My Time in a Cult-Like Movement

10 MINUTE READ

Following on from her feature on The Dark Side of Belonging: Extremism, Identity and Purpose, author across cultures Yang-May Ooi writes frankly about the time in her youth when she was drawn into the Evangelical movement at a time of loneliness and desperation. While not violent or extreme, the movement seemed to her to exert cult-like control over what its members should read and think and what it deemed acceptable behaviour. 

My Time in a Cult-Like Movement

In my twenties, I was adrift. I had just split up with Jean-Paul*, my longtime boyfriend, and found myself stumbling through a series of short-lived relationships with young men who were kind, attentive, and seemingly devoted to me. On paper, they were everything I should have wanted, yet something was missing. 

I also had a wide circle of  friends I saw most evenings and weekends – going to movies, walks, picnics, ice-skating or simply hanging out. I had a good job as an up and coming young lawyer and a bright airy flat in Central London. 

I had what looked like the perfect life. And I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was wrong.

In the whirl of my social life, I found myself drawn to Lizzie, my best friend. She was gentle, warm, and funny. I looked forward to gatherings when she was there. Sometimes, we would go for a walk on Hampstead Heath or she would come round to my flat for supper, just the two of us. I began to realize that my feelings for her were more than just what friends should feel. 

I didn’t want to confront what that might mean. I was scared of losing our friendship. If I voiced my feelings, or acted on them – would I lose her? Or Lose myself?

Born Again

Etienne* was one of our gang of friends from Oxford who had come down to London. He was a few years older than most of us, a Masters student when we had all been undergraduates. He was good-looking, fun, and charismatic – a karate black belt and an amazing dancer. He seemed to have it all together, and more than that, he seemed ecstatically happy. 

I talked to him about my feelings of loneliness and alienation, careful to omit the part about my feelings for Lizzie. London was a big city, I said. Everyone else seemed to know what they wanted for their lives. They all seemed to have happy relationships, they were getting married, settling down. Why couldn’t I be happy like them?

Etienne introduced me to a community that had brought him his vibrant joy: an evangelical American group from Ann Arbor, Michigan. They were here spreading the “good news” to young people in London. They did not look like missionaries, all of them young, athletic, fun and casually dressed. They lived in house churches in West London – young women together in one big house, young men in another—and their lives seemed full of purpose and belonging.

I also started attending St. Helen’s Bishopsgate, a large evangelical church in the City of London. It was buzzing with young professionals, all clean-cut, clean-living, and friendly. There was a lively energy to the place, a sense of community that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I threw myself into it—Bible study, social gatherings, picnics, soccer games, potluck meals. For a while, I felt like I had found my people.

I was born again!

Doubting

But even in the midst of this apparent belonging, there were cracks. The gender roles in the community were rigid and traditional. The men played soccer while the women stood on the sidelines, cheering and preparing food. At the potluck gatherings, us girls brought the potluck meals and organised the men to move chairs and do the washing up. While there were senior women whose pastoral role was to lead us young women, they deferred to the men in overall leadership.

In relationships and marriage, they told us that both man and woman in the couple were equal. But in any disagreement, it was the man who had the casting vote. 

Say, what?

As I often do when I throw myself into something new, I started reading voraciously – books on theology, the history of Christianity, and even the controversial Gnostic Gospels. I was fascinated by the complexity and diversity of Christian thought, but when I brought up these ideas in Bible study, I was met with bewilderment by the others round the table. The Bible study leader – a lovely, smiley man who was kind and warm, university educated and with a high-level executive role in insurance –  told me not to read anything other than the Bible and C.S. Lewis. 

Again – excuse me, what?

Despite every fibre in my being rebelling against the gender roles, the simplistic hierarchy of man over woman and the admonition to self-censor our reading, I stayed on amidst these otherwise lovely, friendly, kind, welcoming new friends.

I wanted Jesus to save me from myself. And failing that, one of those clean-cut, good-looking young men. 

Save Me

I prayed like crazy. I waited for the miracle to happen – for the sudden ray of light from the Heavens zapping me out of the feelings I did not want. I hung out with these good Christian souls with a vengeance – I laughed with them, cooked up potlucks, went on weekend retreats, earnestly tried to believe the literal word of the Bible.

