Latest / Clear Path Christianity / How to Help a Former CULTIST || CPC Podcast Ep. 20
Transcript
- Cole Crone: I've said this in previous episodes, but it it bears repeating. Leaving a cult is not the finish line. It it's actually the starting line. Getting yourself out of the abusive high control situation is not the end of the book. It is the start of the next chapter in a grander narrative. Oftentimes, there are immediate effects. Sure. We talked about them in a previous episode. Oftentimes there are long-term effects. We talked about that recently as well. Always, though, there is a process of healing. Now, in the last episode, we talked about ways that regular everyday Christians helped me heal. As I came out of a cult and came into the Christian community. In this episode, I would like to offer, humbly offer, some advice to the Christian church from leaders to lay people on how they can help someone who has come out of a cult. So point number one is they need you need to understand that leaving is not recovery. Leaving is just the first step towards recovery. Do not assume that because a person has left the abusive situation that the problem has been solved. it's it's actually just that you can actually start. Helping to fix the problem. So you're you're nowhere near the end of the process. You're actually just at the very beginning of it. Because it is it is not true that once a person leaves, all of their problems are solved. Leaving is often the beginning of a process of grief, a process of overcoming confusion, a process of reconstructing one's identity, rebuilding trust, on and on and on and on. So don't confuse escape with healing. so that's that's the theoretical, practically speaking, you should not expect a former cultist to be immediately emotionally stable. That's frankly just not going to happen. I'll tell you from first hand experience and I know hundreds of people who have left cults, that's just not going to happen. Another thing that you should not expect, especially if a person is coming out of a cult and coming into a Christian church, you should not expect theological clarity. They they are oftentimes the ones that seem like they know the most are the ones that are carrying the most baggage, that are that have the craziest ideas. And again, I know that from first hand experience. You should you should not expect them to completely trust you. They they will oftentimes wonder if you have some kind of ulterior motive for helping them. maybe they believe that the pastor has some kind of ulterior motive for for leading the church, or maybe, you know, whatever. And of course there are tons of abuses out there, and so there's every reason to question a lot of people's motives. So You you should know that recovery is going to take time. So if you are going to help someone who has come out of a cult or any kind of abusive religious situation, you need to know that you are committing to a lengthy process in most cases. I would say a lengthy process in all cases. The next piece of advice I would give is that you need to listen before you teach. So what I mean by this is that it seems to me that some Christians, now this I didn't experience this a lot, but I I did experience it some, and I do know that it's out there. Some Christians want to jump straight into correction. They want to jump straight into offering what they believe to be proper theology. They want to jump straight into teaching the cultist the basics of Christian apologetics. Well, of course, I want to fully affirm that all Christians understand those things and be proficient in those areas, as I think they're hugely important. It's like 90% of what I'm doing here. But when discipling a former cultist, you have to lay a foundation before you can build anything. And that foundation is you listening. You need to listen first. And here's why. Former cultists often feel misunderstood or dismissed or judged and they they may not have ever had anybody actually listen to their story. So in listening to a former cultist's stories, these are a few questions that might be very helpful for you to ask the person. One, what was it like? This is a very open-ended question that the former cultist can take kind of in whatever direction they want, and you can get a lot of really good information and insight about their story by just asking that one simple question. Two, what do you miss? Sometimes you get a lot of bitterness for the previous community that a person came out of, and that bitterness prevents them from processing the emotional attachments that they may still have to that place. And asking them what they miss kind of gives them an opportunity to process some of those things with your help. Another question. What has been the hardest part? This shows them that you are concerned about helping them, making things easier for them, getting to the heart of their most complicated or difficult struggle that they are currently having. And what are you most afraid of? Now This is a question I wasn't asked a ton, I wish I would have been asked this question a l a little bit more because I s I still had a lot of fear. I I was I was raised steeped in fear. Fear was the predominant emotion for n the first thirty two years of my life. It didn't just go away when I left a cult, right? And there were a lot of fears that I never dealt with until, frankly, quite recently. And so it would have been nice to have somebody come alongside me and ask me that question. What are you most afraid of? So these questions help you to understand the person, and people heal faster when they feel understood. So the next piece of advice I want to give is be patient with their questions. This was huge for me. This was hugely healing for me personally. And I want to commend this to the Christian church. Former cultists who have become Christians will have questions that seem obvious to lifelong Christians. Here are just a few examples. What is the Trinity? Why trust church history? Why are there denominations? How do I know this church isn't another cult? Now there are good ways and bad ways to answer those questions. for a former cultist, the worst way that you could answer that question is by saying, just trust me. Just trust me, bro. That is not going to that's not gonna fly with a former cultist. Now, of course, entire religions are based on just trust me, bro. But that's not going to work with someone who's come out of a cult. You're gonna need better answers than