given up on building his kingdom. There are men and women who faithfully, quietly shepherd God’s people in ways that do look like Jesus, with compassion and mercy. They do not make headlines, because often their work is done in secret, but they model the heart of Jesus and reflect his shepherding love for his sheep.
If we are to truly follow Jesus, we must follow him into the dark and uncomfortable places, places that might embarrass us or make us feel things we don’t want to feel and hear stories we don’t want to be true. He calls us to go into these spaces because he has lost sheep there, who have been pushed there by wicked people who claim Christ. If we truly love Jesus, we are to see his scattered sheep the same way he does: with love, compassion, empathy, and a strong drive for justice.
It’s easy to see all of the corruption among those who claim to be Jesus followers, and see nothing but death and decay. When enemies come to steal and kill and destroy, it’s hard to see any beauty or redemption or hope. This is all the more compounded when well-intentioned people seek to help by offering kind but dismissive platitudes. It’s easy to get lost in the darkness.
I spent many days lost in the dark, declaring everything to be pointless and no one to be trustworthy, least of all a God who allows abuse in his church. I have spent years wrestling with the fairness of a God who allows wolves to ravage his sheep. I have wept and screamed in my car until my voice is hoarse and my face is bloodshot at a God who lets the most atrocious acts to be committed against innocent children who did nothing but trust those who were supposed to be trustworthy.
How can it be that God is good, that Jesus is a Good Shepherd to his sheep, and also that bad shepherds abuse the sheep?
How can it be that I know how to love and protect my own children, yet my Heavenly Father seems to ignore his children’s pleas and denies them justice? “I would never treat my children the way you treat yours,” I have angrily prayed in the darkest moments.
I have spent years asking questions that have no answers. I finally realized that what I am looking for is not answers. There is no answer that anyone could give me that would make me say, “Oh. I see now. It all makes sense.”
I don’t need answers, and my human mind could not comprehend them even if they existed. I will never know why abuse exists, and I finally no longer need to know why.
What I do need is to be loved and held and soothed and listened to as I ask my angry questions that have no answers. What I need is for my tears to be wiped away by One who can handle all my anger and sadness and trauma and despair and hopelessness. Like a child needing to cry and be comforted, I need someone bigger than me who is not offended by my anger or accusations, but who sees me with compassion and mercy.
When my oldest son was a baby, he had undiagnosed food allergies, resulting in frequent vomiting. We often stayed up all night with him, rocking him, soothing him in his miserable moments of throwing up. We spoke words of comfort to him, knowing that we could not explain to him in a way he would understand what was happening to him. All we could do was stay with him in his despair, so that he was not alone in his suffering. We never left him, no matter how messy he became or how loud his cries, or how long it took for him to finally fall asleep.
On one of these nights, we began to slowly reintroduce fluids in order to rehydrate him. We couldn’t give him too much, or he would just throw it up again. We poured a small amount of Pedialyte into his sippy cup. He eagerly drank it up, shaking the cup to try to get more out of it to quench his thirst.
He looked at us with confusion and sadness, as if to say, “I’m so thirsty! Why won’t you give me more?” We couldn’t communicate to him why, and even if we could, our explanations wouldn’t take away his misery.
It wasn’t because we didn’t care about him. In fact, his misery broke our hearts, and all we could do was hold him and join him in his misery. All we could do was kiss him and show him that we are safe and trustworthy, and that we love him even when he didn’t understand.
I think this is a small picture of how Jesus feels about us. We want answers; we want him to make it make sense. Yet there is no explanation that will take away our misery. There are no words to take away the pain. So instead, he holds us and is sad with us and sympathizes with our deepest hurts. He does not blame us or grow weary of our angry questions.
On the contrary, he invites us to pour it all out on him. He welcomes our whole selves: our emotions, doubts, accusations, and questions. He knows our frame and understands our deepest wounds. He holds us in our darkest moments, refusing to forsake us, welcoming our ugly cries, and comforting us with his presence when we demand answers to unanswerable questions.
Not only this, but he joins us in our sorrows. The first recorded emotion of God is sorrow when his children disobeyed him, not anger or annoyance. When Jesus confronted tragedy and death, he wept. He joined Mary and Martha in their grief, rather than rebuking them for their angry questions and accusations (John 11:33–35). He experienced the ultimate trauma, crying out his own unanswerable question to God, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). He can sympathize because he too is a victim of abuse and wickedness (Hebrews 4:15).
As I left my cult and deconstructed my faith to understand what’s true and what are lies, I have found Jesus to be more beautiful than I ever imagined. He has held me throughout my darkest, scariest times, and has proven to be so much better than the Jesus that was described by others. That Jesus was a myth, a figment of someone’s imagination. That Jesus would never have tolerated my doubts, my rage, or my accusatory questions.
The Jesus I found in Scripture showed up in my real life, proving himself again and again to be a Good Shepherd who laid his life down for me, strengthened me when I was weak, healed me when I was sick, bound me up when I was injured, brought me back when I strayed, and sought me when I was lost.
Thank you for taking the time to read my story. This concludes the 6-part series, “I Accidentally Joined a Cult.” If you haven’t already, please also read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5. If you know someone who is involved with Sovereign Grace Churches, please share this series with them, and warn them about this cult that is disguised as a “gospel-centered church network.”
