In Reply to: Ummm.... posted by CB on March 07, 2007 at 20:17:32:
CB, I was making a general, loose comparison, whereas you are making a more strict comparison. I'm glad you responded, though, because it gives me a chance to explain why I occasionally post articles like that. I know that some suspect my motive for doing so, and others are perturbed by the fact I don't reveal more about myself here and choose instead to just post links to articles that I find interesting to my own long journey away from the cult. Perhaps this explanation will satisfy my critics.
I am Canadian, born and raised in a very small, somewhat isolated town. I lived in a pre-internet, 2 TV-channel world. I was raised a Catholic and had virtually no knowledge of other Christian denominations or other religions. When TF wrapped its blood-sucking tentacles around me at the age of 16, everything I knew about the world from that point on was informed by TF's closed-minded dogma and ideologies.
I don't want to get too far off track in trying to make my point, which is that until very recently, I did not know that many of TF's doctrines and traditions are exactly the same or similar to other Christian groups, especially charismatics and evangelicals. To give a minor but instructive example, when I met TF I was introduced to hugging. In my personal family, hugging just wasn't done very much, and certainly, no one I knew every hugged each other as a greeting. I also never saw hugging in any social setting whatsoever. From that time on I always associated hugging as a Family thing and thought it was fairly radical. And holding hands in a circle and praying out loud was even more radical to me.
After leaving TF 20 years or so later, I went underground, so to speak, burying my past and focusing on educating myself. When I "resurfaced" a few years ago and began to deal with my cultic past, I began to "discover" many things including the realization that there was a strong correlation between Berg's ideas and certain American Christian leaders. Unlike you, CB, who has "followed Hagee for years now..." (I know you don't mean that literally) I don't follow these things too closely, but when I peruse the news and come across things that strike me as Berg-like, it always astonishes me. For me, realizing and making those connections is just part of my journey trying to understand the leader and the movement I was deceived into following.
Where does the hugging example fit in? Well, for one thing, it was a very different world I re-entered after leaving TF, and it seemed everyone, religious or not, was into hugging as a a greeting. However, because I still associate hugging with TF, I now find it very discomforting to hug people, even my family members. Furthermore, a couple years ago I was watching "Dog: The Bounty Hunter" for the first time and was really taken back when they held a prayer circle and began praying outloud like TF does. It blew me away because I thought that was only a Family thing. Then I started to see that sort of thing more often on American programs. On a reality show (it might have been Survivor or Big Brother) I saw something similar once and was flabbergasted when one group made a prayer circle. Even those who didn't seem overtly Christian joined in, though probably due to peer pressure.
I realize that these minor examples do not put the people in the examples I've used on par with TF. But hopefully it helps explain where I'm coming from. Those kinds of things, and others, are simply not part of my pre- and post- Family experience, and so I relate them to TF.
I assume, since many exmembers are not US citizens, that my experience may not be an unusual one, so when I come across articles that relate in some way to my own journey then I think perhaps others might find them interesting as well.
My intention, to be clear, in posting such articles as this one is simply to pass on things that illuminate some aspect of my journey towards understanding. I do not post articles merely to provoke arguments, nor am I interested in long debates with those who hold opposite world-views to mine as I think that can be too time consuming and counter-productive in this particular forum.
Having said that, I do think it is important that different world-views are expressed here, as I consider that a clear indication that we are now thinking for ourselves.
Hope this has cleared up any misunderstanding about the nature of my posts here.