that. And so because many cultists have tried that path, the trust me bro path, you gotta come up with a better way. So patiently walk through answers, invite investigation, and encourage learning. If if if you don't have all of the answers, help them to find someone who does. if you can't patiently answer, find someone who can. if if you are feeling a little bit interrogated about your faith, find someone who doesn't feel that way. Because the former cultist is going to have a lot of questions and if you have half-baked answers, you're you're gonna become a stumbling block for that person. And so we need to do better. the next piece of advice I wanna give is don't mistake skepticism for rebellion. Because this can often be misunderstood. The former cultist is going to question everything. Why? because they've learned that trusted authorities can be wrong. Trusted authorities can lie. Trusted authorities can be self interested, self deceived, even. And so They are generally going to be postured towards skepticism, postured towards wanting not not necessarily to see the worst in a person, but to at least entertain the possibility that there is some other reason why things appear as they do, Now, this is where we need to understand an important distinction. And that is that skepticism is not necessarily hostility, Skepticism might just be, I'm not entirely convinced. skepticism is simply wisdom that is learning to walk again. So we we had this body of of wisdom, this body of understanding that just turned out to be a croc. And so that has morphed into a wisdom that is trying to find itself again. this the same processes that that are help that helped us to see the fraud for what it was the first time look like skepticism toward the truth. But that's just that's just us trying to find our our way in this world. for the first time because everything we believed before ended up being totally wrong. And so a a bit of practical advice here would be don't panic when they ask hard questions. Especially because mature Christians should be able to handle scrutiny. Mature Christians should be able to defend their faith against what whatever comes our way. If if we believe that we have the truth and that Jesus is the truth, then we should have no problem. answering the questions of people who want to get to that truth. So the next the next piece of advice I want to give was again another hugely impactful piece for me. And then I want to encourage the Christian church to main those of you who are very good at it, keep it up. And those of you who need work, get better. Because this was huge for me. former cultists need friendships. We need community. We need To feel a sense of belonging. We don't always just need the right information. Now I know I've talked a lot about you need to have the right answers, and you do need to have the right answers. But what is equally important to you having the right answers is you actually living out the things that you claim to believe. And so some examples of how you might make a former cultist feel as though you are embodying Christianity. is to invite them to meals. it seems like a really simple thing. And I'm sure that I'm sure that all the people who did this for me when I was coming out of a cult and coming into the Christian church thought that inviting me to a meal was like a a super simple nothing kind of thing to do. but for me it was huge. It was a just a simple act for them, but for me it was of infinite value. invite them to family gatherings. One of the things that I got to witness a lot was people who had lost family because they came out of a cult finding new family in the Christian church. Maybe they don't have anybody that they're biologically connected to to have Thanksgiving with. And so they would find themselves at this family Thanksgiving. Or over with these people during the holidays. When the holidays are the most often heart-wrenching time when you're disconnected from family members, these people were finding community with Christian families. And so that was that was huge for them to feel like the Lord had given back what had been taken away and more in a lot of cases. Invite them to to church events. I mean church events are huge, They're everybody everybody wants to be welcomed at events, but particularly at church events, as the church lives life on life together, it's important that especially people who have lost community, like former cultists, find community in church events. And you know, it might just be something as basic as just inviting them into your everyday life. Whatever your everyday life is, whatever you kick it with the boys and do on the weekends, invite the former cultist to come along. if you and your lady friends are in a book club, you know, reading Jane Austen, invite the former cultist to come along. She probably needs a friend, The the the key insight here for me is Many cults provide a very intense community. And when that intense community is disconnected, they can feel socially homeless, If you come from a community where you have a dozen friends and huge families, lots of uncles and aunts and cousins and brothers and sisters and all that stuff. And suddenly you don't have that anymore, there's gonna be a social shell shock that takes place that we Christians are gonna have to help to take the edge off of. Okay, so the next piece of advice I want to give to the Christian church as to how we might help former cultists is avoid creating a new unhealthy dependence. So I have to be careful here. there are there is a very basic aspect of Christianity that teaches that we must be wholly dependent upon the Lord. And If you are encouraging people to be wholly dependent upon the Lord, then keep it up. I'm not talking about that in this bullet point. Because obviously Christians want to foster a dependence upon Christ and no one else. That's the point that I'm trying to make here. Unfortunately, former cultists often create unhealthy dependence upon leaders, upon organizations. Upon authority figures, whatever the case might be, Something that is other than Christ. And oftentimes well-meaning, well-informed Christians can often become, for a former cultist, the new ultimate authority or the new guru, or the new source of certainty. Because these are the things that the cultist is so desperate for. They grew up having, A tangible, visible person that they can go to, right, for everything that they should be finding ultimately in Jesus, right? This