A cult is not always as extreme as the ones you see in documentaries.
According to the Google AI summary (and my therapist), my little independent evangelical church met all the essential characteristics:
a charismatic leader
😵 absolute authoritarianism
😵 suppression of dissent
😵 isolation from the outside world
😵 the cultivation of an "us vs. them" mentality
For a long time, it was also a huge, yellow and white tent with no temperature control in the sweltering Puerto Rican heat.
Which created the ~perfect~ conditions for brainwashing and was totally giving CULT.
An incomplete list of red flags that will help you understand what my church was like:
🚩 Holidays were banned for having pagan origins. Especially Christmas. For a while, even birthdays were frowned upon.
🚩 The pastors responded to nobody. And whatever they said was the absolute truth. They were prophets who heard the voice of God. Whenever someone questioned it, the leaders would say, “There’s blessing in obedience.”
🚩Everything, and I do mean everything, that made life fun was sinful: dancing, drinking, Disney, “secular” music, most entertainment, even our own Puerto Rican culture.
🚩There was a huge emphasis on miracles, signs, wonders, prophecy, speaking in tongues, getting “drunk in the spirit,” falling down when the pastor prayed for you, and even “spiritual warfare,” code for exorcisms. It was common to see someone screaming, crying, and throwing up (literally, not like the girlies say) during an exorcism. I saw people bang their head on the floor and slither like snakes. I’M NOT JOKING.
🚩 It was believed that our church held the truth and was superior to other churches. When someone left to a different church they were seen as misguided and lost. And most of the congregation would literally ~ghost~ them.
There’s so much more I could get into: purity culture, the prosperity gospel, the time the pastor prayed so God would kill a “witch” who had clearly been the one responsible for leaving a dead chicken outside the church.
But I want to make a point here.
Leaving was hard. It involved reinventing myself, believing I could be different, that I could do new things, change, and learn in the process.
Starting a podcast involves some of the same mindset shifts.
(BTW: In case you're wondering, this story has a happy ending. My family ended up moving to a much healthier and normal church, and I chose a different non-churchy path.)