God helps those who help themselves, right? Come on, I’m doing everything I can here, I would say in my prayers, meet me half way at least… 

The gatherings at the American community were even more unsettling. They weren’t held in churches but in various halls, with lots of clapping, raising palms to the Lord, singing cheesy songs about loving Him, strumming guitars and speaking in tongues. It felt excruciatingly cringey by the standards of British decorum and I could not quite bring myself to join in with the same enthusiasm as everyone else. So I stood out as the one person with my hands down, clasped respectfully in front of me, awkwardly singing the banal words and definitely not chiming in with the occasional Hallelujah, Amen or warbling in tongues. And some people noticed.

There was an intense certainty in everyone’s beliefs, particularly about sin. Homosexuality was condemned outright, and the world was divided into those who belonged and those who did not. Trained to think analytically throughout my British education, I found myself questioning their judgmental approach, their rigid definitions, and their exclusionary attitudes. I would be the only one making the case for the role of women or questioning their interpretations of scripture, and pushing back against their certainty. 

.

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Repent or Be Damned

At one community gathering, an older woman who was part of the leadership, an immaculately dressed American whom I had admired for her elegance, grace and charming kindness, started speaking in tongues and then broke into English. She was touched by the Lord – as many often were – communicating the message of God who was in that moment speaking directly through her. 

“There are those among us who doubt,” she said, her voice sonorous as one would expect God’s voice to be. “The Lord sees into your heart. He knows your sin and your defiance…”

She looked directly at me.

And did not look away.

She may as well have done that gesture with her two fingers pointing into her own eyes and then at me. I see you, she was saying. I see you and your refusal to let the Holy Spirit in. To let the Spirit of the Lord work on you. 

I held her gaze. Refusing to be cowed.

I died again.

Rebirth

I found myself confronting the truth of my feelings for Lizzie. I couldn’t deny who I was any longer. 

I came out.

I expected horror, disappointment and rejection from my parents and family. But they told me they loved me. My friends hugged me and treated me no differently from how they had always done.

Then I told my friends in the evangelical community. Etienne, whom I had known for almost ten years since uni, tried to talk me out of my feelings. And then dropped me. There was an American journalist I had become good friends with, in her thirties, cosmopolitan and with an international outlook. She had been a role model to me for her high-flying career, intelligence and sophistication. She, too, dropped me. Another friend told me I would burn in hell. 

Their beliefs, which had seemed so kind and decent on the surface, revealed a harsh and judgemental foundation. Their welcoming embrace was superficial. Only those that they – in their frail humanity – deemed worthy could belong. 

It was painful to lose their friendship, but I realised that their friendship had never been real. It had been conditional on my believing what they believed, on being what they wanted me to be and on being willing to be controlled by them.

The true message of Jesus did not live in them. 

Belonging Beyond Ideology

Looking back, I feel a sadness for the friendships I lost, but I also feel grateful for the journey that brought me to where I am now. I found a new connection with my other friends during that time because I could at last be myself fully with them. I have also since made many more friends, true ones, who embrace me for who I am – as I embrace them for who they are. Some friends are Christians, some are not, some are of other faiths, and others come from different walks of life. What they all have in commons is their kindness, compassion, and humanity.

This experience taught me that I cannot judge those who are drawn into movements that offer belonging in exchange for control and the certainty of ideology. In times of sadness and isolation, we often look to groups or communities to fill the void, to give us a sense of connection and purpose. I have personally experienced that.

But it has also shown me that true belonging doesn’t come from conforming to the expectations of others or suppressing who we are. It comes from having the courage to be ourselves and finding people who accept and celebrate us for that. It is also about seeing beyond the semblance of inclusivity to real values that recognise each person’s fragile humanity. I have also personally experienced that and it is a true blessing.

*not their real names

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POSTSCRIPT : I heard decades later through a mutual friend that Etienne eventually came out as gay, too…. I’d say God has a fabulous sense of humour!

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Photo:

https://www.pexels.com/photo/vibrant-worship-service-with-raised-hands-34328517

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