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In Reply to: Responsibility posted by Just a fly on the wall on June 19, 2002 at 05:09:00:
"Did any of you at the time this was happen to question why you were doing what you were doing?"
Yes and that's why I left. So as to protect the future of my children when it got out of hand. At the time this happened, we had very young children, so the implications of deciding things over their lives were not so obvious and imminent. I had not been exposed to the now well-documented abuse that happened. I was just a young naive and inexperienced parent then.
"One of the posts I read referred to a situation where a member and his wife were forced into a situation where that harmed their child as a result the child was born handicapped."
The child wasn't handicapped, but deformed. It was in fact the rejection of what the family was imposing on us that led to the disaster.
To explain the situation a bit more, family leadership forced 2 people who obviously didn't belong together to be together at all costs, because it matched their idea of a showcase picture perfect couple. They pushed the "love conquers all" theory on them, and they were very unhappy together. They used divide and conquer tactics for making each side think they were more in the will of God than the other, and used them on each other. Although one was obviously mentally unstable the Family ignored it - they thought prayer and holding hands would solve everything. The couple moved back and forth in emotional turmoil. At one point, the husband was for separation, the wife against it. In the ensuing confusion and pain, the mentally unstable wife muttered, "I'll show you" to her husband as she took an overdose of pills. She was pregnant, and the child was affected by this. (It was early on in her pregnancy)
"It is terrible that happened but more importantly being parents how could one let something like that happen."
I don't think anyone let it happen, more than they were caught up in a horrible drama of life. I will say that no one including leadership understood the full consequences of meddling with people's lives like that. They separated people or put them together at will, and we were supposed to all go along with it. What made it the horror story it is, is that AFTER the child was born deformed, and the parents were all heart-broken and shattered, they had the gall to go give them rebuking sessions and tell them the child is a product of their sins against God. THAT, is them not taking responsibility and shoving the guilt onto the parents, especially the party who wanted to go against their wishes. Do you see what I am saying?
"When I knew something to be wrong most the times I avoided doing at a cost to myself. I was always aware of how my actions affected others. Berg was at fault but pulling up quotes from the seventies to prove that this dead man was f*ed serves little more purpose than to make one feel less responsible for their own actions."
Believe me, I went through intense soul-searching. It is impossible to be at peace with my own stupidity.
Berg added to the stigma by saying that children born like that are cursed by God. Leadership rubbed it in more. They used this and smashed my soul to little bits when I was vulnerable so that they could say "jump" and I'd say "how high?". That is actually a quote from the leader who dealt with me.
The child's mother, in trying to cleanse her image abandoned her child to do some other ministry. She said, "you did this, this is your fault for trying to go against God's will and separate, so you take him." Her relationship with her own son is marred to this day.
So nothing is black and white, and the situation is very complex. How do you judge exactly who is responsible for what?
According to leadership, it was the husband for being unwiliing to stay together. According to the husband, it was the wife was mentally unstable. According to the wife, the husband "made" her attempt suicide.
No matter how you go about it, of course things like that happen even outside the group, but what made it explicitly Berg's responsibility, is his doctrine of deformed children being cursed, separating and putting together people at will, practising and endorsing condemnation and harsh rebuking sessions, basically messing with people's lives. Until I could get his shit out of my mind and soul, I could not have a normal relationship with my son. His mother who still has a family mentality cannot succeed in getting close to her son.
The good knews is that surgery has healed our child, and he now shows little signs of his past. He is a real fighter survivor, and I admire him very much. He is even popular with the girls. I am proud of him.
