In Reply to: Regarding Abrahim/Berg and Co. posts posted by Judy's Response on January 19, 2006 at 16:54:06:
Dear Judy/ex-Shula:
I was at the World’s fair in Spokane, Washington litnessing. I met an old man who said he had known David Berg when he first got started with Fred Jordan. This little old man was just handing out regular Bible tracts, and witnessing to individuals.
He asked very humbly if he could speak to me. I was, COG-typically, not humble, so it took a while for me to agree. He then motioned in Hebrews where it talks about a “root of bitterness” producing sex sin and a profane life, and said he knew that Fred Jordan had sent seven missionaries to Japan, and had then cut off their TV-program-generated funds to keep for himself.
So, he said, he knew Berg when his reaction to Jordan caused him to become bitter toward God, and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.
That makes a lot of sense:
1.Berg was raised by a pseudo-evangelist mother while being molested by a maid as a child, and basically, in today’s jailhouse terms, became his own mother’s “little punk bitch”, subject to her infantilization, manipulation and abandonment at will, all “in the name of God”. He sought subsequent revenge on all his followers at the earliest opportunity.
2.If you’re a Calvinist, he “was never really saved”, and the rest of his miserable life proved it. If you aren’t (and I am not), Hebrews chapter 6 and 10, 2 Peter 2, and Revelation where it talks abut Jezebel describes what happened when he backslid, and
3.He opened up to “seducing spirits and doctrines taught be demons”, and gradually became everything Scripture says can happen when you do—a false brother, a false teacher, a false apostle, a false prophet—you name it—complete “filth of the flesh and…spirit” we are supposed to be washed from as Christians. "Even denying the Lord who bought them" became true about him and "his" when Universalism began to be believed. A "demonization of the Holy Spirit", the gravest if sins Jesus warned the Pharisees about, occured nearly universally among his folowers"--I believe that it was done "in ignorance and unbelief" among most, but was thoroghly enjoyed by others who bought in wholeheartedly to his entire doctrine; verything imaginable that was "earthly, sensual and devilish", versus "first peaceable, easily entreated, fulll of GOOD fruits, without partiality, and without hupocrisy". He had no real wisdom, and we lost all of ours.
I grieve the loss of time, the loss of a very important part of my life in TF, even though it was extremely short compared to so many others. It remains a very real and unrecoverable loss.
And, now, I understand the stages of grief—they do not always occur in numerical sequence on the list in the psychology texts—they can jump around a bit, and parts of the grieving process seem unending at times.
There’s shock and denial, blame-shifting, bargaining, and so on, and so on, towards acceptance and resolution--for me, real repentance where God leads me to those "able to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those who oppose themselves,,, that peradventure God may grant them repentance to the ackowledgement of the truth that THEY MAY RECOVER THEMSELVES out of the snare of Satan, who has taken them captive at his will" (2 Tim).
I know that it’s hard to admit that Berg only had the power we gave him. It’s hard to admit that fear can be conquered, and that we are solely responsible for doing just that. We can excessively “demonize” others in the anti-supernatural sense of pseudo-spiritual psychological terms (IMO, Berg had REAL demons, and left NO NEED to pseudo-demonize him in a psychological sense) in order to avoid acceptance of moral responsibility—all of it does NOT necessarily fit the “battered woman” syndrome. I could have left long befor I actually did--I "upped the ante" to where God had to do something drastic; another long story.
I had to face the fact that I am potentially as sinful as anybody else; it’s just a matter of opportunity, and the preventive grace of God, IMO.
Yes, God moved through some individuals during their tenure in TF—he did in mine. He also did all sorts of things to try and get me to decide to leave, without violating my free will. I accept that.
A lot of us really knew the Lord at the time, but only as baby Christians—trouble is, we allowed Berg to infantilize us and agrandize us in our own minds and hearts, and we gave our sense of responsibility away—all the men were infantilized AND demasculinized, and either turned into copies of Berg himself, or of his completely castrated sons, which were also copies of himself in relation to his own mother.
All the women were turned into copies of Berg’s infantilized/sexualized perpetual child/whore Faithy. H eturned his wife into a copy of his mother on who he could get away with indirect revenge for how she treated him as her son. IMO, SHE was the "actual" Old Church. His Mother was the object of wrath, and his wife was the proxy he worked up his courage to rebel against, adn she put up with it, out of fear, through cognitive dissonance, and then in complete self-deception, as Faithy was molested. Maria was just the next subject of his growing and insatiable lusts.
After the early years, the warnings by God stopped, the provisions dried up, and Berg went for the Mammon worship, and sold out the Gospel, every baby Christian he could get his hands on, as well as the manipulable and unsaved, and all because he had already completely seared his own conscience as a megalomaniacal sex pervert with his own family BEFORE he arrived at Huntington Beach, California, to give final “service” to his Mommy, with whom he admitted he always wanted to have sex with as a young man, even as a boy traveling with her during some of her “evangelism tours”. Whew!
So none of ever knew him as a “good man”; the whole “package deal” was completely evil when it began.
Judy, I agree completely with your analysis. Thanks!
Sincerely,
OT2 (OldtimerToo)