is a I've s I've seen this as a problem before, firsthand. I've experienced this myself even. a healthy goal for a former cultist that you are discipling is to point them toward Christ. Point them towards Scripture as Scripture points to Christ. You point them to Scripture. Help to make them a mature disciple. Help them to get on their own two feet, Just like you do with your kids. You don't want to raise your kids to be wholly dependent upon you, right? You train the baby bird so that he can fly out of the nest. If you don't train the baby bird, then you're just basically throwing him out of the nest to his death. You need to you need to make sure the cultists can walk on their own two feet. Don't create another unhealthy dependence. Because the goal here is maturity, not dependence. Maturity is dependence on Christ and Christ alone. Unhealthy dependence is on dependence. on anything other than Christ. so the next piece I want to talk about is a a pretty crucial one. As I've said lots and lots and lots of times here, probably a broken record, healing is rarely linear. So when you have a person who has come out of an abusive religious group, they're going to have they're going to need a lot of healing. And They're they're probably going to need a lot of help and a lot of patience. And so we need to give them permission to heal slowly. Some days look like progress while other days look like massive setbacks. That's normal. That's perfectly normal for someone who's come out of a group like a cult or a high control, abusive religious group. Some some common struggles that you might consistently deal with when discipling a former cultist. And this could be even years later. They may struggle with fear, they may struggle with distrust, they may struggle with grief, with anxiety, with confusion. The list could go on and on and on and on. None of these things. Are indicative that progress has stalled or that there has been a failure in discipleship or anything like that. These are just normal phases and normal emotional damage that a person just has to work through. And working through that takes oftentimes a long time. A lot of time, a lot of patience. And they're going to need a lot of help from you. The next piece of advice I want to give is that we Christians need to show the former cultist what healthy community looks like, what healthy Christianity looks like. Because everyone, including former cultists, have heard Christian claims. Why do we believe That Jesus was a real person who lived and died and rose from the grave. Why do we believe that God is the God over all? Why do we worship Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords? All these these basic things. Everybody's heard those claims. what the former cultist needs to actually see and experience is Christian character. Show them humility. Show them grace. Show them patience. Show them repentance. Show them love. Show them truthfulness. Actually don't just say, but show. When you feel like you have said all that you can say, the thing that's going to make the difference. is if you've actually demonstrated, Show, don't just tell. Because many former cultists may be asking whether or not healthy Christianity actually exists and your life is going to be the thing that helps them to answer that question. So the the the last piece of advice that I want to give here is that we as Christians need to continuously point former cultists the same direction that we point everybody else, and that is toward Christ. Again and again and again. We've already talked about how dangerous it can be to create a dependence on anyone or anything other than Christ. And I just want to expand on that a little bit here and and talk about how former cultists often leave their groups with damaged trust. Many, many times they confuse Christ and church leaders and organizations and traditions as being one thing. Your role as the person discipling them is to help them separate out those categories, helping them to distinguish between what is essential and what is non-essential. Because to a lot of cultists, everything is going to be essential. They're not going to have a framework for delineating where there can and cannot be disagreements, or where things are clear and where things aren't so clear. They're not gonna have a framework for that. And so they're going to need to help, they're gonna need you to help them to see the supremacy of Christ in all things. Not just the supremacy of Christ over all things, but the supremacy of Christ in their own life and and in their worship and in all things. Not just up here in the in their in their mind and understanding intellectually, but feeling in their soul. And actually living out. They need to, they need to see Jesus for who he is, what he has done, and what that actually means for them. So we need to be constantly pointing them toward Jesus, pointing them toward the gospel, pointing them towards God's character, his love for them as an individual. Because a occultist may misunderstand and misrepresent Christ out of. ignorance or for some reason influenced by their the baggage of their background. However, that does not mean that Christ is the problem. It's it's our duty and responsibility to help people to see him for who he really is. if you're helping someone who has left a cult, remember that recovery is not a project to complete. The the objective is a person to love. That is the goal. The goal is the person, to love the person as as as Christ has loved his people. You you don't need to have all the answers, although you should try as hard as you can to get as many as you can, and know people who do have them when you don't. You don't need to have any kind of specialized training, although you may need help from someone who does. You you don't need to become an expert in cults, although there's a lot of good literature out there that could give you some good information. If if you can't Cultivate anything else, you you just need to be the kind of Christian that healthy Christianity produces. Because that's the thing that the cultist is ultimately looking for. Is what kind of Christian is this Christianity thing actually producing? So here's my challenge to you. Be gracious. Be patient. always be truthful and be trustworthy. Because in in my experience as someone who has come out of a high control group, your life may be the first glimpse that a person will ever get of what healthy. Christianity actually looks and feels like.