Anyone who has ever lived in a religious cult, or for that matter in any form of intentional religious community, will have some idea of what it would be like living under a theocracy. I have been involved in at least five such living arrangements: as a teenage Jesus Freak, during my early twenties and again in my early to mid-thirties. My advice to anyone complementing this kind of move? Kids, don't try this at home.
Here, I would like to explore through the lens of my own youthful experience some of the dynamics that occur in religious or faith-dominant living arrangements. I believe that there are parallels to what must have been the common Spanish experience in the Medieval era as well as for the Aztecs. Fortunately no one in the religious communities I was part of was ever put to death or threatened with death for heresy or insubordination, though it could be insinuated that at times we came pretty darn close. Neither was there human sacrifice except in figurative terms as many young people laid down their lives together for their God and for their Christian community.
I was fourteen when I became a Christian. I was wandering downtown shopping post-Christmas on my own. I was usually on my own. I never had any close friends in school or in my neighbourhood, and certainly no gang of kids to hang out with. If I wanted to go anywhere or get anything done I was always on my own. Some of you reading this might feel a little bit horrified that a fourteen year old boy would be permitted to wander around unescorted and vulnerable in any downtown area, miles from the safety of the suburban single family home. But that was a different era. Kids were free-range, the concept of helicopter-parenting was unknown. We tended to mature early in those days, those of us who survived childhood. Natural selection, anyone?
But I was very young, alone and vulnerable. I was accosted by a friendly Jesus freak with shoulder length hair and a beard. I ended up having dinner with him and his housemates, and that same evening I accepted Christ as my saviour. To my family's horror. The Jesus Freaks, or Jesus People Army, was a phenomenon unique to the late sixties and early seventies: hippies and other social outcasts were in droves finding God all over North America and in Europe and many were living communally in old houses and out trying to turn the world upside down for Jesus.
Despite my family's disapprobation I began hanging out with the Jesus People in their coffee house and often visiting in their homes. It was an incredible, intoxicating era in my teenage life. The emotions were high, the joy intense and the dedication to Christian discipleship austere. Even at fifteen as I was crossing the threshold into young manhood I was becoming gradually aware of a very controlling dynamic among my Christian brothers and sisters. I was one of the youngest people there, more an associate member since, as a teenager, I still had to live with my mother and attend school. This also gave me a sense of objectivity and detachment. I felt very troubled about the direction they were going in. At first I embraced it, but then demands were being placed on me to leave my home, move in with them and give one hundred percent to Jesus. I was also fortunate to have mature adult Christian friends who were also troubled about the developments. They supported me and helped me with their adult common sense to make the responsible decision and leave this cult, just before they were going to practically force me to live with them.
Seeing people I loved and admired being swept into this wave of religious zealotry and hate, I only knew that I had to leave. This was traumatic. It had been the first really beautiful experience of community in my young life and then it was all taken away by the hateful cult that swallowed everyone alive. I was also fortunate in that I had succeeded in staying detached enough from everyone to escape the psychological harm that had engulfed many of my friends who also escaped, but too late.
My experience of the Jesus People was key in persuading me of the importance of freedom of thought, and I began to apply myself to the art of thinking independently, which served me well for similar future experiences that would be awaiting me over the coming years. I also had the blessing of a personal relationship with God (yes, there is such a thing!) and I knew that he was guiding me through this storm and would soon be taking me out of it. This also helped protect me from succumbing to the dangerous effects of the kind of groupthink that was enveloping those around me.
Fortunately I was not living under an actual theocracy. I was still surrounded by a society that encouraged freedom of thought and speech and expression, for which reason religious cults, no matter how dangerous, are allowed at times to flourish. Still, psychologically and emotionally I was impacted, severely in some ways, if for no other reason than having suddenly and tragically lost the first real community I had ever known, where also my infant spirituality was born and already nurtured into a towering flame. I was fortunate in that immediately upon leaving the Jesus People I became integrated into a legitimate church, central to the charismatic movement that was sweeping the city, where many of my friends escaping from the Jesus People were able to straggle, bedraggled refugees of the spirit., and there, till I was seventeen, I flourished.
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